Film Schedule Notes 2019-2020
HILLSBOROUGH CLASSIC FILM SOCIETY
CLASSIC FILM SUNDAYS AT THE LIBRARY: 2019-2020 SCHEDULE
THE HILLSBOROUGH CLASSIC FILM SOCIETY is starting up again in the fall with Classic Film Sundays at the Library. There will be films once a month, generally on the second Sunday, in the meeting room of the Hillsborough Library on Margaret Lane. They will start at three o’clock in the afternoon with a short introduction to the film by an invited speaker, and the film will be followed by a discussion. The films are free, and there will be free popcorn as well. Here’s the schedule:
September 15: Young Frankenstein (1974), Cole Russing, Duke.
Mel Brooks’ comedy is both a satire of the early Frankenstein films and a tribute to them. According to Roger Ebert, it is Brooks’ “most disciplined and visually inventive film (it also happens to be very funny).”
October 6: The Train (1964), Gary Hawkins, Duke.
A tribute to the French resistance and a cult film for railroad fetishists, it got 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. You’ll be surprised that you’d never heard of it. “How do you weigh the cultural heritage of a nation against the value of human life? A wholly persuasive, intelligent thriller ....”—Greydanus.
November 10: Rashomon (1950), Laura Boyes, NC Museum of Art.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa and produced in the aftermath of a war that devastated Japan, Rashomon is “a riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice.” It “is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made.”—Criterion Collections
December 8: Charlie Chaplin films (1921-1931) for Christmas, Francesca Talenti, UNC.
(Probably The Kid and City Lights, if we can get the licenses.) Chaplin and Christmas cookies! Bring the kids and grandkids. (We’ll even throw in a few scenes from Lotte Reiniger’s beautiful, silent, stop-action Prince Ahmed (1926, Germany) during intermission.)
January 12: Black Orpheus (1959), Gustavo Furtado, Duke.
A modern version of the Orpheus/Euridice tale set in Brazil at Carnival, it introduced bossa nova to American audiences with music by Luiz Bonfá ("Manhã de Carnaval") and Antonio Carlos Jobim (“Girl from Ipanema”).
February 9: Grand Illusion (1937), Max Owre, UNC.
According to Roger Ebert, The Grand Illusion “is ... a meditation on the collapse of the old order. Perhaps that was always a sentimental upper-class illusion, the notion that gentlemen on both sides of the lines subscribed to the same code of behavior. Whatever it was, it died in the trenches of World War I.”
March 8: High Noon (1952), Ken Wetherington, Duke.
One of the greatest and most elegant of the mythic westerns. “High Noon centered on a protagonist—Marshall Will Kane—who behaved more like a human everyman than a traditional, all-powerful Western icon. ... Something was happening here. Something about the Western was about to change forever.”
April 5: Pather Panchali (1955), Tom Wallis, UNC System Office.
The film “is like a prayer, affirming that this is what the cinema can be, no matter how far in our cynicism we may stray.”—Ebert. “Beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love, it brought a new vision of India to the screen.”--Kael
May 10: Nights of Cabiria (1957), Paolo Tosini, Duke.
“... a film that owes as much to City Lights as it does to The Bicycle Thief. ... Nights of Cabiria shifts so effortlessly between heartbreaking and comic it's easy to forget how badly the movie could have gone. It's about that most sentimental of stock characters: the hooker with the heart of gold. ... But Cabiria is so fully realized and human that she defies stereotypes.”—Matt Dessem.
The Classic Film Society is supported by a generous contribution of time and effort by the staff of the Orange County Public Library. Our website is www.hillsboroughclassicfilms.com; you will find information about each of the films there. You can reach Gail at [email protected] and Mike at [email protected].
CLASSIC FILM SUNDAYS AT THE LIBRARY: 2019-2020 SCHEDULE
THE HILLSBOROUGH CLASSIC FILM SOCIETY is starting up again in the fall with Classic Film Sundays at the Library. There will be films once a month, generally on the second Sunday, in the meeting room of the Hillsborough Library on Margaret Lane. They will start at three o’clock in the afternoon with a short introduction to the film by an invited speaker, and the film will be followed by a discussion. The films are free, and there will be free popcorn as well. Here’s the schedule:
September 15: Young Frankenstein (1974), Cole Russing, Duke.
Mel Brooks’ comedy is both a satire of the early Frankenstein films and a tribute to them. According to Roger Ebert, it is Brooks’ “most disciplined and visually inventive film (it also happens to be very funny).”
October 6: The Train (1964), Gary Hawkins, Duke.
A tribute to the French resistance and a cult film for railroad fetishists, it got 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. You’ll be surprised that you’d never heard of it. “How do you weigh the cultural heritage of a nation against the value of human life? A wholly persuasive, intelligent thriller ....”—Greydanus.
November 10: Rashomon (1950), Laura Boyes, NC Museum of Art.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa and produced in the aftermath of a war that devastated Japan, Rashomon is “a riveting psychological thriller that investigates the nature of truth and the meaning of justice.” It “is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made.”—Criterion Collections
December 8: Charlie Chaplin films (1921-1931) for Christmas, Francesca Talenti, UNC.
(Probably The Kid and City Lights, if we can get the licenses.) Chaplin and Christmas cookies! Bring the kids and grandkids. (We’ll even throw in a few scenes from Lotte Reiniger’s beautiful, silent, stop-action Prince Ahmed (1926, Germany) during intermission.)
January 12: Black Orpheus (1959), Gustavo Furtado, Duke.
A modern version of the Orpheus/Euridice tale set in Brazil at Carnival, it introduced bossa nova to American audiences with music by Luiz Bonfá ("Manhã de Carnaval") and Antonio Carlos Jobim (“Girl from Ipanema”).
February 9: Grand Illusion (1937), Max Owre, UNC.
According to Roger Ebert, The Grand Illusion “is ... a meditation on the collapse of the old order. Perhaps that was always a sentimental upper-class illusion, the notion that gentlemen on both sides of the lines subscribed to the same code of behavior. Whatever it was, it died in the trenches of World War I.”
March 8: High Noon (1952), Ken Wetherington, Duke.
One of the greatest and most elegant of the mythic westerns. “High Noon centered on a protagonist—Marshall Will Kane—who behaved more like a human everyman than a traditional, all-powerful Western icon. ... Something was happening here. Something about the Western was about to change forever.”
April 5: Pather Panchali (1955), Tom Wallis, UNC System Office.
The film “is like a prayer, affirming that this is what the cinema can be, no matter how far in our cynicism we may stray.”—Ebert. “Beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love, it brought a new vision of India to the screen.”--Kael
May 10: Nights of Cabiria (1957), Paolo Tosini, Duke.
“... a film that owes as much to City Lights as it does to The Bicycle Thief. ... Nights of Cabiria shifts so effortlessly between heartbreaking and comic it's easy to forget how badly the movie could have gone. It's about that most sentimental of stock characters: the hooker with the heart of gold. ... But Cabiria is so fully realized and human that she defies stereotypes.”—Matt Dessem.
The Classic Film Society is supported by a generous contribution of time and effort by the staff of the Orange County Public Library. Our website is www.hillsboroughclassicfilms.com; you will find information about each of the films there. You can reach Gail at [email protected] and Mike at [email protected].
General Information 2018-2019 Films
ON THE WATERFRONT:
General Notes:
Information: Of Interest
Characters: The Priest
PATHS OF GLORY:
General Notes: Path Notes
Reviews: Paths reviews
THE CRANES ARE FLYING:
General Notes: Crane Notes
Reviews: Cranes Reviews
DOUBLE INDEMNITY:
General Notes: Detailed Film Notes
Reviews: Double Indemnity Reviews
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT:
General Notes:
Reviews: slate.com/culture/2008/02/revisiting-in-the-heat-of-the-night.html
VERTIGO
General Notes:
Reviews:
BICYCLE THIEVES
General Notes: Detailed Film Notes
Reviews: Bicycle Thieves Reviews
Background Information:
Info Posters: Info Posters
THE THIRD MAN
General Notes: Detailed Film Notes
Reviews: Third Man Reviews
Background Information:
Info Posters:
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
General Notes:
Reviews: Battle of Algiers
Background Information:
Videos: YouTube --- "Five Directors on The Battle of Algiers"
General Notes:
Information: Of Interest
Characters: The Priest
PATHS OF GLORY:
General Notes: Path Notes
Reviews: Paths reviews
THE CRANES ARE FLYING:
General Notes: Crane Notes
Reviews: Cranes Reviews
DOUBLE INDEMNITY:
General Notes: Detailed Film Notes
Reviews: Double Indemnity Reviews
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT:
General Notes:
Reviews: slate.com/culture/2008/02/revisiting-in-the-heat-of-the-night.html
VERTIGO
General Notes:
Reviews:
BICYCLE THIEVES
General Notes: Detailed Film Notes
Reviews: Bicycle Thieves Reviews
Background Information:
Info Posters: Info Posters
THE THIRD MAN
General Notes: Detailed Film Notes
Reviews: Third Man Reviews
Background Information:
Info Posters:
THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
General Notes:
Reviews: Battle of Algiers
Background Information:
Videos: YouTube --- "Five Directors on The Battle of Algiers"
GENERAL INTEREST
PAULINE KAEL.
Pauline Kael, the notorious, you-loved-her-or-you-hated-her reviewer for the New Yorker, would be one hundred years old this week. To celebrate that, the New Yorker published an overview of, and links to, six of her most famous reviews: “Goodfellas,” “Taxi Driver,” “The Godfather,” Citizen Kane,” “Star Wars,” and “Bonnie and Clyde.” That article is the first on the list below. It’s behind a paywall, but even if you don’t subscribe to the New Yorker you should be able to get a few of their articles for free, including this one.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/sunday-reading-the-electrifying-critical-mind-of-pauline-kael
For those of you who don’t subscribe, here are links to some of her reviews that you should be able to reach without a subscription. (They’re from a website the New Yorker calls “Scraps from the Loft,” and as far as we can tell there is no wall protecting them.) You can identify the movie being reviewed from the link. The first link below goes to her review of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” for example. If you do happen to subscribe to the New Yorker, all of her reviews are archived there.
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2017/01/05/pauline-kael-on-2001-a-space-odyssey/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/03/07/popeye-1980-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/03/05/tess-1979-review-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/07/17/prizzis-honor-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/01/16/outland-pauline-kael-review/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2017/06/23/pauline-kael-star-wars/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/07/10/gremlins-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/07/17/blow-out-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/02/11/victim-1961-review-by-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2017/06/23/pauline-kael-star-wars/
PAULINE KAEL.
Pauline Kael, the notorious, you-loved-her-or-you-hated-her reviewer for the New Yorker, would be one hundred years old this week. To celebrate that, the New Yorker published an overview of, and links to, six of her most famous reviews: “Goodfellas,” “Taxi Driver,” “The Godfather,” Citizen Kane,” “Star Wars,” and “Bonnie and Clyde.” That article is the first on the list below. It’s behind a paywall, but even if you don’t subscribe to the New Yorker you should be able to get a few of their articles for free, including this one.
https://www.newyorker.com/books/double-take/sunday-reading-the-electrifying-critical-mind-of-pauline-kael
For those of you who don’t subscribe, here are links to some of her reviews that you should be able to reach without a subscription. (They’re from a website the New Yorker calls “Scraps from the Loft,” and as far as we can tell there is no wall protecting them.) You can identify the movie being reviewed from the link. The first link below goes to her review of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” for example. If you do happen to subscribe to the New Yorker, all of her reviews are archived there.
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2017/01/05/pauline-kael-on-2001-a-space-odyssey/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/03/07/popeye-1980-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/03/05/tess-1979-review-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/07/17/prizzis-honor-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/01/16/outland-pauline-kael-review/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2017/06/23/pauline-kael-star-wars/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/07/10/gremlins-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/07/17/blow-out-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2018/02/11/victim-1961-review-by-pauline-kael/
https://scrapsfromtheloft.com/2017/06/23/pauline-kael-star-wars/
Books and Articles Recommended by Members of the Society and the Public
We do not endorse these, we just think we ought to pass them along for those who might wish to take a look.
Recommended by Don Head:
Theory of film : the redemption of physical reality
by Kracauer, Siegfried, 1889-1966
Publication date 1960
Topics Motion Pictures
Publisher Oxford University Press
We do not endorse these, we just think we ought to pass them along for those who might wish to take a look.
Recommended by Don Head:
Theory of film : the redemption of physical reality
by Kracauer, Siegfried, 1889-1966
Publication date 1960
Topics Motion Pictures
Publisher Oxford University Press
Links to Background Information
In Memoriam 1942 – 2013 | “Roger Ebert loved movies.” | ★ ★ ★ ★
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974)
Cast
Gene Wilder as Dr. Frankenstein , Peter Boyle as His Monster , Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth , Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher , Gene Hackman as Blind Man , Teri Garr as Inga ,
Directed by Mel Brooks,
Produced byMichael Gruskoff, Screenplay byGene Wilder, Brooks, Comedy, Science Fiction Rated PG
108 minutes
★★★★ | RogerEbert January 1, 1974 | ☄ 16
The moment, when it comes, has the inevitability of comic genius. Young Frederick Frankenstein, grandson of the count who started it all, returns by rail to his ancestral home. As the train pulls into the station, he spots a kid on the platform, lowers the window and asks, "Pardon me, boy; is this the Transylvania Station"?
It is, and Mel Brooks is home with "Young Frankenstein," his most disciplined and visually inventive film (it also happens to be very funny). Frederick is a professor in a New York medical school, trying to live down the family name and giving hilarious demonstrations of the difference between voluntary and involuntary reflexes. He stabs himself in the process, dismisses the class and is visited by an ancient family retainer with his grandfather's will.
Frankenstein quickly returns to Transylvania and the old ancestral castle, where he is awaited by the faithful houseboy Igor, the voluptuous lab assistant Inga, and the mysterious housekeeper Frau Blucher, whose very name causes horses to rear in fright. The young man had always rejected his grandfather’s medical experiments as impossible, but he changes his mind after he discovers a book entitled How I Did It by Frederick Frankenstein. Now all that’s involved is a little grave-robbing and a trip to the handy local Brain Depository, and the Frankenstein family is back in business.
In his two best comedies, before this, “The Producers” and “Blazing Saddles,” Brooks revealed a rare comic anarchy. His movies weren’t just funny, they were aggressive and subversive, making us laugh even when we really should have been offended. (Explaining this process, Brooks once loftily declared, “My movies rise below vulgarity.”) “Young Frankenstein” is as funny as we expect a Mel Brooks comedy to be, but it’s more than that: It shows artistic growth and a more sure-handed control of the material by a director who once seemed willing to
do literally anything for a laugh. It’s more confident and less breathless.
That’s partly because the very genre he’s satirizing gives him a strong narrative he can play against. Brooks’s targets are James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931) and “Bride of Frankenstein” (1935), the first the most influential and the second probably the best of the 1930s Hollywood horror movies. Brooks uses carefully controlled black-and-white photography that catches the feel of the earlier films. He uses old-fashioned visual devices and obvious special effects (the train ride is a study in manufactured studio scenes). He adjusts the music to the right degree of squeakiness. And he even rented the original “Frankenstein” laboratory, with its zaps of electricity, high-voltage special effects, and elevator platform to intercept lightning bolts.
So the movie is a send-up of a style and not just of the material (as Paul Morrissey’s dreadful “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein”). It looks right, which makes it funnier. And then, paradoxically, it works on a couple of levels: first as comedy, and then as a weirdly touching story in its own right. A lot of the credit for that goes to the performances of Gene Wilder, as young Frankenstein, and Peter Boyle as the monster. They act broadly when it’s required, but they also contribute tremendous subtlety and control. Boyle somehow manages to be hilarious and pathetic at the same time.
There are set pieces in the movie that deserve comparison with the most famous scenes in “The Producers.” Demonstrating that he has civilized his monster, for example, Frankenstein and the creature do a soft-shoe number in black tie and tails. Wandering in the woods, the monster comes across a poor, blind monk (Gene Hackman, very good) who offers hospitality and winds up scalding, burning, and frightening the poor creature half to death.
There are also the obligatory town meetings, lynch mobs, police investigations, laboratory experiments, love scenes, and a cheerfully ribald preoccupation with a key area of the monster’s stitched-together anatomy. From its opening title (which manages to satirize “Frankenstein” and “Citizen Kane” at the same time) to its closing, uh, refrain, “Young Frankenstein” is not only a Mel Brooks movie but also a loving commentary on our love-hate affairs with monsters. This time, the monster even gets to have a little love-hate affair of his own.
Around The Web
In Memoriam 1942 – 2013 | “Roger Ebert loved movies.” | ★ ★ ★ ★
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (1974)
Cast
Gene Wilder as Dr. Frankenstein , Peter Boyle as His Monster , Madeline Kahn as Elizabeth , Cloris Leachman as Frau Blucher , Gene Hackman as Blind Man , Teri Garr as Inga ,
Directed by Mel Brooks,
Produced byMichael Gruskoff, Screenplay byGene Wilder, Brooks, Comedy, Science Fiction Rated PG
108 minutes
★★★★ | RogerEbert January 1, 1974 | ☄ 16
The moment, when it comes, has the inevitability of comic genius. Young Frederick Frankenstein, grandson of the count who started it all, returns by rail to his ancestral home. As the train pulls into the station, he spots a kid on the platform, lowers the window and asks, "Pardon me, boy; is this the Transylvania Station"?
It is, and Mel Brooks is home with "Young Frankenstein," his most disciplined and visually inventive film (it also happens to be very funny). Frederick is a professor in a New York medical school, trying to live down the family name and giving hilarious demonstrations of the difference between voluntary and involuntary reflexes. He stabs himself in the process, dismisses the class and is visited by an ancient family retainer with his grandfather's will.
Frankenstein quickly returns to Transylvania and the old ancestral castle, where he is awaited by the faithful houseboy Igor, the voluptuous lab assistant Inga, and the mysterious housekeeper Frau Blucher, whose very name causes horses to rear in fright. The young man had always rejected his grandfather’s medical experiments as impossible, but he changes his mind after he discovers a book entitled How I Did It by Frederick Frankenstein. Now all that’s involved is a little grave-robbing and a trip to the handy local Brain Depository, and the Frankenstein family is back in business.
In his two best comedies, before this, “The Producers” and “Blazing Saddles,” Brooks revealed a rare comic anarchy. His movies weren’t just funny, they were aggressive and subversive, making us laugh even when we really should have been offended. (Explaining this process, Brooks once loftily declared, “My movies rise below vulgarity.”) “Young Frankenstein” is as funny as we expect a Mel Brooks comedy to be, but it’s more than that: It shows artistic growth and a more sure-handed control of the material by a director who once seemed willing to
do literally anything for a laugh. It’s more confident and less breathless.
That’s partly because the very genre he’s satirizing gives him a strong narrative he can play against. Brooks’s targets are James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931) and “Bride of Frankenstein” (1935), the first the most influential and the second probably the best of the 1930s Hollywood horror movies. Brooks uses carefully controlled black-and-white photography that catches the feel of the earlier films. He uses old-fashioned visual devices and obvious special effects (the train ride is a study in manufactured studio scenes). He adjusts the music to the right degree of squeakiness. And he even rented the original “Frankenstein” laboratory, with its zaps of electricity, high-voltage special effects, and elevator platform to intercept lightning bolts.
So the movie is a send-up of a style and not just of the material (as Paul Morrissey’s dreadful “Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein”). It looks right, which makes it funnier. And then, paradoxically, it works on a couple of levels: first as comedy, and then as a weirdly touching story in its own right. A lot of the credit for that goes to the performances of Gene Wilder, as young Frankenstein, and Peter Boyle as the monster. They act broadly when it’s required, but they also contribute tremendous subtlety and control. Boyle somehow manages to be hilarious and pathetic at the same time.
There are set pieces in the movie that deserve comparison with the most famous scenes in “The Producers.” Demonstrating that he has civilized his monster, for example, Frankenstein and the creature do a soft-shoe number in black tie and tails. Wandering in the woods, the monster comes across a poor, blind monk (Gene Hackman, very good) who offers hospitality and winds up scalding, burning, and frightening the poor creature half to death.
There are also the obligatory town meetings, lynch mobs, police investigations, laboratory experiments, love scenes, and a cheerfully ribald preoccupation with a key area of the monster’s stitched-together anatomy. From its opening title (which manages to satirize “Frankenstein” and “Citizen Kane” at the same time) to its closing, uh, refrain, “Young Frankenstein” is not only a Mel Brooks movie but also a loving commentary on our love-hate affairs with monsters. This time, the monster even gets to have a little love-hate affair of his own.
Around The Web