Let's take a look at 1949:
Abandoned (AKA Abandoned Woman)
The Accused
Act of Violence
All the King's Men
Beyond the Forest
The Big Steal
Border Incident
The Bribe
C-Man
Caught
Champion
Chicago Deadline
City Across the River
The Clay Pigeon
Cover Up
Criss Cross
The Crooked Way
A Dangerous Profession
Flamingo Road
Flaxy Martin
Follow Me Quietly
House of Strangers
Illegal Entry
Impact
Incident
Jigsaw
Johnny Allegro
Johnny Stool Pigeon
Knock on Any Door
Manhandled
Port of New York
The Reckless Moment
Red Light
The Red Menace
Rope of Sand
Scene of the Crime
The Set-Up
Shockproof
The Story of Molly X
Strange Bargain
Take One False Step
Tension
Thieves' Highway
The Threat
Too Late for Tears (AKA Killer Bait)
Trapped
The Undercover Man
Undertow
Whirlpool
White Heat
The Window
Without Honor
The Woman on Pier 13 (AKA I Married a Communist)
A Woman's Secret
That's more than 50 titles to choose from. The titles marked in bold are ones that are sure bets to be included in a 75th anniversary lineup. For ease of reading, they're repeated here:
Abandoned, Act of Violence, Border Incident, Caught, Champion, Criss Cross, Flamingo Road, Knock on Any Door, The Reckless Moment, Red Light, The Set-Up, The Story of Molly X, Tension, Thieves' Highway, Too Late for Tears, White Heat, The Window
That's 17 titles that are 95+% likely to be in such a lineup. The films in italics strike me as the likeliest to be considered for the remaining seven slots:
The Big Steal, The Bribe, Flaxy Martin, House of Strangers, Rope of Sand, Take One False Step, Whirlpool, A Woman's Secret
That's eight more. The reasons have mostly to do with who's in them: BIG STEAL has Mitchum & Greer; THE BRIBE has Ava Gardner, Robert Taylor, Charles Laughton; FLAXY gives us Virginia Mayo and possibly a second feature slot following WHITE HEAT; HOUSE OF STRANGERS has Conte and Susan Hayward (an Eddie fave), which could follow THIEVES' HIGHWAY; ROPE OF SAND has Burt Lancaster, good second slot behind CRISS CROSS; TAKE ONE FALSE STEP has Marsha Hunt; WHIRLPOOL has Conte and Gene Tierney; A WOMAN'S SECRET has Gloria Grahame and was directed by Nick Ray; it could play as second feature to STORY OF MOLLY X.
The films that are underlined (just two) are pointed out just in case Eddie wants to "go the other way" on the "they tried to warn us" tag line and show a couple of "Red Scare" noirs. (Would make for an amusing Saturday matinee, n'est-ce pas?)
Feel free to take those films and flesh out a provisional NC 21 lineup, day by day, beginning on the festival's likeliest start date: Friday, January 26, 2024.
Responses