3D Noir

The Noir City Film Festival at the Castro Theatre projected a pair of restored 1953 3D movies on Friday, starting with Man in the Dark. It starred Edmond O'Brien as a gangster who undergoes an "experimental" brain operation (read lobotomy) with scalpels popping out of the screen at the audience. Without a memory of who he is, O'Brien becomes "good" but is kidnapped off the clinic's front lawn by his old partners in crime who want to know where he stashed the $130,000 stolen from a payroll truck.



The romantically happy ending featured a chase at an oceanfront amusement park, including over and around a roller coaster that was a dead ringer for The Big Dipper at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. What's not to like? (Photo above is of torch singer Laura Ellis performing a teaser number onstage at the Castro for Saturday evening's Noir City Nightclub at the Regency Lodge.)