TUESDAY, FEB. 20
WEDNESDAY, FEB. 21
THURSDAY, FEB. 22
6:00 PM
6:00 PM
6:00 PM
BLACK TUESDAY
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE
THE HUMAN BEAST LA BÊTE HUMAINE
AWOL for almost twenty years, this brutal and breakneck hostage yarn is powered by one of Edward G. Robinson’s most vicious performances. Gangster Vince Canelli (Eddie G.) makes a daring prison break on the day of his execution, holing up with a group of horrified hostages. Who will survive?
A landmark in the history of crime movies and the progenitor of all heist films that followed. John Huston’s film had an immediate and lasting impact on crime movies and literature. It subverted the Production Code by making its criminals working professionals with whom audiences empathized. Vivid and note-perfect.
8:00 PM
8:30 PM
8:30 PM
THE HOLE LE TROU
FOUR WAYS OUT LA CITTÀ SI DIFENDE
Fritz Lang • USA • 1954 • DCP
Adapted from ex-con José Giovanni’s novel, Becker’s masterpiece is a focus on process. The use of sound brings hypnotic intensity to scenes of the prisoners digging their way from their cell to the tunnels below. Jean-Pierre Melville declared Le Trou, “the greatest French film of all time.”
The heist drama, Federico Fellini-style. The Maestro has story and screenplay credit on this nearly forgotten film about a quartet of amateur thieves who successfully execute a daring mid-match robbery at a soccer stadium. They must separate to evade the police, but escaping their personal demons proves far more difficult.
Hugo Fregonese • USA • 1954 • 35mm
Jacques Becker • France • 1960 • DCP
John Huston • USA • 1950 • DCP
Pietro Germi • Italy • 1951 • 35mm
Jean Renoir • France • 1938 • DCP Adapting Émile Zola’s novel about a working-class man whose “hereditary flaw” causes psychotic episodes, director Renoir tells the bleak story with unsentimental empathy. When the man falls for the wife of a railway official, herself damaged by abuse and exploitation, they are on track for inevitable tragedy.
HUMAN DESIRE
Reteamed with Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame gives a bruised and beleaguered performance as the abused woman who wonders if murdering her loutish husband (Broderick Crawford) is the only way out of her domestic hell. DP Burnett Guffey adds noir panache to Lang’s cruel and suffocating depiction of the eternal noir triangle.
February 16–22, 2024 • SIFF Cinema Egyptian 805 East Pine St. Seattle • Tickets at SIFF.NET/NOIR Concept by Eddie Muller | Photo-Illustration by Bill Selby | Photography by Jason Mitchell | Models: Imogen Sara Smith & Eddie Muller | Gems: Lang Antique & Estate Jewelry
FRIDAY, FEB. 16
SATURDAY, FEB. 17
SUNDAY, FEB. 18
6:00 PM
12:30 PM
NEVER OPEN THAT DOOR NO ABRAS NUNCA ESA PUERTA
Carol Reed • United Kingdom • 1947 • DCP
Rudolph Maté • USA • 1950 • DCP
Ken Annakin • United Kingdom • 1957 • DCP
This intense manhunt thriller won the inaugural “Best Film” prize from the British Academy of Film Awards, and it remains one of the most highly regarded movies ever made in the United Kingdom. James Mason plays fugitive Irish Nationalist Johnny McQueen, roped into a heist that goes fatally wrong.
Cops William Holden and Barry Fitzgerald race to foil a kidnapping plot in Chicago’s Union Station. The film packs a double-feature’s worth of thrills into its brief running time, including some brutality decades ahead of its time. Director Rudolph Maté makes the ride more vivid through use of actual locations.
In this Graham Greene tale adaptation, Rod Steiger gives a compelling performance as an arrogant industry captain caught embezzling. Fleeing to Mexico, he impulsively switches identities with another rider and throws the body off the train. Unfortunately, his choice of victim lands him in a worse predicament.
8:15 PM
3:15 PM
8:15 PM
STREET OF CHANCE
VICTIMS OF SIN VICTIMAS DEL PECADO
The first case of amnesia in the classic noir era. Frank Thompson (Burgess Meredith) survives an accident only to have the shock restore his memory! He learns he’s been living the past several years as someone else! With girlfriend Ruth (Claire Trevor), Frank embarks on a quest to determine his true identity.
Emilio Fernández • Mexico • 1951 • DCP
CAIRO STATION BAB AL-HADID
Youssef Chahine • Egypt • 1958 • DCP
The music, the characters, the confrontations, the emotions—all boil over in this Mexican version of noir dubbed Rumberas. Sexy Ninón Sevilla dances up a storm in a club all while dodging a vicious pimp, defying her boss, and rescuing an abandoned baby from the trash.
A newspaper hawker at the eponymous train depot develops a frightening obsession with a sexy lemonade vendor. That’s the premise for a drama using the station to depict clashing strata of Egyptian society. A landmark of Egyptian cinema despite boycotts over its unflinching perversity and politics.
Carlos Hugo Christensen • Argentina • 1952 • DCP
The FNF’s latest restoration is a duo of suspense stories from the pen of Cornell Woolrich. Highlighted by the incredible cinematography of Pablo Tabernero, it features masterful sequences of spine-tingling suspense. Critic Horacio Bernades declared, “Rarely has an Argentine film been more purely cinematic than this.”
Jack Hively • USA • 1942 • 35mm
6:00 PM
ODD MAN OUT
INDIVIDUAL TICKETS $16 | $11 for SIFF Members
UNION STATION
PASSES
$150 | $125 for SIFF Members
Noir City returns to SIFF for its 16th year for a week of thematically linked pairings of international and English-language noir films. Produced by Eddie Muller—Film Noir Foundation founder, Turner Classic Movies host, and "Czar of Noir''— this celebration of the film noir genre is a beloved annual event.
OPENING
NIGHT
Please join us for our Noir City Opening Night Pre-reception with Eddie Muller starting at 5:00 PM on February 16. Cocktails will be available for purchase at the Noir Bar and enjoy live music from Casey MacGill Trio.
MONDAY, FEB. 19
12:30 PM
6:00 PM
6:00 PM
ACROSS THE BRIDGE
ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS ASCENSEUR POUR L’ÉCHAFAUD
Hubert Cornfield • USA • 1957 • DCP
Louis Malle • France • 1958 • DCP
An adulterous couple’s plot to murder the woman’s husband collides with a pair of bungling teens acting out their nihilistic crime-movie fantasies. Jeanne Moreau is immortalized against Miles Davis’ improvised score. Meanwhile, Maurice Ronet’s attempts to escape a stalled elevator become a mesmerizing visual poem of entrapment.
PLUNDER ROAD
From its thrilling opening, in which a crew of hooded robbers steal a huge load of gold bullion from a train during a driving rainstorm, the film never stops moving—smashing its way down the widescreen interstate as gang-leader Gene Raymond and his truck-driving cohorts try to abscond with the score of a lifetime.
3:15 PM
8:15 PM
8:30 PM
ZERO FOCUS ZERO NO SHOTEN
STRONGROOM
Vernon Sewell • United Kingdom • 1962 • DCP
SYMPHONY FOR A MASSACRE SYMPHONIE POUR UN MASSACRE
Tense and spellbinding — newlywed bride Teiko sees her husband, Kenichi, off on one last business trip to his old office in Kanazawa; she eagerly anticipates his return. But Kenichi mysteriously vanishes and when the police move too slowly, resourceful and tenacious Teiko begins her own investigation.
Crooks knock over a suburban London bank at Saturday closing, leaving two employees locked in the vault. Dissention spreads when the gang realizes Monday is Easter holiday and the captives will suffocate before being discovered. Not wanting murder on their résumés, the trio must break back into the bank while evading capture.
Yoshitaro Nomura • Japan • 1960 • DCP
EDDIE MULLER Author of the new book "Eddie Muller's Noir Bar"
Jacques Deray • France • 1963 • DCP
Perhaps the ultimate heist double-cross movie. A quintet of Parisian businessmen go in on a drug deal, but one of them has a daring plan to hijack the loot and run off with a comrade’s wife. A start-to-finish nail-biter co-scripted by the controversial José Giovanni (who also costars) and directed by thriller specialist Jacques Deray (La Piscine, A Bigger Splash).
Celebrate the release of Eddie Muller’s new book, “Eddie Muller’s Noir Bar,” with this special book signing event from 5:00–6:00 PM on February 17. "Czar of Noir" Eddie Muller is internationally known as the producer and host of NOIR CITY, the largest retrospective of noir films in the world and, as founder and president of the non-profit Film Noir Foundation, Muller has been instrumental since 2005 in rescuing America’s noir heritage.
THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS