Noir City Returns to Seattle

SEATTLE—January 17, 2019—The 2019 incarnation of the world's most popular Film Noir festival, Noir City, is returning to the legendary Egyptian theater February 15 through 21 for a week-long indulgence of danger, desire, and despair. The festival presents 20 classic films covering the years 1949 to 1959, as they were experienced on their original releases, pairing a top-tier studio "A" with a shorter, low-budget second feature, or "B" film. Many of the films will be presented in glorious 35mm. Czar of Noir and host of TCM's "Noir Alley," Eddie Muller, will host the week-long Festival to delight patrons with intrigue and sordid anecdotes from Hollywood.

Opening Night will begin with the Casey MacGill Trio setting the mood with fifties noir favorites, cider tasting courtesy of Capitol Cider, and a shadowy cityscape photo booth to capture gangsters, molls, vixens, and villains at their sinister best. The week starts off big with the newly completed 35mm restoration of Trapped (1949), Richard Fleischer's hard-edged noir classic starring Lloyd Bridges, courtesy of the Film Noir Foundation and UCLA Film & Television Archive, followed by Robert Siodmak's The File on Thelma Jordon (1950), featuring Barbara Stanwyck, in a terrific two-faced turn in one of her rarely screened films.

The "A"s include The Turning Point (1952), starring Edmond O'Brien and William Holden, in a ripped-from-the-headlines thriller about organized crime and corruption in a small town, and leaping on the voyeurism bandwagon of 1954 powerhouses Rear Window and Witness to Murder, is Pushover (1954) starring Fred MacMurray and femme fatale Kim Novak (in her film debut). The "A"s wouldn't be complete without that quintessential 1950s staple of noir, Orson Welles' Touch of Evil (1958), about a California border town where kidnapping, extortion, and murder are business as usual.

Our "B"s include Killer's Kiss (1955), Stanley Kubrick's inventive and kinetic tribute to Manhattan and film noir, Murder by Contract (1958) a Martin Scorsese favorite about a hitman who has a crisis of conscience and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), a gritty, tense, racially charged heist film starring Harry Belafonte and Robert Ryan.

In addition to films, trivia, and nightly prizes, we are partnering with KNKX to present the Dmitri Methany Group on Saturday night, playing 1950s movie themes and crime jazz; and Saturday through Monday, Chef Joshua Henderson of Huxley Wallace Collective, will host a pop up concession stand, providing guests a menu of updated movie-goer favorites.

"We are excited to bring Noir City back to SIFF Cinema Egyptian again this year.The 1950s were a fascinating period in Film Noir, and there is no better venue to experience this powerful era of cinematic history," says Festival Programming Manager Stan Shields.

SIFF Artistic Director Beth Barrett puts it all in perspective, "For the last 11 years, SIFF and the Film Noir Foundation have been partnering to support the restoration of noir films, and bringing this artistically and culturally important genre to the SIFF audiences," adding, "and no one is better at connecting noir to modern audiences than Eddie Muller."

Passes for Noir City 2019 are on sale at www.siff.net/noircity2019. Full schedule and individual tickets are available now.

Friday, February 15 - Thursday, February 21.

SIFF Cinema Egyptian

Festival Passes: $150 | $100 Members
Single film admission: $15 | $10 Members | $14 Seniors and Youth

NOIR CITY 2019 LINEUP

Friday, February 15

Trapped (35mm)

Lloyd Bridges stars as a convicted counterfeiter working undercover for the Feds, or rather, they think he is, in this twisted tale of double and triple crosses. (d. Richard Fleischer c: Lloyd Bridges, Barbara Payton, and John Hoyt, US, 1949, 78 min)

The File on Thelma Jordon (35mm)

An assistant DA gets caught up in an illicit affair with a duplicitous seductress who manipulates him into working both sides of the law. (d. Robert Siodmak c: Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, Paul Kelly, and Richard Rober, US, 1950, 100 min.)

Saturday, February 16

The Well

Shock waves ripple through a small town when the disappearance of a young black girl leads the police to arrest a white transient. (d. Russell Rouse c: Gwendolyn Laster, Richard Rober, Maidie Norman, and Harry Morgan, US, 1951, 86 min.) Detective Story One event-filled day in a single police precinct center around a hard-nosed cop whose world is inadvertently turned upside down when he interrogates a shady abortionist. (d. William Wyler c: Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, George Macready, Lee Grant, US, 1951, 105 min)

The Turning Point

A crusading attorney returns to his hometown to root out a crime syndicate but his efforts are compromised by corrupt city officials. (d: William Dieterle c: William Holden, Edmond O'Brien, Alexis Smith, and Ed Begley, US, 1952, 85 min)

Angel Face (35mm)

An ambulance driver gets more than he bargained for when he gets entangled with a beautiful heiress with murderous intent. (d: Otto Preminger c: Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, Mona Freeman, and Herbert Marshall, US, 1953, 91 min)

Sunday, February 17

Pickup on South Street

A pickpocket and a streetwalker get inadvertently caught in the crossfire of Communist spies and Federal agents. (d: Samuel Fuller c: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Richard Kiley, US, 1953, 80 min)

City That Never Sleeps

Chicago provides the backdrop of this story of a cop, who, tired of the rat race, intends to run off with his stripper girlfriend so they can start fresh, but the city has other plans. (d: John H. Auer c: Gig Young, Mala Powers, William Tallman, and Marie Windsor, US, 1953, 90 min)

Pushover (35mm)

After a bank heist, a cop surveilling a robbery suspect's girlfriend, falls under her spell and is seduced into plotting to steal the loot and runaway with her. (d: Richard Quine c: Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak, Phil Carey, and Dorothy Malone, US, 1954, 88 min)

Private Hell 36 (35mm)

A good cop goes bad when he gets involved with a nightclub singer who holds the key to the missing loot from a New York robbery. (d: Don Siegel c: Ida Lupino, Steve Cochran, Howard Duff, and Dean Jagger, US, 1954, 81 min)

Monday, February 18

Kiss Me Deadly (35mm)

After private eye Mike Hammer and a hitchhiker are kidnapped by thugs and the girl is tortured to death, he searches for the secret behind the girl's murder. (d: Robert Aldrich c: Ralph Meeker, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, and Maxine Cooper, US, 1955, 105 min)

Killer's Kiss (35mm)

In Stanley Kubrick's second feature, a struggling New York boxer risks his life to protect a nightclub dancer from her gangster boss. (d: Stanley Kubrick c: Frank Silvera, Jamie Smith, Irene Kane, Jerry Jarret, US, 1955, 67 min)

The Scarlet Hour (35mm)

A married seductress and her lover hatch a plan to steal jewelry from some thieves so they can run away with each other. (d: Michael Curtiz c: Carol Omhart, Tom Tryon, Jody Lawrence, and James Gregory, US, 1956, 95 min)

A Kiss Before Dying (35mm)

A ruthless social-climber murders his wealthy girlfriend when she becomes pregnant, then pursues her sister instead. (d: Gerd Oswald c: Robert Wagner, Joanne Woodward, Virginia Leith, and Jeffrey Hunter, US, 1956, 94 min)

Tuesday, February 19

Nightfall (35mm)

An artist is falsely accused of murder and is forced to flee both the law and organized crime when the real killers think he has their loot. (d: Jaques Tourneur c: Aldo Ray, Anne Bancroft, Brian Keith, Jocelyn Brando, US, 1957, 78 min)

The Burglar (35mm)

A safecracker and his crew get away with robbing an emerald necklace, but that was the easy part and someone with worse intentions is on to them. (d: Paul Wendkos c: Dan Duyrea, Jayne Mansfield, Martha Vickers, Peter Capell, US, 1957, 90 min)

Wednesday, February 20

Touch of Evil

A Mexican cop and his American wife encounter corruption, marauding gangs, and murder in a California border town. (d: Orson Welles c: Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, Orson Welles, Joseph Calleia, US, 1958, 95 min)

Murder by Contract (35mm)

A ruthless and efficient contract killer has a crisis of conscious when he learns his next target is a woman. (d: Irving Lerner c: Vince Edwards, Phillip Pine, Hershel Bernardi, Caprice Toriel, US, 1958, 81 min)

Thursday, February 21

The Crimson Kimono (35mm)

Two cops investigating the murder of a stripper both fall for a key witness. (d: Samuel Fuller, James Shigeta, Glenn Corbett, Victoria Shaw, Anne Lee, US, 1959, 82 min) Odds Against TomorrowA disgraced former police officer hires two very different men for a bank heist, however, suspicion and prejudice threaten to end the partnership. (d: Robert Wise, Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Gloria Grahame, Ed Begley, US, 1959, 96 min)

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About the Film Noir Foundation

The Film Noir Foundation is a non-profit public benefit corporation created as an educational resource regarding the cultural, historical, and artistic significance of film noir as an original American cinematic movement. As a focal point of the classic film noir revival, the Foundation serves as a conduit between film companies and repertory cinemas still eager to screen these films in 35mm. Revenues generated by ticket sales encourage studios film archives to strike new prints of films that are at risk of disappearing from public view, either through neglect or scarcity. Once these films are unearthed and returned to circulation, the chances exponentially increase that they will be reissued on DVD, available in pristine, affordable form for future generations of film-lovers.

About SIFF

Founded in 1976, SIFF creates experiences that bring people together to discover extraordinary films from around the world with the Seattle International Film Festival, SIFF Cinema, and SIFF Education. Recognized as one of the top film festivals in North America, the Seattle International Film Festival is the largest, most highly attended film festival in the United States, reaching more than 140,000 annually. The 25-day festival is renowned for its wide-ranging and eclectic programming, presenting over 400 features, short films, and documentaries from over 80 countries each year. The 45th annual Seattle International Film Festival will be held May 16 through June 9, 2019.  SIFF Cinema exhibits premier theatrical engagements, repertory, classic, and revival film showings 365 days a year on five screens at the SIFF Cinema Uptown, SIFF Cinema Egyptian, and SIFF Film Center, reaching more than 175,000 attendees annually. SIFF Education offers educational programs for all audiences serving more than 10,000 students and youth in the community with free programs each year.