NYC's Film Forum

[skyvue]

My devotion to the Film Forum's "Breadlines and Champagne" festival of 1930s movies continues apace. Last night, it was Al Jolson in HALLELUJAH! I'M A BUM, a strange and oddly engaging musical, and a collection of Vitaphone shorts.

The Film Forum runs such a collection, provided by the Vitaphone Project, every couple of years, and they're always a delight.

One of the highights of last night's offerings was a Roy Smeck short in which he played four numbers -- one on lap guitar, one on banjo, and two great ones on ukulele. It was my wife's first exposure to Smeck, and she loved him.

But my favorites are always Shaw and Lee, a vaudeville comedy act featuring two deadpan comics. I don't recall the title of last night's short, but there was one joke that fits this forum very well.

Shaw and Lee are trying to gain entrance to a tony nightclub, but the doorman is wary of letting them in, piping right away that they're not members of the upper crust to whom the club is trying to appeal.

At one point, he bops one of the boys (Shaw or Lee? I can't keep them straight) on the head, smashing in the crown of his bowler.

At which point the other comic quips, "He turned your Stetson into a Knox!"

A little hat humor for a Friday morning (it's Friday morning here in NYC, in any case)...

 

[skyvue]

"The Con Film Festival" a two-week, twenty-one film series of prison movies, spotlighting cons, ex-cons, and other incarcerated outcasts, will run at Film Forum from Friday, May 8, through Thursday, May 21.

The festival kicks off May 8-9 (Fri/Sat) with a double feature of Mervyn LeRoy's landmark I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG, starring Paul Muni as a wrongly convicted WWI veteran forced to serve on a brutal chain gang, a true story based on the memoir by Robert E. Burns, and Howard Hawks' hard-boiled THE CRIMINAL CODE, a prototype for future Big House pictures, starring Walter Huston as a self-serving D.A., and featuring Boris Karloff in a scene-stealing role as a convicted murderer who won't tolerate "squealers."

The series continues with tough guy James Cagney in two of his toughest pictures: Raoul Walsh's WHITE HEAT and Michael Curtiz's ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES. In WHITE HEAT, the festival's Mother's Day (May 10) attraction, Cagney stars as volatile Mom-fixated killer Cody Jarrett ("Top o' the world, Ma!"). ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES stars Cagney (1939 NY Film Critics Best Actor Award) and Pat O'Brien as slum kids who grow up to become a gangster and a priest, each vying for influence over local J.D.'s The Dead End Kids, with Humphrey Bogart as a crooked attorney.

The popular theme of women behind bars is explored in LADIES THEY TALK ABOUT, a Pre-Code melodrama starring Barbara Stanwyck, in a prison filled with femme con archetypes; LADIES OF THE BIG HOUSE (written by an actual con), with Sylvia Sidney as an innocent convict caught up in a prison break; CAGED, in which naive, pregnant 19-year-old Eleanor Parker is slowly hardened by prison life, with the help of butch Hope Emerson; and Robert Wise's I WANT TO LIVE!, starring Susan Hayward in her Oscar-winning performance as the real-life Barbara Graham, framed for a murder she didn't commit and sentenced to the gas chamber.

Big House hard cases are the focus of Michael Curtiz's 20,000 YEARS IN SING SING, starring Spencer Tracy as a con sentenced to the famed NYS maximum security person, with Bette Davis as his girlfriend: It features a prologue with then-warden Lewis E. Lawes; and EACH DAWN I DIE, starring Cagney as a framed journalist who strikes a deal behind bars with hardened criminal George Raft.

The chain gang is depicted in Stanley Kramer's THE DEFIANT ONES, starring Tony Curis and Sidney Poitier as escaped cons chained together; COOL HAND LUKE, with Paul Newman as a free-spirited con who won't submit to the system; Preston Sturges' SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS, in which Hollywood director Joel McCrea, on the road to research his very artistic next film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, loses his memory and finds himself on a Southern chain gang; and the Coen Brothers' O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU?, starring George Clooney, John Turturro, and Tim Blake Nelson as three chain gang escapees on an Odyssey-inspired search for treasure in 30s Mississippi.

Also screening: John Ford's THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND, starring Warner Baxter as Dr. Samuel Mudd, the surgeon sentenced to hard labor after treating John Wilkes Booth just after Lincoln's assassination; Richard Boleslawski's LES MISERABLES, based on the Victor Hugo novel, with Fredric March as perhaps France's most famous escaped con, Jean Valjean, and Charles Laughton as his dogged pursuer, Inspector Javert; Don Siegel's ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ starring Clint Eastwood as one of the only convicts who may (or may not have) actually escaped from "The Rock"; Siegel's RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11, a gritty drama starring Neville Brand as leader of a prison riot; PICK-UP, with Sylvia Sidney as a reformed con who falls for taxi driver George Raft.; and Fritz Lang's YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE, a Bonnie & Clyde-inspired Noir, starring Henry Fonda as an ex-con who just can't get a break on the outside. See below for complete schedule.

May 8/9 Fri/Sat
I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG (1932, Mervyn LeRoy) Paul Muni
1:00, 4:35, 8:10
THE CRIMINAL CODE (1931, Howard Hawks) Walter Huston, Boris Karloff
2:50, 6:25, 10:00

May 10/11 Sun/Mon Mother's Day!
WHITE HEAT (1949, Raoul Walsh) James Cagney
Sun 1:30, 5:35, 9:40 / Mon 2:00
ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES (1938, Michael Curtiz) James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Pat O'Brien
Sun 3:40, 7:45 / Mon 4:10

May 12 Tue
LADIES THEY TALK ABOUT (1933, Howard Bretherton & William Keighley) Barbara Stanwyck
1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 10:00
LADIES OF THE BIG HOUSE (1931, Marion Gering) Sylvia Sidney
2:25, 5:25, 8:25

May 13 Wed
20,000 YEARS IN SING SING (1933, Michael Curtiz) Spencer Tracy, Bette Davis
2:50, 6:15, 9:40
EACH DAWN I DIE (1939, William Keighley) James Cagney, George Raft
1:00, 4:25, 7:50

May 14 Thu
THE PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND (1936, John Ford) Warner Baxter
1:30, 5:25, 9:20
LES MISERABLES (1935, Richard Boleslawski) Fredric March, Charles Laughton
3:20, 7:15

May 15 Fri
CAGED (1950, John Cromwell) Eleanor Parker, Agnes Moorehead
1:30, 5:35, 9:40
I WANT TO LIVE! (1958, Robert Wise) Susan Hayward
3:20, 7:25

May 16 Sat
ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ (1979, Don Siegel) Clint Eastwood
1:30, 5:10, 8:50
RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 (1954, Don Siegel) Neville Brand
3:35, 7:15

May 17/18 Sun/Mon
SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS (1942, Preston Sturges) Joel McCrea, Veronica Lake
Sun 1:30, 5:20, 9:10 / Mon 1:00, 4:50
O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000, Joel Coen) George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson
Sun 3:15, 7:05 / Mon 2:45

May 19 Tue
BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ (1962, John Frankenheimer) Burt Lancaster, Karl Malden, Telly Savalas
1:00, 3:45, 6:30, 9:15

May 20 Wed
THE DEFIANT ONES (1958, Stanley Kramer) Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier
1:00, 5:15, 9:30
COOL HAND LUKE (1967, Stuart Rosenberg) Paul Newman, George Kennedy
2:55, 7:10

May 21 Thu
YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (1937, Fritz Lang) Henry Fonda, Sylvia Sidney
3:00, 6:10, 9:20
PICK-UP (1933, Marion Gering) Sylvia Sidney, George Raft
1:30, 4:40, 7:50

 

[Feraud]

There are some great films playing. If only the seats were a bit more comfortable! The FF is one small theater.

Don't forget the Tod Browning films showing.

 

[mike]

Plus you can't buy tickets ahead of time for the double features it seems. How annoying since they could easily sell out while you're rushing there after work. If there's one thing to miss about Los Angeles, it's the quantity of wonderful films playing regularly at beeeautiful original movie palaces! :eusa_doh:

 

[skyvue]

If there's one thing to miss about Los Angeles, it's the quantity of wonderful films playing regularly at beeeautiful original movie palaces!

I love LA's classic theatres, too, but NYC holds its own as far as classic movie programming -- Film Forum, the Walter Reade, MoMA, AMMI, BAM, Symphony Space, Anthology Film Archives, the IFC Center. LA has the Last Remaining Seats series, which is held in vintage theatres, but that's only a few movies a year. And NYC has the Ziegfeld, which generally shows a few classic films a year.

I think that most of the venues for old movies in NYC match up well enough with LA's. I'd just as soon see a movie at MoMA or the Walter Reade as at the Egyptian, for example, which has little of its original appeal on the interior.

 

[mike]

I love LA's classic theatres, too, but NYC holds its own as far as classic movie programming -- Film Forum, the Walter Reade, MoMA, AMMI, BAM, Symphony Space, Anthology Film Archives, the IFC Center. LA has the Last Remaining Seats series, which is held in vintage theatres, but that's only a few movies a year. And NYC has the Ziegfeld, which generally shows a few classic films a year.

I think that most of the venues for old movies in NYC match up well enough with LA's. I'd just as soon see a movie at MoMA or the Walter Reade as at the Egyptian, for example, which has little of its original appeal on the interior.

I'm a NY'er through and through, but...

- the yearly film festival of Last Remaining Seats opening the doors to some of the most classic original movie palaces
- film preservation film festivals screening all sorts of incredible and rare films (Hammer Museum, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences/Mary Pickford Theatre... and that really intense several week running one held yearly in the end of August whose name presently escapes me)
- the Old Town Music Hall (LA's most charming, best kept secret venue and weekly if not more often)
- Silent Movie Theatre (weekly if not more often)

...LA's got it going on! lol That being said, most of the screenings that I've seen were all people in the preservation industry and barely filled, with some notable exceptions. But I dont feel like it's a room full of die hard fans. It's an industry town and people are networking and/or working. But you take what you can from situations to make for the best night, and I saw some wonderful stuff during my few years in LA.

I mean, when in NY have you gone to a screening of King Vidor's the Crowd and it just so happens his GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER was in the audience and just so happens to get up and tell personal family anecdotes! It wasn't even advertised! It just happened!

New York's main venues for terrific classic cinema mainly were all born from the 60's art house era. So we have boxy, sometimes small theatres that have their own charm but we can't touch the Orpheum Theatre with a 20 person live orchestra performing for Flesh and the Devil to a sold out audience dressed to the nines for the occasion. And we shouldn't have to. We have our own style and worth as an important city and so does LA. It makes for a excellent reason to go visit, that's for sure!

 

[skyvue]

- the yearly film festival of Last Remaining Seats opening the doors to some of the most classic original movie palaces
- film preservation film festivals screening all sorts of incredible and rare films (Hammer Museum, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences/Mary Pickford Theatre... and that really intense several week running one held yearly in the end of August whose name presently escapes me)
- the Old Town Music Hall (LA's most charming, best kept secret venue and weekly if not more often)
- Silent Movie Theatre (weekly if not more often)

Sorry, but NYC has no problem matching the events you cite, except the Last Remaining Seats, and even then, it's hard to beat seeing a classic movie at the Ziegfeld or Radio City Music Hall, both of which I've done more than once. But the venues I cited match up pretty well with the others you cited. I'm glad the Silent Movie Theatre is there, but it's pretty boxy, too, and not particularly ornate or interesting -- not at all what I expected from what I'd heard before attending a show there. The Old Town is charming, but hardly a prime venue (and NYC has the Loew's Jersey, which I neglected to mention before, and even the Lafayette in Suffern that are arguably as convenient to reach as the Old Town -- certainly the Loews Jersey is).

I'm not knocking the LA movie scene in any way, shape or form -- I often gnash my teeth at the offerings I'm missing there. But I can guarantee you that if I lived there, I'd just as often gnash my teeth at the movies I was missing back in NYC.

NYC takes a back seat to no American city in the arena of classic movie screenings. LA has more classic theatres, it's true, but most of them aren't showing old movies on a regular basis.

As for the star-struck stuff, are you kidding? I've attended Preston Sturges movies where Eddie Bracken himself was in the house, a Precode movie starring Frances Dee, with her sitting right behind me and standing and speaking to the audience at length afterward, more than one Fay Wray movie with her in attendance (she was a Film Forum member), an Ed Wood movie with Conrad Brooks on hand, a film-clips-and-Q&A tribute to Farley Granger, a film-clips-and-Q&A tribute to Jane Powell and Dickie Moore, a film-clips-and-Q&A tribute to Tatsuya Nakadai with that great actor in attendance, a film-clips-and-Q&A tribute to Norman Lloyd, a screening of a Precode movie based on a George S. Kaufman play attended by the great man's daughter and Kitty Carlisle (with whom I shared some popcorn), a Preston Sturges retrospective attended by his widow Sandy, another Sturges retrospective attended by his youngest son.

And all of those are just off the top of my head and all took place at Film Forum. Throw in the other venues I cited above, and I could go on and on and on.

Aw heck, I will go on and on. I"ve seen Martin Scorsese introduce more than one movie at the Walter Reade, Michael Powell's widow (and film editor extraordinaire) Thelma Schoonmaker introduce one of his films at the same venue. I've attended a week-long Richard Widmark retrospective that was attended by that wonderful actor.

Okay, I'll stop now. Surely I've made my point.

 

[skyvue]

P.S. I fear my above post sounds contentious, and I didn't mean it to. Just bragging on my town (but I'd be very happy, movie-wise, living in LA, too -- I float the idea to my wife sometimes, but she so far sees it as a place to visit, not live -- me, I wouldn't mind spending six months here, six months there, not that either of us has a job that would allow us to adopt that arrangement).

 

[mike]

lol I don't think you sound contentious! I just haven't experienced here what you've experienced here! I've seen some great stuff here, don't get me wrong. But I spent about 2 years and change out there and really felt like classic hollywood was living just below the surface of everywhere you went. ex/I bought my wine at a store (trader joe's) that used to be the footprint of where Douglas Fairbanks had his studio where they erected the Thief of Bagdad set! I had friends who lived in a area called Pickfair Village...! Or Sennett & Griffith's Triangle Films building is still standing! Or the Monogram Studios building, which is now a tv production studio, but it's the exact building from the beginning of the Corpse Vanishes! There was so much of that there! Not modern pop culture, and mostly not documented publicly apart from in books, but still there and somehow magical! I've always wanted to do some heavier researching into the original studios that shot in midtown NYC on the west side (Murnau's SUNRISE (1927) was shot there for instance) and in Astoria, Long Island and the birthplace of American film, New Jersey.

Anyway, how's about meeting up sometime?!

 

[skyvue]

Oh, I feel the same way when I go to LA, believe me. I devote easily 80% of my visits (and I've been there for a week's stay three times over the past six years) to movie-related touristing.

I got that same feeling while in Mississippi, knowing that I was standing exactly where so much of blues history had occurred (and I'm far more devoted a movie buff than blues fan).

I'm working seven days a week these days, so my socializing is limited, but I'm sure we'll meet at some point down the line.

You may already be familiar with it, but if not, check out Richard Alleman's New York -- The Movie Lover's Guide: The Ultimate Insider Tour of Movie New York. He wrote one about LA, too, and I recommend both.

http://alturl.com/59i3

 

[Feraud]

The FF is showing In A Lonely Place for one week July 17-23.

(1950) Humphrey Bogart a vicious killer? Okay, he’s a hard-drinking, log-sized-chip-on-his-shoulder screenwriter with a sardonic cynicism so deep he enlists a hatcheck girl as overnight novel summarizer so he doesn’t actually have to read the trashy book he’s agreed to adapt, stopping to take a poke at an asking-for-it producer’s son-in-law along the way. Even when she winds up dead, and he’s being grilled by old army buddy Frank Lovejoy, it turns into an occasion for girl-across-the-courtyard (an exact reproduction of Ray’s first Hollywood pad) Gloria Grahame to give Bogie an alibi — and to get to know better an “interesting” face. But as their love affair progresses, Bogie breaks his fussbudget longtime agent’s glasses, creeps out Lovejoy and wife Jeff Donnell with his too-real “imaginative” reenactment of the murder, and is barely prevented from braining a motorist he’d already sideswiped and beaten senseless. An agonizingly inevitable — but still surprising — resolution looms. Ray boasted “I took the gun out of Bogie’s hands” in altering his screen image (“a radical demystification of the classic Bogart hero” – Robert Sklar); while his own marriage with Grahame ended during the filming — they kept it a secret, fearing Ray would be kicked off the production. "Bogart's performance shares most of the characteristics of his classic performances except that the tie between the killer and the lover is laid bare, without the romanticism, the genre conventions, or the political ideology which underlay it in previous films.... There are no moments for audiences to cheer as he pumps lead into a noxious villain - surely not when he extols the wonderful feeling of crushing a throat, or with his hands around one. The role of Dixon Steele is among the most interesting examples of a performer's critical reevaluation of his screen persona, and surely belongs on the list of Bogart's great performances." – Robert Sklar. Approx. 93 minutes.

http://www.filmforum.org/films/lonely.html

For as many times as I've seen this film I may suffer being squashed into the Film Forum for this.

 

[mike]

The FF is showing In A Lonely Place for one week July 17-23.

http://www.filmforum.org/films/lonely.html

For as many times as I've seen this film I may suffer being squashed into the Film Forum for this.

This is one of my favorite films!!! I was lucky enough to catch Where East is East on Monday! WOW!!! What a film!!! Lupe Velez may have just stole the film!!! I was struck by what a reserved portrayal Lon Chaney chose to go with in this picture. I bet he opted for similar in the lost 1929 film, Thunder and let James Murray (of the Crowd fame) stretch his legs [huh]

 

[Feraud]

If time allows I am going to catch this film this afternoon.

 

[skyvue]

Film Forum's got some great stuff coming in the weeks and months ahead.

This Friday, a Nicholas Ray retrospective launches with a week-long engagement of IN A LONELY PLACE; the Ray fest runs through August 6.

On Monday, August 3, they're showing a restored silent version of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT that was previously shown only overseas.

From August 7 through Sept. 3, they're featuring a Brit Noir festival, with Mondays being devoted to noirs starring James Mason to commemorate his centennial.

For a week starting on Sept. 4, they're showing Carol Reed's ODD MAN OUT.

John Huston's FAT CITY, Billy Wilder's SOME LIKE IT HOT, and an Elia Kazan festival follow in late September and October.

Good stuff!

 

[Feraud]

The Brit Noir and James Mason Most Noir series look excellent!

 

[GoldenEraFan]

Film Forum

I went there in December to watch Max Fleischers underrated feature "Hoppity Goes to Town" (a.k.a. Mr. Bug goes to town). It was a nice experience complete with a Betty Boop cartoon before the feature. I dressed in 1940's inspired dress casual clothes to further heighten the old movie experience. It's a great little theater by the way.

 

[Feraud]

Fat City with Stacy Keach and Jeff Bridges is playing at the FF from 9/18-10/01!
http://www.filmforum.org/films/fatcity.html

(1972) Two fighters spar in an empty gym; one on the way up: 18-year-old “natural” Jeff Bridges, ticketed for the pros via an intro to manager Nicholas Colasanto (later “Coach” on Cheers); and one on the way down: pushing-30 ex-pro Stacy Keach, mortified by pulling a muscle in his first workout after a two-year layoff. But there are detours along the way, for Bridges his knocked-up girlfriend Candy Clark (in her debut), and for Keach his involvement with (Oscar-nominated) Susan Tyrrell, tearing it up as the Barfly to end all Barflies (“boozed, blowsy, and so good, so out of her mind with hope and depression, so used, so soiled, so lifelike…” – David Thomson). Maybe just one more win for Keach and he could get it all back. But what changes if you actually win? All location-shot by the great Conrad Hall (“with lovely shabby color that looks like paper used to wrap a burger” –Thomson) in Stockton, California at its dustiest, these are perhaps the Losing-est in Huston’s gallery of Beautiful Losers, with terrific if decidedly unglamorous boxing scenes and a cast seeded with actual fighters, most notably former welterweight champ Curtis Cokes in his only acting role, letter-perfect as Tyrrell’s sometime boyfriend “Earl.” “Huston’s best… As much as anything, it is the accuracy of this microcosm of the world that is so impressive, and Huston’s sympathy with his motley characters.” – Derek Malcolm.

A film from when they made 'em great.

 

[skyvue]

The Kurosawa retrospective is underway at Film Forum. STRAY DOG ends today, followed by assorted classics shown daily through February 5, with a two-week run of RAN closing things out.

www.filmforum.org

 

[skyvue]

Film Forum's Victor Fleming retrospective opens tomorrow with a don't-miss double bill showing on Friday and Saturday:

RED DUST
(1932) Raunchily hilarious passion in the jungle, as Saigon hooker Jean Harlow battles prim socialite Mary Astor for multi-woman rubber planter Clark Gable.
Fri 1:00, 4:30, 8:00*
Sat 2:50, 8:00*
*8:00 Fri/Sat shows introduced by Fleming biographer Michael Sragow

"Harlow [delivers] her zingy wisecracks with a wonderful dirty humor. Directed by Fleming in a racy, action-packed style." -- Pauline Kael

"A masterpiece of erotic choreography. Still one the funniest, saddest, hottest and truest movies about adultery." -- Michael Sragow

"Pre-code and hopelessly un-PC, this bit of Indochinese erotic intrigue projects MGM star power at its finest." -- J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

"The archetypal steamy melodrama." -- Time Out (London)

"Lusty and fresh." -- Pare Lorentz, Vanity Fair

"Worth seeing... There's a lightness in the direction, a sparkle in the dialogue and a grand punch ending. Jean Harlow gets the most out of every line and all but steals the show." -- Variety

"Tart and funny, yet brutal and elegant, with a startlingly contemporary documentary interlude about the formation of rubber -- and brooding, lingering close-ups of Gable and Astor at their most ardent." -- Michael Sragow, The New York Times (February 28, 2010)

BOMBSHELL
(1933) Jean Harlow’s Lola Burns -- the "IF Girl" -- supports sponging family, endless entourage and a major Hollywood studio, while fending off romantic con artist Franchot Tone and stop-at-nothing press agent Lee Tracy (see Lee Tracy festival, Tuesdays, April 13-May 4).
Fri 2:40, 6:10, 9:40
Sat 1:00, 4:30**, 9:40
**4:30 show on Saturday is a single feature only

"The unsung prototype of the screwball comedy and one of the funniest inside-Hollywood movies ever. Solidified Fleming’s reputation as one of the few directors who could do anything in sound that he did in the silents, from adventure to erotic melodrama to sophisticated farce." -- Michael Sragow

"This early Hollywood self-satire makes contemporary showbiz-is-crazy chronicles look abysmal by comparison." -- Time Out New York

"A cinematic treasure in its rich mixture of behavioral bawdiness and verbal crackle." -- Andrew Sarris

"One of the fastest and funniest Hollywood pictures ever made." -- Photoplay

"For laughter with a frisson, with stabs of reality through the Metro gloss, Bombshell now stands out as a Hollywood landmark." -- William Johnson, Film Comment​

BOMBSHELL, especially, is an absolute treasure, and the chance to see it on a big screen with an appreciative audience shouldn't be missed.

Here's the full lineup for the retrospective:

http://www.filmforum.org/films/fleming.html

 

[skyvue]

Film Forum's HOLLYWOOD ON THE HUDSON series started last Tuesday, but I've been particularly looking forward to this Tuesday's bill. I love the Vitaphone shorts:

VITAPHONE VARIETIES OF 2010
Twelve early sound shorts, all filmed at Brooklyn's Avenue M Studios, restored by UCLA, and unseen since 1929! Tonight's stars include "Birth of a Nation"'s Henry B. Walthall; Preston Sturges perennial Jimmy Conlin; Brit comics Val & Ernie Stanton; tap-dancing harpist Carlena Diamond; Oklahoma Bob Albright and "His Rodeo-Do Flappers;" and much more! Introduced by Ron Hutchinson of The Vitaphone Project. Special thanks to Bob Gitt. Program Approx. 105 minutes.
1:00, 4:40, 8:30

30s piano virtuoso Peter Mintun will perform before the 1:00 & 4:40 shows of Vitaphone Varieties of 2010 and the 3:00 show of Moonlight and Pretzels.

MOONLIGHT AND PRETZELS
(1933, Karl Freund & Monte Brice) 42nd Street on a shoestring, shot in Astoria, as brash songwriter Roger Pryor battles producers; smalltown muse Mary Brian fends off gambling sleazeballs; and Lillian Miles booms "Dusty Shoes" in the big Depression finale. Co-director Freund was the DP of Metropolis! Approx. 84 minutes.
3:00, 6:40, 10:30

"EDITORS' PICK! This freewheeling musical... is worth seeing for the bursts of style and fine performances."
-- New York magazine

"The climax, a big social commentary Depression number about the army of the unemployed getting back on its feet and Wall Street dancing for joy, is really fascinating."
-- Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

"A real curio! Has a bizarre charm."
-- William K. Everson

"Hard-boiled laughs, a supposed insider view of show-biz magic, catchy tunes that made light of the Depression, and '50 Famous Show Girls.' One the musicals made after 1932, this one is the closest to the first pioneering musicals in its enterprising try-anything-once spirit and intentions."
-- Richard Barrios​

Can't wait!