Newsletter: Classic Hollywood: Noir City, Stanwyck and Lombard, plus French Classics

This is Kevin Crust and I am your new tour guide as we continue to write about notable birthdays and deaths, movie and TV milestones, fun events around town and the latest in DVDs, soundtracks and books every Friday in our Classic Hollywood newsletter. You can also follow us on the Classic Hollywood Los Angeles Times Facebook page and our film staff will continue to write about historic Tinseltown.

Paint It Black

One of the highlights on the annual classic movie calendar is “Noir City Hollywood: The Los Angeles Festival of Film Noir,” opening April 15 at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Presented by the American Cinematheque and the Film Noir Foundation, the series’ 18th annual iteration screens rare treats from the dark side through April 24. The 21 films include 10 that are unavailable on DVD.

Returning as hosts are author Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode of the Film Noir Foundation. Their latest restoration, in partnership with the UCLA Film & Television Archive, “The Bitter Stems (Los Tallos Armagos),” a 1956 Argentine noir directed by Fernando Ayala, kicks off the festival on a double bill with “Riffraff” (1947), starring Pat O’Brien, Walter Slezak and Anne Jeffreys.

Another rarity is Frank Sinatra in “Meet Danny Wilson” (1951). Produced during Sinatra’s fallow period between crooning heartthrob and his bravura breakthrough in “From Here to Eternity” (1953), Sinatra plays a struggling singer and pool hustler who cuts a dangerous deal with a racketeer and sees his career take off with disastrous consequences. Shelley Winters, Alex Nicol and Raymond Burr co-star. Joseph Pevney directed. It’s one of a number of films Universal has liberated from its vault for the festival. It screens April 20 at 7:30 p.m. with Michael Curtiz’s “Young Man With a Horn” (1950), starring Kirk Douglas.

Mais, oui

The 20th anniversary edition of the COLCOA French Film Festival includes an intriguing program of classics that range from the first piece of a famous 1930s trilogy to a 1971 spoof of a Victor Hugo play. The festival, which primarily showcases contemporary French cinema, starts April 18 and continues through April 26 at the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles.

A highlight of the festival is the world premiere of the restored version of Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s 1966 debut feature, “A Matter of Resistance (La Vie de Chateau).” When it opened in Los Angeles in 1967 (at the Los Feliz and the Esquire-Pasadena), The Times’ Kevin Thomas called it “a thoroughly enchanting movie, enhanced by all the enduring qualities for which French films are so well-loved.” It screens Thursday at 2 p.m., followed by a panel/discussion with Rappeneau. Screening at 8 p.m. is Rappneau’s latest, “Families (Belles Familles).”

Also screening are Barbet Shroeder’s debut “More” (1969), featuring a score by Pink Floyd, at 1:35 p.m. Tuesday; Marcel Pagnol and Alexandre Korda’s “Marius” (1931), part of a trilogy that included “Fanny” (1932) and “César” (1936), at 1:35 p.m. Wednesday; Julien Duvivier’s “They Were Five (La Belle Equipe)” (1936) at 1:20 p.m. Friday; Philippe De Broca’s “On Guard (Le Bossu)” (1997), at 3 p.m. Saturday; and Gérard Oury’s “Delusions of Grandeur” (1971) at 3 p.m. Monday.

Women Using Their Influence

Long before Sheryl Sandberg urged women to “Lean In,” female stars in Hollywood’s studio era such as Barbara Stanwyck and Carole Lombard used their clout to guide their careers. Starting April 16, UCLA Film & Television Archive presents a 16-film series, “Independent Stardom Onscreen: Freelance Women In Hollywood,” at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum in Westwood.

Based on Emily Carman’s book, the series illustrates the ways the women fought to make interesting films with strong female protagonists. The series opens with a double feature of “Ball of Fire” (1941) and “True Confession” (1937). Read Kenneth Turan’s piece on the series.

Watch the Skies!

Fueled by the threat of nuclear annihilation at the hands of the Soviet Union, the Cold War was a fertile time for science fiction and considered by many to be the Golden Age. Some of the most notable films of the period invade the Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills starting April 15 for “Anniversary Classics Sci-Fi Weekend.”

Celebrating 65th anniversaries are the 1951 releases “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “The Thing From Another World” and “When Worlds Collide.” Cast member Billy Gray of “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (and “Father Knows Best”) will attend the screening, with other guests throughout the weekend.

Also screening are “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “Forbidden Planet,” both marking 60 years, and “Fantastic Voyage” (1966), which turns 50. Laemmle Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre, 8556 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills CA 90211, (310) 478-3836, www.laemmle.com

The Great Outdoors

The Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy’s popular film series “The Beauty of Nature” launches its 2016 season April 17 with Sydney Pollack’s Oscar-winning 1985 film “Out of Africa” at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro. Four more recent films continue the series at various venues through November.

Based on Danish writer Isak Dinesen’s memoir about living in Kenya before World War I, “Out of Africa starred Meryl Streep, Robert Redford and Klaus Maria Brandauer. “We are starving just now for civilized films, for the play of intelligent minds in movies about something,” wrote The Times’ critic Sheila Benson when the film opened in December 1985.

“In that frame of mind, ‘Out of Africa’ — with its intense civility, its irreproachable landscapes, the tensions of its faintly doomed love story, which is not about love, really, but about possession, and its twin superstars — seems to be just the thing for famished culture mavens at Christmastime.

“Unfortunately, and through no fault of Meryl Streep, there doesn’t seem to be enough electricity generated out there in Africa to power a love story 2 1/2 hours long.”

Audiences, however, disagreed, turning out in droves to push the film to No. 5 on the year’s box-office chart, trailing only “Back to the Future,” “Rambo: First Blood Part II,” “Rocky IV” and “The Color Purple.” The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences responded in kind, honoring the film with seven Oscars, including for screenwriter Kurt Luedtke, composer John Barry and two for producer-director Pollack.

From the Hollywood Star Walk

Notable births this week include Hans Conried (April 15); Elizabeth Montgomery (April 15); Michael Ansara (April 15); Emma Thompson (April 15); Charles Chaplin (April 16); Jon Cryer (April 16); Barry Nelson (April 16); William Holden (April 17); Anne Shirley (April 17); Barbara Hale (April 18); Claire Windsor (April 18); James Franco (April 19); Jayne Mansfield (April 19); Dudley Moore (April 19); Hugh O’Brian (April 19); Nina Foch (April 20); Lionel Hampton (April 20); Sidney Lanfield (April 20); Harold Lloyd (April 20); and George Takei (April 20).

The Champ

“Now people’re gonna tell you, wrestling. Wallace Beery, it’s a B picture. You tell them, .... We don’t make B pictures here at Capitol. Let’s put a stop to that rumor right now.”

— Capitol Pictures executive Jack Lipnick (Michael Lerner) in the Coen brothers’ 1991 movie “Barton Fink”

Wallace Beery was an archetypal “big lug” with a face only a mother could love. If you regularly watch movies from the silent era or the 1930s and ‘40s, you’d recognize him in a flash. A character actor, he overcame the label “not adaptable” to successfully transition to talkies and become one of Hollywood’s highest-priced stars.

Beery appeared in dozens of movies, but is best remembered for his Oscar-winning turn in the heart-tugger “The Champ” (1931) with Jackie Cooper (he tied with Fredric March for “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”). He was also nominated the previous year for “The Big House,” losing to George Arliss for “Disraeli.”

His brothers, William C. Beery and Noah Beery Sr. were also actors, Nephew Noah Beery Jr. also had a long career as a character actor and played James Garner’s father, Rocky, on “The Rockford Files.”

Read the Los Angeles Times obituary from April 17, 1949.

kevin.crust@latimes.com

@storyspheare