Jake Gyllenhaal attends the 28th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards

Scan of Jake Gyllenhaqal in Die Zeit Magazine (Germany), May 2013


Jake Gyllenhaal attending the 28th Annual Lucille Lortel Awards on May 5, 2013 in New York City

NOIR CITY - SPRING 2013 (magazine excerpts)

 Claire Trevor and Dick Powell in a promotional portrait for Edward Dmytryk's film "Murder, My Sweet" (1944) based on Raymond Chandler's novel "Farewell, My Lovely" (1940)

Raymond Chandler would be the prime beneficiary of the noir renaissance of the 1970s, as two previously filmed Marlowe novels returned to the big screen. Chinatown’s success permitted director Dick Richards to mount a handsome period production of Farewell, My Lovely (1975) that even got to use Chandler’s original title. (The 1944 adaptation was called Murder, My Sweet so that audiences would not expect a musical, given that the star was song-and-dance man Dick Powell beginning his transition into harder-edged roles).


Richards’ Marlowe was Robert Mitchum, who had already delivered a piercing, valedictory performance as the low-level Boston hood working both sides of the law in 1973’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle. Once again, Marlowe is asked by newly-sprung pug Moose Malloy (ex-boxer Jack O’Halloran, taking the role played by Mike Mazurki in the first film) to find his “cute as lace pants” girlfriend Velma. Aside from changing “psychic consultant” Jules Amthor into a madam, screenwriter David Zelag Goodman largely sticks to Chandler’s novel. This fidelity isn’t a bonus as it saddles the film with Chandler’s plot, as easy to track as mercury on a tabletop. The production design smartly conveys the 1940s setting while the script overemphasizes it, with Marlowe offering commentary on Joe DiMaggio’s ongoing hitting streak and a newsie asking him at one point, “Whaddaya think of this guy Hitler?” Farewell offers its share of incidental pleasures.


Charlotte Rampling was born to play an icy femme fatale, and novelist Jim Thompson amusingly cameos as her power broker husband. In the film’s best scene, Mitchum duets with Sylvia Miles’ dipsomaniacal faded actress Jessie Florian and she bursts into tears over her lost youth. (Miles received an Oscar nomination largely for this scene alone). As good-looking and sincere as Farewell is, it leaves no lasting impression.


Robert Mitchum on the set of the movie 'Farewell, My Lovely', 1974.

It is infinitely better than Mitchum’s second turn as Marlowe. 1978’s The Big Sleep is set in then present-day England. The locale is addressed with a throwaway line about Marlowe coming to the U.K. during World War II and never going back. The time period seems to have been purely a financial decision, meant to save money on wardrobe and cars. In The Long Goodbye, Robert Altman restlessly probes the Marlowe-as-man-out-of-time conceit. Here, writer/director Michael Winner doubles down on the issue by moving the detective across the pond and never addresses the complications.


Mitchum was several decades too old for the role the first go-round. He played tired in Farewell. In Sleep he actually is tired. Understandably so, given how much of the film’s running time consists of shots of the actor striding across empty rooms. Marlowe is hired by fellow ex-pat General Sternwood to bail his hellion daughters out of trouble. The Sternwood clan is played by James Stewart, Candy Clark and Sarah Miles.


In 1950, Fleischer was continuing his upward trajectory with his fourth RKO noir, 'Armored Car Robbery.'


The film stars Charles McGraw, a man whom William Friedkin calls “the quintessential B picture film noir actor.” Friedkin sums up McGraw’s on-screen persona when he describes him as “the most hard boiled of the tough guys.” McGraw, who was a contract player for RKO and appeared in many “B” noirs during the late 1940s and early 1950s, had a face cut from granite, the leftover pieces of which were dumped down his throat and left to chafe against his vocal cords.


He was the perfect fit for the type of character he played in Armored Car Robbery: a hard-nosed cop out for blood after a gang of thugs botches—you guessed it—an armored car robbery, offing his partner in the process. The film boasts great performances, excellent nighttime cinematography, a stripped-down, fastmoving plot, and a fantastic final scene that preceded a similar ending in Stanley Kubrick’s noir classic The Killing (1956). But it wasn’t Armored Car Robbery that was destined to put Fleischer on the map. He reteamed with McGraw in 1950, and once he completed directing The Narrow Margin in just thirteen days, he knew he had something special.


The Narrow Margin (1952) publicity still of Peter Virgo, Jacqueline White, & Charles McGraw


As he put it, “everyone who saw it at the studio was convinced it was my breakthrough film.” And it would be. But not in 1950, and not in 1951. As Fleischer put it, in 1950, the film “came to the attention of Howard Hughes, who promptly put it in his projection booth, where it sat for more than a year.” His improbable run of autonomy had finally come to an end. He’d run up against the one-man wrecking crew who was unintentionally, but systematically, destroying RKO.

Check out lots of riveting articles you can find in the NOIR CITY magazine - Contribute to Film Noir Foundation ordering the Spring issue of NOIR CITY online.

'Key Largo' & noir classics at Bogart Film Festival, Contemporary Film Noir: The Canyons

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in "Key Largo" (1948) directed by John Huston

"The Humphrey Bogart Estate and the Key Largo Chamber of Commerce have created an annual Humphrey Bogart Film Festival in Key Largo, Florida. The inaugural edition will be held today, May 2 through May 5, 2013. The festival will be hosted by Stephen Humphrey Bogart, the son of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and will feature preeminent film historian and critic Leonard Maltin as a special guest. The festival opens with a cocktail reception and an outdoor screening of the Bogie-Bacall classic Key Largo.


The Humphrey Bogart Film Festival features a formal Bogart Ball, a display of Bogart memorabilia, and rides on the original, fully-restored African Queen. The theme of the inaugural festival is film noir, and Leonard Maltin will give a presentation at the Bogart Ball about Humphrey Bogart's contribution to the genre. The Bogart Ball is a formal event, and features a cocktail reception, dinner, and dancing. The Bogie memorabilia include personal letters, signed contracts, movie posters, trophies and awards, clothing, and other unique artifacts.


The festival will screen Bogart movies and other iconic films from the film noir genre. Tracing Bogart's career arc and the history of noir's golden age, the following Bogie classics will be screened: The Petrified Forest, High Sierra, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Dark Passage, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Key Largo, and In a Lonely Place. Because the actual African Queen boat is in Key Largo, Bogie's Oscar-winning turn as Charlie Allnut in The African Queen will also be shown.


Lastly, since it's hard to imagine a Humphrey Bogart festival without Rick Blaine, Casablanca will be screened. In between the Bogie classics, in order to provide a fuller picture of the history of film noir, classics such as Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard will be screened. More recent noirs, such as Memento, Brick, and Drive will complete the journey through the world of film noir. Source: movies.broadwayworld.com



THE CANYONS is a contemporary L.A. noir from director Paul Schrader, writer Bret Easton Ellis, and producer Braxton Pope about the dangers of sexual obsession and ambition, both personally and professionally, among a group of young people in their 20's and how one chance meeting connected to the past unravels all of their lives, resulting in deceit, paranoia, cruel mind games and ultimately violence.


Filled with intrigue and suspense, the story follows a beautiful troubled former ingenue as she follows a path of possible self destruction … and that’s just the casting Lindsay Lohan.


The saga behind the making of Bret Easton Ellis’ modern-day film noir “The Canyons” is perhaps just as tawdry as the plot itself. Since the first day of shooting, “The Canyons” has been a dream come true for TMZ editors: naked scene shoots, screaming matches, porn stars and, of course, the media’s ever-present anticipation of Lohan’s next potential misstep.


Lindsay Lohan: 'Anger Management' Guest Spot Still


In November, the second trailer portraying Lohan as a femme fatale caught in a ’50s melodrama hit the Web. Borrowing heavily from noir period pics like “Man Bait” or “Blonde Ice,” the trailer comes closest to “The Canyons’” tone. “Film noir is a huge interest of mine, and when Bret wrote the script, he defined it as a contemporary noir, so that was the style that we shared an affinity for,” says Pope. Source: www.variety.com

Jake Gyllenhaal hanging out with Jonah Hill & America Ferrera

Jake Gyllenhaal out with Jonah Hill and America Ferrera in NYC, on April 30, 2013

Happy 31st Birthday, Kirsten Dunst!

Kirsten Dunst attending the "Upside Down" Los Angeles Premiere, on March 12, 2013


Kirsten Dunst and Garrett Hedlung in "On The Road" (2012) directed by Walter Salles.


Kirsten Dunst (Happy 31st Birthday!) Hey Kirsten video: A compilation of pictures and stills of Kirsten Dunst. Song "Hey Kirsten" by Morning Spy.

The Faculty: Jordana Brewster (Marie Claire), Josh Hartnett, Clea DuVall

Jordana Brewster in "The Faculty" (1998) directed by Robert Rodriguez


I always knew I wanted to be either on TV or in movies," the 33-year-old says from her home in Los Angeles. "I just didn't know how." At 10, she moved with her family from her mother's native Rio de Janeiro to Manhattan, and the track became clear.


"Everything's much more accessible in New York. I started taking classes to prove to myself that I could do it." By the time she was 15, she was a regular on As the World Turns.


From '90s teen thriller The Faculty to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (where she met her producer husband, Andrew Form), she's been working steadily ever since. Not that it's been a totally smooth ride. Source: www.marieclaire.com


Josh Hartnett with Jordana Brewster as Zeke and Delilah in "The Faculty" (1998)


Josh Hartnett was tipped for great things at the beginning of his career as he appeared in teen movies such as "The Faculty" and "The Virgin Suicides" and there was even more excitement when he moved into more ‘grown up roles’.


Ben Affleck, Kate Beckinsale and Josh Hartnett in "Pearl Harbor" (2001) directed by Michael Bay

He starred in the likes of "Pearl Harbor" and "Black Hawk Down" and his dashing good looks meant he was the next Hollywood leading man in waiting. But the dizzy heights have never really followed for the actor as he turned down the role of Superman - a role that would no doubt have sent his star rocketing even further.
Josh Hartnett with rumored girlfriend, English actress Tamsin Egerton on 23rd April 2013, in Krakow (Polonia)


Josh Hartnett as Paddy in "Stuck between Stations" (2011) directed by Brady Kiernan

The last couple of years we have seen very little of him on the big screen as he has done producing work as well as theatre projects - the movie that has done have struggled to catch people’s attention. But at thirty four Hartnett still has time on his side to get his career back to where it was as he has completed work on "Parts Per Billion" and "Singularity." Source: www.femalefirst.co.uk


Chloe Sevigny and Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry" (1999) directed by Kimberly Peirce


A cameo by Chloë Sevigny/Piper Perabo/Clea DuVall (top 10 lesbian movie cliches): After "Boys Don't Cry," Chloë Sevigny pulled on a white T-shirt and leather jacket and straddled a motorbike in If These Walls Could Talk 2;


and in the underrated 90s teen alien film The Faculty, Clea DuVall even plays a character pretending to be a lesbian. Willingness to explore your fauxmosexuality shows true actorly dedication. Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Jake Gyllenhaal and Jude Law in the East Village, N.Y.

Jake Gyllenhaal chatting with Jude Law while out in the East Village, New York City, on April 27 2013