Hypnosis and Crime + Early John Sayles & Unbalanced Housewife: UCLA Festival of Preservation

Hypnosis and crime: Michael Redgrave and Joan Bennett in Secret Beyond the Door.

April 4 update: Tonight at 7:30 p.m. at UCLA’s Festival of Preservation you’ll be able to catch a screening of Fritz Lang’s unfairly neglected Secret Beyond the Door (above), a 1947 noirish psychological melodrama starring Joan Bennett as woman married to Michael Redgrave, whom she suspects is out to kill her (possibly for her money).

Unlike Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion (1941) and George Cukor’s similarly themed Gaslight (1944), Secret Beyond the Door boasts a highly stylized Gothic feel that makes the viewer feel just as off-kilter as both the heroine and the hero. Stanley Cortez, who also shot Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons, was the cinematographer.

Tomorrow, Sunday, April 5, at 7 p.m., the Festival of Preservation will feature two rarities from the 1910s: Lena Rivers, a 1914 drama whose director is unknown, and the 1916 melodrama He Fell in Love with His Wife, directed by William Desmond Taylor. He Fell in Love with His Wife – about bigamist husbands and loveless marriages of convenience – is worth a look at the very least for historical reasons: Taylor was the victim of one of the most scandalous and as-yet-unsolved murders in Hollywood history (though various theories abound).

Taylor’s murder, in fact, in addition to Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle’s trial for the death of minor actress Virginia Rappe would lead to the creation of the Production Code and an attempt to clean up Hollywood’s image. In other words, people could still do whatever the hell they pleased, as long as it never reached other people’s eyes and ears. Whoever said that Hollywood has ever been any different from any other American town?

On Monday, April 6, at 7:30 p.m. the Festival of Preservation presents the double feature Check and Double Check and Pointed Heels. The former is a “Amos ‘n Andy” vehicle that will most likely be cringe-inducing, but the film does feature veteran Irene Rich in a supporting role.

Pointed Heels is an early backstage musical – in 1929, every other film released seemed to be some sort of musical or other – and most of the ones I’ve seen are pretty dreary. However, they didn’t feature William Powell, Fay Wray, Phillips Holmes, and Helen Kane. For its cast alone, Pointed Heels can’t be missed.

Next at UCLA’s Festival of Preservation at the Billy Wilder Theater in Westwood:

• On Wed., April 15, at 7:30 p.m.: Efraín Gutiérrez’s Run, Tecato, Run (1979), described as a real-life inspired tale that “depicts a junkie’s efforts to get off heroin in order to reclaim and raise his daughter.” Actor-director Gutiérrez is expected to attend the screening.
• On Fri., April 17, at 7:30 p.m.: Lester James Peries’ Gamperaliya (1964), a “seminal” work in Sri Lankan cinema that has been compared to Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy. Gamperaliya tells the story of “a teacher and member of the new rising middle class, who falls in love with the daughter of his village’s leading aristocratic clan. Defensive positions are assumed and the girl’s parents insist upon a marriage to a stuffed shirt of her own class.”
• On Sat., April 18, at 7:30 p.m.: Director Edgar G. Ulmer’s Ruthless (1948) is described as both a “complex psycho-melodrama” and “Ulmer’s Citizen Kane.” Zachary Scott, Louis Hayward, and Diana Lynn star in this tale of greed and ambition.
• On Sun., April 19, at 2:00 p.m. (at the Melnitz, also in Westwood): Cecil B. DeMille’s The Buccaneer (1938), starring an oddly miscast Fredric March as Jean Lafitte (above, with Akim Tamiroff).
• On Sun., April 19, at 7:00 p.m.: “Legacies from the ONE Archives,” featuring films and videos from the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives (approx. 45 minutes running time). Don Kilhefner, Lillian Faderman, Malcolm Boyd, Mark Thompson, and Joseph Hawkins are expected to show up at the screening.

The UCLA Film & Television Archives’ 2009 UCLA Festival of Preservation, which kicks off this evening and continues until April 26, leaves me at a loss. The problem is: I don’t know what not to recommend. (See full schedule below.)

Now, it’s not that I think every single one of the listed films are waiting-to-be-rediscovered masterpieces – or even that they’re mostly enjoyable fare. What makes me so excited about the Festival of Preservation is that it features films that for the most part are incredibly rare, thus offering audiences a unique chance to either get to know (or to get reacquainted with) our cinematic past.

Here’s some of what’s in store for you if you live in the Los Angeles area:

• Master of stylization Josef von Sternberg’s naturalistic (!) first film, the independently made 1925 drama The Salvation Hunters (above), which impressed Charles Chaplin so much he found distribution for it and ended up using the film’s leading lady, Georgia Hale, in The Gold Rush.
• Master sentimentalist Frank Borzage’s Young America (1932), with a youngish Spencer Tracy and a latter-day Doris Kenyon (a lovely and capable silent film actress who managed a relatively smooth transition to sound), plus Borzage’s Song o’My Heart (right, 1930), which stars Irish tenor John McCormack, a very young Maureen O’Sullivan, and veteran Alice Joyce in one of her last screen roles. Preservationist Robert Gitt will introduce the screening.
• A couple of Vitagraph productions: the featurette A Tale of Two Cities (1911), starring Maurice Costello and Florence Turner, and featuring a very young Norma Talmadge, who’d become one of Hollywood’s superstars of the 1920s; and Her Crowning Glory (1911), starring the comic duo of John Bunny and Flora Finch (best remembered for her supporting role in the 1927 version of The Cat and the Canary), and featuring five-year-old Helene Costello, daughter of Maurice and future leading lady of the first all-talking motion picture, Lights of New York (1928).
• Joseph Losey’s thriller The Prowler (1951), starring Van Heflin as a psycho cop and Evelyn Keyes as a lady in distress in what turned out to be the director’s last Hollywood film. (The following year, Losey was blacklisted. He fled the United States, later resuming his career in Britain. Curiously, fellow blacklistee Dalton Trumbo co-wrote the Prowler screenplay with Hugo Butler.)
• John Sayles’ Return of the Secaucus 7 (1980), which was later eclipsed by the similarly themed and more popular The Big Chill, and The Brother from Another Planet (1984), in which a space alien (Joe Morton) lands in mid-1980s Manhattan.
• Bill Sherwood’s Parting Glances (1986), one of the seminal works in the early gay film movement, in which two former lovers renew a brotherly bond after one of them comes down with AIDS.
• Fritz Lang’s absurd but intriguing psychological mystery-melodrama Secret Beyond the Door (1948), starring Michael Redgrave and Joan Bennett (right).
• William Desmond Taylor’s melodrama He Fell in Love with His Wife (1916), one of the murdered director’s few surviving films. (Taylor’s still-unsolved 1922 murder was one of the biggest scandals in Hollywood history.)
• The early backstage musical Pointed Heels (1929), starring a pre-MGM William Powell, a pre-King Kong Fay Wray, and boop-boop-a-doopy Helen Kane, and featuring the super-handsome Phillips Holmes in one of his early film appearances.
• “Behind the Scenes in Hollywood,” which features, among others, Ronald Colman doing a screen test in 1932, Mary Pickford and Harold Lloyd in their respective home movies, Cecil B. DeMille speaking at Brigham Young University, and Charles Chaplin celebrating his 77th birthday.
• The only foreign entry in the series, Lester James Peries’ 1964 Sri Lankan social drama Gamperaliya, in which a middle-class man falls in love with a girl belonging to the local aristocracy.
• Edgar G. Ulmer’s attack on the American obsession with wealth, Ruthless (1948), described as the director’s Citizen Kane, and starring two likable performers, Zachary Scott and Louis Hayward, who went on to develop a close relationship off-screen. The screenplay was co-written by one of the Hollywood Ten, Alvah Bessie.
• Among the Vitaphone Varieties, I particularly recommend the musical short The Opry House (1929), which manages to be both nostalgic and more hip than any current music video on MTV or VH1.
• And finally, the festival’s closing night entry, Edward S. Curtis’ In the Land of the Head Hunters (1914), described as a “reflection of contemporary life among the Kwakwaka’wakw people of British Columbia as well as a fiction that combined melodramatic elements with tribal customs.”

And what if I find John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence (1974) a big bore? The 2009 Festival of Preservation opening night film was Cassavetes’ biggest box office hit up to that point, earning him a best director Oscar nomination and leading lady (and Cassavetes’ wife) Gena Rowlands a best actress Oscar nod as well. Check it out … After all, there’s always a good chance you’ll totally disagree with me.

Note: Good news for those outside L.A. Twelve films from the Archive’s 14th Festival of Preservation will tour North America after the Los Angeles event. Some of the cities scheduled for the tour are New York; Washington; Chicago; Columbus, OH; Houston; and Vancouver, BC.

Photos: Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archives

Schedule and synopses from the UCLA Film & Television Archives press release:

Photos: Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archives

Friday, March 13
7:30 p.m
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation and GUCCI
A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE
(1974, John Cassavetes)
Over 30 years after its self-distributed release, screenwriter-director John Cassavetes’ masterpiece retains the power to shock and unnerve for its raw, often harrowing depiction of a blue-collar Los Angeles family on the rocks. At its trembling heart, Gena Rowlands’ performance as Mabel Longhetti, wife of everyman Nick (Peter Falk) and mother of three, stands as a virtually unmatched tour de force. As a woman struggling to reconcile who she thinks she should be—as wife, mother, lover—with the anarchic spirit she really is, Mabel is the kind of complex woman’s role that is still all too rare in Hollywood’s output.
Faces International Films, Inc. PROD: Sam Shaw. SCR: J. Cassavetes. CINE: Mitchell Breit. ED: David Armstrong, Sheila Viseltear, Beth Bergeron. CAST: Peter Falk, Gena Rowlands, Fred Draper, Lady Rowlands, Katherine Cassavetes.
35mm, 155 min.

Saturday, March 14
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE SALVATION HUNTERS
(1925, Josef von Sternberg)
Josef von Sternberg’s first film—shot for less than $4,800 on location in San Pedro, Chinatown and the San Fernando Valley—was possibly Hollywood’s first “independent” production. The gritty realism of its locations, the lack of artifice in its story and the lower depths of its characters shocked audiences and the industry alike. The film remains thoroughly modern. Sternberg’s images thrive on composition and stasis. His ending resolves nothing and yet everything is different. The Salvation Hunters made a star not only of Sternberg, but also of Georgia Hale, who would play opposite Chaplin in The Gold Rush (1925).
Academy Photoplays. PROD/SCR/ED: J. von Sternberg. CINE: Edward Gheller. CAST: George K. Arthur, Georgia Hale, Bruce Guerin, Otto Matiesen, Nellie Bly Baker.
35mm, silent, 72 min.

Feature preceded by:

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
OIL: A SYMPHONY IN MOTION
(1933, M.G. MacPherson)
Oil was produced by a Los Angeles collective of amateur filmmakers, called “Artkino,” who here attempted a lyric documentary from the point of view of the oil itself.
CINE: Jean Michelson.
35mm, silent, 8 min.

*Live musical accompaniment will be provided.

Sunday, March 15
7 p.m.
Preservation funded by Twentieth Century Fox
YOUNG AMERICA
(1932, Frank Borzage)
The typical Borzage film of the early ‘30s was characterized by pictorial lyricism and a tender portrayal of young lovers who found poetry and beauty in the midst of poverty.
In Young America, Borzage’s usual pair of lovers was replaced by two male school chums in their early teens, Art Simpson (Tommy Conlon) and Edward “Nutty” Beamish (Raymond Borzage, the director’s nephew). Borzage so invests their friendship with chaste ardor and transformative power that the young actors easily outshine stars Spencer Tracy and Doris Kenyon as a married couple who take responsibility for Art after a scrape with the law.
Fox Film Corp/Frank Borzage Production. SCR: William Conselman. CINE: George Schneiderman. ED: Margaret Clancy. CAST: Spencer Tracy, Doris Kenyon, Ralph Bellamy, Tommy Conlon, Raymond Borzage.
35mm, 71 min.

Preservation funded by Twentieth Century Fox
SONG O’ MY HEART
(1930, Frank Borzage)
The great Irish tenor John McCormack made his talking picture debut in this sentimental drama about a disconsolate concert singer who retires to a country village until the unexpected return of his former sweetheart and her two children inspires him to resume his career. In English-speaking countries, the film was released in an all-talking version, but a special version with additional songs and silent intertitles instead of spoken dialogue was prepared for international release. We will screen the talking version in its entirety, followed by excerpts from the international version.
Fox Film Corp. SCENE: Tom Barry, Sonya Levien. CINE: Al Brick. ED: Margaret V. Clancey. CAST: John McCormack, Alice Joyce, Maureen O’Sullivan, Tom Clifford, J. M. Kerrigan.
35mm, 85 min.

*IN PERSON: Robert Gitt, Preservation Officer, UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Wednesday, March 18
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE FILM PARADE
(1934, J. Stuart Blackton)
Pioneer filmmaker J. Stuart Blackton was intrigued by the idea of a film about the history of the movies as early as 1915. He finally released a 52-minute feature called The Film Parade that was shown in New York and favorably reviewed by Variety in 1933. He continued tinkering with the film for the rest of the decade, and later filmmakers and distributors used Blackton’s footage for stock or to produce their own variously titled and truncated versions. The Archive has completed restoration of the original 1933 version in 35mm, with tinted sequences and Blackton’s heartfelt narration.
SCR: J.S. Blackton. CAST: Marian Blackton, Violet Blackton, Margerie Bonner, J. Stuart Blackton Jr., J. S. Blackton.
35mm, 70 min.

“VITAGRAPH TREASURES”
Years before he began work on his groundbreaking The Film Parade, J. Stuart Blackton

had previously etched his name in cinematic history as a founder of the Vitagraph
Company of America. The Archive has preserved a number of the surviving Vitagraph films, including the two titles selected for this program.

Preservation funded by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
HER CROWNING GLORY
(1911, Laurence Trimble)
An early entry in the series of John Bunny/Flora Finch comedy vehicles, Her Crowning Glory derives its plot from a facetious twist of the Samson and Delilah story.
Vitagraph. CAST: John Bunny, Flora Finch, Helene Costello, Mae Costello, Edith Halleran.
35mm, silent, 16 min.

Preservation funded by Cinema 89
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
(1911, William Humphrey)
A Tale of Two Cities (1911) was one of several pioneering efforts by the Vitagraph, a.k.a. “Big V,” to break away from the then industry-standard one-reeler to produce films of feature length. The studio successfully released the film in one-reel parts over the span of a week to test the public’s appetite for longer and more complex narrative fare. Critics of the day lauded their efforts and suggested to theatre owners that the three parts be shown together, spurring Vitagraph to release their next three-reel literary adaptation (Vanity Fair, 1911) as one contiguous feature film. A Tale of Two Cities stars Maurice Costello (whose daughter plays the mischievous little girl in Her Crowning Glory) and Florence Turner, and helped launch the careers of Norma Talmadge, James Morrison and Lillian Walker.
Vitagraph. SCR: Eugene Mullin. Based on the novel by Charles Dickens. CAST: Maurice Costello, Florence Turner, Leo Delaney, Charles Kent, William Humphrey.
35mm, silent, 53 min.

*Live musical accompaniment will be provided.

*IN PERSON: Robert Gitt, Preservation Officer, UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Friday, March 20
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by the Film Noir Foundation and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE PROWLER
(1951, Joseph Losey)
Set in a shadowy post-war Los Angeles, The Prowler focuses on a wealthy but neglected housewife (Evelyn Keyes) who spends her evenings alone, with only her husband’s voice on the radio for company. When she’s spooked by a peeping tom, a calculating cop (Van Heflin) answers the call, turning her ordered life upside down. The Prowler was the third of five films Losey made in Hollywood, and the most critically and commercially successful. The following year Losey was officially blacklisted and soon embarked on a career abroad where he eventually earned a reputation as a European auteur.
Horizon Pictures, Inc. PROD: Sam Spiegel. SCR: Hugo Butler, Dalton Trumbo. From a story by Robert Thoeren and Hans Wilhelm. CINE: Arthur Miller. ED: Paul Weatherwax. CAST: Van Heflin, Evelyn Keyes, John Maxwell, Katharine Warren, Emerson Treacy.
35mm, 92 min.

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE HOODLUM
(1951, Max Nossek)
This briskly paced, low-budget, B film noir features quintessential tough guy, Lawrence Tierney, in a most fitting role as Vincent Lubeck, an angry, brooding, habitual criminal, who after five years in the joint is released on parole to live with his mother and brother Johnny (played by Tierney’s real life brother, Edward). Sent to work at the family gas station, Vincent grows bitter and restless, and begins plotting his escape from the menial labor of his humdrum life. Completely void of fear, pain and compassion, Vincent has no qualms about destroying everyone and everything in his path.
Jack Schwarz Productions, Inc./Eagle-Lion Classics, Inc. PROD: Maurice Kosloff. SCR: Sam Neuman, Nat Tanchuck. CINE: Clark Ramsey. ED: Jack Killifer. CAST: Lawrence Tierney, Allene Roberts, Marjorie Riordan, Lisa Golm, Edward Tierney.
35mm, 63 min.

*IN PERSON: author James Ellroy (“The Black Dahlia”), author Eddie Muller (“Dark City: The Lost World of Film Noir”).

Saturday, March 21
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by Anarchists’ Convention
BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET
(1984, John Sayles)
For his fourth feature, John Sayles gave the well-worn sci-fi trope of the alien a revitalized punch with African American actor Joe Morton starring as a visitor from beyond the stars. After ditching his malfunctioning spaceship at Ellis Island, Morton’s mute newcomer, known only as “The Brother,” navigates the customs of Manhattan’s residents while searching for a place to call home. From his initial refuge in a Harlem bar, he encounters a cross section of earthlings who read him—and the world—through a puzzling prism of race, class and ethnicity, a scenario Sayles taps for both brilliant comedy and commentary.
A-Train Films/Cinecom Pictures. PROD: Peggy Rajski, Maggie Renzi. SCR/ED: J. Sayles. CINE: Ernest R. Dickerson. CAST: Joe Morton, Rosanna Carter, Ray Ramirez, Yves Rene, Peter Richardson.
35mm, 108 min.

Preservation funded by Anarchists’ Convention
RETURN OF THE SECAUCUS SEVEN
(1980, John Sayles)
Made several years before director Lawrence Kasdan’s better known The Big Chill (1983), John Sayles’ directorial debut is a sometimes funny, sometimes melancholy look at the lives of a group of formerly radical friends, who gather for a reunion in New Hampshire 10 years after they were arrested in Secaucus, New Jersey while driving to a demonstration in Washington, D.C. Sayles, in what has become his trademark style, underplays the drama of these rather ordinary lives, giving us a group portrait of persons settling uncomfortably into the middle class existences they once abhorred. Lacking Chill‘s melodrama, what emerges is a film about a baby boomer generation growing old before its time.
Salsipuedes Productions. PROD: William Aydelot, Jeffrey Nelson. SCR/ED: J. Sayles. CINE: Austin de Besche. CAST: Bruce MacDonald, Maggie Renzi, Adam LeFevre, Maggie
Cousineau, Gordon Clapp.
35mm, 110 min.

Features preceded by:

Preservation funded by The Andrew J. Kuehn Jr. Foundation
PARTING GLANCES—TRAILER
(1986)
35mm, 2 min.

Sunday, March 22
7 p.m.
“A HAL ROACH SILENT SAMPLER”
Any discussion of early comedy will inevitably include Hal Roach. Whether directing, writing or producing, Roach enjoyed success with a number of leading comedians, such as Charley Chase. But for every household name, there were other less well-known players whose appeal also contributed to Roach’s success. Chase’s brother, James Parrott, for instance, starred in a number of Roach shorts, while names such as Glenn Tryon, Arthur Stone and Eddie Boland are overlooked because of the difficulty of seeing their films on screen. Accordingly, this program features the work of those unsung Roach comedians who deserve a second, if not a first, look.

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
AMONG THOSE PRESENT
(1921, Fred C. Newmeyer)
Lloyd’s familiar glasses character is found telling tall stories, and riding even taller in the saddle.
Hal Roach Studios. PROD: H. Roach. SCR: H. Roach, Sam Taylor. CAST: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, James Kelly.
35mm, approx. 30 min.

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE BOY FRIEND
(1928, Fred Guiol)
Max Davidson’s crazy behavior fails to scare away a potential suitor for his daughter but manages to open the floodgates for all to join him.
Hal Roach Studios. PROD: H. Roach. SCR: Leo McCarey. CINE: Len Powers. ED: Richard Currier. CAST: Max Davidson, Bill Elliot, Marion Byron, Edgar Kennedy.
35mm, approx. 20 min.

Preserved by The Stanford Theater Foundation and UCLA Film & Television Archive
CHARLEY MY BOY
(1926, Leo McCarey)
Charley Chase was one of the bigger stars for Roach, and continued making shorts like this one into the sound years.
Hal Roach Studios. PROD: H. Roach. CINE: Harry Gersted. ED: Richard Currier. CAST: Charley Chase, Katherine Grant.
35mm, approx. 25 min.

Funding provided by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
JAILED AND BAILED
(1923, J.A. Howe)
For those who forget that the brother of Charley Chase, known here as James Parrott,
also starred in comedic shorts before permanently adopting the director’s role.
Hal Roach Studios. PROD: H. Roach. CAST: James Parrott, Jobyna Ralston, George Rowe.
35mm, approx. 11 min.

Preserved by The Stanford Theater Foundation and UCLA Film & Television Archive
JUST A GOOD GUY
(1924, Hampton Del Ruth)
Known primarily as a western sidekick in the sound years, Arthur Stone delivers a quintessential Roach performance which will remind modern audiences of Pee Wee Herman.
Hal Roach Studios. PROD: H. Roach. CINE: Frank Young. ED: T. J. Crizer. CAST: Arthur Stone, Olive Borden, Fay Wray, Kewpie Morgan.
35mm, approx. 25 min.

Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
LONG PANTS
(1926, Fred Guiol)
Like James Parrott, Glenn Tryon would go on to direct in later years after serving his time in Hal Roach shorts.
Hal Roach Studios. PROD: H. Roach. CAST: Glenn Tryon, Blanche Mehaffey.
35mm, approx. 25 min.

*Total running time of films: approx. 136 min.

*Live musical accompaniment by Cliff Retallick.

The Naked Eye by Louis Clyde Stoumen

Photos: Courtesy of UCLA Film & Television Archives

Schedule and synopses from the UCLA Film & Television Archives press release.

Thursday, March 26
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
THE NAKED EYE
(1957, Louis Clyde Stoumen)
Director Louis Clyde Stoumen’s evocative documentary on the art and history of photography begins with a quote from Ecclesiastes—”Truly the light is sweet…”—before a quick recounting of the medium’s 100-year technical development. From there, Stoumen sharpens focus with extended narrative sequences on key artists. Alfred Eisenstaedt and Weegee are each featured while the second half is largely devoted to Edward Weston. In addition to traditional live-action footage, Stoumen, who taught film production classes at UCLA, brought scores of stills to life using a technique he called “photographic animation,” predating Ken Burns’ signature style by decades.
Camera Eye Pictures, Inc. PROD/SCR/CINE/ED: L. C. Stoumen. CAST: Raymond Massey, Weegee, Edward Weston, Brett Weston, Cole Weston.
35mm, 71 min.

Feature preceded by:

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE BRIDGE: A TRUE STORY OF A TROUBLED CHILD
(1958, Louis Clyde Stoumen, Abram D. Murray)
Stoumen’s short dramatic film about an emotionally troubled boy.
Camera Eye Pictures, Inc. PROD: Bernice Block. SCR: Alan Marcus. CINE: Edward R.
Martin. ED: Harry Robin. Narrator: Robert Ryan. CAST: Hugh Corcoran, Biff Elliot,
Beverly Dvorett.
35mm, approx. 27 min.

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
WEDLOCK
(1950, Louis Clyde Stoumen, Ed Spiegel)
An experimental short co-directed by Stoumen while he was a graduate student at USC.
35mm, 4 min.

*IN PERSON: Nancy Mysel, Film Preservationist, UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Saturday, March 28
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Andrew J. Kuehn Jr. Foundation with additional support provided by the members of Outfest
PARTING GLANCES
(1986, Bill Sherwood)
In 1985, while the gay community seethed over the Reagan administration’s indifference to AIDS, writer-director Bill Sherwood filmed this charmingly quirky piece that gracefully placed a human face on the epidemic. Over the course of 24 hours, lovers Michael (Richard Ganoung) and Robert (John Bolger) emotionally joust as Robert prepares to leave for overseas. A quasi-autobiographical character, Michael confronts his separation anxiety with ironic fortitude as he faces Robert’s departure and the illness of his ex-lover and best friend, Nick, vividly played by Steve Buscemi. A meditation on the complexities in all relationships, Sherwood’s film is also an atmospheric valentine to New York City.
Rondo Pictures. PROD: Yoram Mandel, Arthur Silverman. SCR/ED: B. Sherwood. CINE: Jacek Laskus. CAST: Richard Ganoung, John Bolger, Steve Buscemi, Adam Nathan, Kathy Kinney.
35mm, 90 min.

Feature preceded by:

“CHRISTOPHER STREET WEST’S FIRST GAY PARADE”
(1970, Pat Rocco)
16mm, 13 min.

Sunday, March 29
7 p.m.
Preservation funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation, The Packard Humanities Institute and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
“SILENT AND EARLY SOUND FILMS FROM THE HEARST METROTONE NEWS COLLECTION (1919-30)”
The UCLA Film & Television Archive recently completed a project funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation. With this funding, some of the oldest and most endangered newsreels in the collection have been preserved and restored. The newsreels include both silent era and sound newsreels from the first year of sound production (1929-30). Highlights from the silent era will include an obituary for President Theodore Roosevelt and the newsreel story “Women Besiege Capitol To Urge Suffrage Bills.” Sound era selections will feature such titles as “Coolidge Reviews Bay State Fete” and “Edison Welcomes ‘Brightest’ Boys.” [above, Thomas Edison]
35mm, total running time of entire program: approx. 100 min.

*IN PERSON: Jeffrey Bickel, Newsreel Preservationist, UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Co-presented with Sony Pictures and Research Video

Wednesday, April 1 / Free admission!
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by Sony Pictures Entertainment
“JOHNNY CASH PRESENTS THE EVERLY BROTHERS SHOW”
(ABC, 7/8/70 – 9/16/70) Directed by Marty Pasetta
The Everly Brothers, Don and Phil, had guested on many music and variety shows by the time they became TV headliners with this summer-replacement series in 1970. Though it lasted only three months, “Johnny Cash Presents The Everly Brothers Show” rides high on the Everly’s engaging personalities, gorgeous harmonies and rapport with fellow musicians. The Archive has compiled a selection of highlights from seven of the show’s 10 broadcasts, including musical numbers by Don and Phil, Johnny Cash, Linda Ronstadt, Tina Turner and Stevie Wonder. This program also includes a compilation of the Everly Brothers pre-1970 TV appearances, featuring many of their early hits.
A Halcyon Productions Presentation. EX. PROD: Harold D. Cohen, Joe Byrne. PROD: Bernie Kukoff, Jeff Harris. WRITE: David Pollock, Elias Davis, Mike Settle, Jeff Harris, B. Kukoff. MUSIC: Jack Elliott, Allyn Ferguson. HOSTS: Don Everly, Phil Everly.
BetaSP, 90 min.

*IN PERSON: Dan Einstein, Television Archivist, UCLA Film & Television Archive.

*FREE Admission!

Friday, April 3
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
POINT OF ORDER!
(1963, Emile de Antonio)
Point of Order! is at once a landmark in political cinema and an incendiary aesthetic statement. Constructed entirely from CBS kinescopes of the controversial 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, the film famously eschewed both expert testimony and narration. Said a characteristically blunt Emile de Antonio, narration is “inherently fascist and condescending.” But like the best of the concurrent direct cinema works, Point of Order!‘s attitudes are constructed in its edit: a surface-level “objectivity” that is, in reality, brilliantly fabricated. The result is not just a searing indictment of McCarthyism, but an exposé of the fissures in American democracy as filtered through the new medium of television.
Point Films. PROD: E. de Antonio, Daniel Talbot. SCR: E. de Antonio. ED: Robert Duncan.
35mm, 97 min.

Feature preceded by:

Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
SUNDAY
(1961, Dan Drasin)
A stunning document of the police crackdown on a peaceful demonstration of folk singers in Washington Square Park in 1961.
35mm, 17 min.

*IN PERSON: Dan Drasin (director of Sunday), Robert Duncan (editor of Point of Order!) and Douglas Kellner (UCLA professor and author of “Media Spectacle”).

Saturday, April 4
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation and the Franco American Cultural Fund, a partnership of the Directors Guild of America; Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Éditeurs de Musique; the Writers Guild of America, West; and the Motion Picture Association of America
SECRET BEYOND THE DOOR
(1948, Fritz Lang)
Like many Hollywood woman’s melodramas, Fritz Lang’s The Secret Beyond The Door begins with a plot twist: a young woman marries a man she barely knows and soon suspects he’s trying to drive her insane. Gothic themes of madness, mixed with Freudian psychoanalysis were particularly en vogue in the late 1940s and the story here affords Lang the opportunity to indulge in expressionist shadowscapes as well as his long-standing interest in architecture and its metaphoric connotations. Ultimately, however, the film is less about psychoanalysis, than about Stanley Cortez’s beautifully photographed post-modern pastiche of gothic and expressionist imagery.
Diana Productions, Inc./Universal. PROD: F. Lang. SCR: Silvia Richards. Based on a novel by Rufus King. CINE: Stanley Cortez. ED: Arthur Hilton. CAST: Joan Bennett, Michael Redgrave, Anne Revere, Barbara O’Neil, Natalie Schafer.
35mm, 99 min.

Feature preceded by:

Preservation funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
POPULAR SCIENCE, VOL. J7-5
(1948)
Subjects include the influence of airplane design on cars, the use of flying discs to illustrate aerodynamics and the completion of the “Big Eye” at Caltech’s Mt. Palomar observatory.
35mm, 10 min.

Lena Rivers

Schedule and synopses from the UCLA Film & Television Archives press release.

Sunday, April 5
7 p.m.
Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Film Preservation Foundation and the Society for Cinephiles
LENA RIVERS (top photo)
(1914, director unknown)
This version of the classic drama Lena Rivers by Cosmos Features was one of a pair released in 1914 (the other from Garrison Films) yet it appears to be the only version still in existence. What also makes the Cosmos version unique is its use of comedy — as in the portrayals of the Slovendyke siblings by actors Charlie De Forest and Carolyn Rankin—to balance out the drama’s heavy-handedness. As a result, the film offers modern audiences something more than just a window into the social mores of the past: Namely, laughs!
Cosmos Feature Film Corp. SCR: Beulah Poynter. Based on the novel by Mary Jane Holmes and the play by B. Poynter. CAST: B. Poynter, Lizzie Conway, Robert Tabor, Charlie De Forest, Charles Hutchinson.
35mm, 60 min.

Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
HE FELL IN LOVE WITH HIS WIFE
(1916, William D. Taylor)
One of the few surviving works of silent era director William Desmond Taylor, this melodrama revolves around an unsuspecting housewife, Alida Armstrong (Florence Rockwell), who tragically finds herself a homeless social outcast when the truth about her bigamist husband is revealed. Enter widower-farmer James Holcroft (Forrest Stanley), whose need for a housekeeper compels him to propose a loveless marriage of convenience to the hapless Alida. This unlikely pair discovers their path to happiness fraught with danger, although Taylor wisely alleviates the story’s darker overtones with delightful scenes of humor and rustic charm.
Paramount Pictures Corp. SCR: Julia Crawford Ivers. Based on the novel by E. P. Roe. CAST: Florence Rockwell, Forrest Stanley, Page Peters, Lydia Yeamans Titus, Howard Davis.
35mm, 50 min.

*Live musical accompaniment by Michael Mortilla.

Monday, April 6
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by Rich Correll
CHECK AND DOUBLE CHECK
(1930, Melville Brown)
By 1930, NBC’s “Amos ‘n’ Andy” was a radio phenomenon broadcasting six nights a week to over 30 million listeners. With interest bordering on a national craze, anticipation for the team’s heavily promoted film debut was high. Photoplay predicted, “Fifty million Amos ‘n’ Andy fans [would] mob the theaters to see their idols for the first time.” Viewed three-quarters of a century later, the film offers an invaluable glimpse into the complex, indelicate racial dynamics of the Depression era. The film is also notable as the Hollywood feature debut of composer and bandleader Duke Ellington.
RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. PROD: William LeBaron. SCR: J. Walter Ruben, Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby. CINE: William Marshall. ED: Claude Berkeley. CAST: Freeman F. Gosden, Charles J. Correll, Sue Carol, Irene Rich, Ralf Harold.
35mm, 71 min.

Preservation funded by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Preservation Grants Program
POINTED HEELS
(1929, A. Edward Sutherland)
A “backstage” musical of the early sound era, Pointed Heels is a must see for two reasons. The first is William Powell, displaying all his suave appeal as a dapper Broadway producer. Although he doesn’t get the girl, Powell is a delight to watch. The second reason is Helen “Sugar” Kane, the Broadway singer who became the uncredited model for Betty Boop. In a rare screen role, Kane here interpolates her signature “boop-boop-a-doop” in the numbers “Ain’tcha?” and “I Have to Have You.” This preservation also includes a two-color Technicolor sequence, not an uncommon occurrence at the time.
Paramount Famous Lasky Corp. SCENE: Florence Ryerson, John V. A. Weaver. Based on the short story by Charles William Brackett. CINE: Rex Wimpy. ED: Jane Loring. CAST: William Powell, Fay Wray, Helen Kane, Richard Skeets Gallagher, Phillips Holmes.
35mm, 61 min.

Friday, April 10
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by Cecilia de Mille Presley, The Ahmanson Foundation, David Stenn, the National Film Preservation Foundation, The Packard Humanities Institute, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Joseph Drown Foundation and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
“BEHIND THE SCENES IN HOLLYWOOD”
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is home to many unusual films showing Hollywood from the inside. This program will showcase some of the more interesting items from this unique collection of screen tests, home movies, newsreel footage and industrial films. Films to be shown include a screen test from 1932 featuring Ronald Colman, home movies of Mary Pickford, a promotional film by Max Factor, newsreel footage of Cecil B. DeMille speaking at Brigham Young University, home movies of Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin’s 77th birthday party, Bob Hope joking with President Johnson and many more.
35mm, total running time of entire program: approx. 120 min.

*IN PERSON: Blaine Bartell, Senior Newsreel Preservationist, UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Saturday, April 11
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation and the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
WOMEN OF ALL NATIONS
(1931, Raoul Walsh)
What Price Glory, a WWI dramedy directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Victor McLaglen and Edmund Lowe, was a blockbuster for Fox Film Corporation in 1926. Three years later, the studio re-teamed the director and stars with two sound sequels, The Cock-Eyed World (1929) and the later Women of All Nations. This third installment features plenty of pre-Code salaciousness with McLaglen and Lowe reprising their roles as two randy marines, Captain Flagg and Sergeant Quirt, who spar over women (including the gorgeous Greta Nissen) in every port, from Nicaragua to Brooklyn.
Fox Film Corp. PROD: Wm. Fox. SCR: Barry Conners. CINE: Lucien Andriot. ED: Jack Dennis. CAST: Victor McLaglen, Edmund Lowe, Greta Nissen, El Brendel, Fifi D’Orsay.
35mm, 72 min.

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation and the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
NOT EXACTLY GENTLEMEN (a.k.a. Three Rogues)
(1931, Benjamin Stoloff)
UCLA Graduate Ben Stoloff’s light-hearted comic Western centers on Ace, Bronco and Bull—three petty criminals on the run who encounter the not-exactly-guileless Lee Carleton (Fay Wray) on the eve of the Dakota land rush of 1877. Wray’s Carleton proves the perfect counterpoint to the roguish trio and their protective instincts take over when an evil saloon owner tries to steal her gold claim. The mayhem that ensues culminates in a hilariously protracted horse and wagon stampede that must be seen to be believed. Slapstick veterans Lew Cody and Eddie Gribbon provide further comic relief while Wray and Victor McLaglen share a smoldering chemistry.
Fox Film Corp. PROD: Wm. Fox. SCR: William Conselman, Dudley Nichols. CINE: Daniel Clark. ED: Clyde Carruth. CAST: Victor McLaglen, Fay Wray, Lew Cody, Robert Warwick, Edward Gribbon.
35mm, 61 min.

Feature preceded by:

Preservation funded by David Stenn
ACCENT ON GIRLS
(1936, Fred Waller)
A swing music short starring Ina Ray Hutton and her all-girl band, the MeloDears.
SCR: Milton Hockey, Fred Rath.
35mm, 7 min.

Preservation funded by the family and friends of Todd Isroelit, and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
HELPMATES
(1932, James Parrott)
Ollie enlists Stan’s help in cleaning up his house after a wild party, with predictably catastrophic results.
Hal Roach Studios. PROD: H. Roach. SCR: H. M. Walker. CINE: Art Lloyd. ED: Richard C. Currier. CAST: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Bobby Burns, Robert Callahan, Blanche Payson.
35mm, 20 min.

Wednesday, April 15
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation and the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UCMEXUS)
RUN, TECATO, RUN (a.k.a. Run, Junkie, Run)
(1979, Efraín Gutiérrez)
Run, Tecato, Run is the last of three low-budget social problem films by Efraín Gutiérrez—all restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Gutiérrez—the first Chicano feature director—not only starred in these films, but developed a grass-roots distribution strategy that allowed him to outperform Hollywood releases in several cities. Based on true incidents, Run, Tecato, Run depicts a junkie’s efforts to get off heroin in order to reclaim and raise his daughter. Produced for $60,000, the film explores the connections between the Vietnam War, drug addiction and crime—juxtaposing these against Mexican-American family, culture and spirituality.
Chicano Film Enterprises. PROD: Josephine Faz. SCR/ED: Efraín Gutiérrez. CINE: Josephine Faz, E. Gutiérrez. CAST: E. Gutiérrez, Arturo Castillo, Josie Gutierrez.
35mm, 86 min.

Friday, April 17
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute and The Stanford Theatre
Foundation
GAMPERALIYA
(1964, Lester James Peries)
A seminal work in Sri Lankan cinema, Gamperaliya launched “a revolution, not only in the way films were made, but also in the content,” according to producer Anton Wickramasinghe. Based on the novel by Martin Wickramasinghe, the film focuses on Piyal, a teacher and member of the new rising middle class, who falls in love with the daughter of his village’s leading aristocratic clan. Defensive positions are assumed and the girl’s parents insist upon a marriage to a stuffed shirt of her own class. For its elegant style, Gamperaliya has been compared to Satyajit Ray’s “Apu Trilogy.”
Cinelanka Ltd. PROD: Anton Wickremasinghe. SCR: Regie Siriwardena. Based on the novel by Martin Wickremasinghe. CINE: William Blake. ED: Sumitra Gunawardana. CAST: Punya Heendeniya, Henry Jayasena, Wickrema Bogoda, Trelicia Gunawardena, Gamini Fonseka.
35mm, in Sinhala with English subtitles, 120 min.

Schedule and synopses from the UCLA Film & Television Archives press release.

Saturday, April 18
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
RUTHLESS (top photo)
(1948, Edgar G. Ulmer)
Director Edward G. Ulmer’s complex psycho-melodrama Ruthless (1948) is undoubtedly worthy of rediscovery. A flashback-structured tale of a sociopath’s remorseless drive for station and wealth, Ruthless (often referred to as Ulmer’s Citizen Kane) employs a relentless undercurrent of emotional violence. As relayed in an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, Ulmer envisioned his feature as “a Jesuitic morality play… a very bad indictment against 100 percent Americanism—as Upton Sinclair saw it.” The film’s chilling, malevolent tone is personified in a starkly muted performance by lead—and frequent screen cad—Zachary Scott.
Eagle-Lion Films. PROD: Arthur S. Lyons. SCR: Alvah Bessie, S. K. Lauren, Gordon Kahn. Based on the novel “Prelude to Night” by Dayton Stoddart. CINE: Werner Janssen. ED: Francis D. Lyon. CAST: Zachary Scott, Louis Hayward, Diana Lynn, Sydney Greenstreet, Lucille Bremer.
35mm, 104 min.

Feature preceded by:

Preservation funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
NEWS OF THE DAY VOL. 19, NO. 257
(1948)
“Red crisis stirs nation!”
35mm, 8 min.

Preservation funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
POPULAR SCIENCE, VOL. J6-5
(1947)
Subjects include the bathroom of the future, a one-man haybaler and “V-2” rocket research at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico.
35mm, 10 min.

*IN PERSON: Arianne Ulmer Cipes, daughter of director Edgar G. Ulmer.

Sunday, April 19
2:00 p.m. •note later screening this same day
Preservation funded by the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation
THE BUCCANEER
(1938, Cecil B. DeMille)
One of the rarest of Cecil B. DeMille’s sound films, The Buccaneer mines a little tapped vein of American history—the War of 1812—for a rousing bit of homegrown spectacle. Fredric March stars with devilish swagger as Jean Lafitte, the French pirate transformed into an American folk hero for his exploits at the Battle of New Orleans—all for the love of an American aristocrat (Margot Grahame), as DeMille tells it. Alongside March, Hollywood newcomer Hungarian actress Franciska Gaal stars as Gretchen, a shipwrecked waif plucked from the sea by Lafitte, while Akim Tamiroff steals the show as Lafitte’s lovably brusque cannoneer.
Paramount Pictures. PROD: Cecil B. DeMille. SCR: Edwin Justus Mayer, Harold Lamb, C. Gardner Sullivan. Based on the novel “Lafitte the Pirate” by Lyle Saxon. CINE: Victor Milner. ED: Anne Bauchens. CAST: Fredric March, Franciska Gaal, Akim Tamiroff, Margot Grahame, Walter Brennan.
35mm, 124 min.

Feature preceded by:

Preservation funded by the Cecil B. DeMille Foundation
GRETCHEN COMES ACROSS
(1938)
A short promotional featurette for Cecil B. DeMille’s The Buccaneer.
CAST: Cecil B. DeMille, Franciska Gaal, William H. Pine.
35mm, 11 min.

Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
BARCAROLLE
(1934)
A Technicolor travelogue subject featuring views of Venice, set to the classical music piece with symphonic orchestra under the direction of Rosario Bourdon.
35mm, 6 min.

Sunday, April 19
7 p.m. •note earlier screening this same day
Preservation funded by the Bay Area Video Coalition’s 2007 MediaMaker Award
“LEGACIES FROM THE ONE ARCHIVES”
The ONE Archives began in 1942 when writer-activist Jim Kepner created a private collection of gay-related materials in New York. The ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives now thrives as the world’s largest research library on LGBT heritage and concerns. In early 2007, ONE deposited its collection of rare film and videotape with the Outfest Legacy Project at UCLA. This evening’s program presents highlights from a portion of that collection, in conjunction with a discussion hosted by Joseph Hawkins, president of ONE Archive’s board of directors, about ONE’s crucial role in preserving LGBT history.
Total running time of film and video: approx. 45 min.

*IN PERSON: Don Kilhefner, Lillian Faderman, Malcolm Boyd, Mark Thompson, Joseph Hawkins.

Friday, April 24
7:30 p.m.
Preservation funded by The David Bohnett Foundation with additional support provided by The Andrew J. Kuehn Jr. Foundation and the members of Outfest
WORD IS OUT: STORIES OF SOME OF OUR LIVES
(1977, Mariposa Film Group: Peter Adair, Nancy Adair, Veronica Selver, Andrew Brown, Robert Epstein, Lucy Massie Phenix)
Quite possibly as relevant today as it was on its debut over 30 years ago, Word Is Out: Stories Of Some Of Our Lives is widely considered the first feature-length documentary on gay and lesbian identity. Offering a vastly different perspective on gay and lesbian identity in America than the common views of the time, the film presents 26 diverse gay and lesbian individuals, who with profundity, honesty and humor, describe their struggle to live a decent life in America, despite prejudice, discriminatory laws and society’s
unwillingness to treat them with respect and equality.
Mariposa Film Group. PROD: P. Adair. CINE/ED: P. Adair, A. Brown, R. Epstein, L. M. Phenix, V. Selver. CAST: John Burnside, Sally M. Gearheart, Elsa Gidlow, Harry Hay, Tede Mathews.
35mm, 135 min.

*IN PERSON: director Nancy Adair.

Saturday, April 25
7:30 p.m.
“VITAPHONE VARIETIES 1927-1931″
Recognizing the growing audience for Vitaphone shorts and the difficulty of seeing these unique artifacts on the big screen, the Archive presents a reprise program of Vitaphone shorts that haven’t screened in a Festival since the early 1990s. For those not in the know, the Vitaphone Corporation produced thousands of shorts featuring musicians, vaudeville acts and radio stars between 1926 and 1930, recording the soundtracks on large phonograph discs for playback in theaters. When sound-on-disc technology became obsolete, Vitaphone shorts began to fade into oblivion. Tonight’s program offers an eclectic mix of Vitaphone short subjects that celebrates the often raucous talents that have made these shows must see events.

Preservation funded by the Library of Congress and UCLA
OHMAN & ARDEN
(1927, Production #553)
35mm, 7 min.

Preservation funded by the Library of Congress and UCLA
JOSEPH E. HOWARD, AMERICA’S POPULAR COMPOSER
(1928, Production #2596)
35mm, 9 min.

Preservation funded by Hugh Hefner
THE OPRY HOUSE
(1929, Production #834)
35mm, 9 min.

Preservation funded by Robert G. Dixon
TEX McLEOD “A ROPE AND A STORY”
(1928, Production #2694)
35mm, 8 min.

Preservation funded by Hugh Hefner
TAL HENRY AND HIS NORTH CAROLINIANS
(1929, Production #732)
35mm, 9 min.

Preservation funded by the Library of Congress and UCLA
ALWAYS FAITHFUL
(1929, Production #3334)
35mm, 11 min.

Preservation funded by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
LOU HOLTZ “IDLE CHATTER”
(1929, Production #954)
35mm, 10 min.

Preservation funded by the Library of Congress and UCLA
RED NICHOLS AND HIS FIVE PENNIES
(1929, Production #870)
35mm, 7 min.

Preservation funded by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
PAT O’BRIEN “CRIMES SQUARE”
(1930, Production #1146)
35mm, 10 min.

Preservation funded by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
BEN BERNIE AND HIS ORCHESTRA
(1930, Production #958)
35mm, 9 min.

Preservation funded by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
HELEN MORGAN “THE GIGOLO RACKET”
(1931, Production #1255-1256)
35mm, 21 min.

*Total running time of films: approx. 110 min.

*IN PERSON: Robert Gitt, Preservation Officer, UCLA Film & Television Archive.

Sunday, April 26
7 p.m.
Preservation funded by the National Film Preservation Foundation and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
IN THE LAND OF THE HEAD HUNTERS
(1914, Edward S. Curtis)
Almost a decade before Robert Flaherty immortalized the Inuit people in Nanook of the North (1922), Edward S. Curtis filmed In the Land of the Headhunters with an indigenous North American cast. Like Flaherty’s “documentary,” Headhunters was both a reflection of contemporary life among the Kwakwaka’wakw people of British Columbia as well as a fiction that combined melodramatic elements with tribal customs: Motana, the son of a chief, must battle an old medicine man for the right to marry Naida, who has been promised by her father to the tribe of the headhunters. Around this plot, Curtis stages many authentic ceremonies, including the tribe’s potlatch ceremony.
Seattle Film Co. SCR: E. S. Curtis. CINE: Edmund August Schwinke.
35mm, approx. 70 min.

*Live musical accompaniment will be provided.

UCLA Film & Television Archive website.