The term “film noir” often conjures up black-and-white images of boozy detectives pointing their guns and beautiful femme fatales smoking cigarettes in the shadows. But the films in this uniquely American genre are more than that, and they hold up especially well today.

Film Noir Foundation president and founder Eddie Muller is out to prove that as he hosts the inaugural Noir City Kansas City festival Nov. 14-16 at the Alamo Drafthouse Mainstreet.

“Stylistically, film noir was Hollywood’s only organic artistic movement — there was no economic incentive for it to happen; the artists themselves created the black tide that swamped Hollywood in the post-WWII years,” Muller says. “But even though that look and feel eventually dissipated, the notion of telling a story from the perspective of the ‘bad guy’ continues to this day. And to me, that’s what characterizes true noir — the story is told from the point of view of someone who knows what they are doing is wrong, but they do it anyway. And usually pay the price.”

One character that pays the price is carnival sharpshooter Annie Laurie Starr, played by Peggy Cummins in the nutso 1950 noir “Gun Crazy.” “I want action,” she says, and she gets plenty of it. The movie is 86 minutes of raw passion and innuendo, and is one of the genre’s all-time classics. Cummins, retired from acting since 1964 and living in London, is flying in for the event Friday as the festival’s opening night guest of honor, and will do a Q&A after the film with Muller.

“I don’t think you can overstate the influence that film has had on generations of filmmakers,” Muller says. “I introduced Quentin Tarantino to Peggy Cummins at a festival in Lyon, France — I thought he was going to have a coronary he was so excited to meet her. Peggy is an extraordinary person. A chance to see her — together with the restored film — is something no self-respecting movie fan can miss.”

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Muller, whose new book Gun Crazy: The Origin of American Outlaw Cinema, will be released in conjunction with the Kansas City festival, started exhibiting noir films in 2003 in San Francisco, where he lives.

The festival quickly caught on, and the ensuing profits were used to preserve neglected noir films. Through Noir City festivals now happening across the country, Muller has helped to cultivate new audiences for these films, so they don’t get restored and then just sit on the shelf.

Noir City Kansas City is showing 10 films in total on beautiful 35mm, from established classics like John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle,” starring Sterling Hayden and Marilyn Monroe, and Nicholas Ray’s “In a Lonely Place,” starring Humphrey Bogart to newly restored lost films like “Try and Get Me” and “Too Late for Tears.” The Film Noir Foundation recently saved the latter from complete decay and the restoration took five years to complete. All proceeds from Noir City Kansas City will go to continuing efforts like these.

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A Friday night “Nightclub” after-party at The Chesterfield Bar next door will include appearances from Cummins, as well as burlesque beauty Evie Lovelle. Kansas City native Laura Ellis, now an L.A.-based singer/actress, will sing vintage jazz classics, and The Latenight Callers, who formed in Lawrence, will play some of their uniquely seedy post-modern rock. Keyboardist Nick Combs helped organize Noir City Kansas City after The Latenight Callers played the 2012 event in San Fransisco, where it’s held in the gorgeous 1,500-seat Castro Theatre.

“All I could think to myself was, ‘This would be an amazing event in Kansas City!'” Combs says. “As soon as we returned home from that trip, I started working on making it happen. It’s been two years of phone calls, emails and crossed fingers, but I’m thrilled that in a few short days I’ll be sitting in a theater in Kansas City watching beautifully restored noir films in 35mm.”

“The Two Faces of January”

Opening at Liberty Hall this weekend, the new thriller “The Two Faces of January” stars Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst and Oscar Isaac.

The film is adapted from the novel by Patricia Highsmith (“The Talented Mr. Ripley”), and seems to have its own neo-noir tendencies, despite several scenes take place in the sunny outdoors.

Set in Greece and Istanbul in 1962, the story involves a murder at a hotel that sends a married American couple on the run with a small-time con artist, and tests the ever-thinning loyalties between them.

96 minutes; Rated PG-13 for some violence, language and smoking.