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Albuquerque film noir fest finds dark surprises
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If you go
What: Fourth annual festival of film noir.
Where: Guild Cinema, 3405 Central Ave. N.E.
When: June 17 through July 5.
How: Twenty films will be screened across 19 days; most will be double features that run two days each.
How much? $7 per day; $5 if you hit the first show of the day.
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Extra rare
Only the most obsessive film fan will be familiar with all 20 titles in the Guild Cinema's film noir festival.
Here, co-owner Peter Conheim says, are the rarest of the rare this year:
"Breakdown"
"Caught"
"Cause for Alarm"
"Hoodlum"
"Plunder Road"
"Reckless"
"Under Age"
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Each year, as the days grow long, the Guild Cinema brings out its dark side.
Peter Conheim, co-owner of the theater in Nob Hill, is confident most viewers, even film buffs, will not have seen many of the movies on this year's slate. Almost all are obscure B movies. Nine of the 20 titles are from private collections, he said.
One example is "Breakdown," a 1952 morality tale with a mostly no-name cast.
"`Breakdown' is so rare that when I tried to research it, all I could find were several write-ups from people who hadn't seen it, you could tell," Conheim said. "It is a flawed but really good melodrama."
The plot: A boxer on parole falls in love with the niece of the hanging judge who set him up. Conheim says it's reminiscent of "Requiem for a Heavyweight" (which was a centerpiece of last year's festival) and could have influenced Martin Scorsese and his brutal "Raging Bull."
"It's known for the super-relentless climactic bout - or it should be known, because no one's seen the movie," he said.
"Screaming Mimi," starring a naughty Anita Ekberg and the exotic Gypsy Rose Lee, will get the late-night treatment June 29 and 30. It is Conheim's own print (and it's his poster in the Guild's lobby). This one even confounds the curator.
"Is it noir? Is it horror? Is it a slasher movie?" Conheim asks. "Is it a campy stripper movie? Who knows? It's really in outer space. It's perverse."
Other movies like "Caught" and "Hoodlum" are even racier, especially for their time, with irredeemable characters and taboo topics - the very definition of noir.
"Some of them really step out of the ring and take on the censors," Conheim said.
He shows a hint of obsession in putting together the annual slate.
"As soon as the one ended last year, I started making mental notes on what to show this year," he said.
As June approaches, he puts in "an intensive two, three weeks screening or researching things that are not in the front of my mind."
He also likes to sort them into themes. This year's pairings include dysfunctional families, prison stories, government intrigue and a Max Ophuls two-fer.
"I like a good synergistically correct double feature," Conheim said.
For the first time, a foreign film - and a more modern movie - "Le Cercle Rouge" (1970) - will be screened. The year before that release, its director, Jean-Pierre Melville, made "Army of Shadows," which finally was released in the United States late last year and which will run at the Guild a week after the noir run.
Other highlights:
"House of Strangers" from Joseph Mankiewicz. "Everyone knows `All About Eve,' but most people don't know his noirs," Conheim said. "They are great, really super-sharp movies."
That film and "The Brothers Rico" star Richard Conte. "He's a great brooding noir actor," Conheim said. "He's a terrific, understated actor, because he's a real, tortured slow burn."
Conheim said he and Guild co-owner Keif Henley take a chance each year by turning back the clock and turning over the marquee every other day. Attendance sagged a bit the third year, he said, but he's hoping film fanatics develop a black-and-white habit for the next few weeks.
"Keif and I have stopped worrying about the cost," Conheim said. "My strategy is, if you immerse people in it, they'll come every two days."
