Dana Andrews, revisited

One of the pleasures of the UCLA Film Archives’ Otto Preminger retrospective continues to be the rediscovery of Dana Andrews, whose best remembered Preminger film is “Laura” (1944), in which he played the detective obsessed with an enigmatic Gene Tierney in the title role. “Fallen Angel,” which screened Feb. 25 after “Laura,” was a revelation, with Andrews playing a down-on-his-luck sharpie, who tries to con a demure Alice Faye only to discover he has a conscience.

Andrews is even more conflicted in Preminger’s terrific 1950 no-frills noir “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” He again plays a New York police detective and costars with Tierney. Ben Hecht’s script, derived from William L. Stuart’s novel “Night Cry,” is clever and relentless.

A smart detective but too fast with his fists, Andrews has a special hatred for a gangster (Gary Merrill) running a floating craps game in a Times Square-area hotel. Just as Andrews goes there to confront him, a big loser (Harry von Zell) at the table winds up dead. The loser had been steered there by Craig Stevens’ on-the-skids war hero, accompanied by his estranged wife (Tierney).

Andrews tracks down Stevens in connection with Merrill but gets himself in big trouble. His attempt to work his way out of it is intensified by the attraction between him and Tierney, whose sweet-natured, garrulous cabdriver father (Tom Tully) becomes innocently entangled in Andrews’ escalating dilemmas. “Where the Sidewalk Ends” really puts the screws to Andrews’ guilt-ridden, anger-consumed detective, and Preminger inspires in Andrews another deeply internalized portrayal of a man of decent instincts confronting his flawed character and its consequences.

Bewitched?

It’s depressing to realize that anyone involved with “The Blair Witch Project” could be attracted to as off-putting a picture as “Say Yes Quickly.” (It screens tonight at the American Cinematheque; members of the cast and crew will be present.)

But two of “Blair’s” producers, Gregg Hale and Bob Eick, signed on as, respectively, director and producer of Rachel Davis’ icky script. Nobody, not even in Athens, Ga., where the picture is set, talks the way Davis’ people do, all flowery, arch and precious.

Returning home for the funeral of her father, Suli Holum’s Hannah reacts to his death by retreating to her room, where she hooks up via the Internet with a guy who signs himself @lien, who “made me believe I could write a novel and be my therapy.” But she starts suspecting that she has become “buried under control of a person I had never met, touched or spoken to.” She reluctantly goes out for an evening at a club, where she meets Henry (Brandon Bales), a sweet, goofy guy who seems every bit as unreal as Hannah and, for that matter, @lien, who tells Hannah that “I’m loving you into rebirth through words.”

Independent fest

This is not an encouraging week for independent ventures. Even more of a turnoff than “Say Yes Quickly” is writer-director-star Daston Kalili’s “Insomnia Manica,” which screens next Thursday at the Fairfax Cinemas as part of the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival, opening tonight at the theater.

The film is supposed to have the “thematic structure of a Greek tragedy merged into film noir style.” It’s an elegantly shot mood piece set amid the downtown L.A. loft crowd, in which Kalili’s Iliad Labor seems to be slowly -- very slowly -- losing his mind. The picture is a pretentious yawn, but the intense Kalili has a striking screen presence.

A far more engaging festival entry is Will Harper’s “Behind the Artist,” which unfolds in hyped-up chapters as if it were made for TV. Even so, its subject, artist Michael Godard, comes across as very likable, a mellow survivor of an abusive childhood and a reckless youth. Trained as a mechanical engineer, Godard striped cars, mastered airbrush techniques and did commercial art before evolving his signature “Dirty Martini” style in his witty surreal paintings, which feature cocktail shakers, liquor bottles and martini glasses with olives sprouting arms and legs and having what Godard calls naughty rather than dirty fun.

Note: At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, the American Cinematheque at the Aero will present Andrzej Wajda’s “Ashes and Diamonds” (1958) and “Kanal” (1957), two classics in his World War II trilogy that includes 1954’s “A Generation.” (323) 466-FILM.

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Screenings

UCLA’s Otto Preminger retrospective

* “Where the Sidewalk Ends”: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: James Bridges Theatre, Melnitz Hall, UCLA

Info: (310) 206-FILM; www.cinema.ucla.edu

American Cinematheque’s Alternative Screen

* “Say Yes Quickly”: 7:30 tonight

Where: Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood

Info: (323) 466-FILM; www.americancinematheque.com

New York International Independent Film and Video Festival

* “Behind the Artist”: 8 p.m. Saturday

* “Insomnia Manica”: 10:10 p.m. next Thursday

Where: Fairfax Cinemas, 7907 Beverly Blvd., L.A.

Info: Fairfax Cinemas: (323) 655-4010; www.nyfilmvideo.com