from mydesert.com.... Film Noir Festival tops all past years Bruce Fessier • The Desert Sun • May 18, 2010 Arthur Lyons' Film Noir Festival set attendance records last weekend, even though it scr…

[Michael Carroll Green]

from mydesert.com....

Film Noir Festival tops all past years

Bruce Fessier • The Desert Sun
• May 18, 2010

Arthur Lyons' Film Noir Festival set attendance records last weekend, even though it screened two fewer films than in 2009.

The four-day event that ended Sunday attracted 4,437 people to see 12 vintage films from 1960 or before. That was up from the 4,132 people that attended last year's festival of classic black-and-white mystery films.

The festival, presented by the Palm Springs Cultural Center, also broke records for highest individual ticket sales and highest gross sales.

The 10th anniversary edition attracted its usual number of golden age cinema stars, including Ernest Borgnine, June Lockhart and Ann Robinson, but a screening of the 1946 drama “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” sold a record number of individual tickets thanks to a video introduction by its star, former Palm Springs resident Kirk Douglas.

The 1960 opening-night film, “Pay Or Die,” starring Borgnine, attracted a nearly sold-out crowd of more than 500 people, and the festival had already run out of All-Access Passes by the time it began screening.

Festival publicist Michael C. Green said Palm Springs Cultural Center board
members were “thrilled with the success of the event.”

Photo: Opening night of the 10th annual Arthur Lyons' Film Noir Festival included a screening of actor Ernest Borgnine's 1960 film “Pay or Die.” (Courtesy of Arthur Lyons' Film Noir Festival)