Elliott Kalan invites you to the next in his series of movies-he-likes-and-you’ll-like-’em-too “Closely Watched Films,” next Wednesday, July 7th at 8pm. He’ll be showing Fritz Lang’s vastly underrated film noir of lust, murder, and train travel Human Desire along with a 10-minute edited version of another tale of temptation and punishment, “Dante’s Inferno” starring Spencer Tracey.

Plus, he’ll be giving away copies of the “Columbia Pictures: Film Noir Classics II” box set, an all-new collection of five great noir films. Can you afford NOT to come to this screening? Obviously, you cannot.

Closely Watched Films: Human Desire
hosted by Elliott Kalan
Wednesday, July 7th, 8pm
92YTribeca
200 Hudson St.
Manhattan
$12

Train conductor and returning Korean War veteran Glenn Ford thinks he can ease back into the comforting monotony of the railroad. He didn’t count on a lethal attraction to pouty, trash-glamorous Gloria Grahame and her hulking brute of a husband (Academy Award winner Broderick Crawford) who’s already got blood on his jealous hands. Will Glenn give Gloria up to the police? Can Gloria escape her husband’s clutches? Will America’s rail commuters notice the acid-tinged love triangle playing out beneath their noses?

Regularly overlooked, Fritz Lang’s Human Desire is a sharp, painful wonder of film noir, one of the bleakest and most austere films to come out of Hollywood. Lang and screenwriter Alfred Hayes beautifully reduce Emile Zola’s La Bete Humaine to its dark heart and transplant it to the ambiguous world of post-war manhood. A must-see for noir-lovers.

PLUS: 1 1/2 Feature! Human Desire will be accompanied by a “Compressed Classic” 10-minute edit of another not-on-DVD wonder.

Director: Fritz Lang. 91 min. 1954. 35mm.