PROSELYTIZING FOR FRENCH NOIR

We're not at all enamored of the recent coinage that has become an annual "event," particularly on Twitter: "Noirvember." Too slick, too glib, too calculated: strike three and you're out. But one suspects it will be with us for the foreseeable future. 

Which, of course, means that occasionally we find a need to use the term to our own advantage. Since THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT festival has been in operation, it's had its own monopoly on "Noirvember," given that it's the only film noir festival to actually occur in November. 

In November of '21, other places got  into the works. Two theatres in Boston featured "Noirvember" fests this year. One figures that it's only a question of time before the Film Noir Foundation decides to get into the act somewhere.

In the meantime, THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT got back in harness at the Roxie Theatre in San Francisco after a twenty-three month hiatus. (2021s schedule, segmented into an October "prequel," a November "main event," and a December "coda," brought viewers a total of 17 films, including seven festival favorites from previous years.) 

Above, a shot of French noir evangelist Don Malcolm at work in front of his "flock," and a look at the 2021 festival artwork, based on the poster art for one of the films in this year's festival, DEATH OF A KILLER (1964, directed and starring Robert Hossein).