Lizabeth Scott in Desert Fury (1947), showing March 24 as part of Noir City Hollywood.

The Film Noir Foundation celebrates the 25th Anniversary of Noir City Hollywood with a return to Hollywood’s beautiful restored Egyptian Theatre March 22 through 31, demonstrating that “Darkness Has No Borders” with a look at sinister, shadowy crime around the world. Several of the screenings include allegorical double features that pair familar English language titles with international ones, a double dose of dark and forbidding themes, emotions, and scoundrels.

Noir City allow sees the Los Angeles debut of two stunning restorations, opening night’s 1952 Argentinian film “Never Open That Door” and the 1967 French color film “Le Samourai,” the closing night presentation. Other special delights include a screening of the bleak, 1947 classic noir “Nightmare Alley” starring Tyrone Power Jr. in a rare nitrate print, as well as a presentation of an eye-popping Technicolor print of the colorful, over-the-top 1947 film “Desert Fury, which Czar of Noir Eddie Muller calls “the gayest movie ever made in Hollywood’s Golden Era.”

Further information on Noir City Hollywood.
Never Open That Door (1952), screening March 22 during Noir City Hollywood.

Opening night kicks off with a cocktail reception preceding the screening of the Film Noir Foundation’s restoration of the Argentinian 1952 noir “Never Open That Door,” an adaptation of two Cornell Woolrich short stories featuring visceral and spine-tingling suspense highlighted by Pablo Tabernero’s magnificent cinematography. The 1949 “The High Window,” adapted from another Woolrich story plays after intermission, featuring Bobby Driscoll as a little boy known for tall tales, until he witnesses a real murder but can’t find anyone to believe him.

Noir City’s passport to danger includes these unique double features. Saturday, March 23 takes a suspenseful and tension-filled look at crime and desire inside train stations with the screening of “Union Station”/“Cairo Station.” Sunday, March 24 examines illicit desires through a haze of fatalism and corruption in the two films “La Bete Humaine”/“Human Desire.” Heists gone wrong could be the theme of Monday, March 25’s double caper feature of “Armored Car Robbery”/“Assault on the Pay Train.” Tuesday, March 26 features the bleak fatalism of prison noir with “Brute Force”/“Hardly a Criminal.” The dark in and outs of prison breaks and sadism highlights the Wednesday, March 27 screening of “Black Tuesday”/“Le Trou.”

Charles McGraw and Marie Windsor in The Narrow Margin (1952), showing March 28 during Noir City Hollywood.

Thursday, March 28 examines cat and mouse chases and evasions with the screening of “Narrow Margin”/“Rififi.” Friday, March 29’s double feature takes a down and dirty look at agrarian noir and sexy femmes with the steamy realism of “Bitter Rice”/“Thieves’ Highway.” In the Saturday, March 30 matinee double feature, swindles, scams, and spiritualists highlight “The Mind Reader”/“In the Palm of Your Hand,” a sweet blend of Pre-Code and Mexican mid-century mystery. The concluding Sunday, March 31 double feature celebrates a double dose of Richard Conte in the screening of “Under the Gun”/“New York Confidential.”

Muller and the Foundation’s Alan Rode provide pithy, entertaining introductions to each screening, some featuring exhibition of rare posters and other advertising material. Merchandise celebrating film noir and its creators will be sold preceding and following screenings, all benefiting the restoration of rare noir films.

Come examine political and emotional turmoil past and present with its deep dive into the gritty, dirty world of noir and its hoods, femme fatales, and grizzled cops.