Flick Pick

Movie buffs who are in the mood for a little blood, deceit and darkness need look no further than this week's second annual Longmont Film Festival, which presents three film noir classics Thursday and Friday at the Longmont Performing Arts Center, 513 Main Street.

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More About

• Rudolph Mate
• Howie Movshovitz
• Edmond O'Brien
• Longmont Performing Arts Center
• Scott Brady

At 7 p.m. Thursday, Colorado Public Radio film critic Howie Movshovitz will introduce D.O.A., Rudolph Mate's tense 1949 thriller in which a small-town businessman, played by Edmond O'Brien, desperately searches the streets of San Francisco for the man who poisoned him -- before the deadly time bomb in his system can take effect.

At 3 p.m. Friday, catch He Walked by Night, the 1948 masterpiece told in semi-documentary style about a police manhunt for a cunning cop-killer in Los Angeles. Richard Basehart and Scott Brady star, and Alfred L. Werker is credited as director -- even though noir fans can tell you that Anthony Mann also stood behind the camera.

At 7 p.m. Friday, Colorado University Film Studies chairman Jim Palmer introduces 1950's In a Lonely Place, featuring tough guy Humphrey Bogart as a jaded Hollywood screenwriter who's struggling to clear himself of a murder rap and promptly runs afoul of steamy femme fatale Gloria Grahame. Nicholas Ray, who also gave us They Live by Night and Rebel Without a Cause, directed with his usual panache.

Need comic relief? Each film will be accompanied by a Three Stooges short. For information, call 303-678-7869.