The Film Noir Foundation’s annual Noir City Austin featured a sinewy line-up of heists and capers.
Noir City returned to the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz this weekend for the 4th annual Noir City Austin. Beginning on Friday night, the weekend-long festival was hosted by the one and only Eddie Muller, the world‘s foremost expert on film noir, who proudly brought with him a collection of films that showcased the heart of the genre under a variety of guises.
Muller, who also now serves as the host of Noir Alley (airing Sunday mornings on Turner Classic Movies), wasted no time explaining to the diverse crowd of attendees what he loves about introducing younger audiences to the noir genre. “What I do appreciate and love is that it’s all about bringing new audiences into the fold,” he said. “These are the kinds of classic films that younger people can most easily relate to. I like to think of them as the gateway drug into classic films.”
With every Noir City Austin comes a recurring theme which permeates throughout the festival, linking all of the selected titles together. Following past years themes, which included a celebration of the B-Movie as well as a tribute to Cornell Woolrich, this year’s motif dealt with heists and capers; bank robbers and jewel thieves. Most of the titles on hand couldn’t have been more different if they’d tried, yet each featured hoods at the center, both primitive and sophisticated, all of whom risked everything for the promise of unlimited wealth. “The very best caper movies were made during the film noir era,” explained Muller. “Caper films made it very hard to enforce the production code because the audience always sided with the bad guys. You cannot help it.” Indeed, there were very few instances in the nearly dozen films screened over the weekend where, as an audience member, you didn’t wish the robbers made it all the way home with the loot.
The lineup for Noir City Austin was a mix of classic titles and little-seen gems, signifying the FNF’s commitment and dedication to appreciating all things noir; or “Noirvana” as Muller so wonderfully coined it on Saturday. Some of the highlights (and let’s face it, EVERY film was a highlight) include:
The Killers
Muller declared this adaptation of an Ernest Hemingway short story as: “The Citizen Kane of film noir. Such a dead-on statement. The film set the bar for many other genre entries in terms of its bold structure and the way it incorporates flashbacks and questions in the most riveting of ways, while holding onto what made noir so enthralling to begin with.
Criss Cross
For me, there’s always one film you discover at Noir City which leaves such an imprint on your soul, that it’s almost impossible to shake it. Criss Cross, with its ability to be genuinely romantic and unnervingly tense, is just such a title. By getting one of the best turns on screen from Burt Lancaster and Yvonne “Lily Munster” de Carlo (a dead ringer for Catherine Zeta-Jones), Criss Cross is exactly the kind of film a noir lover goes to this kind of festival for.
The Killing
The award for the film which drew the largest crowd in the house throughout the weekend goes to The Killing; and unsurprisingly so. Stanley Kubrick’s tale of a group of men (led by the always-great Sterling Hayden) who plan to rob a horse race track may have come at the tail end of the noir period, yet maintains an undeniable excitement throughout that’s greatly bolstered by crackling dialogue and an ending that just makes you want to weep.
Rififi
It’s little surprise that France would be responsible for one of the most taut noirs ever made. The explicitness of the sex and violence is more upfront than the majority of American entries, yet that’s not really what makes this tale of jewel thieves so memorable. Instead it’s the way Rififi mixes its action with subtlety to magnetic effect, that gives the film its power. With its heightened and unmatched appreciation for the noir style, Rififi is an unforgettable journey into the genre anchored by one of the most hypnotic robberies ever committed to film.
Cash on Demand
It’s tough to know what is more surprising: the fact that Hammer made a noirish film full of cat and mouse suspense, or that it’s ostensibly a Christmas tale with Peter Cushing cast as a Scrooge-like bank manager. Shock aside, Cash on Demand not only elicits the best performance its iconic leading actor ever gave, but manages both thrills and pathos while maintaining that Hammer spirit.
“The fact that each of these films showed a different side to the genre proves that there is much more to noir than most would think,” Muller said before one of the festival’s final screenings. How right he is. In so many ways, the heist film embodies so much about the world and the individuals found within film noir. Every film and each caper at the center of it represented a second chance at those shattered dreams and lost hopes which the films’ characters clung to for so long. There’s certainly a mournful undertone on the audience’s part as we watch characters such as The Killing’s Johnny Clay see his promise of a better life literally fly away. Muller is right when he says we want the bad guys to succeed. We desperately hope they’ll make it because in a way, we all connect with that longing to have our own forgotten wishes come true. It’s an incredibly human feeling which is so deeply relatable. Every one of these characters is so close to whatever freedom they crave, yet at the same time, they’re still so far away.
As always, the weekend served as a testament to the FNF and their on-going mission of not only preserving classic film noirs in danger of being lost forever, but also educating film lovers. All of the selected titles were shown on 35mm, which Muller and his team continuously go to great lengths to keep alive. Preserving films in such a format is one of the FNF’s greatest accomplishments as well as their trademark, which in the age of digital, is a feat that’s becoming harder and harder. “At this point, we are like the salmon swimming upstream,” Muller said in reference to the preserving of 35mm film. Nevertheless the crowd ate up each and every film, with many die-hard fans (myself included) seated for the whole weekend. While Muller appreciated every fan in attendance, it was those unfamiliar with the various titles who he called out while on stage. “I know the hardcore fans will be here all day,” he said. “My mission here though, is to convert those of you who have not seen these movies before and realize why they’re still so good today.”
For more information about Noir City, details on their quarterly magazine, as well as ways of donating to the Film Noir Foundation, please visit their website.
