Film historians Eddie Muller and Alan Rode, and their partners in crime at Muller's Film Noir Foundation, deserve enormous praise and thanks for their efforts in keeping classic film noir alive and well. Their annual festival of film noir at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre just finished its eleventh edition, and this is but one of several fests they program throughout the year. (Other locations include San Francisco, Seattle and Palm Springs.) In addition to presenting 35mm prints of known and loved classics, they also always unearth titles that haven't been seen in years -- some good, some not so good, but all interesting and worthwhile. Chicago Deadline (1949) is one such resurrection. This Paramount production was written by Warren Duff (Angels With Dirty Faces [1938], The Fallen Sparrow [1943]) and directed by Lewis Allen (The Uninvited [1944], Suddenly [1954]). With a cast of Alan Ladd, Donna Reed and June Havoc, it is no "B" film but has definitely fallen through the cracks over the decades.

Superficially, Chicago Deadline resembles Laura (1944) in its story of newspaper reporter Ed Adams (Ladd) who attempts to piece together the backstory of newly dead Rosita Jean D'ur (Reed), who appears in flashbacks as various other characters share their recollections of her. Getting these recollections isn't easy, however, as Ed finds everyone startled to hear of Rosita's death yet reluctant to talk about her in any way. Finally Rosita's brother Tommy (Arthur Kennedy) opens up to Ed, and a complicated web of a storyline emerges.

The movie is talky and somewhat disappointing, never really fulfilling its potential, but its jumble of locations, night photography, and sordid characters do manage to build a reasonable noir tone. If Ladd's character were allowed to become truly obsessed with Reed as he learns more about her, a la Laura, Chicago Deadline might have been something special.

Donna Reed certainly makes for an unlikely film noir character of any sort. She's fine here though seriously underused. She is in amazingly little of this film and as a result leaves only a modest impression. Shepperd Strudwick as a gangster and Barry Kroeger as a hit man register more strongly. Kroeger is a noir fan favorite thanks to his weaselly performances in films like this one and Cry of the City (1948), Act of Violence (1948) and The Dark Past (1948).

Two favorite moments: A bunch of kids finding a disheveled and beaten-up Ladd lying in the street and slowly getting to his feet. They crowd around and one kid asks, "Who worked YOU over, mister?" And second, a shootout in a parking garage, in which Ladd shows what to do if you're ever down to your last bullet: Just fire a bunch of empty chambers so the bad guy hears the clicking sound, thinks you're out of ammo, and jumps out in the open to finish you off. Then finish HIM off with your last round. Neat.

For the record, while Ladd and Reed never share the screen in Chicago Deadline, they did co-star one year earlier in director John Farrow's Beyond Glory (1948).

The Prowler and Chance Meeting (aka Blind Date )

Joseph Losey's The Prowler was previously shown at this festival in 2000, in the only 35mm print known to exist. It was in good shape at the time, but subsequent screenings led to its deterioration, and eventually the print was unplayable. Long a favorite of noir historian, writer and festival founder Eddie Muller, film elements of The Prowler were discovered last year at UCLA; thanks to funding from Muller's Film Noir Foundation and author James Ellroy, the movie was preserved and a beautiful new release print was struck.

The Prowler blew me away back in 2000, and I've never forgotten it just on the basis of that single screening. As a result, it was the one picture this year I was most looking forward to. It looked great and played great for a large crowd, and it was just as satisfying as it was nine years ago.

It's the story of an L.A. policeman (Van Heflin) who with his partner one night answers a call made by a housewife (Evelyn Keyes) who has seen a prowler on her property. The cops check everything out; no one is around. Heflin, meanwhile, is immediately attracted to Keyes and the nice house she lives in and the comfortable life she seems to lead. He checks on her again hours later, and his creepiness becomes more and more apparent. It's also apparent that the married Keyes is bored with her life, doesn't love her husband, and is wildly attracted to the crude, unsophisticated Heflin, though she is terrified to act on her desire. Heflin seduces her and they start an affair, spending nights in the house while Keyes' husband hosts a late-night radio show. (The husband signs off each show with the ominous-sounding message to his wife: "I'll be seeing you, Susan.")

Heflin is a lonely, angry man embittered by his lot in life. Seeing Keyes as an opportunity to fulfill the American Dream, or at least his twisted view of what that entails, he hatches a scheme that will eliminate the husband and install him in his place, giving him an instant wife, money and chance to buy a Vegas motel he's had his eye on for years. The bizarreness of that desire to run a motel is only a part of what turns into a crazy plot development that eventually finds Heflin planning to deliver Keyes' baby in the desert ghost town of Calico.

The Prowler transitions from a leafy, residential urban setting to a highway motel and finally to the ghost town: it moves, in other words, to a gradually more barren and surreal environment, well reflecting the increasing delusions of Heflin's mind. The imagery is so vivid that perhaps it's why the images that lingered in my mind since the 2000 screening were of those three separate locations: Heflin sneaking around the house in his policeman's uniform and shining his car's spotlight on the house; Keyes lying in a motel bedroom as cars and trucks drone relentlessly by; and the pair driving into the ghost town.

And perhaps the increasingly outlandish plot is just what's needed to best express the delusions of Heflin and the heightened emotions of Keyes, who is so good here at depicting the inner tension between what she really wants and the fear she has to express it and act on it. Keyes was always an underrated actress and this is probably her finest performance.

Joseph Losey was a gifted director of actors and staging, if basically invisible as a camera stylist. His touch is evident in the complicated social interplay between his characters and in their blocking. A scene in the motel, for instance, in which Keyes informs Heflin that she's pregnant, is choreographed to masterful effect. The characters' blocking guides their (and our) emotional response to what's unfolding -- in a way that does not feel theatrical.

The Prowler was produced by John Huston's Horizon Pictures, and in fact Huston was originally to have directed it. The screenplay was by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo but credited to Hugo Butler, who would soon be blacklisted himself. And of course Losey was also soon blacklisted and moved to England to resume his career.

One of Losey's British films was shown on a double bill with The Prowler. Chance Meeting (1959), also known as Blind Date, is a curiosity, hard to find but worth a look if one ever gets the opportunity. (It was shown here in a somewhat battered 16mm print.) Hardy Kruger plays Jan, a struggling, young Dutch painter who arrives at the London flat of his benefactor/model/girlfriend, wealthy Jacqueline (Micheline Presle). The door is open but no one's home so he wanders around a bit before splaying out on the couch as he waits for her to return. Before he knows it, the place is filled with cops and detectives; someone reported a disturbance in the flat minutes earlier. A search reveals Jacqueline to be dead in another room, her body lying under some clothes and blankets, and Jan is naturally the prime suspect. He protests his innocence to police inspector Morgan (Stanley Baker), and as he relates how he knew Jacqueline, a series of flashbacks reveal their relationship. Slowly, Inspector Morgan comes to believe young Jan even as he is being told by his superior that Jacqueline was also involved with a prominent member of the House of Lords, whose name must be kept out of the investigation.

Chance Meeting is a reasonably compelling film, really a chamber piece between Baker and Kruger despite all the flashbacks. There is certainly a noir feeling created by an innocent man being suspected of a murder he did not commit, but ultimately Chance Meeting becomes a mystery. We know Kruger is innocent, and soon enough the inspector knows it, too. The question remains -- who is the guilty party? A surprising plot twist out of Laura has Jacqueline turn up alive -- or so we think. But even then things are not immediately clear.

Like The Prowler, Chance Meeting overcomes what could have been an easy turn into theatricality. Much of the film takes place in Jacqueline's apartment, and most of it is comprised of people standing around talking. But Losey's skill at placing his camera and staging his actors keeps the movie looking and feeling cinematic and alive, often with subtle but effective use of close-ups. Moreover, both films show Losey's fascination with social relationships that cut across economic classes and hierarchies. In The Prowler, Van Heflin and Evelyn Keyes are from opposite sides of the tracks; in Chance Meeting, Hardy Kruger and Micheline Presle are. In both films, that difference becomes a key component and theme to the drama. Losey's later, more famous pictures delve into such themes even more, but these early works show an important artist already grappling with his favorite material, and furthermore developing techniques to build entire movies out of character studies, which at their core is what these two films really are.

Chicago Syndicate

The final picture of the festival was the 1955 Columbia organized-crime expose Chicago Syndicate, starring noir stalwart Dennis O'Keefe and, in a wonderful role for him, Paul Stewart. So memorable as well-mannered but deadly mobsters in movies like Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Stewart gets a rare leading part here in a role as big as O'Keefe's, and he gets to deliver fun lines like "Everything is better with age -- except women." He and O'Keefe play off each other extremely well, raising the level of the movie as a whole.

O'Keefe is sent by the police to go undercover and infiltrate Stewart's mob organization. The idea is for O'Keefe to become Stewart's trusted accountant and get his hands on the ledgers that will incriminate Stewart. To reach that point, however, O'Keefe must withstand much scrutiny to slowly start gaining Stewart's trust. With the help of the daughter (Allison Hayes) of Stewart's previous, murdered accountant, O'Keefe makes slow but steady progress.

Chicago Syndicate is one of several movies about organized crime to be made in the wake of the Kefauver Senate Hearings of 1950. The film it most brings to mind, however, is Anthony Mann's T-Men (1948), which also starred Dennis O'Keefe in a story of crime ring infiltration. Chicago Syndicate even uses voiceover narration like that of T-Men and other semidocumentary crime films of the 1940s, but the missing ingredient here is a director with even an inkling of the talent of Anthony Mann. Instead, this film was directed by Fred Sears -- a shooter, not a stylist. The storyline of Chicago Syndicate offers plenty of opportunity for an imaginative director to ratchet up the tension and the dread, but Sears shoots it blandly, and as a result the film lacks a truly satisfying dramatic payoff. O'Keefe maintains his secret identity until almost the final sequence, after which the picture launches into a forgettable chase and shootout. Even the setting of the chase -- underground tunnels -- is largely wasted stylistically.

Still, O'Keefe and Stewart make the picture better than it really deserves to be, and Chicago Syndicate is worth watching for them. Allison Hayes, best known for playing the title role in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), gives a very good performance here as well, getting more involved in Stewart's machinations than her character has any right to. In fact, that brings up yet another missed opportunity: we are never made to feel worried and anxious that Hayes is in danger after Stewart takes a strong liking to her, as we really should. Also on hand are singer Abbe Lane and Latin bandleader Xavier Cugat in significant supporting roles. (The two were married at the time.)

This excellent festival remains an annual highlight of L.A. moviegoing, and attendance seemed to be excellent this year. The next festival associated with the Film Noir Foundation will be held in Palm Springs the last weekend of May 2009. For 2010's Hollywood edition, it is hoped that two films noirs now undergoing restoration by UCLA (thanks to Noir Foundation funding) will be available in new prints: Robert Parrish's Cry Danger (1951) and Anthony Mann's early B programmer Strangers in the Night (1944).

by Jeremy Arnold