Noir City: The Long Wait
February 20, 2025
Johnny McBride (Anthony Quinn) is injured in a car accident and wakes to discover he has no memory and no fingerprints! Then he discovers he’s wanted for murder! This Mickey Spillane story has one of the genre’s kinkiest climaxes, making maximum use of fulsome fifties femme Peggie Castle.
Passes: $158 | $133 SIFF Members
Individual Tickets: Select showtime to purchase.
SIFF year-round passes and vouchers are not valid for these screenings.
Tickets
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Thursday, February 20, 2025
Note: Reserved seating is not available for Noir City.
Amnesia strikes again! Hitching a lift, Johnny McBride is injured in a car accident, waking up to discover he has no memory and no fingerprints—they’ve apparently been burned off. Two years later, he follows a clue that leads him to his forgotten hometown, where he discovers he’s wanted for murder! Victor Saville, who bought the rights to all the Spillane novels, is no great shakes as a director, but here he has great support from DP Franz Planer and art director Boris Leven, who devised one of the genre’s kinkiest and most visually arresting climaxes, making maximum use of fulsome fifties femme Peggie Castle—known in the trades as “The Girl They Love to Kill.” Note courtesy of Noir City.
- Director: Victor Saville
- Principal Cast: Peggie Castle, Anthony Quinn
- Country: USA
- Year: 1954
- Running Time: 94 min.
- Producer: Lesser Samuels
- Screenplay: Alan Green, Lesser Samuels
- Cinematographers: Franz Planer
- Editors: Ronald Sinclair
- Music: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
- Filmography: My Gun Is Quick (1957), Green Dolphin Street (1947)
- Language: English