Summer of Classic Films in Boston - July 2011

Lots of great films for July!

Brattle Theater - Cambridge

Tickets are $9.75, Matinees before 5 pm are $7.75. Students $7.75 with ID. Seniors $6.75. Children under 12 $6.75. You can also purchase one of many different membership packages.

The Leopard (1963) 
July 8th - 10th (Friday - Sunday) - 4pm and 7:30 pm

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
July 11th  (Monday) - 2:30 pm and 5:00 pm
July 12th  (Tuesday) - 2:30 pm and 5:30 pm

Double Feature! Two for the price of one!
The Birds (1963) & Psycho (1960)
July 18th (Monday) - 2:30 pm (Birds) 5:00 pm (Psycho)
July 19th (Tuesday) - 2:45 pm and 7:00 pm (Birds) 5:15 pm and 9:30 pm (Psycho)

Battleship Potemkin (1925)
July 22nd (Friday) - 8:00 pm
July 23rd (Saturday) - 12:30 pm, 2:15 pm, 4:00 pm, 5:45 pm, 7:30 pm
July 24th (Sunday) - 12:30 pm, 2:15 pm, 4:00 pm, 5:45 pm, 7:30 pm

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Somerville Theater - Somerville

Weekday matinees (before 5pm and not including Holidays) are $5. Saturday, Sunday and  Holiday matinees (before 6pm) are $7.00. All other times are $8.00. There are discounts for Senior Citizens and children under 12.

The African Queen (1951)
July 3rd (Sunday) - 11:00 am
July 4th (Monday) - 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm

Singin' in the Rain (1952)
July 10th (Sunday) - 11:00 am
July 11th (Monday) - 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm

The Wizard of Oz (1939)
July 17th (Sunday) - 11:00 am
July 18th (Monday) - 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm

Dr. Strangelove (1964)
July 24th (Sunday) - 11:00 am
July 25th  (Monday) - 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm

Ninotchka (1939)
July 31st (Sunday) - 11:00 am

Silent Film Series - Buster Keaton
Special event price $12.00, $8 for Seniors and Students
July 10th (Sunday) - 7pm
Seven Chances (1925) plus Keaton shorts Neighbors (1920) and The Goat (1921)
with live musical accompaniment

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Harvard Film Archive - Cambridge

Tickets are $9, $7 for Students and Senior Citizens. Some screenings are $12 or even free (check the website)! Cash only folks. Don't bring the credit card. And you can NOT buy in advance so show up early.

These films are part of the Joseph L. Mankiewicz series.

The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

July 22nd (Friday) - 7:00 pm

July 24th (Sunday) - 4:30 pm

Somewhere in the Night (1946)
July 22nd (Friday) - 9:30 pm

All About Eve (1950)
July 23rd (Saturday) - 7:30 pm

The Late George Apley (1947)
July 23rd (Saturday) - 9:30 pm

Guys and Dolls (1955)
July 24th (Sunday) - 7:00 pm

People Will Talk (1951)
July 25th (Monday) - 7:00 pm


Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
July 29th (Friday) - 7:00 pm
July 31st (Sunday) - 4:30 pm

The Honey Pot (1967)
July 29th (Friday) - 9:15 pm

Escape (1948)
July 30th (Saturday) - 9:30 pm


No Way Out (1950)
July 31st (Sunday) - 9:30 pm

The African Queen (1951) at the Brattle

This passage comes from the book Tough Without a Gun: The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart by Stefan Kanfer:

In the early 1950s the Brattle Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, tried something old. Like many another venue for productions of Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Shaw, the Brattle had become a film house in the early 1950s. But it was a film house unlike any other. It had a rear-screen projector, rather than the standard setup that beamed movies on a screen above the audience. And it had owners who believed that the past could be more alluring than the present.

 In April of 1957, the Brattle screened Casablanca (1942), 15 years after it had come out and 3 months after Bogart died. Kanfer goes on to show how the posthumous cult of Bogie starts at the Brattle and spreads across the country gathering followers along the way. Having seen Casablanca (1942) at the Brattle and having seen The African Queen (1951) , another Bogie film, there too, I think this is pretty darn cool. It makes me love the Brattle more than I do already.

For a whole week, the Brattle showed a restored 35mm print of The African Queen (1951) starring Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart and directed by John Huston. In cases like these, I'm glad I haven't yet devoured all the great classics because I got to experience viewing The African Queen for the first time on the big screen. Not having seen it in its previous condition, I can't tell you how the restored print compares however I can tell you that I saw was strangely beautiful. A Technicolor film showing dirt and grime in all its glory. 

The trifecta of Huston-Hepburn-Bogie just works. The director and the two stars were a scrappy trio. Hepburn had an adventurous spirit and her natural mischievousness made her a perfect fit for playing Rose Sayers. Stefan Kanfer says that Hepburn enjoyed hanging around heavy drinkers John Huston and Humphrey Bogart. Perhaps because she was in a long-term, albeit extramarital, relationship with hard drinker Spencer Tracy and knew what to expect. Hepburn didn't drink much on set herself but maybe she should have. She believed in drinking lots of water and ended up getting very sick after ingesting contaminated water. Huston & Bogie staved off the sickness by sticking to the booze. Perhaps Bogie's portrayal of the gin-loving Charlie Allnut was easy peasy for him and perhaps the sober version of Charlie, after Rose throws away all his liquor, required a little more work. It all comes together to make one beautiful picture.

I enjoyed this film very much. I was a bit thrown off by that first scene in the church when all the native Africans are trying to mimic the sounds of an English hymn as Katharine Hepburn and Robert Morley try to sing eloquently over their drones. It did set up the comedy aspect of the movie though. While Rose and Charlie are in a lot of danger, it's a very light-hearted movie. Because there is such a strict focus on those two characters you get plenty of time to understand them, care for them and laugh at their wild antics. While this film was also screened at the Somerville Theatre, I'm glad I watched it at the Brattle, the so-called originating point of the cult of Bogie.

Captains Courageous (1937) at The Somerville Theater

One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong.

 

Does your local theater have this kind of variety? I doubt it!

 

Please, sir. Could you show me the way to the main theater?

 

The Somerville Theater recently kicked off their Classic Film Series with two screenings of Captains Courageous (1937). I was a bit surprised that this movie was even in the line-up. Surprised, yet very, very happy. Captains Courageous is a film I've been meaning to watch for quite a while and getting a chance to see it for the first time and on the big screen to boot was an opportunity I couldn't pass up. And I went by myself! I've been to a lot of social gatherings lately so it was really nice to be able to watch this on my own. And although I always encourage people to share classic films with others, sometimes it's nice to have a movie all to yourself. It's a very intimate and personal experience and I recommend it if you ever need a break from being social butterfly.

Directed by Victor Fleming, Captains Courageous stars Freddie Bartholomew as Harvey Cheyne, a spoiled little motherless brat whose father, Frank Burton Cheyne (Melvyn Douglas), sends him off to boarding school each year. Off Harvey goes with pockets full of cash and false sense of entitlement. The father is neglectful of his son and without any guidance Harvey is a poor excuse for a boy. With the power of his dad's money, Harvey tries to bribe and trick his way into things. The other kids start to dislike Harvey and he wants out of school so he tells his dad that the school masters are abusing him and accepting bribes. Once the father finds out Harvey's real problem, he pulls him out of school and takes him on a cruise to Europe for some dad-son bonding time. But oops! Harvey falls off the boat. No worries! He gets rescued by a Portuguese fisherman named Manuel Fidello (Spencer Tracy). Manuel brings Harvey back to the fishing Schooner. Lionel Barrymore  plays the captain, Mickey Rooney  plays the captain's son, John Carradine  plays Long Jack and there is a motley crew of other seafaring men on board. Harvey is stuck on the schooner for the 3 months the fisherman will be out at sea before they head back to Gloucester, MA with their catch. Reluctantly on both their parts, Manuel and Harvey start a friendship. Manuel becomes the father figure Harvey never had. The situation is too good to be true. You just know something bad is going to happen.

Manuel Fidello (Spencer Tracy) is curly-haired, Portuguese and lives in Massachusetts. Who does that remind me of?

Oh yeah. ME! But I have a better accent than Spencer Tracy did. The man could not speak Portuguese!

Having seen as many classic films as I have I can usually place a film in a certain time period by observing a few things. If I can, I try to guess the exact year. If I'm off, it's only ever by a little bit. So having forgotten that this film is from 1937, I looked at a few things to guess that the film was from the late 1930s. For one thing, Lionel Barrymore is up and walking. After his accident and with his problems of arthritis, Lionel Barrymore was wheel chair bound from the 1940s until his death in the mid 1950s. A youngish Mickey Rooney looked young but not too young. Spencer Tracy, who didn't age very well and always looked older than he was, did not serve as a point of reference to me at all! Neither did Freddie Bartholomew because frankly this is the first of his films I've ever seen and I wouldn't have been able to guess from his age. In the beginning of the film I spotted a lot of Art Deco fixtures and furniture. That definitely places is it in the 1930s. The content of the film places it post pre-Code (so after 1934). Ultimately, I guessed 1937 or 1938.

I had a wonderful experience at the Somerville Theater! I sincerely wish I brought a few tissues as I really needed them and my shirt sleeve wasn't cutting it. I want to say thank you to them for taking a chance and showing this wonderful theater on the big screen!

Silent Film Stars Historic Records Available on Ancestry.com

Below is a press release from Ancestry.com. I think this will be very interesting for folks who are researching information about silent era film stars and coming across major obstacles. I have a few film stars I'd like to research. I hope this will be a good source for biographers which may mean more classic film biographies in our future! You do need a membership to use the service though. It may be well worth it for the truly dedicated film historians.

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Silent Cinema Stars Private Information Revealed In Historic Studio Archives- Now Available Online at Ancestry.com

Thousands of stars of the early silver screen detailed in Motion Picture Studio Directories

§ Records include Charlie Chaplin, “Fatty” Arbuckle and Oliver Hardy (images available)

§ Directories reveal ‘vital statistics’ stars probably didn’t want you to know…


Provo, Utah – June 13, 2011 – Ancestry.com, the world’s largest online family resource, has launched online records of the original Hollywood film studios, which profile the superstars of silent cinema at the beginning of the 20th century. Digitized in partnership with the California State Library (where the original ledgers are held), the records are now fully searchable online for the first time by name, birthplace and date of birth.

Much like today’s online film and actors database IMDb, the directories were compiled by executives of the ‘big five’ studios – Warner Bros., FPL Corp (Paramount), RKO, MGM and 20thCentury Fox. ‘Up & Coming’ studios also contributed to the records, among them Universal, Columbia and United Artists.

The Motion Picture Studio Directories (1919 and 1921)feature thousands of leading actors, actresses, cinematographers, writers, editors, directors, producers and screenwriters of the day – at a time when cinemas were selling more than 100 million tickets a week. The silent film era was so incredibly prominent during its heyday that the highest grossing film of the time, The Birth of a Nation, earned $10 million in 1915, equivalent to more than $216 million in modern era earnings and a runaway blockbuster by today’s standards.

The records contain information about iconic actors and actresses such as Charlie Chaplin, who reached the height of his fame during the silent film era by using mime and slapstick to great effect. His records describe him as 5’4” with brown hair and blue eyes and list his address as the Charlie Chaplain Film Co on La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles.

Actors’ entries include details of past film roles, age, birthplace, height, weight, address and even a home phone number in some cases. The biggest stars often paid to include photos in order to attract greater interest from film executives (images available).

In fact, several actors omitted or amended their information to make them more marketable. The entry for one of the most famous of all silent movie actresses, Gloria Swanson, has the date of birth omitted, despite being just 32 at the time, and Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle - one of the highest paid actors of the silent era - has a number of facts excluded, notably his weight.

Some further famous names listed include:

· Oliver Hardy – The ‘big man’ of comedy double act Laurel & Hardy, Hardy appeared in hundreds of films in a career spanning over 30 years. His directory entry includes his industry nickname ‘Babe,’ his unusual height for the era (6’1”) and weight (350 lbs).

· Lillian Gish – One of the leading actresses of the silent era and considered to be one of the greatest of all time, Gish played a lead character in The Birth of a Nation – the largest grossing of all silent movies.

· Buster Keaton – Known for his constantly stoic, deadpan expression during his comedy appearances, Keaton earned the nickname “The Great Stone Face”. He is listed as having taken part in military service, fighting for the US in WWI. It is during his service that Keaton developed an ear infection which left his hearing permanently impaired.

· Mary Pickford – Known as the “American Sweetheart” or “Girl with the Curls,” Pickford was a world-renowned actress. Her records detail her career starting as early as five-years-old and list her address as 4500 Sunset Boulevard, LA.

“These records paint an intriguing picture of how the early film industry operated and include some of the first and biggest names ever to appear on the silver screen,” remarked Quinton Atkinson, Ancestry.com Director of Content. “It’s fascinating to see the details that would have been kept reserved for film executives of the day and perhaps the details within might provide the link needed to prove your relation to a film executive, famous director or even one many movie stars found in the directories.”

Visit www.ancestry.com/motionpicturesto start searching the records now.

About Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com)
Ancestry.com Inc. (Nasdaq: ACOM) is the world's largest online family history resource, with more than 1.6 million paying subscribers. More than 6 billion records have been added to the site in the past 14 years. Ancestry users have created more than 24 million family trees containing over 2.4 billion profiles. Ancestry.com has local Web sites directed at nine countries that help people discover, preserve and share their family history, including its flagship Web site at www.ancestry.com.