Webster University Announces a Nicholas Ray Film Festival December 27th-January 5th “The Other St. Nick”

By Tom Stockman | November 25, 2019

” I’ve got the bullets! “

Webster University has announced “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pm the weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th.

Jean-Luc Godard once famously wrote that “Cinema is Nicholas Ray.” Champion of the underdog, one of the earliest masters of Cinemascope, forward thinking in depictions of the aligned and marginalized, Mr. Ray’s contributions to film continue to resonate with modern filmmakers and audiences. Sure, you can spend the holiday season with an old man in a red suit, but Nicholas Ray is the one giving the gifts that keep on giving.

Here’s the lineup:

THEY LIVE BY NIGHT (1948) Friday, December 27 at 7:00pm

After seven years in prison, 23-year-old Bowie (Farley Granger) escapes alongside some bank robbers. Once out, he runs into new love Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell), and makes it a priority to prove his innocence, or at least escape to the mountains with Keechie in tow. With this, his film debut, Nicholas Ray already exhibits future preoccupations with young underdogs and offers a fine contribution to the film noir canon.

IN A LONELY PLACE (1950) Saturday, December 28 at 7:00pm

Considered by some to be Humphrey Bogart’s finest performance, and co-starring Nick Ray’s then-wife Gloria Grahame (It’s a Wonderful Life), In a Lonely Place is a film noir that has Bogie playing a prickly screenwriter named Dixon Steele, who is the last person to see a hat-check girl (Martha Stewart) before she’s murdered. Given Steele’s history of belligerence and temper flares,everyone inevitably assumes that he is the perpetrator of the crime.

ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1951) Sunday, December 29 at 7:00pm

A film noir more often compared to the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer than its American contemporaries, On Dangerous Ground concerns the hot-headed detective Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan), who partners up with Walter Brent (Ward Bond), the father of a murdered young girl, in the solving of the crime. Along the way they encounter a blind woman, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), who may offer a key to the case. Featuring a memorable score from master Bernard Herrmann.

JOHNNY GUITAR (1954) Friday, January 3, 2020 at 7:00pm

A revisionist Western made at a time when a large section of the population didn’t recognize that the Western genre could use some revising, Nick Ray’s Johnny Guitar focuses on female leads who are much stronger than their male counterparts. Witness Vienna (Joan Crawford, never anyone to take lightly), a widely-disliked saloon owner who has to defend herself and her bar when accused of crimes she did not commit by her rival Emma Small (Mercedes McCambridge).At Vienna’s side is her ex-lover, Johnny Guitar (Sterling Hayden).

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) Saturday, January 4, 2020 at 7:00pm

Released less than a month after his death in a car crash, Rebel Without a Cause remains James Dean’s most iconic role. Here playing troubled teen Jim Stark, he takes up with Plato (Sal Mineo) and Judy (Natalie Wood) in a dangerous world of chickie runs and knife fights, thereby changing the tone and level of seriousness of every teen film released in its wake. Happily, Rebel also features some of Ray’s favorite cinematic flourishes, including strong use of the CinemaScope frame and an affection for the underdog character(s).

BIGGER THAN LIFE (1956)  Sunday, January 5, 2020 at 7:00pm

A film critical of the patriarchy and the nuclear family, Nick Ray’s Bigger Than Life has James Mason playing Ed Avery, a well-liked father and teacher in a quaint suburban neighborhood. When Avery falls ill and is prescribed the experimental drug cortisone, he becomes addicted and his life spirals out of control. One of the most exceptional samples of CinemaScope framing in Ray’s oeuvre, Bigger Than Life feels at once of its time and timely.

Admission is:

$7 for the general public
$6 for seniors, Webster alumni and students from other schools
$5 for Webster University staff and faculty

Free for Webster students with proper I.D.