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Is that the smell of cigarette smoke filling the room? Did a thick layer of fog just descend on the city skyline? Has your inner voice started monologuing more than usual and with an air of suspicion? That’s right folks, Noir City Film Festival at Detroit’s Redford Theatre is set to return this month for it’s seventh annual showcase of murder, intrigue, trenched coats, and brimmed hats. As with every year, the festivities will be hosted by Eddie Muller of Turner Classic Movies‘ “Noir Alley” and will feature an international theme this year with foreign selections, as well as Hollywood films directed by non-American filmmakers like Otto Preminger and Hugo Fregonese.

2024’s Noir City: Detroit begins on Friday, September 20 with a double feature of “Victims of Sin” (1951) and “Night Editor” (1946). Directed by Emilio Fernández, one of the most prolific filmmakers from Mexican cinema’s Golden Age during the ’40s and ’50s,...

Carlos Hugo Christensen originally conceived of a single anthology film consisting of three adaptations of Cornell Woolrich short stories. After the initial cut came in at over two hours, the Dutch-Argentinian filmmaker was forced to recut the footage he shot, resulting in two separate feature films: Never Open That Door, which comprised two of the adaptations, and If I Should Die Before I Wake, which was an extended cut of the third.

Adapted from 1950’s “Somebody on the Phone,” which Woolrich published under the pseudonym of William Irish, the first part of Never Open That Door is by far its most conventional, following the suave Raul (Ángel Magaña) as he struggles to help his sister, Luisa (Renée Dumas), out of a jam. The catch is that, however helpful Raul is, he can’t get the full story from Luisa about who is blackmailing her, so he’s left only with...