Sag Harbor Cinema’s ‘Focus on Film Noir'

Beginning April 19, Sag Harbor Cinema will celebrate the centennial of Columbia Pictures, the famed Hollywood studio, with a “Focus on Film Noir” which will continue throughout 2024.

Following the success of last year’s centennial celebration of Warner Bros., this time around Sag Harbor Cinema will look back at the first 100 years of another essential American Hollywood studio — Columbia Pictures.

Opening the Columbia Picture centennial celebration will be a one week special “Focus on Film Noir,” including works by legendary filmmakers Nicholas Ray (“In a Lonely Place,” 1950), Fritz Lang (“The Big Heat,” 1953 and “Human Desire,” 1954) and Orson Welles (“The Lady From Shanghai,” 1947), with stars like Rita Hayworth, Gloria Grahame, Humphrey Bogart and Glenn Ford. Also screened will be more rare titles by lesser known masters of the genre such as Joseph Lewis, Irving Lerner, Gordon Douglas and Phil Karlson.

“The centennial is a perfect excuse to explore Columbia’s fascinating history, from its origins on Hollywood’s Poverty Row to the present,” said the cinema’s artistic director Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan. “And I particularly cherish the opportunity to spotlight the studio’s great ‘crime films’ of the ’40s and ’50s — in all their exciting mix of existential dread and stylistic ingenuity. They really pack a punch. B-movies were the bread and butter of the studio, with directors like Lewis, Karlson and Douglas making several films per year with very little money but great creative vision.”

Founded as CBC in 1918 by brothers Harry and Jack Cohn, together with business partner Joe Brandt, the studio became Columbia Pictures in 1924. Occasionally labeled as one of “the little three” among Hollywood’s eight studios, Columbia was initially known for short films and low budget featurettes. However, by the 1930s, it had solidified its reputation in the industry as the home of high profile director Frank Capra, who won six Best Director Oscars for films like “It Happened One Night” (1934), “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” (1936) and “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1947), as well as for a stable of stars like Rita Hayworth, Cary Grant, Carole Lombard and Jean Arthur.

Under the reign of Harry Cohn (who would run the studio for 34 years as head of production), Columbia developed a reputation of smart budgeting and sharp humor. To Paramount’s and MGM’s more lavish “sophisticated comedies,” Cohn’s studio responded with the more subversive spirit of screwballs. Highlights of the genre include “Twentieth Century” (1934), “His Girl Friday” (1940) and “The Awful Truth” (1937). And while Warner Bros. had captured the essence of Depression-era America through its groundbreaking gangster films, Columbia found inspiration in the country’s postwar gloom and the restless shadows of Film Noir.

The “Focus On Noir” program will start Friday, April 19, and continue through the weekend, with second screenings showing the following week through Thursday, April 25. Special guests screenwriter Paul Schrader, cinematographer Fred Murphy, and Michael Barker (co-founder and co-president of Sony Picture Classics) will make introductions and participate in Q&As during the weekend.

The Columbia Pictures retrospective will run throughout the year, spanning a wide variety of titles from the Studio’s rich history. From the grand spectacle of the 1950s and 1960s with films like “The Bridge on the River Kwai” (1957), “On the Waterfront” (1954), “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962), “Bye Bye Birdie” (1963), “Dr. Strangelove” (1964) and “Funny Girl;” to the New Hollywood revolution of the 1970s that brought “Shampoo” (1975), “Taxi Driver” (1976), “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977), “Midnight Express” (1978), and “Kramer Vs. Kramer” (1979); the 1980s blockbusters like “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982) and “Ghostbusters” (1984); to the creation of Sony Pictures Classics in the early 1990s; and finally crossing over into independent arthouse films while still producing franchise films like James Bond and Spider-Man up to today.

Tickets for the screening and events will be available on the cinema’s website, sagharborcinema.org. Sag Harbor Cinema is at 90 Main Street in Sag Harbor.