a highly-opinionated selection of things happening around town, and sometimes out of town. this month's page here.

thu. apr. 6

edith frost @ spaceland
blocks of gold @ ESL www.eslprojects.org
gloria, the professional @ new beverly theatre
street angel 8 PM @ ampas linwood dunn theatre
queimada @ aero theatre
propaganda films 7 PM @ hammer museum
my dad is into terrorism 5:30 PM @ french film festival @ director's guild

fri. apr. 7

cobra woman MIDNIGHT MOVIE @ nuart theatre
the johnstown flood, shamrock handicap @ ucla film archive
crime wave, between midnight and dawn @ egyptian theatre
rising son: the legend of skateboarder christian hosoi @ aero theatre
a streetcar named desire, gentleman's agreement @ lacma
mark trayle 8 PM @ machine gallery
documentaries of dissent, part 2 @ ampas http://www.oscars.org/events/docsdissent_pt2/index.html


sat. apr. 8

lucky star, 7th heaven @ ucla film archive
the damned don't cry 6 pm @ egyptian theatre
ruby gentry 8:30 pm, beyond the forest @ egyptian theatre
east of eden, splendor in the grass @ lacma


sun. apr. 9

pep of the lady j 7 PM, sunrise @ ucla film archive
becky stark, gowns, kraig grady, etc @ the smell
sondre lerche @ troubadour
angel's flight 4:30 PM @ egyptian theatre
the naked street 7 PM, don't bother to knock @ egyptian theatre


mon. apr. 10

the defiant ones @ ampas
mary lynn raskjub @ ucb theater


wed. apr. 12

duck you sucker FREE @ ucla film archive
the long haul of a.i. bezzerides, thieves highway @ egyptian theatre


thu. apr. 13

dark arc @ egyptian theatre
gun crazy @ aero theatre


fri. apr. 14

greenhornes @ the troubadour
gowns, sharon cheslow @ il corral
after hours, something wild @ new beverly theatre
delicious, adorable @ ucla film archive
night of the living dead MIDNIGHT MOVIE @ nuart
nobody lives forever, the house on telegraph hill @ egyptian theatre
kiss me deadly @ aero theatre
panic in the streets, boomerang! @ lacma


sat. apr. 15

after hours, something wild @ new beverly theatre
the farmer takes a wife, state fair @ ucla film archive
underworld u.s.a. 6 PM @ egyptian theatre
nightfall 8:30 PM, no man of her own @ egyptian theatre
the spiral staircase, criss cross @ aero theatre
on the waterfront, viva zapata! @ lacma


sun. apr. 16

the man who cheated himself 6:30 PM, night editor @ egyptian theatre
phantom lady 6:30 PM, the window @ aero theatre
moving spaces: production design and film closes @ ampas 


tue. apr. 18

moonfleet 1 PM @ lacma


wed. apr. 19

persona, the hour of the wolf @ new beverly theatre
servant's entrance, tess of the storm country @ ucla film archive
night of the hunter @ aero theatre


thu. apr. 20

billy childish @ spaceland
billy childish @ echo park film center, 8 PM
persona, the hour of the wolf @ new beverly theatre
the bird with crystal plumage @ aero theatre
you're gonna miss me @ moca PDC


fri. apr. 21

double indemnity, in a lonely place @ new beverly theatre
tonite let's all make love in london, wholly communion, benefit of the doubt @ ucla film archive
the brothers quay @ ampas
bird with the crystal plumage, the dead are alive @ egyptian theatre
the poseidon adventure @ aero theatre
drawing restraint 9 MIDNIGHT MOVIE @ nuart theatre
a tree grows in brooklyn, pinky @ lacma


sat. apr. 22

double indemnity, in a lonely place @ new beverly theatre
bi-polar bear, gowns, old time relijun @ the smell
peter whitehead pop films @ ucla film archive
the psychic, paranoia @ egyptian theatre
a face in the crowd, baby doll @ lacma


sun. apr. 23

the man who would be king, the treasure of the sierra madre @ new beverly theatre
small town girl, ladies in love @ ucla film archive
four flies on grey velvet, autopsy @ egyptian theatre
the beast from 20,000 fathoms 6:30 PM, she @ aero theatre
films from the closet of terry canyon @ filmforum @ egyptian theatre 


mon. apr. 24

quasi @ casbah, SD
the man who would be king, the treasure of the sierra madre @ new beverly theatre


tue. apr. 25

quasi @ detroit bar
don't go near the park, house on the edge of the park @ new beverly theatre
i am a fugitive from a chain gang 1 PM @ lacma


wed. apr. 26

quasi @ spaceland
the third man, the stranger @ new beverly theatre
the scarlet claw, the house of fear FREE @ ucla film archive
los angeles plays itself @ egyptian theatre
red hollywood @ egyptian theatre
derailroaded 8 PM @ 7 dudley cinema



thu. apr. 27

the third man, the stranger @ new beverly theatre
los angeles plays itself @ egyptian theatre
red hollywood @ egyptian theatre


fri. apr. 28

a star is born, the young in heart @ ucla film archive
los angeles plays itself @ egyptian theatre
wild river, the last tycoon @ lacma


sat. apr. 29

night has a thousand eyes 7 PM @ starlight studio
the fall, nothing to do with me, the perception of life @ ucla film archive
swedish nymphet 6 PM @ egyptian theatre
thriller - a cruel picture 9 PM, exposed @ egyptian theatre
orphee, the blood of a poet @ aero theatre
america america @ lacma


sun. apr. 30

godzilla vs. the sea monster, son of godzilla @ new beverly theatre
the xyz of love, bel ami @ egyptian theatre
the blood of a poet 6:30 PM, the testament of orpheus @ aero theatre




WHAT IT IS:



AFTER HOURS
(from IMDB)
Paul meets Marcy at a coffee shop after work, and gets her phone number. He calls her, she asks him to come over, and things take a turn for the bizarre. Paul spends the rest of the night trying to get home, dealing with angry cabbies, dead women (and their bartender husbands), clumsy catburglars, quirky sculptresses, unstable waitresses, condescending bouncers, and irate mobs led by ice cream truck drivers along the way.


America, America
(1963/b&w/174) Scr/dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Stathis Giallelis, Frank Wolff, Elena Karam.
Kazan based America, America on his Greek-immigrant uncle. Stavros Topouzoglow is the young immigrant, whose fantastical ideas of America are met by harsh reality. "I'd always wanted to tell how my family came here. I started to tell a story about someone else - my uncle Joe Kazan - and gradually turned it into a story about myself, about the struggles I've always had: the struggle to find my own dignity, the struggle to impress other people, the struggle to be rich. The basic stories about my uncle in America, America are true. The family's wealth was put on a donkey; the donkey was turned over to my uncle. He was to drive it to Constantinople to a relative. He lost the money on the way. He met a bandit, he said. He swept the floors of rug stores just like my character Stavros. He worked his way up by all kinds of conniving. He reached America, he told me, by winning the favors of a married woman who gave him the fare.The arrival on Ellis Island is the best shot I ever made in my life. Then I did the corniest thing of all - when Stavros arrives in America he gets on his knees and kisses the ground. The last thing I show Stavros doing in America, America is, he gets a quarter tip, throws it up in the air and catches it. You feel he understands what America is." (Kazan on Kazan)


ANGEL'S FLIGHT, 1965, 77 min. Dirs. Raymond Nassour and Ken Richardson. A Super Rarity! Listen up lovers of Los Angeles Noir! Be here for an unprecedented screening of this long-lost, locally-made feature. This oddball noir-horror-crime hybrid concerns a psychically scarred stripper (Indus Arthur) who turns homicidal whenever she gets horny. The real attraction is the seedy splendor of pre-development Bunker Hill and the focus on the famed funicular trolley that gives the film its title. Shown off of digital format, as 35mm and 16mm prints no longer exist! Starring and produced by the original "Marlboro Man," William Thourlby. NOT ON DVD. Discussion following film with writer, Dean Romano.


AUTOPSY (MACCHIE SOLARI), 1975, 100 min. Mimsy Farmer, one of the stressed-out coroners in a busy city morgue, is so overworked she's starting to hallucinate that her deceased charges are coming back to life. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. A rash of suicides, rumored to be caused by sunspots, is plaguing the city, and the girlfriend of Mimsy's playboy father (Massimo Serato) has turned up dead. Enter the brother, a hot-tempered, ex-race-car-driver-turned-priest (!) (Barry Primus) who thinks his sister's death was murder. And just what does Mimsy's rich, sexist, hippy beau (Ray Lovelock) have to do with all this? Director Armando Crispino has a way of amping up the nightmarish dread that waits just around the corner like few other filmmakers and deserves much wider recognition. Stylish, sick and expertly plotted from start to nervewracking finish, with another eerie Morricone score.


Baby Doll
(1956/b&w/114 min.) Scr: Tennessee Williams; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach, Karl Malden.
A teen bride's virginity becomes a pawn in the revenge plot of her husband's former business associate. "I like the film Baby Doll better than the film of Streetcar, and the reason is, it's more ambivalent. It combines comedy and social significance, passion and farce. It's attractive to me maybe because of the playful, irreverent, cruel attitude. Visually, it's in a totally different area: here's a real, ordinary Southern community, Benoit, Mississippi, where we were for four months. Everything in it is real. Yet it all looks sort of fantastic...The film expressed a great deal of affection for the South. I found them the most loveable generous people; they have great affection for each other and for the country life; they are full of hedonism. The U.S.A. is supposed to be a pleasure-loving country, but there is no pleasure in the big cities." (Kazan on Kazan)


THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, 1953, Warner Bros., 80 min. Dir. Eugene Lourie. A giant prehistoric creature called a rhedosaurus is awakened from his icy slumber by nuclear testing and travels to New York City, where he takes his bad temper out on the stunned population. Based on a short story by longtime Ray Harryhausen pal Ray Bradbury (they met years earlier as members of the Los Angeles Science Fiction Society, along with Forrest Ackerman!) Starring Paul Christian, Paula Raymond, Kenneth Tobey, Steve Brodie.


BEL AMI, 1976, Filminvest AB, C.E.D.I.C. Sud Fémina, 104 min. Produced by Inge Ivarson. Harry Reems (DEEP THROAT) starred in three Swedish films, including this Swedish/French co-production. Here he is a reporter at the Christian magazine New Morality, investigating the dirty magazine, Playhouse! Great production value, lots of humor, and directed by Mac Ahlberg - now a well-known cinematographer in Hollywood. Loosely based on a novel by Guy de Maupassant. With Maria Lynn, Bent Warburg. Dubbed-in-English print courtesy of Klubb Super 8. Due to explicit images and subject matter, no one under 17 will be admitted. Discussion between films with producer, Inge Ivarson and members of Klubb Super 8.


BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT
(1965, United Kingdom) Directed by Peter Whitehead
Peter Brook directs the Royal Shakespeare Company in US, a semi-improvised work protesting England's unseen and unacknowledged role in the Vietnam War. Containing sequences at public meetings and interviews with the actors (including Glenda Jackson) and Brook himself, the film is an agit-prop time capsule that has gone virtually unseen in this country since its premiere at the New York Film Festival in 1967. Wrote Variety of the film, "...for Americans interested in current theatrical trends it could be a must, since it's their only current opportunity to see one of the most adventuresome and controversial stage productions of the last few years."
Producer: Peter Whitehead, Carol Weisweiller, Dominique Antoine. Cinematographer: Peter Whitehead. Editor: Peter Whitehead, Daniel Docker, Dominique Antoine. Cast: Peter Brook, Michael Kustow, Michael Williams, Glenda Jackson. Format TBA, 65 min.


BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN, 1950, Columbia (Sony), 89 min. Dir. Gordon Douglas. Noir stalwarts Edmond O'Brien and Mark Stevens portray a pair of LAPD prowl car cops hoping for an easy night in the City of Angels, dealing with nothing more serious than sparring over the affections of sexy-voiced radio dispatcher, Gale Storm. Guess again. Before sun-up there will be a prison break, a murder, numerous beatings, and an incredibly tense climax with a kid used as a human shield. The model for just about every TV cop show ever made! NOT ON DVD. Discussion in between films with novelist, James Ellroy. Brand New 35mm Print!


BEYOND THE FOREST, 1949, Warner Bros., 96 min. Dir. King Vidor. As legend has it, Bette Davis begged not to play the role of Rosa Moline, the restless hellcat who'll do anything to get out of her miserable hometown. But, trapped like Rosa, she chooses the same course—tear the place apart. Conventionally considered a "camp classic," but actually a much better movie than it's given credit for. Love her, hate her, laugh at her or cry for her—Davis's Rosa Moline is one of the most memorable characters in Hollywood history. Also starring Joseph Cotten, David Brian, and Ruth Roman. NOT ON DVD.


BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE (L'UCCELLO DALLE PIUME DI CRISTALLO), 1970, UMC, 96 min. Director Dario Argento's debut feature film was a huge success all over the world and served to codify the classic giallo thriller formula like no picture before or since. Visiting American writer, Sam Dalmas (Tony Musante) witnesses an attempted murder when he becomes trapped in the foyer of a small art gallery. Although our hero has failed to glimpse the assailant's face, the black-clad killer nevertheless starts dogging his trail when not busy dispatching beautiful, young women. Suzy Kendall, as Musante's girl, is stupendous as always, and a great catalogue of character actors join in the fun, including disturbed gallery owner Eva Renzi, hitman Reggie Nalder and itinerant, cat-loving painter Mario Adorf. A pure giallo lover's delight from beginning to end, with perhaps Ennio Morricone's all-time greatest giallo score.


THE BLOOD OF A POET (LE SANG D'UN POETE), 1933, Janus Films, 60 min. Dir. Jean Cocteau. Though open to innumerable interpretations (all of which Cocteau rejected), his first film, financed by the Vicomte de Noailles, is a mesmerizing attempt to use pure imagery to evoke the unseeable, namely the birth of poetry in a speck of time symbolized by the crumbling of a brick tower that frames "the action." Neither surrealist nor strictly autobiographical, though Cocteau incorporates personal mythology and a narration spoken by himself, THE BLOOD OF A POET betrays the exhilaration of an artist who in his own words, "knew absolutely nothing about the art of movies. I invented it for my own use and employed it like a designer who dips his finger in India ink for the first time and then stains his paper with it."


Boomerang!
(1947/b&w/88 min.) Scr: Richard Murphy; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Dana Andrews, Jane Wyatt, Lee J. Cobb.
A prosecutor fights eyewitness testimony to prove the innocence of a man accused of the murder of a priest. "It was entirely made in Stamford, Connecticut, thirty miles from my house... and it was the first film I made in my own way. There were five professional actors, the rest were non-actors. There are people from Hollywood, people from the Group Theater, people from the town, Arthur Miller whose play All My Sons I had just produced, even my uncle Joe Kazan, the hero of America, America, then an old man. I had excellent faces, I shot the inside of jails, it has an air of reality... It was our neo-realism, exactly at the same time as Paisan, but in no way as good as Paisan." (Kazan on Kazan)


THE BROTHERS QUAY
Combine the magic of a child's optical toy, the expressionist sets of German silent films, the nightmarish fantasy of a Victorian attic with possessed broken dolls and a surrealistic approach to the camera as a third character and you begin to approach the unusual and very personal world of the stop-motion and puppetry animation created by The Brothers Quay.
Join the Quays for their first speaking engagement in the United States as they discuss the influences on their work and screen several of their acclaimed films. Prepare for a unique experience of handcrafted animation that manages to push the boundaries of the art form as it weaves its singular spell.


COBRA WOMAN
(from IMDB)
Upon discovering his fiancée Tollea has been kidnaped, Ramu and his friend Kado set out for a Pacific isle where all strangers are to be killed on arrival and the inhabitants, who are frequently sacrificed to an angry volcano god, worship the cobra. The island is ruled over by Tollea's evil twin Naja, the Cobra Woman, who, besides having designs on her new prisoner Ramu, also desires to eliminate any competition from her benevolent sister.


CRIME WAVE, 1954, Warner Bros., 74 min. Dir. Andre de Toth. One of the best noir thrillers to come out of Hollywood in the 1950's stars Sterling Hayden as a righteously PO'd cop making life miserable for a small-time ex-con who wants to go straight but can't shake his old gang. Director de Toth and cameraman Bert Glennon work black magic with a tiny budget and 14-day shooting schedule, capturing noctural Los Angeles at the peak of its pulpish allure. The colorful cast includes Gene Nelson, Phyllis Kirk, Ted de Corsia, Charles Bronson, and Timothy Carey. NOT ON DVD.


CRISS CROSS, 1949, Universal, 87 min. Dir. Robert Siodmak. When he died in 1947, producer Mark Hellinger had just begun pre-production on this crime-infected love story. Thanks to the inspired vision of director Siodmak, CRISS CROSS now stands as perhaps the most darkly poetic rendering of amour fou in all film noir. Burt Lancaster and Dan Duryea plot a daring heist, while vying for the affections of sensual Yvonne DeCarlo. Remade by Stephen Soderbergh as THE UNDERNEATH.


THE DAMNED DON'T CRY, 1950, Warner Bros., 103 min. Dir. Vincent Sherman. This one gets our vote as the ultimate Joan Crawford noir. Ethel Whitehead (who else?) leaves behind her grubby life in the oil fields to parade her shapely stuff in NY's garment jungle. After hooking up with a mob accountant, there's no stopping her rise to power and glory — until she gets caught between the warring affections of gangsters David Brian and Steve Cochran. The script is really a thinly-veiled noir version of Crawford's own relentless climb to showbiz success!


DARK ARC, 2005, 99 min. Dan Zukovic follows up his tremendous 1998 debut, THE LAST BIG THING, with a mysterious comedy about love, lust, art and the power of the charged image (those that burn into your mind's eye) that is equal parts film noir intrigue, pop culture send-up, brain-teaser and visual feast. "A bizarre blend of art, sex and opium... plays like a candy-colored version of David Lynch." -- IFC News Discussion to follow with writer/director/actor Dan Zukovic. Sneak Preview!


THE DEAD ARE ALIVE (L'ETRUSCO UCCIDE ANCORA), 1972, National General, 105 min. Is embittered, alcoholic archeologist, Alex Cord, the unseen murderer slaughtering people in the vicinity of an Etruscan burial site? Or is it an ancient, demonic deity? Or could it perhaps be gay, hippie theatrical producer, Horst Frank? Cord's estranged wife (Samantha Eggar), who is living with a hot-tempered orchestra conductor (John Marley) in his lush villa, also seems to be not too far away whenever the murders occur. Director Armando Crispino (AUTOPSY) skillfully keeps the red herrings coming as well as the goose-pimply atmosphere in this rarely-screened suspense shocker.


THE DEFIANT ONES
Stanley Kramer's exciting drama about a pair of handcuffed convicts on the run was a breakthrough film in Hollywood's portrayal of race relations, with stars Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis each earning their first Best Actor nomination. The film received nine nominations overall including Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Theodore Bikel), Supporting Actress (Cara Williams), Directing (Kramer), Film Editing (Frederic Knudtson) and won for Cinematography Black-and-White (Sam Leavitt) and Writing - Story and Screenplay—written directly for the screen (Nedrick Young). The film will be preceded by cartoon nominee Paul Bunyon and Live Action winner Grand Canyon, both from Walt Disney Productions.


DELICIOUS
(from IMDB)
A comic group of Europeans coming to the USA have romantic and immigration troubles.


DERAILROADED ('05, 86m) Josh Rubin & Jeremy Lubin's funhouse mirror of a movie that brilliantly reflects the warped, fractured chapters of Larry "Wildman" Fischer's unique life story from Hollywood street singer to counterculture icon with Frank Zappa. "An unusually intimate look at how we use art to channel our darkest, most disturbing human tendencies." -FilmThreat. With Weird Al Yankovic, Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh, Solomon Burke & Dr Demento.


DOCUMENTARIES OF DISSENT, PART 2
Documentaries questioning the status quo have been an integral part of our culture for generations, giving film artists and audiences a means to express their particular, and sometimes contentious, points of view. Politics, civil rights, labor, punk rock, the Blacklist... these and other topical issues have found their way into movie houses and into the minds of viewers through documentaries, sometimes changing the very conditions the films were investigating. Theatrical documentaries have gained a newfound popularity, in many cases because of their willingness to challenge the status quo. "Documentaries of Dissent, Part II," a sequel to last year's historical overview, will spotlight some filmmakers that exemplify alternative voices in recent documentaries and examine the methods they employed to make their voices heard.
Hosted by Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times, panelists and film excerpts from their work will include:
Kirby Dick, Director of Twist of Faith, Oscar Nominee for Best Documentary Feature (2004).
Kathleen Glen, Producer of Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004) and Bowling for Columbine, Oscar winner for Best Documentary Feature (2002).
Robert Greenwald, Producer/Director of Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War (2003) and Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (2005).
Morgan Spurlock (Producer/Director of Supersize Me, Oscar Nominee for Best Documentary Feature (2004).


DON'T BOTHER TO KNOCK, 1952, 20th Century Fox, 76 min. Dir. Roy Ward Baker. Marilyn Monroe has perhaps her finest dramatic role in this "one night in the big city" drama. A lovelorn airline pilot (Richard Widmark) hopes to reunite with his chanteuse girlfriend (Anne Bancroft) at a Manhattan hotel. Once jilted, he blithely decides to rebound with a comely babysitter (MM) working in the hotel. Uh oh, this babysitter is buggy — not surprising, when your uncle is played by Elisha Cook, Jr.


DUCK, YOU SUCKER
(Giù la testa)
(1971, Italy) Directed by Sergio Leone
Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger) is a cigar-chomping, salt-of-the-earth peasant rebel. Sean Mallory (James Coburn) is a dynamite-tossing Irish revolutionary who has fled to Mexico to practice his skills. Together they're a devilishly volatile mix of anti-establishment philosophies and violent tendencies as they attempt to liberate political prisoners and defend their compatriots against a well-equipped militia while risking their lives on a train filled with explosives. This newly restored version of Sergio Leone's final great Western includes over 20 minutes of additional footage that was not in the original American release, plus an extra scene at the end that was not even in the 1996 laserdisc release. This version has been sanctioned by the Leone family as the definitive version of the film.
Producer: Fulvio Morsella. Screenwriter: Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone. Cinematographer: Guiseppe Ruzzolini. Editor: Nino Baragli. Cast: James Coburn, Rod Steiger, Maria Monti, Romolo Valli. 35mm, 160 min.
In person: John Kirk, Sony Pictures


East of Eden
(1955/115 min./color/CinemaScope) Scr: Paul Osborn; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey, Burl Ives.
In this adaptation of John Steinbeck's sweeping Depression-era novel, James Dean plays a lettuce farmer's son, but unlike his saintly brother, he can't stay out of trouble. "The film was made partly in Northern California, partly in the studio. What attracted me was nothing very mysterious: the story of a son trying to please a father who disapproved of him was part of it. Another part of it was an opportunity for me to attack Puritanism. And there's the girl that understands the bad boy when no one else does, like in On the Waterfront... Julie Harris was wonderful. I wanted to make it so that her face is the key to the picture; because her face has in it the feeling I had toward the characters, of compassion and understanding of pain. I think Dean's face is very poetic. You really feel sorry for him when you see him in close-up... But Dean also had a very vivid body; and I did play a lot with it in long shots. And CinemaScope emphasized Dean's smallness - (as) when he runs through the bean fields...looking like a little child." (Kazan on Kazan)


EXPOSED (EXPONERAD), 1971, Synapse Films, 92 min. Dir. Gustav Wiklund. Troubled teenager, Lena (Christina Lindberg) is caught between her innocent boyfriend and a perverted photographer (Heinz Hopf, from THRILLER), and flees on an odyssey of sex and violence in the beautiful summer landscape of Sweden. Flashbacks, violent fantasies and reality blend in the sexually-disoriented girl's mind. Because of this film's rarity, it will be screened from DVD, in Swedish dialogue with English subtitles, courtesy of Klubb Super 8. Due to explicit images and subject matter, no one under 17 will be admitted. Discussion in between films with actress Christina Lindberg and members of Klubb Super 8.


A Face in the Crowd
(1957/b&w/125 min.) Scr: Budd Schulberg; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Anthony Franciosa, Walter Matthau.
Andy Griffith makes his film debut as Lonesome Rhodes, a country-western singer who rises from jailbird to demagogue with the help of Madison Avenue and the fledgling medium of television. "Budd and I approached A Face in the Crowd like On the Waterfront, like people who are determined to know a subject thoroughly. We made most of it on location (and) we cast many people from Nashville. I had heard Andy Griffith on a record, then I saw him on TV. He was the real native American country boy and that comes over in the picture... We were talking about the danger of power in the television medium; you can look at an audience and smile at them and win them with your smile, not with your thoughts. Remember this was Eisenhower's time, and Eisenhower won the election because everyone looked at him and said:"There's Grandpa!' The film was in advance of its time. It foretells Nixon." (Kazan on Kazan)


THE FALL
(1969, United Kingdom/United States) Directed by Peter Whitehead
Considered by Whitehead to be his most important film, THE FALL is an extraordinary piece of filmmaking, an extremely personal statement on violence, revolution and the turbulence in late 1960s America. Filmed entirely in and around New York between October 1967 and June 1968, it features Robert Kennedy, the Bread and Puppet Theater, Paul Auster (fresh-faced as a Columbia student), Tom Hayden, Mark Rudd, Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, Arthur Miller, Robert Lowell and Robert Rauschenberg. Richard Roud, co-director of the New York Film Festival, called the film "an attempt to come to grips with today, both in terms of its content as well as of its form."
Producer: Douglas Macintosh, Peter Whitehead. Cinematographer: Peter Whitehead. Editor: Peter Whitehead. Cast: Alberta Tiburzi, Angelo Mannsraven, Arthur Miller, Gloria Steinem. Format TBA, 120 min.


THE FARMER TAKES A WIFE
(from IMDB)
Charming love story set on the Erie Canal in the mid-19th Century. A farmer (Henry Fonda in his film debut) works on the canal to earn money to buy a farm. He meets a cook on a canal boat (Janet Gaynor), but she can't even consider leaving the exciting life on the canal for a banal one on a farm...


FILMS FROM THE CLOSET OF TERRY CANYON
As the USA prepared to celebrate its bicentennial year, the nation took little notice of one of a small non-profit organization dedicated to screening avant-garde films. This cheery oasis of sanity and unconventionality amidst the miasma of Southern California arose from the efforts of Terry Cannon. We will be celebrating the 30th anniversary of Filmforum all year with a variety of screenings, blasts from the past, and visits from former directors and programmers of the organization.
Tonight is the first of our evenings curated by the former directors and programmers of Filmforum, starting with one from Terry Cannon, who will be with us in person. These are some real rarities!
From Terry:
"During the years I ran Filmforum I put together a collection of 16mm and Super-8 films, which has not been publicly shown before. Some of these films were purchased and some were given to Mary and I as gifts. All of the films are from filmmakers who showed at Filmforum and established close relationships with us in the early years."


FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET (4 MOSCHE DI VELLUTO GRIGIO), 1971, Paramount, 104 min. Dir. Dario Argento. Michael Brandon is a rock drummer who thinks he may have accidentally killed the strange man who was following him, but he's not sure. Mimsy Farmer is his high-strung wife (in a truly unnerving portrayal), and Bud Spencer (part Thoreau and part Paul Bunyon) is "God," Brandon's opinionated best pal who lives in a shack by the river. Soon a homicidal maniac blackmails Brandon with photos of the "killing," and begins murdering people in horrible ways, all set to the tune of a creepy Ennio Morricone score. One of Argento's all-time best, this last entry in his "Animal" trilogy is also the hardest-to-see of all his pictures. (It's never had a legitimate video release anywhere!) Don't miss this super-rare screening! NOT ON DVD.


Gentleman's Agreement
(1947/b&w/118 min.) Scr: Moss Hart; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield.
Peck is a reporter who agrees to pose as a Jew for the sake in order to write an article about bigotry. "Try to put yourself back in American films in 1946 where the word Jew was never mentioned. For the first time someone said that America is full of anti-Semitism both conscious and unconscious, among the best and most liberal people. That was then a much bolder statement than it is now... Moss Hart did an excellent, smooth job of dramatization, the way Zanuck wanted it. One good thing in the script was the moment when Gregory Peck discovered he was anti-semitic too." (Kazan on Kazan)


GLORIA
(from IMDB)
Jack Dawn and his family are eliminated by the mob, because he was their accountant and was feeding information to the FBI. However his six-year-old Puerto Rican son, Phil, escapes with Gloria, a neighbor who was a former girlfriend of one of the gangsters. Gloria and Phil are chased throughout New York City because Phil has a black book containing the accounts of the mob.


GODZILLA VS. THE SEA MONSTER
(from IMDB)
A young man steals a boat to find his brother, but he and his shipmates become shipwrecked on a mysterious island inhabited by a giant sea monster and a slumbering Godzilla.


GUN CRAZY, 1949, RKO (Warner Bros.), 86 min. Dir. Joseph H. Lewis. A young man (John Dall) infatuated with firearms gets in way over his head when he falls for a reckless woman (Peggy Cummins) with a craving for armed robbery. Influential on everything from later 1950's film noir to Arthur Penn's BONNIE AND CLYDE. Arguably the most hyper-charged, adrenaline-fueled B-movie of all time. Look for a shot of Las Palmas Avenue right alongside the Egyptian Theatre!


THE HOUR OF THE WOLF
(from IMDB)
An artist in crisis is haunted by nightmares from the past in Ingmar Bergman's only horror film, which takes place on a windy island. During "the hour of the wolf" - between midnight and dawn - he tells his wife about his most painful memories.


THE HOUSE OF FEAR
(1945) Directed by Roy William Neill
THE HOUSE OF FEAR centers around the Good Comrades Club, a group of rich gentlemen who have retired to a Scottish castle only to find that a murderer is in their midst. With each victim receiving an envelope full of orange pips before his death, Holmes and Watson are called in to investigate. The film's original camera negative survived over the decades and served as a key element in its restoration.
Universal. Based on the short story "The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Producer: Roy William Neill. Screenwriter: Roy Chanslor. Cinematographer: Virgil Miller. Editor: Saul Goodkind. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Dennis Hoey, Aubrey Mather. 35mm, 69 min.
In person: Robert Gitt, Preservation Officer, UCLA Film & Television Archive


THE HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL, 1951, 20th Century Fox, 93 min. Dir. Robert Wise. A WWII refugee (Valentina Cortese) steals the identity of a dead camp-mate so she can escape to an affluent life in San Francisco. But in no time, suspicions mount and things take a dark and deadly turn in her mansion overlooking the bay. Has she stumbled into a viper's nest — or is her war-scarred mind playing tricks on her? Evocative art direction and great location filming highlight this "woman in jeopardy" thriller. With Richard Basehart and William Lundigan.


IN A LONELY PLACE
(from IMDB)
Screenwriter Dixon Steele, faced with the odious task of scripting a trashy bestseller, has hat-check girl Mildred Atkinson tell him the story in her own words. Later that night, Mildred is murdered and Steele is a prime suspect; his record of belligerence when angry and his macabre sense of humor tell against him. Fortunately, lovely neighbor Laurel Gray gives him an alibi. Laurel proves to be just what Steele needed, and their friendship ripens into love. Will suspicion, doubt, and Steele's inner demons come between them?


THE JOHNSTOWN FLOOD
(from IMDB)
This is the last of Gable silent films. He split up with his wife and mentor, Josephine Dillon, because the extra work had dried up. It appeared as though Hollywood had no room for him. He went back to the theatre for five years and returned to Los Angeles to try out for his next film in 1931.


KISS ME DEADLY, 1955, UA (Sony), 105 min. Dir. Robert Aldrich. Many critics see it as the apotheosis of film noir style. Others regard it as the definitive statement on American paranoia in the Atomic Age. Still others see it as a proto-feminist send-up of author Mickey Spillane's hugely popular macho fantasies, brilliantly adapted here by screenwriter, A.I. Bezzerides. You'll just have to watch it and decide for yourself, as Mike Hammer (Ralph Meeker) bounces his thick head around Los Angeles in search of "The Great Whatsit." Discussion following with John Kirk and Robert Aldrich's 1st assistant director Bob Justman.


LADIES IN LOVE
(from IMDB)
This is an interesting 1936 film starring Constance Bennett, Janet Gaynor, Loretta Young, Paul Lukas, Don Ameche, and Tyrone Power. Set in Budapest, it concerns three young women who get an apartment together. All wish for love and happiness but soon learn that the course of true love never does run smooth.
And neither does the course of stardom. The Bennett-Lukas affair and Gaynor's adventures with Don Ameche and her magician boss take center stage, while Loretta Young's romance with Tyrone Power gets short shrift. The film provides an excellent showcase for Don Ameche and those two very young stars, all of whom would take over the star roster at Fox within the next two years. Power is flawlessly gorgeous and is delightful with Young. This obviously was not lost on 20th Century Fox as they would star the two in quite a few films over the next years. Bennett and Gaynor were two very early stars, and by 1941, Bennett was doing second leads; Gaynor (who was dating Power) had her last steady work in films in 1938.
"Ladies in Love" has a great feel to it with its Budapest background, European-based stories being so popular in the '30s, and there are some wonderful performances. Bennett is beautiful and glamorous as the one who's been around the block and Gaynor petite and lively as she carries on a love/hate relationship with Ameche.


The Last Tycoon
(1976/color/122 min.) Scr: Harold Pinter; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Robert De Niro, Tony Curtis, Robert Mitchum, Jeanne Moreau, Jack Nicholson, Donald Pleasence.
Fitzgerald's unfinished final novel centers around the professional success and personal failures of Monroe Starr, a brilliant and efficient studio executive reputedly modeled on Irving Thalberg. "Despite the gathering of Elia Kazan, Sam Spiegel, Harold Pinter, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Robert De Niro, The Last Tycoon is a flawed but interesting film because it's a portrait of a big movie studio in the golden age of Hollywood. Fitzgerald's novel is an uncanny prediction of the recurring war in Hollywood—between factory product and the chance of a movie that could move the whole world. Long before most people understood such things, The Last Tycoon saw Hollywood as a crucial cultural battleground for America, a place where different ideas were fighting for life." - David Thomson


THE LONG HAUL OF A.I. BEZZERIDES, 2005, 61 min. Dir. Fay Lellios. Filled with humor and defining experiences in both his own life and in the lives of some of his closest friends, William Faulkner and Robert Aldrich, as well as on his late wife, screenwriter Silvia Richards, Mr. Bezzerides offers colorful reflections as to why he and his typewriter unabashedly need to keep creating honest characters, worlds, and stories. Through recently discovered boxes of photographs, film clips, the haunting music by Fugazi, interviews (including Jules Dassin, Mickey Spillane and Barry Gifford) and testaments to his progressive creativity from other writers, Fay Lellios' straight-ahead documentary gives us a start in discovering this 97-year-old proletariat storyteller, and the meaning of his favorite phrase by Carl Jung, "There can be no birth of consciousness without pain."


LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF, 2003, 169 min. Dir. Thom Andersen. A must see for Los Angeles history buffs and cinema enthusiasts who will marvel at the hundreds of archival and film clips revealing an almost secret history of the City of Angels! "This cinematic essay focuses on the discrepancy between the lived-in urban reality of Los Angeles and its various century-deep cinematic mythologies, the movie is about more than just what the movies get wrong. It's about the way the imaginary space of cinema intrudes upon the actual space of our lives, so that the L.A. of the movies becomes a kind of separate urban reality unto itself." -- Toronto Star. Voted the Best Documentary of 2004 by the Village Voice and on LA Times Critic Kenneth Turan's top 10 films of the year (2005).


LUCKY STAR
(from IMDB)
Mary (Janet Gaynor), a poor farm girl, meets Tim (Charles Farrell) just as word comes that war has been declared. Tim enlists in the army and goes to the battlefields of Europe, where he is wounded and loses the use of his legs. Home again, Tim is visited by Mary, and they are powerfully attracted to each other; but his physical handicap prevents him from declaring his love for her. Deeper complications set in when Martin (Guinn Williams), Tim's former sergeant and a bully, takes a shine to Mary.
This film was the last silent film Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor made as a team, and their soulful chemistry is more evident in this film than any other they made together. Is this movie so poignant because it marked the end of their silent career together, or because they had really reached the peak of their artistry together? This was also their last film with director Borzage, who also reached the peak of his art with this film.


THE MAN WHO CHEATED HIMSELF, 1950, 20th Century Fox, 81 min. Dir. Felix Feist. Unscreened for more than 50 years! San Francisco cop Lee J. Cobb's fling with a married society dame (Jane Wyatt) goes to hell when he covers up her husband's killing. Things get even more complicated when Cobb's brother (John Dall), an inquisitive rookie dick, starts fishing around. A nifty thriller from underrated director Felix Feist, shot on location in San Francisco. 20th Century Fox, print courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archive. NOT ON DVD.


THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
(from IMDB)
This adaptation of the famous short story by Rudyard Kipling tells the story of Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan, two ex-soldiers in India when it was under British rule. They decide that the country is too small for them, so they head off to Kafiristan in order to become Kings in their own right. Kipling is seen as a character that was there at the beginning, and at the end of this glorious tale.


MOONFLEET
(from IMDB)
Somewhere in the 18th century Great Britain, noble but penniless young boy John Mohune is sent by his dying mother to Moonfleet, to put himself under the protection of a certain Jeremy Fox. The boy discovers that Fox is both a former lover of his mother and the leader of a gang of buccaneers. A strange friendship grows as their adventures go on.


MY DAD IS INTO TERRORISM
Taking place in Paris during the seizure of hostages, a series of murderous terrorist attacks and the accompanying political pressures on the medical and judiciary machine, this is the story of a troubled little girl, brutally confronted with death threats, bodyguards, and fear, until the final, shocking turn of events, one fateful night in the Winter of 1990, when she was just thirteen years old.
Award winning director William Karel (The World According to Bush, CIA: Guerres secretes, Dark Side of the Moon) offers a powerful and original portrayal of a true story with a powerful narration by award winning actress Elsa Zylberstein (Farinelli, Modigliani, Mina Tennenbaum).


THE NAKED STREET, 1955, Columbia (Sony), 84 min. Dir. Maxwell Shane. Here's one you won't see anywhere else — a virtually forgotten mid-Fifties crime meller, never on VHS or DVD. Crime boss Anthony Quinn won't allow his pregnant sister (Anne Bancroft) to give birth while her no-count boyfriend (Farley Granger) languishes in stir on a murder rap. So he strong arms witnesses into recanting their testimony and gets Lothario sprung, so as to make an honest woman out of little sis'. Don't worry, things turn desperate, not domestic. NOT ON DVD.


NIGHT EDITOR, 1946, Columbia (Sony), 68 min. Dir. Henry Levin. A cop and his married socialite lover witness a brutal murder while necking in Lover's Lane. He gets a guilty conscience. She gets turned on. They're doomed. One of the best and raunchiest "B" noirs ever, featuring several strange and unforgettable set pieces. Starring redoubtable William Gargan as the libidinous lawman, and hot-to-trot Janis Carter as one of the frostiest femme fatales of the forties. NOT ON DVD.


NIGHTFALL, 1956, Columbia (Sony), 78 min. Dir. Jacques Tourneur. One of the last true noirs of the classic era, this often-overlooked gem, based on a novel by noir legend David Goodis, features terrific direction from Tourneur and stunning cinematography by Burnett Guffey. Aldo Ray plays an artist whose life goes permanently haywire when fate interrupts a winter hunting trip. From then on it's life on the run, dozens of double-crosses, psychotic killers on his trail, lots of de rigeur flashbacks, and a young Anne Bancroft decked out in sequins and lace. NOT ON DVD.


NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES (1948 Para.)
(from IMDB)
When heiress Jean Courtland attempts suicide, her fiancée Elliott Carson probes her relationship to John Triton. In flashback, we see how stage mentalist Triton starts having terrifying flashes of true precognition. His partner, Whitney Courtland, uses Triton's talent to make money; but Triton's inability to prevent what he foresees, causes him to break up the act and become a hermit. Years later, Triton has new visions and desperately tries to prevent tragedies in the Courtland family. Can his warnings succeed against suspicion, unbelief, and inexorable fate?
John Farrow drama w/ Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell. Reservations are required.


THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, 1955, Sony Repertory, 93 min. Actor Charles Laughton's one excursion behind the camera gave birth to this pantheon movie marvel, Laughton's simultaneous debut and swan song as a film director. Robert Mitchum is astonishing as a wandering sociopathic preacher who uses his fire-and-brimstone fundamentalism to mask his schemes to bilk money from gullible yokels, and when that doesn't work, to blithely rob and murder. Puritanical Shelley Winters, left alone with her son and daughter after husband Peter Graves is sent to jail for robbery, is a perfect target for smooth-talking Mitchum who has gotten wind of the hidden loot. Lillian Gish is rock-solid as the elderly matron who shelters the children when they flee with homicidal Mitchum in pursuit. A genuine work of cinematic poetry and a trenchant allegory on the hypocrisy and evil waiting just below the surface in seemingly harmonious communities.


NOBODY LIVES FOREVER, 1946, Warner Bros., 100 min. Dir. Jean Negulesco. John Garfield is a shady ex-GI hooked up in a plot to bilk a war widow (gorgeous Geraldine Fitzgerald). When he falls for her, the gang wants them both dead. Director Negulesco ladels atmospherics onto the script by crime specialist W. R. Burnett (LITTLE CEASAR, THE ASPHALT JUNGLE), who here turns in one of his lighter, more romantic efforts. Featuring a terrific supporting cast that includes Walter Brennan, Faye Emerson, and George Tobias. Presented in a brand new 35mm print funded by The Film Noir Foundation. NOT ON DVD. Brand New 35mm Print!


NO MAN OF HER OWN, 1950, Paramount, 98 min. Dir. Mitchell Leisen. We're proud to present the resurrection of one of the best "soap noirs" of all time. You know, "women's pictures" that are really 100-proof noir at the core. In this, the first adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's classic novel, I Married A Dead Man, Barbara Stanwyck survives a train wreck and decides to impersonate an affluent young newlywed killed in the crash. But can she dupe her new mother-in-law (the superb Jane Cowl) and her rotten-to-the-core ex-lover (Lyle Bettger)? Hokey and melodramatic, yes, but Stanwyck and director Leisen will make you believe every second of it. NOT ON DVD.


NOTHING TO DO WITH ME
(1968, United Kingdom) Directed by Anthony Stern
On November 23, 1968, several months after returning from the United States where he had just completed shooting THE FALL, Whitehead philosophizes to the camera in this remarkable autobiographical document.
Format TBA, 30 min. 


On the Waterfront
(1954/b&w/108 min.) Scr: Budd Schulberg; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger.
An ex-prize fighter turned longshoreman struggles to stand up to his corrupt union bosses. "On the Waterfront is about living issues. And furthermore, it's about an issue that was being decided as we made the picture. I worked among the activities on the dock. They were loading while I was directing. All the gangsters that we described in the picture were watching me shoot! I always had a body guard a few feet behind me... The love scenes are the best thing in the film. The scene on the roof with the pigeon coop is beautiful. Eva Marie is wonderful in those scenes and so is Marlon... who was as close to a genius as I've ever met among actors. Part of it is intuition, part of it is real intelligence, part of it is his ability to be empathetic." (Kazan on Kazan)


ORPHEE, 1949, Janus Films, 109 min. In the myth of Orpheus, the unlucky poet is forbidden to gaze upon his beloved Eurydice lest she be banished to the underworld. Jean Cocteau's version makes brilliant use of 1940's Paris—the beatnik cafes of the Left Bank, bombed-out buildings from World War II, cryptic radio signals, and leather-clad motorcyclists—to convey the fractious literary world of the poet and the fearsome "Zone" he must navigate in pursuit of his lost love. Among the film's most startling effects is Orphee's passage through the mirror that separates life from death. With Jean Marais, Maria Casares, Francois Perier, Juliette Greco.


Panic in the Streets
(1950/b&w/96 min.) Scr: Richard Murphy; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Richard Widmark, Paul Douglas, Barbara Bel Geddes, Jack Palance, Zero Mostel.
A doctor and a policeman in New Orleans have only 48 hours to locate a killer infected with bubonic plague. "I put a lot of good locations in Panic which helped me for On the Waterfront. We shot on the whorehouse streets, in the low bars, in the wharfs. The picture was influenced a lot by Ford... and I made up my mind to use a lot of long shots. I also became aware of foreground objects and leaving actors half hidden. Also I kept the actors apart to set them against each other. Palance was sort of insane, and Mostel was fearless, crazy, terrific guy, and I needled Paul Douglas who played the detective. Widmark was a friend of mine - a very real, down to earth fellow. It was the first picture in a long time where he was not playing the villain." (Kazan on Kazan)


PARANOIA (ORGASMO), 1968, Commonwealth United, 91 min. Dir. Umberto Lenzi. Superbly entertaining Euro-trash psychodrama with love-starved widow Carroll Baker victimized by an unscrupulous, smart aleck playboy (Lou Castel) and his vixenish, bi-sexual "sister" (Colette Descombes) in an escalating series of mind games. A tremendously enjoyable mix of Hitchcockian suspense and VALLEY OF THE DOLLS-style histrionics, fueled by Baker's wonderfully uninhibited performance. NOT ON DVD.


THE PERCEPTION OF LIFE
(1964, United Kingdom) Directed by Peter Whitehead
An extraordinarily beautiful and simple science film about the history of biological ideas that shows how they expanded as technology improved. Filmed in museums and in the Cambridge University labs where Whitehead had been a student, THE PERCEPTION OF LIFE was filmed through microscopes used by scientists from the 17th to the 20th centuries, including the electron microscope in the MRC unit where Francis Crick and James Watson discovered the structure of DNA.
Format TBA, 30 min. 


PETER WHITEHEAD: POP FILMS
(United Kingdom) Directed by Peter Whitehead
1966-69
Whitehead's work with the Small Faces, the Beach Boys and, above all, the Rolling Stones was the very inception of the artful, experimental and daring pop promo. This program includes the films Whitehead made with the Jimi Hendrix Experience ("Hey Joe"), Nico ("I'm Not Sayin'"), the Stones ("We Love You"), the first-ever footage of Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett performing live and in the studio, and some rare surprises from the director's extensive archive.
Format TBA, approx. 120 min. 


PHANTOM LADY, 1944, Universal, 87 min. Dir. Robert Siodmak. Loyal and lovely Ella Raines is "one hep kitten" as she high-heels her way through the noir demimonde, searching for the missing woman who can save her boss from execution. Siodmak wrings every juicy bit of shadowy mystery out of writer Cornell Woolrich's masterpiece of suspense. Famous for Elisha Cook's manic interlude as a wigged-out jazz drummer, beating his sticks to a frenzy! One of the 1944 films that triggered Hollywood's infatuation with dark artistry.


Pinky
(1949/b&w/102 min.) Scr: Philip Dunne, Dudley Nichols; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Jeanne Crain, Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters.
Pinky scrutinizes the bigotry of the south through the experience of an African American woman who "passes" for white. "Gentlemen's Agreement was such a big hit - and got Academy Awards - that Zanuck naturally said: ‘Let's do it again with a Negro.' You have to accept the fact that it was made before the black movement. I was neither uncourageous nor courageous. It was just Zanuck keeping up with the times and trying to anticipate a little bit what was going to happen." (Kazan on Kazan)


THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE, 1972, 20th Century Fox, 117 min. Director Ronald Neame and producer Irwin Allen's literally titanic disaster epic features a Who's Who of acting talent - Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Red Buttons, Carol Lynley, Jack Albertson, Roddy McDowall, Stella Stevens and more -- all doing their best to stay alive in the hellish inferno of capsized ocean liner, the S.S. Poseidon. Special kudos to Shelley Winters for her unforgettably ballsy performance, and to special effects expert L.B. Abbott and stunt coordinator Paul Stader for some of the most spectacular disaster scenes in movie history, including the famous upside-down Ballroom. Birthday cake at 6:30 pm and discussion following film with director Ronald Neame. Actress Stella Stevens will appear for a post screening discussion.


PROPAGANDA FILMS at the Hammer Museum
Program includes two WWII Japanese and American propaganda films: Tatakau Heitai (Fighting Soldiers) (1939, Kamei Fumio), about the realities of front-line operations; and Design for Death (aka Our Job in Japan), a portrait of the Japanese as victims brainwashed by cynical leaders that won the 1947 Oscar for Best Documentary and was directed by Theodore S. Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss!


THE PSYCHIC (SETTE NOTE IN NERO), 1977, Group 1, 90 min. Twenty years after watching her mother commit suicide by jumping off a cliff, clairvoyant Jennifer O'Neill has visions of a walled-up woman inside the unused summer villa belonging to her husband (Gianni Garko). But who is the killer, and is it a vision from the past, the future, or maybe both? Lucio Fulci (LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN) directs one of his creepiest pictures, building the terror inexorably in an escalating atmosphere of claustrophobic doom. With Marc Porel, Gabriele Ferzetti. NOT ON DVD.


QUEIMADA
(from IMDB)
Marlon Brando plays Sir William Walker in his best Fletcher Christian English accent and a blonde wig with a life of its own. His is a thoughtful performance, putting across the complexity of the man, a character who is undoubtedly cynical and unscrupulous, but who is also an emotional man and something of a political philosopher. He is certainly effective at what he does.


RED HOLLYWOOD, 1995, 118 min. Thom Andersen (LOS ANGELES PLAYS ITSELF), in collaboration with cultural/film theorist and historian, Noel Burch, directed this hard-to-see documentary, using the allegations by Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities Committee to search out progressive thinking and/or left-leaning politics in the films of the 1930's and 1940's. With interviews and footage of blacklistees Paul Jarrico, Alfred Lewis Levitt, Abraham Polonsky, et. al., and illustrative film clips from the movies themselves.


RISING SON "The Legend of skateboarder Christian Hosoi" chronicles the life and career of Christian Hosoi, one that began as a young renegade super star Athlete and resulted in a federal prison sentence for drug trafficking.


RUBY GENTRY, 1952, Disney, 82 min. Dir. King Vidor. Now that Douglas Sirk's florid Fifties melodramas have been canonized as great cinema, isn't it time to reconsider King Vidor's even more overheated noir-stained soap operas? The director pulls out all the stops in this sexually-charged (nee hysterical) tale of a boondocks babe (Jennifer Jones) bent on destroying all the men folk who have used her and cast her aside. "She Wrecked a Whole Town...Man by Man...Sin by Sin!" Screenplay by Sylvia Richards (Mrs. Buzz Bezzerides). With Charlton Heston and Karl Malden.


THE SCARLET CLAW
(1944) Directed by Roy William Neill
THE SCARLET CLAW takes Holmes and Watson to the small Canadian town of La Mort Rouge where they investigate the gruesome and mysterious deaths of several villagers. The film is often considered the best of the series artistically speaking, but the lack of original elements in good condition made it a challenge to restore.
Universal. Producer: Roy William Neill. Screenwriter: Edmund L. Hartmann, Roy William Neill. Cinematographer: George Robinson. Editor: Paul Landres. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Gerald Hamer, Paul Cavanagh. 35mm, 74 min.


THE SHAMROCK HANDICAP
(from IMDB)
THE SHAMROCK HANDICAP is the first film having an Irish motif that John Ford directed, a six reel delight set in Eire's County Kildare and in the United States, with a steeplechase background, mixing charged elements of comedy and sentimental drama, benefiting from a sterling cast including Leslie Fenton, waifish Janet Gaynor, and Ford favourite J. Farrell MacDonald. After Sir Miles O'Hara (Louis Payne) is forced to sell most of his racing horses to American Orville Finch (Willard Louis) to pay debts, Finch persuades O'Hara's trainer and rider Neil Ross (Fenton) to leave with him for America to seek fortune, causing a sad separation between Neil and Sheila (Gaynor), daughter of Miles, who wishes to wed the young horseman. Fenton becomes permanently lame from a fall during a race in the U.S. but not does not write of his injury to Sheila, and when an O'Shea entourage crosses the Atlantic to visit Neil, serious complications arise, with director Ford not relying solely upon sympathy for young Ross to propel his story to its very pleasing conclusion. Ford's distinctive stylistic methods garnish the film, at the same time providing a pastoral atmosphere synchronous with his perceptive visual character keynotes, brisk pacing, and always fresh, because unexpected, humourous invention, his protagonists defined by their actions and costumes, as in classic and medieval comedy.


SHE, 1935, Warner Bros., 95 min. Dirs. Lansing C. Holden and Irvin Pichel. "I am Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow." Producer Merian C. Cooper (KING KONG) tries his hand at the oft-adapted adventure fantasy classic by H. Rider Haggard and comes up with what remains, to this day, the most entertaining, eye-popping version. Unlike the enjoyable mid-1960's Hammer studios take on SHE starring Ursula Andress, which recast its tale in the African desert, this mesmerizing escapist fare is set in the Arctic, with intrepid explorer, Randolph Scott encountering man-eating cannibals before coming up against the even more formidable She Who Must Be Obeyed. Helen Gahagan is the imperious, goddess-like ruler of the lost kingdom of Kor, a woman haunted by her immortality after bathing in the flame of eternal life and waiting eons for the man of her dreams - Scott! With Nigel Bruce, Helen Mack. Introduction by legendary writer, Ray Bradbury and special effects wizard, Ray Harryhausen.


SMALL TOWN GIRL
(from IMDB)
Kay is a girl living in a small rural town whose life is just too dull and repetitious to bear. One night, she meets young, handsome, and rich Bob Dakin, who asks her for directions while drunk and then proceeds to take her out on a night on the town. Kay likes the stranger, and when the drunken Bob decides that they should get married, Kay hesitates little before consenting. The morning after the affair, Bob, once sober, regrets his mistake. His strict and upright parents, however, insist that the young couple pretend marriage for 6 months before divorcing, in order to avoid bad publicity. Bob resents Kay for standing in the way of him and his fiancée, Priscilla, but Kay still hopes that he'd have a change of heart.


SOMETHING WILD
(from IMDB)
The uneventful life of business-man Charles Driggs suddenly changes when he meets the wild and sexy Lulu. When he accepts her offer to drive him back to his office, she instead takes him out of town and on a trip, leaving behind his old life. Posing as a married couple, Charles and Audrey (which turns out to be Lulu's real name) visit her mother and her highschool reunion. At this reunion they meet Audrey's violent ex-husband Ray, who's just released from jail. When Ray makes it clear that he wants Audrey back, that's when the real trouble begins.


SON OF GODZILLA
(from IMDB)
Scientists experimenting with changes in weather on a tropical island get more than they bargained for when Godzilla shows up to battle humongous insects and protect his newborn child.


THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE, 1946, Disney, 83 min. Dir. Robert Siodmak. When he made this film, Siodmak's reputation for suspense rivaled Hitchcock's. A dread-drenched atmosphere permeates this spine-tingling Gothic thriller. Dorothy McGuire is memorable as a mute servant girl who becomes the terrified target of a serial killer preying on handicapped women. A superb cast, including Ethel Barrymore, Elsa Lanchester and Rhonda Fleming, give vivid life to scripter Mel Dinelli's adaptation of Ethel White's novel Some Must Watch.


Splendor in the Grass
(1961/Technicolor/124 min.) Scr: William Inge; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle, Barbara Loden.
In a small Kansas town in the late 20s, a passionate teenage girl suffers a mental breakdown when her affair with an upper class boy is abruptly terminated by his parents. "Bill Inge and I did ‘Dark at the Top of the Stairs' on stage and became very good friends... and the basic story (of Splendor) and the characters were all beautifully provided by Bill. It's the basic American story - the old story of growing up - examined and re-experienced. The movement of the story never stops and I made up my mind to never relax it... I guess I felt that the (stock market) crash was our fate. Like in a Greek play: you know what's going to happen and you watch it happen. America paid its dues and then had to start over again. And that's what Deanie and Bud do at the end: they have to star all over again. When she visits him at his place and he's married - there's something there that is so beautiful, I don't really understand it. It's the most mature ending I've got on any picture I ever did." (Kazan on Kazan)


A STAR IS BORN
(from IMDB)
Esther Blodgett is just another starry-eyed farm kid trying to break into the movies. Waitressing at a Hollywood party, she catches the eye of alcoholic star Norman Maine, is given a test, and is caught up in the Hollywood glamor machine (ruthlessly satirized). She and her idol Norman marry; but his career abruptly dwindles to nothing


STATE FAIR
(from IMDB)
State Fair is actually a pretty good movie that's mostly just a vehicle for Janet Gaynor. But it ends up being more than that with the help of Will Rogers and Lew Ayres.
The story revolves around a farming family who enters a prize pig in the State Fair. The two children of the family go off on their own separate adventures while the two parents stay with the pig.
Gaynor is one of the children and she meets and falls in love with Ayres. Their chemistry together is a very intriguing one. Will Rogers is the father who is mostly the comic relief.


THE STRANGER
(from IMDB)
Wilson of the War Crimes Commission is seeking Franz Kindler, mastermind of the Holocaust, who has effectively erased his identity. Wilson releases Kindler's former comrade Meinike and follows him to Harper, Connecticut, where he is killed before he can identify Kindler. Now Wilson's only clue is Kindler's fascination with antique clocks; but though Kindler seems secure in his new identity, he feels his past closing in.


STREET ANGEL
(from IMDB)
This film takes place in Naples, where 'street angel' is apparently the term for a prostitute. Janet Gaynor usually played virginal good girls. Here, she gets arrested for prostitution. Impressively, the script avoids the easy excuse of making Gaynor a victim of mistaken arrest. Instead, through clever but plausible script machinations, Gaynor's heroine has legitimate reasons for feeling some guilt and stigma for being a prostitute while making it clear to the audience that she hasn't actually done the deed.
The production design is exquisite, with dozens of highly individualised stucco buildings. They actually look like a street in Naples, not a movie set. Henry Armetta restrains his histrionics, for once. Natalie Kingston is enticing as a local slut named Lisetta. In his brief role as an Auguste-style circus clown, I was very impressed with an obscure actor named Louis Liggett, who died shortly after this film was released: he shows real talent here.


A Streetcar Named Desire
(1951/b&w/125 min.) Scr: Oscar Saul, Tennessee Williams; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden.
Blanche, a Southern Belle down on her luck, takes refuge in the New Orleans tenement apartment of her sympathetic sister Stella, and her new husband Stanley, a Polish worker with no patience for delusions of grandeur. "I had a great resistance to doing it and I did it for a very personal reason: I feel closer to Williams than any other playwright I've worked with. So I photographed my production of his masterpiece - and I do think it's a masterpiece - almost precisely as he had written it for the stage... Blanche Dubois, the woman, is Williams. Blanche Dubois comes into a house where someone is going to murder her. The interesting part of it is that Blanche Dubois-Williams is attracted to the person who's going to murder her. That's what makes the play deep. I think one of the best things I did for the play was to cast Brando in it. Brando has the vulgarity, the cruelty, the sadism, and at the same time he has something terribly attractive about him." (Kazan on Kazan)


SUNRISE
(from IMDB)
Flamboyant German director, F.W. Murnau directs this film with a great love and precision, his direction in the movie is flawless. Sunrise features very little story cards, and it almost totally told with just visuals and music. This is a testament to Murnau's talent for storytelling; to portray a story without dialogue is something that all silent films have to do, but to tell a story without many story cards either is something that many directors would struggle to do. The music in Sunrise is simply sublime; it fits what's going on in the film to a tee, and also succeeds in making the visuals' power more potent. Sunrise is a groundbreaking film, some of the techniques used by Murnau to tell his story are amazing, especially for the time. Techniques such as his use of flashback have had a major impact on cinema as a whole.


SWEDISH NYMPHET (ANITA - UR EN TONARSFLICKAS DAGBOK), 1973, Swedish Filmproductions, 95 min. Torgny Wickman directs Stellan Skarsgård as a young psychology student living in a hippie commune who tries to cure a teenage nymphomaniac (Christina Lindberg) who comes from a traumatized background. One of three Swedish Seventies sexploitation films starring Skarsgård before he became a Hollywood star. English-subtitled print courtesy of Klubb Super 8. Due to explicit images and subject matter, no one under 17 will be admitted. Discussion following film with actress Christina Lindberg and members of Klubb Super 8.


THE TESTAMENT OF ORPHEUS (LE TESTAMENT D'ORPHEE), 1960, Janus Films, 83 min. Made at the age of 70, three years before his death, Jean Cocteau's final film is an "inner self-portrait" in which the poet, led by the painter Edouard Dermit, encounters figures from mythology and history while exploring events from his own life. Though Cocteau acknowledged that this blend of "truth and fable, realism and unrealism . . . would be tiresome would it become a genre," he was thrilled that the film found enthusiastic supporters among the younger generation, including Alain Resnais, who wrote, "What a lesson in freedom you give all of us!" With Jean Cocteau, Claudine Auger, Jean Marais, Charles Aznavour.


THIEVES HIGHWAY, 1949, 20th Century Fox, 94 min. Tough-as-nails Richard Conte returns from the war to find his trucker-father crippled by a shady "accident" and heads for San Francisco to take his revenge on corrupt produce broker Lee J. Cobb. Complicating matters even more, he must choose between cool blonde WASP Barbara Lawrence and earthy European refugee Valentina Cortese. Director Jules Dassin's leftist leanings (which would lead to his ouster from Hollywood) found their most subtle outlet in this fabulous noir, written by A.I. Bezzerides (ON DANGEROUS GROUND, KISS ME DEADLY). Discussion in between films with director Fay Lellios.


THRILLER - A CRUEL PICTURE (THRILLER - EN GRYM FILM aka THEY CALL HER ONE-EYE.) 1974, Synapse Films, 105 min. Director Bo A. Vibenius' notorious, violent sexploitation woman's revenge movie about a young, innocent, mute girl (Christina Lindberg) who is forced into addiction and prostitution by an evil pimp (Heinz Hopf). She plans her revenge by training in martial arts, marksmanship and fast-car-driving(!). One of the major inspirations for Quentin Tarantino's KILL BILL films. Originally produced by BAV Film AB.


TONITE LET'S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON
(1967, United Kingdom) Directed by Peter Whitehead
One of the few filmmakers trusted within the perfumed gardens of Britain's music and art scene in the 1960s, Whitehead was allowed unparalleled access into the center of the pop circle to capture the moment for this kaleidoscopic film. With contributions from the likes of Mick Jagger, Michael Caine, Julie Christie, Lee Marvin and David Hockney, TONITE presents a dazzling and intimate record from the very core of the in-crowd, including music by Pink Floyd, among many others. "Not a documentary in any ordinary sense," wrote Variety, "but rather an impressionistic view of the 'land of mod' as seen by a sympathetic participant."
Producer: Peter Whitehead. Writer: Peter Whitehead. Cinematographer: Peter Whitehead. Editor: Peter Whitehead. Cast: Julie Christie, Michael Caine, the Rolling Stones , David Hockney. Format TBA, 70 min.


A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
(1945/b&w/128 min.) Scr: Frank Davis, Tess Slesinger; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Dorothy McGuire, Peggy Ann Garner, Joan Blondell, Lloyd Nolan.
Based on a popular bestselling novel, this sentimental drama deals with a turn-of-the-century family in a Brooklyn tenement struggling with alcoholism and economic troubles. "I read ‘A Tree' and saw in it material I knew something about, the streets of New York, the lives of the working class... and I put in a little more of the immigration theme. A Tree is an intimate interior story. The outside has to be here but what is important is that I get the light in that little girl's eyes, the expression on her face, the feeling in her soul. Because her father was overseas in the war, because her mother had problems, because she herself was going through a lot of pains and uncertainties, Peggy's face was drawn and pale and worried. It looked exactly right. She was not pretty, or cute or picturesque, only true." (Kazan on Kazan)


UNDERWORLD U.S.A., 1961, Columbia (Sony), 99 min. Dir. Samuel Fuller. One of Samuel Fuller's toughest pictures, this is a crime thriller that feels more like a war movie. Released from prison, career crook Tolly Devlin (Cliff Robertson) vows revenge on the three hoods who years earlier beat his father to death. To enact his vengeance, Tolly works both sides of the law, a lone wolf playing his own angles in the battle between the mob and the FBI. One of Fuller's most airtight scripts provides the blueprint for this unrelenting masterpiece. Spot-on performances from Beatrice Kay, Dolores Dorn, Roger Ehmhardt, and Richard Rust. NOT ON DVD.


Viva Zapata!
(1952/b&w/113 min.) Scr: John Steinbeck; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Marlon Brando, Jean Peters, Anthony Quinn.
New 35mm print courtesy Fox Archive
Scenes from the life of Mexican revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata (1879 - 1919). "I went to John Steinbeck and said I'd been thinking about this man, and John suddenly took hold of it very strongly...The story we wanted to tell was of a man who organized himself and his comrades in his province, because of cruel and terrible injustices; the revolt spread because its causes were just... and resulted in a successful revolution. That's the first act. We then told the second act which was that once he got power he didn't know how to exercise it... that power corrupted. The third act was that he walked away from the seat of power and made himself vulnerable; he became an easy target for destruction. So we organized Steinbeck's material around these three movements...In a subtle way, Zapata was the first film I made that was autobiographical... and I think it was the first film I made that was structurally cinematic, where just the suggestion of an incident tells you more than the full playing out of it." (Kazan on Kazan)


WHOLLY COMMUNION
(1965, United Kingdom) Directed by Peter Whitehead
The documentary that effectively launched Whitehead's career, WHOLLY COMMUNION captures the historic event at the Royal Albert Hall on June 11, 1965 where an audience of 7,000 witnessed the first meeting of American and British Beat poets. Among the poets seen reading their work are Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso and Adrian Mitchell.
Format TBA, 33 min. 


Wild River
(1960/110 min./CinemaScope) Scr: Paul Osborn; dir: Elia Kazan; w/ Montgomery Clift, Lee Remick, Jo Van Fleet.
An idealistic government agent is assigned to convince an elderly woman to move from an island that will soon be flooded so that a dam can be built. "When I was a Communist, in 1934-35, I used to go to Tennessee. It was the time of Roosevelt, the TVA was just being built, and I got a idea for a film- twenty-five yeas before I actually made it. After I'd sweated through all my versions of the script, I was ready to say: this should be simple - a basic, primitive, Biblical story - you can't embroider it. It shouldn't be overcrowded, it shouldn't be full of effects, it should just be telling my own love affair with the New Deal (and with) the people in the back parts of this country.... Wild River came closest to my theory of the humble and the poetic, the unnoticed poetry that's all around us. (It) was also the first picture where I said to myself: I'm going to be as lyric as I can, I'm going to stop the action." (Kazan on Kazan)


THE WINDOW, 1949, Warners, 73 min. Dir. Ted Tetzlaff. The best adaptation of Cornell Woolrich ever, and a classic suspense film: a young boy (Bobby Driscoll) with a hyperactive imagination witnesses a murder in the apartment upstairs, but can't get anyone to believe him. The killers close in. Suspense stretched to the limit! With Arthur Kennedy, Ruth Roman, Barbara Hale, Paul Stewart. Presented in a brand new 35mm print funded by The Film Noir Foundation. Brand New 35mm Print!


THE XYZ OF LOVE (KARLELENS XYZ), 1971, Swedish Filmproduction Investment AB, 104 min. Dir. Torgny Wickman. Even more sex education, the third out of four films from the same precocious producer, Inge Ivarson. This time it's the legal aspects of divorce, rape and immorality, as well as an orgy in a hippie commune. More exploitative than the well-meaning and very basic first film. With Inge and Sten Hegeler, Maj-Brith Bergström-Walan. English-subtitled print courtesy of Klubb Super 8.


THE YOUNG IN HEART
(from IMDB)
The Carletons make a living as card sharps and finding new suckers to mooch off of. When their latest scam backfires, they are asked to leave Monte Carlo. At the train station, they meet a kind old woman named Miss Fortune. The elderly lady is very wealthy and very lonely. As a reward for saving her life after the train derails, Miss Fortune invites the Carletons to come live with her. The family hopes that by winning her affection, they can eventually be named sole beneficiaries in her will. But will a change of heart soften their mercenary feelings before that time comes?


YOU'RE GONNA MISS ME
You're Gonna Miss Me is a documentary about the legendary rock n roll pioneer Roger Kynard "Roky" Erickson. This singer, songwriter, and guitar player for The 13th Floor Elevators—the first rock and roll band to describe their music as "psychedelic"—is considered one of "the unknown heroes of rock and roll." The documentary chronicles his successes alongside his struggles with drug abuse and mental illness.



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