Archive for the Film Category (16 posts)

The Library of Congress Celebrates Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine

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Danny Kaye points upward as he and Sylvia Fine disembark from airplane at night (in London for the Command Performance). Kaye/Fine Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress

The following is a guest post by Daniel Walshaw, Music Division. 

Danny Kaye’s contributions to American culture and entertainment are unmatched. He mastered nearly every aspect of show business – stage, film, television, radio, recordings, and even orchestral conducting. Despite his demanding performance schedule, he was also one of the most generous celebrity humanitarians donating much of his time and talents to such causes as the USO and UNICEF. He had a formidable partner in his wife, Sylvia Fine, who not only wrote material for Kaye, but also produced many of his engagements. Fine was also a scholar of musicals and musical comedies and taught courses on the subjects at The University of Southern California and Yale University.

This week, the Library of Congress celebrates Danny Kaye in three unique ways: on Saturday, March 23, the Music Division will hold a day of film screenings of Danny Kaye’s most popular films. In the Coolidge Auditorium The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Hans Christian Andersen will be shown with an introduction by Dena Kaye, the daughter of Danny and Sylvia, starting at 11:00 am. In the Pickford Theater, three 35mm preservation prints will be shown starting at 9:00 am.

In addition to the film festival, the Library of Congress has launched an exhibition and a website  featuring items from the Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Collection. This archive, which consists of over 150,000 items, is perfect for scholars of mid-twentieth-century show business as it contains nearly all of the production and performance materials that went into creating these entertainment giants. The collection is brought to life in the special website featuring over 2,000 digitized items presented in a curated display.

In the foyer of the Performing Arts Reading Room in the James Madison building, the exhibition Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine: Two Kids from Brooklyn is on view to the public from February 14 through July 27, 2013. This exhibition features 51 unique items from the Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Collection and includes video and audio stations playing highlights from Kaye’s career.

Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust to Commemorate the Civil War Sesquicentennial at the Library of Congress

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  On February 27, 2013 (12:00-1:30 p.m.) Drew Gilpin Faust, the 28th President of Harvard University and Lincoln Professor of History in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, will commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in a conversation with Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Ric Burns. This keynote event is presented in conjunction with the …

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John Cageathon!

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Henning Lohner’s riotous film, Musicircus is a three-and-a-half-hour documentary of the “Musicircus” homage to John Cage, presented at New York’s Symphony Space shortly after his death in 1992. Preceding and following this film, screened for the first time in the United States, is Elliot Caplan’s haunting “Beach Birds for Camera,” an adaptation of a dance …

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Jazz Film Fridays: The !!!! Beat

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The !!!! Beat was a pioneering blues, soul and R&B television show broadcast from WFAA in Dallas, Texas and hosted by radio d.j. William “Hoss” Allen. The series, which began production in January 1966, ran for 26 episodes with stellar performances by national and regional stars, including Little Milton, Esther Phillips, Etta James, Gatemouth Brown, Louis …

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Mozart’s Sister

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When I first heard about the new French film, Mozart’s Sister, I immediately marked November 4th on my calendar, because Rene Feret’s new film opens at DC’s E Street Cinema today! Feret has made clear that the film is largely fiction, with historical roots in the Mozart family dynamics and women’s status in 18th-century Austrian …

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Pic of the Week: An Evening with David Amram

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I first met composer and multi-instrumentalist David Amram 25 years ago when we did a late night radio interview at WPFW-FM. I knew about his music, of course, his film scores (The Manchurian Candidate, Splendor In The Grass, Pull My Daisy) and collaborations with leading jazz, classical, folk and world music artists. But that free-wheeling …

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Jazz in the Spring: David Amram

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The following post is by Larry Appelbaum, Senior Reference Specialist, Music Division. For the final night of the Library’s Jazz Film Series, we celebrate composer David Amram, who at age 80 continues to break ground in jazz, classical and world music. As a jazz French horn player, Amram worked with Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy …

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Jazz in the Spring at the Nation’s Library

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Next week, the Music Division’s popular jazz film series returns to the Mary Pickford Theater.  Senior Reference Specialist and In the Muse blogger Larry Appelbaum curated the series and provided program notes. Monday evenings at 7:00 pm – Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building. No tickets or reservations needed. Limited seating begins at 6:30pm. …

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