Blonde Ambition

“The Strip”(1951), and “Face the Music” (1954)

Jan. 19, 2025

A good double feature and true human curation are two increasingly rare commodities, but thankfully Noir City has returned to town to share new (old) films, selected and shown with great care on Grand Lake Theater’s artfully draped screen.

Coming off a hot opening weekend, the Monday evening features were about as fun and lighthearted as noir runs. Intended to both be shown on 35mm, those plans were foiled: we gotta preserve and archive film, folks!

First up, “M-G-M’s Musical Melodrama of the Dancer and the Drummer!”, “The Strip,” pitched to us by host Eddie Mueller as spectacularly lacking in plot, provided the above tune and what might be the soundtrack of my week. Trust me, it grows on you—and you’re benefiting from Armstrong’s version from the get, which we viewers did not.

Forrest and Rooney, the not-quite-couple.

With a mid-career Mickey Rooney as leading man, Louis Armstrong and some of his band playing themselves (excellent, under utilized, and, as mentioned by our hosts Mueller and Noir City musical director Nick Rossi, only partially accurate because of racism), cameo performances from rising stars Monica Lewis and Vic Damone, and top-notch dancing from cigarette-girl Jane (Sally Forrest), at least we got some stellar musical numbers. But the script? The murder? The, well, purpose? Those left a lot to be desired. Rooney’s amateur drumming, even sped up, was laughably bad, as were his passes at Jane and much of the dialogue, decent acting be damned.

The wallpaper game went wayyyyyy up underground, too.

Luckily, the capers and complexity were picked up significantly — along with the costume design and melodrama — in the evening’s second act. Starring Alex Nicol and Eleanor Sutherland, “Face the Music” also featured the trumpet and a host of comely blondes, but also some witty back-and-forths and a ridiculously clean but all-in-good-fun whodunnit breakdown by the leading man. (Having watched the latest Knives Out over the holidays, I could not help but to see some of Benoit’s roots in Nicol’s blandly handsome face).

Though I found the dramatic tension, as well as, well, the very basis of the story in the first place to be lacking in believability, that’s not why we watch noir, now is it? “Face the Music” still very much delivered on the visual delights of a femme fatale, a seedy club, a ham-fisted bar fight, and, of course, twisted and dark love stories.

Noir City 23 runs through January 25th, 2026. Vita Hewitt’s photos from opening night can be found here, and coverage of films from previous years here.