Événement

NOIR CITY 16: 1951: THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF / ROADBLOCK

Saturday evening, February 3

The price of admission gets you into the double bill.

7:30
THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF
Premiere--New FNF 35mm restoration!
(1950, 20th Century-Fox. 81 min.)

Scr. Philip MacDonald and Seton I. Miller. Dir. Felix Feist

A veteran San Francisco homicide cop (Lee J. Cobb) spirals into a moral morass when his married socialite lover (Jane Wyatt, in a rare fatale role) "accidentally" bumps off her husband. Instead of playing it by the book (would that be noir?), he covers up the crime, only to have his younger brother (John Dall)--a rookie homicide dick--start putting together the pieces. This James M. Cain-style thriller gets maximum impact from its San Francisco locations, including a memorable climax at Fort Point.
Presented in a brand-new 35mm restoration courtesy of the Film Noir Foundation and UCLA Film & Television Archive.

9:20
ROADBLOCK
(1951, RKO [Warner Bros.] 73 min.)

Scr. Steve Fisher and George Bricker. Dir. Harold Daniels

After several years playing either tenacious cops or cruel torpedoes, supporting actor Charles McGraw was elevated to leading man status by RKO boss Howard Hughes, becoming the studio's B-unit version of Bob Mitchum. Nobody could clip off tough-guy dialogue like McGraw. In this prototypical noir, he finally reveals a soft center, as an insurance investigator who goes crooked trying to satisfy an avaricious dame (Joan Dixon). An unjustly overlooked classic "B."