Small Town America (National Film Preservation Board, Library of Congress)


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"Small Town America"

Program notes from old series: Small Town America, presented July-December, 1991

Over the past century, Americans have moved, by the hopeful and sometimes desperate tens of millions, from rural areas and tiny towns to bustling cities. Yet despite this profound demographic shift, America remains in beliefs, in values, in spirit and in soul, a small-town nation. Our primary series for the next seven months--Small Town America--examines Hollywood's vision of small-town life and themes. For those who fear months of heart-warming dramas showing white picket fences lining the homes of honest, happy, loving families, rest assured. The nearly 200 films to be screened will reveal a genre at least as rich in diversity and quality as films set in urban areas or other locales; melodrama, in particular, constitutes a strength of small-town films. This series also will showcase many of cinema's greatest composers and cinematographers, who have found their particular talents fit well this genre.

Kings Row (Warner Bros., 1942)
Director: Sam Wood. Screenplay: Casey Robinson, from the Henry Bellamann novel. Photography: James Wong Howe. Music: Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Cast: Ann Sheridan, Robert Cummings, Ronald Reagan, Betty Field, Charles Coburn, Claude Rains, Judith Anderson, Nancy Coleman, Maria Ouspenskaya. (127 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy of Turner Entertainment)

We begin our series (and a week of small-town classics) with what many consider the quintessential small-town film. Kings Row features a theme frequently encountered in the genre: the difference between image and reality, that underneath a beautiful, glossy surface lurks all manner of dark secrets and evil. The first reel of tonight's film starkly poses the dichotomy. In a lovely opening, a wagon passes idyllic scenes and a sign saying: "Kings Row--A Good Town/A Good Clean Town/A Good Place to Live In/And a Good Place to Raise Your Children." But soon we learn all is not well here: one doctor (Claude Rains) has no patients and his wife lives upstairs, while another doctor (Charles Coburn, brilliantly cast against type) has sadistic tendencies and a quick scalpel. And the malevolence has only begun. Perhaps most memorable about Kings Row, aside from the soap opera plot, are the production design of William Cameron Menzies, and a superb Erich Wolfgang Korngold score, one of his finest.

Kings Row also offers a fascinating glimpse into the workings of the Production Code, which from 1934 on regulated what studios put on the screen. Joseph Breen, production code director, rejected the first script of Kings Row, citing several issues, including the nature of Cassie's illness, Drake's libertine behavior, and a mercy killing. For those interested, Rudy Behlmer's invaluable Inside Warner Bros: 1935-51 reprints many of the letters exchanged by the studio and Mr. Breen over Kings Row.

Alice Adams (RKO, 1935)
Director: George Stevens. Screenplay: Dorothy Yost and Mortimer Offner; adaptation by Jane Murfin from Booth Tarkington's novel. Photography: Robert de Grasse. Music: Max Steiner; direction by Roy Webb. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Evelyn Venable, Frank Albertson, Ann Shoemaker, Charles Grapewin, Grady Sutton, Hedda Hopper, Jonathan Hale, Janet McLeod, Virginia Howell, Zeffie Tilbury, Ella McKenzie, Hattie Daniels. (99 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy of Turner Entertainment)

This film makes it difficult to understand how anyone in this period could have labeled Katharine Hepburn "box-office poison." In South Renford, "the town with a future," middle-class Alice Adams (Katharine Hepburn) desperately pursues upward mobility, a way out of her lonely existence. She does so primarily by attending upper-class social functions (what her brother calls "frozen-faced" events) where--in pitiful, heart-wrenching scenes- -she is routinely ignored by everyone except world-class undesirable Grady Sutton. Enter tall, dark and handsome, if not necessarily talkative, Fred MacMurray. The film contains one of cinema's classic dinner scenes, a primer on what food not to serve in hot weather.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Shadow of a Doubt (Universal, 1942)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay: Thornton Wilder, Sally Benson, & Alma Reville, from an original story by Gordon McDonell. Photography: Joseph Valentine. Music: Dimitri Tiomkin. Cast: Teresa Wright, Joseph Cotten, MacDonald Carey, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Hume Cronyn, Wallace Ford, Edna May Wonacott, Charles Bates. (108 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal)

Possibly Alfred Hitchcock's greatest film, Shadow of a Doubt is controlled, suspenseful filmmaking at its finest. In the quaint town of Santa Rosa, California, the Newton family, after listening to another detective lesson from neighbor and aspiring mystery writer Hume Cronyn, realize they need a spark from outside. Enter worldly, beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), whose previous visits always proved enchanting, especially to daughter "Charlie" (Teresa Wright). But Cotten now is a changed, manipulative, bitter man, believing "the whole world's a joke to me." Of the family members, only Wright notices his transformation, a concern that becomes horror and loathing once she suspects he is the fugitive "Merry Widow" murderer. The suspense mounts rapidly with superb camerawork and Dimitri Tiomkin's score. Throughout, the small-town atmosphere dominates. In one scene, Wright, seeking information on the murders, rushes to get to the public library before closing time; a traffic cop pulls her aside and sternly lectures her for jay-walking. For the small-town realism, thanks go to Thornton Wilder, who rated that rarest of tributes: a full screen credit from Alfred Hitchcock.

The Music Man (Warner Bros., 1962)
Director: Morton DaCosta. Screenplay: Marion Hargrove, based on Meredith Willson's "The Music Man." Photography: Robert Burks. Music supervised and conducted by Ray Heindorf, based on music and lyrics of Meredith Willson's. Cast: Robert Preston, Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett, Hermione Gingold, Paul Ford, Pert Kelton, The Buffalo Bills, Timmy Everett, Susan Luckey, Ronny Howard, Harry Hickox, Charles Lane, Mary Wickes. (151 min., Technicolor, Technirama, 35mm; courtesy Warner Bros.)

A frequent theme of small-town films is the visit from an outsider and the resulting transformation of town residents. Tonight we screen (in an original, imbibition Technicolor print) our candidate for the best film in that sub-genre, The Music Man. Con-man extraordinaire Harold Hill (Robert Preston) brings his revolutionary "think system" to the sleepy little town of River City, Iowa, and his charismatic magnetism to the attention of town misfit and repressed librarian Shirley Jones. Though The Music Man suffers slightly from overlength and staginess, Preston's energetic performance and the classic music numbers ("Trouble," "76 Trombones," etc.) make the film's charms well-nigh irresistible.

The Last Picture Show (Columbia, 1971)
Director: Peter Bogdanovich. Screenplay: Larry McMurtry and Bogdanovich, based on the novel by McMurtry. Photography: Robert Surtees. Cast: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, Clu Gulager, Sam Bottoms, Sharon Taggart, Randy Quaid, Joe Heatchcock, Bill Thurman. (118 min., b&w, 35mm; courtesy Columbia)

Anarene, Texas, the 1950's--a dying town. Little remains of the town--even less of its spirit--other than a moving picture theater and its proprietor Ben Johnson (Sam the Lion). Adults muse wistfully on what might have been, all the while acting more and more desperate; teens eagerly contemplate what could be, if only they leave. To illustrate this decaying environment harboring dying dreams and souls, director Peter Bogdanovich shot the film in harsh, grainy black-and-white and produced several magnificent scenes, most notably a brief, elegiac, stream-of- consciousness narrative on town and personal history by Ben Johnson, who won an Oscar for this role. In addition to its numerous aesthetic virtues, The Last Picture Show merits interest as marking the coming-of-age of a new generation of American acting talent, including Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, and Randy Quaid.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Picnic (Columbia, 1955)
Director: Joshua Logan. Screenplay: Daniel Taradash, based on the William Inge play. Photography: James Wong Howe. Music: George Duning; conducted by Morris Stoloff. Cast: William Holden, Rosalind Russell, Kim Novak, Betty Field, Susan Strasberg, Cliff Robertson, Arthur O'Connell, Verna Belton, Reta Shaw, Nick Adams, Raymond Bailey, Elizabeth W. Wilson. (115 min., Technicolor, CinemaScope, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Columbia)

Another version on the visitor-changes-town theme. Former football player, now social misfit, William Holden has reached bottom and hops the rails to a small dirt-water Kansas town, where lives a wealthy, former college chum. Nothing much has happened in this town in ages, but this quickly changes once Holden sheds his shirt, provoking interest from old maid Rosalind Russell ("He reminds me of one of those old Roman gladiators") and beautiful young Kim Novak ("He carries that old wash tub as if it was so much tissue paper"), by chance the girlfriend of Holden's old friend. Though he is really only seeking somewhere to fit in and settle down, Holden's presence soon ignites all the latent problems and uncertainties in several personal relationships. We must admit Holden looks a bit old for the role and his antic acting style often has one hoping he'll leave town on the next passing train, but Picnic remains an exemplary portrayal of small-town customs and life, notably in a famous Labor Day picnic sequence.

An Evening with Mary Pickford, D. W. Griffith and other Silent Legends

Sweet and Twenty (Biograph, 1909)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Mary Pickford, James Kirkwood, Florence Lawrence, Billy Quirk. (ca. 10 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

A Summer Idyll (Biograph, 1910)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Gertrude Robinson, Henry B. Walthall, Dorothy Barnard, Charles West, Florence Barker. (ca. 15 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

Sunshine Sue (Biograph, 1910)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Marion Sunshine, Charles West, Eddie Dillon, W. Chrystie Miller, George Nicholls, Donald Crisp. (ca. 12 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The Sorrows of the Unfaithful (Biograph, 1910)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Henry B. Walthall, Mary Pickford, W. Chrystie Miller, Eddie Dillon. (ca. 18 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The Peach-Basket Hat (Biograph, 1909)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer and Arthur Marvin. Cast: Mary Pickford, John Cumpson, Florence Lawrence, Jeanie Macpherson, Linda Arvidson. (ca. 10 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The Modern Prodigal (Biograph, 1910)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Guy Hedlund, George Nicholls, Kate Bruce, Jack Pickford, Alfred Paget, W. Chrystie Miller. (ca. 15 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

Lonely Villa (Biograph, 1909)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Marion Leonard, Mary Pickford, Adele De Garde, Owen Moore, James Kirkwood, Mack Sennett, John Cumpson, Gladys Egan. (ca. 10 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The Little Teacher (Keystone, 1915)
Director: Mack Sennett. Cast: Mabel Normand, Owen Moore, Roscoe Arbuckle, Mack Sennett, Joe Bordeaux, Frank Opperman. (ca. 25 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Homefolks (Biograph, 1912)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Cast: Mary Pickford, Robert Harron, Kate Bruce, Wilfred Lucas, Charles Hill Mailes, Mae Marsh, Blanche Sweet, Henry B. Walthall, Mack Sennett. (ca. 15 min., silent, b&w, 16mm: LC Collection)

Her First Biscuits (Biograph, 1909)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Dorothy Bernard, Clara T. Bracey, John Cumpson, Charles Craig, Flora Finch, Arthur Johnson, Owen Moore, Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett. (ca. 8 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The Feud and the Turkey (AM&B, 1908)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: Arthur Marvin and G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Florence Lawrence, Linda Arvidson, Herbert Miles, Violet Mersereau, Eddie Dillon, Mack Sennett. (ca. 12 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

A Corner in Wheat (Biograph, 1909)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Linda Arvidson, Kate Bruce, Adele De Garde, W. J. Butler, Gladys Egan, Grace Henderson, Arthur Johnson, James Kirkwood. (ca. 15 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

An Arcadian Maid (Biograph, 1910)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Mary Pickford, Mack Sennett, Kate Bruce, George Nicholls. (ca. 15 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The Fate of the Artist's Model (AM&B, 1903)
Photography: G. W. Bitzer. (ca. 18 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The Rocky Road (Biograph, 1910)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Frank Powell, Stephanie Longfellow, Adele De Garde, Blanche Sweet, Kate Bruce, Wilfred Lucas. (ca. 15 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The Curtain Pole (AM&B, 1909)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Linda Arvidson, Mack Sennett, Jeanie Macpherson, Arthur Johnson, Florence Lawrence. (ca. 10 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The Child of the Ghetto &1(Biograph, 1910) Director: D. W. Griffith. Photography: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Dorothy West, Henry B. Walthall, Kate Bruce, George Nicholls. (ca. 15 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

The New York Hat (Biograph, 1912)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Screenplay: Anita Loos. Photographer: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Mae Marsh, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Claire McDowell. (ca. 20 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Mary Pickford Foundation)

A Feud in the Kentucky Hills (Biograph, 1912)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Photographer: G. W. Bitzer. Cast: Mary Pickford, Henry B. Walthall, Walter Miller, Kate Bruce, Harry Carey, Jack Pickford. (ca. 15 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Mary Pickford Foundation)

Films set in small towns did not become popular or numerous until the late 1920's. Until then, rural locales (bearing some thematic resemblances to small-town films) predominated. To reflect this, we offer an evening of nineteen mostly rural dramas from 1915 and before. We'll admit our hidden purpose: to honor film pioneers D. W. Griffith and Mary Pickford, as well as other silent performers. (Our thanks to Paul Spehr, Assistant Chief in the Library of Congress' Motion Picture Division, for suggesting these early titles.) Tom Sawyer (Morosco, 1917)
Director: William D. Taylor. Screenplay: Julia Crawford Ivers, based on the Mark Twain novel. Photography: Homer Scott. Cast: Jack Pickford, George Hackathorne, Alice Marvin, Edythe Chapman, Robert Gordon, Clara Horton. (ca. 55 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount)

Whispers of nepotism resulted when, as a condition for signing a contract with First National in 1917, Mary Pickford also demanded a hefty contract for her brother Jack. These negative opinions dissipated quickly as Jack Pickford revealed himself to be a solidly competent, albeit not spectacular, leading man. Tonight's screening of the Mark Twain classic showcases some of brother Jack's talents as well as revealing a frequent subject of small-town films: the vicissitudes of growing up in a small town. If this version of Tom Sawyer cannot match the surface gloss of David O. Selznick's 1938 The Adventures of Tom Sawyer , it does hold up well in authenticity, perhaps a factor of its relatively modest budget. Indeed, the very notion of a big-budget Mark Twain film seems antithetical to Twain's principles. Note: our print of Tom Sawyer lacks some titles; dialogue will be provided when needed.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

In Wrong (Jack Pickford Film Co.,/First National, 1919)
Director: James Kirkwood. Screenplay: James Kirkwood. Photography: Antonio Gaudio and Sol Polito. Cast: Jack Pickford, Marguerite de la Motte, Clara Horton, George Dromgold, Hardee Kirkland, Robin Williamson, Lydia Knott, Jake Abrams. (ca. 60 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC print in the AFI/Pickford Collection.)

Jack Pickford has gained stature since we last saw him--he now has his own film company. In tonight's film, Jack is a delivery boy with eyes for village belle Marguerite de la Motte. Romantic competition ensues when a handsome New Yorker boards with Marguerite's family for the summer. Pickford's motto: Boarders beware! In Wrong's two cameramen--Antonio Gaudio and Sol Polito--worked on many of Warner Brothers most important films during the 1930's.

Followed By

Waking Up the Town (Mary Pickford Company/United Artists, 1925)
Director: James Cruze; some sources credit Vernon Keays or Jack Pickford. Screenplay: James Cruze and Frank Condon. Photography: Arthur Edeson and Paul Perry. Cast: Jack Pickford, Claire McDowell, Alec B. Francis, Norma Shearer, Herbert Pryor, Ann May, George Dromgold. (ca. 35 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Mary Pickford Foundation)

In our third Jack Pickford offering tonight, Jack is a small- town inventor unable to get the right backers interested in his ideas. Norma Shearer, Jack's romantic interest in 1925's Waking Up the Town, two years later married Irving Thalberg and became a star at MGM (The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Their Own Desire, Marie Antoinette). Cinematographer Arthur Edeson later worked on more important films, including All Quiet on the Western Front, Frankenstein, Mutiny on the Bounty, Each Dawn I Die, They Drive By Night, The Maltese Falcon, and Casablanca. Note: our print contains only reels 1-4. A synopsis of the remaining two reels will be provided.

Pollyanna (United Artists, 1920)
Director: Paul Powell. Screenplay: Frances Marion, based on the Eleanor Porter novel. Photography: Charles Rosher. Cast: Mary Pickford, J. Wharton James, Katherine Griffith, William Courtleigh, Herbert Prior, Helen Jerome Eddy, George Berrell, Howard Ralston. (ca. 95 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Mary Pickford Foundation)

A prisoner of her fans' expectations, Mary Pickford could never shed the role her adoring legions demanded: the good- hearted, vivacious little girl. Here, in real life a 27-year old, Mary plays a sweet 12-year old. This production, her first for United Artists, has Mary's "Just Be Glad" philosophy charming town residents and solving their problems. Variety said: Pollyanna "touches and stirs the heart, brightens the eyes with tears and is full of that amazing optimism so typically American and yet so utterly ridiculous. With considerable force it asserts the world is a nice place to live in. A fat lie this is, but it helps to believe it." Burns Mantle in Photoplay expressed relief the role was in a film, and not theatrical, performance: "For one afternoon or an evening she is an inspiration...A week of it and you might strangle Pollyanna."

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Pollyanna (Walt Disney, 1960)
Director: David Swift. Screenplay: David Swift, based on the novel by Eleanor H. Porter. Photography: Russell Harlan. Music: Paul Smith. Cast: Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Richard Egan, Karl Malden, Nancy Olson, Adolphe Menjou, Donald Crisp, Agnes Moorehead, Edward Platt. (134 min., Technicolor, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Disney)

For this 1960 remake, Disney added over 30 minutes in length and bathed the film (especially a bazaar sequence) in beautiful Technicolor photography (vivid in LC's original print). Hayley Mills, in her second film, plays the role Pickford made famous, and won a special Oscar. That the Disney version features a superior cast to its predecessor cannot be disputed: the array includes Jane Wyman, Karl Malden, Adolph Menjou, and Agnes Moorehead, among others.

Pollyanna (United Artists, 1920)
Director: Paul Powell. Screenplay: Frances Marion, based on the Eleanor Porter novel. Photography: Charles Rosher. Cast: Mary Pickford, J. Wharton James, Katherine Griffith, William Courtleigh, Herbert Piror, Helen Jerome Eddy, George Berrell, Howard Ralston. (ca. 95 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Mary Pickford Foundation)

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Way Down East (Griffith/United Artists, 1920)
Director: D. W. Griffith. Screenplay: Griffith and Anthony Paul Kelly, based on the play "Way Down East" by Lottie Blair Parker as elaborated by Joseph R. Grismer. Photography: G. W. Bitzer, Hendrick Sartov and Paul H. Allen. Cast: Lillian Gish, Richard Barthelmess, Mrs. David Landau, Lowell Sherman, Burr McIntosh, Josephine Bernard, Kate Bruce, Mary Hay, Norma Shearer. (ca. 120 min., silent with music track, tinted, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paul Killiam)

"Less ambitious than Intolerance, less innovative than The Birth of a Nation, less lyrical than Broken Blossoms, and less stark than Isn't Life Wonderful, Way Down East still has an absolute claim among D. W. Griffith's greatest films. This despite its origins in one of the creakiest of stage melodramas--complete with the fiendish seducer, the dying infant, the unwed mother cast out into the storm, and the lowest of low- comic relief. Through expansive film realism, the Griffith/Lillian Gish team redeems melodrama as form, not failure. And only The Wind rivals Way Down East among Gish's portrayals of interior torment and strength. The celebrated rescue across the ice floe was vastly influential on other filmmakers and is still guaranteed to leave audiences gasping."--Scott Simmon

Grandma's Boy (Associated Exhibitors/Pathe, 1922)
Director: Fred Newmeyer. Screenplay: Thomas J. Crizer, Jean Havez, Sam Taylor, and Hal E. Roach; titles by H.M. "Beanie" Walker. Photography: Walter Lundin. Cast: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Hannah Townsend, Charles Stevenson, Dick Sutherland, Noah Young. (ca. 60 min., silent with music track, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy the Harold Lloyd Estate and Time-Life)

Followed By

Girl Shy (Harold Lloyd Corp./Pathe, 1924)
Director: Fred Newmeyer and Sam Taylor. Screenplay: Sam Taylor, assisted by Tommy Gray, Tim Whelan, and Ted Wilde. Photography: Walter Lundin and Henry Kohler. Cast: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Richard Daniels, Carlton Griffith. (ca. 70 min., silent with music track, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy the Harold Lloyd Estate and Time-Life)

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Hot Water (Pathe, 1924)
Director: Sam Taylor and Fred Newmeyer. Screenplay: Sam Taylor, Tommy Gray, Tim Whelan, and John Grey. Photography: Walter Lundin. Cast: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Josephine Crowel, and Charles Stevenson. (ca. 20 min., silent with music track, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy the Harold Lloyd Estate and Time- Life)

Followed By

The Kid Brother (Harold Lloyd Corp./Paramount, 1927)
Director: Ted Wilde and J. A. Howe. Screenplay: John Grey, Tom Crizer, and Ted Wilde, based on a scenario by Grey, Lex Neal, and Howard Green. Photography: Walter Lundin. Cast: Harold Lloyd, Jobyna Ralston, Walter James, Leo Willis, Olin Francis, Constantine Romanoff, Eddie Boland, Frank Lanning, Ralph Yearsley. (ca. 80 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount and the Harold Lloyd Estate)

Tonight's films celebrate the abundant talents of one of cinema's greatest comedians--Harold Lloyd--who, in his 1920's heyday, outdrew his two major competitors, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Of the three comic legends, Lloyd most closely matched the spirit of 1920's society and culture, with his persistent and persevering "Everyman" character finding great favor with audiences. With abundant comedy always came moments of sentiment. As Lloyd once said: "While it is our business to be funny on the screen, we gain greatly by a quiet moment or two or a little bit that is pathetic."
Grandma's Boy casts Lloyd as an ineffectual recreant, until Grandma pumps him up with tales of ancestral derring-do. Town bully Charles Stevenson suffers the devastating consequences.
Girl Shy tailor's apprentice Lloyd cannot knit real-life romance; accordingly, he takes his frustrations and desires into print, producing a book featuring 16 personal romances. Real romance, as always, intrudes and he prevents the marriage of Jobyna Ralston to a rival in breathtaking scenes reminiscent of The Graduate.

Hot Water sees Lloyd shedding his bachelor status for marriage to beautiful Jobyna Ralston; the unfortunate downside is mother-in-law Josephine Crowell. Along with trying to dispatch his wife's meddlesome mother, Lloyd battles traffic in his new automobile and, in an all-time classic sequence, carries a turkey onto a streetcar. Note: our print tonight is a shortened re- release version.
The Kid Brother is a "delightfully winning, beautifully filmed silent comedy with Harold as Cinderella-type kid in robust all-male family, who gets to prove his mettle in exciting finale where he subdues beefy villain. One of Lloyd's all-time best."-- Leonard Maltin's TV Movies.

Homer Comes Home (Thomas Ince Productions/Famous Players- Lasky, 1920)
Director: Jerome Storm. Screenplay: Agnes Christine Johnston, from a story by Alexander Hull. Photography: Chester Lyons. Cast: Charles Ray, Otto Hoffman, Priscilla Bonner, Ralph McCullough, Walter Higby, John H. Elliott, Harry Hyde, Gus Leonard, Joe Hazleton. (ca. 60 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC print in the AFI/UCLA-Ince Collection)

This effort, with production supervised by film pioneer Thomas Ince, features a plot common to 1920's small-town films: resident leaves for the greater lures of the big city, only to return eventually to the town. Charles Ray, an extremely popular leading man of the late 1910's and early 20's, tonight is the village lad seeking proverbial fame and fortune as well as the hand of Priscilla Bonner.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Travelin' On (Paramount-Artcraft, 1921)
Director: Lambert Hillyer. Screenplay: Lambert Hillyer, from the story "J. B. the Unbeliever," by William S. Hart; titles by Harry Barndollar. Photography: Joe August. Cast: William S. Hart, James Farley, Ethel Grey Terry, Brinsley Shaw, Mary Jane Irving, Jocko the Monk. (ca. 70 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC Collection)%% Note: Our print is missing reel #3 of 7--a synopsis of the missing reel will be provided.

Tonight's films examine the Western small town, frontier safety valve for those unsuccessful elsewhere. The dramatic situations in Western towns frequently arise from the lack of authority; in a fleeting moment, stability could become complete lawlessness. "William S. Hart specialized in the `good bad man,' and his character was remarkably popular in the late Teens. It faded quickly in the Twenties, perhaps because Hart was unwilling to alter his formula, or because of his age (he was over fifty at the time of this film). His influential `realism' was in settings, in the cowboy's costuming, and in his stoic persona-- never in his plots. But no other Western hero was so convincing a loner. Travelin' On is almost a remake of Hell's Hinges (1916). A weak minister and his wife settle in a Godless small town, but it's the `bad man' who finally redeems it."--Scott Simmon

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Hell's Hinges (Triangle, 1916)
Production Supervisor: Thomas Ince. Directors: William S. Hart and Charles Swickard. Screenplay: C. Gardner Sullivan; titles: Mon Randall. Photography: Joe August. Cast: William S. Hart, Clara Williams, Jack Standing, Louise Glaum, Alfred Hollingsworth, John Gilbert, Jean Hersholt. (ca. 50 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC print in the Bradley Collection)

"Gunplay and religion lubricate Hell's Hinges...which brings back to the Knickerbocker Theater that admirable actor of Western roles, William S. Hart. It is a film that combines all the elements for a success...reckless riding, doublehanded shooting from the hip, a dance hall of the Bret Harte description and finally, a conflagration that gives a truly Gehenna-like finish to the place known as Hell's Hinges....No actor before [on] the screen has been able to give as sincere and true a touch to the Westerner as Hart. He rides in a manner indigenous to the soil, he shoots with the real knack and he acts with that sense of artistry that hides the action."--February 12, 1916 New York press review, cited in The Complete Films of William S. Hart by Diane Kaiser Koszarski.

The Extra Girl (Mack Sennett, 1924)
Director: F. Richard Jones. Screenplay: Bernard McConville, based on a story by Mack Sennett. Photography: Homer Scott and Eric Crockett. Cast: George Nichols, Anna Hernandez, Mabel Normand, Ralph Graves, Vernon Dent, Ramsey Wallace, Charlotte Mineau. (ca. 70 min., silent with music track, tinted color, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paul Killiam)

Her parents want small-town gal Mabel Normand to dump auto mechanic boyfriend Ralph Graves (no bad idea, we think) in favor of the far richer drug store owner. Mabel, having recently won a movie contest, instead heads off for Hollywood, furtively pursued by Graves. Much that follows is routine, save one scene with Mabel and a lion. Variety, though generally praising the film, did warn exhibitors of possible adverse audience reaction arising from Normand's circumstantial connections to two recent Hollywood scandals: the murders of William Desmond Taylor and Cortland S. Dines, blows from which her career never recovered.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Miss Lulu Bett (Famous Players-Lasky, 1921)
Director: William DeMille. Screenplay: Clara Beranger, based on the Zona Gale novel. Photography: L. Guy Wilky. Cast: Lois Wilson, Milton Sills, Helen Ferguson, Mabel Van Buren, May Giraoi, Clarence Burton, Theodore Roberts, Ethel Wales, Taylor Graves, Charles Ogle. (ca. 75 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount and the Museum of Modern Art)

One of the first small-town classics, Miss Lulu Bett concerns that staple of the genre--the spinster, here played by Lois Wilson (who later starred in such films as The Covered Wagon, Monsieur Beaucaire, North of 36). She accidentally weds an already-married man, provoking much town gossip. Eventually, another small-town icon--the schoolteacher (Milton Sills)--rescues her from gossip, bigamy, and spinsterhood.
Aspiring film scholars should closely study the film's composition and scene structure. In his classic Narration in the Fiction Film, David Bordwell claims Miss Lulu Bett shows that Hollywood had already adapted a "classical style" in arranging scenes. Tonight's film also affords an excellent opportunity to study the methods of director William C. DeMille who, though overshadowed by brother Cecil B., qualifies as an extremely competent director.

Jaws of Steel (Warner Brothers, 1927)
Director: Ray Enright. Screenplay: Charles R. Condon, based on a story by Gregory Rogers. Photography: Barney McGill. Cast: Rin- Tin-Tin, Jason Robards, Helen Ferguson, Mary Louise Miller, Jack Curtis, Robert Perry, George Conners. (ca. 70 minutes, silent, b&w, 35mm; LC print in the AFI/National Film Board of South Africa Collection)

Note: our print contains six of the seven original reels, missing only reel 4. No actor--man, dog, or wildebeest--ever enjoyed a more meteoric rise than Rin-Tin-Tin. Saved from almost certain death when pulled from a World War I German trench, he switched allegiance from Kaiser Wilhelm to Jack L. Warner and developed into Warner Brothers biggest box office-draw during much of the Twenties, single-handedly, according to some, saving the studio from bankruptcy. Rin-Tin-Tin appeared often in films featuring scripts by, of all people, Darryl F. Zanuck.
If William S. Hart (seen three nights ago) qualifies as a good/bad man, Rinty (Rin-Tin-Tin) is a good/bad dog in tonight's energetic film. Lost by his owners (Jason Robards and Helen Ferguson) while they investigate a spurious gold claim, Rinty grows up wild and a killer. A killer perhaps, but still man's best friend at heart and possessor of a tremendous folk memory; Rinty eventually rescues his hapless human owners and restores his reputation.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

The Tomboy (Chadwick Pictures, 1924)
Director: David Kirkland. Screenplay: Frank Dazey. Photography: Milton Moore. Cast: Herbert Rawlinson, Dorothy Devore, James Barrows, Lee Moran, Helen Lynch, Lottie Williams, Harry Gribbon, Virginia True Boardman. (ca. 65 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC print in the AFI/Nichol Collection)

Tomboy Dorothy Devore (a veteran of the era's popular Al Christie two-reelers) falls for stranger Herbert Rawlinson who, it turns out, is a revenue agent out to crack a smuggling ring. Her father becomes the prime suspect when liquor turns up in his barn. The Tomboy is a typical low-budget product from Chadwick Pictures.

Followed by:

Steamboat Bill Jr. (Buster Keaton Productions/United Artists, 1928)
Director: Charles Reisner. Screenplay: Carl Harbaugh. Photography: J. Devereaux Jennings and Bert Haines. Cast: Buster Keaton, Ernest Torrence, Tom Lewis, Tom McGuire, Marion Byron, Joe Keaton. (ca. 70 min., b&w, silent, 35mm; LC Collection)

"Though remembered for the breath-stopping stunts in its cyclone finale, Steamboat Bill, Jr. really succeeds because of Buster Keaton's subtle character comedy. Keaton plays a blue- blazered, ukulele-toting dandy, fresh from Boston schooling, who comes south to `River Junction, Mississippi,' to join his long- lost father (the gargantuan Ernest Torrence), captain of a dilapidated steamboat, `Stonewall Jackson.' It takes impatient parental coaching to turn Keaton into `Steamboat Bill, Jr.' Among the great sequences here are Junior's attempt to mime a jailbreak scheme--files hidden in bread--to the incarcerated Senior, the trial-and-error attempts to find a suitably virile replacement for Junior's foppish beret, and, of course, the cyclone finish. This is Keaton's final comic masterpiece, his last independent production before the ruin of his career at MGM."--Scott Simmon

Casey at the Bat (Famous Players-Lasky, 1927)
Director: Monte Brice. Screenplay: Jules Furthman; adaptation by Reginald Morris and Monte Brice; loosely based on the Ernest Thayer story; Sam Hellman and Grant Clarke credited with titling. Photography: Barney McGill. Cast: Wallace Beery, Ford Sterling, ZaSu Pitts, Sterling Holloway, Spec O'Donnell, Iris Stuart, Sydney Jarvis. (ca. 65 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount)

A variation on the famous story. Village junkman Wallace Beery, a terrific hitter in the local amateur league, is signed to a big-league baseball contract, part of an elaborate ruse to have the New York Giants throw the World Series. If all this sounds decidedly minor-league, it is, but Beery and love interest ZaSu Pitts do put some fun in the tale. Note: our print has flash titles, which will be simultaneously translated, when necessary, at tonight's screening.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Jus' Passin' Through (Roach, 1923)
Director: Charles Parrott. Screenplay: H. M. Walker. Photography: Robert Doran. Cast: Will Rogers, Marie Mosquini, Noah Young. (ca. 25 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC Collection)

"Will Rogers, whose folksy monologues are preserved by sound films in the Thirties, began with the handicap of silence back in 1918. This two-reeler was directed by fellow comedian Charlie Chase (under his real name) and features Rogers as a rail-tramp, stranded in an inhospitable Western town and frustrated in his attempts to land in prison in time for a Thanksgiving feast."-- Scott Simmon

Followed By:

The Headless Horseman (Sleepy Hollow Corporation, 1922)
Director: Edward Venturini. Screenplay: Carl Stearns Clancy, based on Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Photography: Ned Van Burne. Cast: Will Rogers, Lois Meredith, Ben Hendricks, Jr., Mary Foy, Charles Graham, Nancy Chase. (ca. 80 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC print in the AFI/Tayler Collection)

Will Rogers, whose film career languished until the onset of sound, here plays Washington Irving's famous New York schoolteacher, Ichabod Crane. If you think this role doesn't sound quite right for folksy, Oklahoma-born Rogers, we'd agree, yet the film has received praise for its authentic sets and quality cinematography. In the early 1930's, Rogers became the conscience and philosopher of small-town America before his untimely death in 1935.

Blondes By Choice (Gotham Productions/Lumas, 1927)
Director: Hampton Del Ruth. Screenplay: Josephine Quirk; titles by Paul Perez. Photography: Ray June. Cast: Claire Windsor, Allan Simpson, Walter Hiers, Bodil Rosing, Bess Flowers, Leigh Willard, Jack Gardner. (ca. 70 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Public Archives of Canada)

This was one of producer Samuel Bischoff's last films before moving to Columbia in 1928. A decidedly minor film (The New York Times and Variety did not bother to review it), Blondes By Choice does feature Claire Windsor, an important actress during the 1920's, in the common small-town situation of a visitor's effect on the townsfolk. Windsor opens a beauty shop, but the local Ladies' Aid Society and mortgage-holding banker want to give her business a permanent closing. Allan Simpson, in town courtesy of an ailing car, comes to Claire's aid. From these humble beginnings, cinematographer Ray June later moved up to more important work at MGM and elsewhere (China Seas, The Great Ziegfeld, and Funny Face).

SEPARATE ADMISSION

The Carnation Kid (Paramount, 1929)
Director: E. Mason Hopper; sound sequences directed by A. Leslie Pearce. Screenplay: Henry McCarty, from an original story by Alfred A. Cohen; titles: Arthur Huffsmith. Photography: Alex Phillips and Monte Steadman. Music: Sterling Sherwin. Cast: Douglas MacLean, Frances Lee, William B. Davidson, Lorraine Eddy, Charles Hill Mailes, Francis McDonald, Maurice Black, Bert Swor, Jr., Carl Stockdale. (ca. 65 min., sound, b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount)

Mack Sennett claimed in a 1918 article, "The Psychology of Film Comedy," that "Gozzi, the famous Italian dramatist, demonstrated conclusively, as the result of examining thousands of plays, that there are only thirty-six possible dramatic situations. There are only a handful of possible jokes. The chief members of this joke band may be said to be: the fall of dignity and mistaken identity." Taking Sennett's maxim to heart, this early talkie abounds in mistaken identities. On a train headed for the town of Chatham are typewriter salesman Douglas MacLean and The Carnation Kid (Francis McDonald), an extremely efficient Chicago gangster out to, in the words of Variety, give the Chatham District Attorney "a lead massage." Their identities become reversed, complicating MacLean's attempts to get close to the D.A.'s daughter Frances Lee. Note: we are missing the first reel.

Followed By:

Heart to Heart (First National, 1928)
Director: William Beaudine. Screenplay: Juliet W. Tompkins. Photography: Sol Polito. Cast: Mary Astor, Lloyd Hughes, Louise Fazenda, Lucien Littlefield, Eileen Manning. (ca. 75 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Warner Bros.)

Role reversals continue. Mary Astor (later famous for The Maltese Falcon), a widowed European princess, returns to her Ohio home town. In a quick social descent, she's believed to be a local seamstress of doubtful repute. Former love interest Lloyd Hughes, recent inventor of a miracle corkscrew, comes to her rescue. Heart to Heart's director William Beaudine later worked on many of the Lassie television episodes.

Tiger Shark (Warner Bros., 1932)
Director: Howard Hawks. Screenplay: Wells Root, from an original story "Tuna," by Houston Branch. Photography: Tony Gaudio. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Zita Johann, Richard Arlen, Leila Bennett, Vince Barnett, J. Carroll Naish, William Ricciardi. (80 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Our two films tonight chronicle waterfront drama in small fishing villages. After his phenomenal success in Little Caesar, Edward G. Robinson faced typecasting as a gangster and he constantly sought out completely different roles; a turn as a Portuguese fishing captain certainly qualifies. What would seem at first a routine husband-wife-best friend triangle melodrama becomes far more intriguing with Robinson's impassioned performance, featuring emotions ranging from loathsome self-pity to brutal and deadly self-assertion, as well as Howard Hawks' assured direction in a genre he often frequented: the male-action drama.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Clash by Night (RKO, 1952)
Director: Fritz Lang. Screenplay: Alfred Hayes, based on the play by Clifford Odets. Photography: Nicholas Musuraca. Music: Roy Webb, with direction by C. Bakaleinikoff. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, Marilyn Monroe, J. Carroll Naish, Keith Andes, Silvio Minciotti. (105 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy RKO)

Clash by Night moves the focus of attention to a woman (Barbara Stanwyck) forced to choose between her fisherman-husband Paul Douglas and, believe if you will, sexy movie projectionist Robert Ryan. (We here at the Pickford Theater felt we had the world's only desirable projectionist.) The dilemma is a frequent one for small-town women facing often limited romantic choices: whether to seek security or passion. Stanwyck, as always, takes excellent care of herself in a relationship; Marilyn Monroe, as another town resident, provides occasional respite from the sometimes grim proceedings.

Little Women (RKO, 1933)
Director: George Cukor. Screenplay: Sarah Y. Mason and Victor Heerman, from the novel by Louisa May Alcott. Photography: Henry Gerrard. Music: Max Steiner. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Paul Lukas, Frances Dee, Jean Parker, Edna May Oliver, Douglass Montgomery, Henry Stephenson, Spring Byington. (115 min., b&w; 16mm, LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Perhaps no director has been more successful in adapting literature to film than George Cukor. In films such as David Copperfield, Camille, and tonight's Little Women, Cukor faithfully brought literary classics to the big screen while, at the same time, working in the advantages offered by the film medium: visual descriptions of settings and characters, facial gestures, lingering cameras meant to illustrate a point, music to captivate the audience. In just her fourth film, Katharine Hepburn had the courage and talent (as well as Cukor's confidence) to improve Louisa May Alcott's character Jo, creating a memorably intelligent, fiercely independent tomboy. Further glories come from the superior Max Steiner score, particularly effective in the several scenes requiring handkerchiefs.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Alice Adams (RKO, 1935)
Director: George Stevens. Screenplay: Dorothy Yost and Mortimer Offner; adaptation by Jane Murfin from Booth Tarkington's novel. Photography: Robert de Grasse. Music: Max Steiner; direction by Roy Webb. Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Fred MacMurray, Fred Stone, Evelyn Venable, Frank Albertson, Ann Shoemaker, Charles Grapewin, Grady Sutton, Hedda Hopper, Jonathan Hale, Janet McLeod, Virginia Howell, Zeffie Tilbury, Ella McKenzie, Hattie McDaniel. (99 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy of Turner Entertainment)

This film makes it difficult to understand how anyone in this period could have labeled Katharine Hepburn "box-office poison." In South Renford, "the town with a future", middle-class Alice Adams (Katharine Hepburn) desperately pursues upward mobility, a way out of her lonely existence. She does so primarily by attending upper-class social functions (what her brother calls "frozen-faced" events) where (in pitiful, heart-wrenching scenes) she is routinely ignored by everyone except world-class undesirable Grady Sutton. Enter tall, dark and handsome, if not necessarily talkative, Fred MacMurray. The film contains one of cinema's classic dinner scenes, a primer on what food not to serve in hot weather.

Our Town (United Artists, 1940)
Director: Sam Wood. Screenplay: Thornton Wilder, Frank Craven, & Harry Chandlee, from the play by Wilder. Photography: Bert Glennon. Music: Aaron Copland. Cast: William Holden, Martha Scott, Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee, Stuart Erwin, Frank Craven, Philip Wood, Ruth Toby. (90 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection)

Bosley Crowther in the New York Times reviewed Our Town rapturously: "There is reason to take hope this morning, to find renewed faith and confidence in mankind--and, incidentally, in the artistry of the screen. For the film version of Thornton Wilder's prize-winning play, Our Town opened yesterday at the Music Hall. This is a picture which utilizes the fullest prerogatives of the camera to participate as a recognized witness to a simple dramatic account of people's lives...Frank Craven as the druggist and narrator is the perfect New England Socrates-- honest, sincere, and profound...We hesitate to employ superlatives, but of Our Town the least we can say is that it captures on film the simple beauties and truths of humble folks as very few pictures ever do." Such overwrought praise will doubtless have many Pickford patrons clamoring to see the film, and the more cynical vowing never to come within fifty feet of any theater screening Our Town. To the latter group, we would admit the film does feature rather wooden pacing (befitting a man of Sam Wood's name and talent), yet Our Town's innovative deep focus camera techniques and Aaron Copland's score should provide sufficient excuse to see the film. Finally, attendance can serve as a memorial to the thousands of high school students forced to put on this play.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Dr. Socrates (Warner Bros., 1935)
Director: William Dieterle. Screenplay: Robert Lord; adapted by Mary C. McCall, Jr., from a story by W. R. Burnett. Photography: Tony Gaudio. Cast: Paul Muni, Ann Dvorak, Barton MacLane, Raymond Brown, Ralph Remley, Hal K. Dawson, Grace Stafford, Samuel Hinds, Helen Lowell, John Eldredge, Robert Barrat. (70 min., b&w; 3/4" videocassette, LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Paul Muni's "Great Man" roles (Seven Faces, The Story of Louis Pasteur, The Life of Emile Zola, Juarez) transfixed audiences during the 1920's and 1930's, but today we find far more compelling his depictions of ordinary men trapped in dangerous situations (I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, Bordertown, Dr. Socrates, among others). In these smaller settings far removed from the world stage, his indignant outbursts at injustices garner terrific emotional sympathy. Here Muni (described by film historian Thomas Schatz as the studio's idea of a George Arliss/Jimmy Cagney hybrid) is a small-town doctor who becomes medicine man to a gangster. Moving the gangster film from an urban to a more rural setting definitely added freshness to what was becoming an increasingly stale genre by 1935. One only wishes Warners had selected a more distinguished actor for the gangster role than Barton MacLane (James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and Humphrey Bogart come immediately to mind), for Muni definitely overshadows his colleague. Yet, whatever its faults, Dr. Socrates stands far superior to the 1939 remake King of the Underworld starring Kay Francis.

Followed By:

The Millionaire (Warner Bros., 1931)
Director: John Adolfi. Screenplay: Dialog by Booth Tarkington, from the E. D. Biggers' story "Idle Hands." Photography: J. Van Trees. Cast: George Arliss, Evalyn Knapp, David Manners, Florence Arliss, Noah Beery, J. Farrell MacDonald, Bramwell Fletcher, James Cagney, Tully Marshall. (80 min., b&w; 3/4" videotape; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

George Arliss, like Paul Muni fond of portraying famous men (Disraeli, Alexander Hamilton, Voltaire, Cardinal Richelieu), here plays a business leader ordered to relax for six months. He finds refuge and recommitment as a gas station attendant and mentor to David Manners, here taking a break from horror films.

The Stranger's Return (MGM, 1933)
Director: King Vidor. Screenplay: Brown Holmes and Phil Strong. Photography: William Daniels. Cast: Miriam Hopkins, Lionel Barrymore, Franchot Tone, Stu Erwin, Beulah Bondi, Grant Mitchell. (88 min., b/w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

"The Stranger's Return is King Vidor's most neglected film, a virtually unknown comic drama of jealousy and opportunity in America's heartland. In his last assignment for MGM before breaking away for Our Daily Bread, his independently produced celebration of agricultural cooperatives, Vidor likewise touches on the Jeffersonian theme of Western farming as safety-valve for urban unemployed--but here within a post-State Fair cycle of light rural entertainment. A sharp-tongued Miriam Hopkins takes refuge from the Depression at the prosperous Iowa farm of her irascible 85-year-old grandfather (impersonated in his patented geezer style by 55-year-old Lionel Barrymore). She's envied by Grandpa's catty extended family--who can't resist waiting up to see `a relative that ain't living with her husband'--and attracted to a married neighbor (dapper Franchot Tone, as incongruous in overalls as might be imagined). The performances are universally superior to those in Our Daily Bread, and the complex plotting brings its spirit closer to Restoration comedy than to rural realism--Volpone in the rye."--Scott Simmon.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Ah, Wilderness (MGM, 1935)
Director: Clarence Brown. Screenplay: Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich, from the play by Eugene O'Neill. Photography: Clyde deVinna. Music: Herbert Stothart. Cast: Wallace Beery, Lionel Barrymore, Aline MacMahon, Eric Linden, Cecilia Parker, Mickey Rooney, Spring Byington, Charles Grapewin, Frank Albertson, Edward Nugent, Bonita Granville. (101 min., b&w; 35mm, print courtesy Turner Entertainment)

During the 1930's, MGM frequently gave the "glossy" treatment to literary adaptations, on occasion draining all life and zest from the original work. Not so with Ah, Wilderness. (Small town films seemingly retain emotional impact, force and life far better than costume or historical dramas, which often become obsessed with sets and historical accuracy.) Credit likely goes to director Clarence Brown who, though proficient in numerous genres, always did well with Americana-style films (Of Human Hearts, The Human Comedy, and The Yearling, among others). In tonight's film, New England family life circa 1905- 1906 is lovingly chronicled. Highlights include a high-school commencement scene and Lionel Barrymore's standout performance as family patriarch. Critical dissent has been infrequent: Pauline Kael called the film "remote from Eugene O'Neill's life," and an O'Neill dream "based on Booth Tarkington's world."

Babbitt (First National, 1934)
Director: William Keighley. Screenplay: Ben Markson, from the Sinclair Lewis novel; adaptation by Mary McCall, Jr.; additional dialog by John Hughes. Photography: Arthur Todd. Music: Arthur Todd. Cast: Aline MacMahon, Guy Kibbee, Claire Dodd, Maxine Doyle, Glen Boles, Minna Gombell, Alan Hale, Berton Churchill, Russell Hicks. (72 min., b&w, 3/4" videocassette; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

No one was physically better suited to the part of George Babbitt than Guy Kibbee. He singularly personifies the self- satisfied, smug Rotary Club member/civic booster, who sees nothing wrong with society except for those persons trying to change it. That said, this version of Babbitt, like a previous 1924 effort, proves that this Sinclair Lewis novel apparently cannot be successfully transferred to the screen without major Hollywood-style alterations. For our part, we'd place George Babbitt right in the center of a Kings Row or Peyton Place-style maelstrom and watch the sparks fly and calculated smugness disappear. Variety slugged the film for its slow pacing and then exhibited its own big-city prejudices by adding: Babbitt "is not big time stuff, though it should get business at the nabes."

Followed By:

Party Wire (Columbia, 1935)
Director: Erle Kenton. Screenplay: Bruce Manning; adaptation by Ethel Hill and John H. Lawson. Photographer: Al Siegler. Cast: Jean Arthur, Victor Jory, Helen Lowell, Charley Grapewin, Robert Allen, Clara Bandick, Geneva Mitchell, Maude Eburne, Ed Le Saint, Charles Middleton. (70 min., b&w, 3/4" videocassette: LC Collection, courtesy Columbia)

For those growing up in small town or rural locations, the opportunity to eavesdrop on party-line telephone conversations occasionally (or often) proves tempting. Party Wire, a relatively minor effort from Columbia, playfully shows what evils can result. Among others, Jean Arthur (soon to gain stardom with her role in John Ford's The Whole Town's Talking) and Charley Grapewin provide comic relief.%

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Ruggles of Red Gap (Paramount, 1935)
Director: Leo McCarey. Screenplay: Walter De Leon and Harland Thompson; adaptation by Humphrey Pearson, from the novel by Harry Leon Wilson. Photography: Alfred Gilks. Cast: Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, ZaSu Pitts, Roland Young, Leila Hyams, Maude Eburne. (92 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal)

Fresh off his success as Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty, Charles Laughton here portrays an equally famous character in British legend and lore--the butler. Laughton's boss, woman-chasing Roland Young, loses him via poker to Mary Boland and Charlie Ruggles, members of Red Gap, Washington's extremely small social elite. Laughton, in understated butler fashion, worriedly responds: "North America, my lord. Quite an untamed country I understand." But once in America, he finds not uncouth backwoodsmen but rather a more egalitarian society that soon has Laughton reciting the Gettysburg Address and opening a restaurant. The "Ruggles" character as portrayed here by Laughton furnishes an interesting contrast to the other two Hollywood deans of British butlerdom: Robert Greig and Eric Blore.

Ruggles of Red Gap (Paramount, 1935)% Director: Leo McCarey. Screenplay: Walter De Leon and Harland Thompson; adaptation by Humphrey Pearson, from the novel by Harry Leon Wilson. Photography: Alfred Gilks. Cast: Charles Laughton, Mary Boland, Charlie Ruggles, ZaSu Pitts, Roland Young, Leila Hyams, Maude Eburne. (92 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal)

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Fancy Pants (Paramount, 1950)
Director: George Marshall. Screenplay: Edmund Hartmann and Robert O'Brien, based on a story by Harry Leon Wilson. Photography: Charles B. Lang, Jr. Music: Score by Van Cleave, with songs by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. Cast: Bob Hope, Lucille Ball, Bruce Cabot, Jack Kirkwood, Lea Penman, Hugh French, Eric Blore, Joseph Vitale. (92 min., Technicolor, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount)

This remake of Ruggles of Red Gap makes some slight situation changes, featuring Bob Hope impersonating British royalty in a small New Mexico town. Hope's insouciance makes him simply perfect for the role, though he's topped at times by Lucille Ball as the husband-hunting woman who brought Hope to New Mexico in the first place. Especially funny is a fox-hunting trip with visiting President Teddy Roosevelt. Pickford patrons should take seriously Hope's early admonition that "there will be no popcorn eating during this performance."

Theodora Goes Wild (Columbia, 1936)
Director: Richard Boleslawski. Screenplay: Sidney Buchman, from an original story by Mary McCarthy. Photography: Joseph Walker. Musical Director: Morris Stoloff. Cast: Irene Dunne, Melvyn Douglas, Thomas Mitchell, Thurston Hall, Elizabeth Risdon, Margaret McWade, Spring Byington, Rosalind Keith, Nana Bryant, Henry Kolker, Leona Maricle, Robert Greig, Frederick Burton. (94 min., b&w, 3/4" videocassette; LC Collection, courtesy Columbia)

This hilarious screwball comedy makes a serious point: that small towns can inhibit the talents and behavior of residents. Lynnfield scion Irene Dunne publishes, under a pseudonym, a racy national best-seller. Needless to say, many local residents (especially the Lynnfield literary circle, at one point amusingly compared to a clowder of cats) condemn the book, all the while hungrily reading excerpts running in the local paper published by "let's make this a livelier place" Thomas Mitchell. Dunne's serene acceptance of life faces a serious challenge from carefree illustrator Melvyn Douglas. The last half of the film combines doses of Ninotchka (cosmopolitan man seeks to loosen up a restrained, ill-cultured woman) with dashes of The Awful Truth (all for love, a man wrecks a woman's life and she returns the favor).

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Together Again (Columbia, 1944)
Director: Charles Vidor. Screenplay: Virginia Van Upp and F. Hugh Herbert, from story by Stanley Russell and Herbert Billerman. Photography: Joseph Walker. Music: Werner Heymann. Cast: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Charles Coburn, Alona Freeman, Jerome Courtland, Elizabeth Patterson, Charles Dingle, Walter Baldwin, Fern Emmett, Frank Puglia. (100 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Columbia)

Together Again closely resembles Theodora Goes Wild, except this time Charles Boyer rather than Melvyn Douglas seeks to liberate the mind, body and spirit of Irene Dunne. She's a widowed small-town Vermont mayor, he a New York sculptor hired to create something impressive and heroic for the town square. Charles Coburn plays matchmaker, in his usual high comic fashion.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Dr. Kildare Goes Home (MGM, 1940)
Director: Harold S. Bucquet. Screenplay: Harry Ruskin and Willis Goldbeck, based on an original story by Max Brand and Willis Goldbeck. Photography: Harold Rosson. Cast: Lew Ayres, Lionel Barrymore, Laraine Day, Samuel S. Hinds. (78 min., b&w, 35mm; print courtesy Turner Entertainment)

"From 1938 to 1947, this series, set in Blair General Hospital, was one of the most successful and entertaining of all. None of the Kildare films is bad; a few are mediocre, but most of the films are quite enjoyable...--&1Leonard Maltin's TV Movies. In tonight's entry, Dr. Kildare returns for a visit to his hometown. As with almost all of the Kildare films, Lionel Barrymore steals the show with his cantankerous portrayal of Dr. Gillespie.

So's Your Old Man (Famous Players-Lasky, 1926)
Director: Gregory La Cava. Screenplay: J. Clarkson Miller, from an adaptation by Howard Emmett Rogers; titles by Julian Johnson. Photography: George Webber. Cast: W.C. Fields, Alice Joyce, Charles Rogers, Kittens Reichert, Marcia Harris, Julia Ralph, Frank Montgomery, Jerry Sinclair. (ca. 65 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount)

Followed By:

It's the Old Army Game (Famous Players-Lasky, 1926)
Director: Edward Sutherland. Screenplay: Tom J. Geraghty and J. Clarkson Miller; titles by Ralph Spence. Photography: Alvin Wyckoff. Cast: W.C. Fields, Louise Brooks, Blanche Ring, William Gaxton, Mary Foy, Mickey Bennett. (ca. 70 min., silent, b&w, 16mm; LC Collection,courtesy Paramount)

Our two 5:00 p.m. films feature W. C. Fields before he hit his motion picture comic stride and while he still sported a moustache. For our purposes, Fields exemplifies the ne'er-do- well, no account but occasionally lovable sort found in small- town life. In So's Your Old Man, Waukegus, New Jersey resident Fields claims invention of shatterproof automobile glass. His road to financial success, of course, takes many hilarious detours, including a foray into his classic "golf game" routine and inspired pantomime to a Spanish princess. That the film had as director the accomplished Gregory LaCava helped elevate it above other Fields silent efforts.
It's the Old Army Games has Fields as pharmacist Elmer Prettywillie (Fields was a master at coming up with odd credit names), and features three famous Fields routines: "The Golf Game," "A Peaceful Morning," and "The Family Flivver." Also of note is Louise Brooks, in one of her too infrequent film roles. Note: our print has some flash titles, which will be simultaneously translated when necessary.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

The Bank Dick (Universal, 1940)
Director: Edward Cline. Screenplay: Mahatma Kane Jeeves (W.C. Fields). Photography: Milton Krasner. Musical Director: Charles Previn. Cast: W.C. Fields, Una Merkel, Franklin Pangborn, Shemp Howard, Jessie Ralph, Richard Purcell, Cora Witherspoon, Grady Sutton, Evelyn Del Rio. (74 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal)

This absolutely hilarious yarn concerns Lompoc resident Egbert Souse (accent grave over the e), played by W. C. Fields, whose basic life activities are drinking, smoking, reading detective magazines, and spending time with the boys. The story, logic noticeably missing, careens briskly from gag to gag, from Fields substituting for inebriated film director A. Pismo Clam ("I can't get the celluloid out of my blood") to a breathtakingly destructive car chase ("The resale value of this car is going to be nil"). Fieldsian genius abounds in lines that deliberately flaunt production code standards.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Followed By:

The Cub (World Film Corporation, 1915)
Director: Maurice Tourneur, assisted by Clarence Brown. Screenplay: Thomas Buchanan. Cast: Martha Hedman, John Hines, Robert Cummings, D. J. Flanagan. (ca. 70 min., silent, tinted color, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy the American Film Institute and the Oregon Historical Society)

The Cub is a modest little comedy about a young reporter sent out of town to cover the outbreak of a Hatfield-McCoy style feud in the hills. Essentially a `rube' comedy in reverse, the wise-cracking city-bred youth begins his country education when he arrives at the train station, asks for a taxi, and is handed a donkey. John Hines, as the reporter, meets the sophisticated local school teacher (Martha Hedman) and falls in love, but not before becoming involved in the feud. (Hines has a tendency to work too hard at being funny but is otherwise okay, especially in the introductory scenes.) Tourneur directs masterfully throughout and many scenes are memorable for their scenic beauty and dramatic composition. The film's best moments come at the end, however, when a band of marauding mountaineers attacks and literally destroys a house."--Patrick Loughney

SEPARATE ADMISSION

A Girl's Folly (World Film Corporation, 1917)
Director: Maurice Tourneur, with assistance from Clarence Brown. Screenplay: Frances Marion and Maurice Tourneur. Photography: John Van Der Broek. Cast: Robert Warwick, June Elvidge, Doris Kenyon, Jane Adair, Johnny Hines, Chester Barnett. (ca. 55 min., silent, b&w, 35mm; LC print in the AFI/Kirkland Collection.)

"Released only a matter of days after The Iced Bullet, Maurice Tourneur's apologue of the charm and deceptiveness of life, as reconstructed in the studio, consigns to the background the possible common ground between fiction and the real world (as occurred in the films of Rex Barker) in order to concentrate on the circularity of events and their belonging to a single, playful sentimental intrigue. The stars of this dance live their respective love stories without distinguishing the phases of their romance from those before the camera of the `faked' Western they are shooting, to the extent that several quips away from the set are organized according to the logic of a second screenplay, criss-crossing the first, almost a completion of what the director of the `film within the film' has left incomplete. Just when this round dance of courtship, innocuous flirting, improvised farewells and reconciliations (all `true', given that they are outside the world of the cinema) is about to end, the two belated witnesses to the happy ending start all over again: `Gee, but ain't that romantick!' exclaims a railroad worker, watching Driscoll and Vivian walking away hand in hand (as if in a film) towards the horizon; and the stationmaster rejoins with a shrug of the shoulders: `romantick, nuthin!...That's movin' pictures!' It's not the only in-joke: you will see in A Girl's Folly other great craftsmen of the `movin pictures' in the act of `simulating' their own true identities. Tourneur himself, in all probability, and Ben Carre, and the director Emile Chautard; but above all Josef von Sternberg, in a precious cameo bearing witness to his activity as assistant director and adviser to William A. Brady, president of Paragon Films."--Paolo Cherchi Usai, in Sulla via di Hollywood (The Path to Hollywood), 1911- 1920.

Fury (MGM, 1936)
Director: Fritz Lang. Screenplay: Norman Krasna, adaptation by Bartlett Cormack and Fritz Lang. Photography: Joseph Ruttenberg. Music: Franz Waxman. Cast: Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, George Walcott, Frank Albertson, Jonathan Hale. (94 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Fritz Lang made only one film--tonight's Fury--for MGM, and the reason why is no great mystery. This hard-hitting drama on the murderous hypocrisy of purportedly law-abiding small-town citizens simply did not fit into the MGM corporate vision of the small town as America's value custodian. Everyman Spencer Tracy heads to meet fiancee Sylvia Sidney, but circumstantial evidence lands him in jail on suspicion of kidnapping. Mounting citizen hysteria eventually culminates in the jail being torched in a memorably chilling scene. Fury, which required an extremely wide acting range from its male lead, launched Spencer Tracy to stardom.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

They Won't Forget (Warner Bros., 1937)
Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Screenplay: Aben Kandel and Robert Rossen, from the novel "Death in the Deep South," by Ward Greene. Photography: Arthur Edeson. Music: Adolph Deutsch. Cast: Claude Rains, Edward Norris, Allyn Joslyn, Linda Perry, Cy Kendall, E. Alyn Warren, Clifford Saubier, Ann Shoemaker, Donald Briggs, Elisha Cook, Jr., Lana Turner. (95 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Based on the true story of a murder and subsequent lynching of an innocent suspect, They Won't Forget is a masterpiece marred only by some ineffectual second-level acting (of itself, unusual for a 1930's Warners film, where secondary characters composed a studio strong suit). A young girl (Lana Turner in a memorably erotic debut) has been murdered and the best evidence, of which there is precious little, points to either a black janitor (Clinton Rosemand) or a teacher newly arrived from the North (Edward Norris). Ambitious District Attorney Claude Rains, seeking politically favorable publicity, eschews going after the janitor ("Anybody can convict a Negro in the South") and focuses his sights on the greater attention to be garnered by convicting a Yankee (Note: in real life, the teacher was Jewish, a situation only slightly hinted at by the film.). Many marvelous scenes lead to a stunning conclusion featuring one of most brilliant symbols ever used in a motion picture (this one involves a train and mail pouch). Mervyn LeRoy notes in his autobiography Mervyn LeRoy: Take One that he always attempted to begin and end films with striking, memorable shots. Lana Turner's sensual strut (as LeRoy said, "When she walked down the street, in the film, her bosom seemed to move in rhythm, a rhythm all its own.") and the closing train scene certainly make brilliant use of this philosophy. Trivia note: This was LeRoy's last film at Warners, before heading to MGM and producing The Wizard of Oz.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Daughters Courageous (Warner Bros., 1939)
Director: Michael Curtiz. Screenplay: Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein, from the play "Fly Away Home," by Dorothy Bennett and Irving White. Photography: James Wong Howe. Music: Max Steiner. Cast: John Garfield, Claude Rains, Jeffrey Lynn, Fay Bainter, Donald Crisp, May Robson, Frank McHugh, Dick Foran, George Humbert, Berton Churchill, Priscilla Lane, Rosemary Lane. (107 min., b&w, 35mm; print courtesy Turner Entertainment)

A follow-up to Four Daughters, with many of the same principals in a story far different. Claude Rains, who walked out on his family many years before, returns just before wife Fay Bainter is to remarry. He puts aside his roaming tendencies long enough to settle certain family problems. John Garfield's bravura debut in Four Daughters led to top-billing in Daughters Courageous, again playing a tough, hard-bitten young man. An illustration of the fine product studios routinely turned out in the halcyon days of the studio system.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Four Daughters (Warner Bros., 1938)
Director: Michael Curtiz. Screenplay: Julius J. Epstein and Lenore Coffee, from an original story by Fannie Hurst. Photography: Ernest Haller. Music: Max Steiner. Cast: Claude Rains, May Robson, Priscilla Lane, Lola Lane, Rosemary Lane, Gale Page, Dick Foran, Jeffrey Lynn, Frank McHugh, John Garfield, Vera Lewis, Tom Dugan, Eddie Acuff, Donald Kerr. (90 min., b&w, 35mm; print courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Fannie Hurst's novel Sister Act served as inspiration for this small-town family saga of Claude Rains and his four looking- for-love daughters. If this had been an MGM production, three- hankie scenes would have spelled heartwarming moments (Compare this family with the Hardys). Because it's a Warners film, though, we can count on quick pacing, soap-opera plot elements, and even a social commentary angle, this time provided by bitter rebel John Garfield (in his first large role). Underrated director Michael Curtiz, always at home in melodrama, splendidly puts all the pieces together, though not without his usual acidic exchanges with the studio, as witness this memo from Jack Warner (listed in Rudy Behlmer's Inside Warner Bros): "If you will stop all that superfluous roaming camera, Mike, you will make a great picture, as you always have. For your information, in the case of Sister Act [Four Daughters] 2000 feet had to be cut out of everything you worked so hard and wasted your time on..."

The Magnificent Ambersons (RKO, 1942)
Director: Orson Welles. Screenplay: Orson Welles, based on the novel by Booth Tarkington. Photography: Stanley Cortez. Music: Bernard Herrmann. Cast: Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Anne Baxter, Tim Holt, Ray Collins, Agnes Moorehead, Erskine Sanford, Richard Bennett. (88 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Arguably the film that doomed Orson Welles' career, The Magnificent Ambersons furnishes a textbook case of brilliant filmmaking at the expense of commercial popularity and success. A 1982 Sight and Sound poll of international film critics voted Ambersons the seventh greatest film of all time, yet the film has never gained much of an audience. Perhaps the lack of popularity is due to what many consider the fundamental miscasting of Tim Holt as George Amberson, and the almost complete lack of any sympathetic characters. More likely, RKO's recutting the film (without Welles' permission) from 135 to 88 minutes after disastrous previews altered much of the film's internal dynamics, pacing and mood. Nevertheless, even in truncated form, the film is rife with brilliance, from innovative use of cinematic time (best exhibited in an opening sequence on changing fashions) to Stanley Cortez' ever-moving camera, featuring vertiginous camera angles and stunning tracking shots. Popular approval the film cannot claim, but greatness is another matter.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Possibly Alfred Hitchcock's greatest film, Shadow of a Doubt is controlled, suspenseful filmmaking at its finest. In the quaint town of Santa Rosa, California, the Newton family, after listening to another detective lesson from neighbor and aspiring mystery writer Hume Cronyn, realize they need a spark from outside. Enter worldly, beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten), whose previous visits always proved enchanting, especially to teenage daughter "Charlie" (Teresa Wright). But Cotten now is a changed, manipulative, bitter man, believing "the whole world's a joke to me." Of the family members, only the sensitive Wright notices his transformation, a concern that becomes horror and loathing once she suspects he is the fugitive "Merry Widow" murderer. The suspense mounts rapidly with superb camerawork and Dimitri Tiomkin's score. Throughout, the small-town atmosphere dominates. In one scene, Wright, seeking information on the murders, rushes to get to the public library before closing time; a traffic cop pulls her aside and sternly lectures her for jay- walking. For the small-town realism, thanks go to Thornton Wilder, who rated that rarest of tributes: a full screen credit from Alfred Hitchcock.

It's a Wonderful Life (Liberty Films/RKO, 1946)
Director: Frank Capra. Screenplay: Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Frank Capra, based on a story by Philip Van Doren Stern; additional scenes by Albert Hackett. Photography: Joseph Walker and Joseph Biroc. Music: Dimitri Tiomkin. Cast: James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Henry Travers, Beulah Bondi, Frank Faylen, Ward Bond, H.B. Warner, Gloria Grahame. (129 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection)

Almost everyone has seen this sentimental Christmas classic, though possibly never through a small-town prism. Viewed in this context, It's a Wonderful Life acquires new depth and poignancy as the saga of a good man perennially frustrated in attempts to leave his hometown. Cynics maintain the film's popularity derives solely from its public domain copyright status, and thus frequent revival on television. We disagree, offering as proof an amended version of an old adage: well-done sentiment, no less than sex, sells. For our final thought on It's a Wonderful Life and Frank Capra, for that matter, we offer the following comment (from Pauline Kael, we believe): "No one has ever defined the sentimentality of cynicism as well as Frank Capra. If someone else ever does, shoot that person immediately."

The Stranger (International Pictures/RKO, 1946)
Director: Orson Welles. Screenplay: Anthony Veiller, from a story by Victor Trivas. Photography: Russell Metty. Music: Bronislau Kaper. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, Orson Welles, Philip Merivale, Richard Long, Byron Keith, Billy House, Konstantin Shayne, Martha Wentworth, Isabel O'Madigan. (95 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection)

Tonight's film puts the lie to those who claim Orson Welles could not turn out a commercially viable film. After the commercial failures of The Magnificent Ambersons and Journey Into Fear, Welles gladly sought out almost any assignment. Producer S. P. Eagle (i.e. Sam Spiegel) obliged, offering Welles a chance to direct, provided he maintained an extremely tight budget and shooting schedule. What resulted was an entertaining tale of investigator Edward G. Robinson pursuing Nazi criminal Orson Welles to a small Connecticut town. The film, however, sports few Wellesian touches, other than some stylish camera shots and a slam-bang finale in a clock tower. Welles has always scorned the finished product. Joseph McBride quotes him as saying, "The Stranger is the worst of my pictures. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else. It is absolutely of no interest to me." Such comments go far toward explaining Orson Welles' failure within the Hollywood system. As John Ford, Howard Hawks and others learned, a director must turn out some "uninteresting" but profitable pictures in order to gain the financial freedom to pursue more personal and artistic works.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

June Bride (Warner Bros., 1948)
Director: Bretaigne Windust. Screenplay: Ranald MacDougall, based on the play by Eileen Tighe and Graeme Lorimer. Photography: Ted McCord. Music: David Buttolph. Cast: Bette Davis, Robert Montgomery, Fay Bainter, Betty Lynn, Tom Tully, Barbara Bates, Jerome Cowan, Mary Wickes, James Burke, Raymond Roe, Ray Montgomery, Marjorie Bennett, George O'Hanlon, Sandra Gould, Debbie Reynolds. (97 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Bette Davis' career had been in a recent downslide, but this pleasing film revived her popularity, as well as showcasing her aptitude for comedy. Magazine editor Davis wants her House and Garden style magazine to cover a small-town June wedding. The worldly-wise, cosmopolitan magazine staff (including Davis' on- again, off-again lover Robert Montgomery) expects to do a dull story and have their superiority over the hinterlands proven. Instead, they find quite a few unexpected stories and gain some needed humility. Debbie Reynolds' film debut.

Out of the Past (RKO, 1947)
Director: Jacques Tourneur. Screenplay: Geoffrey Homes, based on his novel, "Build My Gallows High." Photography: Nicholas Musuraca. Music: Roy Webb. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Jane Greer, Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb, Virginia Huston, Paul Valentine, Dickie Moore. (97 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

We've stretched our definition of small town once more (but who's counting?) to allow revival of this knock-out film noir, arguably the finest ever in the genre. Robert Mitchum hides out in a small Nevada town, hoping to escape a past featuring gangster Kirk Douglas and beautiful but exceedingly dangerous Jane Greer. Mitchum's laconic acting style has doomed several films, but fits perfectly tonight's entry, lending a dreamlike, sense-of-impending- doom atmosphere. Out of the Past also features Nick Musuraca's stunning black-and-white cinematography, thrilling and unexpected plot twists, as well as superb dialogue ("She can't be all bad; no one is." Mitchum's reply: She comes the closest."). A film that looks better with each passing year.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Ride the Pink Horse (Universal-International, 1947)
Director: Robert Montgomery. Screenplay: Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer, based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes. Photography: Russell Metty. Music: Frank Skinner. Cast: Robert Montgomery, Thomas Gomez, Rita Conde, Iris Flores, Wanda Hendrix, Grandon Rhodes, Tito Renaldo. (101 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal)

An unusual film. For those of you who saw our screening of Spectre of the Rose (another Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer adaptation) a few years back, this should not surprise; these guys specialized in tossing offbeat elements into melodramatic situations. Robert Montgomery heads to a small New Mexico town, hoping to settle scores with someone who once killed a friend of his. As in many films noir, some of the best dialogue is aimed at that archetype--the noir woman (here played by Andrea King): "She has a dead fish where her heart ought to be." "A dead fish with a bit of perfume on it."). James Agee lauded the film for social reasons: "Ride the Pink Horse is practically revolutionary for a West Coast picture; it obviously intends to show that Mexicans and Indians are capable of great courage and loyalty, even to a white American, and can help him out of a hole if they like him."

The Sullivans (20th Century-Fox, 1944)
Director: Lloyd Bacon. Screenplay: Mary C. McCall, Jr. from a story by Edward Doherty and Jules Schermer. Photography: Lucien Andriot. Music: Cyril J. Mockridge. Cast: Anne Baxter, Thomas Mitchell, Selena Royle, Edward Ryan, Trudy Marshall, John Campbell, James Cardwell, John Alvin, George Offerman, Jr., Ward Bond, Bobby Driscoll, Marvin Davis, Buddy Swan, Billy Cummings, Johnny Calkins. (111 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Twentieth Century-Fox)

This tale of five Waterloo, Iowa brothers determined to remain together at all costs shows small-town patriotism and loyalty at its noblest--and most tragic. From the film's first hour featuring the five brothers as typical, playful, prankish youngsters completely dedicated to one another, the film moves to their later teen years and the outbreak of World War II. Since they had always considered themselves inseparable, they make a fateful decision to enter the Navy as a group. The Sullivans is based on a real-life tragedy, which convinced the Navy to no longer allow members of the same family to serve on the same ship. We urge Pickford patrons to bring voluminous handkerchiefs.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

The Human Comedy (MGM, 1943)
Director: Clarence Brown. Screenplay: Howard Estabrook, from the story by William Saroyan. Photography: Harry Stradling. Musical Score: Herbert Stothart. Cast: Mickey Rooney, Frank Morgan, James Craig, Fay Bainter, Van Johnson, Jack Jenkins, John Craven, Mary Nash, Marsha Hunt, Ray Collins, Donna Reed, Dorothy Morris, Ann Avars, Henry O'Neill, Robert Mitchum. (118 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Reportedly MGM head Louis B. Mayer's favorite film, The Human Comedy indeed seems a likely candidate. Against a backdrop of abundant sentiment, persons of all classes mingle easily together; life is made complete only within the framework of religious, hard-working families; James Craig, latest in a long line of MGM Clark Gable wannabes, spends much of the film playing Rhett Butler; daughter Donna Reed "gets a lump in my throat every time I see the flag." What distinguishes the film in our eyes, however, is director Brown's masterful touch in making war loom ever present in Ithaca, California: military planes fly overhead; convoys and reporting soldiers hurry through town; telegrams arrive announcing war dead. These along with many other "bringing the war close to home" scenes, in addition to sensitive acting from two notorious hams (Mickey Rooney and Frank Morgan), are what make The Human Comedy truly special and perhaps account for the film's enormous popularity in 1943.

Courageous Dr. Christian (RKO, 1940)
Director: Bernard Vorhaus. Screenplay: Ring Lardner, Jr. and Ian McLellan Hunter. Photography: John Alton. Cast: Jean Hersholt, Dorothy Lovett, Robert Baldwin, Tom Neal, Maude Eburne, Vera Lewis, George Meader. (67 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Along with the Hardys, several other small-town series competed for attention: Blondie, Henry Aldrich, Scattergood Baines, and miracle medical/social worker Dr. Christian. In all, there were six Dr. Christian films, with Jean Hersholt playing the lead in every one. Hersholt's good work extended to real life, where he participated in many humanitarian activities; a special Oscar is occasionally given out in his memory.
The Courageous Dr. Christian, second film in the series, has the good doctor trying to solve medical and social problems in a poor section of town. Much of the social commentary reveals the hand of screenwriter Ring Lardner, Jr. (A Star is Born, Woman of the Year, M*A*S*H*), though this is not among his best efforts.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Sitting Pretty (20th Century-Fox, 1948)
Director: Walter Lang. Screenplay: F. Hugh Herbert, based on the novel by Gwen Davenport. Photography: Norbert Brodine. Music: Alfred Newman. Cast: Robert Young, Maureen O'Hara, Clifton Webb, Richard Haydn, Louise Allbritton, Randy Stuart, Ed Begley, Larry Olsen, Betty Ann Lynn, Anthony Sydes, Roddy McCaskill, John Russell. (84 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Twentieth Century-Fox)

After World War II, Americans increasingly began living in suburbs, which provided many of the virtues of small-town life (quiet, security, an unhurried lifestyle) as well as close access to the cultural opportunities of a large metropolitan area. Our series will reflect this shift by mixing in films set in suburbia with those in the more traditional small town.
Hummingbird Hill parents Robert Young and Maureen O'Hara hire Clifton Webb as babysitter, unaware he's a budding author eager to record his impressions in print. This popular comedy sparked a series of Mr. Belvedere films starring Webb. Credit for the witty lines goes to screenwriter F. Hugh Herbert, who later gained notoriety for using the scandalous word "virgin" in 1953's The Moon Is Blue.

The Leopard Man (RKO, 1943)
Director: Jacques Tourneur. Screenplay: Ardel Wray, with added dialog by Edward Dein, from the novel "Black Alibi," by Cornell Woolrich. Photography: Robert de Grasse. Music: Roy Webb. Cast: Dennis O'Keefe, Margo, Jean Brooks, Isabel Jewell, James Bell, Margaret Landry, Abner Biberman, Richard Martin, Tula Parma, Ben Bard. (66 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Russian-born Vladimir Ivan Leventon (Val Lewton), after a stint as story person for David O. Selznick, formed an unusual production unit at RKO in 1942. The studio granted Lewton almost complete artistic freedom, provided he turned films out quickly (within a month or so) and cheaply (typically $250,000 or less). Cat People, the unit's first release, achieved tremendous popular success, becoming a cultural phenomenon. Leopard Man, his third film, more closely resembles a psychological mystery than a true horror film, though one or two terrifying moments (what Lewton called a "bus," according to film scholar Joel E. Siegel) will send your pulse rate soaring. The spooky atmosphere shows up well in tonight's beautiful print made by the staff of the Library's own Motion Picture Conservation Center, located in Dayton, Ohio.

Followed By:

Curse of the Cat People (RKO, 1944)
Director: Gunther W. Fritsch and Robert Wise. Screenplay: DeWitt Bodeen. Photography: Nicholas Musuraca. Music: Roy Webb. Cast: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Jane Randolph, Ann Carter, Elizabeth Russell, Eve March, Julia Dean, Erford Gage, Sir Lancelot, Joel Davis, Juanita Alvarez. (70 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

RKO kept pressing producer Val Lewton for a sequel to Cat People, a phenomenally successful low-budget horror film. He apparently satisfied the studio with a campy title, and then produced a film unlike almost any other before or since. What resulted was a child's fantasy film of a young girl's efforts to communicate with her dead mother (Simone Simon of Cat People fame). Child psychologists have long admired tonight's film and sociologist David Riesman discussed the film extensively in his landmark study The Lonely Crowd. James Agee praised the film thusly: "Tardily, I arch my back and purr deep-throated approval of The Curse of the Cat People...the picture is in fact a brave, sensitive, and admirable little psychological melodrama about a lonely, six-year-old girl, her inadequate parents, a pair of recluses in a neighboring house, and the child's dead, insane mother, who becomes the friend and playmate of her imagination....the family servant who is one of the most unpretentiously sympathetic, intelligent, anti-traditional and individualized Negro characters I have ever seen presented on the screen."

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Smile (United Artists, 1975)
Director: Michael Ritchie. Screenplay: Jerry Belson. Photography: Conrad Hall. Music: Daniel Osborn, Leroy Holmes, and Charles Chaplin, with lyrics by Ritchie. Cast: Bruce Dern, Barbara Feldon, Michael Kidd, Geoffrey Lewis, Nicholas Pryor, Colleen Camp, Joan Prather, Denise Nickerson, Annette O'Toole, Maria O'Brien, Melanie Griffith. (113 min., color, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy MGM-Pathe)

A savage satire on the American beauty pageant, both the contestants and, especially, the producers. Though beauty contests are an extremely easy target for parody, Smile does not seem too mean-spirited, since many of the barbs are directed at non-contestants. Among the wacky cast of characters: head judge and mobile-home salesman Bruce Dern (Big Bob Freelander); Dern's son (Eric Sheen) exhibiting capitalism at its wickedest with his plan to photograph contestants in various stages of undress for sale to the curious; and pageant organizer Barbara Feldon using the contest as a frustration release for her ailing marriage.

Come to the Stable (20th Century-Fox, 1949)
Director: Henry Koster. Screenplay: Oscar Millard and Sally Benson, from story by Claire Boothe Luce. Photography: Joseph LaShelle. Music: Cyril Mockridge, with direction by Lionel Newman; Song "Through a Long and Sleepless Night" by Alfred Newman and Mack Gordon. Cast: Loretta Young, Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe, Elsa Lanchester, Thomas Gomez, Dorothy Patrick, Basil Ruysdael, Dooley Wilson, Regis Toomey, Mike Mazurki, Henri Letondal. (94 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Twentieth Century-Fox)

"Two French nuns arrive in New England to build a local hospital and melt the hearts of the local grumps. This old-time charmer simply brims with sweetness and light and is produced with high-class studio efficiency."--Leslie Halliwell.
Director Henry Koster made several religion-oriented films, namely (Come to the Stable, The Singing Nun, A Man Called Peter, The Story of Ruth, The Bishop's Wife, and The Robe. The juxtaposition of religious elements with ordinary secular existence clearly fascinated Koster as a filmmaker.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Welcome Stranger (Paramount, 1947)
Director: Elliott Nugent. Screenplay: Arthur Sheekman; adaptation by Sheekman and N. Richard Nash, from a story by Frank Butler. Photography: Lionel Lindon. Music Score: Robert Emmett Dolan; songs by Johnny Burke and James Van Heusen. Cast: Bing Crosby, Joan Caulfield, Barry Fitzgerald, Wanda Hendrix, Frank Faylen, Elizabeth Patterson, Robert Shayne, Larry Young, Percy Kilbride, Charles Dingle. (107 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal)

Typical Bing Crosby vehicle showcasing his take-it-easy acting style and singing talent. Crosby plays substitute doctor for vacationing Barry Fitzgerald (these two had battled along generational lines before in Going My Way), but Bing's bedside manner and personal style are far different. Dr. Crosby, of course, also specializes in croonology, and any malady is occasion for a song, including "Smile Right Back at the Sun," "My Heart is a Hobo," "Country Style," and "As Long as I'm Dreaming." Screenwriter Arthur Sheekman, who did some work for the Marx Brothers, contributes a witty script.

The Witches of Eastwick (Warner Bros., 1987)
Director: George Miller. Screenplay: Michael Cristofer, based on the novel by John Updike. Photography: Vilmos Zsigmond. Music: John Williams. Cast: Jack Nicholson, Cher, Susan Sarandon, Michelle Pfeiffer. (118 min., color, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Warner Bros.)

A cautionary tale on what havoc late night skull sessions can wreak. Three bored New England women (Susan Sarandon, Cher, and Michelle Pfeiffer) conjure up visions of an ideal lover, who turns out to be Devil-on-the-make Jack Nicholson. Lucifer Unbound rapidly assembles and satisfies the heavenly troika, but even he, plagued with other annoying devilish tendencies, cannot keep these women happy for long. Never taking itself too seriously, The Witches of Eastwick, directed by George Miller of Mad Max fame, proves great fun until derailed by an special effects orgy near the end. Those who find the "cherry" scene disgusting should be advised the original John Updike novel uses frogs.

Flamingo Road (Warner Bros., 1949)
Director: Michael Curtiz. Screenplay: Robert Wilder, with additional dialog by Edmund H. North; based on the play by Robert and Sally Wilder. Photography: Ted McCord. Music Score: Max Steiner, with direction by Ray Heindorf. Cast: Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott, Sydney Greenstreet, David Brian, Gladys George, Virginia Huston, Fred Clark, Gertrude Michael, Alice White, Sam McDaniel, Tito Vuolo. (94 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Turner Entertainment)

Small-town political machinations run rampant tonight, mostly thanks to some sassy dialogue from screenwriter Edmund H. North (In a Lonely Place, The Day the Earth Stood Still, &Patton). Sheriff and political boss Sydney Greenstreet (in one of his last film roles) sabotages the romance of deputy sheriff Zachary Scott and carnival worker Joan Crawford and, for added emphasis, sends her to prison on a bogus prostitution charge. Crawford, not one to let this sort of thing pass, finishes her prison term, courts and marries a powerful state politico (David Brian, in his film debut), and then returns to Flamingo Road to teach Greenstreet a civics lesson or two. Jack L. Warner, studio VP in charge of production, loved the sexy advertising campaign for Flamingo Road. He wrote Mort Blumenstock, head of publicity and advertising: "The campaign on Flamingo Road with that hot photo of Crawford with cigarette in mouth, gams showing, etc. had much to do with public going for this picture. Try use this type photo on any picture you can in future."--quoted in Inside Warner Bros. by Rudy Behlmer.

Stand By Me (Columbia, 1986)
Director: Rob Reiner. Screenplay: Gideon Evans, from the novella "The Body," by Stephen King. Photography: Thomas Del Ruth. Music: Jack Nitzsche. Cast: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Richard Dreyfuss, Kiefer Sutherland. (87 min., color, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Columbia)

Stephen King's novella The Body provided the inspiration for this charming Rob Reiner film. A teenager has been missing for some time, leading four of his contemporaries (headed by Wil Wheaton) to set out in the best Tom Sawyer fashion and locate the body. The quest remains secondary, of course, to the fastening friendships, trust, and courage under danger (mostly from town bully Kiefer Sutherland) the trip promotes.

SEPARATE ADMISSION Letter to Three Wives (20th Century-Fox, 1948)
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Screenplay: Mankiewicz, adapted by Vera Caspary from a novel by John Klempner. Photography: Arthur Miller. Music: Alfred Newman. Cast: Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas, Barbara Lawrence, Jeffrey Lynn, Connie Gilchrist, Florence Bates. (103 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Twentieth Century-Fox)

"Three wives (Crain, Sothern, Darnell) receive a letter addressed to all of them from a beautiful woman (Celeste Holm speaks the role) telling them that she has run away with one of their husbands. In three flashbacks the relationship of each woman with her husband and the husband's with the woman is shown. Each discovers cause for anxiety but the couples are finally reconciled. A well-made psychological comedy of morals with witty dialogue. One of Mankiewicz's best films."--Georges Sadoul. The film marked the debut of actor Paul Douglas and garnered two Oscars for Joseph Mankiewicz, for both direction and screenplay.

A Medal for Benny (Paramount, 1945)
Director: Irving Pichel. Screenplay: Frank Butler, with additional dialog by Jack Wagner, based on story by John Steinbeck and Jack Wagner. Photography: Lionel Lindon. Music: Victor Young. Cast: Dorothy Lamour, Arturo de Cordova, J. Carrol Naish, Mikhail Rasumny, Fernando Alvarado, Charley Dingle, Frank McHugh, Rosita Moreno, Grant Mitchell, Douglas Dumbrille. (77 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal)

Town authorities have booted J. Carrol Naish's troublesome son Benny out of town. Months later, word arrives that Benny had posthumously been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for extremely brave deeds. Fawning town leaders immediately lionize Benny as a model citizen, but the father cuts through the hypocrisy in a memorable speech.
Small towns through history have sent a larger portion of their young men and women to war than have larger metropolitan areas. In cinema, this has often led to sappy sentimental films of patriotic towns sending their brave young off to war. A Medal for Benny, from a story co-written by John Steinbeck, takes a far more cynical view of small-town patriotism.

Since You Went Away (Selznick/United Artists, 1944)
Director: John Cromwell. Screenplay: David O. Selznick, from the book by Margaret Buell Wilder. Photography: Stanley Cortez, Lee Garmes, Jack Cosgrove, and Clarence Slifer. Music: Max Steiner and Louis Forbes. Cast: Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Monty Woolley, Lionel Barrymore, Robert Walker, Agnes Moorehead, Hattie McDaniel. (170 min., b&w, 16mm; LC Collection, courtesy Viacom)

James Agee: "The duck that hatched a swan was lucky compared to David Oliver Selznick. He hatched Gone With the Wind and has been trying to hatch another ever since." Pauline Kael: "David O. Selznick must have had a reverent desire to do for the American home front what Hollywood had already done for the British home front in Mrs. Miniver. Leslie Halliwell: "When hubby is away at the war, his wife and family adopt stiff upper lips. Elaborate flagwaving investigation of the well-heeled American home front in World War II, with everyone brimming with goodwill and not a dry eye in the place. Absolutely superbly done, if it must be done at all, and a symposium of Hollywood values and techniques of the time."

Miracle of Morgan's Creek (Paramount, 1944)
Director: Preston Sturges. Screenplay: Preston Sturges. Photography: John Seitz. Music: Leo Shuken and Charles Bradshaw. Cast: Eddie Bracken, Betty Hutton, Diana Lynn, William Demarest, Porter Hall, Emory Parnell, Alan Bridge, Julius Tannen, Victor Potel. (99 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount)%% "While other directors found only tragedy and drama in the war, Preston Sturges saw opportunities for outrageous comedy. In this case, the events that come about after the sheriff's daughter, Emily Kockenlocher (Hutton) by name, sneaks out for a wild evening with a truck full of soldiers on their last night of leave. Wartime or not, no other film took a more skeptical and hilarious look at female virtue, parental authority and marriage in small-town America of hte 1940s. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek is beginning to stand out as the most timeless, unusual and astonishing comedy of the wartime period."--Patrick Loughney
Critic James Agee published lengthy reviews on The Miracle of Morgan's Creek in both Time and The Nation. We excerpt some of these incisive remarks here: The Miracle of Morgan's Creek "is a little like taking a nun on a roller coaster....a volcanically burgeoning small-town girl (Betty Hutton) gets drunk and is impregnated by one of several soldiers, she can't remember which...the result is a shambles from which they are delivered by a "miracle" which entails its own cynical comments on the sanctity of law, order, parenthood, and the American home--to say nothing of a number of cherished pseudo- folk beliefs about bright-lipped youth, childhood sweethearts, Mister Right, and the glamor of war....The Hays Office has either been hypnotized into a liberality for which it should be thanked, or has been raped in its sleep...I suspect that Sturges feels that conscience and comedy are incompatible. It would be hard for a man of talent to make a more self-destructive mistake."

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Hail the Conquering Hero (Paramount, 1944)
Director: Preston Sturges. Screenplay: Preston Sturges. Photography: John F. Seitz. Music score by Werner Heymann; Music directed by Sigmund Krumgold. Cast: Eddie Bracken, Ella Raines, Raymond Walburn, William Demarest, Franklin Pangborn, Elizabeth Patterson, Georgia Caine, Al Bridge, Freddie Steele, Bill Edwards, Harry Hayden, Jimmie Conlin. (101 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy MCA/Universal)

"Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith (Eddie Bracken), son of a World War I hero, is a Marine washout--chronic hay fever--who has spent World War II in hiding, too mortified to face his hometown and his adoring mother. A group of sympathetic Marines concoct a scheme to slip him back home as a veteran but they don't plan on the magnitude of his welcome. More than in any other picture, Preston Sturges managed here to have it both ways, to show affection for what he satirizes. The target is not the military so much as small-town homefront absurdities--bogus patriotic rhetoric, exaggerated hero worship, blustering politicians, even mother love. By the time of this, his last Paramount film, Sturges had honed his stock company into American film's greatest comic ensemble."--Scott Simmon

Heathers (New World, 1989)
Director: Michael Lehmann. Screenplay: Daniel Waters. Photography: Francis Kenney. Music: David Newman. Cast: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Shannen Doherty, Lisanne Falk, Kim Walker, Penelope Milford, Glenn Shadix, Lance Fenton. (102 min., color, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy New World)

Peer group internal conflict rages in tonight's entertaining black comedy. Four beautiful women (three named Heather) battle for supremacy at Westerburg High, home of the Rotweilers. Newcomer J. D. Slater, acting in high Jack Nicholson style, wants disorder ("Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs darling") and begins by murdering the nastiest Heather and making it appear a tragic teen suicide. Slater's remorseful response: "The white whale drank some bad plankton and smashed through a coffee table." But he learns that if one Heather goes down, other Heathers will grow in her place. As with the best teen films of the 1980's, the emphasis is not on conventional or believable plotting, but rather on incisive examination of teen lifestyles, values and desperation. Among the flood of recent teen films, Heathers stands out for its authenticity and dark comedy.

SEPARATE ADMISSION

Racing With the Moon (Paramount, 1984)
Director: Richard Benjamin. Screenplay: Steven Kloves. Photography: John Bailey. Music: Dave Grusin. Cast: Sean Penn, Elizabeth McGovern, Nicolas Cage, John Karlen, Rutanya Alda, Kate Williamson, Suzanne Adkinson, Shawn Schepps, Julie Phillips, Michael Talbott. (108 min., color, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount)

Our nomination for the finest small-town film of the 1980's goes to Racing With the Moon, Richard Benjamin's (My Favorite Year) loving recreation of World War II life in a northern California town. Sean Penn and Nicholas Cage play two bowling-alley workers biding their time until a stint with the Marines; Elizabeth McGovern is the heartbreakingly beautiful, supposedly wealthy love interest of Penn. Racing With the Moon certainly cannot claim an action-filled plot (preferring an episodic, scene-by-scene approach), but the wonderful period detail (especially a magnificent bowling alley) and lovely location photography makes this an excellent, somewhat "Capraesque" (&1Variety&2's description) slice-of-life film.

Blue Velvet (De Laurentiis Entertainment, 1986)
Director: David Lynch. Screenplay: David Lynch. Photography: Frederick Elmes. Music: Angelo Badalamenti. Cast: Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Dennis Hopper, Laura Dern, Hope Lange, Dean Stockwell, Jack Nance. (120 min., color, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy DEG)

&2One can imagine the spiel from the North Carolina Film Commission to the Lumberton, North Carolina Chamber of Commerce. "This brilliant young director (David Lynch) wants to make a film in your town, something like a modern-day Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew mystery. Yes, he's a bit odd (after all, he grew up both in Montana and Arlington, Virginia), but he has done good work before, including The Elephant Man." The community obviously agreed; their response after seeing the finished product has not been recorded for posterity.
Blue Velvet begins innocently enough, with tracking shots of beautiful, small-town scenes, a spell broken when a man watering his lawn suffers a heart-attack (though, in a typical Lynch touch, a dog, instead of coming to the aid of his master, starts playing with the water hose). Then Kyle MacLachlan finds a disembodied ear and the strangeness begins, revealing that beneath the glossy town exterior lurks a brutal sub-culture. A one-of-a-kind work that will impress many but shock even more with its graphic depiction of violence and sexual themes. Dennis Hopper, it goes without saying, figures prominently in the malevolent sub-culture. Note: Blue Velvet richly deserved its "R" rating.%% SEPARATE ADMISSION

Bill and Coo (Republic, 1947)
Producer: Ken Murray. Director: Dean Riesner. Screenplay: Royal Foster and Riesner, based on an idea from Ken Murray's "Blackouts". Photography: Jack Marta. Musical Direction: Lionel Newman; music by David Buttolph; songs by Buttolph, Newman, Foster, Desylva, Brown, and Henderson. Cast: George Burton's Love Birds, Curley Twiford's Jimmy the Crow, George Burton, Elizabeth Walters. (61 min., Trucolor, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Republic)

Some of you may feel small-town films exist only for the birds, so tonight we bring you Bill and Coo, which won a special Academy Award. "Over two hundred trained birds, complete with neckties, hats, etc., waddle around an anthropornithomorphic community called Chirpendale. By conservative estimate, the God- da***est thing ever seen."--James Agee

"Turn on the Heat" sequence from Sunny Side Up (20th Century Fox, 1929)
Director: David Butler. Cast: Janet Gaynor. (ca, 10 min., b&w, sound, 3/4" videocassette, courtesy Fox)

This outlandish, one-of-a-kind clip (featuring female Alaskan villagers practicing a sensuous form of global warming) leads one to suspect that prospectors headed to 1890's Alaska with more than gold in mind

Followed by:

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (Paramount, 1946)
Introduced by David L. Parker

&1Director: Lewis Milestone. Screenplay: Robert Rossen, based on Jack Patrick's original story. Photography: Victor Milner and Farciot Edouart. Music: Miklos Rozsa. Cast: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Judith Anderson, Roman Bohnen, Janis Wilson, Darryl Hickman, Mickey Kuhn. (117 min., b&w, 35mm; LC Collection, courtesy Paramount)

To cast a female lead in a role involving a former murderous child turned town power-broker and would-be adulteress, one immediately thinks of Barbara Stanwyck. The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, a somewhat perverse film noir, stars Stanwyck as a woman who, as a child, murdered her aunt and got away with it; she's now married to Kirk Douglas (in his film debut), one of the few to know the truth. Stanwyck starts having nasty thoughts when former lover Van Heflin comes to town.
Tonight's film will be introduced by David L. Parker, assistant head of the curatorial section in the Librar