(Nicholas Ray, US 1950, 94 min., 35mm)
Joan Fontaine’s early roles as a quiet observer in Hitchcock’s Rebecca and Suspicion belied a cool strength below and yet she used this presumptive attitude to play against as double-dealing schemers and murderers in her films just a decade later. Here she plays Christable Caine, a scheming, ambitious social-climber balancing the affections of both the wealthy Curtis Carey (Zachary Scott) and aspiring novelist Nick Bradley (Robert Ryan). Playing the two off each other, Christabel plans to have everything: status, wealth, love, and her freedom. The cast includes Mel Ferrer and Joan Leslie, who can also be seen in The Hard Way.
Introduction by and post-screening discussion with author Julie Grossman.
35mm preservation from the George Eastman Museum collection.
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Film Screenings | Clash by Night (35mm)
Distaff Noir From German director Fritz Lang's (M, Metropolis) American period, this noir melodrama, adapted from the Clifford Odets play, opens with Barbara Stanwyck as a fallen woman returning to a seaside hamlet to find unstable domesticity with a simpleminded fisherman (Paul Douglas).