, a George Sanders vehicle that centers on a hostage crisis at the Los Angeles Public Library.) And as an added bonus, everything in Noir City will screen from 35-millimeter.
Another compelling rarity in this year’s Noir City is the 1954 drama Drive a Crooked Road, which screens tomorrow at 4:45 PM. Written by a young Blake Edwards and directed by the underrated Richard Quine (Bell Book and Candle, Strangers When We Meet), the film stars Mickey Rooney as a mechanic who agrees to serve as a getaway driver in a robbery after he falls in love with a gangster’s girlfriend. Rooney could bring to drama the same intensity he brought to musical comedies, as seen in Siegel’s Baby Face Nelson (1957) and the great Playhouse 90 teleplay “The Comedian.” I haven’t seen Crooked Road, but I look forward to catching Rooney in another dramatic role. Edwards’s involvement is also a selling point—as he demonstrated in the TV series Peter Gunn and the 1962 feature Experiment in Terror, Edwards had as much of a knack for the crime genre as he did for comedy.
