Kicking off Memorial Day Weekend with the screening of Robert Aldrich’s masterpiece Kiss Me Deadly and the opening of a new exhibit ‘Trapped in the Shadows: Film Noir Artifacts.’ Continuing throughout the summer with films from Howard Hawks, Ida Lupino, Jacques Tourneur, Edgar J. Ulmer, Orson Welles, Ridley Scott, David Fincher, Joseph H. Lewis, Michael Mann, Clint Eastwood, Steve McQueen, Anthony Mann, and Robert Altman, with special guests including author Robert Polito, composer Carter Burwell, cinematographer Sean Price Williams, and filmmaker Walter Hill, with more films and guests announced throughout the summer.
Sag Harbor, NY — Following previous summer-long series devoted to major studios and film movements in American cinema, Sag Harbor Cinema turns its focus this summer to film noir – one of Hollywood’s most seductive and ever-evolving languages. Spanning the shadow-soaked fatalism of the 1940s and ‘50s to its sharper, colder reinvention in the late 20th and 21st centuries, SHC’s Summer Noir series traces the genre’s evolution from its classic roots to modern incarnations.
Through screenings of canonical works and contemporary interpretations, the series reflects quintessential noir themes – moral ambiguities, corrupt systems, cultural anxieties, existential crises, and doomed love – as well as its stylistic trademarks. From the bleak nightmare of Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1945) to the chilling precision of Gone Girl (David Fincher, 2014); from the labyrinthine intrigue of The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946) to the sun-bleached disillusionment of The Long Goodbye (Robert Altman, 1973); from James M. Cain adapted by Billy Wilder (Double Indemnity, 1944) and Tay Garnett (The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1946) to Cornell Woolrich translated by François Truffaut (Mississippi Mermaid, 1969); from the bare-bones gut power of Joseph H. Lewis’s Gun Crazy (1950) to Ridley Scott’s sumptuous techno-noir Blade Runner (1981), the series reveals how noir is continually reinvented to mirror the anxieties of its time.
“The interplay between light and darkness is at the essence of noir. As such, its shades deepen or soften according to the historical moment, a filmmaker’s vision, the eye of a cinematographer, a star’s features, or the lamp of a projector. Its instability is part of the attraction, just like the sense of peril that infuses its stories. Too moody to be properly characterized as a film genre, noir has touched them all. As Walter Hill, a master of the form, aptly wrote in an essay: ‘We know it when we see it. At least we think so.’ This makes a series like this one almost impossible to program, but also very fun. Even more with the opportunity to further investigate noir’s own imagery with an art exhibit,” says SHC’s Founding Artistic Director Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan.
The program kicks off on Saturday, May 23rd, at 6pm, with a screening of one of François Truffaut’s favorite films, Robert Aldrich’s Kiss Me Deadly (1955), followed by a Q&A and the opening of an accompanying exhibit on the Cinema’s third floor, ‘Trapped in the Shadows: Film Noir Artifacts,’ featuring a curated selection of film-related art, photographs, original scripts, vintage paperbacks, and objects representing noir in all its cinematic forms as well as its influence on other arts.
Through the summer, the series will continue to feature classics like Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947), They Live by Night (Nicholas Ray, 1948) and Touch of Evil (Orson Welles, 1958), alongside lesser-known titles, like Anthony Mann’s prescient Border Incident (1949) and Steve McQueen’s Widows (2018) and defining neo-noirs such as Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974), Play Misty for Me (Clint Eastwood, 1971), and L.A. Confidential (Curtis Hanson, 1997).
On June 1st, the Cinema will celebrate Marilyn Monroe’s 100th birthday with a screening of Henry Hathaway’s Technicolor noir Niagara (1953), with dark lady Monroe — just prior to her comedic glory in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire — as a honeymooner plotting to kill her husband.
Among guests already confirmed are author Robert Polito (Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson and the recent After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan’s Memory Palace), who will participate in a Q&A with film essayist, collector, and curator Robert M. Rubin, following the screening of Detour on June 14th; composer Carter Burwell, who will expand on scoring noir through one of his many collaborations with Joel and Ethan Coen; director of photography Sean Price Williams (Good Time, Marjorie Prime), and, from California, director Walter Hill (The Driver, The Warriors, Johnny Handsome) will appear via zoom from Los Angeles.
‘Summer Noir’ at Sag Harbor Cinema invites audiences to revisit or discover these films on the big screen, where the shadowy atmosphere and dark corners of noir resonate most powerfully. The series unfolds on May 23rd and continues through September 2026, with screenings primarily on Mondays and Fridays. Special guests and the full schedule will be updated throughout the summer at sagharborcinema.org.
This repertory program is co-presented with the kind support of the SHS Foundation.
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ABOUT THE MAY FILMS
KISS ME DEADLY
Directed by Robert Aldrich
USA | 1955 | 106 mins | English
PLAYS SATURDAY, MAY 23RD
Kiss Me Deadly, noir at its most ferocious, takes the genre’s familiar cynical detective and drops him into a nightmare of Cold War paranoia and deception. What begins as a routine pickup on a dark highway quickly spirals into something far more sinister, and far less explainable. Directed by Robert Aldrich (The Dirty Dozen, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?), the film is notorious for its brutality, sexual tension, and a surprise, shocking finale that feels dangerously close today. A favorite of the Nouvelle Vague filmmakers and of Quentin Tarantino.
One evening, private detective Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) picks up a strange woman, Christina (Cloris Leachman), who’s standing on the highway wearing only a trench coat. They’re stopped farther on by strangers who knock out Mike and murder Christina. Although warned not to investigate by the police, Mike and his girlfriend and assistant, Velda (Maxine Cooper), become ensnared in a dark plot involving scientist Dr. Soberin (Albert Dekker) and Christina’s terrified roommate, Lily (Gaby Rodgers).
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BLUE VELVET
Directed by David Lynch
USA | 1986 | 120 mins | English
NEW 4K RESTORATION
PLAYS FRIDAY, MAY 29TH
Since its release in 1986, David Lynch’s Blue Velvet has come to be regarded as one of the defining American films of the late 20th century. Its blend of noir elements, suburban imagery, and psychological intensity has had a lasting influence, paving the way for filmmakers interested in exploring the tension between surface normalcy and hidden darkness.
College student Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home after his father has a stroke. When he discovers a severed ear in an abandoned field, Beaumont teams up with detective’s daughter Sandy Williams (Laura Dern) to solve the mystery. They believe beautiful lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) may be connected with the case, and Beaumont finds himself becoming drawn into her dark, twisted world, where he encounters sexually depraved psychopath Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper).
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About the Sag Harbor Cinema
As a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) community-based organization, Sag Harbor Cinema is dedicated to presenting the past, present and future of the movies and to preserving and educating about films, filmmaking, and the film-going experience in its three state-of-the-art theaters. The Cinema engages its audiences and the community year-round through dialogue, discovery, and appreciation of the moving image – from blockbusters to student shorts and everything in between. Revitalized and reimagined through unprecedented community efforts to rebuild the iconic Main Street structure after a fire nearly destroyed it in 2016, SHC continues a long historic tradition of entertainment in the heart of Sag Harbor Village.