Join host Eddie Muller on Wednesday, December 18, 7:30 pm, at Oakland's historic Grand Lake Theatre for NOIR CITY XMAS! To darken your yuletide spirit, the Film Noir Foundation is presenting Who Killed Santa Claus? (L'Assassinat du père Noël), a 1941 French mystery. The evening will also feature the unveiling of the program (and poster!) for NOIR CITY 22, the 22nd year of the world's most popular film noir festival, coming to the Grand Lake Theatre January 24 - February 2, 2025.
Tickets for NOIR CITY Xmas are now available online from Eventbrite for $15 and can also be purchased at the theatre box office on the day of the show. Doors will open at 6:30 pm on the day of the event.
Join us at Oakland's Grand Lake Theatre for NOIR CITY 22, January 24 - February 2, 2025. There's something for everyone at 2025's festival as we screen double bills featuring the winsome women of film noir. Eddie Muller, FNF founder and host of TCM's Noir Alley, will be your guide through a 10-day journey with the women who made film noir fatale! Passports and tickets will be available later this year!
Secure your spot at NOIR CITY 22 with an all-access PASSPORT for $200. This all-access festival pass grants the bearer:
✻ Admission to all 24 films (12 double features) during the 10-day NOIR CITY 22 festival
✻ Separate passport holders' queue for early admittance to the theater for all shows
✻ $40 savings over individually purchased double-feature tickets.
Plus, it’s the perfect holiday gift for the film noir lovers in your life! Festival program to be announced, along with individual tickets for purchase, December 18, 7:00 p.m. at NoirCity.com. Proceeds from the NOIR CITY festival help fund the FNF's restoration and preservation efforts year-round. This is your chance to have a smashing time AND preserve a valuable art form.
If you're an out-of-towner looking for lodging in Oakland, the Courtyard by Marriott Oakland Downtown is offering discounted room rates for NOIR CITY 22 festival guests. For the dates Thursday, January 23, through Sunday, February 2, you can get a room with a King bed or two Queen beds for $149/night plus tax. Located at 988 Broadway in downtown Oakland, the hotel is 2 miles from the Grand Lake Theatre.
⚠ To take advantage of this special $149/night room, your booking must be made on or before Friday, December 20, 2024.
NOTE For a stay of seven or more days, the Courtyard is offering a rate of $139/night + tax. For a long-term stay, please contact the hotel at 510-625-8282 and mention the NOIR CITY 22 special festival rate.
NOIR CITY XMAS: Dec 18
Grand Lake Theatre, Oakland, CA
NOIR CITY 22: Jan 24-Feb 2, 2025
Grand Lake Theatre, Oakland, CA
Lucas Cullen (in green suit above), the recipient of 2024’s FNF-Nancy Mysel Legacy Grant, looks back on his past year at the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation. READ MORE
Preserved by the Film Noir Foundation in 2013 and now beautifully restored through the UCLA Film & Television Archive, Never Open That Door (No abras nunca esa puerta) is a significant example of the cross-cultural cinematic legacy shared by the United States and Argentina during the post-WWII era. Based on two short stories by American master of suspense fiction Cornell Woolrich, the film is brilliantly directed by Argentine filmmaker Carlos Hugo Christensen with extraordinary cinematography by Pablo Tabernero. ORDER YOUR COPY
Says FNF founder Eddie Muller about this recent restoration, “It is a revelation to experience the work of an all-American author, in Spanish, and rendered as well – or perhaps better – than any Hollywood adaptation of his work.”
Originally a three-part anthology of Woolrich tales, Never Open That Door was released separately from the 73-minute film If I Should Die Before I Wake (Si muero antes de despertar) adapted by screenwriter Alejandro Casona and Christensen. An exceedingly rare archival conservation scan of If I Should Die Before I Wake is featured in this publication.
BONUS MATERIALS INCLUDE:
✽ Introduction by author, film historian, and "noirchaeologist" Eddie Muller
✽ Audio commentary by author and film historian Guido Segal
✽ New documentary on Cornell Woolrich
✽ Newly recorded conversation - with Argentina's leading film archivist and cinema historian Fernando Martín Peña
Argentine director Román Viñoly Barreto's El vampiro negro (The Black Vampire) is available from Flicker Alley in a deluxe Blu‑ray/DVD edition. A virtually unknown remake of Fritz Lang's seminal 1931 thriller M, this 1953 Argentine noir is a female-centered take on the tale. + READ MORE
The revised and expanded edition of FNF prez and Noir Alley host Eddie Muller's Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir is now available for purchase from the TCM Shop or your favorite bookseller. + READ MORE
We are proud to announce the release of two FNF restorations as Blu‑ray/DVD combos from Flicker Alley: The Bitter Stems and The Beast Must Die, two classics of Argentine noir.. → READ MORE
Did you know that The Film Noir Foundation livestreams every two weeks on our Facebook page in which Eddie Muller answers questions submitted by our e‑mail subscribers? All previous broadcasts are available on our YouTube broadcast archives page.
→ Subscribe to our mailing list, so you can get your question answered.
The latest ASK EDDIE broadcast on Facebook October 24 and on YouTube the following day.
Part Two of The French Had a Name for It ’24 plays at San Francisco’s Roxie Theatre Friday, November 29 – Tuesday, December 3 with a slate of 18 films. The festival kicks off Friday night in the Little Roxie with a double-feature of Erich Von Stroheim films,The Dance of Death (La danse de mort), and The World Will Shake (Le monde tremblera).
Saturday's matinée pairs Robert Hossein and Raf Vallone in Enough Rope (Le meurtrier) and No Escape (Le Piège). Saturday night features a triple-film tribute to Henri Vidal, Desperate Decision (La jeune folle), The Strollers (Quai de Grennelle), and The Beast at Bay (La Bête a l'affut). .
The festival moves to the Big Roxie on Sunday first with an early matinée of two more Stroheim films, The Alibi (L'alibi) and Boy's School (Les disparus de Saint-Agil), followed by a double feature of André Cayatte flms, Two are Guilty (Le glaive et la balance) featuring Anthony Perkins and Trap for Cinderella (Piège pour Cendrillon).
Sunday night features Jeanne Moreau in a double bill of Jacques Demy’s Bay of Angels (La baie des anges) and Edouard Molinaro’s Back to the Wall (Le dos au mur).
Monday night comprises a triple bill selected from French icon Jean Gabin’s 1950’s films: Their Last Night (Leur dernière nuit), The Truth about our Marriage (La vérité sur Bébé Donge), and People of no Importance (Des gens sans importance).
The festival concludes Tuesday night with the double bill that kicked of the first The French Had a Name for It festival: Henrie-Georges Cluzot’s Manon, an updating of Abbé Prévost’s Manon Lescaut to post-WWII France, and The Truth (La vérité) starring Bridget Bardot as a woman on trial for the killing of her love —two great actors playing the opposing lawyers, Charles Vanel as the defense attorney and Paul Meurisse as the prosecutor.
The final two films will be preceded by a book signing of Don Malcom’s The French Had a Name for It at 5:45 pm. Get showtimes, tickets, and more info at the Roxie website. This will be the final iteration of the festival, so don’t miss out.
Limited-time offer. The historic Hollywood Theatre in Portland, Oregon, has partnered with the Film Noir Foundation and Portland artist Matty Newton to create a sensational t-shirt design celebrating film noir. Pre-order your t-shirt now for $25 (plus tax, if applicable) and support the FNF with your purchase! Through November 30, the Hollywood Theatre will donate 10% of the Film Noir Forever t-shirt net proceeds to the Film Noir Foundation in honor of Noir-vember this year!
Shirts begin shipping USPS mid-November. Orders placed by November 30 will deliver by December 23.
Hardcover releasing April 8, 2025
In this revised and expanded edition of his essential volume Dark City Dames, Eddie Muller—FNF founder and Turner Classic Movies host—offers a uniquely intimate look at the women who defined film noir, now featuring updated text, photos, and ten new star profiles.
In Dark City Dames, acclaimed film historian Eddie Muller takes readers into the world of six women who made a lasting impression in this cinematic terrain—from veteran “bad girls” Audrey Totter, Marie Windsor, and Jane Greer to unexpected genre fixtures Evelyn Keyes, Coleen Gray, and Ann Savage. The book provides in-depth profiles of these formidable women during the height of their careers, circa 1950, as they balanced love and career, struggled against typecasting, and sought fulfillment in a ruthless business. Their personal stories—teeming with larger-than-life characters like Howard Hughes, Louis B. Mayer, Robert Mitchum, Otto Preminger, and John Huston—offer a fascinating counterpoint to their movies. Then, Dark City Dames revisits each woman fifty years later to witness their hard-won—and triumphant—survival. On every page their own voices ring through, reflecting on their lives with as much passion, pain, intelligence, energy, and humor as any movie script. Muller conducted far-ranging interviews with the original six women profiled in Dark City Dames, in the process becoming a friend and confidante to each.
In this revised and expanded edition, he updates their stories and shares illuminating, never-before-told memories of his time with them. This edition also includes compelling new profiles of ten additional women who left an indelible mark on film noir, including Joan Bennett, Gail Russell, Rhonda Fleming, and Claire Trevor—all packaged in a stunning redesign that offers the ultimate look at performers who helped define a still-resonant and inspiring epoch of Hollywood history.
➥ PRE-ORDER from publisher Running Press
➥ PRE-ORDER from Amazon
FNF prez Eddie Muller's newest book, NOIR BAR: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir combines two of his greatest passions, film noir and cocktails.
In the words of the author, "Noir Bar offers a booze-based excursion through America's most popular film genre, pairing easy-to-master recipes with the kind of behind-the-scenes anecdotes that I like to include in my film intros and books." Some of the drinks are the ones being imbibed on screen and some are named after the films, the characters or the actors themselves. The recipes came from a variety of sources including Ernest Hemmingway and Sam Fuller. Some were even created by Eddie himself. Eddie also draws on his past as a bartender to coach you on the supplies and the techniques you will need to create these libations in your own home. The book is stylishly laid out and filled with movie stills, poster art, behind-the-scenes images, and cocktail photography. The book is available from Running Press.
Come follow us on Tumblr to indulge your passion for noir! We'll be posting daily, celebrating all things noir with exclusive stills and images you won't see anywhere else, as well as trailers, film clips, and more.
Share our posts with your friends; your love of the art form is the Foundation's biggest asset in its mission to preserve and restore classics of the genre. We are also fully committed to present our rescued films in the way they were meant to be seen: in 35mm at our NOIR CITY festivals around the country.
NOIR CITY MAGAZINE - DIGITAL VERSION
For access to the best writing on noir available today, and to enjoy one of the most cutting-edge interactive multimedia cinema publications in the world, subscribe to NOIR CITY®.
Start by adding your name to our mailing list and then making a donation to the FNF of $20 or more. View the Table of Contents for the current issue here.
Keep us posted on noir news and events in your area! Email Anne Hockens, Film Noir Foundation news and events editor.