what I like

abt the Palm Springs Film Noir Festival is its intimacy & its eccentricity.

it's intimate because there is only one showing at a time & in the same place. you actually get to meet people -- like Roberta & Mort who have become my filmgoing buddies. & the guests are just like everyone else. they hang out. I was able to remind John Saxon abt meeting him with my mother in Cleveland a century ago. I chattd with Kathleen Hughes abt her long friendship with Marie Windsor.

it's eccentric because its director Art Lyons is. I don't agree with his notion of film noir. in fact many of the films he shows aren't noir at all. but he does have an eye for the forgotten or out of the way. where else cd one see such a gem as "Port of 40 Thieves"   a 1944 Poverty Row production which may be the first movie abt a female serial killer. & even when the films are less than stellar there are some wonderful moments -- like William Reynolds in drag in "No Questions Asked." & then there was "Bewitched" (no relation to the recent bomb)whose star was never seen: we only hear Audrey Totter in the first year of her film career but she still walks away with the picture.