(January 18, 2024)

A year ago, in advance of the release of Eddie Muller’s new book of Film Noir inspired cocktails, we published a sneak preview of two recipes. 

As Noir City 21 plays January 19-28 at the Grand Lake Theatre in Oakland, California —and is coming to cities across the country, EatDrinkFilms is pleased to offer a few more goodies to quench your thirst for a great movie and an inspired drink.

The lineup is an exciting collection of double features pairing classic American and British Noir with rarely seen international works for audiences to discover from Argentina, Egypt, France, South Korea, Italy, Mexico, and Japan, fulfilling this year’s theme, “Darkness has no borders.” 

The complete schedule with notes, photos, and posters can be enjoyed here.

At the theater you will get a terrific complimentary full color program book. 

The mezzanine is a great to see friends and meet special guests, buy books from Walden Pond, Noir City publications and merch plus consider vintage posters for sale.

There will be adult drinks on the weekends in the lobby with special tie-ins for certain shows like Irish whiskey for Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out starring James Mason and French wines with Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows starring Jeanne Moreau and a score by Miles Davis.

Two delicious cocktails found in the Noir Bar will be created for The Asphalt Jungle (Friday, January 26)  and Victims of Sin (Saturday, January 20).

THE ASPHALT JUNGLE   |   The Left Hand

This selection is inspired by one of the best throwaway lines in all of film noir. When the bedridden wife of corrupt attorney Alonzo D. Emmerich (Louis Calhern) complains about the larcenous company he keeps, the barrister replies, “Oh, there’s nothing so different about them. After all, crime is just a left-handed form of human endeavor.” The impeccably smooth shyster is hiding the fact he’s stone-cold broke and is planning to swindle the thieves for whom he’s fencing a fortune in stolen jewels. It’s not going to turn out well for “Uncle Lon,” as he’s called by the nubile young mistress (Marilyn Monroe) he keeps on the side.

Director John Huston’s 1950 masterpiece combined noir with neo-realism to depict the workaday lives of professional criminals, those hunting the big score and those merely keeping their heads above water. Perhaps the most literate of Hollywood directors, Huston had a fondness for the stories of Asphalt Jungle author W. R. Burnett, having also adapted the script for Burnett’s other heist classic, High Sierra (1940). The “left hand” line comes straight from the novel, as does hooligan Dix Handley (Sterling Hayden) barking at his gal Doll (Jean Hagen), “Why don’t you quit cryin’ and get me some bourbon!” This cocktail is more sophisticated than Dix required, but I have no doubt he could polish off two or three.

The Left Hand was created in 2006 by New York mixologist Sam Ross as a twist on the classic Negroni. It works with pretty much any bourbon, but to properly honor Dix get a bottle from Kentucky, his home state. Use a richer sweet vermouth, like Carpano Antica or Cocchi di Torino. The chocolate bitters are essential; I recommend Fee Brothers.

THE LEFT HAND

Coupe glass, chilled   |   Mixing glass, strained

1 ½  oz  Bourbon

¾  oz  Sweet vermouth

¾  oz  Campari

Chocolate bitters (3-4 dashes)

Brandied maraschino cherry

NOTE: Like with a Negroni, it’s a personal call to have this one up or over. If you want to serve it on the rocks, I recommend a single large ice cube in a rocks glass. Make it in the mixing glass and strain. You can take or leave the cherry, depending on how much you’re channeling Dix Handley. He’d leave it for Doll.

VICTIMS OF SIN     |     Paloma

A film that virtually leaps of the screen. Rarely screened in the United States and long due for rediscovery, Victims of Sin is famed Mexican director Emilio Fernández’s unique blend of film noir, melodrama, and musical. Acting- dancing sensation Ninón Sevilla plays Violeta, a cabaret performer who rescues a baby from a garbage bin, adopting the abandoned child of Rosa (Margarita Ceballos) and the aggressively zoot-suited gangster Rodolfo (Rodolfo Acosta), Violeta’s murderous pimp. Motherhood forces Violeta to give up her career, but the kindhearted club owner Santiago (Tito Junco) saves her from a life of poverty and prostitution—until Rodolfo, freed from prison, seeks to reclaim his son.

Best known for the award-winning María Candelaria (1944) and The Pearl (1947), Fernández infuses Victims with impassioned songs and performances by Sevilla , an icon of Mexican cinema and a purveyor of African, Caribbean, and Cuban dance styles, accompanied by legendary mambo king Pérez Prado, Rita Montaner, and Pedro Vargas. Stunning 4K Restoration.

“Brilliant! Ninón Sevilla, whose emotional dial is permanently cranked to 11, blows everyone else off the screen.” —Farran Smith Nehme, The Village Voice

PALOMA (Traditional)

Tumbler, half full of ice   |   Build in glass

3   oz   tequila

.5  oz   lime juice

4   oz   grapefruit soda (see note)

            Lime wheel garnish

NOTE   |   You’ll find artisan Paloma variations calling for all sorts of fancification, such as substituting fresh squeezed grapefruit juice and mineral water, or demanding the soda be Jarritos, a Mexican import. I’ve tried all the mixer variations and for my money, Squirt is the way to go. Created in Phoenix in 1938, the soda uses only one-percent natural grapefruit juice, but it’s less sugary than other sodas and is caffeine-free. Something about the way it mixes with the tequila and lime is inimitable. As a hot weather cooler, nothing beats a Paloma. Look at it this way: drinking three margaritas will make you sick. Three Palomas is bliss.

In Noir Bar the Paloma was matched up with Out of the Past. Though not playing in this year’s festival, and here are the notes you will find in the book so you can seek this classic.

There are a lot of cocktails that could commemorate Out of the Past (1947), arguably the definitive film noir. The story rambles far and wide, from Bridgeport to New York to Mexico to San Francisco to Lake Tahoe, with characters drinking every step of the way. But it’s Mexico that casts its spell over the rest of the film, for that’s where doomed private eye Jeff Markham (Robert Mitchum) first falls for femme fatale Kathie Moffett (Jane Greer), as she glides from punishing sunlight into the cool dimness of the La Mar Azul cantina. The louche eroticism of Jeff and Kathie’s Mexican idyll is what you want a cocktail commemorating this movie to evoke. For that tall order I suggest the Paloma.

Purists will howl that the Paloma didn’t appear on a bar menu until the early 1950s, several years after Mitchum and Greer made music together on a Mexican beach. I don’t care. I like to imagine that their Mexican guide, José Rodriguez, took the lovers to his family home one night where his wife, Carmelita, made them tamales and this humble concoction of tequila, lime, and grapefruit soda. Nothing ever tasted so good, especially since the lovers had a warm cabana waiting for them on a rainswept night. I will gladly hoist a few of these in tribute to Jane Greer, whom I had the pleasure of knowing, briefly but well, when I profiled her for my book Dark City Dames. One of the brightest, down-to-earth, effervescent women I’ve known. Same words could be applied to this refreshing libation.

Mitchum, of course, would wave off grapefruit soda in his tequila. Granted. So this one’s for Jane.

(Recipes excerpted from EDDIE MULLER’S NOIR BAR: Cocktails Inspired by the World of Film Noir by Eddie Muller. Copyright © 2023. Available from Running Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Cocktail photos by Steve Legato. )

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