After hosting the eighth annual Palm Springs Film Noir Festival, from May 29 - June 1, I made it back home in time for screenings of Mildred Pierce at the Million Dollar Theatre and The Damned Don't Cry - the latest entry of my continuing Femme Fatale Hall of Fame series at the Silent Movie Theatre. I'll be posting a detailed low down about the wildly successful Palm Springs noir fete - complete with photos - this coming week. For the present, I wanted to share some details about the Mildred Pierce event. It was a distinct privilege to host a sold-out screening of Mildred Pierce (1945) at the restored Million Dollar Theatre at 307 South Broadway in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday June 4th. The screening was part of the Los Angeles Conservancy's Last Remaining Seats series that is now in its 22nd year. For more about the LRS,...

  The temperature in Palm Springs, California during the first weekend of June was as warm as the ambience at Arthur Lyons seventh annual Film Noir Festival in this desert oasis. In returning for my fifth year at this festival, I always think of this event as film noir’s version of Same Time, Next Year. I have an opportunity to become reacquainted with old friends, make new ones and hobnob with the celebs in a relaxed atmosphere that is just not present in other locales. There is nothing quite like Palm Springs to relax the body and soul for four days of non-stop film noir. Art Lyons, a cherished comrade in noir and author of Death on the Cheap: The Lost “B” Movies of Film Noir invariably produces a fest renowned for movie star guests and obscure dark oddities (typically in 16mm or DVD) that frequently expand the foggy boundary lines...

  “The apes have taken over — while we were busy watching television and filling our freezers, they’ve come out of the jungle and moved in!” That line is definitely not the stereotypical 1950's movie denouement particularly when it is uttered by the stolidly full-upright Frank Lovejoy about Communism in Shack Out on 101 (1955) that screened last night at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. As Sterling Hayden unsuccessfully tried to quantify for Timothy Carey what type of crime shooting a racehorse is in The Killing (1956); "...as a matter of fact, I don't know what it is...", I have the same dilemma attempting to describe just what type of movie Shack Out on 101 (1955) actually is: film noir, melodrama, high camp, comedy, none of the above, all of the above??? By whatever genre, the picture is a unique, well acted, uproarious hoot. Shack out on 101 is the...