By Mary Shaffer
and Jerry Bunin
Telegram-Tribune

"Slime and grime" is coming to San Luis Obispo.

Starting tonight, the Palm Theater will screen nine classic examples of American "film noir" in a weekly Thursday night series co-sponsored by Cal Poly Arts.

Film noir--literally "dark cinema"--is a term French critics gave the first American movies they saw after World War II. The term now refers to any film with similar characteristics.

Dark, moody and urban, film noirs share a distinctly gritty style and bleak vision. The alienation, paranoia and anxiety of life after the war are reflected through ironic and unsentimental dialogue, dim lighting, long shadows, grim cityscapes and claustrophic interiors.

The plots focus on crimes and human desires. Women are either strong and independent or "femme fatales." Amoral villains pursue power and wealth. And a solitary, morally ambiguous hero relies on a personal code of honor to survive human corruption and a world where fate seems hostile or simply indifferent.

The most familiar character is the private eye, trapped between clients, cops and criminals and owing allegiances to none.

No actor is more associated with film noir than Humphrey Bogart. His screen persona--self-reliant, cynical yet essentially good--make him the genre's enduring, quintessential icon.

So it's no surprise Bogart appears in three films in the series, including two with his wife Lauren Bacall.

Best known is "The Big Sleep" (1946) directed by Howard Hawks who made "To Have and Have Not" (1945), the film where the famous screen couple met and fell in love.

In "The Big Sleep," private detective Philip Marlowe (Bogart) keeps finding more questions than answers as he investigates a blackmail scheme surrounding a wilting wealthy widower and his two neurotic daughters.

It took three writers--including Nobel Prize-winner William Faulkner--just eight days to produce the fast-paced, witty script based on Raymond Chandler's first novel.

The plot is so convoluted that Chandler couldn't recall how one murder happened, but it barely matters because the characters, dialogue and situations are thoroughly entertaining.

Less famous but as memorable, "Dark Passage" (1947) finds Bogart as a man wrongly convicted of his wife's murder. He escapes from San Quentin and sets out to find the real murderer with the help of a rich San Francisco artist (Bacall).

Noted for his imaginative visual style, writer-director and native San Franciscan Delmer Daves filmed part of the story from Bogart's point-of-view, forcing the audience to experience events through the haunted protagonist's eyes.

"In a Lonely Place" (1950) stars Bogart as a self-destructive screenwriter who has an affair with an actress (Gloria Graham) while trying to clear himself of a murder charge.

The existential love story was directed by Nicholas Ray who made movies about disaffected loners that don't quite fit the mainstream, including "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955).

Deadly triangles and obsessive love affairs are often the downfall of film noir characters, especially in films adapted from James M. Cain's hard-boiled novels.

In his "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946), the trouble begins when Lana Turner seduces drifter John Garfield into a plot to kill her husband (Cecil Kellaway). Their attraction quickly turns to suspicion and distrust when fate unexpectedly intervenes.

A different kind of triangle occurs in Cain's "Mildred Pierce" (1945), the only series film told from a woman's perspective.

Joan Crawford plays a divorced housewife who becomes a waitress and a successful businesswoman, who is willing to sacrifice everything for a spoiled, ungrateful daughter.

The film reconstructs events leading to a murder while exploring the roles and perceptions of women in a male-dominated world. Crawford earned an Academy Award for her comeback performance as the intelligent, strong, passionate yet vulnerable Mildred.

"Kiss Me Deadly" (1955) didn't win any awards. Originally censored and neglected, it influenced French New Wave directors Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard and became a cult classic.

Private eye Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) investigates a string of murders linked to a stolen atomic device in director Robert Aldrich's stylish, violent, and apocalyptic thriller.

Equally influential was "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950), John Huston's version of W.R. Burnett's novel about criminals who plan and execute a million-dollar jewel heist.

Featuring an ensemble cast (including Marilyn Monroe in a small role), this fascinating study of the criminal mind and a crime gone awry has been remade and imitated many times, most recently in Quentin Tarantino's spectacular "Reservoir Dogs" (1992).

American film noir practically began with Huston's "The Maltese Falcon" (1941), so it isn't surprising Roman Polanski cast him in a crucial role in "Chinatown" (1974), a modern look at noir.

This downbeat tale of murder, greed, corruption and lust in '30s Los Angeles finds private detective J.J. Gittes (Jack Nicholson) investigating a murder for mysterious Faye Dunaway.

His investigation leads to past crimes, including a swindle involving water and land rights and a sinister family secret.

Nicholson shines in a role written specifically for him. Unlike other private eyes, Gittes thinks he knows what's happening but is always several steps behind and doesn't see the truth until it is too late.

The sun-baked landscapes and streets of Los Angeles turn steamy and rain-drenched in "Blade Runner" (1982), Ridley Scott's stunning vision of the future.

Harrison Ford plays a cynical ex-cop who made a living hunting down robots. There's a razor-thin moral line between the heartless bounty hunter and the "replicants" he must destroy before they learn the secret to their artificial lives.

But it's the eternally dark, decaying, polluted inner-city streets, thick with vendors, foreign languages, exotic dancers, towering skyscrapers, and flashing neon signs that have made the film a favorite since it's release on video and laserdisc.

The version in the series eliminates the narration and happy ending originally imposed by the studio, creating a bleaker, more ambiguous vision that's truer to the film noir tradition.

It's "slime and grime" at its best. Don't miss it.

Mary Shaffer works at Cal Poly. Jerry Bunin is a Telegram-Tribune reporter. They see "slime and grime" everywhere.

Series Schedule

• "This Gun for Hire" (1942)
• "Double Indemnity" (1944)
• "Murder My Sweet" (1944)
• "Laura" (1944)
• "Detour" (1945)
• "The Killers" (1946)
• "Gilda" (1946)
• "Out of the Past" (1947)
• "The Big Clock" (1948)
• "Lady From Shanghai" (1948)
• "D.O.A" (1950)
• "The Killing" (1956)
• "Touch of Evil" (1958)
• "Harper" (1966)
• "The Long Goodbye" (1973)
• "Night Moves" (1975)
• "Body Heat" (1981)
• "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior" (1981)
• "Terminator" (1984)
• "Blood Simple" (1985)
• "Angel Heart" (1987)
• "Sea of Love" (1989)
• "After Dark, My Sweet" (1990)
• "The Grifters" (1990)
• "Terminator 2: Judgement Day" (1991)
• "One False Move" (1992)