Frank Capra at Stanford and David Rumsey at SFO

Before I forget, there is a great map exhibit in Terminal 2 of the San Francisco International Airport.  It's titled San Francisco Maps from the David Rumsey Map Collection.  The exhibit runs through August 3 and is post-security so you'll need an airline ticket to see it.  Most (if not all) of Virgin America's flights arrive & depart out of the Terminal 2 gates.  The David Rumsey site is quite a treasure trove for amateur and professional cartographers.  I was particularly fascinated with the map of Chinatown from 1885.  The map conveniently (or disparagingly) shows opium dens, gambling dens and houses of prostitution with a color coded legend.

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The Stanford Theater had a month long Frank Capra series in January & February.  They took less than a week off between the end of their Joan Fontaine series and the start of the Capra series.

Several of the films in the series were also screened at the PFA as part of their Early Capra series in 2010.

Lost Horizon starring Ronald Colman; directed by Frank Capra; (1937)
The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwyck and Nils Asther; directed by Frank Capra; (1933)
That Certain Thing starring Viola Dana & Ralph Graves; live accompaniment by Dennis James; silent with intertitles; (1928)
It Happened One Night starring Clark Gable & Claudette Colbert; directed by Frank Capra; (1934)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington starring James Stewart, Jean Arthur & Claude Rains; directed by Frank Capra; (1939)
American Madness starring Walter Huston & Pat O'Brien; directed by Frank Capra; (1932)

I saw American Madness at the PFA as part of the aforementioned Capra series.  In order to make the trip to Palo Alto worthwhile, I watched American Madness a second time.  It was paired with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

I saw The Bitter Tea of General Yen at the Castro in 2010.  My subsequent memories of the film led me to believe it would benefit from a second screening.

I've seen Lost Horizon, It Happened One Night and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington on television before.  Each of the screenings were the first time I saw the films on a movie screen.

I had never seen That Certain Thing.  They screened the film 3 times of four days and I caught the last screening.  That was fortunate for me because the print burned in the projector.  The projectionist did some quick work to skip to the next reel while James never missed a beat.  They would not have been able to screen the film another time without some splicing.  Technically, I didn't see the entire film.  When the resumed the film, a plot point had been resolved.

I had not intended to see Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and American Madness because their screenings conflicted with the Mostly British Film Festival and the San Francisco Independent Film Festival.  However, Shirley Temple (23 April 1928 – 10 February 2014) passed away and the Stanford preempted their schedule on February 15 & 16 with six Shirley Temple films each day.  Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and American Madness were bumped for Miss Temple but rescheduled to March 1 & 2 which allowed me to fit it in my schedule.

I'll start with those two film.  For many years, I have found Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to be a bunch of hokum.  The premise is that Jefferson Smith (Stewart) is this naive man child.  Stewart was in his early 30s at the time of filming.  Jeff Smith is the head of the Boy Rangers which I assume is a take on the Boy Scouts.  The Boy Rangers go around doing good deeds.  How Smith makes a living at this is unexplained.  It's also kind of creepy that a thirtysomething man spends so much time around prepubescent boys although I'll attribute that to modern day cynicism.

When the US Senator from Smith's state dies in office, the governor taps Smith as the replacement; mainly on the recommendation of his sons (not coincidentally Boy Rangers).  Frankly Smith seems unqualified to be a US Senator is glossed over.  He is honest to a fault which in Capra's eyes makes Smith more than qualified.

When Smith arrives in DC, he is taken under the wing of the senior Senator from his state, Joseph Paine (Claude Rains).  Paine is machine politician and is set to clean up financially.  He's bought up land near the site of a dam he is going to propose.  Unknowingly, Smith has his eyes on the same site as a camping ground for his Boy Rangers.  When Smith proposes a bill to seek funding for his bill, he sets in motion the full weight of Paine's machine.

I won't bother with more of the plot.  My "favorite" part is when Paine has his moment of amends by admitting his crime on the floor of the US Senate!  That immediately follows Paine's attempted suicide in an antechamber.

Capra lays it on too thick in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.  I can stomach It's a Wonderful Life but Mr. Smith is just too much for me.  Capra is too obvious in Mr Smith; it lacks all subtlety.  Over the years, I have begun to resent Stewart's character for his ignorance and naiveté.  Maybe I resent the film's iconic status or Stewart's celebrated performance (he was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar).  Even the much discussed filibuster scene lacks depth.  I found myself wanting more Harry Carey as the Vice President than Stewart as Smith.

Anyway, my curmudgeonly pronouncement is that this viewing will be the last time I watch Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

American Madness suffers some of the same problems as Mr. Smith.  Capra has a strong sense of right and wrong and he wants to share it in his films...even if it ruins the film.  Ambiguity and cynicism can be powerful agents of drama and humor.  They better fit our everyday lives but Capra seems oblivious to this.  To be fair, he made his name during the Great Depression where upbeat and uplifting movies were considered social benefits.  It just doesn't fit modern attitudes.

Cocksure bank president Dickson runs his bank his way which is to cater to little guy and downtrodden.  The board argues these are high risk loans but Dickson sticks with his instinct; we don't need no damn FICO scores.  One of his employees robs the vault and he is caught short on cash reserves.  Rumors spread and there is a run on the bank.  There is an endless montage scene showing how the rumor spread.

Anyway, the customers may not believe in the bank but Dickson believes in the customers.  He tries to get them to leave their deposits in place, tries to slow the outflow of cash, tries to line up short-term loans, etc.  It's all to no avail until at his darkest moment, some customers conspicuously and triumphantly enter the bank to make deposits which is enough to stem the run on the bank.

There is a subplot involving the employee who robbed the vault, Dickson's wife and another employee (Pat O'Brien) who is being framed for the crime.  It was kind of hokey and had a B picture feel to it.  Like the inner workings of the US Senate in Mr. Smith, my favorite part of American Madness was inner workings of the bank.  Opening and closing the vault door was quite possibly, my favorite part of the film.

That Certain Thing didn't make much of an impression on me.  Viola Dana plays Molly Kelly who wants to marry a millionaire.  She's kind of a gold digger.  She makes the most of her opportunity when she actually meets a millionaire - Andy B. Charles, Jr. (Ralph Graves).  Technically, Jr. is the son of a millionaire which comes into play with A.B. Charles disowns his son for marrying poorly.

Molly is back to where she started except now she has a husband with no marketable job skills.  After failing as a ditch digger, Molly & Andy come up with an idea.  A.B. Charles' chain of downscale restaurants are the source of frequent complaints from the laborers.  Molly & Andy start a box lunch company in direct competition.  In time, Sr. is forced to buy out Jr. business and thus fulfilling Molly's dream of being married to a millionaire.

There were some physical comedy scenes and Molly lives in a wild tenement building which provides some laughs.  Dennis James spoke before the film and mentioned that the box lunch used in the filming were later used to feed the cast and crew.

I had not seen Lost Horizon since I was a child and did not recall it so well.  Based on the best selling James Hilton novel by the same name, Capra's version of Shangri-La seemed kind of boring to me.  Ronald Colman plays British diplomat Robert Conway.  Helping Westerners escape an armed conflict in China (I cannot recall if the conflict was between Japanese & Chinese or between Chinese), Colman escapes on the last plane out of China with his younger brother George, a paleontologist, a flimflam man and a terminally ill woman (likely a prostitute).  Despite the danger, the plane flies "over the hump" as they would say in WWII.  That is it flies from China to India over the Himalayas.

The plane is hijacked, crashes in the Himalayas and the passengers are taken to Shangri-La; a term now so ubiquitous than it doesn't need an explanation but originated in Hilton's novel and perhaps more widely by this film.  People age slowly in Shangra-La but they do age.  The High Lama (Sam Jaffe) is near death and on the advice of Sondra (Jane Wyatt), arranged for Conway arrival.  Sondra is better read about the outside world than most residents of Shangra-La.  Familiar with Colman's writings, she & the Lama think Colman would make a suitable successor.

Most of the of the visitors want to leave Shangri-La but it's George's brother who is most vocal.  He has taken up with a woman (Margo) who, seemingly, is the only person who wants to leave Shangra-La.  Reluctantly agreeing to leave, Ronald sets out with Margo in tow.  However, as they leave the sphere of influence of Shangri-La's magical properties, Margo ages and dies (she is really several hundred years old).  George goes insane at the sight and leaps to his death.  Ronald eventually makes his way back to England, his memory of Shangra-La mysteriously gone as a result of his ordeal.  When he later regains his memory, he returns to Shangri-La.

Like Colman's character, I had no recollection of specific scenes from the film.  As the film progressed, I began to recall the film; particularly Sam Jaffe's performance.  Ultimately, I found Lost Horizon bad dated which is becoming a trend with Capra's films. Whatever impact Lost Horizon had on audiences in 1937 is long gone in 2014.  That could be said of any 77 year old film but whatever universal or timeless truths Lost Horizon was alluding to seem ridiculously quaint today and Capra's "let's-spell-it-out" approach only reinforces the sense that this film doesn't have much to say in 2014.

As a historical relic, it was interesting to see.  There is a fascinating backstory about production cost overruns and a 3½ hour preview version of the film.

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Lest one thinks the Capra series was a complete bust, I'm glad to report that The Bitter Tea of General Yen held up well to a second screening and It Happened One Night lived up to my expectations.

I stand by what I wrote on September 2, 2010. I will add a little based on the second viewing.  First, Nils Asther's performance has a little more racism than I initially thought.  His General Yen almost yearns to be white - adopting Western manners and forsaking all for a white woman.  I guess it is a form of self-loathing but it's also a symptom of Yen's lust for Stanwyck's Megan Davis.  If the opposite had been true - a white man spouting Confucius and forsaking a white woman for an Asian woman, the reaction would have been outrage in 1930s and derisive laughter today.  Instead, the self-obvious superiority of Western ways is seamlessly interwoven into the plot.

Like Asther's performance, I detected more racism in Stanwyck's role.  Her character has this innate belief on the superiority of her culture, her religion, her beliefs, etc.  It is only at the end, when Yen has given up his Chinese empire and identity that Davis adopts the role of Chinese concubine to comfort the dying general.  In that sense, the story comes down on the side of the Chinese but the next scene shows that Davis' position in China is untenable.  She has to leave the country for her own safety, a victim of reverse discrimination and potential Chinese barbarity.

After having seen The Bitter Tea of General Yen twice, I am anxious to see it a third time.  It's amazing to me that Capra followed American Madness with The Bitter Tea of General Yen.  General Yen was a box office failure which likely played a part in Capra's future directorial efforts.

In It Happened One Night, Claudette Colbert is Ellie Andrews, a wealthy heiress who runs away from her father's yacht to marry a man her father doesn't approve of.  Without money and unwilling to reveal her location to her father, Andrews is forced to accept Peter Warne (Clark Gable), a fast-talking, wise-cracking, newspaper reporter.  As they make their way from Florida to New York with little to no money, the pair slowly fall in love.  Andrews is a spoiled rich girl and Warne a cynical newsman.  Initially they dislike each other but their mutual reliance and attraction carry the day. 

It Happened One Night is an oft-told romantic story (Moonlighting with Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepherd was one of my favorite versions).  However, Gable & Colbert have undeniable screen appeal and elevate the film beyond what most other actors could have achieved.  Colbert in a particular is funny, sexy, petulant and appealing.  What constitutes "funny, sexy, petulant and appealing" in a woman changes as men age.  Colbert, 29 years old during filming, gives a performance which I would not have appreciated as a boy or younger man, but greatly appreciate in my middle age. 

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San Francisco Chinatown (1885)

Our Mutual Friend: Charlie Chaplin Shorts

On January 11, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival celebrated the 100th Anniversary of Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp character.  The event was held at the Castro Theater.

The program consisted of three film screenings.  I skipped the screenings of The Kid and Gold Rush...both of which I had recently seen on the big screen.  I watched the program titled Our Mutual Friend: Charlie Chaplin Shorts which consisted of three two-reelers Chaplin made while working at Mutual Film Corporation.

The Vagabond starring Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance & Eric Campbell; directed by Chaplin; silent with intertitles; (1916)
The Cure starring Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell & Henry Bergman; directed by Chaplin; silent with intertitles; (1917)
Easy Street starring Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance & Eric Campbell; directed by Chaplin; silent with intertitles; (1917)

All three films were accompanied by Jon Mirsalis on piano.  Mr. Mirsalis runs a fansite honoring Lon Chaney, Sr.

I misplaced the program for the event so I wasn't able to read about the films or Chaplin.  Those programs are typically very informative (although there is a tendency to digress) so I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in writing this entry.  Typically, I watch the film, read the program article on the film, let my memory of the film filter through the words written in the program and write my thoughts days/weeks/months later.

If one had no idea about the chronology of Chaplin's filmography, one would still suspect these Mutual films predated his most memorable film appearances as the Little Tramp.  First, they were shorter films - approximately 30 minutes each.  The costuming was off a little from the Tramp's later, more familiar look (see photo below).  Most importantly, the three films lacked the pathos which is so inextricably linked to the Tramp.  He even gets the girl in two of the films!

The three films did not feature The Little Tramp character but some prototype which was interesting to see but vaguely disconcerting for anyone who is familiar with and admires Chaplin's most celebrated works.

In The Vagabond, Chaplin is a street musician who wanders into a gypsy encampment.  She falls for the gypsy girl (Purviance) who is abused by the gypsy chief (Eric Campbell).  Actually, I believe Purviance's character was kidnapped by gypsies which explains why a wealthy family is looking for her.  One of men searching for her is clearly attracted to her.  When they find her, she jumps at opportunity to leave the gypsy life behind and rides off in the limousine...only to have the car be turned so they can go back and pick up the Tramp.  Presumably, she is choosing the Tramp over the wealthier, more attractive man although it could be interpreted that she is simply lifting him out of poverty.  Regardless, the Tramp shouldn't be riding off in the limousine with the girl under any circumstances.

In Easy Street, the Tramp spends most of the film dressed in a police uniform.  He is duly appointed police officer!  The Tramp can never be The Man!  Anyway, Chaplin is assigned to the titular Easy Street which is anything but.  It's a rough and tumble block ruled over by Eric Campbell as a quick-fisted criminal.  Campbell & Chaplin mix it up a few times with the Tramp's ingenuity and dexterity saving his bacon.  Eventually, Purviance is kidnapped by a rapist opium addict and is rescued by Chaplin.  The depiction of the opium den and rapist's intentions were darker than usual for a Chaplin film.  Of the three films on the program, this was my favorite although I was mild about all three.

The Cure is set at an alcohol detox spa.  The Tramp is a drunkard (?)  in need of "the cure" which in this case involves drinking the therapeutic water from a spring near the spa. The Tramp arrives with a suitcase full of alcohol which promptly gets thrown out the window and its contents inadvertently contaminate the spring water.  As you can imagine, much of the humor comes from the unwitting intoxication of all who partake of the spring water.  Henry Bergman plays a burly masseur who has the funniest scenes in the film.  As I learned from Chaplin, one of his earliest characters was the unsteady, stumbling drunk which seems more prevalent in The Cure than The Tramp.

All in all, the program was not the most memorable of screenings from the San Francisco Silent Film Festival but I was still entertained.

Charlie Chaplin & Edna Purviance in The Cure

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Speaking of silent films...the Stanford Theater is screening two silent films this week.  Today, That Certain Thing (1928) is screening at 4:30 and 7:30.  On Wednesday & Thursday (January 29 & 30), The Power of the Press (1928) is screening at 7:30 nightly.  That Certain Thing is paired up with It Happened One Night (1934) and The Power of the Press is on a double bill with Platinum Blonde (1931).  All four films were directed by Frank Capra.  Dennis James is accompanying the silent films on the Stanford Theater's Mighty Wurlitzer.

I believe I saw James in the audience at the Castro Theater last night.  He was watching Noir City's screening of The Hitch-Hiker.  The film was scheduled to start at 9:30 PM but was at least 30 minutes late.  That Certain Thing screened last night at the Stanford at 7:30 with James accompanying it.  It would have been tight for him to get from Palo Alto to San Francisco (door-to-door) in the time between screenings so maybe it wasn't him.

The Bitter Tea of General Yen

The Bitter Tea of General Yen is a film which I've long wanted to see. An early Frank Capra work, the film has become hotly debated. Does it perpetuate Asian stereotypes or did it portray the titular protagonist as a complex and fully developed character. After missing it a few times in the past few years at the PFA and Stanford, I caught the film at the Castro in August.

The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwyck and Nils Asther; directed by Frank Capra; (1933)

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It wasn't until last year's Early Capra series at the PFA that I learned that Stanwyck & Capra were romantically involved. I have read differing opinions on Stanwyck's sexuality but men were most certainly part of her repertoire. Bitter Tea has an added dimension if the director and leading lady are romantically involved. I associate Stanwyck in the early 1930s with a number of pre-code films that would later be censored. The films include Night Nurse and Baby Face. In Bitter Tea, Stanwyck's character is more straight-laced as she is engaged to a Christian missionary in China.

What sets The Bitter Tea of General Yen apart is the inter-racial romance between Stanwyck's Megan Davis and General Yen (Nils Asther). The film was banned in several countries for depicting miscegenation even though Asther was in yellowface and their characters never consummated their relationship.

More provocative is Davis' attraction to the Chinese warlord which is manifested in a feverish dream sequence. In the dream, Davis is menaced by Yen whose face is distorted by lupine features. The yellow menace is dispatched by a masked man who is then revealed to be none other than General Yen himself. Davis is simultaneously frightened and attracted to Yen.

Stanwyck and Asther prove capable in their roles. At least, Asther played General Yen as a man of power without a minimum of racial stereotype. Stanwyck was a little too subdued as the American put in harms way by her own folly and later, General Yen's desires. Her sexual desires were always under the surface but the inner turmoil is too muted.

The standout in the film is Toshia Mori as Yen's concubine, Mah-Li. Duplicitous and seductive, Mah-Li is like a cobra - beautiful but potentially fatal. Mah-Li is less evil than a product of the culture she comes from. Forced to play her role as the warlord's concubine, she decides to play the game as best she can. Originally intended for Anna May Wong, Capra cast Mori in what turned out to be her most famous role. Mori, a Kyoto born/American raised actress, has no credits in IMDB after 1937. What happened to her? She lived until 1995. Whatever the story is, her absence from the silver screen was our loss.

However, in one film at least, Mori shines brightest. The Bitter Tea of General Yen is not Capra-esque. In fact, it reminds me more of a pair of Josef von Sternberg film - Shanghai Express and The Shanghai Gesture. In all three films, the Asian women are portrayed as complex (if not distasteful by Western standards) characters. There is also a scene where Stanwyck is wearing an evening gown and the overhead lights reflect off the sequins in a blinding glitter. I'm certain I've seen von Sternberg film Marlene Dietrich in a similar manner.

So you could package The Bitter Tea of General Yen, Shanghai Express and The Shanghai Gesture into series depicting China in the 1930s or at least Western views of China in the period. However, the three films rise above the typical level of Asian stereotypes depicted in films of the period despite engaging in a modest amount of these very stereotypes. Besides, films made in the 1930s cannot be judged on the standards of the 2010s. In addition, Capra and von Sternberg are acknowledged masters of their craft and the skills are clearly on display in these films.

Taking Inventory as of March 8

For the past several weeks, I've been battling a chest cold that has hampered my movie going abilities. I feel on the mend but still haven't shaken the cough completely.

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From January 16 to February 27, the PFA ran a series called Before “Capraesque”: Early Frank Capra. I was able to view five films in the series.

American Madness starring Walter Huston; (1932)
Submarine; silent with intertitles; (1928)
Rain or Shine starring Joe Cook; (1930)
The Matinee Idol; silent with intertitles; (1928)
The Way of the Strong; silent with intertitles; (1928)

All silent films were accompanied by Judith Rosenberg on piano.

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From January 22 to February 13, the PFA screened Complicated Shadows: The Films of Val Lewton. Lewton was a producer at RKO in the 1940 who cranked out horror films that were a cut above the rest.

I have previously seen two films in the series - The Cat People (1942) and I Walk with a Zombie (1943). I watched:

Youth Runs Wild; (1944)
The Ghost Ship; (1943)
Bedlam starring Boris Karloff; (1946)

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On February 19, I was able to watch an early work by Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu.

That Night's Wife; silent with Japanese and English intertitles; piano accompaniment by Judith Rosenberg; (1930)

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This past weekend, I watched all three films in the Red Riding Trilogy based on the novels of David Peace. Peace also wrote The Damned Utd which was adapted into a well received film last year.

The Red Riding films were originally aired on the BBC. The three films are a fictionalized version of the Yorkshire Ripper murders in the 1970's.

Red Riding 1974 starring Andrew Garfield and Sean Bean; directed by Julian Jarrold; (2009) - Official Website
Red Riding 1980 starring Paddy Considine; directed by James Marsh; (2009) - Official Website
Red Riding 1983 starring David Morrissey; directed by Anand Tucker; (2009) - Official Website

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Although I had hoped to see several more films at Cinequest in San Jose, my illness derailed those plans. Armed with anti-biotics, I only saw three films.

The Merry Widow starring John Gilbert and Mae Murray; directed by Erich von Stroheim; silent with intertitles; organ accompaniment by Dennis James; (1925)
The Real Revolutionaries; documentary; directed by Paul Crowder; (2010)
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg starring Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer; directed by Ernst Lubitsch; silent with intertitles; organ accompaniment by Dennis James; (1927)

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On the day I started feeling ill, I went to the 4-Star to see the Hong Kong double feature. I didn't feel well so I left after the first film.

72 Tenants of Prosperity starring Jacky Cheung; Cantonese with English subtitles; (2010) - Official Website

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When I was last at the PFA, I picked up a flyer that announced a 30 film Kurosawa series from June to August in celebration of the centennial of his birth. I guess that explains why Stanford Theater is currently having a retrospective.

Details on the PFA retrospective will be announced April 15, I believe.

Capra, Ozu, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Val Lewton, Jacques Tati and Post 1950's Musicals

January and February are shaping up nicely with a lot of film screenings that interest me.

I previously mentioned the two series at the Mechanics' Institute and the 10 days of Noir City. The San Francisco Independent Film Festival (Indiefest) is running from February 4 to 17.

I could fit those screenings in with relatively ease if not from the programs at PFA. They have several series that interest in January & February. Foremost is a series of Frank Capra's early films.

Over the years, interest in Frank Capra’s work, and his critical reputation, have ebbed and flowed, usually due to changing sociopolitical currents in the United States and their effect on public perception of his work. What is now known as “Capraesque” filmmaking is generally, and reductively, regarded as a form of sentimental populism, but Capra’s work in fact encompasses a far wider range of emotion, social criticism, and genre experimentation than is usually recognized. Because of our current economic collapse, with its many disturbing echoes of the Great Depression, Capra (1897–1991) seems timely all over again, as the first film in this series, American Madness (1932, about a run on a bank), demonstrates with startling immediacy.

Much of Capra’s early work—the films the Sicilian immigrant made before the Capraesque label was applied in his heyday during the New Deal—has largely been inaccessible to most filmgoers, preventing a deeper understanding of his legacy. Many of the films he directed between 1927, when he came to Columbia Pictures, and 1934, when he made his Oscar-winning and career-changing It Happened One Night, have not been available on home video. Now Sony Pictures, which owns the twenty-five films Capra made for Columbia, has painstakingly worked with both vault material and foreign prints preserved by collectors to reassemble and restore his rich and diverse early period. This series showcases many of these little-known gems, showing Capra’s explorations of various genres before he found his familiar niche. The programs also include rare short films Capra directed in the San Francisco Bay Area; two short comedies he cowrote as a Hollywood gag man; and his first feature as director, The Strong Man (1926), starring Harry Langdon.

Among the 15 films PFA is screening, the following catch my attention.

The Way of the Strong; silent with intertitles; (1928) - So grotesque it verges on the operatic, The Way of the Strong, written by William Counselman and Peter Milne, was described by Columbia as the story of “the world’s ugliest man, who can bear anything except the sight of his own face in a mirror.” Mitchell Lewis plays “Handsome” Williams, a hulking gangster whose misshapen face is crisscrossed with scars. The beauty underlying his brutish exterior is shown by his tenderness toward Nora (Alice Day), a blind violinist who works in his cafe and falls in love with him, thinking he is truly handsome. But when she realizes for the first time how he looks, she recoils. The Way of the Strong includes one of many suicide attempts in Capra films, but this is one of only two that succeed (the other is in The Bitter Tea of General Yen), and it is a particularly startling ending for a supposedly “optimistic” director.

The Bitter Tea of General Yen starring Barbara Stanwick; (1933) - I have long wanted to see this film. Subtle eroticism and splendid exoticism: an atypical Capra classic, set in China in the midst of civil war. Barbara Stanwyck plays a prim New England missionary who falls in the thrall of a ruthless but noble Chinese bandit (Swedish actor Nils Asther in a painstaking makeup job), who kidnaps her and keeps her in his summer palace. Controversial in its day for its depiction of interracial romance, Bitter Tea remained one of Capra’s “pet” films—what he called “Art with a capital A.” And it is indeed reminiscent of the films of Josef von Sternberg, with its exalted visuals and glowing lighting by Joseph Walker creating a ninety-minute “dissolve” between dream and reality. It is the dream of a woman trying to see herself through General Yen’s idealistic vision of women as “beautiful fruit trees,” the reality being far more sexual than that. Stanwyck embodies the troubling contradiction by distancing herself from it in a cool performance.

Submarine; silent with intertitles; (1928) - Jack Cohn persuaded his partners at Columbia to go head-to-head with the major studios in 1928 by making an A picture, Submarine, an adventure story suggested by two actual disasters involving Navy submarines. The biggest moneymaker in the young company’s history, it was also a critical success, establishing Capra as a versatile and important director. “Frank R. Capra’s direction is especially clever,” wrote Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times, “for not only has he attended to the action of the story, but he has also obtained from his players infinitely better characterization than one is apt to see on the screen, especially in a melodrama.” Submarine also was Columbia’s, and Capra’s, first tentative venture into sound (although here we screen a restored silent version). Capra was convinced that sound was “an enormous step forward. I wasn’t at home in silent films; I thought it was very strange to stop and put a title on the screen and then come back to the action...I don’t think I could have gone very far in silent pictures—at least not so far as I did go with sound.”

I am a sucker for submarine films. Some of my favorites include Run Silent, Run Deep, The Hunt for Red October, Crimson Tide and The Enemy Below. I didn't even mention Das Boot because I haven't seen it all the way through. Submarine reminds me that there is a rare submarine film (directed by John Ford no less) that I have read about. The film is called Men Without Women (1930). The film is not related the Ernest Hemingway novel by the same name.

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Another highlight is the PFA screening of a two film series called Masters of Asian Cinema. Screening on February 19 and 20, the features are:

That Night Wife directed by Yasujiro Ozu; silent with intertitles; (1930) - A crime melodrama based on a Western-style magazine story and inspired by Fritz Lang and American thrillers. Ozu tests the conventions as he employs them, “drawing on thriller iconography for its own sake” and thereby distancing himself from the genre, as David Bordwell has noted. The film is set in a twelve-hour period. A commercial artist of meager means is driven to robbery in order to provide medicine for his critically ill daughter. As the film opens he is being pursued by the police. After a series of diversions, he hails a gypsy cab that delivers him to his door—but the night is young. Much of the delight of this film is in the play of visuals and the use of space, from the taxicab with its mirrors to the family’s cluttered apartment, where most of the action takes place.

A City of Sadness directed by Hou Hsiao-hsien; starring Tony Leung; Chinese & Japanese with subtitles; (1989) - Hou Hsiao-hsien’s cinema draws comparisons to Yasujiro Ozu’s with its ability to turn the ordinary—homes and hallways, a family dining together—into the extraordinary, repeating shots so that a lived-in space becomes as familiar as the characters within it. Hou’s 1989 epic A City of Sadness has been called not only his crowning film, but “one of the supreme masterworks of contemporary cinema” (Jonathan Rosenbaum). Following the Lin family from 1945 to 1949, a momentous historical period encompassing Taiwan’s independence from Japan and its secession from the mainland, the film courted controversy (and became a box-office hit) by addressing the then-taboo subject of the “February 28th Incident,” when the Nationalist government met a popular uprising with a brutal crackdown. Hou’s particular genius lies in reflecting such large-scale social and political events in minute, highly personal moments: children being born, conversations among friends and family, goodbyes and hellos exchanged on the same hilly streets as times, and governments, change.

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PFA is also screening a Val Lewton series. I Walked with a Zombie has screened three times in the past year. One at the Stanford Theater in July. Again at the PFA's Into the Vortex series (also in July). And now on January 30 as part of the Lewton series. The film isn't really that good either.

If you make the screen dark enough, the mind’s eye will read anything into it you want! We’re great ones for dark patches.” —V al Lewton

Rarely do we praise the producer. But in Val Lewton’s case the praise should be profuse for a cluster of creepy cheapies he produced in the early forties, notable for heavily shadowed psychic landscapes, arousing unease through an excess of archaic suggestion. Originally a scriptwriter, Lewton went from anonymous labors at MGM to the head of the horror unit at RKO in 1942. Once the esteemed studio that had produced classics like King Kong and Citizen Kane, by the time of Lewton’s involvement RKO had opted for “entertainment not genius.” Little did they know that their enfant terror would transform formulaic ideas and impoverished means into a well-crafted surplus of psychological enthrallment. Beginning with Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, Lewton overwhelmed a poverty-stricken mandate—to make seventy-five-minute features for $150,000, using titles supplied by the studio—by assembling a remarkable coven of collaborators who could conjure his eerie vision: directors Jacques Tourneur, Mark Robson, and Robert Wise; writers Ardel Wray and DeWitt Bodeen; and cinematographer Nicholas Musuraca. Where most low-budget Bs felt obliged to actually illustrate the lurking horror, RKO K.O.s such as The Leopard Man, Isle of the Dead, and The Body Snatcher left instead inky insinuations that beckoned primeval folklore, reptilian instinct, and emotional monstrosities. This series sheds some much-deserved light on producer Val Lewton—he’s been in the shadows too long.

Based on Cat People and Zombie, I'm a little cautious about expecting too much but I guess Lewton's films were better than the schlock that was being served up at the time.

Youth Runs Wild (1944) - “Orgy of youth!” screams one of the headlines blazoned across the opening of Youth Runs Wild, but the film that follows is more fretful than orgiastic in its treatment of teens and their troubles. This rare Lewton venture into straight social realism, cowritten by novelist John Fante, portrays an America where “normal” family life has been dangerously destabilized by World War II. When parents are either irresponsible or absent, building bombs on the graveyard shift or drinking the nights away, kids are left to find their own paths to adulthood; a few wrong turns lead quickly to melodrama. Studio interference steered the film toward overt propaganda, and ultimately caused Lewton to disown the production. Still, apart from the usual kitsch attractions of a JD exploitation flick, Youth Runs Wild offers an intriguing view of the war at home.

The Leopard Man directed by Jacques Tourneur; (1943) - Adapted from a Cornell Woolrich novel, The Leopard Man is a strange hybrid of serial-killer thriller and Southwestern fairy tale. Something deadly prowls the desert arroyos and shadowed sidewalks of a New Mexico town. Is it the panther escaped from a courtyard nightclub, or has some other primal horror been unleashed? An episodic structure that passes from one victim to the next is tied together by Lewton’s pointedly oblique use of imagery and sound: bestial roars issuing from a passing train, a strolling dancer’s castanets persistently rattling like nerves, a drooping branch or a discarded cigarette signaling doom. As critic Manny Farber wrote, the film gives “the creepy impression that human beings and ‘things’ are interchangeable...and that both are pawns of a bizarre and terrible destiny.”

The Ghost Ship (1943) - This beautifully crafted thriller emerges from relative obscurity (it was withheld for years as the subject of a specious plagiarism suit) as one of Lewton’s most impressive productions. Mysterious deaths on board the ship Altair lead a young and trusting junior officer (Russell Wade) into the dank waters of doubt and despair; he is forced to reassess his captain (Richard Dix), with whom he had closely identified, as a neurotic despot cruelly enacting his own malignant fears. A Hitchcockian theme of transference of guilt is skillfully developed in Lewton’s haunting, atmospheric language: the image of an enormous iron hook, wildly swaying in a nighttime storm, is the stuff of nightmares. Mark Robson’s direction in this film (far less so in The Seventh Victim or Bedlam) reflects his apprenticeship with Welles in fluid tracking shots, silhouettes, low angles on foggy set-ups that are perhaps more heavy handed than the delicate, almost transcendental Lewton–Tourneur vision.

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The Kids Are Alright: Post-Fifties Musicals and the Rise of Youth Culture looks to be a fun series. Among the films that I want to see are:

Paint Your Wagon starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Marvin and Jean Seberg; (1969) - It all begins here, in the grubby Sierra foothills of Gold Rush–era California. “No Name City” is a ramshackle roost for greedy men, chanting “gold, Gold, GOLD!” But as unruly and manic as this mining town might be, it isn’t lawless, just ungoverned, a haven for free spirits like Ben Rumson (Lee Marvin, reprising the irascible coot of Cat Ballou) who melodiously declares he was “born under a wand’rin’ star.” His star, though, is hitched to Elizabeth (a nicely ripening Jean Seberg) and Pardner (lanky looker Clint Eastwood) in a bashfully bawdy sixties ménage, amidst a musical menagerie by Lerner and Loewe. The songs are as big as a prospector’s dreams: “They Call the Wind Maria,” “Gold Fever,” “The Best Things,” “A Million Miles Away Behind the Door,” the last a paean to home ownership. A boisterous bonanza of a musical, Paint Your Wagon was updated from a more prudish fifties original, adding its liberated frontier threesome in a long summer of love.

The Music Man starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones; (1962) - River City, Iowa: an American idyll in 1912. But there’s “trouble in River City,” and it rhymes with hormones. Said secretions are from both the city’s youth and itinerant salesman Professor Harold Hill (the sublimely suited Robert Preston), who’s got his eye on Marian (Shirley Jones), the town’s liberal librarian. A huckster selling musical instruments, Hill has got to drum up the disasters of youthful desire, then perfectly pitch the remedy, a marching band of countless trombones and brassy uniforms. The Music Man is brimming with memorable music, including the pre-rap rollick “Rock Island,” the alarming “Trouble,” that tongue-twisting tune “Gary, Indiana,” the lithe love song “Till There Was You,” and, of course, the blustering band number, “Seventy-Six Trombones.” Meredith Willson’s bit of Americana laps up the folksy wisdom and popular tunes of the period, high-stepping from start to finish, but there is trouble simmering below the surface. Is it a loss of innocence? Or a shift in the marketplace? The Professor can only offer a temporary band-aid.

Bye Bye Birdie starring Janet Leigh, Ann-Margret & Dick Van Dyke; (1963) - In March 1958, Elvis Presley was drafted. Two years later, writers Charles Strouse and Lee Adams drafted fifteen songs charting the delirium that descends upon Sweet Apple, Ohio, when Conrad Birdie (Jesse Pearson) arrives for his parting kiss before entering the army. Conrad, as you might guess, is a jelly-rolled rocker, an “honestly sincere” parody of the King himself. The bobbysoxer chosen to share that last kiss is Kim, a fifteen-year-old blossom played by Ann-Margret in full bloom. Bye Bye Birdie wants it both ways: focusing on lil’ Kim pursued by teen bopper Bobby Rydell, the musical also gives adulthood equal time with the riveting Rosie (Janet Leigh) and her beau Albert (Dick Van Dyke). The youngsters get that paean to lip-lock “One Last Kiss” and a hymn to hormones, “A Lot of Livin’ to Do,” while the parents get the death of attitude in “Put On a Happy Face” and a declaration of alienation in “Kids.” This boisterous “bye bye” was also a big hello for Ann-Margret.

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The final program tht interests me is a Jacques Tati retrospective. I'm not familiar with Tati. I may have heard his name but when I read the synopses, I can't recall seeing any of his films. His works are praised by many including Hell on Frisco Bay.

“Comedy is the summit of logic.”—Jacques Tati

He is best remembered as Monsieur Hulot: with his jutting pipe and storklike walk, addressing the world at an acute angle, Jacques Tati’s signature character is almost as iconic as Chaplin’s Little Tramp. Born Jacques Tatischeff, Tati (1907–1982) got his start in the 1930s music hall with humorous sketches miming various sports, and his talent for physical comedy, embodied in the immortal Hulot, is one of his great contributions to film history. Even greater, though, is his exacting work behind the camera. Tati has been described as the cinema’s foremost antimodern modernist; his precisely arranged images and inventive soundtracks underline the alienation and oddity of everyday twentieth-century life. Satire aside, the films—presented here in new prints—are full of the pleasures of observation, of watching and listening. As Jonathan Rosenbaum said of Playtime, Tati “turns the very acts of seeing and hearing into a form of dancing.”

Several of the films in the series are also screening at the YBCA in January as well.