"Except that brass instruments were hardly used at all in 1940s scores, Muller explains in a recent interview. "In the 1940s, Hollywood had their studio orchestras, and were still beholden to that classic European orchestral score approach," he says. "But in the '50s, that really changed, and The Man With the Golden Arm had a lot to do with that.""
"And he's more than ready to get on stage and make converts of any noir-naysayers, like the woman behind me at the December festival preview at the Grand Lake, who saw the Elvis Presley film King Creole flash on screen and remarked "Elvis?! Really?" Muller's response to that is straightforward: "Watch the movie! It's gangsters, it's everything. It's a typical noir story except the guy is a rock singer.""
Sammy Davis Jr.'s A Man Called Adam appears in this year's Noir City festival in Oakland, which pairs classic noir films with live jazz performances. Brass usage in film scores shifted from 1940s studio-orchestra, European approaches to a 1950s style influenced by The Man With the Golden Arm. The festival programs pianists, guitarists, tap dancers and singer Elizabeth Bougerol to perform before screenings. King Creole is presented as an Elvis noir featuring gangsters and a rock-singer protagonist with serious crime elements in black and white. The festival has moved its fourth year to the Grand Lake after leaving the Castro Theatre, which reopens with a renovated auditorium.
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