Alan K. Rode - ONE WAY STREET

A Few Thoughts on NAPOLEON

Posted by Alan K. Rode on Monday, 26 March 2012 in Commentary

The presentation of Abel Gance’s NAPOLEON this Saturday at the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, California, dwarfs any previous experience that I’ve ever had in a movie theatre. I have never seen a film of such epic scale with the most amazing attention to authentic historical detail within a beautifully characterized story of a man destined to change the world. NAPOLEON is truly a masterpiece in every sense of the word. Words are inadequate to describe my pure joy of taking in five and half hours of a restored classic that the great Kevin Brownlow spent much of his professional life...

©Alan K. Rode

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Rose & Joan: Rest in Peace

Posted by Alan K. Rode on Wednesday, 21 March 2012 in Actors and Actresses

I was deeply saddened to learn of the recent passing of Rose Freeman aka Joan Taylor who was a featured actress in movies and television from 1949 until her retirement in 1963. Rose was a special lady and we had a rather unusual relationship that began over five years ago. I was wrapping up my Charles McGraw biography manuscript but wanted to learn more about one of his movies, Warpaint, an interesting Western that he appeared in 1952 after leaving the contractual confines of RKO studios. Rose, or I should say Joan, played an Indian woman who helped make life extremely...

©Alan K. Rode

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Back on the Street with THE BIG COMBO and PITFALL

Posted by Alan K. Rode on Friday, 10 February 2012 in Film Noir Events

To inaugurate my new and improved ONE WAY STREET blog and web site, I am posting my introduction to THE BIG COMBO and PITFALL double feature when I presented on Wednesday night at the Million Dollar Theatre in downtown L.A. While I was crossing the street at the corner of 3rd, I gazed across Broadway at the Bradbury building and realized that this was where Edmond O'Brien, wracked with pain from luminous poisoning, staggered to his rendezvous with destiny in D.O.A. This was also where Lon Chaney Jr., recently revived from the San Quentin gas chamber, murderously prowled for "Squeemy Ellis"...

©Alan K. Rode

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Wanted: More Film Preservationists

Posted by Alan K. Rode on Saturday, 19 February 2011 in Film Noir Preservation

Although One Way Street has been on an extended hiatus because of my on-going Michael Curtiz biography and a medley of other unapproved excuses, I have returned - a cyber-Lazarus - to proselytize for the cause of film preservation, specifically film noir preservation. It’s been almost a decade since the Film Noir Foundation was formulated around Eddie Muller’s kitchen table. The Foundation came into existence partly due to the collective frustration of not being able to locate desired films to screen at the annual film noir festival in Los Angeles and the recently constituted Noir City fest in San Francisco. The...

©Alan K. Rode

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The 10th Annual Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival

Posted by Alan K. Rode on Saturday, 08 May 2010 in Film Noir Events

For those of you who are not Facebook habitues, I wanted to post a link about the upcoming Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival next week 13-16 May in Palm Springs at the Camelot Theatres. It is our tenth anniversary and with a line up of rare films and guest stars such as Ernest Borgnine, June Lockhart, Ann Robinson, Julie Garfield and Tommy Cook, this year's fest will be landmark event. Hope to see you there! ...