Il Cinema Ritrovato

Cinema's First Nasty Women: Contagious Revenge

Co-sponsored by LMU College of Communication and Fine Arts and LMU Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts

Start time: 7:30 P.M.
Location: Drollinger Stage

Outdoor Screening and Live Piano Accompaniment!

Cinema’s First Nasty Women is a project that celebrates feminist comedy, unruly activism, and queer gender play in cinema from the early twentieth century. In this extravaganza of CONTAGIOUS REVENGE, French nursemaids go on strike, a teenage tomboy electrocutes the police, domestic workers break all the dishes, and a feminist cattle wrangler holds her bridegroom at gunpoint in a rare Western comedy starring the legendary speakeasy owner Texas Guinan. Issues of social justice, gender equity, workplace rights, dangerous new technologies, and physical contagion abound across this irreverent screening of ten slapstick comedies with live music by Dreamland Faces.

Introduction: Opening Remarks, Carla Marcantonio, Recorded Curator Introduction: Maggie Hennefeld, Laura Horak, and Elif Rongen-Kaynakci.

The Dairymaid's Revenge (US, 1899, 2 min) “BUCKETS” Composed by Timothy Law Snyder.

Live piano accompaniment: Donald Sosin

Pianist Donald Sosin has been creating and performing silent film music for fifty years, playing for major festivals, archives, and DVD recordings. He has been resident accompanist at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Silent Short Film Showings

1. The Dairymaid's Revenge (US, 1899, 2 min)  
2. La grève des nourrices (France, 1907, 12 min)  
3. Victoire a ses nerfs (France, 1907, 3 min)  
4. Zoé et la parapluie miraculeux (France, 1913, 4 min)  
5. Rembrandt de la rue Lepic (France, 1911, 6 min)  
6. La pile électrique de Léontine (France, 1910, 6.5 min)  
7. Laughing Gas (US, 1907, 7.5 min) 
8. Daisy Doodad's Dial (U.K., 1914, 9 min) 
9. La peur des ombres (France, 1911, 4 min) 
10. The Night Rider (US, 1920, 25 min) 

Total Running Time: 80 min

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Miracolo a Milano

("Miracle in Milan")

Start time: 9 P.M.
Location: Broccoli Theater

Despite the popularity of Vittorio De Sica’s films, Miracle in Milan has for years been a difficult film to find in the United States – until its 4K restoration by the Cineteca di Bologna and its re-release by the Criterion Collection. Miracle in Milan melds neorealist aesthetics and concerns about social justice with a fairy tale peppered with magical moments, including flying brooms (purportedly an inspiration for Steven Spielberg’s flying bicycles in E.T. [1982]). It is a likable and inventive story about finding hope in desolate times, as well as an allegory about the exploitation of the poor. More importantly, it shows how deeply greed runs in human beings, disregarding both ideology and social class—a topic that still resonates seven decades later. The “good” in people, the film seems to say, is a fragile and rare thing. The film abounds with whimsical flourishes and its protagonist’s – Totò’s – infectious charm. 

Italy, 1951, 100 minutes
Director: Vittorio De Sica
Cast:Francesco Golisano, Emma Gramatica, Paolo Stoppa

Restored by Cineteca di Bologna and Compass Film, in collaboration with Mediaset, Infinity, Arthur Cohn and Variety Communications at L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory. Distributed in the Us by Janus Films.

Introduction: Carla Marcantonio

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Man's Castle

Co-Sponsored by LMU Global-Local Affairs

Start Time: 5:15 p.m. (Presentation)
Start Time: 6:00 p.m. (Screening)
Location: Broccoli Theater 

Cinema Archives Talk: “The restoration of Man’s Castle”

Speaker: Rita Belda, Vice President at Sony Pictures Entertainment

In this 1933 Pre-Hays Code (i.e. uncensored), Depression-era drama, the gruff and homeless Bill (Spencer Tracy) decides to help out the beautiful, destitute Trina (Loretta Young). Trina falls for Bill, and they set up house together in a shantytown, but he longs to get out of New York City. On a very minimal budget, Borzage crafts a modern-day, romantic fairytale that is also devoid of facile sentimentality. Of the films Borzage made during the sound era, few match the intense lyricism and biting emotional power of Man’s Castle. It is the story of a man’s struggle to reconcile his need for freedom with his need for love. Tracy, one of the great male stars of American cinema, here showcases a rare vulnerability.

US, B&W, 1933, 78 minutes
Director: Frank Borzage
Cast: Spencer Tracey, Loretta Young

Restored in 4K by Sony Pictures Entertainment at Cineric laboratory, from the original 1933 35mm nitrate negative, a 1938 nitrate dupe negative and a 35mm nitrate print loaned by the BFI National Archive. Audio restoration by Deluxe Audio Services. Restoration supervised by Rita Belda.

Introduction: Students from the cohort of SFTV’S Bologna Summer Abroad ‘23

Reception: The first 45 students who RSVP and attend Man's Castle will receive a voucher for the Oaxaca on Wheels food truck at the reception after the screening!

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Nothing But A Man

Co-Sponsored by LMU Faculty Affairs

Start time: 10:00 A.M. Welcome and Film Introduction, Dr. Paula Massood*
Start time: 11:00 A.M. Screening
Location: Mayer Theater
Lunch break: Howard Fitzpatrick Pavilion Patio

The film tells the story of Duff Anderson (Ivan Dixon), an African American man living in the racially segregated American South during the Civil Rights era. Duff is determined to lead a life of dignitiy and respect, despite the oppressive racial discrimination of the time. He falls in love with a preacher’s daughter, Josie (Abbey Lincoln), who is also a schoolteacher. Duff faces various challenges as he tries to provide for his family; he confronts racism at his workplace, in his community, and in his marriage. 

The film sheds light on the systemic racism and discrimination prevalent at the time. Nothing but a Man is celebrated for its realistic portrayal of Black life in the 1960s. It was an independent film with a cinema verité flair, made on a shoe-string budget. It may be surprising to learn that this sensitive treatment of Black life, said to have been Malcolm X’s favorite film, was written and directed by German-Jewish Michael Roemer who escaped the Nazis as an adolescent and emigrated to the U.S. after World War II. Newly arrived from England to begin his education at Harvard, Roemer immediately observed the start racial discrimination against African-Americans and felt bleak echoes of his still vivid experience as a Jew who barely escaped the Third Reich. Roemer spent months living with African American families in Alabama in preparation for Nothing But a Man. And though he wanted to film in the South, he was warned against the discrimination he would face and the film was eventually shot in New Jersey. The film’s extraordinary cast includes legendary singer Abbey Lincoln and Ivan Dixon in what both would later name as their greatest screen roles.

USA, 1964, B&W, 92 minutes
Director: Michael Roemer
Cast: Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln, Gloria Foster

Distributed by The Film Desk and restored in 2013 by courtesy of Library of Congress at Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation Laboratory.

* Paula Massood is moderating the panel discussion after our surprise screening at 1:30 P.M. Read her bio.

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