This year's edition of the annual festival thematically curated as Noir City: Face the Music! finds Eddie Muller and the Film Noir Foundation returning to Seattle, at the gloriously high definition venue of the Seattle Cinerama. The theme of this year's weeklong Noir City program of crime and mystery films is set to showcase... musicians! From late color noir from Bertrand Tavernier and Robert Altman, to all-time 1940s classics from Charles Vidor, and Howard Hawks, to moodier 1950s fares from Otto Preminger and Michael Curtiz. The movies featuring real-life musical legends like Elvis Presley, Doris Day, Louis Armstrong, Keely Smith, Dexter Gordon, Ella Fitzgerald, Hoagy Carmichael, Sammy Davis, Jr., Peggy Lee, Oscar Levant, Dave Brubeck, and Charles Mingus. Performing alongside film noir favorites including Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Kirk Douglas, Ann Sheridan, and Robert Mitchum.
This marks the fourth installment since the notable Noir City: Dark City in 2022, inspired by Muller's bestselling book "Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir". At the time of the newly expanded publishing of the book, Muller spoke with NPR's Terry Gross, plumbing the genre's "Celebration of Cinema's Double Crosses and Doomed Characters" that populate "The Lost World of Film Noir". Outside of the annual festival, Muller took up permanent residence on TCM with the launch of his Saturday night Noir Alley showcase. Now in its tenth year, his show has become a central component of how "Turner Classic Movies Is Changing. And Trying to Stay the Same", yet the venerable platform has been under fire from its larger corporate umbrella. In 2023, Warner Brothers Discovery gutted the leadership team of Turner Classic Movies, following which, a group of famed directors then came together to "Fight to Save Turner Classic Movies". This resulted in a surprising reversal, in which, "TCM to Include Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson Taking Active Role". Muller's weekly selections and introductions on Noir Alley act as more than just a showcase for the Film Noir Foundation and their partners at The UCLA Film & Television Archive, but instead a global overview of the social concerns, look, sound, aesthetic, and feel that define the Dark Passages of film noir.
