In sunny Palm Springs, shadows are hard to come by, but welcome, and rain-slicked streets are rare. Despite the unlikely surroundings, a film noir festival — devoted to hard-bitten, tough-talking, urban crime movies, most of them in moody B&W — draws hundreds of vintage-movie buffs to Palm Springs annually.
Twelve movies, many of them rare, were showcased during last weekend’s 26th annual Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival — named for a late crime writer and Palm Springs council member — at the city’s Cultural Center.
I attended for the third time in four years. I witnessed no cosplay. With high temperatures around 100 degrees, like most attendees I wore a T-shirt and shorts, not a trench coat and fedora.
“Gunn” was the movie we were all about to see on Friday afternoon. It’s a 1967 big-screen version of the 1958-1961 TV series “Peter Gunn,” about a dapper, jazz-lovin’ private eye. Having always been curious about the series, I thought the movie might provide an entry point.
As affable host and programmer Alan K. Rode explained from the stage, Craig Stevens returned as Gunn but the rest of the cast was either unavailable or deemed too old. Due to that circumstance, Rode said, “you get to see a young Ed Asner as a cop, which is really fun.”
Blake Edwards, who created the series, returned as director and co-wrote the script with William Peter Blatty. “Gunn,” however, was a commercial failure.
“It was supposed to be the first of four,” Rode said of the planned series of Peter Gunn movies. “Instead it’s one of one.”
“Gunn” has never been on home video and may not have been seen theatrically since 1967. Rarities like this are what draw fans to the festival.
I enjoyed the heck out of it. Highlights included the cucumber-cool Stevens, the jazz score and the witty dialogue. When a jazz club owner complains to Gunn that a protection racket “wants 50%. Fifty percent!”, Gunn replies in mock astonishment: “That’s almost half.”
As with a lot of detective movies, I can’t say the intricate plot was easy to follow, but as long as Peter Gunn understood it, that was what mattered.
The next day I returned for “Manhandled,” a 1949 B&W film about a writer named Alton Bennet who has recurring dreams of killing his wife with a perfume bottle. The wrong person hears about those dreams and kills the wife for her jewelry, instantly casting suspicion on the husband.
“Manhandled” likewise flopped at the box office, but its reputation has grown. As with “Gunn,” the otherwise-unavailable “Manhandled” was digitally restored for the festival.
One favorite moment involved a gaggle of reporters at the murder scene asking the lieutenant what he can share about the dead woman.
“You boys want an angle? This one’s a dilly,” the lieutenant says. “Bennet claims he went to a psychiatrist because he dreamed every night that he murdered his wife.”
The reporters don’t ask any questions. They just race away with their scoop, one of them yelping: “Oh boy!”
Far and wide
I was presenting my ticket for “Gunn” to the usher when the man ahead of me exclaimed: “David Allen! You wrote that you were going to be here.”
He introduced himself as John Anderson (if memory serves). He lives in Redlands and subscribes to the Daily Facts. He added wryly: “I didn’t get my paper today.”
It happens.
I also saw Murray Gilkeson, a La Verne subscriber to the Daily Bulletin. He didn’t bring up any subscription issues, thankfully.
I expected Gilkeson would be there. A festival pass holder, he’s the reader who a few years ago alerted me to the festival’s existence. As he rightly foresaw, a film noir festival is right up my darkened, fog-shrouded alley.
A hotbed for film
Palm Springs is something of a haven for film buffs, as I was reminded on this visit.
The Cultural Center has a “Screwball Sundays” series through June 21, with fast-paced ’30s and ’40s comedies; an upcoming series of hits from America’s Bicentennial year, “Where Were You in 1976?,” including “The Bad News Bears” and “A Star is Born”; and the 70MM Fest on May 29-31.
Six widescreen classics will be shown: “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “The Searchers,” “West Side Story,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “Boogie Nights.” I might have to return for that.
At the newly restored Plaza Theatre downtown, meanwhile, classic films are part of the mix of programming. “The Sound of Music” is May 24, and four Marilyn Monroe pictures are screening May 29-June 1. “Misfits,” her last completed film, plays June 1, on what would have been her 100th birthday.
Year-round, the nine-screen Festival Theaters is largely a showcase for independent cinema, perhaps the only such venue in the greater Inland Empire. On two visits to the city last year, I saw “Sinners” and “Train Dreams,” both of which went on to be Academy Award nominees.
If I’d had it in me to see another film this visit, “Sheep Detectives,” “Omaha,” “Hokum” and “Blue Heron,” all acclaimed, were playing. Too late I learned that Thursdays is senior day (55 and up), with $7 admission and a free small popcorn.
Obviously a lot of movie lovers live in Palm Springs. But in the desert city, it can’t hurt that theaters are air conditioned.
Pardon their dust
I may as well keep rolling with more items from Palm Springs. Two notable construction projects were spotted a few blocks apart on facilities due to open in 2027.
A $268 million campus for College of the Desert is going up on 29 acres occupied from 1959-2005 by the Palm Springs Mall. The new building is so large, it makes the Mission Inn look like a Dutch Bros.
Nearby, and more modestly, the Public Library’s 1975 home is undergoing a $45 million, top-to-bottom renovation. Investments in libraries are always a welcome sight.
Hello again?
At Sherman’s Deli in Palm Springs, where I had just sat down for lunch, a server came over to say, “Welcome back. I haven’t seen you in a while.” I eat there once or twice a year, most recently last November. Did she mistake me for someone else, or had I really been remembered? Do I stand out that much? Why? Those are good, slightly worrisome questions, but a bowl of cabbage soup and half a pastrami sandwich soon served as a delicious distraction.
David Allen writes Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, self-consciously. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.