The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson, an Administrative Assistant at the Packard Campus.
Our final week highlighting selections from the National Film Registry.
Thursday, February 26 (7:30 p.m.)
The Gang’s All Here (20th Century-Fox, 1943)
In The Gang’s All Here, a soldier (James Ellison), who turns out to be a rich playboy using an assumed name, romances showgirl Alice Faye, Fox’s No. 1 musical star at the time. Carmen Miranda is also featured and her outrageous costume is highlighted in the legendary musical number “The Lady in the Tutti Frutti Hat.” Co-starring Benny Goodman, Eugene Pallette, Charlotte Greenwood and Edward Everett Horton. Busby Berkeley, who had just finished a long stint directing musicals at MGM and an earlier one at Warner Bros., directs and choreographs the the film that was added to the National Film Registry in 2014.
Friday, February 27 (7:30 p.m.)
The Wild Bunch (Warner Bros., 1969, R-rated *)
Aging desperadoes out for a final payday learn too late and at too high a cost that they have become obsolete. The movie employed techniques, such as double-printing action moments–seen in succession from different angles, with liberal use of slow motion and lots of blood–that were used as a storytelling device. Sam Peckinpah’s direction, brilliant performances by the entire cast (including William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O’Brien, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Jaime Sánchez, Emilio Fernández and Strother Martin), outstanding cinematography and editing make it a true American classic. The landmark Western received Academy Award nominations for best original screenplay and best original score. The film was added to the National Film Registry in 1999.
* No one under the age of 17 will be admitted without a parent or guardian.
Saturday, February 28 (7:30 p.m.)
Shoes (Universal, 1916)
Renowned silent era writer-director Lois Weber drew on her experiences as a missionary to create Shoes, a masterfully crafted melodrama heightened by Weber’s intent to create, as she noted in an interview, “a slice out of real life.” Weber’s camera empathetically documents the suffering of her central character, an underpaid shopgirl (Mary MacLaren), struggling to support her family. Weber details Eva’s growing desire for the pair of luxurious shoes she passes each day in a shop window, her self-examination in a cracked mirror after she agrees to go out with a cabaret singer to acquire the shoes, her repugnance as the man puts his hands on her body, and her shame as she breaks down in tears while displaying her newly acquired goods to her mother. Shoes was named to the National Film Registry in 2014. Makia Matsumura will provide live musical accompaniment for the program, which also will feature the National Film Registry comedy shorts Mabel’s Blunder and Matrimony’s Speed Limit.
For more information on our programs, please visit the web site at www.loc.gov/avconservation/theater/.