Hollywood Noir Festival opens in Frisco

This year's Noir City Film Festival, like Humphrey Bogart preparing to escape from San Quentin in "Dark Passage," threatens to crash out of its confines and flee into unexplored night. Here's the scheme: 10 days at the Palace of Fine Arts, beginning Friday, followed by four at the Balboa Theater in San Francisco. A total of 32 films (only one of them made in recent years) and several special events, plus six in-person guests, Sean Penn among them. In founder Eddie Muller's eyes, by moving the festival from Los Angeles to San Francisco, he's taking the festival to the top. As in Jimmy Cagney's Cody Jarrett screaming at the end of "White Heat": "Made it, Ma, top of the world!"