Highlights for TCM’s Summer Under the Stars (August 1–31)

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) brings back Summer Under the Stars for the entire month of August! Each day, TCM dedicates its entire 24-hour schedule to celebrating a single iconic film legend.

TCM Host Picks

Don't miss these hand-picked favorites selected by your favorite TCM hosts:

• Wednesday, August 5: Joan Bennett (Eddie Muller’s Pick)
• Tuesday, August 11: Barbara Stanwyck (Alicia Malone’s Pick)
• Wednesday, August 19: Hattie McDaniel (Jacqueline Stewart’s Pick)
• Friday, August 21: Marie Windsor (Ben Mankiewicz’s Pick)
• Summer Under the Stars Debuts

Keep an eye out for these legends making their first-ever featured appearances during Summer Under the Stars:

• Diane Keaton
• George Hamilton
• Marie Windsor
• Bonita Granville
• Brock Peters

 

Click HERE for the complete Summer Under the Stars schedule.

Which star are you most excited to see?

 

Get ready for Noir City Chicago 2025

Noir City Chicago 2025 is a week-long film festival dedicated to celebrating classic film noir and neo-noir. The event will be held at Chicago's Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., from September 5 to 11. Presented by the Film Noir Foundation, the festival is a must-see for fans of hardboiled crime stories, high heels and fedoras, and shadowy cinematography. The lineup for the festival is curated to include both renowned classics and obscure rarities, often presented in double-bills, and will feature screenings of 35mm prints alongside digital restorations.

Joan Bennett and Edward G. Robinson in The Woman in the Window

The 2025 program promises an eclectic mix of films, including classics like Stanley Kubrick's The Killing and Fritz Lang's Scarlet Street, as well as a selection of neo-noirs such as The Grifters and The Hot Spot. The festival will be hosted by Eddie Muller, the founder of the Film Noir Foundation and host of TCM's "Noir Alley," for the opening weekend. Following that, screenings will be presented by Film Noir Foundation board member Alan K. Rode. This year's event highlights the lasting legacy and influence of film noir, providing audiences with a chance to experience these gripping tales of desperation, greed, and betrayal on the big screen.

Click HERE for the full schedule.

Noir City Chicago 2024: September 6 -12

It’s that time of year again. The air gets a little crisper, the days are shorter, and NOIR CITY Chicago is back at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N Southport Ave., Chicago, IL 60613. urner Classic Movies’ Noir Alley Host and president of the Film Noir Foundation, Eddie Muller, and author and film historian Alan K. Rode will again be this year’s hosts.

As per the Music Box website, “Under the banner, ‘Darkness Has No Borders’ this year’s NOIR CITY festival features thematically linked double bills pairing foreign language films with movies made in the United States and United Kingdom.”

The website continues: “At this year’s NOIR CITY, he notes, audiences will experience familiar noir tales … but many will be from Argentina, Egypt, France, Mexico, Italy, and Japan presented alongside English-language offerings. ‘Some are cultural one-offs,’ he explains, like the 1958 Egyptian offering Cairo Station (shown with the 1950 Paramount thriller Union Station), while others are examples of noir from countries with a dark wellspring of films still waiting to be discovered.” The 18-film program of thematically linked double bills includes heists, prison breaks, missing persons, cultural alienation, love triangles, and lots of plain old-fashioned murder.

Screenings from Friday, September 6th-Sunday, September 8th will be hosted by Eddie Muller, Film Noir Foundation founder and host of TCM's Noir Alley.

Screenings on Monday, September 9th-Thursday, September 12th will be presented by FNF board member Alan K. Rode, author of Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film.

Festival Pricing

Series Pass - $125 GA / $100 Music Box Members (Grants admission into all screenings in NOIR CITY: CHICAGO 2024) 

Individual Screenings - $12.50 GA / $11.50 Senior (Available at the Box Office Only) / $10 Music Box Members

3D Screenings -  $18 GA / $17 Seniors (Available at the Box Office Only) / $15 Music Box Members

Films screened during this festival

• The Postman Always Rings Twice
• Ossessione
• Odd Man Out
• Victims of Sin
• The Window
• Never Open That Door
• Zero Focus
• Cast a Dark Shadow
• This Gun for Hire
• Le Samourai
• Brute Force
• Hardly a Criminal
• Inferno
• Black Tuesday
• Man in the Dark
• Le Trou
• Union Station
• Cario Station

Click HERE for details on when the films will be screened during the festival.

Noir City Chicago returns to the Music Box Theatre in August

Noir City Chicago returns to the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., August 25 through August 31. The event will be hosted by Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode.

Some of the films screened include Key Largo, The Lady From Shanghai, Road House, and The Big Clock.

Festival passes are $100 and $85 for Music Box Theatre members. Tickets are also available for each individual movie screening.

For the complete festival schedule click here.

It’s Back! Noir City: Chicago 2019

Festival Dates: Friday September 6th to Thursday September 12th

Noir City: Chicago is back at the Music Box Theatre. This year’s theme is Film Noir in the 1950s. Once again the film festival will be presented by Eddie Muller, host of TCM’s Noir Alley and the Film Noir Foundation’s Alan K. Rode, author of Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film.

The event is co-presented by the Film Noir Foundation and sponsored by TCM’s Noir Alley. Festival passes are available at $85 and $75 for Music Box Theatre members. Tickets are available for individual movies as well as packages for double features.

Some of the films to be screened include In a Lonely Place, The File on Thelma Jordan, Pickup on South Street, Sudden Fear, and Pushover. For a complete list of films screened and more information on the festival, including ticket prices, click here.

Must sees for me:

• The File On Thelma Jordan (1950) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Wendell Corey; directed by Robert Siodmak
• Pickup on South Street (1953) starring Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, and Thelma Ritter; directed by Samuel Fuller
• Sudden Fear (1952) starring Joan Crawford, Jack Palance, and Gloria Graham; directed by David Miller
• Touch of Evil (1958) starring Charlton Heston, Janet Leigh, and Orson Welles; directed by Orson Welles

Not sure I’ll get to all of them, but those are my picks! What films are you most excited about seeing on the big screen?

Review of “I Walk Alone” at #NoirCityChicago

I spent Sunday evening taking in a screening of I Walk Alone at Noir City Chicago at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., Chicago. I hadn’t seen this film before so it was a real treat. Another treat was the restored digital transfer, which was virtually flawless.

Introduced by Eddie Muller, Film Noir Foundation Founder and President, and host of Noir Alley on Turner Classic Movies, Muller said that this Hal Wallis independent production (released through Paramount) was a way to showcase the stars—Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, Wendell Corey, and Kirk Douglas—he had under contract.

 

Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, and Kirk Douglas

The plot is a simple one: Lancaster and Douglas were partners selling booze during prohibition. During a run, the two were followed by the police so they decide to split up, thinking one of them would be able to make it to safety, but vowing that they would help the other if caught and profits would be split 50/50.

Well, 14 years later, Lancaster is out of prison and anxious to get his share of the profits from the business. Douglas who now runs a successful, but shady, nightclub, dissolved their old partnership and claims that Lancaster’s share amounts to less than $3000. This news sends Lancaster into a rage threatening to kill Wendell Corey, who set up the new corporation and does the books for the club.

In the middle of all this is Lizabeth Scott, a singer at the nightclub. Douglas has been stringing her along, all the while romancing a rich socialite. He plans on marrying her because he thinks she can help bring a higher class clientele to the club. Once this is revealed to Scott, her sympathies end up with Lancaster. She wants to help him, but doesn’t want him to resort to anything that would send him back to jail.

Like all classic films noir, the dialogue is sharp and snappy and delivered by a cast of pros. As the club singer, Scott wears a variety of fashions designed by the legendary Edith Head, and she wears them very well, I might add. Additionally, I don’t think one hair on Scott’s head was out of place through the entire movie, which is remarkable since she gets pushed around a bit.

It was fun to see Lancaster, Scott, and Douglas (Douglas is the only one still with us at 101!) so young. Muller said it looked like there was a bit of a competition between Lancaster and Douglas as to who could chew more scenery! And chew they do, and that’s what makes the movie so enjoyable.

I Walk Alone is now available on DVD in a restored version produced by the Paramount Pictures Archive.

The Chicago Noir City film festival continues through Thursday, August 23. For the remaining films scheduled, click here.     

2018 Noir City Chicago August 17 – 23 at the Music Box

FRI, AUG 17TH, 2018 TO THU, AUG 23RD, 2018
Festival Passes - $85 GA/$75 MBT Members | Opening Night Tickets - $12 GA/$9 MBT Members | Single Feature Tickets - $11 GA/$7 MBT Members

Doube Feature Tickets - $15 GA/$12 MBT Members (Includes admission to both the “A” and its corresponding “B” film)

Noir City’s 10th anniversary kicks off with an Opening Night tribute to writer-director Carl Franklin. Join us for a double bill of his neo-noir classics and an in-person discussion between films with the director and Noir City host Eddie Muller. Then return to Noir City for the following six days and nights for a thrilling excursion through the original film era, comprising chronological “A” and “B” double features of film noirs both legendary and obscure! Weekend shows presented by Eddie Muller, host of TCM’s Noir Alley! Weeknight shows hosted by the Film Noir Foundation's Alan K. Rode, author of Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film.

Co-presented by the Film Noir Foundation filmnoirfoundation.org | Sponsored by TCM’s Noir Alley

For ticket information and complete schedule, click here.

Music Box Theatre

3733 N. Southport Ave.

Chicago, IL 60613

Showtimes: 773 871 6604

Box Office: 773 871 6607

Noir City Chicago Opens with screening of “L.A. Confidential” at Music Box

August 25, 2017
Noir City Chicago returned to the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Ave., tonight with the  screening of Curtis Hanson’s L.A. Confidential (1997). The theme at this year’s Noir City is “The Big Knockover.” Presented by the Film Noir Foundation, “The Big Knockover” features “the history of the heist film from black-and-white Hollywood classics to contemporary masterpieces.”

Music Box calendar and Batman in Noir Alley comic

Author James Ellroy was on hand, whose novel the film L.A. Confidential was based. Ellroy was introduced and interviewed by Film Noir Foundation founder Eddie Muller. Ellroy is a strange character. His conversation was populated with crude language and gestures, which took some getting used to. Here’s his opening monologue to last night’s crowd.

Good evening peepers, prowlers, pederasts, panty-sniffers, punks and pimps. I’m James Ellroy, the demon dog with the hog-log, the foul owl with the death growl, the white knight of the far right, and the slick trick with the donkey dick. I’m the author of 16 books, masterpieces all; they precede all my future masterpieces. These books will leave you reamed, steamed and drycleaned, tie-dyed, swept to the side, true-blued, tattooed and bah fongooed. These are books for the whole fuckin’ family, if the name of your family is Manson.

I felt a little sorry of Muller who handled Ellroy’s antics with his usual cool charm, but had a hard time interviewing the author. It was great seeing L.A. Confidential on the big screen; previously, I had only seen it on television. The production, acting, and look of the film was stunningly good. It holds up really well and is a great homage to films noir from the past, the kind that Muller introduces on TCM every Sunday morning (except for August’s “Summer Under the Stars”).

Inside the Music Box Theatre with live organ music before the show

Noir City Chicago continues through August 31. For a complete list of films on the schedule, click here.

Happy Easter from Ida Lupino

I think Eddie Muller would like this image!