Sam Fuller’s original script might have been called All That Heaven Should Allow. It’s a noir that stumbled out of a dark alley and into the harsh light of melodrama, Douglas Sirk’s beat. Griff (Cornel Wilde) is a tough parole officer until he’s assigned the curvaceous ex-con Jenny (Patricia Knight), a bleached bombshell whose backstory is a “swill pile.” Griff sees past the swill to the swell beneath. “You’ve got to change your brand of men,” he demands, and goes about rebranding himself. Soon, the lovers are on the lam. This eccentric melo-noir rewards time off for bad behavior.
Directed by Douglas Sirk. Written by Helen Deutsch, Samuel Fuller. Photographed by Charles Lawton Jr.
With Cornel Wilde, Patricia Knight, John Baragrey, Esther Minciotti. (79 mins,
B&W, 35mm, From Sony Pictures Releasing)
(In conjunction with) Dark Past: Film Noir by German Emigrés
As Hitler’s influence grew in 1930s Germany, artists and intellectuals fled the country; whether because they were Jewish or held contrary political views, they saw their lives or livelihoods threatened by the emerging fascist reign. The German film industry was not immune to this flight and the decade witnessed the exodus of a host of important filmmakers—directors, cinematographers, screenwriters, and others. Hollywood became a haven for these hasty émigrés—by the early forties tinsel town had a thriving contingent of German-speaking filmmakers, including Otto Preminger, Max Ophuls, Douglas Sirk, Billy Wilder, Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Edgar G. Ulmer, and many others. Grateful for any assignment, these veteran directors took on low-budget B-movies, turning them into highly effective, emotionally resonant, darkly dramatized mysteries and crime stories, later to be known as noirs. It’s said that the greatest contribution of this group of directors was the shadow-laden mise-en-scène with its brooding urban cityscapes distilled from German Expressionism. But as you shall see from these eight noirs by eight directors, much more than rain-spattered streets and crepuscular lighting links them. Many of these bristling features, from Max Ophuls’s Caught to Curtis Bernhardt’s High Wall, from William Dieterle’s Dark City to Otto Preminger’s Where the Sidewalk Ends, share a belief that authority is necessarily corrupt, that institutions are to be mistrusted, that what is worst in us will come to light, and, finally, that no one can shake their dark past.
Theater Admission Prices
Single Feature
$5.50 BAM/PFA Members, UC Berkeley Students
$9.50 Adults (18-64)
$6.50 UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and retirees
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Senior citizens (65 & over)
Disabled persons
Youth (17 & under
Additional Feature $4.00 All Patrons
