The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson of the Packard Campus.
Thursday, March 7 (7:30 p.m.)
In Caliente (Warner Bros., 1935)
A New York theater critic (Pat O’Brien) falls in love with a Mexican dancer (Dolores Del Rio) and incurs the wrath of his gold-digging fiancée (Glenda Farrell). Filmed at the Mexican resort of Agua Caliente, at the time Hollywood’s favorite vacation destination, this breezy musical comedy is a typical product of the “South-of-the-Border craze,” initiated with the success of the 1929 film Rio Rita. The popularity of movie musicals with Latin settings held steady throughout the 1930’s and really took off when Carmen Miranda burst onto the scene in Down Argentine Way (1940). The musical numbers in the film were created and directed by Busby Berkeley and include the memorable The Lady in Red. Directed by Lloyd Bacon, the film also stars Leo Carrillo and Edward Everett Horton. 35mm film print preserved in 2016 by the Packard Campus Film Preservation Lab from the original negatives in the United Artists Collection. 84 min.
Friday, March 8 (7:30 p.m.)
Dogfight (Warner Bros., 1991 – Rated R*)
Set in San Francisco in 1963, this original and thought-provoking drama chronicles the brief relationship between a young Marine (River Phoenix) who is about to be shipped out to Vietnam and the rather plain aspiring folk singer (Lili Taylor) who teaches him a few important lessons about life and the treatment of women. Presented as part of a series of films from contemporary women directors from the 1970s to the present, this was the second feature film directed by Nancy Savoca, who also directed True Love (1989), Household Saints (1993) and Union Square (2011). Savoca was mentored by John Sayles and she, in turn, has mentored up-and-coming filmmakers through the IFP’s Emerging Visions program. 35mm archival film print. 92 min. *No one under the age of 17 will be admitted without a parent or guardian.
Saturday, March 9 (7:30 p.m.)
Detour (PRC, 1945)
Film critic Roger Ebert called Detour “haunting and creepy, an embodiment of the guilty soul of film noir. No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it.” Hitchhiker Al Roberts (Tom Neal) gets mixed up with a femme fatale (Ann Savage) who “looked like she’d just been thrown off the crummiest freight train in the world.” The story is told in narration addressed directly to the audience who hears not what happened, but what Al wants us to believe happened. This ultra-low budget melodrama shot in six days by Edgar G. Ulmer has developed cult status as one of the most stylish B pictures ever produced. Detour was added to the National Film Registry in 1992. It will be introduced by film preservationist and new Library of Congress Film Laboratory Supervisor Heather Linville who supervised the recent restoration of the film. 35mm film print, restored by the Academy Film Archive and The Film Foundation in collaboration with Cinémathèque Royale de Belgique, the Museum of Modern Art and the Cinémathèque Française. Restoration funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation. 68 min.
For more information on our programs, please visit the website at: www.loc.gov/avconservation/theater/.