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"Small Town America"Program notes from old series: Small Town America, presented July-December, 1991 Over the past century, Americans have moved, by the hopeful and sometimes desperate tens of millions, from rural areas and tiny towns to bustling cities. Yet despite this profound demographic shift, America remains in beliefs, in values, in spirit and in soul, a small-town nation. Our primary series for the next seven months--Small Town America--examines Hollywood's vision of small-town life and themes. For those who fear months of heart-warming dramas showing white picket fences lining the homes of honest, happy, loving families, rest assured. The nearly 200 films to be screened will reveal a genre at least as rich in diversity and quality as films set in urban areas or other locales; melodrama, in particular, constitutes a strength of small-town films. This series also will showcase many of cinema's greatest composers and cinematographers, who have found their particular talents fit well this genre. Kings Row (Warner Bros., 1942) We begin our series (and a week of small-town classics) with what many consider the quintessential small-town film. Kings Row features a theme frequently encountered in the genre: the difference between image and reality, that underneath a beautiful, glossy surface lurks all manner of dark secrets and evil. The first reel of tonight's film starkly poses the dichotomy. In a lovely opening, a wagon passes idyllic scenes and a sign saying: "Kings Row--A Good Town/A Good Clean Town/A Good Place to Live In/And a Good Place to Raise Your Children." But soon we learn all is not well here: one doctor (Claude Rains) has no patients and his wife lives upstairs, while another doctor (Charles Coburn, brilliantly cast against type) has sadistic tendencies and a quick scalpel. And the malevolence has only begun. Perhaps most memorable about Kings Row, aside from the soap opera plot, are the production design of William Cameron Menzies, and a superb Erich Wolfgang Korngold score, one of his finest. Kings Row also offers a fascinating glimpse into the workings of the Production Code, which from 1934 on regulated what studios put on the screen. Joseph Breen, production code director, rejected the first script of Kings Row, citing several issues, including the nature of Cassie's illness, Drake's libertine behavior, and a mercy killing. For those interested, Rudy Behlmer's invaluable Inside Warner Bros: 1935-51 reprints many of the letters exchanged by the studio and Mr. Breen over Kings Row. Alice Adams (RKO, 1935) This film makes it difficult to understand how anyone in this period could have labeled Katharine Hepburn "box-office poison." In South Renford, "the town with a future," middle-class Alice Adams (Katharine Hepburn) desperately pursues upward mobility, a way out of her lonely existence. She does so primarily by attending upper-class social functions (what her brother calls "frozen-faced" events) where--in pitiful, heart-wrenching scenes- -she is routinely ignored by everyone except world-class undesirable Grady Sutton. Enter tall, dark and handsome, if not necessarily talkative, Fred MacMurray. The film contains one of cinema's classic dinner scenes, a primer on what food not to serve in hot weather. SEPARATE ADMISSION Shadow of a Doubt (Universal, 1942) Possibly Alfred Hitchcock's greatest film, Shadow of a Doubt is controlled, suspenseful filmmaking at its finest. In the quaint town of Santa Rosa, California, the Newton family, after listening to another detective lesson from neighbor and aspiring mystery writer Hume Cronyn, realize they need a spark from outside. Enter worldly, beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), whose previous visits always proved enchanting, especially to daughter "Charlie" (Teresa Wright). But Cotten now is a changed, manipulative, bitter man, believing "the whole world's a joke to me." Of the family members, only Wright notices his transformation, a concern that becomes horror and loathing once she suspects he is the fugitive "Merry Widow" murderer. The suspense mounts rapidly with superb camerawork and Dimitri Tiomkin's score. Throughout, the small-town atmosphere dominates. In one scene, Wright, seeking information on the murders, rushes to get to the public library before closing time; a traffic cop pulls her aside and sternly lectures her for jay-walking. For the small-town realism, thanks go to Thornton Wilder, who rated that rarest of tributes: a full screen credit from Alfred Hitchcock. The Music Man (Warner Bros., 1962) A frequent theme of small-town films is the visit from an outsider and the resulting transformation of town residents. Tonight we screen (in an original, imbibition Technicolor print) our candidate for the best film in that sub-genre, The Music Man. Con-man extraordinaire Harold Hill (Robert Preston) brings his revolutionary "think system" to the sleepy little town of River City, Iowa, and his charismatic magnetism to the attention of town misfit and repressed librarian Shirley Jones. Though The Music Man suffers slightly from overlength and staginess, Preston's energetic performance and the classic music numbers ("Trouble," "76 Trombones," etc.) make the film's charms well-nigh irresistible. The Last Picture Show (Columbia, 1971) Anarene, Texas, the 1950's--a dying town. Little remains of the town--even less of its spirit--other than a moving picture theater and its proprietor Ben Johnson (Sam the Lion). Adults muse wistfully on what might have been, all the while acting more and more desperate; teens eagerly contemplate what could be, if only they leave. To illustrate this decaying environment harboring dying dreams and souls, director Peter Bogdanovich shot the film in harsh, grainy black-and-white and produced several magnificent scenes, most notably a brief, elegiac, stream-of- consciousness narrative on town and personal history by Ben Johnson, who won an Oscar for this role. In addition to its numerous aesthetic virtues, The Last Picture Show merits interest as marking the coming-of-age of a new generation of American acting talent, including Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, and Randy Quaid. SEPARATE ADMISSION Picnic (Columbia, 1955) Another version on the visitor-changes-town theme. Former football player, now social misfit, William Holden has reached bottom and hops the rails to a small dirt-water Kansas town, where lives a wealthy, former college chum. Nothing much has happened in this town in ages, but this quickly changes once Holden sheds his shirt, provoking interest from old maid Rosalind Russell ("He reminds me of one of those old Roman gladiators") and beautiful young Kim Novak ("He carries that old wash tub as if it was so much tissue paper"), by chance the girlfriend of Holden's old friend. Though he is really only seeking somewhere to fit in and settle down, Holden's presence soon ignites all the latent problems and uncertainties in several personal relationships. We must admit Holden looks a bit old for the role and his antic acting style often has one hoping he'll leave town on the next passing train, but Picnic remains an exemplary portrayal of small-town customs and life, notably in a famous Labor Day picnic sequence. An Evening with Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith and other Silent Legends Sweet and Twenty (Biograph, 1909) A Summer Idyll (Biograph, 1910) Sunshine Sue (Biograph, 1910) The Sorrows of the Unfaithful (Biograph, 1910) The Peach-Basket Hat (Biograph, 1909) The Modern Prodigal (Biograph, 1910) Lonely Villa (Biograph, 1909) The Little Teacher (Keystone, 1915) SEPARATE ADMISSION Homefolks (Biograph, 1912) Her First Biscuits (Biograph, 1909) The Feud and the Turkey (AM&B, 1908) A Corner in Wheat (Biograph, 1909) An Arcadian Maid (Biograph, 1910) The Fate of the Artist's Model (AM&B, 1903) The Rocky Road (Biograph, 1910) The Curtain Pole (AM&B, 1909) The Child of the Ghetto &1(Biograph, 1910) Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Dorothy West, Henry B. Walthall, Kate Bruce, George Nicholls. (ca. 15 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection) The New York Hat (Biograph, 1912) A Feud in the Kentucky Hills (Biograph, 1912) Films set in small towns did not become popular or numerous until
the late 1920's. Until then, rural locales (bearing some thematic resemblances
to small-town films) predominated. To reflect this, we offer an evening
of nineteen mostly rural dramas from 1915 and before. We'll admit our
hidden purpose: to honor film pioneers D. W. Griffith and Mary Pickford,
as well as other silent performers. (Our thanks to Paul Spehr, Assistant
Chief in the Library of Congress' Motion Picture Division, for suggesting
these early titles.) Tom Sawyer (Morosco, 1917) Whispers of nepotism resulted when, as a condition for signing a contract with First National in 1917, Mary Pickford also demanded a hefty contract for her brother Jack. These negative opinions dissipated quickly as Jack Pickford revealed himself to be a solidly competent, albeit not spectacular, leading man. Tonight's screening of the Mark Twain classic showcases some of brother Jack's talents as well as revealing a frequent subject of small-town films: the vicissitudes of growing up in a small town. If this version of Tom Sawyer cannot match the surface gloss of David O. Selznick's 1938 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , it does hold up well in authenticity, perhaps a factor of its relatively modest budget. Indeed, the very notion of a big-budget Mark Twain film seems antithetical to Twain's principles. Note: our print of Tom Sawyer lacks some titles; dialogue will be provided when needed. SEPARATE ADMISSION In Wrong (Jack Pickford Film Co.,/First National,
1919) Jack Pickford has gained stature since we last saw him--he now has his own film company. In tonight's film, Jack is a delivery boy with eyes for village belle Marguerite de la Motte. Romantic competition ensues when a handsome New Yorker boards with Marguerite's family for the summer. Pickford's motto: Boarders beware! In Wrong's two cameramen--Antonio Gaudio and Sol Polito--worked on many of Warner Brothers most important films during the 1930's. Followed By Waking Up the Town (Mary Pickford Company/United
Artists, 1925) In our third Jack Pickford offering tonight, Jack is a small- town inventor unable to get the right backers interested in his ideas. Norma Shearer, Jack's romantic interest in 1925's Waking Up the Town, two years later married Irving Thalberg and became a star at MGM (The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Their Own Desire, Marie Antoinette). Cinematographer Arthur Edeson later worked on more important films, including All Quiet on the Western Front, Frankenstein, Mutiny on the Bounty, Each Dawn I Die, They Drive By Night, The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca. Note: our print contains only reels 1-4. A synopsis of the remaining two reels will be provided. Pollyanna (United Artists, 1920) A prisoner of her fans' expectations, Mary Pickford could never shed the role her adoring legions demanded: the good- hearted, vivacious little girl. Here, in real life a 27-year old, Mary plays a sweet 12-year old. This production, her first for United Artists, has Mary's "Just Be Glad" philosophy charming town residents and solving their problems. Variety said: Pollyanna "touches and stirs the heart, brightens the eyes with tears and is full of that amazing optimism so typically American and yet so utterly ridiculous. With considerable force it asserts the world is a nice place to live in. A fat lie this is, but it helps to believe it." Burns Mantle in Photoplay expressed relief the role was in a film, and not theatrical, performance: "For one afternoon or an evening she is an inspiration...A week of it and you might strangle Pollyanna." SEPARATE ADMISSION Pollyanna (Walt Disney, 1960) For this 1960 remake, Disney added over 30 minutes in length and bathed the film (especially a bazaar sequence) in beautiful Technicolor photography (vivid in LC's original print). Hayley Mills, in her second film, plays the role Pickford made famous, and won a special Oscar. That the Disney version features a superior cast to its predecessor cannot be disputed: the array includes Jane Wyman, Karl Malden, Adolph Menjou, and Agnes Moorehead, among others. Pollyanna (United Artists, 1920) SEPARATE ADMISSION Way Down East (Griffith/United Artists, 1920) "Less ambitious than Intolerance, less innovative than The Birth of a Nation, less lyrical than Broken Blossoms, and less stark than Isn't Life Wonderful, Way Down East still has an absolute claim among D. W. Griffith's greatest films. This despite its origins in one of the creakiest of stage melodramas--complete with the fiendish seducer, the dying infant, the unwed mother cast out into the storm, and the lowest of low- comic relief. Through expansive film realism, the Griffith/Lillian Gish team redeems melodrama as form, not failure. And only The Wind rivals Way Down East among Gish's portrayals of interior torment and strength. The celebrated rescue across the ice floe was vastly influential on other filmmakers and is still guaranteed to leave audiences gasping."--Scott Simmon Grandma's Boy (Associated Exhibitors/Pathe, 1922) Followed By Girl Shy (Harold Lloyd Corp./Pathe, 1924) SEPARATE ADMISSION Hot Water (Pathe, 1924) Followed By The Kid Brother (Harold Lloyd Corp./Paramount, 1927) Tonight's films celebrate the abundant talents of one of cinema's
greatest comedians--Harold Lloyd--who, in his 1920's heyday, outdrew
his two major competitors, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Of the
three comic legends, Lloyd most closely matched the spirit of 1920's
society and culture, with his persistent and persevering "Everyman" character
finding great favor with audiences. With abundant comedy always came
moments of sentiment. As Lloyd once said: "While it is our business
to be funny on the screen, we gain greatly by a quiet moment or two
or a little bit that is pathetic." Hot Water sees Lloyd shedding his bachelor status for marriage
to beautiful Jobyna Ralston; the unfortunate downside is mother-in-law
Josephine Crowell. Along with trying to dispatch his wife's meddlesome
mother, Lloyd battles traffic in his new automobile and, in an all-time
classic sequence, carries a turkey onto a streetcar. Note: our print
tonight is a shortened re- release version. Homer Comes Home (Thomas Ince Productions/Famous
Players- Lasky, 1920) This effort, with production supervised by film pioneer Thomas Ince, features a plot common to 1920's small-town films: resident leaves for the greater lures of the big city, only to return eventually to the town. Charles Ray, an extremely popular leading man of the late 1910's and early 20's, tonight is the village lad seeking proverbial fame and fortune as well as the hand of Priscilla Bonner. SEPARATE ADMISSION Travelin' On (Paramount-Artcraft, 1921) Tonight's films examine the Western small town, frontier safety valve for those unsuccessful elsewhere. The dramatic situations in Western towns frequently arise from the lack of authority; in a fleeting moment, stability could become complete lawlessness. "William S. Hart specialized in the `good bad man,' and his character was remarkably popular in the late Teens. It faded quickly in the Twenties, perhaps because Hart was unwilling to alter his formula, or because of his age (he was over fifty at the time of this film). His influential `realism' was in settings, in the cowboy's costuming, and in his stoic persona-- never in his plots. But no other Western hero was so convincing a loner. Travelin' On is almost a remake of Hell's Hinges (1916). A weak minister and his wife settle in a Godless small town, but it's the `bad man' who finally redeems it."--Scott Simmon SEPARATE ADMISSION Hell's Hinges (Triangle, 1916) "Gunplay and religion lubricate Hell's Hinges...which brings back to the Knickerbocker Theater that admirable actor of Western roles, William S. Hart. It is a film that combines all the elements for a success...reckless riding, doublehanded shooting from the hip, a dance hall of the Bret Harte description and finally, a conflagration that gives a truly Gehenna-like finish to the place known as Hell's Hinges....No actor before [on] the screen has been able to give as sincere and true a touch to the Westerner as Hart. He rides in a manner indigenous to the soil, he shoots with the real knack and he acts with that sense of artistry that hides the action."--February 12, 1916 New York press review, cited in The Complete Films of William S. Hart by Diane Kaiser Koszarski. The Extra Girl (Mack Sennett, 1924) Her parents want small-town gal Mabel Normand to dump auto mechanic boyfriend Ralph Graves (no bad idea, we think) in favor of the far richer drug store owner. Mabel, having recently won a movie contest, instead heads off for Hollywood, furtively pursued by Graves. Much that follows is routine, save one scene with Mabel and a lion. Variety, though generally praising the film, did warn exhibitors of possible adverse audience reaction arising from Normand's circumstantial connections to two recent Hollywood scandals: the murders of William Desmond Taylor and Cortland S. Dines, blows from which her career never recovered. SEPARATE ADMISSION Miss Lulu Bett (Famous Players-Lasky, 1921) One of the first small-town classics, Miss Lulu Bett concerns
that staple of the genre--the spinster, here played by Lois Wilson
(who later starred in such films as The Covered Wagon, Monsieur
Beaucaire, North of 36). She accidentally weds an already-married
man, provoking much town gossip. Eventually, another small-town icon--the
schoolteacher (Milton Sills)--rescues her from gossip, bigamy, and
spinsterhood. Jaws of Steel (Warner Brothers, 1927) Note: our print contains six of the seven original reels, missing
only reel 4. No actor--man, dog, or wildebeest--ever enjoyed a more
meteoric rise than Rin-Tin-Tin. Saved from almost certain death when
pulled from a World War I German trench, he switched allegiance from
Kaiser Wilhelm to Jack L. Warner and developed into Warner Brothers
biggest box office-draw during much of the Twenties, single-handedly,
according to some, saving the studio from bankruptcy. Rin-Tin-Tin appeared
often in films featuring scripts by, of all people, Darryl F. Zanuck. The Extra Girl (Mack Sennett, 1924) SEPARATE ADMISSION The Tomboy (Chadwick Pictures, 1924) Tomboy Dorothy Devore (a veteran of the era's popular Al Christie two-reelers) falls for stranger Herbert Rawlinson who, it turns out, is a revenue agent out to crack a smuggling ring. Her father becomes the prime suspect when liquor turns up in his barn. The Tomboy is a typical low-budget product from Chadwick Pictures. Followed by: Steamboat Bill Jr. (Buster Keaton Productions/United
Artists, 1928) "Though remembered for the breath-stopping stunts in its cyclone finale, Steamboat Bill, Jr. really succeeds because of Buster Keaton's subtle character comedy. Keaton plays a blue- blazered, ukulele-toting dandy, fresh from Boston schooling, who comes south to `River Junction, Mississippi,' to join his long- lost father (the gargantuan Ernest Torrence), captain of a dilapidated steamboat, `Stonewall Jackson.' It takes impatient parental coaching to turn Keaton into `Steamboat Bill, Jr.' Among the great sequences here are Junior's attempt to mime a jailbreak scheme--files hidden in bread--to the incarcerated Senior, the trial-and-error attempts to find a suitably virile replacement for Junior's foppish beret, and, of course, the cyclone finish. This is Keaton's final comic masterpiece, his last independent production before the ruin of his career at MGM."--Scott Simmon Casey at the Bat (Famous Players-Lasky, 1927) A variation on the famous story. Village junkman Wallace Beery, a terrific hitter in the local amateur league, is signed to a big-league baseball contract, part of an elaborate ruse to have the New York Giants throw the World Series. If all this sounds decidedly minor-league, it is, but Beery and love interest ZaSu Pitts do put some fun in the tale. Note: our print has flash titles, which will be simultaneously translated, when necessary, at tonight's screening. SEPARATE ADMISSION Jus' Passin' Through (Roach, 1923) "Will Rogers, whose folksy monologues are preserved by sound films in the Thirties, began with the handicap of silence back in 1918. This two-reeler was directed by fellow comedian Charlie Chase (under his real name) and features Rogers as a rail-tramp, stranded in an inhospitable Western town and frustrated in his attempts to land in prison in time for a Thanksgiving feast."-- Scott Simmon Followed By: The Headless Horseman (Sleepy Hollow Corporation,
1922) Will Rogers, whose film career languished until the onset of sound, here plays Washington Irving's famous New York schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane. If you think this role doesn't sound quite right for folksy, Oklahoma-born Rogers, we'd agree, yet the film has received praise for its authentic sets and quality cinematography. In the early 1930's, Rogers became the conscience and philosopher of small-town America before his untimely death in 1935. Blondes By Choice (Gotham Productions/Lumas, 1927) This was one of producer Samuel Bischoff's last films before moving to Columbia in 1928. A decidedly minor film (The New York Times and Variety did not bother to review it), Blondes By Choice does feature Claire Windsor, an important actress during the 1920's, in the common small-town situation of a visitor's effect on the townsfolk. Windsor opens a beauty shop, but the local Ladies' Aid Society and mortgage-holding banker want to give her business a permanent closing. Allan Simpson, in town courtesy of an ailing car, comes to Claire's aid. From these humble beginnings, cinematographer Ray June later moved up to more important work at MGM and elsewhere (China Seas, The Great Ziegfeld, and Funny Face). SEPARATE ADMISSION The Carnation Kid (Paramount, 1929) Mack Sennett claimed in a 1918 article, "The Psychology of Film Comedy," that "Gozzi, the famous Italian dramatist, demonstrated conclusively, as the result of examining thousands of plays, that there are only thirty-six possible dramatic situations. There are only a handful of possible jokes. The chief members of this joke band may be said to be: the fall of dignity and mistaken identity." Taking Sennett's maxim to heart, this early talkie abounds in mistaken identities. On a train headed for the town of Chatham are typewriter salesman Douglas MacLean and The Carnation Kid (Francis McDonald), an extremely efficient Chicago gangster out to, in the words of Variety, give the Chatham District Attorney "a lead massage." Their identities become reversed, complicating MacLean's attempts to get close to the D.A.'s daughter Frances Lee. Note: we are missing the first reel. Followed By: Heart to Heart (First National, 1928) Role reversals continue. Mary Astor (later famous for The Maltese Falcon), a widowed European princess, returns to her Ohio home town. In a quick social descent, she's believed to be a local seamstress of doubtful repute. Former love interest Lloyd Hughes, recent inventor of a miracle corkscrew, comes to her rescue. Heart to Heart's director William Beaudine later worked on many of the Lassie television episodes. Tiger Shark (Warner Bros., 1932) Our two films tonight chronicle waterfront drama in small fishing villages. After his phenomenal success in Little Caesar, Edward G. Robinson faced typecasting as a gangster and he constantly sought out completely different roles; a turn as a Portuguese fishing captain certainly qualifies. What would seem at first a routine husband-wife-best friend triangle melodrama becomes far more intriguing with Robinson's impassioned performance, featuring emotions ranging from loathsome self-pity to brutal and deadly self-assertion, as well as Howard Hawks' assured direction in a genre he often frequented: the male-action drama. SEPARATE ADMISSION Clash by Night (RKO, 1952) Clash by Night moves the focus of attention to a woman (Barbara Stanwyck) forced to choose between her fisherman-husband Paul Douglas and, believe if you will, sexy movie projectionist Robert Ryan. (We here at the Pickford Theater felt we had the world's only desirable projectionist.) The dilemma is a frequent one for small-town women facing often limited romantic choices: whether to seek security or passion. Stanwyck, as always, takes excellent care of herself in a relationship; Marilyn Monroe, as another town resident, provides occasional respite from the sometimes grim proceedings. Little Women (RKO, 1933) Perhaps no director has been more successful in adapting literature to film than George Cukor. In films such as David Copperfield, Camille, and tonight's Little Women, Cukor faithfully brought literary classics to the big screen while, at the same time, working in the advantages offered by the film medium: visual descriptions of settings and characters, facial gestures, lingering cameras meant to illustrate a point, music to captivate the audience. In just her fourth film, Katharine Hepburn had the courage and talent (as well as Cukor's confidence) to improve Louisa May Alcott's character Jo, creating a memorably intelligent, fiercely independent tomboy. Further glories come from the superior Max Steiner score, particularly effective in the several scenes requiring handkerchiefs. SEPARATE ADMISSION Alice Adams (RKO, 1935) This film makes it difficult to understand how anyone in this period could have labeled Katharine Hepburn "box-office poison." In South Renford, "the town with a future", middle-class Alice Adams (Katharine Hepburn) desperately pursues upward mobility, a way out of her lonely existence. She does so primarily by attending upper-class social functions (what her brother calls "frozen-faced" events) where (in pitiful, heart-wrenching scenes) she is routinely ignored by everyone except world-class undesirable Grady Sutton. Enter tall, dark and handsome, if not necessarily talkative, Fred MacMurray. The film contains one of cinema's classic dinner scenes, a primer on what food not to serve in hot weather. Our Town (United Artists, 1940) Bosley Crowther in the New York Times reviewed Our Town rapturously: "There is reason to take hope this morning, to find renewed faith and confidence in mankind--and, incidentally, in the artistry of the screen. For the film version of Thornton Wilder's prize-winning play, Our Town opened yesterday at the Music Hall. This is a picture which utilizes the fullest prerogatives of the camera to participate as a recognized witness to a simple dramatic account of people's lives...Frank Craven as the druggist and narrator is the perfect New England Socrates-- honest, sincere, and profound...We hesitate to employ superlatives, but of Our Town the least we can say is that it captures on film the simple beauties and truths of humble folks as very few pictures ever do." Such overwrought praise will doubtless have many Pickford patrons clamoring to see the film, and the more cynical vowing never to come within fifty feet of any theater screening Our Town. To the latter group, we would admit the film does feature rather wooden pacing (befitting a man of Sam Wood's name and talent), yet Our Town's innovative deep focus camera techniques and Aaron Copland's score should provide sufficient excuse to see the film. Finally, attendance can serve as a memorial to the thousands of high school students forced to put on this play. SEPARATE ADMISSION Dr. Socrates (Warner Bros., 1935) Paul Muni's "Great Man" roles (Seven Faces, The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Life of Emile Zola, Juarez) transfixed audiences during the 1920's and 1930's, but today we find far more compelling his depictions of ordinary men trapped in dangerous situations (I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Bordertown, Dr. Socrates, among others). In these smaller settings far removed from the world stage, his indignant outbursts at injustices garner terrific emotional sympathy. Here Muni (described by film historian Thomas Schatz as the studio's idea of a George Arliss/Jimmy Cagney hybrid) is a small-town doctor who becomes medicine man to a gangster. Moving the gangster film from an urban to a more rural setting definitely added freshness to what was becoming an increasingly stale genre by 1935. One only wishes Warners had selected a more distinguished actor for the gangster role than Barton MacLane (James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and Humphrey Bogart come immediately to mind), for Muni definitely overshadows his colleague. Yet, whatever its faults, Dr. Socrates stands far superior to the 1939 remake King of the Underworld starring Kay Francis. Followed By: The Millionaire (Warner Bros., 1931) George Arliss, like Paul Muni fond of portraying famous men (Disraeli, Alexander Hamilton, Voltaire, Cardinal Richelieu), here plays a business leader ordered to relax for six months. He finds refuge and recommitment as a gas station attendant and mentor to David Manners, here taking a break from horror films. The Stranger's Return (MGM, 1933) "The Stranger's Return is King Vidor's most neglected film, a virtually unknown comic drama of jealousy and opportunity in America's heartland. In his last assignment for MGM before breaking away for Our Daily Bread, his independently produced celebration of agricultural cooperatives, Vidor likewise touches on the Jeffersonian theme of Western farming as safety-valve for urban unemployed--but here within a post-State Fair cycle of light rural entertainment. A sharp-tongued Miriam Hopkins takes refuge from the Depression at the prosperous Iowa farm of her irascible 85-year-old grandfather (impersonated in his patented geezer style by 55-year-old Lionel Barrymore). She's envied by Grandpa's catty extended family--who can't resist waiting up to see `a relative that ain't living with her husband'--and attracted to a married neighbor (dapper Franchot Tone, as incongruous in overalls as might be imagined). The performances are universally superior to those in Our Daily Bread, and the complex plotting brings its spirit closer to Restoration comedy than to rural realism--Volpone in the rye."--Scott Simmon. SEPARATE ADMISSION Ah, Wilderness (MGM, 1935) During the 1930's, MGM frequently gave the "glossy" treatment to literary adaptations, on occasion draining all life and zest from the original work. Not so with Ah, Wilderness. (Small town films seemingly retain emotional impact, force and life far better than costume or historical dramas, which often become obsessed with sets and historical accuracy.) Credit likely goes to director Clarence Brown who, though proficient in numerous genres, always did well with Americana-style films (Of Human Hearts, The Human Comedy, and The Yearling, among others). In tonight's film, New England family life circa 1905- 1906 is lovingly chronicled. Highlights include a high-school commencement scene and Lionel Barrymore's standout performance as family patriarch. Critical dissent has been infrequent: Pauline Kael called the film "remote from Eugene O'Neill's life," and an O'Neill dream "based on Booth Tarkington's world." Babbitt (First National, 1934) No one was physically better suited to the part of George Babbitt than Guy Kibbee. He singularly personifies the self- satisfied, smug Rotary Club member/civic booster, who sees nothing wrong with society except for those persons trying to change it. That said, this version of Babbitt, like a previous 1924 effort, proves that this Sinclair Lewis novel apparently cannot be successfully transferred to the screen without major Hollywood-style alterations. For our part, we'd place George Babbitt right in the center of a Kings Row or Peyton Place-style maelstrom and watch the sparks fly and calculated smugness disappear. Variety slugged the film for its slow pacing and then exhibited its own big-city prejudices by adding: Babbitt "is not big time stuff, though it should get business at the nabes." Followed By: Party Wire (Columbia, 1935) For those growing up in small town or rural locations, the opportunity to eavesdrop on party-line telephone conversations occasionally (or often) proves tempting. Party Wire, a relatively minor effort from Columbia, playfully shows what evils can result. Among others, Jean Arthur (soon to gain stardom with her role in John Ford's The Whole Town's Talking) and Charley Grapewin provide comic relief.% SEPARATE ADMISSION Ruggles of Red Gap (Paramount, 1935) Fresh off his success as Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty, Charles Laughton here portrays an equally famous character in British legend and lore--the butler. Laughton's boss, woman-chasing Roland Young, loses him via poker to Mary Boland and Charlie Ruggles, members of Red Gap, Washington's extremely small social elite. Laughton, in understated butler fashion, worriedly responds: "North America, my lord. Quite an untamed country I understand." But once in America, he finds not uncouth backwoodsmen but rather a more egalitarian society that soon has Laughton reciting the Gettysburg Address and opening a restaurant. The "Ruggles" character as portrayed here by Laughton furnishes an interesting contrast to the other two Hollywood deans of British butlerdom: Robert Greig and Eric Blore. Ruggles of Red Gap (Paramount, 1935)% Director: Leo McCarey. Screenplay: Walter De Leon and Harland Thompson; adaptation by Humphrey Pearson, from the novel by Harry Leon Wilson. Photography: Alfred Gilks. Cast: Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, ZaSu Pitts, Roland Young, Leila Hyams, Maude Eburne. (92 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal) SEPARATE ADMISSION Fancy Pants (Paramount, 1950) This remake of Ruggles of Red Gap makes some slight situation changes, featuring Bob Hope impersonating British royalty in a small New Mexico town. Hope's insouciance makes him simply perfect for the role, though he's topped at times by Lucille Ball as the husband-hunting woman who brought Hope to New Mexico in the first place. Especially funny is a fox-hunting trip with visiting President Teddy Roosevelt. Pickford patrons should take seriously Hope's early admonition that "there will be no popcorn eating during this performance." Theodora Goes Wild (Columbia, 1936) This hilarious screwball comedy makes a serious point: that small towns can inhibit the talents and behavior of residents. Lynnfield scion Irene Dunne publishes, under a pseudonym, a racy national best-seller. Needless to say, many local residents (especially the Lynnfield literary circle, at one point amusingly compared to a clowder of cats) condemn the book, all the while hungrily reading excerpts running in the local paper published by "let's make this a livelier place" Thomas Mitchell. Dunne's serene acceptance of life faces a serious challenge from carefree illustrator Melvyn Douglas. The last half of the film combines doses of Ninotchka (cosmopolitan man seeks to loosen up a restrained, ill-cultured woman) with dashes of The Awful Truth (all for love, a man wrecks a woman's life and she returns the favor). SEPARATE ADMISSION Together Again (Columbia, 1944) Together Again closely resembles Theodora Goes Wild, except this time Charles Boyer rather than Melvyn Douglas seeks to liberate the mind, body and spirit of Irene Dunne. She's a widowed small-town Vermont mayor, he a New York sculptor hired to create something impressive and heroic for the town square. Charles Coburn plays matchmaker, in his usual high comic fashion. Theodora Goes Wild (Columbia, 1936) SEPARATE ADMISSION Dr. Kildare Goes Home (MGM, 1940) "From 1938 to 1947, this series, set in Blair General Hospital, was one of the most successful and entertaining of all. None of the Kildare films is bad; a few are mediocre, but most of the films are quite enjoyable...--&1Leonard Maltin's TV Movies. In tonight's entry, Dr. Kildare returns for a visit to his hometown. As with almost all of the Kildare films, Lionel Barrymore steals the show with his cantankerous portrayal of Dr. Gillespie. So's Your Old Man (Famous Players-Lasky, 1926) Followed By: It's the Old Army Game (Famous Players-Lasky, 1926) Our two 5:00 p.m. films feature W. C. Fields before he hit his motion
picture comic stride and while he still sported a moustache. For our
purposes, Fields exemplifies the ne'er-do- well, no account but occasionally
lovable sort found in small- town life. In So's Your Old Man,
Waukegus, New Jersey resident Fields claims invention of shatterproof
automobile glass. His road to financial success, of course, takes many
hilarious detours, including a foray into his classic "golf game" routine
and inspired pantomime to a Spanish princess. That the film had as
director the accomplished Gregory LaCava helped elevate it above other
Fields silent efforts. SEPARATE ADMISSION The Bank Dick (Universal, 1940) This absolutely hilarious yarn concerns Lompoc resident Egbert Souse (accent grave over the e), played by W. C. Fields, whose basic life activities are drinking, smoking, reading detective magazines, and spending time with the boys. The story, logic noticeably missing, careens briskly from gag to gag, from Fields substituting for inebriated film director A. Pismo Clam ("I can't get the celluloid out of my blood") to a breathtakingly destructive car chase ("The resale value of this car is going to be nil"). Fieldsian genius abounds in lines that deliberately flaunt production code standards. The Bank Dick (Universal, 1940) SEPARATE ADMISSION So's Your Old Man (Famous Players-Lasky, 1926) Followed By: It's the Old Army Game (Famous Players-Lasky, 1926) The Cub (World Film Corporation, 1915) The Cub is a modest little comedy about a young reporter sent out of town to cover the outbreak of a Hatfield-McCoy style feud in the hills. Essentially a `rube' comedy in reverse, the wise-cracking city-bred youth begins his country education when he arrives at the train station, asks for a taxi, and is handed a donkey. John Hines, as the reporter, meets the sophisticated local school teacher (Martha Hedman) and falls in love, but not before becoming involved in the feud. (Hines has a tendency to work too hard at being funny but is otherwise okay, especially in the introductory scenes.) Tourneur directs masterfully throughout and many scenes are memorable for their scenic beauty and dramatic composition. The film's best moments come at the end, however, when a band of marauding mountaineers attacks and literally destroys a house."--Patrick Loughney SEPARATE ADMISSION A Girl's Folly (World Film Corporation, 1917) "Released only a matter of days after The Iced Bullet, Maurice Tourneur's apologue of the charm and deceptiveness of life, as reconstructed in the studio, consigns to the background the possible common ground between fiction and the real world (as occurred in the films of Rex Barker) in order to concentrate on the circularity of events and their belonging to a single, playful sentimental intrigue. The stars of this dance live their respective love stories without distinguishing the phases of their romance from those before the camera of the `faked' Western they are shooting, to the extent that several quips away from the set are organized according to the logic of a second screenplay, criss-crossing the first, almost a completion of what the director of the `film within the film' has left incomplete. Just when this round dance of courtship, innocuous flirting, improvised farewells and reconciliations (all `true', given that they are outside the world of the cinema) is about to end, the two belated witnesses to the happy ending start all over again: `Gee, but ain't that romantick!' exclaims a railroad worker, watching Driscoll and Vivian walking away hand in hand (as if in a film) towards the horizon; and the stationmaster rejoins with a shrug of the shoulders: `romantick, nuthin!...That's movin' pictures!' It's not the only in-joke: you will see in A Girl's Folly other great craftsmen of the `movin pictures' in the act of `simulating' their own true identities. Tourneur himself, in all probability, and Ben Carre, and the director Emile Chautard; but above all Josef von Sternberg, in a precious cameo bearing witness to his activity as assistant director and adviser to William A. Brady, president of Paragon Films."--Paolo Cherchi Usai, in Sulla via di Hollywood (The Path to Hollywood), 1911- 1920. Fury (MGM, 1936) Fritz Lang made only one film--tonight's Fury--for MGM, and the reason why is no great mystery. This hard-hitting drama on the murderous hypocrisy of purportedly law-abiding small-town citizens simply did not fit into the MGM corporate vision of the small town as America's value custodian. Everyman Spencer Tracy heads to meet fiancee Sylvia Sidney, but circumstantial evidence lands him in jail on suspicion of kidnapping. Mounting citizen hysteria eventually culminates in the jail being torched in a memorably chilling scene. Fury, which required an extremely wide acting range from its male lead, launched Spencer Tracy to stardom. SEPARATE ADMISSION They Won't Forget (Warner Bros., 1937) Based on the true story of a murder and subsequent lynching of an innocent suspect, They Won't Forget is a masterpiece marred only by some ineffectual second-level acting (of itself, unusual for a 1930's Warners film, where secondary characters composed a studio strong suit). A young girl (Lana Turner in a memorably erotic debut) has been murdered and the best evidence, of which there is precious little, points to either a black janitor (Clinton Rosemand) or a teacher newly arrived from the North (Edward Norris). Ambitious District Attorney Claude Rains, seeking politically favorable publicity, eschews going after the janitor ("Anybody can convict a Negro in the South") and focuses his sights on the greater attention to be garnered by convicting a Yankee (Note: in real life, the teacher was Jewish, a situation only slightly hinted at by the film.). Many marvelous scenes lead to a stunning conclusion featuring one of most brilliant symbols ever used in a motion picture (this one involves a train and mail pouch). Mervyn LeRoy notes in his autobiography Mervyn LeRoy: Take One that he always attempted to begin and end films with striking, memorable shots. Lana Turner's sensual strut (as LeRoy said, "When she walked down the street, in the film, her bosom seemed to move in rhythm, a rhythm all its own.") and the closing train scene certainly make brilliant use of this philosophy. Trivia note: This was LeRoy's last film at Warners, before heading to MGM and producing The Wizard of Oz. They Won't Forget (Warner Bros., 1937) SEPARATE ADMISSION Fury (MGM, 1936) Daughters Courageous (Warner Bros., 1939) A follow-up to Four Daughters, with many of the same principals in a story far different. Claude Rains, who walked out on his family many years before, returns just before wife Fay Bainter is to remarry. He puts aside his roaming tendencies long enough to settle certain family problems. John Garfield's bravura debut in Four Daughters led to top-billing in Daughters Courageous, again playing a tough, hard-bitten young man. An illustration of the fine product studios routinely turned out in the halcyon days of the studio system. SEPARATE ADMISSION Four Daughters (Warner Bros., 1938) Fannie Hurst's novel Sister Act served as inspiration for this small-town family saga of Claude Rains and his four looking- for-love daughters. If this had been an MGM production, three- hankie scenes would have spelled heartwarming moments (Compare this family with the Hardys). Because it's a Warners film, though, we can count on quick pacing, soap-opera plot elements, and even a social commentary angle, this time provided by bitter rebel John Garfield (in his first large role). Underrated director Michael Curtiz, always at home in melodrama, splendidly puts all the pieces together, though not without his usual acidic exchanges with the studio, as witness this memo from Jack Warner (listed in Rudy Behlmer's Inside Warner Bros): "If you will stop all that superfluous roaming camera, Mike, you will make a great picture, as you always have. For your information, in the case of Sister Act [Four Daughters] 2000 feet had to be cut out of everything you worked so hard and wasted your time on..." The Magnificent Ambersons (RKO, 1942) Arguably the film that doomed Orson Welles' career, The Magnificent Ambersons furnishes a textbook case of brilliant filmmaking at the expense of commercial popularity and success. A 1982 Sight and Sound poll of international film critics voted Ambersons the seventh greatest film of all time, yet the film has never gained much of an audience. Perhaps the lack of popularity is due to what many consider the fundamental miscasting of Tim Holt as George Amberson, and the almost complete lack of any sympathetic characters. More likely, RKO's recutting the film (without Welles' permission) from 135 to 88 minutes after disastrous previews altered much of the film's internal dynamics, pacing and mood. Nevertheless, even in truncated form, the film is rife with brilliance, from innovative use of cinematic time (best exhibited in an opening sequence on changing fashions) to Stanley Cortez' ever-moving camera, featuring vertiginous camera angles and stunning tracking shots. Popular approval the film cannot claim, but greatness is another matter. SEPARATE ADMISSION Shadow of a Doubt (Universal, 1942) Possibly Alfred Hitchcock's greatest film, Shadow of a Doubt is controlled, suspenseful filmmaking at its finest. In the quaint town of Santa Rosa, California, the Newton family, after listening to another detective lesson from neighbor and aspiring mystery writer Hume Cronyn, realize they need a spark from outside. Enter worldly, beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), whose previous visits always proved enchanting, especially to teenage daughter "Charlie" (Teresa Wright). But Cotten now is a changed, manipulative, bitter man, believing "the whole world's a joke to me." Of the family members, only the sensitive Wright notices his transformation, a concern that becomes horror and loathing once she suspects he is the fugitive "Merry Widow" murderer. The suspense mounts rapidly with superb camerawork and Dimitri Tiomkin's score. Throughout, the small-town atmosphere dominates. In one scene, Wright, seeking information on the murders, rushes to get to the public library before closing time; a traffic cop pulls her aside and sternly lectures her for jay- walking. For the small-town realism, thanks go to Thornton Wilder, who rated that rarest of tributes: a full screen credit from Alfred Hitchcock. It's a Wonderful Life (Liberty Films/RKO, 1946) Almost everyone has seen this sentimental Christmas classic, though possibly never through a small-town prism. Viewed in this context, It's a Wonderful Life acquires new depth and poignancy as the saga of a good man perennially frustrated in attempts to leave his hometown. Cynics maintain the film's popularity derives solely from its public domain copyright status, and thus frequent revival on television. We disagree, offering as proof an amended version of an old adage: well-done sentiment, no less than sex, sells. For our final thought on It's a Wonderful Life and Frank Capra, for that matter, we offer the following comment (from Pauline Kael, we believe): "No one has ever defined the sentimentality of cynicism as well as Frank Capra. If someone else ever does, shoot that person immediately." The Magnificent Ambersons (RKO, 1942) The Stranger (International Pictures/RKO, 1946) Tonight's film puts the lie to those who claim Orson Welles could not turn out a commercially viable film. After the commercial failures of The Magnificent Ambersons and Journey Into Fear, Welles gladly sought out almost any assignment. Producer S. P. Eagle (i.e. Sam Spiegel) obliged, offering Welles a chance to direct, provided he maintained an extremely tight budget and shooting schedule. What resulted was an entertaining tale of investigator Edward G. Robinson pursuing Nazi criminal Orson Welles to a small Connecticut town. The film, however, sports few Wellesian touches, other than some stylish camera shots and a slam-bang finale in a clock tower. Welles has always scorned the finished product. Joseph McBride quotes him as saying, "The Stranger is the worst of my pictures. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else. It is absolutely of no interest to me." Such comments go far toward explaining Orson Welles' failure within the Hollywood system. As John Ford, Howard Hawks and others learned, a director must turn out some "uninteresting" but profitable pictures in order to gain the financial freedom to pursue more personal and artistic works. SEPARATE ADMISSION June Bride (Warner Bros., 1948) Bette Davis' career had been in a recent downslide, but this pleasing film revived her popularity, as well as showcasing her aptitude for comedy. Magazine editor Davis wants her House and Garden style magazine to cover a small-town June wedding. The worldly-wise, cosmopolitan magazine staff (including Davis' on- again, off-again lover Robert Montgomery) expects to do a dull story and have their superiority over the hinterlands proven. Instead, they find quite a few unexpected stories and gain some needed humility. Debbie Reynolds' film debut. Out of the Past (RKO, 1947) We've stretched our definition of small town once more (but who's counting?) to allow revival of this knock-out film noir, arguably the finest ever in the genre. Robert Mitchum hides out in a small Nevada town, hoping to escape a past featuring gangster Kirk Douglas and beautiful but exceedingly dangerous Jane Greer. Mitchum's laconic acting style has doomed several films, but fits perfectly tonight's entry, lending a dreamlike, sense-of-impending- doom atmosphere. Out of the Past also features Nick Musuraca's stunning black-and-white cinematography, thrilling and unexpected plot twists, as well as superb dialogue ("She can't be all bad; no one is." Mitchum's reply: She comes the closest."). A film that looks better with each passing year. SEPARATE ADMISSION Ride the Pink Horse (Universal-International, 1947) An unusual film. For those of you who saw our screening of Spectre of the Rose (another Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer adaptation) a few years back, this should not surprise; these guys specialized in tossing offbeat elements into melodramatic situations. Robert Montgomery heads to a small New Mexico town, hoping to settle scores with someone who once killed a friend of his. As in many films noir, some of the best dialogue is aimed at that archetype--the noir woman (here played by Andrea King): "She has a dead fish where her heart ought to be." "A dead fish with a bit of perfume on it."). James Agee lauded the film for social reasons: "Ride the Pink Horse is practically revolutionary for a West Coast picture; it obviously intends to show that Mexicans and Indians are capable of great courage and loyalty, even to a white American, and can help him out of a hole if they like him." The Sullivans (20th Century-Fox, 1944) This tale of five Waterloo, Iowa brothers determined to remain together at all costs shows small-town patriotism and loyalty at its noblest--and most tragic. From the film's first hour featuring the five brothers as typical, playful, prankish youngsters completely dedicated to one another, the film moves to their later teen years and the outbreak of World War II. Since they had always considered themselves inseparable, they make a fateful decision to enter the Navy as a group. The Sullivans is based on a real-life tragedy, which convinced the Navy to no longer allow members of the same family to serve on the same ship. We urge Pickford patrons to bring voluminous handkerchiefs. SEPARATE ADMISSION The Human Comedy (MGM, 1943) Reportedly MGM head Louis B. Mayer's favorite film, The Human Comedy indeed seems a likely candidate. Against a backdrop of abundant sentiment, persons of all classes mingle easily together; life is made complete only within the framework of religious, hard-working families; James Craig, latest in a long line of MGM Clark Gable wannabes, spends much of the film playing Rhett Butler; daughter Donna Reed "gets a lump in my throat every time I see the flag." What distinguishes the film in our eyes, however, is director Brown's masterful touch in making war loom ever present in Ithaca, California: military planes fly overhead; convoys and reporting soldiers hurry through town; telegrams arrive announcing war dead. These along with many other "bringing the war close to home" scenes, in addition to sensitive acting from two notorious hams (Mickey Rooney and Frank Morgan), are what make The Human Comedy truly special and perhaps account for the film's enormous popularity in 1943. Courageous Dr. Christian (RKO, 1940) Along with the Hardys, several other small-town series competed for
attention: Blondie, Henry Aldrich, Scattergood Baines, and miracle
medical/social worker Dr. Christian. In all, there were six Dr. Christian
films, with Jean Hersholt playing the lead in every one. Hersholt's
good work extended to real life, where he participated in many humanitarian
activities; a special Oscar is occasionally given out in his memory. SEPARATE ADMISSION Sitting Pretty (20th Century-Fox, 1948) After World War II, Americans increasingly began living in suburbs,
which provided many of the virtues of small-town life (quiet, security,
an unhurried lifestyle) as well as close access to the cultural opportunities
of a large metropolitan area. Our series will reflect this shift by
mixing in films set in suburbia with those in the more traditional
small town. The Leopard Man (RKO, 1943) Russian-born Vladimir Ivan Leventon (Val Lewton), after a stint as story person for David O. Selznick, formed an unusual production unit at RKO in 1942. The studio granted Lewton almost complete artistic freedom, provided he turned films out quickly (within a month or so) and cheaply (typically $250,000 or less). Cat People, the unit's first release, achieved tremendous popular success, becoming a cultural phenomenon. Leopard Man, his third film, more closely resembles a psychological mystery than a true horror film, though one or two terrifying moments (what Lewton called a "bus," according to film scholar Joel E. Siegel) will send your pulse rate soaring. The spooky atmosphere shows up well in tonight's beautiful print made by the staff of the Library's own Motion Picture Conservation Center, located in Dayton, Ohio. Followed By: Curse of the Cat People (RKO, 1944) RKO kept pressing producer Val Lewton for a sequel to Cat People, a phenomenally successful low-budget horror film. He apparently satisfied the studio with a campy title, and then produced a film unlike almost any other before or since. What resulted was a child's fantasy film of a young girl's efforts to communicate with her dead mother (Simone Simon of Cat People fame). Child psychologists have long admired tonight's film and sociologist David Riesman discussed the film extensively in his landmark study The Lonely Crowd. James Agee praised the film thusly: "Tardily, I arch my back and purr deep-throated approval of The Curse of the Cat People...the picture is in fact a brave, sensitive, and admirable little psychological melodrama about a lonely, six-year-old girl, her inadequate parents, a pair of recluses in a neighboring house, and the child's dead, insane mother, who becomes the friend and playmate of her imagination....the family servant who is one of the most unpretentiously sympathetic, intelligent, anti-traditional and individualized Negro characters I have ever seen presented on the screen." SEPARATE ADMISSION Smile (United Artists, 1975) A savage satire on the American beauty pageant, both the contestants and, especially, the producers. Though beauty contests are an extremely easy target for parody, Smile does not seem too mean-spirited, since many of the barbs are directed at non-contestants. Among the wacky cast of characters: head judge and mobile-home salesman Bruce Dern (Big Bob Freelander); Dern's son (Eric Sheen) exhibiting capitalism at its wickedest with his plan to photograph contestants in various stages of undress for sale to the curious; and pageant organizer Barbara Feldon using the contest as a frustration release for her ailing marriage. Come to the Stable (20th Century-Fox, 1949) "Two French nuns arrive in New England to build a local hospital
and melt the hearts of the local grumps. This old-time charmer simply
brims with sweetness and light and is produced with high-class studio
efficiency."--Leslie Halliwell. SEPARATE ADMISSION Welcome Stranger (Paramount, 1947) Typical Bing Crosby vehicle showcasing his take-it-easy acting style and singing talent. Crosby plays substitute doctor for vacationing Barry Fitzgerald (these two had battled along generational lines before in Going My Way), but Bing's bedside manner and personal style are far different. Dr. Crosby, of course, also specializes in croonology, and any malady is occasion for a song, including "Smile Right Back at the Sun," "My Heart is a Hobo," "Country Style," and "As Long as I'm Dreaming." Screenwriter Arthur Sheekman, who did some work for the Marx Brothers, contributes a witty script. The Witches of Eastwick (Warner Bros., 1987) A cautionary tale on what havoc late night skull sessions can wreak. Three bored New England women (Susan Sarandon, Cher, and Michelle Pfeiffer) conjure up visions of an ideal lover, who turns out to be Devil-on-the-make Jack Nicholson. Lucifer Unbound rapidly assembles and satisfies the heavenly troika, but even he, plagued with other annoying devilish tendencies, cannot keep these women happy for long. Never taking itself too seriously, The Witches of Eastwick, directed by George Miller of Mad Max fame, proves great fun until derailed by an special effects orgy near the end. Those who find the "cherry" scene disgusting should be advised the original John Updike novel uses frogs. Flamingo Road (Warner Bros., 1949) Small-town political machinations run rampant tonight, mostly thanks to some sassy dialogue from screenwriter Edmund H. North (In a Lonely Place, The Day the Earth Stood Still, &Patton). Sheriff and political boss Sydney Greenstreet (in one of his last film roles) sabotages the romance of deputy sheriff Zachary Scott and carnival worker Joan Crawford and, for added emphasis, sends her to prison on a bogus prostitution charge. Crawford, not one to let this sort of thing pass, finishes her prison term, courts and marries a powerful state politico (David Brian, in his film debut), and then returns to Flamingo Road to teach Greenstreet a civics lesson or two. Jack L. Warner, studio VP in charge of production, loved the sexy advertising campaign for Flamingo Road. He wrote Mort Blumenstock, head of publicity and advertising: "The campaign on Flamingo Road with that hot photo of Crawford with cigarette in mouth, gams showing, etc. had much to do with public going for this picture. Try use this type photo on any picture you can in future."--quoted in Inside Warner Bros. by Rudy Behlmer. Stand By Me (Columbia, 1986) Stephen King's novella The Body provided the inspiration for this charming Rob Reiner film. A teenager has been missing for some time, leading four of his contemporaries (headed by Wil Wheaton) to set out in the best Tom Sawyer fashion and locate the body. The quest remains secondary, of course, to the fastening friendships, trust, and courage under danger (mostly from town bully Kiefer Sutherland) the trip promotes. SEPARATE ADMISSION Letter to Three Wives (20th Century-Fox,
1948) "Three wives (Crain, Sothern, Darnell) receive a letter addressed to all of them from a beautiful woman (Celeste Holm speaks the role) telling them that she has run away with one of their husbands. In three flashbacks the relationship of each woman with her husband and the husband's with the woman is shown. Each discovers cause for anxiety but the couples are finally reconciled. A well-made psychological comedy of morals with witty dialogue. One of Mankiewicz's best films."--Georges Sadoul. The film marked the debut of actor Paul Douglas and garnered two Oscars for Joseph Mankiewicz, for both direction and screenplay. A Medal for Benny (Paramount, 1945) Town authorities have booted J. Carrol Naish's troublesome son Benny
out of town. Months later, word arrives that Benny had posthumously
been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for extremely brave deeds.
Fawning town leaders immediately lionize Benny as a model citizen,
but the father cuts through the hypocrisy in a memorable speech. Since You Went Away (Selznick/United Artists, 1944) James Agee: "The duck that hatched a swan was lucky compared to David Oliver Selznick. He hatched Gone With the Wind and has been trying to hatch another ever since." Pauline Kael: "David O. Selznick must have had a reverent desire to do for the American home front what Hollywood had already done for the British home front in Mrs. Miniver. Leslie Halliwell: "When hubby is away at the war, his wife and family adopt stiff upper lips. Elaborate flagwaving investigation of the well-heeled American home front in World War II, with everyone brimming with goodwill and not a dry eye in the place. Absolutely superbly done, if it must be done at all, and a symposium of Hollywood values and techniques of the time." Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Paramount, 1944) SEPARATE ADMISSION Hail the Conquering Hero (Paramount, 1944) "Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken), son of a World War I hero, is a Marine washout--chronic hay fever--who has spent World War II in hiding, too mortified to face his hometown and his adoring mother. A group of sympathetic Marines concoct a scheme to slip him back home as a veteran but they don't plan on the magnitude of his welcome. More than in any other picture, Preston Sturges managed here to have it both ways, to show affection for what he satirizes. The target is not the military so much as small-town homefront absurdities--bogus patriotic rhetoric, exaggerated hero worship, blustering politicians, even mother love. By the time of this, his last Paramount film, Sturges had honed his stock company into American film's greatest comic ensemble."--Scott Simmon Heathers (New World, 1989) Peer group internal conflict rages in tonight's entertaining black comedy. Four beautiful women (three named Heather) battle for supremacy at Westerburg High, home of the Rotweilers. Newcomer J. D. Slater, acting in high Jack Nicholson style, wants disorder ("Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs darling") and begins by murdering the nastiest Heather and making it appear a tragic teen suicide. Slater's remorseful response: "The white whale drank some bad plankton and smashed through a coffee table." But he learns that if one Heather goes down, other Heathers will grow in her place. As with the best teen films of the 1980's, the emphasis is not on conventional or believable plotting, but rather on incisive examination of teen lifestyles, values and desperation. Among the flood of recent teen films, Heathers stands out for its authenticity and dark comedy. SEPARATE ADMISSION Racing With the Moon (Paramount, 1984) Our nomination for the finest small-town film of the 1980's goes to Racing With the Moon, Richard Benjamin's (My Favorite Year) loving recreation of World War II life in a northern California town. Sean Penn and Nicholas Cage play two bowling-alley workers biding their time until a stint with the Marines; Elizabeth McGovern is the heartbreakingly beautiful, supposedly wealthy love interest of Penn. Racing With the Moon certainly cannot claim an action-filled plot (preferring an episodic, scene-by-scene approach), but the wonderful period detail (especially a magnificent bowling alley) and lovely location photography makes this an excellent, somewhat "Capraesque" (&1Variety&2's description) slice-of-life film. Blue Velvet (De Laurentiis Entertainment, 1986) &2One can imagine the spiel from the North Carolina Film Commission
to the Lumberton, North Carolina Chamber of Commerce. "This brilliant
young director (David Lynch) wants to make a film in your town, something
like a modern-day Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew mystery. Yes, he's a bit
odd (after all, he grew up both in Montana and Arlington, Virginia),
but he has done good work before, including The Elephant Man." The
community obviously agreed; their response after seeing the finished
product has not been recorded for posterity. Bill and Coo (Republic, 1947) Some of you may feel small-town films exist only for the birds, so tonight we bring you Bill and Coo, which won a special Academy Award. "Over two hundred trained birds, complete with neckties, hats, etc., waddle around an anthropornithomorphic community called Chirpendale. By conservative estimate, the God- da***est thing ever seen."--James Agee "Turn on the Heat" sequence from Sunny Side Up (20th
Century Fox, 1929) This outlandish, one-of-a-kind clip (featuring female Alaskan villagers practicing a sensuous form of global warming) leads one to suspect that prospectors headed to 1890's Alaska with more than gold in mind Followed by: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Paramount, 1946) &1Director: Lewis Milestone. Screenplay: Robert Rossen, based on Jack Patrick's original story. Photography: Victor Milner and Farciot Edouart. Music: Miklos Rozsa. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Judith Anderson, Roman Bohnen, Janis Wilson, Darryl Hickman, Mickey Kuhn. (117 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount) To cast a female lead in a role involving a former murderous child
turned town power-broker and would-be adulteress, one immediately thinks
of Barbara Stanwyck. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, a somewhat
perverse film noir, stars Stanwyck as a woman who, as a child, murdered
her aunt and got away with it; she's now married to Kirk Douglas (in
his film debut), one of the few to know the truth. Stanwyck starts
having nasty thoughts when former lover Van Heflin comes to town. SEPARATE ADMISSION Mildred Pierce (Warner Bros.,
1945) Joan Crawford--"the screen's supreme masochist" according to Pauline
Kael--definitely earns the title tonight. Mother to acquisitive holy
terror Vita (Ann Blyth), an Alice Adams gone wild, Crawford
tosses aside all questions of personal happiness and sacrifices everything
(even her first marriage) in pathetic, desperate attempts to buy her
daughter's love. Vita, out to get a huge chunk of the American pie,
scorns such gestures ("It's your fault the way I am" and "The way you
want to live is not good enough for me"), all the while eagerly lapping
up more of Mom's gravy train. The dialogue sparkles, particularly from
real estate agent Jack Carson, Crawford's friend and would-be lover,
as well as wise-cracking business manager Eve Arden: "Alligators have
the right idea. They eat their young." Ernest Haller's photography
makes standout use of interior space. Another Part of the Forest (Universal, 1948) Hellman's follow-up to The Little Foxes. One cannot accuse the Hubbard family of resembling the Hardys. "The Hubbards, who are supposed to be rising Southern capitalists, are the greatest collection of ghouls since the Old Dark House of 1932. Hellman must combine witchcraft with stagecraft--who else could keep a plot in motion with lost documents, wills, poisonings, and pistols, and still be considered a social thinker...Mostly they act as if they were warming up for an American version of Ivan the Terrible."--Pauline Kael. James Agee also found much to admire: "Lillian Hellman's saber-toothed play about the new-born South, ardently acted, and directed with sense and tension by Michael Gordon. Smart casting of instruments, musicians, and music, for a `deep-provincial musical evening.' Some alert intercutting of reactions around a smoldering dinner table. Is unusually good hybridization of stage and screen drama." Thieves Like Us (United Artists, 1974) "Three misfits escape from prison camp in 1930's Midwest, go on a crime spree; the youngest (Carradine) falls in love with a simple, uneducated girl (Duvall). Despite familiar trappings, Altman digs deep into period atmosphere and strong characterizations; this film gets better every time you look at it."--Leonard Maltin's TV Movies. "Robert Altman finds a sure, soft tone in this movie and never loses it. His account of Coca-Cola-swigging young lovers in the 30's is the most quietly poetic of his films; it's sensuous right from the first pearly- green long shot, and it seems to achieve beauty without artifice...The film is adapted from a neglected 1937 novel by Edward Anderson, which also served as the basis of the Nicholas Ray 1948 picture They Live By Night... Made in the vegetating old towns of Mississippi, the movie has the ambience of a novel, yet it was also the most freely intuitive film Altman had made up to that time."--Pauline Kael. The Trouble With Harry (Paramount, 1955) God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day he rested. During the 1950's, Alfred Hitchcock directed such masterworks as Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Vertigo, and North By Northwest; along the way, he turned out an amiable divertissement, The Trouble With Harry. Harry, rest his sorry soul, is a corpse who refuses to stay hidden, despite the best efforts of John Forsythe, Shirley MacLaine, Edmund Gwenn and others. Though The Trouble With Harry can only be classified as "lesser" Hitchcock, it is one of a handful of Hitchcock films deserving the term "picture-postcard beautiful," showcasing autumnal New England countryside; in addition, we note more than a little resemblance, at least in spirit, to Twin Peaks. Finally, the film merits at least a footnote in American cultural history for marking the film debuts of Shirley MacLaine and Jerry Mathers. The Rainmaker (Paramount, 1956) Idaho towns keep booting con-man Burt Lancaster and his anti- tornado machine. He heads south with a new racket (rain-making) to the drought-stricken town of Three Point: "The most prosperous town in the Southwest (until the drought came)." Here, along with little rain, he encounters husband-stricken Katharine Hepburn, who's definitely reaching the desperate stage. Soon Lancaster is "electrifying the cold fronts, neutralizing the warm fronts," and calling Hepburn by the names of mythological goddesses, not pleasing Hepburn's would-be suitor, laconic sheriff Wendell Corey. Mostly good fun, though we do wish the filmmakers had sacrificed annoying younger brother Earl Holliman to the rain gods. American Graffiti (Universal, 1973) George Lucas' autobiographical account of growing up in Modesto, California. Dalle Pollock in his book, Skywalking: The Films of George Lucas asserts that Lucas intended American Graffiti to prove that he was not some cold-hearted, technocratic Stanley Kubrick-style filmmaker, a concern after THX-1138. Lucas envisioned a coming-of-age story set to rock music; the final version of Graffiti , in fact, contains over 40 songs with most scences running the length of the song. Lucas also wanted to make a film that would secure him financially for life. The result: Production costs were under one million, while the film grossed over 100 million. Trivia note: Lucas and Universal battled fiercely over the final version of the film, and, in the end, approximately 4.5 minutes were cut, including a version of "Some Enchanted Evening" by Harrison Ford! We also note that last year the Modesto, California City Council attempted to ban "cruising" with remarkably unsuccessful results. SEPARATE ADMISSION On Moonlight Bay (Warner Bros., 1951) Booth Tarkington (1869-1946) was an incredibly popular writer in
the first three decades of this century but somewhat forgotten today.
His most representative works (Penrod, Penrod and Sam, Gentle
Julia, The Magnificent Ambersons, Alice Adams) show
Midwestern life--especially the pains and glories of growing up--at
its most nostalgic, yet many critics feel these loving portraits of
small-town life mask Tarkington's disillusionment with the increasing
size and declining small-town nature of his hometown, Indianapolis. Seconds (Paramount, 1966) No longer satisfied with his plain wife and stifling suburban lifestyle, John Randolph strikes a deal with an earthly devil (in this case, a secretive organization headed by Will Geer): they will fake Randolph's death and set him up with a new body in a new place. "Rebirth" as painter Rock Hudson in trendy Malibu, California proves not the earthly paradise Randolph had hoped for. The intriguing premise is, at times, overcome by slcikness: "James Wong Howe displays his camera pyrotechnics as if they were going on sale in the supermarket."--Pauline Kael. Properly dazzling is Saul Bass' credit sequence, almost the equal of his work with Hitchcock. SEPARATE ADMISSION The Rose Tattoo(Paramount, 1955) Tennessee Williams' works have faced mixed results when adapted to
the screen, ranging from the undisputed brilliance of A Streetcar
Named Desire, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Suddenly Last
Summer, and Sweet Bird of Youth, to such unquestioned
failures as The Fugitive Kind, This Property is Condemned,
and Boom! Tonight's film falls somewhere in the middle, with
most of the interest on how the depictions of a depraved moral universe
fared against the Production Code; these fascinating battles remain
the subject for a book. I'd Climb the Highest Mountain (20th Century-Fox,
1951) Director Henry King, widely considered the "King of Americana" through such films as Tol'able David, State Fair, Carousel, here gives us the clay hill country of Georgia in beautiful Technicolor photography, much done on location. Pastor William Lundigan and his wife Susan Hayward minister the spiritual and social needs of their flock, including an Ivy League-educated atheist, as well as the more normal cast of rural inhabitants. More impressively, I'd Climb the Highest Mountain remains one of the more realistic treatments of religion ever done in a Hollywood feature film. SEPARATE ADMISSION Wait 'Til the Sun Shines, Nellie (20th Century-Fox,
1952) Hollywood feature films often focus on the big, the bad, and the beautiful, devoting little effort to studies of ordinary persons in everyday situations. Elia Kazan, in an interview with Michael Ciment, called this fascination with wealth and glamour a social disease: "You know what American puritanism is: a man who has a good business and makes a lot of money is somehow good. And a man who doesn't make money and is a failure in business has something wrong with his character." Wait 'Til the Sun Shines, Nellie makes no such mistake; it tells of five decades in the life of small-town barber David Wayne. Reportedly, Marilyn Monroe was the first choice of Twentieth Century-Fox to play the role of Nellie, which ultimately went to Jean Peters. All Fall Down (MGM, 1962) "...this ambitious and elaborately staged John Frankenheimer film is set deep in that Inge territory of homespun and gothic-- that strange area of nostalgic Americana where the familiar is the Freudian grotesque. It's also a peculiar kind of fantasy, in which hideous, lecherous women (schoolteachers seem to be the worst offenders) paw handsome young men, and the one girl who might seem attractive (played by Eva Marie Saint) disqualifies herself by becoming pathetically pregnant...Suggested party game: ask your friends to tell you about the summer they grew up. The one who tells the best lie has a promising career ahead as a Hollywood screenwriter"--Pauline Kael. SEPARATE ADMISSION Splendor in the Grass (Warner Bros., 1961) While the film borrows more than a page from Romeo and Juliet,
the title comes from William Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality": "Though
nothing can bring back the hour/Of splendor in the grass, of glory
in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find/Strength in what remains
behind." &4Director: Douglas Sirk. Screenplay: Peg Fenwick. Photography: Russell Metty. Music: Frank Skinner. Cast: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Conrad Nagel, Virginia Grey, Gloria Talbott, William Reynolds, Jacqueline De Wit, Charles Drake, Leigh Snowden. (89 min., Technicolor, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal) From the mid-Thirties though early-Fifties, Universal gave up on
big-budget productions, in favor of less costly, more modest efforts
almost certain to produce a small profit. The phenomenal success of Magnificent
Obsession changed everything. All That Heaven Allows,
a follow-up to Magnificent Obsession, features widow Jane
Wyman's tame dalliance with tree surgeon Rock Hudson; the reaction
of her children and townsfolk reveal small- town intolerance to the
independent woman. As always in Douglas Sirk's films, color photography
is crucial, here showing exquisite use of primary colors and the use
of colors and angles to suggest emotions and moods. SEPARATE ADMISSION Magnificent Obsession (Universal-International,
1954) This piece of irresistible kitsch features a plot the stuff of screenwriting legend: spoiled playboy Rock Hudson has an unnecessary boating accident which contributes to the death of Jane Wyman's doctor husband. Not showing the best of judgement, Hudson pursues a romantic clinch with the widow, only to cause her blindness in another accident. He then resumes his medical studies, in hopes of eventually restoring her eyesight. If the plot is at times laughable and not to be believed, the emotional impact is not, packing a wallop that led to a terrific box-office bonanza for Universal. Contributing to the effective mix are Frank Skinner's hokey but beautiful music score and Russell Metty's exquisite color cinematography (seen to advantage in tonight's original Technicolor print). In Metty's eye, the simplest vase of flowers becomes a beautiful silk screen, a multi-layered composition. Tortilla Flat (MGM, 1942) Tonight's films feature works by two unjustly criticized MGM directors. Often knocked for being "director in name only" for classics such as The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, Victor Fleming, in fact, fashioned an estimable record as director of several noteworthy films fromn 1925-45, including Mantrap, The Way of All Flesh, The Virginian, Red Dust, Treasure Island, and Captains Courageous. MGM, showing its respect, usually ranked Fleming on a pedestal with George Cukor, with Fleming handling "male" films, and Cukor "women's" films. Tortilla Flat (featuring Spencer Tracy, John Garfield, and Frank Morgan as Steinbeck's paisanos) places Fleming in that Hawksian milieu conducive to his best work: the male adventure film. Pauline Kael could not resist one sneer: "It says something about MGM's attitude toward paisanos that it [the film] was made in sepia." SEPARATE ADMISSION I Love You Again (MGM, 1940) Critics often mock W. S. "Woody" Van Dyke as "One Shot Woody" and
an MGM hack, yet his impressive output of entertaining features (several
of the Tarzan and Thin Man films, San Francisco, It's
a Wonderful World) mark him as a director of extraordinary casual
flair (remarkable at a studio as stodgy as MGM) and further prove that,
in order to be successful, a film need not be planned with the precision
of a far-reaching military campaign. Film-making can, at times, be
very simple. The Last Picture Show (Columbia, 1971) Anarene, Texas, the 1950's--a dying town. Little remains of the town--even less of its spirit--other than a moving picture theater and its proprietor Ben Johnson (Sam the Lion). Adults muse wistfully on what might have been, all the while acting more and more desperate; teens eagerly contemplate what could be, if only they leave. To illustrate this decaying environment harboring dying dreams and souls, director Peter Bogdanovich shot the film in harsh, grainy black-and-white and produced several magnificent scenes, most notably a brief, elegiac, stream-of- consciousness narrative on town and personal history by Ben Johnson, who won an Oscar for this role. In addition to its numerous aesthetic virtues, The Last Picture Show merits interest as marking the coming-of-age of a new generation of American acting talent, including Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, and Randy Quaid. SEPARATE ADMISSION Written on the Wind (Universal International, 1956) Written on the Wind is flamboyant melodrama at its most delirious and enjoyable. The Hadley family (oil tycoon father Robert Keith, self-destructive son Robert Stack, and nymphomaniac daughter Dorothy Malone) control the small Texas town of Hadley. Caught up in the family's tumultuous decline are the oil company's honorable business foreman Rock Hudson, who Keith wishes were his son, and Lauren Bacall (Stack's new wife and object of Hudson's suppressed romantic yearnings). Highlights of Written on the Wind are the baroque cinematography (note the use of mirrors) and Dorothy Malone's Oscar-winning performance as the bad girl who really loves one person only (Hudson) but can't have him. Skaterdater (Byway Productions, 1965) Followed By The Swimmer (Columbia, 1968) Tonight's two films take us on metaphorical journeys through suburbia.
In Skaterdater, an Academy Award-winning short subject, several
male teenagers blissfully roller-skate around town, until the appearance
of a young girl alters the group's dynamics. Skaterdater makes
many keen observations, all sans dialogue. Note: our print suffers
from color-fading. SEPARATE ADMISSION Father of the Bride (MGM, 1950) Father of the Bride opens with Spencer Tracy among the ruins, sitting fatigued amidst the clutter of the previous day's wedding of his daughter. Tracy then recounts, in his best curmudgeonly style, the prelude to disaster, how plans for a simple wedding turned into an occasion befitting dozens of heads of state. Comic highlights include Tracy's frantic bartending at the announcement party; bride-to-be Elizabeth Taylor's battles with groom Don Taylor over the honeymoon site (a fishing trip to Nova Scotia loses out, thankfully); and Leo Carroll's hysterical turn as a haughty caterer. The Wild One (Columbia, 1953) Had Jack Kerouac written a motorcycle gang novel, the result might have been The Wild One. The film's opening title--"This is a shocking story. It could never take place in most American towns but it did in this one. It is a public challenge not to let it happen again."--leads one to expect a proto-typical Stanley Kramer "message" film. Not so. In The Wild One, the heavies turn out to be hard-nosed town citizens and, more generally, society as a whole, while the motorcycle gang, though undeniably violent, more closely resembles beatniks suffering from lack of understanding and just out for a groovy time. The most misunderstood youth is soulful gang leader Marlon Brando, here only appreciated by lonely-to-the-point-of-tears sheriff's daughter Mary Murphy, who takes a nighttime ride on the back of Brando's bike and gets all dreamy-eyed ("It's fast, scares me, but I forgot everything"). Proving easier to take than the occasional laughable dialogue is Lee Marvin in a humorous role as the antic leader of a rival gang. Whatever else, The Wild One remains a fascinating social document, an incisive snapshot of American society as it entered the Eisenhower era. SEPARATE ADMISSION The House in the Middle (National Clean Up-Paint
Up-Fix Up Bureau, 1954) A primer on how to survive nuclear war and win housekeeping awards at the same time. John Wesley's 18th Century admonition, "Cleanliness is, indeed, next to Godliness," proves more prescient than ever." Followed by: The Night of the Hunter (United Artists, 1955) Charles Laughton's only directorial effort is this offbeat, brilliant film. From an opening scene where we are warned to "beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves," an atmosphere of impending evil looms. Robert Mitchum is the wolf, a charismatic, psychotic preacher who murders young women, including Shelley Winters (who hasn't fared too well in recent Pickford screenings). He is after some hidden money and only two children know its location. Lillian Gish (who knew how to handle difficult men, having worked with D. W. Griffith) serves as their protector. We must give special mention to Stanley Cortez' photography, especially the long-range shots, Walter Schumann's skillful adaptation of religious songs for the film's score, and, finally, James Agee's taut screenplay. But above all, The Night of the Hunter is a paean to and celebration of children who, as Gish memorably puts it, "abide and endure." Rio Bravo (Armada Productions/Warner Bros, 1959) SEPARATE ADMISSION High Noon (Stanley Kramer Productions/United Artists,
1952) Key to understanding small towns is their relative geographic isolation and the psychological effects this produces. Feeling secure with this isolation, small-town denizens often pursue tactics of appeasement when facing an outside threat. As opposed to this Neville Chamberlain-style philosophy, High Noon urges an activist, Churchillian response of meeting threats with force. In this taut, brilliantly edited Western, newly married Marshall Will Kane (Gary Cooper) prepares to leave town for a sedate, domestic life with Grace Kelly elsewhere, when word arrives that the next train will bring a murderer seeking revenge. Cooper stays, assuming townsfolk will back him in the coming showdown. But town opinion proves more complacent and far less supportive than the Marshall had hoped. To the minds of some critics, High Noon is not a Western at all, but rather an allegorical broadside fired at Hollywood by the film's soon-to-be blacklisted screenwriter, Carl Foreman. In this thinking, the outlaws represent McCarthyism, Gary Cooper symbolizes blacklisted artists, and the townspeople denote the timid Hollywood film community. Whatever the merits of the argument, one cannot dispute director Fred Zinnemann's mastery in fulfilling what George Cukor called "the essence of the directorial approach to a film [--] the art of knowing exactly how much to take from each of his collaborators." The contributions from photographer Floyd Crosby, composer Dimitri Tiomkin, screenwriter Foreman, as well as many others, all make High Noon 84 minutes of superb filmmaking. My Childhood: part 1, Hubert Humphrey's South Dakota; part
2 James Baldwin's Harlem (Metropolitan Broadcasting Television,
1964) We thought it useful, as we conclude this small-town series, to compare small town and urban life. No film has done so more expertly and cogently than this 1964 documentary, actually two separate 30-minute segments. Hubert Humphrey fondly recalls an idyllic time of growing up in Doland, South Dakota; for the second half, novelist James Baldwin recounts the many horrors and fewer pleasures of Harlem life. Preceded by: The Forgotten Frontier (1930) ca. 60 min., 16mm, LC Collection% We begin our screenings tonight with a brilliant documentary (by woman film pioneer Marvin Breckinridge Patterson) on the work of the Frontier Nursing Service in 1920's Kentucky. SEPARATE ADMISSION The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (Warner Bros.,
1960) William Motter Inge's (1913-1973) plays (Come Back, Little Sheba; Picnic; Bus
Stop) deal with small-town life in the Midwest and Great Plains,
typically the melancholy side of family life. No one has ever denied
the autobiographical nature of his works, nor his own personal dissatisfaction;
he took his own life. His tragic death aside, the emotional power
found in Inge's dialogue and the everyday dilemmas faced by his characters
combine to make his plays and Splendor in the Grass (Inge's
Academy Award-winning screenplay) unparalleled tapestries of small-town
life. Cape Fear (Universal International, 1961) In Cape Fear, Robert Mitchum's "I just don't give a damn" philosophy makes for chilling atmosphere as he hunts down the man who once sent him to prison, small-town lawyer Gregory Peck. The extra-legal (and pre-Miranda Code) techniques local police use to harass Mitchum almost arouse our sympathy, but his increasingly brutal acts (dog-killings, beatings, etc.) stop any such notions. Director J. Lee Thompson and writer James Webb, both known for skill with action-oriented films, keep the pace suspenseful, especially in the river denouement. SEPARATE ADMISSION All the Way Home (Paramount, 1963) "Outstanding filmization of the Tad Mosel play, set in 1915 Tennessee, an adaptation of James Agee's A Death in the Family. Preston is subdued in the pivotal role of a father and husband who is accidentally killed, leaving his loved ones to interpret the meaning of their lives before and after his death. Beautifully done, with Simmons offering an award-caliber performance as Preston's wife. Fine script by Philip Reisman, Jr."--Leonard Maltin's TV Movies Lost Boundaries (Film Classics Inc., 1949) Producer Louis de Rochemont, of March of Time fame, branched out after World War II into documentary-style fiction features typically based on real-life events (Boomerang, The House on 92nd Street). In Lost Boundaries, which followed closely Home of the Brave in Hollywood's late 40's "socially conscious"film cycle, a New England community welcomes a light-skinned black doctor, believing him to be white. The doctor's denial of his heritage by "passing for white" eventually imprisons his family in their own world of "lost boundaries," where no heritate of identity exists. SEPARATE ADMISSION Peyton Place (Twentieth Century-Fox, 1957) Traditionally, the "ideal" American small town has been the small New England community with its participatory community life and town hall democracy. The town of Peyton Place cannot claim to meet this model, but as a "shining city upon a hill," Peyton Place would provide a terrific, naughty view. An adequate summary of Peyton Place's plot would require several hundred words, and we won't attempt such an impossible assignment. We'll only note that probably the greatest performance came from screenwriter John Michael Hayes, who adapted Grace Metalious' novel for the screen, and even garnered an "A" rating from the Catholic Legion of Decency. That took some talent. Note: our print suffers from color fading. To Kill a Mockingbird (Universal, 1962) To Kill a Mockingbird in essence is the Southern small town as seen through the inquisitive but uncertain eyes of children. Brock Peters, a black man, has been falsely accused of assaulting a white woman, Collin Wilcox; Gregory Peck agrees to defend him. The story is narrated through the eyes of Peck's two children (Mary Badham and Phillip Alford). Along with experiencing wrenching personal and courtroom dramas, growing up also confronts the young children, from lively games and haunted houses to the first days of school and taunts from other children. Fundamental in creating this divided atmosphere of life amidst both games and danger is Elmer Bernstein's haunting score, alternately melancholy, playful, nostalgic, menacing. SEPARATE ADMISSION INTRODUCTION BY DR. JAMES DEUTSCH Suddenly (United Artists, 1954) For those who remember Frank Sinatra only for his entirely forgettable "Rat
Pack" films, our screening of the feverish Suddenly should
prove a revelation. His striking portrayal of a war veteran turned
calculating, psychotic political assassin is, arguably, the finest
work of his career. The President plans to visit the nowhere town of
Suddenly on a fishing trip, and there waiting for him is Sinatra, dedicated
to becoming the first person to assassinate a President and survive
("If Booth wasn't such a ham, he might have made it"). Sinatra and
his henchmen take over a house overlooking the train station and take
hostage several town citizens, including right-wing sheriff Sterling
Hayden, who skillfully exploits Sinatra's penchant for baring his soul
("Without the gun I'm nothing...Once I had the gun I got self-respect"). Suddenly's
theme of political assassination led Frank Sinatra to pull the film
from commercial distribution following the murder of John F. Kennedy,
a policy only recently reversed. Jaws (Universal, 1975) Steven Spielberg's self-described "primal scream" film, the shark opera Jaws has often been dismissed as motion picture MTV and Moby Dick without any nuances. But the film's impressive formal structure (film scholars Donald Mott and Cheryl McAllister Saunders break the film into a very orderly three-act play), crisp editing and suspenseful John Williams score put to rest any such ridiculous notions. Though Jaws made Spielberg a God at Universal, critics have continued as "unbelievers." Critical discovery awaits this talented filmmaker, much as later happened with Alfred Hitchcock's "entertaining" films. SEPARATE ADMISSION Picnic (Columbia, 1955) Another version on the visitor-changes-town theme. Former football player, now social misfit, William Holden has reached bottom and hops the rails to a small dirt-water Kansas town, where lives a wealthy, former college chum. Nothing much has happened in this town in ages, but this quickly changes once Holden sheds his shirt, provoking interest from old maid Rosalind Russell ("He reminds me of one of those old Roman gladiators") and beautiful young Kim Novak ("He carries that old wash tub as if it was so much tissue paper"), by chance the girlfriend of Holden's old friend. Though he is really only seeking somewhere to fit in and settle down, Holden's presence soon ignites all the latent problems and uncertainties in several personal relationships. We must admit Holden looks a bit old for the role and his antic acting style often has one hoping he'll leave town on the next passing train, but Picnic remains an exemplary portrayal of small-town customs and life, notably in a famous Labor Day picnic sequence. Washington Court House, Ohio 1916 (Parfait Cinematograph,
1916) Fascinating footage of a 1916 Ohio county fair. Followed by: Rachel, Rachel (Warner Bros-Seven Arts,
1968) "A quiet film about a vibrant, single woman of middle-age who contemplates the prospect that she will live alone for the rest of her life. A difficult subject to bring off well but beautifully acted by Joanne Woodward and directed by husband Paul Newman."--Patrick Loughney SEPARATE ADMISSION Summer and Smoke (Paramount, 1961) If one believes that the weakest plots require the strongest direction, then some credit must go to director Peter Glenville for fashioning a successful film adaptation of this Tennessee Williams play. In Summer and Smoke, the plotline really never matters, atmosphere is all. Spinster Geraldine Page has her romantic options limited by circumstances and the era: father Malcolm Atterbury is town minister in the early 1900's. With her passion prohibited from public display, Page instead burns privately for next-door neighbor and doctor Laurence Harvey, a friend since childhood. (How could romantic themes in small-town films exist without unrequited love?) Famed designer Edith Head furnished the authentic costumes. The Learning Tree (Warner Bros-Seven Arts, 1969) Aside from its numerous aesthetic accomplishments, The Learning Tree merits an important place in American cultural history as quite likely the first major Hollywood film directed by an African-American, famed Life magazine photographer Gordon Parks. Semi-autobiographical, the film details growing up black in 1920's small-town Kansas and a young man's (Kyle Johnson) continuing quest to do the right thing, despite provocations from many directions, including a white friend who steals his girl. The plot contains many deft ironic touches and unexpected twists, while the photography can only be described as breathtaking. Parks took a lot of heat from the black community for the film's "mild" racial ideology (seen as out of place in the turbulent 60's), but the tone rings true for a film set, after all, in the 1920's. Though later honored with greater commercial (Shaft) and critical (Leadbelly) successes, Gordon Parks never made a more heartfelt film or one making such exquisite use of sentiment. Trivia question: What other famous film set in Kansas features a tornado in the first reel?%% SEPARATE ADMISSION It's a Wonderful Life (Liberty Films/RKO, 1946) Almost everyone has seen this sentimental Christmas classic, though possibly never through a small-town prism. Viewed in this context, It's a Wonderful Life acquires new depth and poignancy as the saga of a good man perennially frustrated in attempts to leave his hometown. Cynics maintain the film's popularity derives solely from its public domain copyright status, and thus frequent revival on television. We disagree, offering as proof an amended version of an old adage: well-done sentiment, no less than sex, sells. For our final thought on It's a Wonderful Life and Frank Capra, for that matter, we offer the following comment (from Pauline Kael, we believe): "No one has ever defined the sentimentality of cynicism as well as Frank Capra. If someone else ever does, shoot that person immediately." Introduction by Dr. James Deutsch Try and Get Me!(United Artists, 1950) "This extremely unusual and almost never revived film achieves as
harsh a vision of small-town desperation as ever came from Hollywood.
An unemployed family man is seduced into crime by a womanizing sharpie
(Lloyd Bridges). The staging of the crimes (particularly one in a gravel
quarry) and the textures of small- town life ring very authentic, with
even cafe and bowling-alley interiors clearly shot on location. The
toughness is compromised by a tedious parallel plot from the vantage
of a crime reporter, including some bogus moralizing by `Vito,' a pompous
European humorist. The film's alternate title, &1The Sound of Fury&2,
underscores its superiority to Fritz Lang's &1Fury &2in its depiction
of mob violence. &1Try and Get Me! &2hints at the quality of work Cy
Endfield might have achieved in the States had he not been forced by
the blacklist the following year into pseudonymous work in Britain."--Scott
Simmon SEPARATE ADMISSION The Killers (Universal, 1946) Director Robert Siodmak, who began his professional career in Germany,
hit his stride at Universal from 1944-1950 with a series of superb
expressionist films noir (The Suspect, The Spiral Staircase, The
Killers, The Dark Mirror, Cry of the City, Criss
Cross, Thelma Jordan). The Killers, seen tonight
in a beautiful, recently struck print, might be Siodmak's finest work,
showing exquisite use of camera angles and lighting. Onto the skeleton
of Hemingway's minimalist short story of the same name (which established
that a murder would take place), adapter Anthony Veiller's script tells
us how and why the murder occurred. And what excellent flesh and bones. The Town (Office of War Information, 1944) This Office of War Information film shows life as it existed (at least under ideal conditions) in a "typical" American town-- Madison, Indiana. Part of OWI's two-pronged effort in World War II propaganda films: to show that an evil enemy existed, and that we were defending a just society at home. Followed By: God's Country (Louis Malle, 1985) Master filmmaker Louis Malle's affectionate documentary on life in Glencoe, Minnesota. Evidently, Malle and a film crew passed through town, became enchanted and started filming. Malle's easy manner brings out humor and honesty from the town residents (Resident: "Who are you? Malle: "I'm with French television." Resident: "We're all Germans here."). Malle also notes Glencoe's one devastating passion: "Lawn-mowing, perhaps a vestige of the pioneer spirit." But Malle's love for Glencoe does have its limits, chiefly with the food: he eats twice daily at the local Dairy Queen. SEPARATE ADMISSION Love Finds Andy Hardy (MGM, 1938) The Andy Hardy series promoted MGM chief Louis B. Mayer's
vision of American society, and he focused much of the studio's best
talents (as well as developing new ones) on the series. Love Finds
Andy Hardy, with Andy Hardy (Mickey Rooney) typically facing school
and romance problems, is one of the finer entries in the series, despite
Rooney's omnipresent mugging for the camera. Andy must choose between
perennial girlfriend Ann Rutherford and kissing-fiend Lana Turner,
in one of her earliest roles. Of far more interest is a pre-Wizard
of Oz Judy Garland, who possesses a mad crush on Andy but settles
for best friend status. Suffice to say the plot eventually gets around
to showcasing her singing talent, notably with "In Between," and "It
Never Rains But When It Pours." Though she was only 16, Garland's voice
had already reached legendary quality. Mississippi Burning (Orion, 1988) Alan Parker's controversial treatment of the FBI probe into the infamous 1964 murder of civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney in Mississippi. Willem Dafoe is the idealistic, "Kennedyesque" special agent sickened by the murders and even more appalled by the forcible subjugation of blacks; his sidekick, Gene Hackman, is a good old boy and former Mississippi sheriff who sees no fundamental issues at stake here but is willing to bend the rules severely to catch those responsible. The film, in its best moments, movingly captures the reign of terror--subtle at times, brutally overt on other occasions--enforced on Southern blacks during this sorrowful era in American history. SEPARATE ADMISSION Intruder in the Dust (MGM, 1949) Considered by some the best film adaptation of a Faulkner story or novel, Intruder in the Dust concerns a frequent Faulkner theme: the inability of Southern blacks and whites to disregard the color of the other's skin. Elderly black man Juano Hernandez sits accused of murder in a Southern jail; the threat of lynching looms ever present. With most of the town's white population either overtly racist (the farmers and lower classes) or more subtly so (the monied townsfolk), only a young white teenager, himself not without certain prejudices, comes to Hernandez's aid. The film, echoing much of Faulkner's work, takes a somewhat paternalistic view of racial relations. Not to be apologized for, however, is Robert Surtees' riveting photography, done on location in Faulkner's home town of Oxford, Mississippi.
Film Notes for "Small Town America" by Steve Leggett Curator of Film Programs: Patrick Loughney Theater Managers: Steve Leggett and Jerry Hatfield. Staff Projectionist: Jim Rollins PROGRAMS ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. Public programs in the Mary Pickford Theater are made possible by a grant from The Mary Pickford Foundation. |
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