Noir City: Austin

NOIR CITY: Austin returns to its home at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz this weekend, May 20-22, with a one-two punch of justly famous noirs and lesser-known gems awaiting discovery. Each of the seven screenings feature a double bill of 1940s films — for a total count of 14 films. FNF president Eddie Muller will be on hand throughout the entire festival to guide Austin's denizens down the blind alleys of NOIR CITY. View the festival trailer.

The festival kicks off with This Gun for Hire, notable for the first pairing of Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake, followed by Robert Siodmak's remarkable early B-feature Fly-By-Night. One of the highlights of the weekend-long festival is Saturday afternoon's screening of Julien Duvivier's anthology Flesh and Fantasy featuring an all-star cast, including noir favorites Barbara Stanwyck and Edward G. Robinson. The rarely screened Destiny follows; originally shot as the first of the stories in the anthology, it was cut for running time and then developed into a stand-alone feature. Universal Studios is providing 35mm archival prints of both films, and neither is available on DVD or Blu-ray.

Visit the Alamo's website for the full schedule and to buy tickets.

 
Alamo Drafthouse & Austin Film Society present: NOIR CITY AUSTIN 2016 from Alamo Drafthouse on Vimeo.

Noir City: Austin -- A Tribute to Cornell Woolrich

The second annual NOIR CITY: AUSTIN film festival will run May 8–10 at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz. With the exception of the opening night feature—the newly restored Woman on the Run—the 11-film series pays tribute to noir writer Cornell Woolrich, with ten films adapted from his novels and short stories. Due to the theatre's limited seating capacity, full series passes will be available online via the Ritz only until April 21, after which only tickets to individual shows will be available for advance online purchase.

ON THE BILL: 
Street of Chance (1942), Phantom Lady (1944), Black Angel (1946), Deadline at Dawn (1946), Night Has 1000 Eyes (1948), The Guilty (1948), The Window (1949), No Man of Her Own (1950), and two newly preserved and subtitled Argentine Woolrich adaptations, Never Open That Door (No abras nunca esa puerta, 1952) and If I Die Before I Wake (Si muero antes de despertar, 1952). Film Noir Foundation president Eddie Muller will be on hand to introduce all the films in the intimate and convivial environment for which the Alamo Drafthouse is famous.

"The sun-drenched expanse of Texas may seem a far cry from the shadowy recesses and expressionistic cityscapes of classic noir," said Drafthouse programmer Tommy Swenson, "but all that open space just means more places to bury the bodies. The Alamo Drafthouse Ritz is thrilled to welcome the Film Noir Foundation back for our second annual NOIR CITY, and to pay tribute to Cornell Woolrich. The most atmospheric of all the great crime writers, Woolrich's world is one with no moral compass, a place where love and death are always inextricably linked."