The Cinematheque

New Restoration

“Blessed with D.P. John Alton’s Wellesian deep focus and chiaroscuro lighting, Anthony Mann’s Raw Deal is the apex of noir style, offering up electric visions of sin, salvation, and sexual mania.”

Nick Schager, Slant

“Bullets! Women!—Can’t hold a man like this!” It’s gangster Joe Sullivan (Dennis O’Keefe) who’s getting the raw deal in Anthony Mann’s fatalistic, fabulously atmospheric noir drama. Behind bars after taking the rap for a job with racketeer Rick Coyle (B.C.-born Raymond Burr), Sullivan doesn’t realize he’s being set up when Coyle offers to spring him from prison and give him his fair share of the loot. Claire Trevor and Marsha Hunt are the dames complicating Sullivan’s romantic life. Mann made a string of great, groundbreaking Westerns with Jimmy Stewart in the 1950s, but first made his reputation as a director of visceral, violent films noir—often working, as here, with cameraman John Alton (The Big Combo, T‑Men), a master of Expressionistic visuals. Raw Deal is one of the rare classic noirs featuring female (rather than male) voiceover. 

Restoration courtesy of Shout! Factory and the American Genre Film Archive.

“A baroque, brass-knuckled B‑movie masterpiece.” Eddie Muller, The Art of Noir

“Wholly distinctive … A fine noir thriller, product of the dream marriage between Mann’s direction and John Alton’s camera.” Tom Milne, Time Out

On August 5, celebrate the opening night of Film Noir 2021 with live jazz in our courtyard (6:00 pm – 6:30 pm) and complimentary popcorn for both Criss Cross (6:30 pm) and Raw Deal (8:40 pm). Plus, the first opportunity to get your hands on our new Film Noir t‑shirts!

Noah Franche-Nolan and Kaelin Murphy are jazz musicians who regularly toured, pre-pandemic, across Canada and internationally.