#eddie muller

[filmnoirfoundation]

TCMFF Day 3 Dana Delaney and Eddie Muller will be introducing THE BIG HEAT, 12:15 pm at TCL Multiplex House 6. Ms. Delaney wrote an article about Gloria Grahame for Noir City Magazine. You can buy a print copy: https://bit.ly/4b3r21c or a digital copy: https://bit.ly/3xI6Mnz

THE BIG HEAT (1953): In this seminal noir, a police detective (Glenn Ford) whose wife was killed by the mob teams with a gangster's moll (Gloria Grahame) to bring down a powerful racketeer (Alexander Scourby). Lee Marvin steals the film as Grahame’s abusive boyfriend and eventual object of her revenge. Dir. Fritz Lang

[dweemeister]

August 7, 2023

By Maureen Lee Lenker

(Entertainment Weekly) — We'll always have Paris, but for a time, it seemed as if we might not always have Turner Classic Movies.

Since 1994, TCM has aired films, uncut and commercial-free, 24 hours a day, all enhanced by monthly themed and curated programming, hosted introductions and conclusions (known as outros), conversations with filmmakers and talent, and original content. In its nearly 30 years of existence, the network has expanded beyond its already estimable remit as a cable network-meets-film-school, with fan events including a film festival and cruise.

The brand also plays a key role in global film preservation efforts. Restorations of bigger studio titles are typically done by the studios themselves, but TCM is more often than not the showcase for such work — both on air and at the annual film festival. TCM won a Peabody Award in 2008 for its "commitment to film preservation and restoration." 

In 2023 alone, TCM partnered with the Film Foundation and the studio to restore 10 classics for the Warner Bros. 100th anniversary, including 1932's One Way Passage, 1941's The Strawberry Blonde, 1959's Rio Bravo, and 1955's East of Eden, all of which screened at the film festival and aired on the network. Last year, TCM celebrated its expanded partnership with the Film Foundation with the premiere of a 4K restoration of the Elizabeth Taylor/James Dean/Rock Hudson epic Giant at the 2022 festival. (Going even further back, in 2007, TCM tracked down the rights to six "lost" RKO films, including William Powell comedy Double Harness and Ginger Rogers rom-com Rafter Romance, not seen in over 50 years).

But on June 20, all of that seemed to be in peril as news broke that the entire executive leadership team of TCM (most of whom boasted 20-plus years of experience with the network) were being laid off alongside other members of the staff. The latest round of layoffs, which network staff tell EW they were blindsided by, are part of Warner Bros. Discovery's continuing attempts to cut costs across the studio.

Some backtracking from the executives at WBD is alright (especially in terms of staff rehires and bringing back the TCMFF Director), but they cut away at something that wasn't broken to begin with!

[citizenscreen]

Eddie Muller introducing the Warner Bros. classic, WHITE HEAT, which “owes its existence to John Huston’s KEY LARGO.” #TCMFF

[bluestockingbaby]

I got to meet Eddie Muller! The lines were very long and it was packed so we didn’t talk much, but he was very nice and an amazing host! He really made this event special! I was also one of the newbies blessed by Eddie for not having seen Road House yet— which I saw for the first time (on film!) and I’m so glad I did.

[aunti-christ-ine]

[vivian-bell]

“Finally I received the dreaded news: “Sorry Eddie–but the print of Woman on the Run burned in the fire.”

“Okay, then–I have something to tell you,” I replied.  “When we showed it the first time, in 2003, I made a digi-beta copy before we shipped it back.  I couldn’t in good conscience return the film knowing it was the only print, not without making a copy for insurance.”

Although what I’d done was technically “piracy”–reproducing a film to which I had no rights–the studio’s vice president of assets, Bob O’Neil, a wonderful old-school gent, responded to this news with a simple email response: “Great stewardship.”

That digital version of Woman on the Run became the basis of a recent DVD release of the film in France, packaged within a hard-cover book I’d written about the film’s intriguing history.  Soon after, colleagues at the British Film Institute allowed me to be one of the beta-testers on the archive’s newly completed database.  First words I typed into the BFI’s system: Women on the Run.  And wouldn’t you know–up came listings for a dupe negative and a 35mm master sound track.  Restoring the film–as film–became the FNF’s immediate priority.  And when we discovered that the BFI’s sound material had irreparable damage, the digi-beta I’d made in 2003 proved vital to restoring those sections of the sound track.”

–Rescued from the Ashes by Eddie Muller, Noir City Magazine

[dagoth-the-dreaming-god]

[ladailymirror]

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: Darkness Has No Borders at Noir City Hollywood

Never Open That Door (1952), shown at Noir City Hollywood. Wonderful programming choices highlighted the 25th Anniversary of Noir City at Hollywood’s Netflix Egyptian Theatre displayed depravity, darkness, and deceit across the world, truly demonstrating that “darkness has no borders.”. Spot on pairings of United States noirs and international classics presented themes and stylistic flourishes…

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Five Miles to Midnight

For a while in the middle of Anatole Litvak’s FIVE MILES TO MIDNIGHT (1962, TCM, DailyMotion), I wondered why the film had never turned up on Eddie Muller’s “Noir Alley.” Sure, it has a weak opening. We’re thrown into the middle of the disastrous marriage between Anthony Perkins and Sophia Loren with no context and, like her friend Jean-Pierre Aumont, are left wondering how the two ever wound up with each other. And at first, Perkins doesn’t seem all that comfortable in the role. He’s posturing instead of acting. Then he’s seemingly killed in an air crash, and with the plane’s descent the picture takes off. It’s a relief to be freed from the performance he’s been giving, and Loren looks smashing in her widow’s weeds. When he turns up again, having miraculous escaped the crash with a plan to get rich defrauding the flight insurance company, his performance falls into place. You can see the boyish charm that must have attracted her in the first place, and then you see that charm coalesce into something more neurotic and almost menacing. It all reeks of corruption, and Loren plays her predicament quite well as the normal person pulled into her role as Perkins’ accomplice. Henri Alekan’s black-and-white cinematography, Alexander Trauner’s art direction and Guy DeRoche’s costumes, particularly Loren’s black vinyl trench coat, come together to fit one of Muller’s definitions of film noir as the place where style meets suffering. Then it all goes kerflooey in the last act. I can’t go into specifics about what doesn’t work without creating spoilers so let’s just say that by the end you’re wondering how an earth mother like Loren could get sucked into all this — both her husband’s plot and the Peter Viertel-Hugh Wheeler script, which includes a rather unfortunate mad scene. After the debacle of DESIRE UNDER THE ELMS (1958), their first film together, I kept expecting Loren to turn to Perkins and say “This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.”

[filmnoirfoundation]

#TCMFF Day 4 morning screenings. Eddie Muller will introduce DOUBLE INDEMNITY with Fred MacMurray's daughter Kath MacMurrary, TCL Chinese Theatres IMAX, 9:00. Also for the criminally minded, MURDER, SHE SAID, the first of the Miss Marple films starring Margaret Rutherford, TCL Multiplex, House 4, 9:15 Plus a repeat of THE BIG HEAT, Multiplex, House 6, 11:45.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY (1944): Barbara Stanwyck—in a platinum blonde wig—plays Phyllis Dietrichson—the consummate femme fatale who lures insurance salesman and all-around chump Walter Neff (Fred McMurray) into a plot involving murder and insurance fraud. His friend, and insurance adjuster, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) smells a rat. Nominated for seven Oscars: Best Actress in a Leading Role; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; Best Director; Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture; Best Picture; Best Sound, Recording; and Best Writing, Screenplay. Dir. Billy Wilder

MURDER SHE SAID (1961): When nobody believes she witnessed a murder, Miss Marple (Margaret Rutherford) investigates herself along with her friend Jim Stringer, played by Rutherford’s husband Stinger Davis. Based on Agatha Christie’s "4:50 from Paddington". Trivia: Joan Dixon has a small part in the film and would go on to become the definitive Miss Marple in the BBC series that aired from 1984-1992. Dir. George Pollock

THE BIG HEAT (1953): In this seminal noir, a police detective (Glenn Ford) whose wife was killed by the mob teams with a gangster's moll (Gloria Grahame) to bring down a powerful racketeer (Alexander Scourby). Lee Marvin steals the film as Grahame’s abusive boyfriend and eventual object of her revenge. Dir. Fritz Lang

[sirbogarde]

This has to be one of the funniest Eddie outros I've ever seen. Me and my fam were losing it watching this because he points out everything we had just pointed out. It's 10000% funnier if you've just seen the movie

[citizenscreen]

Dana Delany joined TCM host Eddie Muller to introduce THE BIG HEAT at #TCMFF

[sandboxworld]

William Holden out of the shadows in Noir City

William Holden out of the shadows in Noir City

I am a big fan of NOIR CITY Magazine. The magazine is dedicated to film noir. The latest issue focuses on matinee idol William Holden. You can buy your issue directly from Amazon. The latest issue of NOIR CITY is a beauty! However you look at it, the magazine is spectacular, featuring the electrifying combination of insightful writing and inspired graphic design we proudly consider our standard.…

[scenesandscreens]

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Director - E. Elias Merhige, Cinematography - Lou Bogue

"Our battle, our struggle, is to create art. Our weapon is the moving picture. Because we have the moving picture, our paintings will grow and recede; our poetry will be shadows that lengthen and conceal; our light will play across living faces that laugh and agonize; and our music will linger and finally overwhelm, because it will have a context as certain as the grave. We are scientists engaged in the creation of memory... but our memory will neither blur nor fade. "

[cankersaurus]

[ladailymirror]

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: New Books Examine Film Noir, the Mankiewicz Brothers and Women in the Movies

Mary Mallory / Hollywood Heights: New Books Examine Film Noir, the Mankiewicz Brothers and Women in the Movies

Over the last several months, a plethora of film books have been released, examining Golden Age Hollywood up close or at large, offering something for everyone from experienced cinephiles to new film fans. Some come from TCM hosts or others with close connections, providing context and education on classic Hollywood, its films and players. TCM Noir Alley host and Czar of Noir Eddie Muller’s…