The San Francisco Film Noir Festival returns to the majestic Castro Theatre in San Francisco, January 23 — February 1, 2009.

Making a special appearance at this year's festival will be 1950s favorite Arlene Dahl, who will appear for an onstage interview between screenings of two of her favorite films, made back-to-back in 1956: Slightly Scarlet (based on the novel Love's Lovely Counterfeit by James M. Cain) and the rarely screened femme-fatale classic Wicked as They Come.

The theme of this year's festival is Newspaper Noir, with many of the films set in the world of newspapers, or, in some cases, publishing or radio. Come see how mid-20th-century media stack up against today's fourth estate.

Programmers Eddie Muller and Anita Monga have made a special effort to have NOIR CITY's nightly double bills (and for the first time separate Saturday matinees) reflect the traditional programming of theaters in the 1940s. To that end, they sought out rare, legitimate B films—shorter movies that were intentionally made to fill out the second half of a double bill. "I think this will probably be as close as you're going to get to actually going to the movies in 1948," says Muller.

Peter Maravelis, editor of San Francisco Noir and San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics, will be on hand with Don Herron and Craig Clevenger to will be signing copies of San Francisco Noir 2 during the intermission on Saturday.