About
Alan K. Rode (pronounced Roe-Dee) is a biographer and film scholar. His numerous discussions with Hollywood artists and scholars and his blog ONE WAY STREET are viewable on his web site https://alankrode.com
Alan is the executive producer and host of the ARTHUR LYONS FILM NOIR FESTIVAL In Palm Springs, California that celebrated its 22st year in May 2021. He is the co-programmer and co-host of NOIR CITY HOLLYWOOD and CHICAGO film festivals and a charter director and treasurer of the FILM NOIR FOUNDATION, www.filmnoirfoundation.org, a 501-c non-profit organization dedicated to resurrecting lost films from the classic noir era. A U.S. Navy veteran, Alan is currently the chairperson for the Hollywood Legion Theater at American Legion Post 43.
Alan’s latest book BLOOD ON THE MOON due out in March 2023 from the University of New Mexico Press provides an in-depth examination of a classic western film and analyzes the post-World War II melding of the film noir cinematic style with the American Western. He is currently working on a biography of actress Lizabeth Scott.
His other works include the magisterial biography MICHAEL CURTIZ: A LIFE IN FILM, originally published in November 2017 now available in audio and paperback editions. CURTIZ received rave reviews from the New York Review of Books, the Wall Street Journal among other outlets. After programming & hosting a three month Michael Curtiz film retrospective with the UCLA Film and Television Archive at the Billy Wilder Theater, he co-hosted an in-depth Curtiz spotlight series on Turner Classic Movies with TCM host Ben Mankiewicz. Alan previously authored CHARLES McGRAW: FILM NOIR TOUGH GUY while publishing essays and profiles for a variety of publications.
Alan writes and narrates movie commentaries & while producing and appearing in documentaries for numerous physical media releases of classic films. Alan has co-produced several Film Noir Foundation film restorations-to Blu ray releases with Flicker Alley including TOO LATE FOR TEARS (1949), TRAPPED (1949), REPEAT PERFORMANCE (1947), THE GUILTY/HIGH TIDE (1947) and EL VAMPIRO NEGRO (THE BLACK VAMPIRE) (1953).
Alan's IMDb link: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5023636/
Featured Work
Michael Curtiz A Life in Film
Academy Award–winning director Michael Curtiz (1886–1962)—whose best-known films include Casablanca (1942), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Mildred Pierce (1945) and White Christmas (1954)—was in many ways the anti-auteur. During his unprecedented twenty seven-year tenure at Warner Bros., he directed swashbuckling adventures, westerns, musicals, war epics, historical dramas, horror films, melodramas, comedies, and film noir masterpieces. The director’s staggering output of 180 films surpasses that of the legendary John Ford and exceeds the combined total of films directed by George Cukor, Victor Fleming, and Howard Hawks.
In the first biography of this colorful, instinctual artist, Alan K. Rode illuminates the life and work of one of the film industry’s most complex figures. He begins by exploring the director’s early life and career in his native Hungary, revealing how Curtiz shaped the earliest days of silent cinema in Europe as he acted in, produced, and directed scores of films before immigrating to the United States in 1926. In Hollywood, Curtiz earned a reputation for his explosive tantrums and his dificulty communicating in English. However, few directors elicited more memorable portrayals from their casts, and ten different actors delivered Oscar-nominated performances under his direction.
Rode also investigates Curtiz’s dramatic personal life, discussing his enduring creative partnership with his wife, screenwriter Bess Meredyth, as well as his numerous affairs and children born of his extramarital relationships. This meticulously researched biography provides a nuanced understanding of one of the most talented filmmakers of Hollywood’s golden age.
Other Works
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Blood on the Moon: Robert Wise, RKO Studios and the Birth of the Noir Western
2023
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Charles McGraw Film Noir Tough Guy
2007
