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Ed Maverick is making the saddest song on Peso Pluma’s Génesis even sadder. On Thursday, the Mexican indie singer-songwriter released a cover of “Lagunas,” Peso’s track with Jasiel Nuñez about forcing himself to stay away from someone he loves so that he can heal.

“Perhaps in another galaxy things were different,” sings Maverick in his distinct melancholic voice. “Perhaps there we’d have what we always had wanted.”

“Lagunas” was the second-to-last track on Génesis and hears Peso and Nuñez introspecting following the conclusion of a relationship backed by soft guitars and requinto.

Colombian singer Shakira is often referred to as the queen of Latin music. She's credited as the pioneer who extended the global reach of Latin music singers. Since her breakup with ex Gerald Piqué in June 2022, Shakira has become an ever-stronger artist, releasing several hits, including "Monotonía" and her history-making diss track "Bzrp Music Sessions, Vol. 53." Shakira has also received a number of accolades and is nominated for several Latin Grammy Awards this year.

There's no denying that 2023 became the year of Shakira. Through this collection of stories, we are honoring Shakira's current success, where she started, and the impact she continues to have on the Latine community.

In the ever-evolving landscape of Latin music, Shakira's rise to global stardom is legendary. While many may know her for her signature belly-dancing moves and chart-topping English hits such as "Hips Don't Lie," it is important to explore the early chapters of...

Singer Travis Birds is one of the most recognizable and promising voices on the Spanish music scene. Self-taught, Birds began playing and composing at the age 19 when she was struck by a deep existential crisis, what she now calls “my tunnel without light.”

Her first album came about through a combination of crowdfunding, word-of-mouth buzz and a series of happy, chance encounters, laying the groundwork for her breakthrough international success with her second album Coyotes, whose title song was picked for the soundtrack of hit Spanish series El embarcadero (The Red Pier) from Money Heist creator Alex Pina.

Her single 19 dias y 500 noches [19 days and 500 nights] a cover of the famous ballad by legendary 20th-century Spanish singer-songwriter Joaquim Sabina, part of an album of Sabina covers, topped the Spanish charts, exceeding Birds’ wildest expectations.

Her stage name, Travis, is a tip of the hat to Robert De Niro’s character, Travis Bickle in Matin Scorcese’s Taxi Driver.

Sunshine and noir are antithetical, as probably anyone who knows even a word of French could tell you. Sunshine and film noir, nearly as much so. Yet summer’s here and the time is right for skulking in the murderously foggy streets, thanks to a three-day festival of vintage ’40s and ’50s crime dramas being presented this weekend at the newly reopened Hollywood Legion Theater by the Film Noir Foundation.

In a year that hadn’t started off with a pandemic in full force, or wasn’t continuing with Hollywood’s Egyptian Theatre being closed for renovations, noir fans would have already something close to their fill with the annual Noir City festival that’s usually co-sponsored by the American Cinematheque every March or April. But with the absence of that 22-year-old standby leaving a doom-shaped hole in L.A. repertory moviegoers’ hearts, the Noir Foundation has stepped in with a shorter,...

It’s smooth noir sailing with this polished noir from Universal-International and its choice cast of pros — Edmond O’Brien, Ella Raines and William Bendix, plus Vincent Price doing an excellent turn as a Machiavellian businessman, a ‘frame’ expert with a side specialty in double-dealing. Director Michael Gordon earns an early credit at Universal-International with a nice look: almost all exteriors are richly photographed nighttime scenes. Ella Raines is particularly good — despite the cover illustration, she’s not a femme fatale, just a cautious independent woman.

The Web

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1947 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 87 min. / Street Date July 13, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Edmond O’Brien, Ella Raines, William Bendix, Vincent Price, Maria Palmer, John Abbott, Fritz Leiber, Howland Chamberlain, Tito Vuolo.

Cinematography: Irving Glassberg

Production Designer Art Directors: Bernard Herzbrun, James Sullivan

Film Editor: Russel F. Schoengarth

Original Music: Hans J. Salter

Written by William Bowers, Bertram Millhauser...

Richard Erdman, a film and TV actor who made a long career as an affable sidekick and character actor, has died. He was 93 and no cause of death was given.

An Oklahoma native, Erdman was the consummate secondary player. His venues ranged from the original Twilight Zone, where he played a man with a timepiece that could freeze the world, to Fred Zinneman’s The Men, where he played an easy-going paralyzed veteran who helps Marlon Brando adjust to life as a paraplegic.

Other notable roles by Erdman included his stint as an alcoholic ex-Marine in Cry Danger, and Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17, where he played a barracks chief.

Erdman moved to Los Angeles in 1941, enrolling in Hollywood High School. He was offered a Warner Bros. contract and appeared in Mr. Skeffington and later as Scooper Nolan in Janie (1944). He made 30 films at Warners, including an appearance in The Time of Your Life...

Character actor Richard Erdman, known to contemporary audiences as perpetual student Leonard on “Community,” who also had significant roles for more than seven decades in movies and TV shows such as “The Twilight Zone” and “Stalag 17,” has died. He was 93.

His friend, film historian Alan K. Rode, reported his death on Twitter.

On “Community,” Erdman was one of a group of elderly students, known as the “Hipsters” for their hip replacements, who was often told to “Shut up, Leonard!”

“Community” star Joel McHale paid tribute to Erdman on Twitter. “Such a good & funny man. We’ll miss you ‘Leonard,'” he said.

Fellow “Community” actor Yvette Nicole Brown also took to Twitter, writing, “I knew the day we’d have to say goodbye to this lovely man would come sooner than any of us were ready. But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier. #RichardErdman was Joy walking.

Richard Erdman, the mirthful character actor who stood out on the big screen in The Men, Cry Danger and Stalag 17 and then on the sitcom "Community," has died. He was 93.

Erdman, who as a teenager so impressed legendary director Michael Curtiz that he was quickly signed to a contract at Warner Bros., died Saturday, film historian Alan K. Rode reported. No other details were immediately available.

The Oklahoma native also is known for starring as the loutish McNulty, who's given a timepiece that can freeze time, in the memorable 1963 The Twilight Zone episode "A Kind of a Stopwatch."

Erdman excelled ...

Richard Erdman, the mirthful character actor who stood out on the big screen in The Men, Cry Danger and Stalag 17 and then on the sitcom Community, has died. He was 93.

Erdman, who as a teenager so impressed legendary director Michael Curtiz that he was quickly signed to a contract at Warner Bros., died Saturday at an assisted living facility in West Hills, California, film historian Alan K. Rode told The Hollywood Reporter. He said Erdman had age-related dementia exacerbated by a recent fall.

The Oklahoma native also is known for starring as the loutish McNulty, who's given a timepiece that can freeze time,...

Leapin’ Lizards! The original cavemen vs. dinosaurs saga is a winner — if viewer involvement trumps visual effects, it’s got a narrow lead over the Hammer/Harryhausen remake. Victor Mature, Carole Landis and Lon Chaney Jr. all made career hay out of their weeks spent running in loincloths, out in the desert. And Vci’s new disc is a terrific UCLA Archive restoration.

One Million B.C.

Blu-ray

Vci

1940 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 80 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 /

Starring: Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Lon Chaney Jr., Conrad Nagel, John Hubbard, Nigel De Brulier, Mamo Clark, Jean Porter, Inez Palange, Edgar Edwards, Jacqueline Dalya, Mary Gale Fisher.

Cinematography: Norbert Brodine

Film Editor: Ray Snyder

Original Music: Werner R. Heymann

Visual Effects: Roy Seawright, Jack Shaw, Frank Young

Written by Mickell Novack, George Baker, Joseph Frickert

Produced and Directed by Hal Roach

In the late 1930s fantasy and science fiction movies were few and far between,...

Many of MGM’s productions were scraping bottom in 1958, yet the studio found one more acceptable western vehicle for their last big star still on contract. Only-slightly corrupt marshal Robert Taylor edges toward a showdown with the thoroughly corrupt Richard Widmark in an economy item given impressive locations and the sound direction of John Sturges.

The Law and Jake Wade

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1958 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton, Henry Silva, DeForest Kelley, Henry Silva, Burt Douglas, Eddie Firestone.

Cinematography: Robert Surtees

Film Editor: Ferris Webster

Written by William Bowers from a novel by Marvin H. Albert

Produced by William B. Hawks

Directed by John Sturges

As the 1950s wore down, MGM was finding it more difficult to properly use its last remaining big-ticket stars on the steady payroll, Cyd Charisse and Robert Taylor. Cyd...

An exercise in dizzy disorientation, this Cornell Woolrich crazy-house noir pulls the rug out from under us at least three times. You want delirium, you got it -- the secret words for today are "Obsessive" and "Perverse." Innocent Robert Cummings is no match for sicko psychos Peter Lorre and Steve Cochran. The Chase Blu-ray Kino Classics 1946 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date May 24, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, Steve Cochran, Peter Lorre, Lloyd Corrigan, Jack Holt, Don Wilson, Alexis Minotis, Nina Koschetz, Yolanda Lacca, James Westerfield, Shirley O'Hara. Cinematography Frank F. Planer Film Editor Edward Mann Original Music Michel Michelet Written by Philip Yordan from the book The Black Path of Fear by Cornell Woolrich Produced by Seymour Nebenzal Directed by Arthur D. Ripley

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

As Guy Maddin says on his (recommended) commentary, the public domain copies of this show were...

Fans of this show know it as the It's a Wonderful Life of war movies, an intensely moving tale that restores feeling and tenderness to people crippled by loss and despair. The stellar pairing of top star Gregory Peck and Burmese unknown Win Min Than is unique in movies and not to be missed. The Purple Plain Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1955 / Color /1:66 widescreen / 100 min. / Street Date April 5, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Gregory Peck, Win Min Than, Brenda De Banzie, Bernard Lee, Maurice Denham, Lyndon Brook, Anthony Bushell, Josephine Griffin Cinematography Geoffrey Unsworth Art Direction Donald M. Ashton, Jack Maxsted Film Editor Clive Donner Original Music John Veale Written by Eric Ambler from a novel by H.E. Bates Produced by John Bryan, Earl St. John Directed by Robert Parrish

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

How can one convey the way a picture grows on one? I liked The Purple Plain...

or, Savant picks The Most Impressive Discs of 2015

This is the actual view from Savant Central, looking due North.

What a year! I was able to take one very nice trip back East too see Washington D.C. for the first time, or at least as much as two days' walking in the hot sun and then cool rain would allow. Back home in Los Angeles, we've had a year of extreme drought -- my lawn is looking patriotically ratty -- and we're expecting something called El Niño, that's supposed to be just shy of Old-Testament build-me-an-ark intensity. We withstood heat waves like those in Day the Earth Caught Fire, and now we'll get the storms part. This has been a wild year for DVD Savant, which is still a little unsettled. DVDtalk has been very patient and generous, and so have Stuart Galbraith & Joe Dante; so far everything...

This is a Great film noir. A straying husband's 'innocent' dalliance wrecks lives and puts his marriage in jeopardy. Been there, done that?   Dick Powell and Lizabeth Scott are menaced by Raymond Burr, while wife Jane Wyatt is kept in the dark. Andre de Toth's direction puts everyone through the wringer, with a very adult look at the realities of the American marriage contract, circa 1948. Pitfall Blu-ray Kino Lorber Studio Classics 1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date November 17, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Dick Powell, Lizabeth Scott, Jane Wyatt, Raymond Burr, John Litel, Byron Barr, Jimmy Hunt. Cinematography Harry Wild Art Direction Arthur Lonergan Film Editor Walter Thompson Written by Karl Kamb from the novel by Jay Dratler Produced by Samuel Bischoff Directed by André De Toth

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Is 'domestic noir' even a category? I think so. Some of the creepiest late- '40s noir pictures take intrigue,...

Let's hear it for the great westerns -- not the Ford and Hawks classics, but the fascinating marginal gems that see The West in a different way. Do you like Sam Peckinpah? Robert Parrish's evocation of Texas and Mexico in the 1880s will be pleasantly familiar -- a testing ground of personal codes and shifting loyalties in a treacherous land. The Wonderful Country Savant Blu-ray Review Kl Studio Classics 1959 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date September 29, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95  Starring Robert Mitchum, Julie London, Pedro Armendariz, Gary Merrill, Jack Oakie, Albert Dekker, Charles McGraw, Leroy "Satchel" Paige. Cinematography Floyd Crosby Film Editor Michael Luciano Production Design Harry Horner Original Music Alex North Written by Robert Ardrey from the book by Tom Lea Produced by Chester Erskine Directed by Robert Parrish

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

This gem is as individual a western as any made in the 1950s, and a...

As far as Hollywood was concerned, hardboiled pulp author Raymond Chandler was big news in 1944 and 1945, working with Billy Wilder on the Production Code breakthrough hit Double Indemnity, and getting two of his popular Philip Marlowe books transposed to the screen -- and not completely shorn of their racy content. Savant Blu-ray Review The Warner Archive Collection Warner Archive Collection 1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / Street Date September 15, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99  Starring Dick Powell, Claire Trevor, Anne Shirley, Otto Kruger, Mike Mazurki. Cinematography Harry J. Wild Art Direction Carroll Clark, Albert S. D'Agostino Film Editor Joseph Noriega Original Music Roy Webb Written by John Paxton from Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler Produced by Sid Rogell, Adrian Scott Directed by Edward Dmytryk

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Many films noirs seem to come from the same stylistic universe, in terms of themes and visuals. But a few of the...

Film Noir Foundation president and founder Eddie Muller is fighting the good fight for film preservation. When he's not overseeing the unmissable Noir City film festival in San Francisco each year, he's chasing down long-lost prints and buried treasures that others can't get their hands on. In an engrossing new profile in Pacific Standard, Muller opens up about his struggle to secure Byron Haskin's 1949 "Too Late for Tears" (which had been burned, recut, and in the public domain for years) in 35mm earlier this year, and 1951's "Cry Danger," which had been collecting dust in the Warner Archives. "You have these deals on paper, but they don’t have the slightest idea where the movies actually are," Muller tells writer Rick Paulas. But, while not a lone soldier in the preservation game -- Scorsese's Film Foundation holds down the fort in La -- Muller knows where to look. So how does Muller do it?...

Le Chef (France-Spain) from Daniel Cohen and Jennifer M Kroot and Bill Weber’s To Be Takei (Us) will open the 2014 RiverRun International Film Festival, while Phillippe Le Guay’s Bicycling With Molière (France) will close the festival.

Gillian Robespierre’s (Us) Obvious Child is the Centerpiece Premiere and David Gordon Green’s Joe the Southern Showcase. The festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, is set to run from April 4-13 and will screen 145 films, including 63 features and 82 shorts from 33 countries.

The 10 films in Narrative Competition include Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida (Poland-Denmark), Chloe Robichaud’s Sarah Prefers To Run (Canada), Tanta Agua (Uruguay-Mexico-Netherlands-Germany) from Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge and Andrzej Walda’s Walesa: Man Of Hope (Poland).

Documentary Competition entries include Dave Carroll’s Bending Steel (Us), Ben Cotner and Ryan White’s The Case Against 8 (Us), Marmato (Columbia-us) from Mark Grieco and Joe Berlinger’s Whitey (Us).

Special Presentations include Locke (UK) Breathe In (Us), The German Doctor...

Cry Danger

Written by William Bowers

Directed by Robert Parish

USA, 1951

The road that ultimately leads creative people in the filmmaking business to the highly coveted director’s chair is rarely the same from one candidate to the next. Some are fortunate enough to direct a feature from the get-go. The number of directorial debuts from stunningly young men and women premiering at festivals is a testament to that journey. Others take the long road, filling in a great many roles on movie sets, learning the ropes of many trades before they finally helm a project. Robert Parish’s journey began at age 11, when he appeared in the 1927 short Olympic Games. After years of acting and editing, his directorial debut finally came in 1951 with the mobster film Cry Danger.

Unexpectedly released from prison after 5 years courtesy of an alibi from someone he has never met, infamous hoodlum Rocky Mulloy (Dick Powell...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Oct. 15, 2013

Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95

Studio: Olive Films

Dick Powell in on the hunt for revenge and cash in Cry Danger.

Dick Powell (Murder, My Sweet) and Rhonda Fleming (Out of the Past) star in the 1951 film noir crime drama Cry Danger, which makes its DVD and Blu-ray debut with this Olive Films release.

Powell is Rocky, an innocent man just released from prison who’s on the hunt for both the $100,000 bankroll he allegedly stole and the people who framed him. Then there’s Delong (Richard Erdman, The Men), a disabled Marine veteran who produced the evidence that led to Rocky’s release and who now wants part of the stash in exchange for his help. But Rocky has a different plan,…

Directed by Robert Parrish (The Purple Plain) and featuring the glorious black-and-white cinematographer of Joseph F. Biroc (It’s a Wonderful Life), the film...

By Jonathan Melville

Is there something about classic movie fans that makes us more obsessive than your average cinemagoer? Does the fact that we often have to search for years for that obscure Western or noir on DVD mean we're more appreciative when we finally see it? Would most of us rather watch a 1960s Bond movie at the multiplex than a modern CGI-fest?

Those are some of the questions I asked myself as I left my home (and DVD collection) in the UK to fly 5,000 miles to the third annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood over the weekend of 12-15 April 2012. A gathering of thousands of movie aficionados from around the globe, this spin-off from the Us cable TV channel promises attendees that they'll see some of the best films ever made, often in the company of the people who made them, in the way they were meant to be seen.

The Fountainhead with Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper Photo: Courtesy of TCM

Liza Minnelli, Kim Novak, Robert Wagner, Tippi Hedren and Debbie Reynolds in person. Black Narcissus, Vertigo, Cabaret, and The Fountainhead projected on gigantic screens at Grauman's Chinese and Egyptian Theatres. Could any classic film fan wish for more? You could. And, at this year's annual TCM Classic Film Festival, which takes place from April 12th through the 15th, you'd get more: Kirk Douglas, Stanley Donen, Angie Dickenson, Norman Lloyd, Rhonda Fleming, and Norman Jewison appearing at special events and screenings of Two for the Road, Chinatown, Casablanca, The Longest Day, and The Thomas Crown Affair. But before going on about this year's festival, a look back is essential.

Chinatown's Faye Dunaway and Jack NicholsonPhoto: Courtesy of TCM

TCM 2010 & 2011

TCM's 2010 festival featured an opening night restoration of George Cukor's A Star Is Born (1954) starring Judy Garland and...

Passes Now on Sale Now for Four-Day Festival,

Coming to Hollywood April 12-15, 2012

Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Debbie Reynolds and “Baby Peggy” Diana Serra Cary, along with film noir leading ladies Peggy Cummins, Rhonda Fleming and Marsha Hunt are the latest stars scheduled to appear at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival.

Also announced today, the festival will feature the North American premiere of a new 75th anniversary restoration of Jean Renoir’s powerful Pow drama Grand Illusion (1937), widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. And the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra will provide a live musical accompaniment for a screening of the silent Douglas Fairbanks fantasy-adventure The Thief of Bagdad (1924).

Minnelli and Grey are slated to join TCM’s own Robert Osborne to kick off the four-day, star-studded event with a gala opening-night world premiere screening of the 40th anniversary restoration Cabaret (1971), the film for which the...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has unveiled additional programming and events for the 2012 edition of the TCM Classic Film Festival, including a celebration of the 100th anniversary of Paramount Pictures. Robert Evans, longtime producer and former head of production for Paramount, is set to take part in the tribute, which will focus on the studio’s 1970s renaissance. In addition, the TCM Classic Film Festival is slated to include a look at The Noir Style, a tribute to legendary costume designer Travis Banton, a look at art deco in the movies, a collection of early cinematic rarities and much more.

TCM.s own Robert Osborne will once again serve as official host for the four-day, star-studded event, which will take pace Thursday, April 12 . Sunday, April 15, 2012, in Hollywood. Passes are on sale now through the official festival website: http://www.tcm.com/festival.

The Paramount Renaissance

The TCM Classic Film Festival will...

 

Cinema Retro received the following notice from the Alamo Ritz Theatre in Austin, Texas:

Cinema Club Presents Film Noir Expert Eddie Muller

Cinema Club is an ongoing series that presents an assortment of classic films with the added accompaniment of an audience discussion with a special guest expert at each screening. For two very special screenings in July we are proud to welcome author and film noir scholar Eddie Muller, whose books "Dark City: The Lost World Of Film Noir", "Dark City Dames" and "The Art Of Noir" have established him solidly at the top of his field. He even founded the Film Noir Foundation. Come find out more about this fascinating chapter of film history from the guy who knows where all the bodies are buried and which drawer the gun is in.

About The Prowler

"Originally appearing after Hollywood's noir wave had crested, The Prowler was largely dismissed...

Cinema Club Presents: Two nights of film noir with film writer/noir expert Eddie Muller

Sunday July 11: The Prowler

Monday July 12: Cry Danger

On Sunday July 11 and Monday July 12, the Alamo Cinema Club will be bringing author Eddie Muller to Austin to present two spectacular noir discoveries. In glorious black and white 35mm prints, the recently restored film noir classics The Prowler and Cry Danger will surely wow all film fans and noir aficionados in attendance.

Muller is the authority on this genre we call film noir, he’s even earned the undisputed nickname “The Czar Of Noir”. Not only does he know all about the films, the stars, the writers, directors and the production history of these movies; he also has a knack for surprising you with bits of insight that place the films and their social contexts in a surprising and enlightening focus. Plus, he’s funny.

Cinema Club Presents: Two nights of film noir with film writer/noir expert Eddie Muller

Sunday July 11: The Prowler

Monday July 12: Cry Danger

The Cinema Club, Alamo’s premier venue for film discussion and appreciation, has brought some great films and greater guests to the theatre in the past few months: Ninotchka with host Charles Ramirez Berg; Bride Of Frankenstein with Thomas Schatz; and Night Nurse with Kim Morgan. In July, the Cinema Club continues its project of bringing nearly-forgotten classics to the big screen for past-due celebrations with a two day festival of film noir.

Eddie Muller, who is known in certain circles as the “Czar of Noir,” stands alone as the foremost expert on the genre. For those unfamiliar with the charismatic and erudite writer, Muller is the author of Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir, Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir,...

Paul Dunlap was a prolific film composer in the 1950s and 1960s, scoring over 200 features. He was best known for providing themes and scores for numerous science fiction and horror thrillers of the decades. His music highlighted attacks by prehistoric beasts in 1951’s Lost Continent starring Cesar Romero, and an alien robot invasion in 1954’s Target Earth with Richard Denning and Kathleen Crowley. He scored Michael Landon’s transformation from man to monster in I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), and provided music for such other Aip and United/Allied Artist cult classics as I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (1957), Blood of Dracula (1957), How to Make a Monster (1958), Frankenstein – 1970 (1958), Invisible Invaders (1959), The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959), Angry Red Planet (1959), Shock Corridor (1963), and Black Zoo (1963).

Dunlap was born in Springfield, Ohio, on July 19, 1919. He began working in films in the early 1950s, scoring westerns, war and action films including The Baron of Arizona...

(Actor Richard Erdman, left)

by Jon Zelazny

The craft of acting in the 20th century breaks neatly into two distinct phases: before Marlon Brando and after Marlon Brando. He first conquered Broadway in A Streetcar Named Desire in 1947. Three years later—and sixty years ago—he made his first movie.

The Men (1950) is a grim drama set in a Va paraplegic ward. Brando is the bitter new arrival; Jack Webb and Richard Erdman play the patients who become his best buddies.

A native of Enid, Oklahoma, Erdman spent his teenage years in vaudeville, and began his Hollywood career in 1944. He most recently appeared on the NBC series "Community."

Richard Erdman: Brando and I went out to Birmingham General Hospital in Van Nuys, where all the war paraplegics were still being treated, and we stayed there a few days, learning how to use wheelchairs, and how to get in and...

Richard Erdman buffed up his bald pate before his cheering Castro audience, confirming that he--more than anyone--had a sense of humor about the passage of time. After relishing in his "second banana" performance as blowzy alcoholic Delong in Cry Danger (1951), Muller expressed to Erdman that he felt they should have a drink--and promised that would come later--but settled into his on-stage conversation first.

Muller commented that he had seen Erdman "pop up" in "tiny little bit parts" in a lot of the noir films from the 1940s, including a bellhop in Nobody Lives Forever (1946). So, despite Erdman's presence throughout these films in the '40s, he was really really young in those roles. "Then, all of a sudden, here's Cry Danger--the kid grows up!" Muller found Erdman's casting as Delong interesting because--as most people know--noir is all about this odd post-wwii malaise and the shift in American manhood, which...

Some film noir lands like a brick. / Only quick and sure does the trick. / If you want to see guys who know how to crack wise, / Watch Powell and Erdman, the two Dicks.--William Varney, "The Voice of Film Noir"

In 2007, Eddie Muller programmed Cry Danger (1951) for Noir City 5 on the proviso that a reputable archive--"which shall remain nameless even though it is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts at a very esteemed university"--had a 35mm print. When the print was pulled to ship to San Francisco, it was determined that it had deteriorated beyond the point that it could be projected. If ever the mission statement of the Film Noir Foundation could stand asserted, that incident underscored the necessity of rescuing and restoring America's noir heritage. "This is not an ad, ladies and gentlemen," Muller advised, "this is the real world."

 ...