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Now Playing at the Packard Campus Theater (May 30 – June 1, 2019)

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The following is a guest post by Jenny Paxson of the Packard Campus.

Donny Hathaway

Thursday, May 30 (7:30 p.m.)
Vibrations, 1972 (WNET, 1972)
Produced for PBS by WNET, Vibrations was a music magazine program that ran for only one season, (1972-73) and covered a wide assortment of musical genres. The selected segments for this program include Bobby Short performing unreleased Cole Porter songs; Dave Brubeck rehearsing his band at his home; a UK-produced short about folk legend Peggy Seeger; a recording session at Electric Lady Studio with audio engineer Eddie Kramer and Glam Rock Star Jobriath; on the road with Charley Pride; an exploration of Electronic Music featuring Phillip Glass and other Avant Garde  pioneers; an interview and performance with Guitar Hero Roy Buchanan, and a UK-produced tour of Scotland with bassist Jack Bruce, immediately after quitting the super group Cream. The highlight of the lineup is a rare live studio performance of R&B music legend Donny Hathaway (1945-1979) taken from outtakes in the collection that never aired. Digital presentation, approximately 90 min.

Friday, May 31 (7:30 p.m.)
Summer With Monika (Svensk Filmindustri, 1953)
Inspired by the earthy eroticism of Harriet Andersson in the first of her many roles for him, Ingmar Bergman had a major international breakthrough with this sensual and ultimately ravaging tale of young love. A girl (Andersson) and boy (Lars Ekborg) from working-class families in Stockholm run away from home to spend a secluded, romantic summer at the beach, far from parents and responsibilities. Inevitably, it is not long before the pair are forced to return to reality. The version initially released in the U.S. was reedited by its distributor into something more salacious, but the original Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika), presented here, is a work of stunning maturity and one of Bergman’s most important films. 35mm film print courtesy of Janus Films. 97 min.

Angels with Dirty Faces (WB, 1938)

Saturday, June 1 (7:30 p.m.)
Angels with Dirty Faces (Warner Bros., 1938)
James Cagney and Pat O’Brien star as former childhood friends from a tough New York neighborhood who grow up on opposite sides of the law, one a gangster and the other a priest, who fight over the future of a street gang. Cagney’s portrayal of tough guy gangster, Rocky Sullivan, is considered one of his finest performances and he received his first Oscar nomination for the role. This quintessential Warner Bros. melodrama directed by Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) also stars Humphrey Bogart as Rocky’s crooked lawyer and Ann Sheridan, who gives a realistic and likeable performance as the woman who stands as the link between bad guy Cagney and the voice of conscience, saintly Father Jerry Connolly (O’Brien). But it was the group of hard-nosed teen actors from the slums known as the Dead End Kids who were used as a moral focal point for the film, to show that young people, who might otherwise be tempted to go down the wrong road, could be influenced by the good over evil. 35mm archival film print, 97 min.

For more information on our programs, please visit the website at: //www.loc.gov/avconservation/theater/

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