8:45 p.m.	Black Angel Roy William Neill (U.S., 1946)

Elliot Lavine is a noir aficionado, a Stanford lecturer, and former film programmer for the Roxie Cinema.

Cornell Woolrich loved the color black: The Bride Wore Black, Rendezvous in Black, The Black Path of Fear, The Black Curtain, and, of course, The Black Angel. The premise of the novel—a wrongly convicted man is miraculously saved by the sleuthing of a dogged spouse—was a recycled bit of pulp plotting that found its condensation in this booze-drenched B movie. June Vincent, doused with luscious sincerity, plays wife to a philandering hubby accused of bumping off his slice on the side, Mavis Marlowe (Constance Dowling), a sultry shakedown artist. June enlists the help of piano player Marty Blair (Dan Duryea), once Mavis’s mate and now a long lost weekend. Liquor looms large in the intoxicating Black Angel as Duryea’s alkie retreats to the all-forgiving embrace of the bender. In one delirious recounting of the murder, it’s as if we’re looking through the bottom of the bottle.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Roy Chanslor, based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich. Photographed by Paul Ivano. With Dan Duryea, June Vincent, Peter Lorre, Broderick Crawford. (81 mins, B&W, 35mm, From Universal Pictures)