Northern Arizona University

Spring 2007—“ Image Makers in Film”
Tributees:George Cukor, Vincente Minnelli, Jimmy Stewart, and Charles Lane

January 16, Cline Library, 7:00pm 
 Love Amongst the Newsreels
The Cameraman (Buster Keaton, 1928, 67 minutes) “The Cameraman. .. is right up there with Sherlock, Jr. as one of Keaton's most impressively self-reflective films and an ode to the unexpected and elusive lightening-in-a-bottle nature of filmmaking. One of the film's great early gags defines Cameraman's preoccupation with lack of control. Keaton plays a street-corner tintype photographer who falls in love with Sally, the receptionist at a newsreel production office. In a bid for her attention, he applies for a job shooting on-the-spot news with the only camera he can afford, a totally outmoded, hand-cranked shoebox model. After a splurge of shooting events for 'audition' footage, Keaton has his reels screened for the office management only to discover that his lack of experience with his ancient equipment has resulted in a mess of poetic double exposures (a battleship appears to be loping down a busy Manhattan thoroughfare) and kaleidoscopic, pre-Man with a Movie Camera street bustle…. Keaton's camera repeatedly causes chaos, photographically as well as physically, acting as an extended, pseudo-vestigial limb that frequently shatters glass panes as readily as Keaton's own body works its way into myriad bizarre pratfalls and situations at a local saltwater pool…. If the film's first half posits that amateurism is the jumping point for both accidental expressionism and aimless experimentalism, then the second half appears to argue for unregulated primitivism. Specifically, The Cameraman's most tangible moral is that, if you want to achieve unfussy filmed drama, you'd do best to take your lessons from an organ-grinder's monkey. As far as I'm concerned, this is a message for the ages.”- Eric Henderson. Selected for the National Film Registry

January 23, Cline Library, 7:00pm
Captive King Kong Crashes City
King Kong (Merian Cooper, 1933, 100 minutes)
“The classic monster picture that spawned the rest is not simply a venerable old cinematic relic that one is obliged to give a passing mention to. "King Kong" was created to grip and thrill like no movie before, and these basic principles hold surprisingly true today. In reviewing or watching a film from the early 1930s, it is usually necessary to allow for the age of the film and the social and technical restrictions of the time. "King Kong" defies such limited expectations because it was so ahead of its time. Willis O'Brien created impressive effects that were not only technically brilliant, but also highly imaginative in terms of cinematic action. The pace of the film is both fast and quite fluid. Max Steiner's music adds fantastic atmosphere (it also helped lay down some of the basic rules of motion pictures scoring). The plot was kept simple but believable enough to allow the audience to enjoy the special effects that would dominate. Fay Wray is hired by Robert Armstong to star in a film that he is making. It is to be shot on a mysterious island, which turns out to be the home of the rather angry Kong. He kidnaps Wray and rampages over the island until he is captured and taken to New York to be put on show. This foolish move allows him to escape and decimate the city. What may surprise you about the film is the richness of Kong's character, which is due to the attention put into the special effects. Even more remarkable is the fact that most modern CGI-dominated monster flicks are unable to capture such characterisation. Technology has moved on but blandness seems to have crept in too.” -- Almar Haflidason.”  Selected for the National Film Registry

January 30, Cline Library, 7:00pm
Busby Berkeley Fantasia Faves Forgotten Man 

The Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervryn LeRoy, 1933, 96 minutes) “Gold Diggers of 1933 is an entertaining example of the ‘backstage’ musical where the principal characters are themselves working to put on a musical within the film. This plot structure provides a simple way to integrate the famous kaleidoscopic Busby Berkeley musical numbers that are probably the film’s main attraction. However, the dialogue scenes, directed by Mervyn LeRoy, are also somewhat amusing and manage to propel the narrative forward within a particular social context. As the title indicates, the film reflects a specific period in the nation’s history when the Great Depression was in full swing, and many Americans were struggling financially and were unemployed. Yet although these very real concerns are reflected in the film, the cheery proceedings (excepting the somber number that ends the picture) allow audiences a pleasant escape from the hardships of reality into a world where everything turns out all right in the end. With Roosevelt recently elected in 1933, this optimism feeds indirectly into the hope that new policies will eventually salvage the nation’s economy and bring back the economic prosperity of the mid-Twenties. Gold Diggers ends up being an amalgam of escapist entertainment and social commentary, and it shows how these two apparently disparate notions are not mutually exclusive within the film but rather are interlocked, with one often arising from the other….The effective "Forgotten Man" musical sequence that closes the film is clearly the film’s most direct attempt to grapple with timely social issues, and perhaps because of this, it conflicts with much of the preceding lighthearted narrative. Even when focusing on the personal relationships among its characters, Gold Diggers of 1933 can display a certain political sensibility. Yet first and foremost, the film was most likely intended to entertain audiences during the Great Depression and make them forget the troubles of the outside world, if only for a short time. In this goal the film succeeds admirably, and its continued appeal shows this success to be independent of the current political or economic climate.” --Film Commentary by CGK.  Nominated for the Oscar for Best Sound and selected for the National Film Registry.

February 6, Cline Library, 7:00pm
Tabloids Storm the Main Line
The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940, 112 minutes ) “Recently divorced from the charismatic but deeply unreliable playboy Dexter Haven (Grant), Philadelphia heiress and full-time ice-maiden Tracy Lord (Hepburn) is about to tie the knot again. Her next groom, George (Howard), is the respectable, considerate type but frankly a little on the dull side. Nose slightly out of joint and ever skeptical, Haven arrives for the classy ceremony with two reporters from Spy magazine in tow, Macaulay Connor (Stewart) and Liz Imbrie (Hussey). Together the trio set out to find a scandal and throw a rather large spanner in the society works. George Cukor's masterly adaptation of Philip Barry's popular theatrical farce nestles snugly in the pantheon of wise-cracking favorites among such perennial classics as "Bringing Up Baby" and "His Girl Friday". Donald Ogden Stewart's smart and sassy dialogue is handled with customary élan by Cukor, whose assured direction is informed by a natural understanding of timing to create a comic cocktail that nonetheless makes several serious observations about class aspiration. Grant, Stewart, and Hepburn deliver impeccable performances, with sterling support coming from Hussey's feisty, guileful snooper. Dusted down and given musical numbers as "High Society" in 1956, stick with this eminently enjoyable original,”—David Wood, BBC. Won the Oscar for  Best Writing and Actor and  Nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, Director, Actress, and Supporting Actress.

February 13, Cline Library, 7:00pm
Hitch Does Terrorism

Saboteur (Alfred Hitchcock, 1942, 108 minutes) “There used to be another word for terrorist—saboteur. A mysterious fire at a defense plant triggers a cross country mistaken identity chase that ends with a thrilling battle atop the Statue of Liberty. Alfred Hitchcock came to the United States under personal contract to producer David O. Selznick, for whom he would make Rebecca, based on the best selling novel by Daphne DuMaurier. The relationship between producer and director was not a smooth one, and Selznick bartered Hitchcock and Saboteur as a package to Universal for $40,000. This film is the center of a trilogy of films with essentially the same plot, beginning with Hitchcock’s great English thriller The Thirty Nine Steps and concluding with North by Northwest.  Hitchcock began working on the original story treatment with Joan Harrison, an old colleague. …Dorothy Parker was brought in to write dialogue, and her sly anti-establishment wit is much in evidence. The censors at the Production Code office took offense at many of the “anti-social” lines in the script, most supplied by Parker, like when one character criticizes the police for thinking that “frightening people is the first step towards protecting them.”…Hitchcock loved the sophisticated technology that Hollywood could bring to his films. The Statue of Liberty sequence is still striking. Audiences are a little more sophisticated now, although at the time viewers were completely mystified at how it was shot, and studio technicians viewed the film repeatedly to decode the photographic tricks of the tour de force climax. Nothing could have pleased the director more, since he enjoyed both the thrill and the mystery of it all….Saboteur was Hitchcock’s contribution to wartime propaganda, as evidenced by the clunky patriotic dialogue (no doubt not scripted by Dorothy Parker). A complicated film, there were 1000 scenes and 4500 camera set-ups, many at Universal City studios, but also in New York. Hitchcock used a telephoto lens for some scenes, shooting from a mile away or more, to create both a sense of surveillance and the vastness of the American continent….Saboteur capitalized on current events to bolster its fictional story. The film used newsreel footage of the capsized liner Normandie, and implicated that Nazi saboteurs were responsible for its sinking. The largest ship in the world, it was being readied for troop transport when it was sunk, presumably by saboteurs, although the Navy bristled at the implication, and insisted that the scene be cut after the film’s release. Hitch always claimed, ‘I lay out the script shot for shot. It’s boring to shoot a picture because I’ve done it all in the script.’ But that was an example of his not having done this.”  [Norman] Lloyd recalled, “From a directorial point of view, it shows a man who was really on his toes and aware of an opportunity…to take history at the moment and incorporate it into the script.” Commentary by the MovieDiva. 

February 20, Cline Library, 7:00pm
Postcard Perfect Picture

 Meet Me in St Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944, 113 minutes)
“As 1944 brought the D-Day landings, Hollywood was reminding audiences just why (to steal a line from an earlier Judy Garland movie) "there's no place like home". Set in 1903, in the St Louis house of the Smiths, Vincente Minnelli's enchanting musical is all about the joys of family life. In keeping with the momentous events occurring at the time of its release, the story focuses on the upheaval that threatens the family's cohesion: the eldest daughters are searching for husbands, the only son is due to go to Princeton, and the lovable but slightly out of touch father is about to give everyone some bad news - he's been offered a promotion... in New York. Life, it seems, will never be the same again. Combining some wonderful song and dance routines with a cast of memorable characters, "Meet Me in St Louis" is certainly one the best Hollywood musicals ever. It's also one of the least ostentatious. Minnelli makes sure that the musical interludes never upstage the central family drama. Instead, songs like the signature tune 'Meet Me in St Louis' or Garland's rendition of  'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' dispel any chance of an unhappy ending, wrapping the characters and the audience in the musical equivalent of cotton wool.  Full of nostalgia for the romantic traditions of the Old South - complete with horses and traps, gentlemen callers, and evening dances - and bursting with homespun Technicolor warmth, Meet Me in St Louis is pure celluloid sugar,” –Jamie Russell, BBC.  Nominated for the Oscar for Best Song, Score, Writing, and Cinematography and selected for the National Film Registry

 February 27, Cline Library, 7:00pm
Crusading Reporter Drops a Nickel
Call Northside 777 (Henry Hathaway, 1948, 111 minutes) 
“I swoon over any film where character actor Percy Helton appears (he has a cameo as a mailman who witnesses a cop killing). Henry Hathaway ("Kiss of Death") directs this excellently crafted and touching urban crime drama that is based on a true story taken from the book by James P. McGuire. It's shot in the style of a semi-documentary, and makes great use of its Chicago locations. Joe MacDonald's black-and-white cinematography does wonders capturing the feel of the Polish neighborhoods where the events occurred. Prohibition brought in a violent era in Chicago, where in 1932 there was a murder for every day of the year. One of the murders was of policeman Bundy, who was gunned down on a December afternoon while in Wanda Skutnik's grocery store, a front for a speakeasy. The police bring in for questioning Frank Wiecek (Richard Conte) and his best friend Tomek Zaleska. They find inconsistencies in Frank's alibi that he was baking a cake with his wife Helen at the time of the crime, and the innocent man is framed as Wanda bears false witness. Both innocents receive 99 year prison sentences.  When the editor of the Chicago Times, Brian Kelly (Lee J. Cobb), notices a classified ad in his paper offering a reward of $5,000 for information that may lead to her son's release from his prison sentence, he assigns McNeal (James Stewart) to investigate. The skeptical reporter calls Northside 777 and discovers the woman who placed the ad is Tillie Wiecek, the mother of Frank, who has worked as a cleaning lady for the eleven years of her son's incarceration to raise the reward money because she's so convinced of his innocence. McNeal is impressed by her devotion and writes a human interest 'sob story' about her which the public takes an interest in, calling for more stories….The film is cloaked in the cynical attitude of a big city newspaper, where there's competition to sell newspapers. In what goes for a "newspaper noir" film, it is McNeal's uncompromising challenge to the system that wins the day over the authorities who make and enforce the rules. McNeal sticks his neck out by convincing his publisher to stick with the story despite wanting to bail out before an adverse turn of events can damage his paper's reputation. When the reporter found out the truth, his personal quest to do the right thing became bigger than making a name for himself or the business of selling newspapers.  It was well-acted and convincingly done, making for an absorbing and intelligent thriller,” Christopher Null. Won the Edward Allen Poe Award for  Best Picture

 March 6, Cline Library, 7:00pm
Sneaky Sidekick Snags Sarah Siddons Society Statue
All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950, 138 minutes)
“From the snarky opening scene, I knew I was gonna love All About Eve. Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, this is perhaps the first film with an attitude we today would call modern. The film opens with a ceremony honoring actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), with voiceover commentary from theater critic Addison Dewitt (George Sanders), his snide take on actors, playwrights, theater, Eve Harrington, and the distinguished award she's winning. Also at the ceremony, scowling their displeasure, are actress Margo Channing (Bette Davis) and Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), wife of the playwright who wrote the role that won Eve her award.  All About Eve then flashes back to tell us, well, all about Eve. She's a star struck fan who hangs around the stage door after every performance of Aged in Wood, dying to meet her heroine, Margo. Karen runs into sweet little Eve one night and, charmed by her, brings her backstage to meet Margo. And that's where the trouble starts. Today we'd consider Eve a bit of a stalker…she followed Margo across the country from San Francisco to New York, where she'd seen Margo in every performance of another play. Margo and Karen are oblivious, and they sort of adopt Eve -- she moves in with Margo and becomes her becomes her assistant, friend, and confidante. She's desperate to become an actress, and wants to learn all she can from Margo. Eve seems modest, innocent, self-effacing, wide-eyed, loyal, fresh, uncynical -- she has a "quiet graciousness," says one character. But is it all an act? Only in the world of theater, with its temperamental and insecure personalities and actors who don't know when to stop acting, is such a story of pretense and fantasy so delicious. Margo, stuck in the trap of fame, almost has no choice but to accept young Eve's adoration. Margo is worried about getting old, and she needs the worship and approval of her fans even as it annoys her. Eve understands this, too, rhapsodizing on applause, likening it to "waves of love coming over the footlights and wrapping you up, --MaryAnn Johanson.  Won the Oscar for Best Picture, Director, Writing, Sound, Costume, Best Supporting Actor and Nominated for  two Best Supporting Actress Oscars,  as well as Art Direction, Editing, Cinematography, Music.  At the Cannes Film Festival it won for Best Actress and Director.

 March 13, Cline Library, 7:00p
‘Princess Goes Slumming’

Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953, 118 minutes)
“Audrey Hepburn's first starring role illuminated her unique qualities beautifully. It's hard to imagine anyone else fitting the role of a princess quite so well, in William Wyler's romantic comedy "Roman Holiday". Hepburn is the epitome of poise and elegance as royalty on a tour of Europe. While in the public eye she maintains an immaculate façade, but she is less happy personally. The toll of endless engagements and no time for herself is slowly driving her to despair. And while in the bustling city of Rome, she makes her escape for 24 hours of fun. Unfortunately for her she has been given an injection to sleep. Unable to stay awake she is rescued from a night spent sleeping on a wall by a begrudging Gregory Peck. It isn't until the light of morning that journalist Peck realises who this enchanting imposition is. Was this modern-day reality, it would be milked into another yawningly boring scandal. But even by 1950s standards, this is an old-fashioned movie and Peck has no intentions of causing a furor. He does spot the potential for an article though and spends the day taking her on a tour of Rome, indulging her in all the tourist activities she could never hope to do as a princess. Hepburn treats all these activities with wide-eyed delight, steadily eroding the rather crusty Peck until romance begins to blossom. Filmed entirely in Rome, the location does rather dominate the movie. But within time the mix of silly comedy and innocent love turns the viewer into a willing tourist. It's a trip that's over all too soon, but is a delightful escape for all concerned.”—BBC. Won the Oscar for Best Actress, Writing, Costume and nominated for the Oscar for Best Picture, Director, Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction, Screenplay and Supporting Actor. Selected for the National Film Registry.

March 27, Cline Library, 7:00pm
“Jonathan Shields lays an egg.”

The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincente Minnelli, 1952, 118 minutes)
“Kirk Douglas gives a wicked turn as the classic embodiment of a Hollywood producer – brilliant, charming, energetic and completely in love with himself. This behind-the-scenes tale unfolds in flashback, revealing the rise and fall of Douglas and the "friends" he took up the ladder to his success. Turner, Powell and Sullivan star as the actress, writer and director who owe their current A-List status to Douglas, but hate his guts anyway. The film illuminates, one by one, how they met, befriended and then were betrayed by Douglas, their supposed ally or lover….it's their illusions about Douglas that get them into trouble in the first place. It's pretty clear from the start that he'll do anything to make it back on top of the Hollywood power pyramid. His is the only character who doesn't change because he's the only one who knows who he is and where he wants to be. He's an arrogant bastard in the beginning and an older one at the end. What keeps them on his hook is his obvious talent when it comes to developing a great motion picture. His actions give them their heart's desires, but come at a hefty price, practically destroying their lives in the process. In the end, when their personal pied piper calls, will they answer? Do they find it in their hearts to forgive the man who gave them everything, but took so much in return? …Ultimately, it's the acting, not the script that makes this an interesting film. One to see if you're a fan of the actors or love movies about the movies,” Crazy4Cinema. Won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Art Direction, Writing, Costume and nominated for Best Actor.  Selected for the National Film Registry.

 April 3, Cline Library, 7:00pm
"Ex-Film Star Victim of Accidental Drowning"

Star is Born (George Cukor, 1954, 154 minutes) “A Star is Born (1954) opens with a stage show at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles. It is one of the major spectacle scenes in Cukor. Such scenes were rarer in his early work, but became more common in his later years. This is perhaps the most complex of them all. Cukor's ideas on spectacles have at least two ancestors. One is the films of Cecil B. De Mille, which were famous for their super-productions and beautifully staged spectacle scenes. Cukor's scene here is in the De Mille tradition, with all sorts of entertainers, audience members and stage technicians blending into a large and harmonious whole. As in De Mille, there are a large number of elements involved, and the spectator is delighted by the sheer magnitude of it all. But also as in De Mille, the spectator is never crowded. Everything always looks beautiful; everything is always staged with a gorgeous effect. Both in De Mille and Cukor, such staging takes major artistic gifts. The other ancestor here is the films of Orson Welles, and their baroque back stage sequences. Welles included a look at an opera production being rehearsed in Citizen Kane, and there are other backstage spectacles in his unproduced (by him) screenplay The Big Brass Ring. Welles' technique is quite different from Cukor's. There is so much movement among Welles' characters that it creates a uniquely kinetic effect. His opera singers are virtually besieged by stage hands, who are thrusting scenery all over the place among the singers. It is like a rehearsal in Grand Central Station. Cukor's approach is far gentler. Still, his work is in the same genre of back stage effects milked for complex visual patterns. Cukor also faced some unique challenges. A Star is Born is in wide screen and color, and its compositions are adjusted to both…At least in current prints, many of the later scenes in A Star is Born show a consistent color scheme. The shots are built around a contrast between red-orange and blue, frequently employed against a neutral toned or gray background. This is precisely the scheme that will show up consistently in the work of later directors, especially Pedro Almodóvar, Gus Van Sant and Danny Boyle”  Michael E. Grost.  Nominated for the Oscar for Best Actor, Actress, Costume, Song, Score and was selected for the National Film Registry.

April 10, Cline Library, 7:00pm
Hayseed Hokum Huckster Trix Hicks
50th Anniversary Screening!!

Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan, 1957, 125 minutes)
“This is one of the greatest films of the 1950s, a prophetic film about the dangerous power of modern media. A box office flop in its time, the picture, written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan, is about a mean- spirited, drunken good-for-nothing who gets pulled out of the gutter to do a small-town radio program. He soon rises to become one of the most powerful influences in the country, the 1950s' answer to Will Rogers. Kazan and Schulberg tested everyone for the lead role before deciding on Andy Griffith, who is nothing like Andy of Mayberry here. He is volatile and scary, with great homespun charm but no inner warmth. He has loud laughs that erupts out of nowhere, but look into his eyes. He's as cold as a lizard -- yet so engaging that people would want to be around him, even understanding that he's basically evil. Griffith's performance is a masterpiece, among the greatest of that decade. Patricia Neal co-stars as the woman who discovers him and nurses his career along, and Walter Matthau plays a TV writer who recognizes the danger posed by this demagogue before anyone else does,” Mick La Salle. Won the Director’s Guild Award for Outstanding Achievement.

 April 17, Cline Library, 7:00pm
“In the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only expedient exaggeration.”

North By Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959, 136 minutes) 
“Just look at the names: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Alfred Hitchcock - evocative of the Golden Age of cinema, if they were alive today these names alone would have more pulling power than a legion of Roman soldiers on horseback. Luckily, we need not judge North By Northwest on its star power alone. It has a great story, the acting is sound and Hitchcock's direction robustly supports his status as an Auteur. Cary Grant is Roger Thornhill, a middle-aged advertising executive and twice married because, he claims, his life is just too dull. However, this boring life quickly changes into something much more dramatic as he is mistaken for a government agent by a gang of spies, headed up by James Mason as Phillip Vandamm. Thornhill is pursued across the States as he tries to keep himself alive. Boarding a train in an effort to evade police after being framed for murder, he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), a blonde who helps him in his desperate flight. Eve seems to know a little too much, making Thornhill wonder whether she too could be somehow connected in this complicated case of mistaken identity.  Had Sean Connery not have got there, Cary Grant could well have been James Bond. In North by Northwest he displays the typical Bond charm, albeit minus the gadgets. He is a man who every woman falls instantly in love with and every man can do little but envy. …The story is set in many famous locations across the US. However, not everything is as it seems. Hitchcock could not get permission to film a murder on Mount Rushmore, so had a replica built in a studio. Similarly, the United Nations would not let him film inside their building, so in typical spy style, a hidden camera was used there and the rooms later re-created on an MGM sound stage. Alfred Hitchcock is known as a master of suspense. In North By Northwest he has excelled, creating what is still regarded today as one of the greatest thrillers ever. It works so well because it does not rely on sex and violence, but on a fantastic suspenseful story coupled with three-dimensional, involving character.” James Salter.Nominated for the Oscar for Best Writing, Editing, and Art Direction.