At LACMA, where danger lives

Think film noir, those dank and atmospheric 1940s crime thrillers that indelibly captured the mood of a worried and cynical postwar America, and you may be thinking Nicholas Musuraca. He’s the unsung cameraman who shot so many of those low-budget pictures for the old RKO Studios at a time when Hollywood’s dream factories specialized in conjuring up nightmares.

It was his lighting schemes and cinematography that so vividly captured an Expressionist underworld of harsh streetlights, rain-slicked streets and furtive figures in fedoras and trench-coats skulking through dark alleys.

Starting on Friday, May 14, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art begins Where Danger Lives: The Noir Cinematography of Nicholas Musuraca, a three-week tribute featuring some of Musuraca’s most memorable but rarely seen work. You’ll see “Stranger on the Third Floor,” considered by many to be the first genuine film noir; “Out of the Past,” starring Robert Mitchum and a young Kirk Douglas in a quintessential noir tale of a girl, a guy and a gangster trying desperately to escape the fate closing in on them; “Cat People,” an unsettling psychological thriller whose terrors lurk just outside the camera frame, and many more.

Ready to visit the dark side? First visit the LACMA website for tickets and directions. LACMA is located at 5905 Wilshire in the Miracle Mile, with easy parking in a nearby surface lot or LACMA’s new underground garage.

Posted 5-06-10