In A Lonely Place (1950)

WHO: Nicholas Ray directed this

WHAT: A top contender for the title of "best movie about Hollywood ever made in Hollywood". Noir City honcho Eddie Muller put it at the top of the list of his all-time favorite films noir and who am I to argue with that? (In fact I think I'd come to the same or at least a very similar conclusion independently.)

WHERE/WHEN: Screens today and tomorrow only at the Stanford Theatre at 4:05 and 7:30 PM.

WHY: Speaking of Eddie Muller and Noir City, there's already a good deal of online speculation about the possible programming at the 12th edition of that beloved Frisco festival, which will occur at the Castro Theatre January 24th through February2nd, 2014. There are rumors that the Film Noir Foundation, the non-profit that grew out of the festival, should finally be ready to premiere its long-promised restoration of Byron Haskin's Too Late For Tears starring Lisabeth Scott and Dan Duryea, for instance. And since the reveal of the festival poster, some (yes, including yours truly) have been wondering if the next Noir City might be the first edition to expand its focus to include noir filmed in languages other than English. I've heard a rumor that seems to confirm such guesswork: that Noir City 12 will include a film directed by Mexico's Golden Age auteur Roberto Gavaldón. I've only seen one Gavaldón film before, the excellent but only somewhat noir-ish Macario. I wonder if this means we'll be seeing The Other One starring Dolores Del Rio at the Castro in a few months? Or perhaps another title- I don't really know how many noirs Gavaldón made. To what extent might the full program be spiced up (don't any of you Hollywood purists dare say diluted in front of me) with some international depictions of desperate criminals?

At least we know when we'll know the answer: December 18th, 2013, when the Castro will host Noir City's fourth annual Noir City Xmas double-bill, this time of the only known projectable 35mm print of the 1947 George Raft vehicle Christmas Eve and of a 35mm print of the 1961 independently-produced Blast of Silence. Way better than a press conference as a method of revealing a festival line-up, Noir City X-Mas has quickly become one of my favorite holiday traditions.

HOW: 35mm screening, on a double-bill with Joseph H. Lewis's Gun Crazy.