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From Nick Pobutsky, Motor City Cinema Society Co-Founder

In 2012, Paul Thomas Anderson’s sixth film opened across the world. Following the grand reception of its predecessor There Will Be Blood, which garnered Oscars for both cinematography and its lead actor Daniel Day-Lewis, The Master was an enigmatic and critically successful picture as well as an historic one, it being the first feature film shot entirely on 70mm since Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 screen version of Hamlet.

But, in the time between these acclaimed large format releases, a major change had occurred worldwide. Video virtually replaced film in both motion picture photography and projection. With the exception of movies featuring true Imax sequences (which is 70mm turned 90 degrees), film had otherwise widely vanished. Even though The Master revived unadulterated use of 70mm, it nevertheless had the fate of a mostly digital theatrical run. That is, with the exception of specialty movie houses such as those found typically on the ‘Coasts’ or in select cities; the bastions for camera-to-screen film purists like Anderson and his contemporaries.

Quentin Tarantino took his turn at the format with The Hateful Eight in 2015 and by then persuaded the studio to distribute it as a massive roadshow presentation across the US, with 70mm projectors actually installed (or reinstalled) into many first-run cinemas. Of course, there was also Christopher Nolan’s notorious Oppenheimer rollout last year, which included 70mm screenings within a similar campaign. The Master, however, proves Anderson was ahead of the curve as usual.

Along with his influence on moviemaking and preservation, too many things set PT Anderson apart to suggest he’s an ordinary filmmaker. One might say he was destined for the profession. Born in 1970 to Edwina and Ernie Anderson, Paul’s mother, an actress, when about to give birth to him was driven to the hospital in a sportscar his father bought from Greer Garson. Not a bad way to make an entrance. It was shortly after that Ernie, prolific broadcast recording artist, ‘voice of NBC’ and horror movie-host pioneer, was approached by Ron Sweed to reprise his Ghoulardi television character. Since his family had recently grown with the addition of Paul, and after relocating from Ohio to California, Ernie instead passed the mantle of the character on to Sweed. In other words, Paul simply being born helped Sweed become The Ghoul. All his young life a steady colorful cast of personalities frequented the Anderson household, including Carol Burnett, Tim Conway and Robert Ridgley, influencing the prodigious child, and since before he may remember, he wanted to make films.

When Anderson was still only a teenager, he made the early version of what would eventually become the renowned epic Boogie Nights. Shot with a video camcorder in 1988, The Dirk Diggler Story was his first attempt at the material, drawn largely from his familiarity with it by growing up in the San Fernando Valley (the ‘capital’ of adult films). Its crude production value lent itself to a This Is Spinal Tap-type documentary conceit and featured the distinguished narration of his father. When it was time to shoot Boogie Nights after completing his first major motion picture Hard Eight (1996), he already had nearly a decade of expertise on the subject. He traded its light comedic mockumentary style for a lavish and sweeping classical narrative of a surrogate family in the “exotic picture” business at the end of the 1970s.

A commercial and critical triumph in 1997, Boogie Nights features a superb ensemble cast including Mark Wahlberg, Julianne Moore, Heather Graham, Don Cheadle, Philip Seymour Hoffman, John C. Reilly and Burt Reynolds (in his only Oscar nominated role). Part of what helped make it the “sprawling masterpiece of a movie” Roger Ebert declared it to be is how extraordinarily its many elements were balanced, from script to screen. It’s a very funny movie, but not campy or shallow; it’s also quite a dark cautionary tale, while not preachy or self- righteous. With all of its spectacle, music and style, it’s grounded by a strong moral core and the accuracy of historically-informed research about the life of the real business it reflects.

It may be hard to imagine for some, but during the ‘Golden Age’ of adult films, an era which began in America with Andy Warhol’s Blue Movie in 1969, the boundary separating them from so-called ‘legitimate’ movies was blurry. Both used narrative structure, opened with formal premieres, were promoted on marquees and posters, played in theaters and even got reviewed. This was so because they each shared a vital common element: FILM. Each genre was made for their respective big screens. With this justification, the characters in Boogie Nights thought of themselves highly as film-makers and film-stars, if only for a few years before the advent of cheap video production by the mid ‘80s crushed their loftier dreams.

Boogie Nights is just as much about the glory of film as it is about the characters whose dignity relied on it. It’s partly an allegory, prophesizing years ahead of its time the endangerment of film in our digital era.

Luckily for us, Paul Thomas Anderson works just as hard at preserving films as he does when making his own. He is on the board of directors of The Film Foundation, a nonprofit founded in 1990 by Martin Scorsese, Steven Speilberg and other top tier filmmakers responsible for saving nearly a thousand moving pictures to date. In fact, it was Anderson, Scorsese and Spielberg who also banded together to rescue TCM last year, forging a partnership with David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Brothers, the studio responsible for making this newly all- photochemically struck print of Boogie Nights.

Since The Master, Anderson has made ‘blow-ups’ for every one of his films, and is the one responsible for bringing back this bygone cinema tradition as well. Inherent Vice (2014), Phantom Thread (2017) and Licorice Pizza (2021) all were shot on 35mm; their negatives used to strike 70mm prints. Many big budget releases over the years had blow-ups, such as Star Wars (1977) and Aliens (1986), for not only superior image quality but also for improved sound. The only film of Anderson’s released prior to The Master that received this treatment not surprisingly is Boogie Nights, with its dazzling visuals and soundtrack in full effect on 70mm.

The Motor City Cinema Society is honored to bring you these two very special screenings of the first 70mm Paul Thomas Anderson print ever shown in Michigan, proudly in Detroit (now a select city).

In director Stanley Kubrick's 13 feature film canon he was able to master and subvert several genres, including the war film, in three different ways, science fiction, black comedy, and horror, but it was his third film, The Killing, that set him on the path to greatness. His first 2 features, Fear and Desire (1952) and Killer's Kiss (1955), showed promise, but were amateurish and flopped with the viewing public, leaving Kubrick in debt to family and friends and left him few prospects. His meeting with producer James B. Harris, a man with not only money, but connections, turned the course of Kubrick's life and allowed him to blossom into the auteur he became.

Harris' money allowed the pair to purchase the film rights to novelist Lionel White's pulp novel, Clean Break, for $10,000, as well as hire iconic crime novelist Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me, Savage Night) to write the dialogue. Graced with an intricate heist story, told from multiple points of view, Kubrick's genius was in creating a fractured narrative that distorts time, doubles back on specific scenes, and focuses on the characters, without sharing the specifics of the heist itself.

Kubrick viewed the film as his calling card for Hollywood and in shifting the story from the east coast to southern California he was able to hire professional actors and crew for the first time. Cinematographer Lucian Ballard (The Wild Bunch, The Parent Trap, A Kiss Before Dying), for instance added a "self consciously autonomous" camera that would largely become Kubrick's stock and trade, according to film historian Haden Guest. Ballard also helped refine Kubrick's love of singular and natural light sources, with the two men crafting claustrophobic interiors, often lit by a single bulb, that enclosed and bound the characters in cell-like rooms. Taking advantage of the sun-bleached California exteriors gives the film light/dark contrasts that exacerbate the ultimate doom that so closely and cleverly ties the film to the Noir cannon.

Kubrick's first mature film, as many critics have called it, features many themes, images and character traits that would mark his later films. While he was only 28 years old when the film released, he was nearly 10 years removed from being called a "wunderkind" while a staff photographer at Look magazine at 17. At 28, however, he was subject to injecting the film with bits of his personality, as he often did in future films. Several biographers have pointed to the 2 female characters as a pointed reference to Kubrick's two failed marriages as their origin. One character, devoted and perhaps overly doting, while the other a heartless and cruel adulterer.

After The Killing, Kubrick would direct Paths of Glory, Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, and 2001: A Space Odyssey in a 12 year span, the most productive period of his career. Without the fundamental and extraordinary growth exhibited in the making of The Killing, however, none of those films would have been possible. With The Killing, Kubrick displayed the artistry and creativity that in retrospect seems inevitable, but at the time it was anything but.

Please join us on Monday April 8th at 7PM for a 16MM screening of The Killling that will include a unique all-film pre-show of vintage commercials and trailers, a short film and a couple of surprises! And of course, the evening would not be complete without a spirited discussion afterwards of all things Kubrick!

Co-directors Merril G. White and Richard Enfeld were primarily known for the editing work, with White editing the sci-fi classic The Fly (1957) and Enfeld the Ben Casey TV program. Both used their only directorial effort to create Ghost Diver, an adventure film in the truest sense of the word! Deep beneath the ocean lies a hidden cave that holds secrets and treasures. In what starts off with a brutal murder, the story twists and turns to reveals what lies behind an idol that puts the plot in motion. Co-starring the luminous Audrey Totter (The Lady in the Lake, '46 and Tension, '49) and Jame Craig (Dark Dilusion, '47 and The Heavenly Body, '44), the film has the feel of the familiar, but its tight 76 minute run time belies a fun and interesting tale. White, coming off his Oscar nomination for editing The Brave One for director Irving Rapper (Now, Voyager, '42) would die just 2 years later.

Presented in Regalscope widescreen, Ghost Diver is this month's installment of our Back Alley Monday. Past films in the series have included Detroit 9000, Asylum, and last season's The Asphyx. Back Alley Mondays present lesser known films that have a unique place in film history and/or an interesting print that highlights the glory of 16mm film.

If Jaws created the Summer blockbuster in 1975, then surely Superman The Movie launched the as yet ongoing superhero sequence in American movies. And what a launch it was! With an amazing cast that included the little known Christopher Reeve, along with Gene Hackman, Marlon Brando, Margot Kidder, Ned Beatty, Glen Ford, Terrance Stamp, and Jackie Cooper, among others, Superman The Movie was touted as a blockbuster in the making when it first started shooting on March 28th 1977.

With a long gestating development period that began with protracted negotiations with DC Comics and culminated with rights being sold to executive producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind and their partner Pierre Spengler, Superman The Movie included top name directors, actors and technicians being considered at different times, including Steven Spielberg, Francis Coppola, William Friedkin, Sam Peckinpah, Al Pacino, Muhammad Ali, Clint Eastwood and Dustin Hoffman. Mario Puzo submitted the first draft of the scripts for both Superman and Superman 2, to economize the shooting schedule both films were to be shot together, but it took another year before rewrites were completed by several additional writers.

On the strength of his film version of The Omen (1976), the Salkinds hired veteran television director Richard Donner. With an offer of $1,000,000, Donner signed on mere months before production was scheduled to begin. Because both Marlon Brando, as Superman's father Jor-El, and Gene Hackman, as Lex Luthor, had previously scheduled film projects, time was short and they needed to begin shooting. There was one problem, however, the combined script for both films was over 500 pages and Donner thought it did a great disservice to the legacy of the man of steel. "Man, if they make this movie, they are destroying the legend of Superman. I wanted to do it just to defend him," Donner commented in a 2016 Hollywood Reporter interview. Partnering with an uncredited Tom Mankiewicz (Ladyhawke, Live & Let Die), the two "started from scratch" working to revitalize the content and the perspective of the film.

While the script was being reimagined, Donner set up seven separate units to shoot different pieces of the film, including the miniatures, Krypton scenes, and a flying unit headed by veteran Hollywood director Andre DeToth (The Gunfighter, House of Wax), who had been directing since 1939. Even as all this was beginning to take shape, at the insistence of the producers, Sylvester Stallone was interviewed for the part of Superman. Donner admitted to himself, "This is wrong," and worked his way out of the meeting, an unknown director in the presence of Rocky.

When casting director Lynn Stalmaster finally brought 26 year old Christopher Reeve to meet Donner he was skeptical, seeing the 150 pound Reeve as too skinny. Reeve boasted about his athletic prowess, looked good enough in the costume and geeky enough as Clark Kent and was given the role. He then set about working out with British body builder David Prowse to bulk up to 210 pounds before and during shooting. Prowse is probaly better known as the actor in the Dark Vader suit in the Star Wars movies.

Even with the trials and tribulations of development and casting, Superman would be an enormous hit when it was released in 1978, with the highest box office for the year and the 6th highest of all-time. Critics liked it as well and it helped launch an additional 3 films with Christopher Reeve, separate TV series in the 1990's and early 2000's, a reboot by Brian Singer in 2006, and the Zack Snyder reboots starting in 2013.

Detroit 9000: Motor City-sploitation with a Twist

The holy trinity of what would later be dubbed Blacksploitation film are surely Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasss Song (’71), Gordon Parks, Sr’s Shaft (’71) and Gordon Parks, Jr’s Super Fly (’72). Not only did they create the template for the sub-genre, but even their main characters portrayed what would become its bedrock, a sex worker, a private detective and a street hustler/drug dealer. In each, there was a pulsing and layered soundtrack, a depiction of urban neglect and decay and an overwhelming sense of isolation within that decay. The protagonists were pitted against a ruthless and unscrupulous white society, whether in the form of the police, mobsters or drug dealers. What many historians would point to in these three films, however, was the determination of protagonists Sweetback, John Shaft and Youngblood Priest, to survive through not only a desire to win, but of a righteous belief in what they were doing. Later films that were ultimately condemned by the NAACP and other African American organizations and press either lost that undercurrent or outright parodied the tenants that made the sub-genre initially captivating and now leaves it somewhat problematic.

Detroit 9000 was released right on the cusp of that turn, during the summer of 1973. By that time classic films with more problematic depictions of racial stereotypes, created in part when white directors and producers started making the majority of “black exploitation” pictures, were becoming the norm. Roger Corman’s American Pictures International, a long-time maker of exploitation films of all kinds, had recognized the low cost, high revenue potential in making and marketing films for and to African Americans and had produced Blacula and Slaughter in 1972. By 1973 API produced, all with white directors, Black Mama, White Mama, Black Caesar, and Coffy.

Detroit 9000, while generally following the newly established grind house production methods, was a different animal altogether. Shot entirely in Detroit, with white and black co-stars, Detroit 9000 would create a different mold that would later be utilized by the Lethal Weapon series (’87-’16), Training Day (‘01), 48 Hours (’82) , Men in Black (’97) and in an interesting twist, Rush Hour (’98). While not quite buddies, the characters played by Alex Rocco and Hari Rhodes, flip stereotypes as the street-smart white cop dispenses with a prying press, while the black detective, college educated and almost too good to be true, has to navigate the streets to solve the robbery of a local politician. That the white detective is played by Alex Rocco, fresh off having been shot through his eyeglasses at the conclusion of The Godfather the year earlier, only adds to the intriguing nature of the character.

Locally, Detroit 9000 was a divisive movie when it was first released in 1973. Derided by many Detroiters, including mayor Roman Gibbs, as exploiting the city’s crime and racial issues, the film was also lauded as the first feature film ever shot in the city. What it did represent, however, were parts of Detroit, including the Book Cadillac Hotel, The J.L. Hudson building, and the Fort Street Terminal, that no longer stand or have been significantly remodeled. In that respect, Detroit 9000 is a time capsule of Detroit circa 1973. When director Quentin Tarantino re-released the film both theatrically and on video in 1998, calling the film a lost classic, a new generation of film fans were able to enjoy the film, recapture some of the early ‘70’s vibe of the city and discover a lost piece of the blacksploitation sub-genre.

Godard: The Inflection Point

Jean-Luc Godard would definitely be included in any French film ‘Mount Rushmore.” His impact on world cinema over the course of 50+ year career is unquestioned. For many people, however, there is a delineation within his filmography around the year 1967. Godard felt that film was life and vice versa, and for certain periods his films spiraled in on themselves as Godard worked out an idea, an ideal, a subtle or obvious point or attempted to push the medium beyond anyone else’s understanding or capabilities. By 1967, he had made, among other films, Breathless (’60), A Woman is a Woman (’61), My Life to Live (’62), Contempt (’63), Alphaville (’65), Pierrot Le Fou (’65) and Band of Outsiders (’64); each a classic and influential film, as well as among his most popular and famous films. For Godard, 1967 was an inflection point because his life was changing and his interests no longer aligned with popular film culture or techniques. For life and for cinema there had to be a change.

Perhaps it was the end note on his film Weekend (’67), noting ‘end of story’ ‘end of cinema,’ that put on film what Godard was feeling. His political beliefs kept him making films, but he was largely uninterested in participating in the commercial pursuit of film. Before then, however, his output forever changed the landscape and understanding for what cinema could and should be. He influenced generations of filmmakers from all over the world, including Jim Jarmusch, Wong Kar-Wai, Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino. His films in the early to mid-sixties were accessible and filled with pop references and “meta” allusions to other films. More importantly, they were alive with energy, radiating an effervesce, even as the characters faced poverty, the police and death, that was unparallel among his contemporaries, his predecessors or his disciples.

Could it have been the impact of the end of his collaboration with actress Anna Karina that so profoundly changed Godard? To call her his muse simplifies his attitude towards film. Cinema was his muse, but there is no doubt that Karina influenced not only the 7 films they made together from 1961-1966, but several of his other films during that period. She could be argued as the sole distraction that Godard had from the pure belief in cinema as life. The couple’s relationship weighed heavily upon each of Godard’s films, from the utter adoration his camera captured in A Woman is a Woman (’61), through the dissolution of their marriage in 1965, reflected in Peirrot Le Fou to the end of their collaboration in Made in the U.S.A (’66). Even in films, like Contempt (’63), where Karina doesn’t even appear, her presence is palpable in the creation and performance of the female lead. That that personae could leak into a character played by Bridget Bardot is truly amazing given the strength of her presence and performance, but such was the interconnected nature of Karina and Godard.

While neither was able to recapture the co-dependent greatness of their collaboration, it cannot be understated that its strength lies in the sum of its parts. Watching the films it clear the arc is often painful and joyless, yet also moving and emotional, sometimes in the same film, and casts an emotional center to Godard’s films in this period. Years after their life together ended Karina repeatedly called Godard the love of her life. Not surprisingly, Godard’s comment was more pointed, but less direct, when he said “the cinema does not quarry the beauty of a woman, it only doubts her heart, records her perfidy, and only sees her movements.” Perhaps their love and collaboration was unbalanced, but these comments spoke to nothing more than a difference in perspective; Karina’s based in reality/life and Godard’s, not surprisingly, remembered through the lens of a camera.

Michelle Pfeiffer was viewed as a controversial choice for the part of Frankie in the Gary Marshall directed adaptation of Terrance McNally’s off-Broadway play “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.” The part of Frankie was originated by Kathy Bates and written as a world-weary waitress who “hadn’t dated since Reagan was president.” At the time, Pfeiffer countered that physical beauty didn’t guarantee happiness and she was perfectly suited to play the part. That Pfeiffer had been nominated for two acting Oscars in the two years leading up to Frankie and Johnny had no bearing on whether she could play the part apparently. She was simply too pretty and seemingly not talented enough to pull off a down and outer. Whether that proved true has to be seen, I guess, but it got me to thinking about Pfeiffer’s career and how she evolved from ‘just a pretty face’ to an actor of significance and respect.

Pfeiffer’s co-star in Frankie and Johnny, Al Pacino, virtually burst into the public conscience as a fully formed method actor in his signature role as Michael Corleone in The Godfather, earning his first Academy Award nomination in the process. While he had won acclaim on the stage in New York, his film career up to that point consisted of the well regarded The Panic in Needle Park, the part of Michael was a rocket launcher to fame and respect. Within three years he starred in Serpico, Godfather II, and Dog Day Afternoon, cementing his place as one of the preeminent actors of his generation.

Pfeiffer’s career, on the other hand started in roles that solely focused on her looks. They were light and airy, often taking place in the California sun (sometimes made for television) and culminated in the dismal Grease II (1982). Ironically, it was opposite Pacino in 1983’s Scarface that Pfeiffer began the climb to respectability and the film led to a string of, if not classics, then certainly career building roles in films like Into the Night, Ladyhawke, The Witches of Eastwick and Married to the Mob. It was her two decade ending classics, however, Dangerous Liaisons and The Fabulous Baker Boys, that finally put her near the top of the leading actress pyramid and accounted for the first 2 of her three acting Oscar nomination.

Frankie and Johnny sits right after those two films and just before her iconic performance as Cat Woman in Batman Returns, her third Oscar nomination, for Love Field, and Martin Scorsese’s The Age of innocence. To doubt her abilities, then seems like a misguided folly and Hollywood sexism at its peak. In Scarface, the more famous of the actors two pairings attests, Pfeiffer gives every bit to Pacino as she gets and my money is in Frankie and Johnny, she makes him work as well.

The tag line for the 1972 film Asylum, which will be screened on February 5th as part of our new series Back Alley Monday, is "You have nothing to lose but your mind." This puts it perfectly in the early 70's British Horror cannon with endless titles and tags to entice grind house and mainstream film fans alike. Asylum, however, had pedigree and a unique format which separates it from standard Brit horror. Robert Bloch, the novelist whose most famous work is Psycho, wrote the screenplay from 4 of his related short stories, all centered on an asylum housing the criminally insane. The anthology format provides a cavalcade of interesting characters, focussing on a young doctor's trial by fire interview to diagnose several patients and prove his worthiness for a position at the asylum. The challenge sets the story of murder and mayhem in motion, with each vignette featuring dynamic casts, interesting premises and wonderful direction by Roy Ward Baker. Baker directed the Titanic film A Night to Remember in 1958, as well as the horror classic Quatermass and the Pit in 1967, among more than 60 TV and movie credits. Actors in featured roles include Peter Cushing (The Curse of Frankenstein), Patrick Magee (Barry Lyndon), Brit Ekland (Get Carter), Barbara Parkins (Valley of the Dolls), Charlotte Rampling (The Night Porter) and Robert Powell (TV's Jesus of Nazareth). With a cast and crew that would create envy in any producer's rolodex, Asylum should be the rare treat that offers newfound nuggets for first time viewers and newly revealed treasures for repeat viewers, all on a 16mm film that will sure to offer surprises of its own!

Hal Ashby, the Forgotten Director of New Hollywood

Director Hal Ashby is often overlooked when lists of the greatest directors of the 1970’s are made. Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are all regularly mentioned, and rightfully so. The creative genius they and many other directors displayed in the 70’s changed Hollywood forever. Generally speaking, those directors either were fresh graduates of film schools, or in Bogdanovich’s case, film criticism. Ashby was different. He didn’t come from either coast; having been born and raised in Utah. He didn’t attend college, instead working, by his estimate, several hundred odd jobs, both in Utah and in California, after moving at 21 to “live off the fruit of the land.” He didn’t have a technical or artistic background, but applied through a job service to work for a studio, any studio. When he was granted an assistant editor position at Republic Pictures, however, he found first a vocation, and then an outlet for his immense skill and artistry.

He was in his early twenties, but would assist on important films for George Stevens and William Wyler, honing his craft as an editor. His partnership with Norman Jewison led to some of the director’s best work, including The Cincinnati Kid, and The Thomas Crown Affair. It was his editing of Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night, however, that put him on the Hollywood map and led to his only Academy Award. Ashby was known as a tireless worker, often putting in 15-17 hours a day at his editing bay. He had a photographic memory that helped him recall every piece of film he touched, then retrieve it to utilize it in his constructive process. He had been working with the understanding that editing was the perfect training ground for being a director, but he was 38 years old, exhausted, divorced three times and had no directing prospects. Jewison offered him the opportunity to direct The Landlord in 1970, because he was too busy himself, setting in motion a run of greatness that would rival any other director.

After The Landlord, Ashby would direct Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home and Being There, all within a nine-year span encompassing the 1970’s. Combined, he would direct 10 actors to Oscar nominations, with four of them winning. Ashby would be nominated for just one Best Director Oscar, for Coming Home, but would lose to Michael Cimino’s direction of The Deer Hunter.

While he would direct a handful of features in the 1980’s, he was never able to capture the magic of his ‘70’s output. A habitual marijuana user dating back to the ‘50’s, Ashby often clashed with producers and studio executives. Rumored use of cocaine and other drugs, however, led to difficulty in being hired, exacerbated by Ashby’s increased reclusiveness. A man of few words, Ashby let his films speak for him, crafting a legacy of greatness during a period of upheaval and change throughout Hollywood. Given the seven films he directed during the ‘70’s it’s clear he deserves to be mentioned along with Scorsese, Coppola, Cimino and Bogdanovich as an auteur of New Hollywood.

Sadly, he did not live to old age as many of these men have, so he was never granted a late career resurgence or retrospective. Ashby died of pancreatic cancer in 1988. His last project, a TV pilot for a series created by Monty Python’s Graham Chapman, never aired, due to Chapman’s health and Ashby’s death.

Award winning screenwriter Larry Karaszewski will join us via Zoom for our post-screening talkback. In addition to co-writing Tim Burton's Ed Wood, he co-wrote My Name is Dolemite, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Big Eyes, and Man on the Moon, creating a biopic sub-genre with writing partner Scott Alexander.

Glen or Glenda

Director Edward D. Wood Jr. has been called the worst director of all time and his film Plan 9 From Outer Space is often called the worst film of all time. But while he unequivocally lacked artistic talent, there is no doubt his films were made with a simplistic joy and a unique creativity. His first film, Glen or Glenda was a direct response to the worldwide news of Christine Jorgensen’s sex reassignment surgery in 1952. As part of the low-budget exploitation sub-genre of the early 1950’s, Glen or Glenda would have been pitched as a film about transgenderism, couched in a docudrama or educational style to avoid censorship. What Ed Wood made, however, was a semi-autobiographical film about his own transvestism; taking what was personal and incorporating it into his passion. In doing so, Wood bared his soul, nakedly putting his ‘difference’ out into the world for everyone to see and making a film, while derided by some for its mundane sets, stilted dialogue, and clunky editing, that clearly stands as a plea for acceptance and understanding.

In addition to writing and directing Glen or Glenda, Wood also starred as Glen, a closeted transvestite struggling to tell his fiancé about his secret life. While careful to couch his transvestism in an overtly obvious heterosexuality, the film creates a sensitive case for normalizing his transvestism within his home and in public. His fiancé, played by Wood’s real-life girlfriend, Dolores Fuller, only recently made aware of his transvestism, speaks for many when she admits that she doesn’t understand it, but she accepts it. There is a simple poignance in the scene where she expresses her feelings. Shot in just four days, Glen or Glenda liberally uses stock footage, voice over narration and a framing device of a police investigation to illustrate the societal perception and impact of misunderstanding of what was deemed a ‘deviant’ subculture. Topping the framing device is 1930’s horror film icon Bela Lugosi as a god-like narrator/mad scientist. Lugosi was an acquaintance of Wood’s who hadn’t acted in four years and was addicted to pain medication when he agreed to the part, not knowing what the film was about, but happy to have the $1,000 payday. Lugosi’s scenes were filmed away from the other actors and offer a bizarre and surreal addition to the film itself. While the film was not well received by critics or audiences at the time, Variety noted that “what distinguishes it from other low budget efforts are the occasional mad flights of fancy” (Variety, Dec. 31st, 1952). Not overwhelming praise, but noteworthy nonetheless. Not surprisingly, the film quickly disappeared from circulation and was largely forgotten. It wasn’t until the 1980’s when Wood gained notoriety for the assumed banality of his work, that he became known among cult film fans, enhanced by the bourgeoning home video market and midnight screenings. Unlike Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957), Jail Bait (1954) or Bride of the Monster (1955), Glen or Glenda has been reevaluated more for its social and cultural impact than its cinematic originality, separating it from Wood’s other films. Looking at it with a modern eye, it is apparent that Wood’s beliefs were ahead of their time and have become oddly prescient in today’s culture of intolerance. During his lifetime Edward D. Wood, Jr. never received notoriety, fame or even respect for his filmmaking, but Glen or Glenda proves that in his soul he was a fearless artist worthy of respect, if not praise.

John, Paul and George famously came together as teenagers in Liverpool, England, later adding Ringo Starr to become the Fab Four. Their meteoric rise to international superstardom seems to have happened overnight, but there were two separate stints in Hamburg Germany that helped forge them into musicians and performers of the highest order. At one point they agreed to perform six nights a week for up to 6 hours, a daunting task for a band with limited material and even less on-stage experience. Out of that gauntlet came a confidence and willingness to experiment with their sound that carried over into their musical output throughout the life of the band. In fact, when they released their first single, “Love Me Do”, released on October 5th, 1962, it took just weeks to land on the charts in England, peaking at #17. By 1963 they had 4 number 1 hits and a number 2 hit on the English charts and were ready to conquer America. Their confidence and experience, forged in Germany from 196-1962, and cemented by adoring fans in the UK, helped them make choices that would allow them to not just enter the US market, but to overtake it in a whirlwind of publicity, performances and hit singles the likes of which the country had never seen.

During the late 1950’s, film producers looking to make money appealing to the burgeoning youth culture in the U.S. created what were dubbed “Juke Box Musicals”. Essentially bundling hot rock-n-roll bands and performers together with threadbare plots to make feature length performance films, many bands were able to chart their featured singles through appearances in the films. The broader platform was appealing to many up-and-coming bands, but The Beatles immediately turned down their many film studio suitors, choosing instead to accept an invitation to be beamed into homes on The Ed Sullivan Show. Broadcast on February 9th, 1964, just 3 weeks after their first official album release in the U.S. When 73 million people watched the performance, the musical earth literally shifted and The Beatles became THE BEATLES!

By March they were back in London filming A Hard Day’s Night, directed by Richard Lester, who had been hand-picked by John based on his 1959 short film, The Running Jumping and Standing Still Film. Lester’s whimsical style, coupled with the loose approximation of a screenplay, enhanced by improvisations and reenactments, helped define The Beatles individual personae. John, Paul, George and Ringo became household names and the film made $8 million dollars in its first week, a tidy sum against its $500,000 budget.

A Hard Day’s Night took only 16 weeks from the beginning of production to its theatrical release, in part so distribution company United Artists could exploit a loophole in The Beatles Capitol Records contract that overlooked film soundtracks. In a flurry of activity UA raced to beat Capitol to market before the film’s release. Streeting two weeks prior to its British cousin, A Hard Day’s Night album released on June 26, 1964, more than a month before the film’s August 11th opening. Influencing generations of music videos with innovative shot-making and editing, A Hard Day’s Night has been ranked among the 100 greatest films in British history and has routinely been named one of the 5 best Rock and Roll movies ever made.

Director Michael Curtiz's romp through Sherwood forest is a joyous adventure film that beautifully flaunts the glory of 3-strip technicolor film. The greens, blues and reds pop on the screen as swashbuckling Errol Flyyn challenges the status quo with his band of merry men. The Adventures of Robin Hood is Hollywood filmmaking at its finest, combining action, comedy, a little romance and enough male bonding to sink a ship. Flynn creates his signature character and exhibits the natural charm that endeared him to film fans throughout his career. The supporting cast is chock full of character actors and bonafide stars including Olivia DeHavilland, Basil Rathbone and Claude Rains, but its the merry men who steal the show by appearing as if each of them embodying their characters. Alan Hale as Little John and Eugene Pallette as Friar Tuck are particularly good, in career defining roles.

While The Adventures of Robin Hood was the most expensive film made by Warner Bros. Studio up to that time, at an estimated $2 million dollars, and the studio's first 3-strip Technicolor film, most of the budget can be seen in the finished product. The sets are sumptuous and the location scenes are rich in detail and beauty. But it's really Errol Flynn who demands to be looked at whenever he's on screen. His charismatic personae, often heightened by the twinkle in his eye, is perfectly matched to the mischievous Robin Hood and is matched by his graceful stunt work. Errol Flynn is Robin Hood and Robin Hood is Errol Flynn!

No other sport has been the subject of as many movies as boxing. Whether it's the story of a down on his luck former champ, like Jake LaMotta (Robert DeNiro) in Raging Bull ('80), a fighter exploited by unscrupulous promoters, like Charley Davis (John Garfield) in Body and Soul ('47), or the exploitive Midge Kelly (Kirk Douglas) in Champion ('49), boxing provides no shortage of characters, both good and bad. The corruption, the exploitation and the disregard for the boxers themselves often taints the films as dark and somewhat depressing, but one film was always different and that is the 1976 classic Rocky, directed by John Avildsen and starring Sylvester Stallone in a career defining role. Even as it has spawned 8 more movies, the original stands alone as the most beloved boxing film of all-time.

The story's one in a million plot, however, almost became a TV movie and then a potential vehicle for Robert Redford or Ryan O'Neal, among others. Sylvester Stallone, who wrote the script in less than 5 days, insisted his screenplay remain intact, killing the TV movie concept. He then pitched the movie to Hollywood studios with the stipulation that he star in the film, another deterrent for initial investment. Finally, finding willing producers in Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff, provided the budget be kept below $1.2 million dollars, the film was greenlit. While the city of Philadelphia became a character in and of itself, thanks to the brilliant location shooting, the script was changed in several significant ways during production, changing the tone and the storyline.

Released in December, Rocky became the highest grossing film released in 1976 and the second highest grossing (to Star Wars) in 1977, with more than $115 million dollars (~$500 million adjusted for inflation) and was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning three, including Best Picture.

 Veronica Lake and Joel McCrea star in writer/director Preston Sturges' madcap story of a Hollywood director out to find meaning in his life and subject matter for a film of consequence, after being pigeonholed as a director of lightweight comedies. Lake co-stars as an actress down on her luck, but plucky enough to guide director Sullivan (McCrea) through the trials and tribulations of their on the road adventure. Sullivan's Travels, and much of Sturges' work has influenced writers for decades, most notably Joel and Ethan Coen, who named their film O' Brother, Where Art Thou? after the film Sullivan wanted to create in this film.

Perhaps no other writer in Hollywood history experienced a meteoric rise and precipitous fall as Sturges did. A successful playwright by 29, Sturges was bought to Hollywood to first doctor scripts, then create his own, including classics like The Power and the Glory ('33), Easy Living ('37) and Remember the Night ('39). When he offered to write the script for The Great McGinty ('40) for $1, provided he could direct the film, Paramount granted his wish, setting a whirlwind 4 years where Sturges wrote and directed eight films, four of which are certified comedy classics and often named among the greatest ever made. That Sturges directed only 4 more films after 1944, sealed his fate as a 'flash in the pan', but those who are familiar with his work will attest to the amazing breadth of the content, the overwhelming depth of the verbal and physical comedy, and the wholly unique brand of movies that Sturges created. His legacy is worth discovering one film at a time and Sullivan's Travels is the best place to start!

http://www.top10filmlists.com/top-10-preston-sturges-films

 When French film critics began to recognize patterns in American films arriving in post war Paris, they coined the term Film Noir to reflect the desolation, hopelessness and cynicism in American crime films. The film movement is generally believed to have begun with the 1941 release of The Maltese Falcon, reached its zenith in 1948, when more than 100 Noirs were released, and wained by 1958's capstone Touch of Evil. Even before America's film industry's adoption of more dark and stylized films, however, international films like Ossessione (Visconti, 1943) and Pepe Le Moko (Duvivier, 1937) in Italy and France respectively, were mining gold from the crime novels that were the stock and trade of Film Noir. Later, with filmmakers Jean-Pierre Melville (1967, Le Samourai), Jean-Luc Godard (1965, Alphaville) and American exile Jules Dassin (1955, Rafifi), France became the hub of the extension of the movement, mimicking American Noir, but adding subtle and magnificent twists to the cannon. Amongst those French films was director Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows, a taut and brilliant story of a perfect murder plot gone horribly wrong through one simple mistake. As with any noir plot, there is a woman, here played by the beautiful Jeanne Moreau, lost on the streets of Paris as she searches for her lover. As in so many Noir before, it is the inattention to detail that dooms the killer and Maurice Ronet brilliantly portrays the yearning for his lover, combined with the sense of dread as the walls literally hold him suspended. With a brilliant score, created in one all-night improvisational session by Miles Davis, Elevator to the Gallows ascends to among the best of not just French Noir of the later cycle, but along classics like Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice and The Killers.

 The Marx Bros., Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Zeppo, turn a transatlantic voyage into an opportunity to create mayhem as only the Marx Bros. can! The third film in the Bros. cannon, but the first with an original screenplay, Monkey Business has been hailed alongside Animal Crackers as one of their best. Typical of many Pre-Code comedies, censors attempted to limit the sexual innuendo, but the film was ultimately banned in Ireland for fear of fostering anarchic tendencies, which was uniquely the Marx Bros. Many of the sexual jokes remain and of course the anarchy reigns supreme, but it is the wordplay, quick quips and ridiculous physical comedy that create a comedy classic! Thelma Todd co-stars, and a certain line of dialogue foreshadows her death just 4 years later.

When the brothers harmonize Sweet Adeline, while concealed in separate fish barrels, there exists debate as to whether Harpo participates, which would mark one of the very rare examples of Harpo's voice on film! Join us the screening for a lively discussion of the genius of the Marx Bros., their influence on American comedy and where Monkey Business ultimately ranks in their amazing cannon of classic comedy!

William Friedkin's masterpiece of suspense and terror comes to Motor City Cinema Society to celebrate its 50th Anniversary! Initially released on just 24 screens on December 26th, 1973, The Exorcist would go on to gross more than $193 million dollars in it first run. Named the scariest film ever made by the American Film Institute, Entertainment Weekly and countless other publications and website's, the film has spawned sequels, reboots, imitators and parodies, but the original is one of a kind!

Based on screenwriter William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel of the same name, The Exorcist book almost sunk into oblivion, an initial publishing failure. It was only after Blatty's appearance on "The Dick Cavett Show", where he argued for the existence of the devil, that book sales took off, rising to the top of the New York Times best seller list, and came to the attention of Hollywood. Friedkin was Blatty's first choice for director, but Warner Bros. balked at the cast of unknowns, particularly when production delays drove up costs. In a calculated move, the studio 'four walled' the 24 screens, paying a flat fee for use of the theaters, instead of splitting the box office, as was the normal practice. The sold out run was immensely profitable for the studio and gave them the confidence to roll the film out wide and create a national frenzy for tickets, some offered with barf bags to aid in the clean up of overly sensitive viewers.

Friedkin, having made his other masterpiece, The French Connection ('71), two years earlier, often remarked that he spent the rest of his career 'climbing uphill to the bottom', in reference to trying to live up to these two classics. While he certainly had his ups and downs, the maker of To Live and Die in LA, Cruising, Sorcerer, and the recent Caine Mutiny Court Martial ('23), certainly had a career worthy of greatness. Friedkin died on August 7th, 

George Romero's Night of the Living Dead created the zombie sub-genre with his 1968 classic. Made independently, on a shoestring budget in and around Pittsburgh, Night of the Living Dead has been identified by Sight and Sound Magazine as one of the three most important and influential Horror films of all-time (The others: The Bride of Frankenstein and Psycho). The film both reimagined and reinvigorated the horror genre by recasting the idea of a singular killer/monster stalking people into the possibility that all of humanity, both past and present, could rise up to kill everyone! The zombie film tropes that were created by Romero are too numerous to mention, but where would we be without the 'kill the brain, kill the monster' mantra pioneered in Night of the Living Dead? If World War Z, The Walking Dead, Shaun of the Dead , and countless others have taught us anything, it's that there is always hope, as long as you can get that kill shot through the brain! Through countless sequels, reboots, offshoots, parodies and imitations, the original still rings the truest and the most frightening! Join us and enjoy Night of the Living Dead, projected on glorious 16mm film, as it was meant to be seen!!

Along with Susperia, Deep Red is generally considered director Dario Argento's masterpiece. A brilliant murder thriller that captures the essence of Argento's iconic use of color and framing, Deep Red helped built Argento's reputation as the "Italian Hitchcock" for his inventive storytelling that continually left viewers on the edge of their seats! After beginning his career as a critic while still a teenager, Argento collaborated with Bernardo Bertolucci on the script for Sergio Leone's classic Once Upon a Time in the West in 1968. Two years later he wrote and directed The Bird with a Crystal Plumage, the first of three horror/mysteries dubbed 'the animal trilogy' that also included The Cat o' Nine Tails ('71) and Four Flies on Grey Velvet ('71). It was Deep Red, made in 1975 and Susperia, made in 1977, that made him internationally famous and cemented his reputation as a great director and one of the leading horror filmmakers in the world. Deep Red also was the first of many collaborations Argento did with Claudio Simonetti's prog rock band Goblin! Starring David Hemmings, Daria Nicolodi, and Gabriele Lavia, Deep Red runs 2 hours and 7 minutes. Argento's most recent film, Dark Glasses was released in 2022