Noir City DC: Double Feature: LA BÊTE HUMAINE + HUMAN DESIRE w/ intro by film historian Foster Hirsch

Date and Time

• Saturday, Oct 19, 2024  11am

Location

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Event Category

In-Person

About

The Silent Cinema Showcase returns with another selection of newly restored screen classics and rare gems from the silent era.

LA BÊTE HUMAINE [THE HUMAN BEAST]
In the 1930s, Jean Gabin brought a gallery of doomed antiheroes to life with a blend of poetic fatalism and blunt proletarian defiance, becoming the first global icon of the noir spirit. He chose Jean Renoir to direct this adaptation of Émile Zola's novel about a working-class man whose "hereditary flaw" causes psychotic episodes. When he falls for the wife of a railway official (Simone Simon), herself damaged by abuse and exploitation, they are on track for inevitable tragedy. Renoir gives the film a gritty flavor, telling a compelling story with empathy and candor. (Note adapted from Noir City.) DIR/SCR Jean Renoir, from the novel by Émile Zola; PROD Raymond Hakim, Robert Hakim. France, 1938, b&w, 99 min. In French with English subtitles. NOT RATED

Followed by:

70th Anniversary
HUMAN DESIRE
Following the popular success of 1953's THE BIG HEAT, Columbia Pictures reteamed Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame with director Fritz Lang for this Americanized adaptation of LE BÊTE HUMAINE, smuggling the sordid tale of adultery and murder past the censors. Grahame gives a bruised and beleaguered performance as the abused woman who wonders if murdering her loutish husband (Broderick Crawford) is the only way out of her domestic hell. Cinematographer Burnett Guffey adds noir panache to Lang's cruel and suffocating depiction of the eternal noir triangle. (Note courtesy of Noir City.) DIR Fritz Lang; SCR Alfred Hayes, based on the novel "La Bête Humaine" by Émile Zola; PROD Lewis J. Rachmil. U.S., 1954, b&w, 91 min. English. NOT RATEDhttps://silver.afi.com/Browsing/Movies/Details/f-0100004770