Lady in the Dark - MOMA Exhibition

Crime films were a staple at Columbia Pictures during the studio’s first decades as a budget-conscious, high-volume producer of mass entertainment. This exhibition traces the evolution of the genre at Columbia, from the atmospheric whodunits that dominated the early 1930s (By Whose Hand?, The Ninth Guest) through the moody, despairing films noirs of the 1940s and 1950s.

The series includes both celebrated, A-level productions like Gilda (1946) and The Lady from Shanghai (1948)—both centered on Columbia’s biggest star, Rita Hayworth—and outstanding examples of the B-pictures that were the studio’s real specialty, among them rediscoveries like Blind Spot (1947) and Chinatown at Midnight (1950). A selection of episodes from the haunting Whistler series, each starring Richard Dix as a different figure marked by fate, offers a taste of the many B franchises that kept the studio’s tiny lot humming. Source: www.moma.org

I Love Trouble, 1947. USA. Directed by S. Sylvan Simon. Screenplay by Roy Huggins. With Franchot Tone, Janet Blair, Janis Carter. This is a newly restored print of this seldom-seen gem, an early example of genre self-consciousness written by the prolific Roy Huggins.

Franchot Tone stars as the hapless private detective Stuart Bailey (a character revived by Huggins for his 77 Sunset Strip television series), who spends much of the movie being knocked out, literally or figuratively, by a stunning series of late 1940s bombshells: Janet Blair, Janis Carter and Adele Jergens. Introduced by Eddie Muller, The Film Noir Foundation Source: www.moma.org