Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

mood and certainly made me understand why the city appealed so much to
noir filmmakers.
Another noir festival that followed a couple of months later was the
one held by the American Cinematheque, with other noir film greats showing
at both the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood and the Aero Theatre in Santa
Monica. Attending this event meant a threefold adventure: a) I would again
have a passage through dark back alleys with a collection of some delectable
L.A-based crime or detective dramas; b) I would get to have a key role in
drawing up the promotional poster and website of the Festival: “Which city
deserves the title ‘Film Noir Capital City of the World?’”; and c) I got the
chance to be with many of the noir people I had met before, and have further
conversations with them.
Again, during these three weeks I spent in Los Angeles for the
Festival, I got to meet many of the actors and actresses who had performed in
the films we watched. On the opening night, the films were preceded by a
reception and a book-signing that was hosted by the authors and editor of the
new anthology book, Los Angeles Noir. As with the previous festival, most of
the days would have a Q&A moment between film screenings, which gave the
viewers an excellent possibility to get to know the film’s principals better and
listen to their experiences concerning shooting their films, the roles they
played and how they perceived films at that time. I was delighted to have had
the opportunity to meet Kim Hamilton (who played Harry Belafonte’s wife in
Odds against Tomorrow (1959), giving her impressions of co-stars Shelley
Winters, Robert Ryan and Gloria Grahame); Susan Harrison (she was Burt
Lancaster’s sister in Sweet Smell of Success, 1957); Lynne Carter from The
Port of New York (1950), a rarely seen Eagle-Lyon film; Sherry Jackson (she
was only eight years old when she played Garfield’s daughter in The Breaking
Point (1949)); Tommy Cook from Cry of the City (1948); Ann Robinson in The
Glass Wall (1953); Coleen Gray who co-starred in Kubrick’s The Killing
(1956); Richard Anderson in The People against O’Hara (a 1951 MGM
production); and the list goes on.
July of that year I flew to Seattle to participate in another noir
Festival (the first one to be held in this city), which went on for a full week. The
McGraw Hall of the Seattle Centre was also the venue where I met many new
people and talked to some familiar faces again. The screen lit up with some
rare film gems, making it a delight for the film noir lovers present.
The years that followed were also remarkably rich and valuable. I
attended the Noir City Film Noir Festival, again at the Castro Theatre in San
Francisco in January 2008, which gave me the pleasure of listening to noir
actress Joan Leslie in-person, and watching some true noir masterpieces,
many of them in brand newly restored 35mm prints, like The Prowler (1951).
And, finally, in January 2010 I was able to participate in the last “Noir City 8
Film Noir Festival” in the same venue before submitting this thesis. This year
not surprisingly saw another noteworthy event which showcased a full set of
double-features and also included interviews and discussions. I look forward
to supporting and actively participating in future Noir City events.
I have benefited greatly from the collections in the major libraries
of the USA, namely the ones in cities where the noir Festivals took place but
also the ones in Miami, as I mentioned earlier, and the New York Research
Libraries, especially the Performing Arts library at Lincoln Centre Plaza,
where I would spend hours browsing through their catalogues, manuscripts
and archives. I am therefore most grateful to all of them for being so
supportive in answering all my questions and providing me the materials that
have given me the chance to make an original contribution in this
dissertation.
My appreciation and my gratefulness are also due to the
University of Aveiro for having accepted my candidature for this project and
the Portuguese Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation for giving me a short-term
grant to proceed with my studies abroad and for that reason letting me
embark into this noir adventure.
I am most sincerely indebted to all those who offered valuable
suggestions and assiduous support (at all levels) to make sure that this work
might one day emerge. I have been especially blessed in my relations with
the people I have encountered and new friends I have made and of course
the ones (including my family) who have accompanied me throughout my
personal and academic life, and so I wish to express my appreciation to all of
them for showing an early and continued interest in this work.