The war was over, but conflict had just begun

DURING World War II, American soldiers were putting their lives on the line fighting in Europe, Africa and the Pacific. And the women -- wives, mothers and girlfriends -- were freed from the shackles of domesticity and began working in defense plants building planes, tanks and other elements of the war machine. There was an unparalleled spirit of camaraderie and patriotism.

But at war’s end in 1945, it was disillusionment, not euphoria, that clouded the psyche of a lot of the armed forces returning home.

Veterans had a hard time adjusting to peacetime. Some had difficulties getting their jobs back. Others found that their marriages and relationships had crumbled.

It was this uneasiness that led to the popularity and growth of film noir in Hollywood cinema. These black-and-white, shadowy films examined the underbelly of society, and their protagonists were antiheroes struggling with inner demons who were often on the wrong side of the law. The women populating these films were far from shrinking violets -- they were tough-talking, hard-living dames who were often more hard-boiled than the men.

The film noir of the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, says Rick Jewell, a film professor at the USC School of Cinema-Television, rings true with today’s young audiences. “I think the films are much more contemporary to young people nowadays than a lot of the other genres [of that era] -- the westerns, musicals and so forth. [Noirs] fascinate them because they seem to have that cynical sensibility that kids spark to these days.”

The American Cinematheque’s eighth annual film noir festival is steeped in cynicism, anger and cigarette smoke. At the Egyptian Theatre, it features such delicious rarities as Felix Feist’s “The Man Who Cheated Himself” and Gordon Douglas’ “Between Midnight and Dawn.” Across town at the Aero Theatre, the festival will feature classics including “Gun Crazy,” “Criss Cross” and “Kiss Me Deadly.”

The Egyptian festival shines the spotlight on several veteran actresses making their mark in film noirs: Bette Davis in “Beyond the Forest,” Joan Crawford in “The Damned Don’t Cry,” Barbara Stanwyck in “No Man of Her Own” and Jennifer Jones in “Ruby Gentry.”

“They don’t get shown very often,” says Jewell. In the films, these actresses were “doing things -- not exactly toward the end of their career but definitely on the downslope of their career -- that are pretty daring. Bette Davis had played unsympathetic women, but ‘Beyond the Forest’ is just quite amazing.”

Critically lambasted when it opened in 1949, “Beyond the Forest” finds Davis in a black shock wig playing a “restless hellcat” named Rosa Moline.

The film’s most memorable moment is when she utters “What a dump!” Years later, Edward Albee would have his character Martha imitate Davis saying that line in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”

“It’s hysterical, and I don’t mean that in the funny sense,” says Jewell. “She just gives one of the most hysterical performances I have ever seen. On one level, I guess it’s bad, but on another level it is somebody going through the absolute ends of the spectrum in terms of performance.”

Though most film noirs were low-budget “B” pictures, the festival features movies made by such “A” directors as King Vidor (“Beyond the Forest”), Mitchell Leisen (“No Man of Her Own”) and Jean Negulesco (“Nobody Lives Forever”).

The genre, says Jewell, “paved the way for a kind of shift in sensibility in films that was very attractive to the new up-and-coming directors like a Sam Fuller but also very attractive to most of the more established directors. I think they felt like somehow they were liberated and that they could take on some themes and character types that had been off-limits to them in previous years.”

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Eighth Annual Festival of Film Noir

Where: American Cinematheque at the Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica

When: Friday through April 16 at the Egyptian; April 13 to 16 at the Aero

Price: $6 to $9

Contact: (323) 466-Film or go to www.americancinematheque.com

Schedule

Egyptian

Friday: “Crime Wave” and “Between Midnight and Dawn,” 7:30 p.m.; Saturday: “The Damned Don’t Cry,” 6 p.m.; “Ruby Gentry” and “Beyond the Forest,” 8:30 p.m.; next Sunday: “Angel’s Flight,” 4:30 p.m.; “The Naked Street” and “Don’t Bother To Knock,” 7 p.m.; April 12: “The Long Haul of A.I. Bezzerides” and “Thieves Highway,” 7:30 p.m.; April 14: “Nobody Lives Forever” and “The House on Telegraph Hill,” 7:30 p.m.; April 15: “Underworld U.S.A.,” 6 p.m.; “Nightfall” and “No Man of Her Own,” 8:30 p.m.; April 16: “The Man Who Cheated Himself” and “Night Editor,” 6:30 p.m.

Aero

April 13: “Gun Crazy,” 7:30 p.m.; April 14: “Kiss Me Deadly,” 7:30 p.m.; April 15: “The Spiral Staircase” and “Criss Cross,” 7:30 p.m.; April 16: “Phantom Lady” and “The Window,” 6:30 p.m.