The Innocents (1961)

A woman’s suffering face appears above a pair of tortured hands. Birds twitter…her distraught voice whispers…

All I want to do is save the children not destroy them. More than anything I love children. More than anything they need affection, love, someone who will belong to them and to whom they will belong.

And then a man’s voice is heard, “Do you have an imagination?” he asks, and the scene shifts to a well-appointed office where an elegant gentleman is addressing the young woman whose face we have already seen. She is now sitting in a chair and speaks animatedly with him as he continues asking questions and explaining the situation he offers.

ART HOUSE THEATER DAY

September 23 brings the 3^rd annual Art House Theater Day, and when I first learned of it, I smiled. Memories of long-ago days and nights spent in the art houses of San Francisco and Berkeley came to mind. It was in these funky little theaters nestled in the Bay Area’s nooks and crannies that I was introduced to the films of Powell & Pressburger, Fellini, Chabrol, Lina Wertmuller and other filmmakers from outside the U.S. It was in these ragtag movie houses that I watched “revival” screenings of films like Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? and John Cassavetes’ Husbands for the first time. Back in the day, art houses that presented foreign, indie and classic American films flourished around the US, in all major cities and university towns.

6 Day French Noir Fest Coming to San Francisco

French Film Noir Series Focuses on the Frenetic '50s, Including Jeanne Moreau and Jean Gabin Programs

My friend Steve Indig, who's been brilliantly managing promotion for Midcentury Productions' film festivals for the past few years, has just announced details of this year's French film noir series in San Francisco. Set for November 15 - 20, the program for 2018 is bigger, and promises to be better, than ever:

Forever Roses

"Even bedridden, she was the most beautiful old lady I'd ever seen. There she was with no makeup but still beautiful skin, big blue eyes and little hands fluttering like small birds in the air. She smelled beautiful, too, like roses." - Sacha Briquet

Marlene Dietrich lived her final years in an apartment on Avenue Montaigne in Paris. French actor/comedian Sacha Briquet (1930 - 2010) had become a friend and confidante and was one of few visitors she would see as she made her way into advanced age. Briquet's lovely reminiscence has me contemplating the purchase of a lifetime supply of Jean Patou's Joy, with the fantasy of emanating the scent of roses for the rest of my life. Of course, I wouldn't mind doing this from an apartment in Paris either...

The Extraordinary Mildred Natwick

On a Friday earlier this month, with time to spare before a screening of the Jacques Becker heist classic Touchez pas au grisbi at the Pacific Film Archive, we stopped by Rasputin’s, a decades-old Berkeley haunt that deals in new and used records, CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays. There I managed to unearth two films, Lubitsch’s Ninotchka and Truffaut’s Day for Night, along with a ‘70s TV series, all at a good price. The series is one I’d been only vaguely aware of and knew very little about, really. The Snoop Sisters (1972 – 1974), starred Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick as a pair of sisters aptly named Snoop, one of whom (Hayes) writes mystery novels. The two invariably get mixed up in solving real crimes (sound a bit familiar?).

"On the Town," in Celebration of Leonard Bernstein's Centenary

August 25th marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of American composer/conductor/pianist Leonard Bernstein. In celebration, movie houses around the country are showcasing films scored by the legendary maestro.  My local theater, the Smith Rafael Film Center (aka/the Rafael), put together a three-film tribute to Bernstein, with On the Town (1949), On the Waterfront (1954) and West Side Story (1961) screening on separate Sundays in August.

Roll Up for the Mystery Tour: A Visit to the Oakland Paramount Theatre

Have you ever wanted to tour a historic movie palace? One of those elaborately ornate monuments to cinema constructed during the Golden Age of American movie theaters, back in the ‘20s and ‘30s? Well, I have, and luckily for me I live not very far from one of the most spectacular of them all, the Paramount Theatre in Oakland, CA, a theater that hosts public tours twice monthly.

Celebrating Bastille Day with French Noir

Today is Bastille Day, the National Day of France – la fête nationale française. If you have a bit of French blood in your veins and are a Francophile, like me, that’s reason enough to celebrate. But how to celebrate? With a baguette and a glass of vin rouge? Listening to Edith Piaf (or Madeleine Peyroux) sing La vie en rose? Or are you, a die-hard film buff, more inclined to sit down with a classic film? Perhaps a French film, a Renoir, Duvivier, Melville or Truffaut. Or maybe a glittery Golden Age Hollywood movie set in France, like Midnight (1939), An American in Paris (1950) or Charade (1963).

A remembrance of things past: "MY AMADEUS STORY"

As the San Francisco Symphony prepares to screen the Oscar-winning film, I reminisce... 

 

Amadeus first entered my consciousness back in the early ‘80s, when I worked in the promotion dept. of Fantasy Records (Dave Brubeck, Vince Guaraldi, Creedence Clearwater Revival) in Berkeley, which was owned by Saul Zaentz and his partners, along with several jazz and R&B record labels. A few years earlier, before my time with the company, in the 1970s, Saul had begun producing movies under Fantasy Films, the film division of the parent company. His second feature, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), had gone on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Picture and the first of Jack Nicholson’s three Oscars. Saul would continue to make films, and the film division would soon change its name to the Saul Zaentz Company.