Release Date: June 24, 2005

FESTIVAL OF FILM PRESERVATION FEATURES SCREEN LEGENDS FROM JOHN WAYNE TO JOAN CRAWFORD AND RARELY SHOWN WORKS FROM FRANK CAPRA TO JEAN RENOIR

Baby Face (featuring Barbara Stanwyck)
July 9, 3:00 p.m.
July 10, 4:30 p.m.
Alfred E. Green, 1933, 71 minutes
Preserved by the Library of Congress

Washington, DC—The National Gallery’s Summer Film Preservation Festival—From Vault to Screen: New Preservation from American Collections—highlights work recently completed by six of America’s major archival collections: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Film Institute, George Eastman House, Library of Congress, UCLA Film and Television Archive, and Museum of Modern Art. Many of the films feature screen legends such as Lillian Gish, Stan Laurel, Joan Fontaine, Cary Grant, Andy Griffith, Katharine Hepburn, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Mary Pickford, John Wayne, and Douglas Fairbanks. Also included are early documentaries by Frank Capra and Jean Renoir’s classic The River.

Ranging from delicate experimental films and rare short subjects, to classics of the silent and early sound period, and landmark films of the 1950s, all are radiant reflections of the motion picture’s complex history as an art form and the collaborative process essential to protecting, preserving, and restoring rare and unusual motion picture collections. Two of the screenings, Pather Panchali and Summertime, mark the fiftieth anniversary of the making of these influential works. All screenings are in the cool comfort of the East Building Auditorium, which offers stadium-style seating and a state-of the-art wide screen. Several films have live musical accompaniment.

Baby Face
July 9 at 3:00 p.m., July 10 at 4:30 p.m.

Heeding some sensible advice from a hometown friend (“Use men—do not let them use you”), Barbara Stanwyck plots her way up the New York corporate ladder using the only ploy she knows. This Warner Bros., pre-Hays Code classic was notoriously naughty when it premiered, but an even more provocative, pre-release version recently has been unearthed in the film vaults of the Library of Congress. Curator Mike Mashon introduces both screenings of the new 35mm print. (Alfred E. Green, 1933, 71 minutes) Preserved by the Library of Congress

Sing with the Street Singer
Counselor at Law
July 16 at 2:30 p.m.

Working his own way up the corporate ladder (to the loftiest levels of the Empire State Building), John Barrymore’s Jewish lawyer is one of this actor’s most gratifying screen creations. Preserving the tight structure of Elmer Rice’s hit Broadway play, filmmaker William Wyler decided to cast Barrymore against type. (William Wyler, 1933, 82 minutes) Preserved by UCLA Film and Television Archive

Preceded by Sing with the Street Singer, an early 1930s “Organlogue” complete with lyrics and bouncing ball featuring Arthur Tracy (the street singer), organist Don Wallace, and announcer Norman Brokenshire. (1933, 8 minutes) Preserved by UCLA Film and Television Archive

A Face in the Crowd
July 17at 4:30 p.m.

Audiences in the late 1950s largely shunned this disturbing portrayal of the American media elite’s pervasive power, perhaps because they did not enjoy watching beloved idol Andy Griffith playing vile pretender Lonesome Rhodes, a charismatic performer whose capacity for being corrupted was second only to that of his handlers. Another remarkable collaboration for director Elia Kazan and writer Budd Schulberg (three years before this they had joined forces for On the Waterfront), A Face in the Crowd was crisply critiqued by one British reviewer as “speaking a great many dark truths about America.” (Elia Kazan, 1957, 125 minutes) Preserved by UCLA Film and Television Archive with support of The Film Foundation

Stan Brakhage at the Museum of Modern Art (series of films)
July 23 at 4:00 p.m.

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) worked with the late American avant-garde filmmaker Stan Brakhage to acquire and preserve his entire body of material. This program, featuring recent as well as older films, includes examples from an ongoing preservation project: Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse (1991, 10 minutes); Vision of the Fire Tree (1991, 6 minutes); Crack Glass Eulogy (1992, 6 minutes); Interpolations I—V (1992, 12 minutes); Elementary Phases (1994, 38 minutes). Deus Ex (1971, silent, 34 minutes); Sirius Remembered (1959, silent, 11 minutes); and The Loom (1986, silent, 45 minutes). All of the preserved prints shown in this program are recent additions to MoMA’s circulating film collection. (Total running time 72 minutes) Preserved by the Museum of Modern Art

The Scarlet Letter
July 24 at 4:30 p.m.

“This rarely seen masterpiece of the late silent era features a triumvirate of screen legends—star Lillian Gish, screenwriter Frances Marion, and director Victor Seastrom—working at the peak of their powers. Under a new contract at MGM, Gish was the project’s prime mover as she sought more mature roles after playing ingénues for D.W. Griffith. Ironically, Gish wrote in her autobiography that it was her own wholesome reputation, established with Griffith, that put censorship groups—concerned about the subject matter of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel—at ease. Yet, from its opening title, establishing Hester Prynne’s ordeal as ‘a story of bigotry uncurbed,’ to its tragic finale, this largely faithful adaptation comes down squarely on the side of love ….”—Paul Malcolm. (Victor Seastrom, 1926, silent with piano accompaniment by Philip Carli) Preserved by UCLA Film and Television Archive

A Slapsticon: Silent Film Comedy, 1916–1929
July 30 at 4:00 p.m.

A bright batch of silent comedians from screen comedy’s “golden age” carry out their capers in The Egg (1922), starring Stan Laurel; Us (1927), with Charley Chase taking on Charles Lindbergh; Trent’s Last Case (1929), featuring Raymond Griffith, Edgar Kennedy, and Anita Garvin attempting to solve mysteries; Television George (1928), with Syd Saylor taking a prehistoric look at the “boob tube”; and Life of a Fireman (1916), featuring America’s only goat-comedian, Billy Whiskers. (100 minutes, with piano accompaniment by Philip Carli) Preserved by the Library of Congress

The River
July 31 at 4:30 p.m.

The rich palette of Claude Renoir’s cinematography virtually steals the show in Jean Renoir’s adaptation of Margaret Rumer Godden’s 1949 novel set on the banks of the Ganges in West Bengal. As the Raj wanes, an English family carries on their life, endures tragedy, and attempts to connect with the land, as their teenaged daughter (the film’s narrator, taking a nostalgic and, in the end, ironic look back) is coming of age. “Renoir’s tranquil vision of life as a river barely disturbed by the ripples,” wrote Tom Milne, “remains enormously moving.” (Jean Renoir, 1951, 99 minutes) Preserved by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Pather Panchali
August 6 at 2:30 p.m.

Satyajit Ray’s extraordinary first feature debuted precisely fifty years ago at the Museum of Modern Art—an occasion fittingly celebrated with this newly preserved 35mm print. Adapting Bibhutibhushan Banerjee’s novel about a boy named Apu and his impoverished Brahman Bengali family, Ray retained the simplicity of the original tale, yet depicted events with such grace, poetry, and drama that the film has had few equals in the intervening decades. Ravi Shankar composed the evocative score without ever seeing the film’s final cut. (Satyajit Ray, 1955, 115 minutes) Preserved by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Man from Planet X
Edgar G. Ulmer—The Man Off-screen
August 7 at 4:30 p.m.

Viennese high-art émigré, “King of B-movies,” and regularly underrated auteur in the annals of Hollywood, Edgar G. Ulmer has been portrayed in various ways since his early fall from grace within the industry. The Man from Planet X, Ulmer’s foray into the “alien-invader” genre, quietly fashioned an allegory of exploitation even before those invented by the more famous War of the Worlds and It Came from Outer Space. Completed in just a few days on a bargain basement budget, the film stars Margaret Field, whose Hollywood acting career surprisingly began about the same time that her daughter, Sally Field, was born. (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1951, 70 minutes) Preserved by the Library of Congress

Edgar G. Ulmer—The Man Off-screen pays homage to the provocative career of this B-movie mogul. Art director and production designer (Ulmer had studied architecture at the Viennese Academy of Arts before coming to America), co-director with such luminaries as Max Reinhardt and Fritz Lang, and—in person—notoriously stubborn, Edgar G. Ulmer had a lingering effect on Hollywood’s artistic landscape. (Michael Palm, 2004, 77 minutes) Courtesy of the producer

Suspicion
Shadow of a Doubt
August 13 at 2:30 p.m.

The first of two newly preserved Alfred Hitchcock prints from the early 1940s for which the director’s wife, Alma Reville, received a screenwriting credit, Suspicion follows the successful formula Hitchcock employed in Rebecca, completed a year earlier—an “English” setting with Joan Fontaine as a demure leading lady to a debonair leading man (Cary Grant) who just possibly might be a murderer. “No matter how stylishly executed, thrillers were, by definition, considered B-movie fodder in Hollywood,” writes historian Philip Kemp, “…until Hitchcock virtually single-handedly raised their status to parity with other genres.” (Alfred Hitchcock, 1941, 99 minutes) Preserved by the Library of Congress

Hitchcock counted Shadow of a Doubt among his favorites. A collaboration with playwright Thornton Wilder, its ill-omened small-town Americana dominates both the script and the visuals. Shooting took place on location in Santa Rosa, California—the perfect setting for Joseph Cotton to uncover the two-pronged persona of his Uncle Charlie, cleverly hiding his confused revulsion beneath a bright exterior. (Alfred Hitchcock, 1943, 108 minutes) Preserved by the Library of Congress

Summertime
August 14 at 4:30 p.m.

A wistfully seductive Venetian setting becomes the perfect foil for Katharine Hepburn’s middle-aged Ohio tourist naively in search of “a miracle.” Finding perhaps more than she bargained for in the person of European antiques dealer Rossano Brazzi, Hepburn initiated with this film “a series that might be called her spinster cycle of the 1950s,” wrote Claudia Roth Pierpont, “in all of which an intelligent, mature, and previously independent woman is reduced to desperation by her lack of a man. It is a mark of how fine Hepburn’s performance is in Summertime that one can hardly bear to watch her.” This screening marks the film’s fiftieth anniversary. (David Lean, 1955, 100 minutes) Preserved by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

The Women
August 20 at 2:30 p.m.

In a triangle with a drifting husband who never appears on camera, Joan Crawford and Norma Shearer, along with Rosalind Russell and a razor-sharp all-female ensemble cast, relentlessly slug it out. Two of Hollywood’s best screenwriters, Anita Loos and Jane Murfin (with an uncredited F. Scott Fitzgerald), wrote the screenplay expressly for George Cukor’s direction from Clare Booth’s witty stage drama (George Cukor, 1939, 133 minutes). Preserved by George Eastman House

The Italian Cruiser Libia visits San Francisco, November 6–29, 1921
Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House
August 27 at 2:30 p.m.

A rare and captivating early documentary by Frank Capra, The Italian Cruiser Libia was the first of Capra’s works ever shown to a public audience. The film was shot during November 1921 to commemorate the two-week visit to San Francisco of the Italian naval cruiser Libia, while on world tour. One of the film’s first images shows Capra himself with his camera team patiently waiting on the jetty for the boat to arrive. (Frank Capra, silent with Italian intertitles translated live, music performed under Gillian Anderson’s direction, 40 minutes) Preserved by the American Film Institute with the Film Foundation

Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House, regarded as Capra’s first fiction film and based on Rudyard Kipling’s 1886 poem The Ballad of Fisher’s Boarding House, relates a story about a stabbing of a poor Danish sailor in a Calcutta grog shop. In Capra’s reworking, the heroine becomes a sort of Mary Magdalene figure, brazen and fickle, who is transfigured by Christian redemption and filmed luminously “as if inspired by heaven.” (Frank Capra, 1922, silent, 12 minutes) Preserved by the American Film Institute

Paid (preceded by Joan Crawford’s home movies and other short subjects)
August 28 at 4:30 p.m.

It’s payback time for wrongfully convicted department store clerk Joan Crawford. Fresh from prison and ripe for revenge, she vents for the short term on lonely rich old men, engaging them in a matchmaking scam while devising a bigger scam to fleece her old boss, the store owner—until she meets the owner’s son. Crawford’s role in this sterling adaptation of Bayard Veiller’s popular 1912 play, “Within the Law” (filmed twice before as a silent melodrama), was originally intended for the wife of the MGM studio chief. So valuable was the play’s moneymaking potential, MGM followed it nine years later with yet another remake. (Sam Wood, 1930, 85 minutes) Preserved by George Eastman House

Preceding Paid are three short films: a compilation of Joan Crawford’s color home movies (c.1940, 25 minutes, silent); The Flute of Krishna, in which Martha Graham’s company is on stage at the Eastman Theatre in Rochester (6 minutes, silent); and Holiday in Mexico, a reel of vacation footage featuring Mary Pickford with Douglas Fairbanks, preserved in its original bi-pack multicolor process (9 minutes, silent) Preserved by George Eastman House and the Library of Congress

Zem Spieva (The Earth Sings)
September 3 at 2:30 p.m.

One of two magnificent “ethnic documentaries” completed by Czech filmmaker Karel Plicka, Zem Spieva was selected in the year of its release as the best international film in competition at the 1934 Venice Film Festival. An exquisite compilation of Slovakian folk art, customs, and peasant life, including traditional dance and song and demonstrations of crafts and activities—weaving, painting, tug of war, stick-binding, flax soaking, grape pressing, and the celebration of religious rituals—the film was edited by Alexander Hackenschmied, the husband of Maya Deren and co-director of Meshes of the Afternoon. (Karel Plicka, 1933, silent with music, Czech and English intertitles, 133 minutes) Preserved by the American Film Institute

GENERAL FILM INFORMATION

Films are shown in the East Building Auditorium at 4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. Seating for all events is on a first-come, first-seated basis. Plan to arrive at least ten minutes before showtime. Programs are subject to change; for the latest information call (202) 842-6799.

The East Building Auditorium is equipped with an FM wireless listening system for the hearing impaired. Receivers, ear phones, and neck loops are available at the art information desk near the main entrance.

Listings of film programs are updated quarterly on www.nga.gov. To obtain a free film calendar by mail, send an e-mail to film-department@nga.gov. Please include your name and mailing address.

General Information

The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden are at all times free to the public. They are located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, and are open Monday through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The Gallery is closed on December 25 and January 1. For information call (202) 737-4215 or the Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) at (202) 842-6176, or visit the Gallery's Web site at www.nga.gov.

Visitors will be asked to present all carried items for inspection upon entering the East and West Buildings. Checkrooms are free of charge and located at each entrance. Luggage and other oversized bags must be presented at the 4th Street entrances to the East or West Building to permit x-ray screening and must be deposited in the checkrooms at those entrances. For the safety of visitors and the works of art, nothing may be carried into the Gallery on a visitor's back. Any bag or other items that cannot be carried reasonably and safely in some other manner must be left in the checkrooms. Items larger than 17 x 26 inches cannot be accepted by the Gallery or its checkrooms.

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