The wonderful Noir Film Festival celebrated its fifth birthday earlier this year at the majestic Křivoklát Castle, but organizers have something a little special in store for those who missed the festivities in Prague and Olomouc this week.
On Wednesday, November 8, a special Noir Film Festival Echoes program will present two features from this year’s fest at the Film Hall of the Palacký University Arts Centre in Olomouc: Fritz Lang’s 1954 noir Human Desire and Nicholas Ray’s 1950 Humphrey Bogart drama In a Lonely Place.
One day later, on Thursday the 9th, the Noir Film Fest Echoes program will come to Prague at Kino Lucerna for a two-day engagement that includes both Human Desire and In a Lonely Place as well as the excellent 1966 Czech noir A Game Without Rules (Hra bez pravidel) and 1945’s Conflict, which also stars Bogart.
A stark, gritty neo-noir from director Jindřich Polák (Ikarie XB-1), the Czech feature was a highlight for me at this year’s Noir Film Festival back in August; check out my full review of A Game Without Rules here.
You can catch it at Lucerna with English subtitles this Thursday at 19:00; if you can’t make the screening, a newly-restored print of the film has also just been released locally on DVD.
The other features are also well worth checking out on the big screen: Bogart gave one of his very best performances as an screenwriter with violent tendencies in Ray’s In a Lonely Place (at Kino Lucerna on November 10 at 20:15), a potent portrait of male angst that remains relevant seven decades later
And a brooding murder mystery also starring character actor Sydney Greenstreet (Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon), Conflict (November 10 at 18:15), from director Curtis Bernhardt, is one of the most unjustly overlooked movies in Bogart’s filmography.
Also underseen is Lang’s moody Human Desire (November 9 at 20:45), which reunites stars Glenn Ford and Gloria Graham from one of the director’s best-remembered Hollywood films, 1953’s The Big Heat.
Here’s the full schedule for the Noir Film Fest Echoes event at Kino Lucerna:
Thursday, November 9:
19:00: Hra bez pravidel
20:45: Human Desire
Friday, November 10:
18:30: Conflict
20:15: In a Lonely Place
