Every two years, the UCLA Film & Television Archive devotes several weeks in the summer to presenting films preserved and restored by its world-renowned preservation department. Our biennial Festivals of Preservation are an opportunity for Los Angeles audiences to see highlights from a century of moving images created for the large screen and small.
This year finds the Archive heading into a period of transition. The Festival is dedicated to Preservation Officer Robert Gitt—the man who since 1977 has put the Archive on the international map for the excellence of its preservation and restoration program. In 2005, he officially retired from UCLA, but will continue to work part-time, contributing his wealth of expertise to preservation and restoration projects for many years to come. A special evening on Saturday, July 29, hosted by film critic and scholar Leonard Maltin, will celebrate Gitt's singular career.
This year is also notable because it is the last time the Festival will be presented in the James Bridges Theater. In early 2007, with funding from Mrs. Audrey Wilder, the Archive will move into a new home at the state-of-the-art Billy Wilder Theater at the UCLA Hammer Museum in Westwood, creating an incomparable center to celebrate the legacy of motion pictures.
The festival is supported in part by Netflix and the Lloyd. E. Rigler-Lawrence F. Deutsch Foundation.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association
OF MICE AND MEN (1940)
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Director Lewis Milestone's OF MICE AND MEN was the first screen adaptation of a John Steinbeck novel, and it remains definitive. Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney, Jr. are indelible as George and Lennie while around them an array of hard-bitten faces—Betty Field as Mae, Charles Bickford as Slim—fleshes out the desperate, crushing world of itinerant farm work in Salinas Valley. Milestone achieves a near seamless interplay between intimate studio craftwork and dazzling location photography. From the sweep of harvesters rolling across wide-open fields to the fateful riverbank where the film reaches its shattering finale, OF MICE AND MEN captures moments of pure naturalist poetry that could have inspired Terrence Malick's DAYS OF HEAVEN.
Based on the novel and play by John Steinbeck. Producer: Hal Roach. Screenwriter: Eugene Solow. Cinematographer: Norbert Brodine. Editor: Bert Jordan. Cast:Burgess Meredith, Lon Chaney, Jr., Betty Field, Charles Bickford. 35mm, 104 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
BABY DOLL (1956)
Directed by Elia Kazan
BABY DOLL centers on Archie Lee Meighan (Karl Malden), the middle-aged owner of a dilapidated cotton gin, and his young bride, Baby Doll (Carroll Baker). Archie Lee promised the girl's dying father that he would not deflower her until she reached the age of twenty. But on the eve of her twentieth birthday, his hopes of consummating the marriage are dashed by a series of comic events, setting off a tense game of manipulation and revenge with his competitor, the smooth talking Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach). Featuring superb performances and a crackling script by Tennessee Williams, BABY DOLL is a bitingly funny and playfully perverse Southern Gothic farce.
Warner Bros.. Based on the play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton by Tennessee Williams. Screenwriter: Tennessee Williams. Cinematographer: Boris Kaufman. Editor: Gene Milford. Cast: Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach, Mildred Dunnock. 35mm, 114 min.
BABY DOLL PUBLICITY FILM (1956) 35mm, 2 min.
Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute
GOD'S LITTLE ACRE (1958)
Directed by Anthony Mann
Erskine Caldwell's earthy, overheated novel, God's Little Acre, about life and love among poor Southern sharecroppers, sparked a firestorm of controversy in 1933 that was still burning in 1957 when Georgia refused to allow director Anthony Mann to film in the state. Robert Ryan stars as Ty Ty, the eccentric patriarch of the Walden clan who has spent the last 15 years obsessively digging for gold on his hardscrabble patch of farmland. Tina Louise, making her film debut, keeps tensions and temperatures running high as Ty Ty's buxom daughter-in-law who still holds a flame for her ex-beau (Aldo Ray). When his camera isn't focussed on Louise's cleavage, Mann deftly captures the oppressive poverty of rural America while never losing sight of its pleasures and charms.
Based on the novel by Erskine Caldwell. Producer: Sidney Harmon, Anthony Mann. Screenwriter: Philip Yordan. Cinematographer: Ernest Haller. Editor: Richard C. Meyer. Cast: Robert Ryan, Aldo Ray, Tina Louise, Buddy Hackett, Jack Lord. 35mm, 120 min.
"The Festival is a mother lode of moviegoing bliss the likes of which even the most encyclopedic home DVD library would be hard-pressed to match." —LA Weekly
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
THE RED KIMONA (1925)
Directed by Walter Lang
This remarkable film opens with producer (and uncredited director) Dorothy Davenport Reid introducing the audience to Gabrielle Darley. Desperate to flee her miserable family life, Gabrielle (played by Priscilla Bonner) runs off with a con man who promptly abandons her in a New Orleans brothel. Trailing the man to Los Angeles, she espies him buying a wedding ring for another woman and, on impulse, shoots him dead. From there, Gabrielle suffers the vicissitudes of the lot of a fallen woman. The film, however, never judges her but instead portrays her fate as the result of a society that turns its back on women like her.
Producer: Mrs. Wallace Reid. Scenario: Dorothy Arzner, Adela Rogers St. Johns. Cinematographer: James Diamond. Cast: Priscilla Bonner, Theodore von Eltz, Frederick Tyrone Power, Mary Carr. 35mm, silent, 77 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation and The Silent Society of Hollywood Heritage, Inc.
HER GREAT MISTAKE (1925) 35mm, silent, 9 min.
Preserved by The Stanford Theatre Foundation, George Eastman House and UCLA Film & Television Archive as part of Saving the Silents, a Save America's Treasures project organized by the National Film Preservation Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Parks Service, Department of the Interior
MY LADY'S LIPS (1925)
Directed by Roy William Neill
Perhaps best known as the dapper, urbane, martini-swilling leading man of the 1930s THIN MAN films, William Powell's first film role in Hollywood came by way of this fast-paced crime drama produced by B.P. Schulberg for his own independent production company. Powell, who welcomed the chance to play a sympathetic character after being typecast in villainous roles, plays star newspaper reporter Scott Seddon. Seddon is hired by the paper's editor to infiltrate a gambling ring that is trying to blackmail his daughter, Lola (Clara Bow). While Lola falls for Seddon, he in turn falls for Rita (Alyce Mills), a gang member toughened by the hard knocks of her early childhood.
Universal. Producer: B.P. Schulberg. Scenario: John Goodrich. Cinematographer: Allen Siegler. Cast: Alyce Mills, William Powell, Clara Bow, Frank Keenan. 35mm, silent, 68 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
CLOAK AND DAGGER (1946)
Directed by Fritz Lang
German émigré Fritz Lang directed this terse WWII spy thriller about the inner workings of the top-secret US Office of Strategic Services. Gary Cooper stars as a laconic American college professor recruited by the O.S.S. for undercover action in western Europe during the waning days of the war. A nuclear physicist by training, the professor travels to Switzerland and Italy on a mission to infiltrate Nazi scientific circles and foil the enemy's efforts at developing an A-bomb. CLOAK AND DAGGER deftly combines adventure, suspense and romance with a topical cautionary message regarding the dangers of atomic power.
Warner Bros.. Based on the book by Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain. Producer: Milton Sperling. Screenwriter: Albert Maltz, Ring Lardner, Jr. Cinematographer: Sol Polito. Editor: Christian Nyby. Cast: Gary Cooper, Robert Alda, Lilli Palmer, Vladimir Sokoloff.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
CLOAK AND DAGGER—TRAILER (1946) 35mm, 2 min.
Preservation funded by Hugh Hefner
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON
(1942) Directed by Roy William Neill
There have been countless films about Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson over the years, but none so popular as the famous Universal series starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. The studio jettisoned Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's late 19th century London milieu, and brought in director Roy William Neill, who went on to become the driving force of the series. The updated story involves the kidnapping of an inventor, Nazi spies and the villainous Professor Moriarty. The film shows Holmes perfectly able to handle himself in a modern world of war and intrigue.
Universal. Based on the story "The Dancing Men" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Producer: Howard Benedict. Screenwriter: Edward T. Lowe, W. Scott Darling, Edmund L. Hartmann. Cinematographer: Lester White. Editor: Otto Ludwig. Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Karen Verne, Lionel Atwill. 35mm, 68 min.
Preservation funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
NEWS OF THE DAY, VOL. 17, NO. 288: ATOM BOMB SPECIAL
July 8, 1946. A special issue devoted to the first post-WWII atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. 35mm, 7 min.
JOHNNY CARSON BEFORE THE TONIGHT SHOW
Presented with The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
By the time Johnny Carson became the host of THE TONIGHT SHOW in 1962, he was already an accomplished performer with more than a decade of television and stage work behind him, including deft comedic performances in two of the top anthology series of television's "Golden Age."
PLAYHOUSE 90: "THREE MEN ON A HORSE"
Directed by Arthur Hiller
4/18/57
In this lively adaptation of the delightfully Runyonesque stage comedy, Johnny Carson plays Erwin Trowbridge, a mild-mannered greeting card writer with the remarkable ability to pick winning horses. One day, while drowning his sorrows in a downtown bar after a spat with his wife, Erwin is kidnapped by three gangsters who are convinced that they've stumbled upon a gold mine. To their dismay, they learn that Erwin's system only works when he's doing it for pleasure, not for money, but they come up with a scheme designed to get their captive over this unfortunate hurdle.
CBS. Based on he play by John Cecil Holm and George Abbott. Producer: Martin Manulis. Writer: A.J. Russell. Cast: Jack Carson, Carol Channing, Johnny Carson, Edward Everett Horton. BetacamSP, 90 min.
Preservation funded by Hallmark Cards, Inc.
THE UNITED STATES STEEL HOUR: "QUEEN OF THE ORANGE BOWL"
Directed by Paul Bogart
1/13/60
Three years after his acting debut in "Three Men on a Horse," Johnny Carson took on a second scripted role. In this light comedy he once again portrays a young New Yorker, this time a happily unmarried advertising copywriter who is romantically involved with a beautiful young woman. To her dismay, he refuses to take her and their relationship seriously.
ABC. Based on an original story by Roger Squier. Executive Producer: George Kondolf. Writer: Bob Van Scoyk. Cast: Anne Francis, Johnny Carson, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh, Elizabeth Wilson. BetacamSP, 60 min.
VITAPHONE VARIETIES 1927-1930
For the third festival in a row, the Archive is pleased to present a program of Vitaphone shorts, filmed as early examples of sound cinema. These shorts preserve the performances of bands, singers, vaudeville performers and comedians from the height of the Jazz Age.
Preservation funded by Dudley Heer
THE REVELERS (1927) Production #483. 35mm, 9 min.
Preservation funded by Maryellen Clemons
JIMMY CLEMONS IN "DREAM CAFÉ" (1927) Production #2242. 35mm, 10 min.
Preservation funded by Dudley Heer
EARL BURTNETT AND HIS BILTMORE HOTEL ORCHESTRA (1927) Production #2285. 35mm, 10 min.
Preservation funded by Dudley Heer
JANS & WHELAN, "TWO GOOD BOYS GONE WRONG" (1929) Production #901. 35mm, 9 min.
Preservation funded by Dudley Heer
THE MORRISSEY AND MILLER NIGHT CLUB REVUE (1927) Production #2293. 35mm, 10 min.
Preservation funded by Dudley Heer
ADELE ROWLAND, "STORIES IN SONG" (1928) Production #2348. 35mm 9 min.
Preservation funded by Scott Margolin
DICK RICH AND HIS "SYNCHO-SYMPHONISTS" (1928) Production #2594. 35mm, 9 min.
Preservation funded by Dudley Heer
JAY C. FLIPPEN IN "THE HAM WHAT AM" (1928) Production #2581. 35mm, 7 min.
Preservation funded by Dudley Heer
JACK WHITE AND HIS MONTREALERS (1929) Production #791. 35mm, 8 min.
Preservation funded by Dudley Heer
EARL BURTNETT AND HIS BILTMORE HOTEL ORCHESTRA (1928) Production #2295. 35mm, 9 min.
Preservation funded by Frank Buxton
SHAW & LEE IN "GOING PLACES" (1930) Production #1027. 35mm, 10 min.
Preservation funded by The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film
THE BARKER (1928)
Directed by George Fitzmaurice
Popular silent star Milton Sills made his talking picture debut as Nifty Miller, a carnival barker who tries to break up a burgeoning romance between his adored son, Chris (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.), a law student, and Lou (Dorothy Mackaill), a sideshow performer. Kenyon Nicholson's play opened on Broadway in 1927, with Walter Huston as Nifty and Claudette Colbert as Lou. Sills suggests Huston in his ability to convey tenderness without sacrificing virility, while Mackaill, who looks remarkably like Colbert in some scenes, gives a moving performance as a woman redeemed by love. Completed as a silent in the summer of 1928, THE BARKER went back into production so that Vitaphone talking sequences could be added before the premiere.
Based on the play by Kenyon Nicholson. Producer: Al Rockett. Screenwriter: Benjamin Glazer. Cinematographer: Lee Garmes. Editor: Stuart Heisler. Cast: Milton Sills,Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., George Cooper, Dorothy Mackaill. 35mm, silent, with sound sequences, 87 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
WAY OUT WEST (1937)
Directed by James W. Horne
Perhaps the greatest of the feature films starring comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, WAY OUT WEST finds Stan and Ollie traveling to Brushwood Gulch to deliver the deed to a gold mine to the daughter of a recently deceased friend. The chance at instant fortune causes the girl's employers (a shady saloon owner and his dance hall girlfriend) to hide her true identity from the Boys in an attempt to obtain the deed for themselves. All the typical Laurel and Hardy routines are present, but the Boys also do a couple of very endearing musical numbers, including a memorable soft shoe dance.
Producer: Hal Roach. Screenwriter: Charles Rogers, Felix Adler, James Parrott. Cinematographer: Art Lloyd, Walter Lundin. Editor: Bert Jordan. Cast: Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Sharon Lynne, James Finalyson, Rosina Lawrence. 35mm, 64 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
TOPPER (1936)
Directed by Norman Z. McLeod
Based on the novel by Thorne Smith, TOPPER spawned two sequels for Hal Roach Studios in 1939 and 1941 but nothing matches the peerless aplomb and stylish irreverence of director Noman Z. McLeod's classic screwball original. Cary Grant and Constance Bennett star as George and Marion Kirby, wealthy socialites who wake from a car wreck as ghosts in evening clothes. Roland Young plays the title character, a henpecked banker whom the Kirbys target for the good deed that will rescue them from limbo. Assisting them is a battery of special effects techniques, executed by Roy Seawright, that give contemporary digital prestidigitation a serious run for its money.
Based on the novel by Thorne Smith. Producer: Hal Roach. Screenwriter: Jack Jevne, Eric Hatch, Eddie Moran. Cinematographer: Norbert Brodine. Editor: William Terhune. Cast: Constance Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young, Billie Burke. 35mm, 96 min.
Preservation funded by the Stanford Theatre Foundation
UNDER TWO FLAGS–TRAILER (1936) 35mm, approx. 2 min.
A TRIBUTE TO ROBERT GITT
Leonard Maltin hosts a salute to the Archive's longtime Preservation Officer, Robert Gitt, who officially retired from UCLA last year but continues to work on selected film preservation projects, including many of the newly restored films screening in this Festival. The evening will include appreciations by Gitt's colleagues at UCLA and in the film preservation community, plus a special film program selected by Gitt from his personal favorites among the hundreds of films he has worked on over the years. Gitt promises a true surprise package of films that emphasize entertainment and novelty as much as they illustrate the art of film preservation. A catered dessert reception follows the screening.
35mm, length of spoken tributes and film program: approx. 120 min.
Preservation funded by The Cecil B. DeMille Foundation
DYNAMITE (1929)
Directed by Cecil B. DeMille
DYNAMITE was Cecil B. DeMille's first sound feature after a string of blockbuster silent films. However, a silent version was also released, and it is this version that has been preserved. As a Variety review from the time puts it, the plot centers on a "miner, condemned to death, whom [a] spoiled society bud has wed in prison on the eve of execution…all to comply with a will, leaving her millions, in order that she may buy another woman's husband. That the laborer is saved from the gallows at the 11th hour forms the knot which the scenario must untie." DeMille brought Kay Johnson and Charles Bickford from the stage to play the leading roles. Conrad Nagel plays the polo player who completes the accidental love triangle, and Joel McCrea makes one of his first screen appearances.
MGM. Producer: Cecil B. DeMille. Scenario: Jeanie Macpherson. Cinematographer: Peverell Marley. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Conrad Nagel, Kay Johnson, Charles Bickford, Joel McCrea. 35mm, silent, 126 min.
Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
SHARP SHOOTERS (1928)
Directed by J.G. Blystone
Billed as a comedy romance, SHARP SHOOTERS stars George O'Brien (SUNRISE) as a sailor who woos women all over the world with promises of undying devotion. The seafaring Lothario runs into trouble when one of these women (played by Lois Moran) follows him home to New York, naively expecting him to keep his word. With fellow gobs Noah Young and Tom Dugan determined to see O'Brien make good on his promise, the film serves up plenty of comic action first to force O'Brien to the altar and then to keep the marriage together, as a detachment of sailors takes on a mob in an attempt to save the young bride from the lecherous clutches of her dance-hall boss (William Demarest).
Fox. Producer: William Fox. Scenario: Marion Orth, Randall H. Faye. Titles: Malcolm Stuart Boylan. Cinematographer: Charles G. Clarke. Cast: George O'Brien, Lois Moran, Noah Young, Tom Dugan, William Demarest. 35mm, silent, 70 min.
"What makes this Festival special is not just the pains the Archive's restorers have taken to make every print the best one in existence, it's also the care that's gone into the choice of films."—Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation and Robert B. Sturm
FAIR WIND TO JAVA (1953)
Directed by Joseph Kane
What would a Hollywood South Seas adventure be without the cultural-historical gaffes, racial stereotyping and plot improbabilities to spice up a recipe of romancing and action in an exotic locale? Joseph Kane's briskly directed production delivers on all those counts, and in Trucolor, no less. Fred MacMurray, ever the versatile leading man, plays Captain Boll, an up-by-the-bootstraps American commanding a sailing ship in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia) in 1883. In pursuit of hidden treasure, Boll bests pirates and treacherous shipmates. This action, however, is only a prelude to the climactic special-effects spectacular, in which Krakatua erupts, unleashing a tsunami, allowing MacMurray to end up with sarong-clad Vera Ralston, as a half-Javanese beauty with an unlikely Czechoslovakian accent.
Republic. Based on the novel by Garland Roark. Producer: Joseph Kane. Screenwriter: Richard Tregaskis. Cinematographer: Jack Marta. Editor: Richard L. Van Enger. Cast:Fred MacMurray, Vera Ralston, Robert Douglas, John Russell. 35mm, 92 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
NEWS OF THE DAY, VOL. 24, NO. 251
February 20, 1953. Featured stories include President Eisenhower meeting with Adlai Stevenson and holding his first press conference. 35mm, 7 min.
Preservation funded by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
FLAME OF BARBARY COAST (1945)
Directed by Joseph Kane
Scrappy studio Republic Pictures celebrated its tenth year in business with this action-packed period piece cum Western cum romance, starring Republic's biggest asset at the time: John Wayne. Wayne plays a cowboy who comes to the big city and falls for a singer (Ann Dvorak). The singer in turn loves Tito Morell (Joseph Schildkraut), who runs the casino and nightclub where she sings. The love triangle fuels the dramatic tension in a film that builds to a doozy of a climax. (Hint: the film is set in 1906 San Francisco.) Schildkraut got the most praise in reviews upon the film's initial release, and his likeably smooth villain still steals the show today, with the help of snappy dialogue by Borden Chase, who would go on to write RED RIVER.
Republic. Screenwriter: Borden Chase. Cinematographer: Robert DeGrasse. Editor: Richard L. Van Enger. Cast: John Wayne, Ann Dvorak, Joseph Schildkraut, William Frawley, Virginia Grey. 35mm, 91 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Film Foundation, the Ahmanson Foundation and Ellen Little
CIVIL RIGHTS AND THE COLD WAR: A LOOK BACK AT THE HEARST METROTONE NEWS COLLECTION FROM 1956
In 1914, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst began producing weekly newsreels for theatrical distribution. Starting in 1927, Hearst newsreels were released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. This relationship continued for the next 40 years until Hearst ceased production in 1967. This program consists primarily of complete newsreels from the 1956 NEWS OF THE DAY series, released in theaters, and selections from its television division TELENEWS DAILY. With few exceptions, most of this footage has not been seen in its entirety since 1956. Highlights include the Hungarian uprising, Grace Kelly's royal wedding, an interview with Nat "King" Cole after he was attacked onstage during a performance, and Martin Luther King, Jr. leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 35mm, 150 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
THE BIG COMBO (1955)
Directed by Joseph H. Lewis
Cynical, stylized and a little deranged, THE BIG COMBO tells the story of police lieutenant Cornell Wilde's quest to bring down the technocratic mob boss "Mr. Brown" (a terribly suave Richard Conte) while simultaneously seducing the mobster's girlfriend. Set in a jaded world where crime, romance and even mystery have been corporatized, the film also puts tough-guy masculinity to the test, what with male characters prone to sudden bouts of sobbing and two henchmen sharing what can only be described as a "Brokeback moment." Nicknamed "Wagon-Wheel Joe" for his baroque mise-en-scène, director Joseph Lewis (GUN CRAZY) outdoes himself here, both in his elaborate use of frames-within-the-frame as well as his celebrated transformation of a hearing aid into a torture device.
Producer: Sidney Harmon. Screenwriter: Philip Yordan. Cinematographer: John Alton. Editor: Robert Eisen. Cast: Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Brian Donlevy, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman. 35mm, 88 min.
Preservation funded by American Movie Classics and The Film Foundation
THE ENFORCER (1951)
Directed by Bretaigne Windust and Raoul Walsh
THE ENFORCER's other title was MURDER, INC., the name of the notorious organization of killers for hire that was brought to light and shut down in the early 1940s. The film traces the efforts to bring the organization's ringleaders to justice, efforts that were hampered by the regularity with which key witnesses would end up murdered. Besides its flashback structure, THE ENFORCER earns its film noir status through the requisite world-weary and cynical detachment of district attorney Humphrey Bogart and his fellow law enforcers. This detachment is matched by a matter-of-fact visual approach similar to other Walsh noir classics like WHITE HEAT.
Producer: Milton Sperling. Screenwriter: Martin Rackin. Cinematographer: Robert Burks. Editor: Fred Allen. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Zero Mostel, Ted de Corsia, Everett Sloane. 35mm, 87 min.
KENNETH ANGER
Kenneth Anger is one of the giants of American underground and experimental filmmaking. His films draw on pop iconography, from commedia dell'arte to Hollywood and a wide variety of 20th century subcultures: the worlds of bikers, occultists, and queers. This iconography is presented in a variety of ways, from documentary footage to elaborate mise en scene to Eisensteinian montage, but always the result is an eruption of the primal into the modern. Music videos and queer cinema would not be what they are without his influence, which has also touched filmmakers from Martin Scorsese to Olivier Assayas. The Archive is proud to present new 35mm prints of four of Anger's most famous films.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
FIREWORKS
1947 35mm, 15 min.
Preserved through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Foundation
RABBIT'S MOON
1971 35mm, 16 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
SCORPIO RISING
1963 35mm, 29 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS
1965 35mm, 3 min.
WAGON, HO!: A ROUND-UP OF WESTERN SHORTS
Until the last couple of decades, the Western was a staple of the American cinema. But the genre didn't simply spring full-blown upon the screen: it began with silent short subjects like THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY (1903) and other early classics. This program provides a sampling of such work, covering many of the standard Western themes found in the melodramas of the day, along with examples from the serial, the comedy, the travelogue and even the cartoon.
Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
THE BOSS OF THE LUCKY RANCH (1911)
Directed by Allan Dwan. 35mm, silent, 14 min.
Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
THE RED MAN (Ca. 1912) 35mm, silent, 14 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation and The Silent Society of Hollywood Heritage, Inc.
THE RETURN OF COMPANY D (1912) 35mm, silent, tinted and toned, 9 min.
Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
THE RANCH MYSTERY (1921) Directed by Albert Rogell. 35mm, silent, 17 min.
Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute
AN EASTERN WESTERNER (1920) Directed by Hal Roach With: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Noah Young. 35mm, silent, 22 min.
Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
LIFE ON THE CIRCLE RANCH IN CALIFORNIA (Ca. 1912) 35mm, silent, 12 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
ALICE'S TIN PONY (1925) An "Alice Comedy" by Walt Disney. With: Margie Gay. 35mm, silent, tinted, 6 min.
Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
WHERE THE SUN PLAYS (1928) 35mm, silent, stencil-colored, 8 min.
Preservation funded by the National Endowment for the Arts
THE TIMBER QUEEN, EPISODE ONE: THE LOG JAM (1922) Directed by Fred Jackson. With: Ruth Roland, Bruce Gordon, Val Paul, Bull Montana. 35mm, silent, tinted, approx. 3 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
TURNABOUT (1940)
Directed by Hal Roach
This screwball comedy will enlighten anyone who thinks that gender identity, same-sex attraction and homophobia were off limits as subject matter in American movies before the 1960s. Tim and Sally Willows (John Hubbard and Carole Landis) bicker constantly because each believes the other leads a more satisfying life, until one night a Hindu idol switches their personalities, voices, and mannerisms. The next morning, chaos ensues when an ultra-feminine Tim flounces into his office while a butch Sally clumps around their apartment making household repairs. The film's delightful silliness is enhanced by skilled comedians like Adolphe Menjou, Donald Meek and Franklin Pangborn.
Based on the novel by Thorne Smith. Producer: Hal Roach. Screenwriter: Mickell Novak, Berne Giler, John McClain. Cinematographer: Norbert Brodine. Editor: Bert Jordan. Cast:Adolphe Menjou, Carole Landis, John Hubbard, Mary Astor. 35mm, 83 min.
Preservation funded by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
ONE MILLION B.C. (1940)
Directed by Hal Roach and Hal Roach, Jr.
With a camp mix of geological opulence and cartoonish paleontology, ONE MILLION B.C. presents a primordial family feud. The film's story line careens from tender scenes between lovers from opposing clans to explosive volcanic eruptions, rock slides and epic clashes. Fortunately, the Oscar-nominated special effects elevate this cinematic grab bag. Trick photography and costumes transform lizards and elephants into terrifying dinosaurs that battle each other and the hapless humans. Overton, Nevada and Agua Dulce, California provide an excellent prehistoric backdrop for what one critic describes as a "most delightfully amusing tableau from a museum of unnatural history."
Producer: Hal Roach. Screenwriter: Mickell Novak, George Baker, Joseph Frickert. Cinematographer: Norbert Brodine. Editor: Ray Snyder. Cast: Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Lon Chaney, Jr., John Hubbard, Mamo Clark. 35mm, 80 min.
CLIFF ROBERTSON AND THE UNITED STATES STEEL HOUR
One of the longest running and most successful of the dramatic anthology series of the 1950s and 1960s, THE UNITED STATES STEEL HOUR featured performances by many up-and-coming actors and actresses who went on to illustrious careers, including Cliff Robertson. Robertson appeared in a total of four STEEL HOUR productions, receiving his first Emmy nomination for his work in one of them.
Preservation funded by Hallmark Cards, Inc.
THE UNITED STATES STEEL HOUR: "THE TWO WORLDS OF CHARLIE GORDON" (1961)
Directed by Fielder Cook
2/22/61
When the intelligence of a laboratory mouse named Algernon is improved by an experimental operation, Charlie Gordon, a gentle young man of limited mental capacity, is persuaded to undergo a similar surgical procedure. While the results are astounding, and Charlie is transformed into a genius, it is by no means certain whether the effect will be permanent. Cliff Robertson received an Emmy nomination for his touching portrayal of Charlie in this adaptation of Daniel Keyes' Hugo Award-winning short story "Flowers for Algernon." In 1968, Robertson reprised the role in the motion picture CHARLY, for which he won the Best Actor Oscar.
CBS. Based on the short story "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes. Executive Producer: George Kondolf. Cast: James Yaffe, Cliff Robertson, Mona Freeman, Maxwell Shaw,Joanna Roos. BetacamSP, 60 min.
Preservation funded by Hallmark Cards, Inc.
THE UNITED STATES STEEL HOUR: "MAN ON THE MOUNTAINTOP" (1961)
Directed by Tom Donovan
11/15/61
Cliff Robertson stars as Horace Mann Borden, a famous former child prodigy who, having been driven since infancy by his father, has now turned his back on the world. He spends his days alone, going to movie after movie, until a beautiful young woman moves in next door. She becomes determined to breach the wall he has erected between himself and the world, hoping to restore his faith in humankind and in himself.
CBS. Executive Producer: George Kondolf. Writer: Robert Alan Aurthur. Cast: Cliff Robertson, Paul McGrath, Salome Jens, Gene Saks. BetacamSP, 60 min.
ORSON WELLES AND THE HOLLYWOOD SYSTEM, 1939-42—IT'S ALL TRUE IN CONTEXT
Preservation funded by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
"The actors actually rehearsed and recorded the soundtrack for [Macbeth] before they shot it. So when Welles shot the film on the stage at Republic, he was able to make elaborate camera moves without worrying about the noise of the equipment."
—Robert Gitt
This program investigates the events surrounding the collapse of Orson Welles' Hollywood directing career following the release of CITIZEN KANE in 1941. The evening will center around newly preserved footage from Welles' abandoned project IT'S ALL TRUE, as well as scenes from THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS and JOURNEY INTO FEAR, Welles' two other films from the same period that were completed in ways other than he originally conceived. Author and scholar Joseph McBride will present a clip lecture focusing on this brief period at the peak of Welles' fame when anything seemed possible. Catherine Benamou of the University of Michigan will follow the clip lecture with a presentation on the preservation of IT'S ALL TRUE. Approx. 120 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association
ORSON WELLES' MACBETH SANS SHAKESPEARE
For those familiar with Welles' MACBETH (restored to its full 107-minute length by the Archive and shown in previous Festivals), this screening will be unique. We will present the 89-minute general-release version with the original music and sound-effects track, but without the dialogue. Except for a short introductory narration by Welles, not a single spoken word will be heard. While Shakespeare recedes, cinematic language and filmmaking technique—the actors' non-verbal performances, costumes and sets, editing, lighting and composition, and most of all, the musical score by Jacques Ibert—will come to the fore.
MACBETH (1948)
Directed by Orson Welles
Producer: Orson Welles. Screenwriter: Orson Welles. Cinematographer: John L. Russell. Editor: Louis Lindsay. Cast: Orson Welles, Jeanette Nolan, Dan O'Herlihy, Roddy MacDowall. 35mm, Adapted from the play by William Shakespeare, 89 min.
Preservation funded by the American Film Institute Challenge Grant for Film Preservation and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
THE FAST WORKER (1924)
Directed by William A. Seiter
Chiefly remembered today as a character actor from the 1930s and '40s who specialized in dapper Brits, Reginald Denny came to fame in the 1920s as a popular silent comedian. His forte was light comedy, his pictures precursors of the screwball comedy that generally fell into one of two camps: the domestic comedy and the sex farce. Early titles for this production (THE LIGHTNING LOVER and THE EMERGENCY HUSBAND) indicate clearly to which category THE FAST WORKER belongs. The film is built around a risqué premise: Denny assumes a friend's identity and goes to Catalina with the friend's wife. The inevitable misunderstandings and complications arise and snowball, building to an energetic climax.
Universal. Based on the novel Husbands of Edith by George Barr McCutcheon. Producer: Carl Laemmle. Scenario: Beatrice Van, Raymond L. Schrock. Cinematographer:Ben Reynolds. Editor: John Rawlins. Cast: Reginald Denny, Laura La Plante, Ethel Grey Terry, Muriel Frances Dana. 35mm, silent, 70 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
CINEMA STARS, NO. 16 (1925) Conceived and edited by Ralph Staub. 35mm, Tinted, silent, 8 min.
Preservation funded by the American Film Institute Challenge Grant for Film Preservation and The Stanford Theatre Foundation
K—THE UNKNOWN (1924)
Directed by Harry Pollard
In this tale of secret identities, humble gas company worker K. Le Moyne (Percy Marmont)—"K" for short—has a hidden past that mystifies the local gossips in the town of Mayville. As a boarder in the Page family house, K enjoys the company of young nurseSidney Page (Virginia Valli), who confides to K her desire to marry someone rich and famous. When handsome playboy Dr. Max Wilson (John Roche) comes to work at the hospital, Sidney believes she has found her ideal mate. All is not as it seems, however, and as it reveals its mysteries, the film also reveals a sophisticated view of human nature, infused with warmth and humor.
Universal. Based on the novel K by Mary Roberts Rinehart. Producer: Carl Laemmle. Scenario: Raymond Schrock, Hope Loring, Louis D. Lighton. Cinematographer:Charles Stumar. Editor: Edward Curtiss. Cast: Virginia Valli, Percy Marmont, Margarita Fischer, John Roche. 35mm, silent, 90 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation
A WALK IN THE SUN (1946)
Directed by Lewis Milestone
Before OF MICE AND MEN, Lewis Milestone was best known for directing ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. In 1946, he returned to the genre of the combat film with this realistic WWII tale of an American army platoon's daylong march deep into enemy territory. Dana Andrews, Lloyd Bridges and John Ireland head the stellar all-male cast as grunts who storm the beach near Salerno before embarking on a dangerous inland maneuver. The tension and brutality of battle are offset by grim humor and a steady stream of colorful banter, with wise guys Richard Conte and George Tyne getting the lion's share of salty dialogue. With its unsentimental tone and chorus of G.I. protagonists, the film inspired any number of later combat movies up to and including SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.
Twentieth Century Fox. Based on the novel by Harry Brown. Producer: Lewis Milestone. Screenwriter: Robert Rossen. Cinematographer: Russell Harlan. Editor: Duncan Mansfield. Cast: Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Sterling Holloway, Norman Lloyd, Lloyd Bridges. 35mm, 117 min.
Preservation funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
NEWS OF THE DAY, VOL. 15, NO. 280: INVASION EXTRA! (1944)
June 16, 1944
War correspondent Quentin Reynolds narrates a special issue devoted to the first films of the Allied invasion of Normandie on June 6, 1944—D-Day. 35mm, 10 min.
Preservation funded by the American Film Institute/National Endowment for the Arts Film Preservation Grants Program
HOME OF THE BRAVE (1949)
Directed by Mark Robson
A black G.I. suffers a nervous breakdown in World War II, bringing to light the racist harassment he experienced from the rest of his platoon. Often called the first Hollywood film to examine prejudice against African Americans, this combat melodrama takes a notably hard-edged look at a previously taboo subject. Adapting Arthur Laurents' award-winning play about anti-Semitism in the army, pioneering producer Stanley Kramer initiated the film's thematic shift to race relations to distinguish it from GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT and CROSSFIRE. Distributors reportedly feared that, uncensored, the film's subject matter (and unprecedented use of racial epithets) would inspire riots. However, in wide release, including exhibition in the South, the film enjoyed strong box office without incident.
Based on the play Home of The Brave by Arthur Laurents. Producer: Stanley Kramer. Screenwriter: Carl Foreman. Cinematographer: Robert DeGrasse. Editor: Harry Gerstad. Cast: Douglas Dick, Steve Brodie, Jeff Corey, Lloyd Bridges, Frank Lovejoy. 35mm, 86 min.
FOR ALIMONY ONLY (1926)
Directed by William de Mille
Most casual moviegoers know the name of Cecil B. DeMille even if they are largely unfamiliar with his work. But only the most avid silent film fans are aware of older brother William de Mille—playwright, motion picture scenarist, producer and director. FOR ALIMONY ONLY is an adult comedy about newlyweds left penniless by the excessive alimony payments made to the husband's ex-wife. It's all a lot of fun, thanks to the ever-delightful Leatrice Joy, perennially being mistaken for a man in these mid-'20s comedies, here at her most charming, and a deft comic turn by Clive Brook, usually stuck in stodgy parts.
Producer: John C. Flinn. Scenario: Lenore J. Coffee. Cinematographer: Arthur Miller. Editor: Adelaide Cannon. Cast: Leatrice Joy, Clive Brook, Lilyan Tashman, Cassan Ferguson. 35mm, silent, 70 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
KIKI - TRAILER (1926) 35mm, Tinted, silent, 3 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation, Michael Schlesinger, and Saving the Silents, a Save America's Treasures project organized by the National Film Preservation Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Park Service, Department of the Interior
POISONED PARADISE: THE FORBIDDEN STORY OF MONTE CARLO (1924)
Directed by Louis Gasnier
Of the handful of Clara Bow's earliest films that still exist, POISONED PARADISE deserves attention for featuring one of her first leading roles. Here the future "It" girl blossoms under the direction of Louis J. Gasnier in the second of three pictures they made together in 1923 and 1924. POISONED PARADISE is simple melodramatic fare adapted from Robert W. Service's novel of the same name. While the plot contains elements of intrigue, it is essentially a story of romance between a boy and a girl after their chance meeting in Monte Carlo. Bow delivers a performance filled with emotion, giving her character depth and complexity enhanced by the cinematography of Karl Struss, who would go on to shoot SUNRISE and the silent BEN HUR (1925).
Based on the novel by Robert William Service. Producer: B.P. Schulberg. Scenario: Waldemar Young. Cinematographer: Karl Struss. Cast: Kenneth Harlan, Clara Bow,Barbara Tennant, Raymond Griffith. 35mm, silent, 75 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
MOVIE LOVERS CONTEST, NO. 2 (1926) 35mm, Tinted, approx. 2 min.
Preservation funded by The Cecil B. DeMille Foundation
CHICAGO (1928)
Directed by Frank Urson
Before it became a Broadway musical and an Oscar-winning film, the story of Roxie Hart was a 1926 play by Maurine Watkins, based on articles she had written in 1924 for the Chicago Tribune about murderesses Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan. In this first (and only silent) film version of Watkins' play, a vivacious Phyllis Haver plays the notorious Roxie Hart, a spoiled flapper who pumps her sugar daddy full of lead after he gives her the air. When she winds up on "murderess row," her only chance for acquittal is the mercenary lawyer Billy Flynn, who is particularly skilled at saving the necks of trigger-happy women. Perhaps real-life murderess Belva Gaertner said it best when she observed, "Gin and guns—either one is bad enough, but together they get you in a dickens of a mess."
Based on the play Chicago by Maurine Dallas Watkins. Scenario: Lenore J. Coffee. Cinematographer: Peverell Marley. Editor: Anne Bauchens. Cast: Phyllis Haver, Victor Varconi, Eugene Pallette, Virginia Bradford. 35mm, silent, 90 min.
Preservation funded by The Stanford Theatre Foundation
MOVIE NIGHT (1929)
Directed by Lewis R. Foster
Scripted by Leo MacCarey, MOVIE NIGHT is one of Charley Chase's best-loved comedy shorts, as well as his last silent two-reeler. Chase stars as the paterfamilias on an outing, with Edith Fellows as his daughter afflicted with hiccups.
Cast: Charley Chase, Eugenie Gilbert, Spec O'Donnell, Edith Fellows, Tiny Sandford, Harry Semels. 35mm, silent, approx. 20 min.
Preservation funded by Twentieth Century Fox
UNDER TWO FLAGS (1936)
Directed by Frank Lloyd
At least two silent versions preceded this adaptation of the popular 19th-century novel of action and melodrama set against the colorful backdrop of the French Foreign Legion. The dashing Ronald Colman plays an English gentleman who enlists in the Foreign Legion after being accused of a murder he did not commit. In North Africa, he gets caught not only between warring Arab tribes but also between his ruthless commander (Victor McLaglen) and the commander's flame, nightclub operator-chanteuse Cigarette (Claudette Colbert). Though Colman jilts Cigarette for the patrician Rosalind Russell, Colbert risks her life to save Colman as he risks his life to save the battalion.
Twentieth Century Fox. Based on the novel by Ouida. Producer: Darryl F. Zanuck. Screenwriter: W.P. Lipscomb, Walter Ferris. Cinematographer: Ernest Palmer. Editor:Ralph Dietrich. Cast: Ronald Colman, Claudette Colbert, Victor McLaglen, Rosalind Russell. 35mm, 110 min.
Preservation funded by The David and Lucile Packard Foundation
IF I WERE KING (1938)
Directed by Frank Lloyd
French 15th-century rogue poet Francois Villon squares off against Louis XI and starts a revolt. Villon provides Ronald Colman with the kind of role for which he is most fondly remembered—the dashing, romantic smooth-talker walking the fine line between cad and hero. Screenwriter Preston Sturges was initially reluctant to recycle such well-worn and dated material, but he nevertheless threw himself into the project (even doing his own translations of Villon's poems), and effectively transformed a turgid period piece (previously filmed several times) into brisk romantic comedy. Directed by Frank Lloyd, IF I WERE KING feels like pure Sturges, suffused with his characteristically cynical humor, biting dialogue, and penchant for imposters and underworld types who ultimately reform.
Paramount. Based on the play by Justin Huntly McCarthy. Producer: Frank Lloyd. Screenwriter: Preston Sturges. Cinematographer: Theodor Sparkuhl. Editor: Hugh Bennett. Cast: Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone, Frances Dee, Ellen Drew, C.V. France. 35mm, 100 min.
Preservation funded by The Film Foundation and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association
FACES (1968)
Directed by John Cassavetes
A stark domestic drama rendered with vérité immediacy, John Cassavetes's breakthrough feature has become nothing less than the fountainhead of American independent film. FACES stars John Marley as a middle-aged executive who, dissatisfied with his suburban life and stultifying marriage, hooks up with a sympathetic prostitute played by Gena Rowlands. Meanwhile Lynn Carlin, as the spurned wife, links up with easygoing Seymour Cassel after a girls' night out on the Sunset Strip. Cassavetes famously self-financed and shot the film after hours over a long period, largely in his own house with a tiny crew and cast of friends, then labored over the post-production for three years before settling on a final cut. The result was bracingly honest and intense, a documentary-like showcase for the behavioral naturalism and raw emotion produced by rigorous improvisation.
Producer: Maurice McEndree. Screenwriter: John Cassavetes, Al Ruban. Editor: Maurice McEndree, Al Ruban. Cast: Gena Rowlands, John Marley, Lynn Carlin, Seymour Cassel. 35mm, 130 min.
