A Date with Double Exposures: Don Malcolm’s “Gallic Evangelism”
Reaches A Fever Pitch As He Aims for 101 French Noirs in 5 Years…
AS TOLD TO OWEN FIELD
An increasing fraction of the “noiristas” who travel from the Castro Theatre (lone dowager of San Francisco’s once-abundant “movie palace” tradition) to the upstart Roxie are grasping the odd, counterintuitive idea that their favorite “genre” (don’t let’s start THAT argument here!) might have a different history than the one commonly purveyed.
Don Malcolm and Phoebe Green explain the particulars of their new French revival series to Owen Field.
The first of four films taking lovers of THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT into non-noir regions of classic French cinema will play in the intimate confines of the Little Roxie Theatre in San Francisco on April 4 at 6:30 pm, with a repeat screening on Saturday April 6 at 4:30. Consider it a “Sneak Preview” for a potentially landmark collection of cinematic discoveries rivaling the ongoing French noir juggernaut that enters Year 5 with two series later in 2019. Continue reading
A two-part exoneration by Anastasia Lin
including conversation snippets with Don Malcolm
Is there such a “thing” as “too much of a good thing?” Devotees (and I use that term, er, charitably) of internet porn might disagree, but even cinephiles (who also like to watch…) may feel that the inestimable Don Malcolm, he of the flashlight and the Lost Continent, just might have had his pith helmet too tightly affixed with his latest Roxie extravaganza: a 20-film collection of forgotten French film noir that moth-flames the 1950s with a heightened level of relentlessness. Continue reading
by Anastasia Lin
(The maestro of the “lost continent” continues to astonish those of us “out there in the dark” with the hidden treasures of French film noir. His “keeper” Anastasia Lin captures his latest discovery—the “Goth Girl” of 1940s French cinema getting her centennial close-up at a “one night stand” on Thursday, July 26 at the Roxie in San Francisco.
Last week Pam Grady wrote about women flouting social norms in Pre-Code Hollywood. Continue reading
by Pam Grady
“Every train carries its cargo of sin,” says the Rev. Mr. Carmichael (Lawrence Grant) as the journey gets underway in Shanghai Express (1932), the fourth of seven collaborations between star Marlene Dietrich and director Josef von Sternberg. The cargo in this case is two ladies whose reputation precedes them — Chinese courtesan Hui Fei (Anna May Wong) and the notorious white “coaster” — a local euphemism for prostitute — known as Shanghai Lily (Marlene Dietrich). They are but two of the fallen women to be found in Elliot Lavine and I WAKE UP DREAMING’s latest festival of classics, Hollywood Before the Code, screening at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre for six consecutive Wednesdays beginning Feb. 24. Continue reading
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