Dark Past: Film Noir by German Emigrés

March 1, 2012 - April 15, 2012

As Hitler’s influence grew in 1930s Germany, artists and intellectuals fled the country; whether because they were Jewish or held contrary political views, they saw their lives or livelihoods threatened by the emerging fascist reign. The German film industry was not immune to this flight and the decade witnessed the exodus of a host of important filmmakers—directors, cinematographers, screenwriters, and others. Hollywood became a haven for these hasty émigrés—by the early forties tinsel town had a thriving contingent of German-speaking filmmakers, including Otto Preminger, Max Ophuls, Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Edgar G. Ulmer, and many others. Grateful for any assignment, these veteran directors took on low-budget B-movies, turning them into highly effective, emotionally resonant, darkly dramatized mysteries and crime stories, later to be known as noirs. It’s said that the greatest contribution of this group of directors was the shadow-laden mise-en-scène with its brooding urban cityscapes distilled from German Expressionism. But as you shall see from these eight noirs by eight directors, much more than rain-spattered streets and crepuscular lighting links them. Many of these bristling features, from Max Ophuls’s Caught to Curtis Bernhardt’s High Wall, from William Dieterle’s Dark City to Otto Preminger’s Where the Sidewalk Ends, share a belief that authority is necessarily corrupt, that institutions are to be mistrusted, that what is worst in us will come to light, and, finally, that no one can shake their dark past.

Steve Seid, Video Curator

Thursday, March 1, 2012
7:00 p.m. The Dark Past
Rudolph Maté (U.S., 1948). Held hostage in a lakeside cabin by pathological thug (William Holden), Dr. Collins (Lee J. Cobb) overwhelms his captor using a single weapon, a book entitled The Criminal Mind and Insanity, in this taut siege story by director Maté, the lensman behind The Passion of Joan of Arc. (75 mins)

Thursday, March 1, 2012
8:40 p.m. Shockproof
Douglas Sirk (U.S., 1949). Sirk stylishly directs a punchy Sam Fuller script about the relationship between a parole officer and an ex-con, lovers on the run from an unforgiving society. (79 mins)

Thursday, March 8, 2012
7:00 p.m. High Wall
Curtis Bernhardt (U.S., 1948) New Archival Print! Found unconscious behind the wheel of his wrecked car, his strangled wife beside him, Steve Kenet (Robert Taylor) quickly confesses to murdering his two-timing spouse. But did he? Find out in this neurotic noir. (98 mins)

Thursday, March 22, 2012
7:00 p.m. Where the Sidewalk Ends
Otto Preminger (U.S., 1950). Dana Andrews is a tough cop who accidentally kills a suspect, then tries to cover it up by framing someone else in this world-weary noir, written by the great Ben Hecht. (95 mins)

Saturday, March 24, 2012
8:35 p.m. Strange Illusion
Edgar G. Ulmer (U.S., 1945) Archival Print! Hamlet goes Poverty Row, with a heavy dose of quack Freudianism, in Ulmer's low-budget, deliciously neurotic noir. (83 mins)

Friday, April 13, 2012
7:00 p.m. Caught
Max Ophuls (U.S., 1949) Archival Preservation Print! Barbara Bel Geddes marries Robert Ryan for his money but discovers that the dream house is a prison. A darkly ironic Cinderella story, also starring James Mason. (88 mins)

Friday, April 13, 2012
8:50 p.m. Criss Cross
Robert Siodmak (U.S., 1949). Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo are caught in a criss crossing web of obsession and betrayal in Siodmak's ill-fated noir of double-dealings and a stylishly enacted armored car heist that takes all involved to the very brink. (87 mins)

Sunday, April 15, 2012
6:15 p.m. Dark City
William Dieterle (U.S., 1950). Charlton Heston made his big-screen debut as an alienated vet turned small-time gambler pursued by the cops, a lounge singer, a widowed suburbanite, and more. Dark City is noir from its beat-up bookie joints to its grimy hotel rooms, and boasts a murderers-row of character actors like Ed Begley, Jack Webb, and Harry Morgan. (97 mins)

Dark Past: Film Noir by German Emigrés is presented as a complement to a noir course taught by Professor Tony Kaes this spring at UC Berkeley. Special thanks to Steven Hill, the UCLA Film and Television Archive; Eddie Muller, The Film Noir Foundation; Rob Stone, The Library of Congress, Motion Picture Division; The Film Foundation; and the distributors that still support 35mm prints: Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, and Criterion Pictures.