RED HOLLYWOOD

This revelatory essay film by Thom Andersen (LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF) and film critic Noël Burch, which has been re-mastered and re-edited, examines the films made by the victims of the Hollywood Blacklist and offers a radically different perspective on a key period in the history of American cinema. The documentary draws on extensive research, includes intimate interviews with former blacklisted artists, and features clips from more than 50 films that span numerous genres and raise questions about war, race relations, class solidarity, women’s labor and the studio system itself.

DIR/SCR/PROD Thom Andersen, Noël Burch. US, 1996, color/b&w, 118 min, Blu-ray. NOT RATED

CHRIST IN CONCRETE aka GIVE US THIS DAY/SALT TO THE DEVIL

The first blacklisted exile production, this film was not the blow to the blacklist its makers intended. Set in New York’s Little Italy but filmed at Rank’s Denham Studios outside of London, the film’s remarkable depiction of the hardships endured by Italian-American construction workers was barely screened in the U.S., due to the efforts of the anti-Communist American Legion.

DIR/PROD Edward Dmytryk; SCR Ben Barzman, from the novel by Pietro Di Donato; PROD Rod E. Geiger, Nat A. Bronstein. UK, 1949, b&w, 120 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

TIME WITHOUT PITY

Director Joseph Losey saw a chance to step up to better productions while still making socially engaged films with this adaptation of a play by Emlyn Williams. At once a nerve-jangling thriller and a blistering attack on capital punishment (as well as the British class system), the story centers on an unstable father (Michael Redgrave) who has 24 hours to find evidence that will stop his son’s execution.

DIR Joseph Losey; SCR Ben Barzman, from the play "Someone Waiting" by Emlyn Williams; PROD John Arnold, Anthony Simmons. UK, 1957, b&w, 88 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

EVE aka EVA

In EVE, Stanley Baker plays a sham novelist and outsider to Italy’s glittering expatriate milieu. Described by filmmaker Joseph Losey as “an intensely personal film” and a statement about the exile experience, it also marked his elevation from cinéaste maudit to the ranks of European auteurs such as Michelangelo Antonioni, to whom Losey pays homage in his choice of leading lady, Jeanne Moreau, and cinematographer, Gianni Di Venanzo.

DIR Joseph Losey; SCR Hugo Butler, Evan Jones, from the novel by James Hadley Chase; PROD Robert Hakim, Raymond Hakim. France, 1962, b&w, 120 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

THESE ARE THE DAMNED aka THE DAMNED (1963)

Originally put off by the science fiction elements of this work-for-hire project, director Joseph Losey emphasized more personal themes of violence, modernity and social control in telling the story of a cadre of radioactive children held prisoner at a secret military base. The result was a hit with British critics, until then cool to the American in their midst, setting the stage for Losey’s undisputed triumph with THE SERVANT (1963).

DIR Joseph Losey; SCR Evan Jones, from the novel "The Children of Light" by H. L. Lawrence; PROD Anthony Hinds. UK, 1963, b&w, 87 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

ESCAPADE

A resourceful group of British schoolboys, led by the precocious son of a well-known pacifist, hatch a plan to bring about world peace. Officially credited under the pseudonym Gilbert Holland, screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart mobilizes this earnest plot to craft a surprisingly sharp critique of empty political posturing, while director Philip Leacock infuses the proceedings with urgency and tension.

DIR Philip Leacock; SCR Donald Ogden Stewart, from a play by Roger MacDougall; PROD Daniel M. Angel, Hannah Weinstein. UK, 1955, b&w, 87 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

IMPULSE (1954)

This film, which Cy Endfield directed (as Charles de Lautour) and co-wrote (as Jonathan Roche), throws its American protagonist into two foreign worlds: the provincial village where he lives with his English wife, and the London underworld to which he is lured by a femme fatale. A low-budget "B" production, the film succeeds in fusing classic noir themes with an outsider’s view of British society that Endfield credited to his still “alienated eye.”

DIR/SCR Cy Endfield; SCR Lawrence Huntington; PROD Robert S. Baker, Monty Berman. UK, 1954, b&w, 80 min, 16mm. In English. NOT RATED

HELL DRIVERS

Produced by the Rank Organization, this film was a turning point for director Cy Endfield. Endfield (and Joseph Losey) regular Stanley Baker plays an ex-convict who takes a job as a truck driver at a gravel haulage company, but quickly grows outraged by the dangerous conditions and corruption he encounters. Filmed with brutal realism, the film combines suspense with social analysis and features a strong supporting cast.

DIR/SCR Cy Endfield; SCR John Kruse; PROD Benjamin Fisz. UK, 1957, b&w, 108 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

ZULU

The epic account of the 1879 Battle of Rorke’s Drift, in which a small regiment of British soldiers fought to defend a South African missionary outpost against thousands of native warriors. A hit in England — launching the career of Michael Caine, in the process — the film’s images of racial conflict and European colonialism did not play well in America, then at the height of the Civil Rights Movement. For its 50th anniversary, Rialto Pictures is releasing the film in a saber-sharp DCP, including the original stereo soundtrack, with an early score by legendary composer John Barry.

DIR/SCR/PROD Cy Endfield; SCR John Prebble; PROD Stanley Baker. UK, 1964, color, 138 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

STRANGER ON THE PROWL aka ENCOUNTER

An independent production of the blacklisted exiles’ Riviera Films, STRANGER ON THE PROWL aka ENCOUNTER explores the affinities between film noir and Italian neo-realism. Paul Muni stars as a fugitive guilty of manslaughter, and director Joseph Losey uses the bombed Italian port city of Livorno to enhance the film’s account of postwar poverty and desperation. Threatened with a boycott by conservative groups, ENCOUNTER was renamed STRANGER ON THE PROWL for its U.S. release, and the names of Losey and screenwriter Ben Barzman were removed.

DIR Joseph Losey; SCR Ben Barzman; PROD Noël Calef. Italy/US, 1952, b&w, 82 min, 35mm. In Italian with English subtitles. NOT RATED

THE INTIMATE STRANGER aka FINGER OF GUILT

Of all the blacklisted exiles’ European films, this one provides the most direct allegory of their experience. Richard Basehart plays Reggie Wilson, a Hollywood director now working in England due to an undisclosed scandal. Howard Koch’s (as Peter Howard) screenplay abounds in noir tropes that resonate with the insecurities caused by blacklist and exile: Reggie is haunted by his past, is threatened by an informer and blackmailed by a femme fatale. Director Joseph Losey’s noir visuals add to the sense of entrapment.

DIR Joseph Losey; SCR Howard Koch; PROD Alec C. Snowden. UK, 1956, b&w, 95 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

PARDON MY FRENCH aka THE LADY FROM BOSTON

Part of a short cycle of dual-language Franco-American co-productions, this film features Merle Oberon as a New England schoolmarm who inherits a French chateau run as a home for displaced war orphans by a bohemian musician (Paul Henreid). While the romance that ensues plays out in terms of cultural clichés, the evocation of France’s immediate postwar context reflects the blacklisted exiles’ commitment to social cinema.

DIR Bernard Vorhaus; SCR Roland Kibbee; PROD Peter Cusick, André Sarrut. France/US, 1951, b&w, 82 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

RIFIFI [Du rififi chez les hommes]

*Book Event: Rebecca Prime will sign copies of her book "Hollywood Exiles in Europe: The Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture" before the 8:20 screening April 4 (beginning at approximately 7:30).

For his first effort as an exile, Jules Dassin won the prize for Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival. The film was originally assigned to director Jean-Pierre Melville, who would later pay homage to the film’s celebrated 33-minute silent robbery sequence in LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970). In the loyalty and respect that unites the film’s band of thieves, Dassin — who also co-stars — found expression for his feelings towards the blacklisted community.

DIR/SCR Jules Dassin; SCR René Wheeler, Auguste Le Breton, from his novel; PROD René Bezard, Henri Bérard, Pierre Cabaud. France, 1955, b&w, 122 min, 35mm. In French with English subtitles. NOT RATED

THE VICTORS

An explosive title sequence designed by Saul Bass sets the unsettling tone for director Carl Foreman’s groundbreaking approach to the WWII film. Following an army platoon from the fighting in Italy to after the fall of Berlin, Foreman emphasizes the human moments between the action to reflect a multivalent, multinational view of the conflict. Stark imagery and jarring juxtapositions accompany striking performances by an all-star cast, including George Peppard, Eli Wallach, Romy Schneider, Jeanne Moreau, George Hamilton, Peter Fonda, Elke Sommer and Albert Finney.

DIR/SCR/PROD Carl Foreman, from the novel "The Human Kind" by Alexander Baron. US, 1963, b&w, 175 min, 35mm. In English. NOT RATED

NIGHT AND THE CITY (1950)

Often considered the quintessential film noir, this film's “man-on-the-run” narrative and dark mood resonate with the atmosphere of HUAC-era Hollywood. Director Jules Dassin uses London’s Blitz-scarred cityscape to accentuate the film’s fatalism. Without Dassin’s knowledge, Twentieth Century-Fox released different versions in the U.S. and the UK, the latter including retakes emphasizing Gene Tierney’s role and replacing Franz Waxman’s score with one by the British composer Benjamin Frankel.

DIR Jules Dassin; SCR Jo Eisinger, from the novel by Gerald Kersh; PROD Samuel G. Engel. UK, 1950, b&w, 96 min, DCP. In English. NOT RATED

HEADLINES OF DESTRUCTION
[Je suis un sentimental]

JE SUIS UN SENTIMENTAL marked director John Berry’s second film noir spoof starring Eddie Constantine, the American actor whose popular screen persona — as the hard-boiled detective Lemmy Caution — would later appear in Jean-Luc Godard’s ALPHAVILLE (1965). In a variation on this role, Constantine plays a callous journalist who discovers his conscience, while Berry slips in some class commentary between the wisecracks and action sequences. Presenting the English-dubbed version of the film, retitled HEADLINES OF DESTRUCTION.

DIR/SCR John Berry; SCR Lee Gold, Tamara Hovey, Jacques-Laurent Bost; PROD Ray Ventura, Lucien Viard. France/Italy, 1955, b&w, 95 min, 16mm. Dubbed in English. NOT RATED