Kit Parker Films Readies Noir Archive Volume 3: 1957-1960 For Release On Blu-ray This Coming Sept. 17

One good turn deserves another.   With this in mind, Kit Parker Films will be back for a third edition in its popular “Noir Archive Film Collection” series on Sept. 17.   

Noir Archive Volume 1: 1944-1954, featuring a nine-film collection on Blu-ray (which included the likes of Escape in the Fog, The Killer That Stalked New York and 711 Ocean Drive), hit retail outlets on Apr. 9 … and Noir Archive Volume 2: 1954-1956 (also a nine-film collection … with Footsteps in the Fog, Cell 2455 Death Row and 5 Against the House) arrives on Blu-ray on July 16. 

Now comes Noir Archive Volume 3: 1957-1960 on Sept. 17, which is top-lined by auteur filmmaker Samuel Fuller’s 1959 noirish mystery thriller, The Crimson Kimono.

Sugar Torch, a stripper in the “Little Tokyo” area of Los Angeles is shot and killed.   That’s the kick-off to a complicated detective thriller that also brings in elements of race relations in the aftermath of World War II.

Of note, Sugar Torch is played by Gloria Pall, whose career included that of being a Las Vegas showgirl, a World War II aircraft mechanic, the author of 13 books on the film business, the star of the short-lived Voluptua — considered “too racy” — on local television during 1954/55 in Los Angeles and the often uncredited glamour girl in a number of films during the 1950s … Jailhouse Rock, Elmer Gantry, The Garment Jungle, etc.

Assigned to the case are homicide detectives Joe Kojahu (the late James Shigeta in his film debut) and Charles Bancroft (Glenn Corbett in his feature film debut as well — Homicidal, Shenandoah, Big Jake, etc. … who is also a trivia question for Star Trek fans, he was the first Zefram Cochrane in an episode from the original series), who are intrigued by what they find in her apartment.

This leads them to follow separate leads, but eventually they both end up attracted to the same woman, Christine Downs (Victoria Shaw, who would star the same year in director Don Siegel’s action masterpiece, Edge of Eternity).  More murders occur and the there is big shot out in Little Tokyo, with Christine rushing into the arms of detective Kojahu and not Bancroft at the film’s end.

You can just stop right there, buy a Blu-ray copy of Noir Archive Volume 3: 1957-1960 from Kit Parker Films and count the other eight films in this three-disc collection as bonuses.

And what would those bonus features be?   How about the aforementioned Don Siegel’s 1958 feature-film spin-off from the popular CBS TV series of the time, The Lineup, which was titled, The Lineup, and filmed entirely on location in San Francisco … featuring Eli Wallach, Robert Keith, Richard Jaeckel, Marshall Reed and child star Cheryl Callaway.

Man on a String, The Shadow in the Window, The Long Haul, Pickup Alley, The Case Against Brooklyn, She Played with Fire and The Tijuana Story round out this impressive film noir collection on Blu-ray.