MIDCENTURY TEAMS WITH I WAKE UP DREAMING TO THRILL & CHILL WITH THE DARK SIDE OF THE DREAM

Don Malcolm told the audience at NOIR NOEL last December to be ready for a "very interesting" festival in March 2018. And here it is!

We are thrilled to be teaming with the legendary Elliot Lavine, whose I WAKE UP DREAMING shows across the Bay Area were the original pioneering forays into film noir, pre-Code and obscure-but-worthy cinema and television.

Elliot, now living in Portland, has kept up a presence in Bay Area programming with summer shows at the Castro, but Don lobbied for his return to the Roxie.

"There is no better place to put on an ambitious repertory show than the Roxie," Don says. "That spirit began 25 years ago with Elliot and has remained in play there. We need a series about America right now, and there is no one better qualified to do so than Elliot."

And just what is that series? It's called THE DARK SIDE OF THE DREAM, an exploration of what Elliot and Don call the "fantastic, frenetic foibles of America."

Premiering on Friday, March 23 through Monday, March 26, are twelve astounding films ranging from the 1930s to the 1960s that explore and expose the warts of the American Dream.

Familiar titles—A Face in the Crowd, Meet John Joe, The Naked Kiss, Try and Get Me! —mix in with hard-hitting but seldom-seen thirties classics—Marked Woman, Heroes for Sale, Black Legion, They Won't Forget—to present a singular historical panorama of American polarities: success and excess, idealism and corruption. It's topped off with tributes to two Blacklist victims—Joseph Losey (with his two early "social outcry" films The Lawless and M) and John Garfield (in the well-known Body & Soul and the impossibly rare We Were Strangers) —who found that their own lives were taken over by the "dark side of the dream."

"Here we have films that are both timely and timeless, both eye-opening and mind-blowing," Elliot says, "and I'm thrilled to be able to put them together in one show."

→ Tickets and more info at the Roxie website. A special all-festival pass is available now for a limited time.

SPECIAL CONTEST ANNOUNCEMENT!  Mailing list subscribers who purchase a festival pass for THE DARK SIDE OF THE DREAM will be automatically enrolled in our fabulous festival pass giveaway contest. You can win an all-series pass for THE FRENCH HAD A NAME FOR IT 5, screening at the Roxie this November! Two winners will be announced when the festival schedule is published in mid-September.