That's my title, not theirs. For the first time I can recall the vintage Stanford Theater in Palo Alto is doing an almost full-blown noir festival after years of showing primarily musicals, screwball comedies, pre-codes, Hitchcock, Cagney and Hepburn/Tracy type fare.

I say almost full-blown because after the Sept. 6-7-8 kickoff pairing The Big Sleep and The Maltese Falcon -- that's actually very appealing, pairing Spade and Marlowe -- the series strangely mixes in a number of Val Lewton films with a lineup of Noir 101. To wit:

Sept. 10 and 13: Cat People/Woman In The Window
Sept. 14-15: Double Indemnity/Mildred Pierce
Sept. 19-20: The Leopard Man/The Red House
Sept. 21-22: Gun Crazy/Scarlet Street
Sept. 26-27: The Body Snatcher/The Glass Key
Sept. 28-29: Nightmare Alley/Sunset Blvd.
Oct. 3-4: Bedlam/Secret Beyond The Door
Oct. 5-6: The Third Man/Key Largo
Oct. 10-11: The Seventh Victim/Angel Face
Oct 12-13: High Sierra/This Gun For Hire
Oct. 17-18: Isle Of The Dead/The Spiral Staircase
Oct. 19-20: Laura/Out of the Past
Oct 24-25: Curse of The Cat People/Night Of The Hunter
Oct. 26-27: The Blue Dahlia/The Killers
Oct. 31-Nov. 1: I Walked With A Zombie/Ministry Of Fear
Nov. 2-3: Touch Of Evil/Sudden Fear
Nov. 7-8: The Ghost Ship/Phantom Lady
Nov. 9-10: The Postman Always Rings Twice/Criss Cross

There are some really weird pairings here ... I mean, what kind of crowd are you going to get for the Curse of the Cat People and Night Of The Hunter? And how clever to pair The Ghost Ship with Phanton Lady, even if the movies are polar opposites. Just me, but I would of thought about slipping The Whistler series in there instead of Lewton, especially since no one has really taken the refurbished Whistler series to the big screen yet that I've seen.

By the same token, you could spend a lot worse night than a Sunset Blvd./Nightmare Alley double bill, Double Indemnity with Mildred Pierce is a full night of entertainment, ditto Out Of The Past/Laura and Postman/Criss Cross also will likely be a fun evening. If you knew little about film noir, you could get quite an education with this program (not to mention with most of the Lewton canon). Let's face it, as well known as many of these films are, "the noir hits" don't turn up at festivals as often any more. Getting them up on the big screen every once in awhile should always be applauded, even if these will almost be digital versions you could put into your blu-ray player at home.