MEDIA ALERT

UCLA Festival of Preservation

July 15-18

The historical sweep and technical wizardry of the UCLA Film & Television Archive's preservation projects are showcased in the Archive’s Biennial Festival of Preservation. The Film Society of Lincoln Center hosts its premiere New York engagement, featuring breathtaking new restorations of overlooked classics by Robert Altman, Cecil B. DeMille and Douglas Sirk, rare films by Samuel Beckett and John Steinbeck, and much more.

Other highlights include the screening of three LGBT film rarities from the Outfest Legacy Project including Debra Chasnoff’s and Kim Klausner’s 1984 documentary CHOOSING CHILDREN about the experiences and struggles of lesbian couples going through the adoption process, as well as a trio of episodes from the “This Is Your Life” television series that featured reunions of Holocaust survivors. (All 35mm preservation prints are screened courtesy of UCLA Film and Television Archive.)

FILMS, DESCRIPTIONS AND SCHEDULE

THE CHALICE OF SORROW (1916) 70min
Director: Rex Ingram
35mm
World-renowned opera star Lorelei juggles two passionate lovers—a powerful Mexican governor and an American artist—in this loose adaptation of Victorien Sardou’s play La Tosca. Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute.

Screening with:
THE FLOWER OF DOOM (1917) 70min
Director: Rex Ingram
35mm
A gritty drama set in the shadowy world of gang warfare in Chinatown.

THE CHALICE OF SORROW/THE FLOWER OF DOOM will screen (with piano accompaniment by Makia Matsumura) at the Walter Reade Theater on July 17 at 8:00PM.

COME BACK TO THE 5 AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN (1982) 109min
Director: Robert Altman
35mm
Sandy Dennis, Cher, and Karen Black star as James Dean fans who reunite in a small Texas town, in Altman’s stellar adaptation of an original play. Preservation funded by The Hollywood Foreign Press Association and The Film Foundation.

COME BACK TO THE 5 AND DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN screens at the Walter Reade Theater July 15 at 6:00PM (The screening will be followed afterward by a Q&A with Oscar-nominated production designer David Gropman, production executive Peter Newman, and distributor Ira Deutchman.) and July 18 at 1:15PM.

THE CRUSADES (1935) 125min
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
35mm
DeMille’s saga about Jerusalem’s takeover by Islamic warrior Saladin is a sturdy entertainment crafted with brio by a master at the height of his powers. Preservation funded by The Cecil B. DeMille Foundation and The Packard Humanities Institute.

THE CRUSADES screens at the Walter Reade Theater on July 18 at 6:15PM.

CRY DANGER (1951) 79min
Director: Robert Parrish
35mm
In an underappreciated noir that crackles with sardonic dialogue, pitch-perfect Dick Powell plays an excon combing downtown Los Angeles for the gang that framed him. With Rhonda Fleming and an amazing Richard Erdman. Preservation funded by the Film Noir Foundation.

CRY DANGER screens at the Walter Reade Theater on July 15 at 4:00PM and July 17 at 5:00PM.

Highlighting the Outfest Legacy Project: Three Films

Three extraordinary and often prescient film rarities highlight the diversity of LGBT representations offered in the Outfest Legacy Project for LGBT Film Preservation.
35mm

QUEENS AT HEART (1965) 22min
Director: unknown
An amazing portrait of four male to female transsexuals, QUEENS AT HEART portrays a rare and poignant glimpse into pre-Stonewall transsexual life made by the Southeastern Pictures Corporation. Despite this film having been made with a mainstream lens, the subjects’ journey is depicted with dignity and respect as they explore gender and sexuality. QUEENS AT HEART includes very early footage of drag balls in the New York area.

MONA’S CANDLE LIGHT (1950) 28min
Director: unknown
The amateur film MONA’S CANDLE LIGHT is among a relatively small number of films depicting gay people before gay liberation. This brief film, discovered at a flea market, and depicting patrons of a lesbian bar (in San Francisco circa 1950) represents an exceedingly rare example of queer life on its own turf, and on its own terms. Deceptively simple, and all-too-brief, it depicts onstage performances at the titular bar, identified by a neon sign.

CHOOSING CHILDREN (1984) 45min
Directors: Debra Chasnoff and Kim Klausner
Debra Chasnoff’s and Kim Klausner’s groundbreaking documentary, CHOOSING CHILDREN, presents portraits of several lesbian mothers who were among the first to make the historic choice to become parents. Interviewed for the most part in their home settings, with their families, the women featured in the film share intimate details about parenting, familial structures and support systems, and about working to build a better future for their kids.

Highlighting the Outfest Legacy Project: Three Films screens at the Walter Reade Theater on July 18 at 8:45PM.

NATIVE LAND (1942) 80min
Director: Leo Hurwitz
35mm
Paul Strand and Leo Hurwitz’s controversial docudrama is a strikingly shot and fluidly edited essay on patriotism, intolerance, and class struggle, mingling reenactment and newsreels. Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute.

Screening with:
THE FORGOTTEN VILLAGE (1941) 67min
Director: Herbert Kline
35mm
John Steinbeck wrote this parable about an indigenous couple in Mexico whose son is caught between the worlds of tradition and science. Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute.

Preceded by:
News of the Day (1942) 9min
Newsreel short from May 28, 1942
NATIVE LAND/THE FORGOTTEN VILLAGE screens at the Walter Reade Theater on July 15 at 8:30PM.

On the Vitaphone! (1946) 90min
Director: various
A delightful sampling of these landmark early sound films. Starring the top talent of the day, including Born and Lawrence, Jimmy Conlin and Myrtle Glass, Carlena Diamond, and more.

On the Vitaphone! will screen at the Walter Reade Theater on July 16 at 1:15PM.

RENDEZVOUS WITH ANNIE (1946) 80min
Director: Allan Dwan
35mm
In Dwan’s tender wartime comedy of errors, questions of family honor arise after a corporal (Eddie Albert) surprises his wife with a trip from London. Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute.

RENDEZVOUS WITH ANNIE screens at the Walter Reade Theater on July 16 at 8:45PM.

SLEEP, MY LOVE (1948) 96min
Director: Douglas Sirk
35mm
The earnest and lovely Claudette Colbert stars in this effective terrorized-wife drama from Sirk’s early Hollywood career. With great noir-like photography. Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute.

SLEEP, MY LOVE screens at the Walter Reade Theater on July 15 at 2:00PM and July 17 at 3:00PM.

STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT (1944) 56min
Director: Anthony Mann
35mm
Mann’s early gothic B-thriller follows a vet returning from the South Pacific and lured into a psychological nightmare by the promise of love. Preservation funded by Paramount Pictures Corporation.

Screening with:
THE BIG SHAKEDOWN (1934) 64min
Director: John Francis Dillon
35mm
Bette Davis plays the fiancée of a pharmacist who falls in with gangsters in this fusion of melodrama and gangster picture. Preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute.

STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT/THE BIG SHAKEDOWN screens at the Walter Reade Theater on July 16 at 3:30PM and July 18 at 3:30PM.

This Is Your Life: Survivors of the Holocaust
Three episodes of the famous television series featuring three exceptional women—all survivors of the Holocaust. Preservation funded by Righteous Persons Foundation and the Ronald T. Shedlo Preservation Fund.
35mm

This Is Your Life: “Hanna Bloch Kohner” (1953) 30min
Director: Axel Gruenberg
(The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Julie Kohner, the daughter of Hanna Bloch Kohner.)

Screening with:
This Is Your Life: “Ilse Stanley” (1955) 30min
Director: Axel Gruenberg

Screening with:
This Is Your Life: “Sara Veffer” (1961) 30min
Director: Richard Gottlieb
This Is Your Life: Survivors of the Holocaust will screen at the Walter Reade Theater on July 17 at 12:30PM.

Waiting For Godot (Play of the Week) (1961) 102min
Director: Alan Schneider
Digital
After years of post-HUAC blacklisting, Zero Mostel enjoyed a career breakthrough in this Broadway-caliber staging of Beckett’s absurdist masterpiece.

Screening with:
Samuel Beckett’s Film (1965) 20min
Director: Alan Schneider
Buster Keaton stars in Nobel Prize-winning playwright Samuel Beckett’s lone work for projected cinema. Preservation funded through the Avant-Garde Masters program funded by The Film Foundation and administered by the National Film Preservation Foundation.

Waiting For Godot (Play of the Week)/Samuel Beckett’s Film will screen at the Walter Reade Theater on July 16 at 6:15PM.

SCREENING SCHEDULE FOR UCLA Festival of Preservation

Screening Venue:

The Film Society of Lincoln Center – Walter Reade Theater

165 West 65 Street, between Broadway & Amsterdam (upper level)

Friday, July 15

2:00    SLEEP, MY LOVE (96min)

4:00    CRY DANGER (79min)

6:00    COME BACK TO THE 5 & DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN (109min)

8:30    NATIVE LAND (80min)/FORGOTTEN VILLAGE (67min)/News of the Day (9min)

Saturday, July 16

1:15    On the Vitaphone! (90min)

3:30    STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT (56min)/THE BIG SHAKEDOWN (64min)

6:15    Waiting for Godot (102min)/Samuel Beckett’s Film (20min)

8:45    RENDEZVOUS WITH ANNIE (80min)

Sunday, July 17

12:30 This Is Your Life: Survivors of the Holocaust (120min)

3:00    SLEEP, MY LOVE (96min)

5:00    CRY DANGER (79min)

8:00    THE CHALICE OF SORROW (70min)/THE FLOWER OF DOOM (70min)

Monday, July 18

1:15    COME BACK TO THE 5 & DIME, JIMMY DEAN, JIMMY DEAN (109min)

3:30    STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT (56min)/THE BIG SHAKEDOWN (64min)

6:15    THE CRUSADES (125min)

8:45    The Outfest Legacy Project (95min)

Â