THE MAN I LOVE / NORA PRENTISS

ABOUT THE EVENT:

6:00pm | Doors open & Live musical performance by the Nick Rossi Trio

7:00pm | Live musical performance by singer Elizabeth Bougerol

7:05pm | Introduction by Eddie Muller and Elizabeth Bougerol

7:15pm | THE MAN I LOVE

8:51pm | Intermission

9:01pm | Introduction by Alan K. Rode

9:11pm | NORA PRENTISS

Start times are approximate.

ABOUT THE FILMS:

THE MAN I LOVE, 1947, Dir. Raoul Walsh, 96 Mins, Park Circus, USA

Originally released January 11, 1947

As flinty chanteuse Petey Brown, Ida Lupino is at the apex of her big-screen glamour, offering a radiantly romantic vision of the post-WWII American woman—able to settle everyone’s hash but her own. A coast-to-coast road trip through a world of atmospheric nightclubs, tenements, and backlot streets, this majestic melodrama is part noir, part soap opera, and pure Hollywood magic. Reportedly, the film’s mix of music, romance, and noir inspired Martin Scorsese to make NEW YORK, NEW YORK. This was Lupino’s third film with director Walsh, and, despite the high heels and form-fitting lamé gowns, Ida is every bit as tough as she was in THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT and HIGH SIERRA, her first two films with Walsh. Featuring an array of classic songs, including “Why Was I Born?” and the Gershwin melody “The Man I Love,” Lupino’s singing voice for the film was dubbed by American contralto Peg La Centra, wife of actor Paul Stewart, a NOIR CITY favorite.

FORMAT: 35mm

NORA PRENTISS, 1947, Dir. Vincent Sherman, 111 Mins, Warner Bros., USA

Originally released February 21, 1947

San Francisco physician Richard Talbot (Kent Smith) falls hard for nightclub singer Nora Prentiss (Ann Sheridan), but she cuts off their budding romance when she learns the smitten sawbones is married. Not to be deterred, the doc devises an outlandishly noirish scheme to reunite with Nora under a new identity. Need we say that tragic consequences ensue? This pitch-black melodrama was tailored by Warner Bros. for oft-suspended star Sheridan, the studio’s “Oomph Girl,” who had turned down the lead role in 1945’s MILDRED PIERCE allowing Joan Crawford to snag an Oscar and a career comeback. Sold as a romantic “woman’s picture,” the film is really focused on the doctor’s terminal case of amour fou, which spirals into one of the darkest and most daring plot twists in the genre. Director Vincent Sherman elicits career-best performances from both Smith and Sheridan, while the quintessentially noir tone is supplied by legendary DP James Wong Howe. A neglected classic!

FORMAT: DCP