Calgary International Film Festival - Film Noir question

[Chris R]

http://www.calgaryfilm.com/index1.html

Along with my team leader duties, I also double as a film host during the Calgary International Film Festival. I had the pleasure yesterday of introducing the Film Noir classic Out Of The Past. It is the only print in existance in North America. (The festival had to pay a hefty insurance cost to secure the film).

This year we are running 5 movies in the "In The Dark - Film Noir" series.
Double Indemnity
Out Of The Past
The Glass Key - Wed. Sept. 29th 4.00pm
Nighmare Alley - Tues. Sept. 28 - 6.30pm
Pickup On South Sunset - Sun. Oct. 3 - 10.00pm

What is the status of these films available either on DVD or video cassette? I searched the World Wide Web and came up with the following. Is this information correct?

Double Indemnity
video - OOP Universal
DVD - OOP Image Entertainment

Out Of The Past
video - OOP Turner Home Video
DVD - Warner
Also available in the Warner "Film Noir" DVD box set.

The Glass Key
video - OOP Universal
DVD - n/a

Nighmare Alley
video n/a
DVD n/a

Pickup On South Sunset
video - 20th Century Fox
DVD - Criterion

If I introduce the films I'd like to be able to tell the audience they're current availability on DVD/VHS or not. Yesterday we discussed the DVD box set with Out Of The Past.

All times are Mountain Daylight. If you're in the neighbourhood, drop by. :) (This is our 5th anniversary.)

[Steve Hoffman]

Nighmare Alley, one of my favorite films, as is Double Indemnity.

Ty Power's best acted line in a movie at the end of Nightmare Alley:

"Mister, I was made for it".

Why it's not out on DVD is beyond me. Some problem of a legal sense I (dimly) remember.

Wish I could be there!

[Chris R]

It was nice to see Double Indemnity on the big screen the other day. The movie played in one of Calgary's only original stand-alone movie theatres, Uptown Stage And Screen (http://www.calgaryplus.ca/portal/profile.do?profileID=77119§ionID=111) The theatre was originally built in 1951 and is pretty much the same today as it was back then, except they put a theatre on the second level in the 1970s or early 80s, removing the balcony, I suspect.

If you click on the link you can see a small black and white photo w/ Lawrence of Arabia on the marquee. The other two main theatres running festival films are The Globe and The Plaza, also both older stand-alone theatres. Not only do you get to see these film noir classics on the big screen, you get to see them in an old style movie theatre as well.

I've heard a rumour that Double Indemnity is set for a 2 DVD deluxe edition.

BTW, both Double Indemnity and Out Of The Past prints were in suprisingly good shape despite their age.

[Steve Hoffman]

I get a "The page cannot be displayed" for that link..

[Chris R]

Sorry Steve. I fixed the link in the previous post :) and here is their actual Web site.
http://www.theuptown.com/. The other link is a brief history of the theatre.

Unfortunately some Web designer has "modernized" the look of the theatre w/ computer graphics. The Uptown's Web site used to have gorgeous black and white photos of the original theatre on their main page. The theatre as I mentioned is still pretty much the same inside. The only difference outside is they built a new marquee some years ago.

Off to the festival. See you later.