OPEN SECRET has been restored by UCLA and would now be available in a much better print for such a screening.
Both REPEAT PERFORMANCE and THE AMAZING MR. X received votes in the 2006 Noir of the Year polling, indicating that while the titles were scarce, they weren't really "lost." Both films had several complete prints that waited their turn in the queue of films awaiting restoration. The FNF's robust PR machine notwithstanding, they actually prioritized a list of films and determined which would undergo restoration first; REPEAT PERFORMANCE was apparently bumped down the list several times due to other, more urgently desirable projects.
MR. X seemed to have some problematic areas in its print that kept a restoration effort in limbo, until the Film Detective folks obtained additional funding from their new parent company to complete the project. Even at that, there are some areas of the new blu-ray that reveal some lingering rough spots in the final digital product. (Those issues are not serious enough, however, to discourage anyone from purchasing the blu-ray: we need all of Alton's work available to us, and let's hope that the FNF decides to put all of Alton on display in a special festival at some point. If they pass on that idea, then here's hoping someone else will do so--an all-Alton noir series should be a bucket-list item for all noir aficionados...
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