A virtual festival is what's called for given the status of COVID-19, and it's an odd quirk of fate, is it not, that 2021 is NC...19.
So let's name it NC 19: Don't Call It Covid.
We don't have to put the films into a strict screening order, since no one is going to the theatre to see them: thus we can organize around themes...
Mann and Alton: RAW DEAL/T-MEN*
Marlowe: THE BIG SLEEP*/THE BRASHER DOUBLOON*
Sexual subtext in color: DESERT FURY/LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN
Dick Powell: CRY DANGER/CORNERED*
Victor Mature: CRY OF THE CITY/MOSS ROSE*
Robert Ryan: ACT OF VIOLENCE/ON DANGEROUS GROUND
Bad cops: SHIELD FOR MURDER*/ROGUE COP*
Cornell Wilde/Jean Wallace: THE BIG COMBO/STORM FEAR*
Race issues: NATIVE SON/BODY AND SOUL*
Tribute to John Garfield:
THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL*/DUST BE MY DESTINY*
OUT OF THE FOG*/THE FALLEN SPARROW*
POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE/NOBODY LIVES FOREVER
FORCE OF EVIL/WE WERE STRANGERS*
*films that have not played NC SF previously
That's 26 films, nine featuring Garfield (not repeating THE BREAKING POINT or HE RAN ALL THE WAY). Should there be a desire to interpolate some foreign films into the lineup, any of several double bills could be replaced.
We've been waiting for nearly twenty years to have DESERT FURY and LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN re-screened together; this might be the best way to do it, in the "safety" of one's home. (The Castro crowd at NC 2 was at its most riotous on the evening these two films screened!)
Still expecting that NC 20 will be a reprise of #1's San Francisco noir theme, and let's hope that things will be back to "normal" by then--that's a show that really needs to be back in the Castro just as if it were still 2003.
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