Entertainment

A season for all Mann

Anthony Mann was one of Hollywood’s most versatile directors. He started with lowbudget noirs in the 1940s, moved to Westerns (five with James Stewart) in the 1950s and ended with big-budget epics made in Europe in the ’60s.

Now Film Forum is showcasing Mann with a threeweek, 32-film retrospective that began Friday.

My favorite is “He Walked By Night” (1945), unreeling July 11, a 1948 docudrama noir that pops up now and then on late-night TV but almost never gets a big-screen airing.

Although officially credited to Alfred Werker, it was mostly directed by Mann. John Alton, one of the great noir lensers, was behind the camera.

It follows LA cops as they track down Roy Morgan, a brilliant burglar turned cop-killer, portrayed by Richard Basehart. One cop is played by Jack Webb, whose future TV and radio series “Dragnet” was influenced by this movie. Other lawmen are played by Scott Brady, Roy Roberts and James Cardwell.

The final chase through the LA sewers recalls the pursuit involving Orson Welles in Carol Reed’s “The Third Man” (1949).

Mann — born Emil Anton Bundsmann in 1906 — died in Berlin in 1967 while making the spy caper “A Dandy in Aspic.” He collapsed after hosting a party for the cast, which included Laurence Harvey and Mia Farrow. Both tried to comfort Mann, who died shortly after a doctor arrived at his hotel suite. Harvey finished directing the movie.

Also in the FF show are “The Man From Laramie” (1955), a Western version of “King Lear”; “The Far Country” (1955), with Stewart as a cold-hearted cattleman; and “Bend of the River” (1952), another Stewart cowboy flick.

Stewart and Mann worked on three non-Westerns in the series, “Strategic Air Command” (1955); “The Glenn Miller Story” (1954), with pert June Allyson as the bandleader’s wife; and “Thunder Bay” (1953), pairing Stewart with Dan Duryea as ex-Navy engineers building an offshore oil drill. (How’s that for timely?)

Three of Mann’s early B-movies are showing on the same program tomorrow (that’s three flicks for one admission): “Dr. Broadway” (1942), “Moonlight in Havana” (1942) and “The Bamboo Blonde” (1946). Should be fun.

The Forum is on Houston Street, west of Sixth Avenue; filmforum.org