FRANK BORZAGE, HOLLYWOOD ROMANTIC July 15 - August 20, 2006 Frank Borzage was Hollwood's most sublimely romantic director. His films contain a unique combination of pictorially romantic imagery, an intimate, often erotic acting style, and a near obsession with the redemptive power of love. His best films center on the ways couples transform each other, and in his movies, every element—a set, a camera movement, even a simole shot of falling snow—can express tenderness, desire, or sacrifice. This series, curated by Tom Gunning, features rare prints from the UCLA Film and TV Archive, The Library of Congress, The Museum of Modern Art, the Netherlands Filmmuseum, and the Cinémathèque Suisse. Lucky Star Introduced by Tom Gunning Saturday, July 15, 2:00 p.m. Live music by Jon Spurney 1929, 85 mins. Imported 35mm restored print from the Netherlands Filmmuseum. With Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell. This passionate film about a woman whose true love is crippled in the war is one of Borzage’s greatest romances. The film, long believed to be lost, was recently rediscovered. Introduced by film scholar and guest curator Tom Gunning, University of Chicago. Moonrise Saturday, July 15, 4:30 p.m. Sunday, July 16, 6:30 p.m. 1948, 90 mins. 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. With Dane Clark, Gail Russell. Borzage’s last masterpiece, a nightmarish noir about a man haunted by his father’s murderous past, evokes Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter in its gothic tenderness. History Is Made at Night Saturday, July 15, 6:30 p.m. Sunday, July 30, 4:30 p.m. 1937, 98 mins. 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. With Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur. Titanic as it could have been—if James Cameron’s blockbuster had had crackling dialogue, sparkling performances (Boyer as the world’s greatest headwaiter and Jean Arthur as “Miss America”), and the disaster relegated to the last reel. Man's Castle Sunday, July 16, 2:00 p.m. 1933, 70 mins. 35mm. With Spencer Tracy, Loretta Young. Perhaps the greatest Depression-era romantic comedy, Man’s Castle depicts a society of misfits, braggarts, and lovers, and features Tracy’s most engaging performance. Borzage infuses the film with a pre-Code invocation of sexual attraction and emotional devotion. The Mortal Storm Sunday, July 16, 4:30 p.m. 1940, 100 mins., 35mm. With Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart. In the culmination of Borzage’s masterful Weimar trilogy starring the radiant Margaret Sullavan (with Little Man, What Now? and Three Comrades), the rise of tyranny is countered by courage and sacrifice. Until They Get Me Saturday, July 22, 1:30 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin 1917, 58 mins. 35mm print from the Library of Congress. With Jack Curtis, Joe King. Borzage’s earliest surviving film is a western that helped build his reputation with its attention to character nuance and its sympathy for the underdog. The Gun Woman Saturday, July 22, 3:00 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin 1917, 56 mins., 16mm. With Texas Guinan, Darrell Foss. This offbeat western has a female star, Texas Guinan, the speakeasy hostess who coined the phrase, “Hello, suckers!" Humoresque Saturday, July 22, 4:30 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin plus violin accompaniment 1920, 60 mins. 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. With Alma Rubens, Vera Gordon. Borzage’s first major hit (later remade with Joan Crawford and John Garfield) is an adaptation of a best-selling novel about a famous concert violinist with roots in the ghetto. The River Sunday, July 23, 2:00 p.m. 1928, 53 mins., silent film with Movietone soundtrack. Imported 16mm restored print from the Cinémathèque Suisse. With Charles Farrell, Mary Duncan. Although just more than half of this film from Borzage’s strongest era survives, what a fragment! With Duncan playing a mature woman as the dominant partner, The River explores Borzage’s obsession with the sexual basis of all romance. Lazybones Sunday, July 23, 4:30 p.m. Live music by Donald Sosin 1925, 80 mins. 35mm print from The Museum of Modern Art. With Buck Jones, Madge Bellamy. A rural romance (à la Tol’able David), this Buck Jones vehicle astonishes with its unexpected passion. Jones is a town loafer who raises an abandoned child, exemplifying Borzage’s interest in the feminine side of masculine stars. 7th Heaven Introduced by Ross Melnick Saturday, July 29, 2:00 p.m. 1927, 110 mins., silent film with Movietone soundtrack. 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. With Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell. Borzage won the first-ever Best Director Academy Award for this silent-film masterpiece. Gaynor and Farrell formed a romantic team that brought authentic passion to this melodrama of slum life and individual salvation. Ross Melnick, Director of Research and Curator of the Collection, will discuss the Fox Movietone soundtracks that were created for such films as 7th Heaven, Street Angel, and The River. He will focus on the convergence of music recording and publishing during the advent of the sound film. Street Angel Saturday, July 29, 4:30 p.m. 1928, 102 mins., silent film with Movietone soundtrack. 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. With Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell. The follow-up to 7th Heaven displays even more late-silent aestheticism, with delicate lighting and stylized sets in a melodrama about an artist’s obsession with female purity (which Borzage, as always, redefines). Gaynor won an Oscar for her three performances in Sunrise, 7th Heaven, and Street Angel. Little Man, What Now? Saturday, August 5, 2:00 p.m. 1934, 91 mins., 35mm. With Margaret Sullavan, Douglass Montgomery. The first of Borzage’s Weimar trilogy follows the early-marriage travails of a couple struggling against poverty, sexual oppression, and political chaos. Sullavan’s performance is simultaneously intelligent and vulnerable. A Farewell to Arms Saturday, August 5, 4:30 p.m. 1932, 85 mins. 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. With Helen Hayes, Gary Cooper. Borzage’s compressed adaptation brings intense romanticism to Hemingway’s love story. Cooper’s and Hayes’s uncharacteristically emotional performances are matched by a poetic style in the tradition of Borzage’s late silent films. Desire Sunday, August 6, 2:00 p.m. 1936, 89 mins., 16mm. With Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper. This sophisticated romance about an American car designer who falls for a Parisian jewel thief while traveling to Spain is a fascinating blend of producer Ernst Lubitsch’s sophisticated irony and director Borzage’s committed sincerity. Three Comrades Sunday, August 6, 4:30 p.m. 1938, 99 mins., 35mm. With Robert Taylor, Margaret Sullavan. Three Comrades was co-scripted by F. Scott Fitzgerald from an Erich Maria Remarque story. Three discharged soldiers find postwar Germany as dangerous as the trenches, albeit illuminated by Sullavan’s fated beauty in the last of Borzage’s Weimar trilogy. Secrets Saturday, August 12, 2:00 p.m. 1933, 85 mins. 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. With Mary Pickford, Leslie Howard. Pickford had her last starring role in Borzage’s remake of his silent film about a long marriage that is marked by deception. The film’s understanding of the role of secrets in a marriage lends maturity to this nostalgic, episodic tale. Bad Girl Saturday, August 12, 4:30 p.m. 1931, 90 mins. 16mm print from The Museum of Modern Art. With James Dunn, Sally Eilers. This Depression-era romance about a poor young couple with a baby on the way won Borzage his second Academy Award for Best Director. The print has only recently resurfaced, making it a major rediscovery. Disputed Passage Sunday, August 13, 2:00 p.m. 1939, 87 mins., 35mm. With Dorothy Lamour, Akim Tamiroff. In this combination of romantic melodrama and propaganda film, a medical student falls in love with an American girl raised in China. Strange Cargo Sunday, August 13, 4:30 p.m. 1940, 105 mins., 35mm. With Joan Crawford, Clark Gable. In this spiritual allegory set in a tropical prison island, Crawford and Gable suffer from the heat (and generate their own), while the identity of a mysterious, omnipresent character is revealed by a lightning flash. Smilin' Through Saturday, August 19, 2:00 p.m. 1941, 101 mins., 35mm. With Jeanette MacDonald, Brian Aherne. MacDonald, in one of her last films, supplied the box office appeal. Borzage’s direction supplied the conviction and eerie melancholy in this color-box Technicolor musical about love and rivalry over two generations. Till We Meet Again Saturday, August 19, 4:30 p.m. 1944, 88 mins., 35mm. With Ray Milland, Barbara Britton. This wartime anti-Nazi film, about a young nun aiding an American aviator in occupied France, carries a sincerity and an oddly uncomfortable degree of erotic attraction between the leads that becomes sublimated in sacrifice rather than romance. The Spanish Main Sunday, August 20, 4:30 p.m. 1945, 100 mins., 35mm. With Paul Henreid, Maureen O’Hara. This Technicolor swashbuckler with a spirited performance by O’Hara perfectly fulfills the pleasures of the adventure genre. I've Always Loved You Sunday, August 20, 6:30 p.m. 1946, 117 mins., 35mm print from the UCLA Film and TV Archive. With Philip Dorn, Catherine McLeod. Borzage brings emotional intensity to this rare Technicolor prestige production for the B-studio Republic, a romance set in the world of classical music, with Arthur Rubenstein playing the soundtrack music.