THE WALTER READE THEATER

The Last of the Pioneers: Allan Dwan

February 19 to March 6, 2003
Allan Dwan started his career in motion pictures in 1911, making one-reelers. He ended his career in 1961, with the science fiction/revenge movie MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE. In between, he made and lost a fortune; helped D.W. Griffith develop the first crane shot in Intolerance; discovered Victor Fleming, Ida Lupino, Carole Lombard, and Natalie Wood; molded the screen personae of Douglas Fairbanks and Gloria Swanson; directed musicals, war movies, westerns, romances, slapstick comedies, Shirley Temple movies, films noirs, adventures, biographies, and A, B and C pictures; and never lost his enthusiasm for the medium he helped to develop.

We can't show all of Dwan's movies - many of them are lost, but even showing all the films in existence would take up half the calendar year. What we will be showing is a survey of his work, from a sampling of those first one-reelers, through the epics he made with Fairbanks in the 20s, to his varied work in the 30s, including his pioneering special-effects extravaganza SUEZ and FRONTIER MARSHAL, his lean version of THE GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL, to his zippy romantic farces of the 40s, to his extraordinary westerns of the 50s, including SILVER LODE and TENNESSEE'S PARTNER, and that dynamite noir classic SLIGHTLY SCARLET, and the sad, spare, scary and aptly titled MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE.

As Peter Bogdanovich, who drew on incidents from Dwan's early days in the business for his 1976 movie Nickelodeon, said, this is a career like no other in the history of American cinema.

CATTLE QUEEN OF MONTANA
USA, 1954; 88m
Shot on location in Montana's Glacier National Park, Dwan's 1954 western features the great Barbara Stanwyck in a vein she mined many times over the years, in everything from The Furies through Forty Guns through her starring role on the TV series The Big Valley: a tough-as-nails woman holding her own in the man's world of the Old West. Here, she's building the ranch begun by her murdered father, against the wishes of land-grabber Gene Evans. With Ronald Reagan as Evans' hired gun, who has a change of heart when he meets Stanwyck's cattle queen. Wed Feb 19: 4:30 & 8:30; Fri Feb 21: 6:30

PASSION
USA, 1954; 84m
One of several vibrant, lively and moody films Dwan made for producer Benedict Bogeaus in the 50s, all of them shot by the great cinematographer John Alton. In PASSION, Cornel Wilde is the man hell-bent on revenging the death of his wife, as he's accompanied by her twin sister (Yvonne de Carlo plays both roles). With terrific support from Lon Chaney, Jr. and Raymond Burr.
Wed Feb 19: 6:30; Fri Feb 21: 4:30 & 8:30

HEIDI
USA, 1937; 88m
Dwan was called in to reinvigorate the career of Fox's 30s cash cow, Shirley Temple. Which is exactly what he did with this light, airy version of the children's classic about a lovable little Swiss girl who lives with her lovable old grandfather (Jean Hersholt), and who is taken away to live with mean old Fräulein Rottenmeier (Mary Nash). Dwan and Temple got along famously, and they made something surprisingly fresh out of time-worn material. Heidi's clog dance is a knockout. With Arthur Treacher as the butler.
Thurs Feb 20: 4:15; Sat Feb 22: 5:30

HER FIRST AFFAIR
USA, 1933; 71m
"I went up to an agent's house to get some actors, wanted a girl about 14, who, in the story, was going to have her first affair. The woman they brought in for it was around 35...and she had her daughter with her because she didn't want to leave her home alone. I said, "What about her - can she act?'...It was unknown in England for a little girl to play a little girl.... But finally we got her. She was Ida Lupino, and she was great (Allan Dwan)." With George Curzon as the man Lupino's Anne decides to sow her wild oats with, and Diana Napier as his helpful wife.
Sat Feb 22: 7:30; Sun Feb 23: 9; Wed Feb 26: 4:30

TENNESSEE'S PARTNER
USA, 1955; 87m
Dwan and Alton turn an old Bret Harte chestnut into a vibrant, sardonic take on betrayal and friendship. John Payne, who was (a superior) Rock Hudson to Dwan's Sirk during this period, plays gambler extraordinaire Tennessee, who spends most of his time in a high-class whorehouse-cum-gambling-establishment run by the duchess (Rhonda Fleming) - the deliriously colorful sets are given a gorgeous impressionist texture by Alton. Tennessee's partner, who saves him from murder, is Cowpoke, played by future president Ronald Reagan. The undercurrent of tension begins when Tennessee meets Cowpoke's fiancée (Colleen Gray). One of Dwan's very best films.
Sat Feb 22: 9:15; Sun Feb 23: 5:15

SILVER LODE
USA, 1954; 81m
Against an Independence Day backdrop, a man named Ned McCarthy (Dan Duryea) rides into Silver Lode to accuse Dan Ballard (Payne) of murdering his brother and stealing $20,000. Ballard feverishly tries to collect evidence to prove his innocence but the cloud of suspicion now hangs over him, and one by one his supposedly loyal friends fall away. People often speak of Johnny Guitar, made the same year, as the ultimate anti-McCarthy movie, but SILVER LODE is far more direct (naming the villain McCarthy is a good place to start), rigorous, and even more passionate. One of the best films of the 50s, and a lesson in B-movie economy, not to mention political commitment in the guise of entertainment.
Sun Feb 23: 7:15; Mon Feb 24: 4:30

SUEZ
USA, 1938; 81m
When people refer to "the kind of movies they just don't make anymore," this is what they're referring to. Historically, this story of Ferdinand de Lesseps (Tyrone Power) building the Suez Canal is utter hokum. As a piece of well-crafted, epic filmmaking, it's a beauty. The highlight is the climactic destruction of the canal by a cyclone, created with 100 airplane propellers and ground cereal standing in for sand. With Loretta Young and Annabella (who was soon to become Tyrone's wife) as Power's competing love interests, Henry Stephenson and Joseph Schildkraut. Written by legendary screenwriter Philip Dunne.
Mon Feb 24: 6:15; Fri Feb 28: 3

THE IRON MASK
USA, 1929; 95m
This sequel to the 1921 version of The Three Musketeers is the last silent for both Fairbanks and Dwan, as well as one of the last great silents, period. The Alexandre Dumas novel is basically a stepping-off point for a beautifully designed adventure movie. At this point in his career, the once-agile Fairbanks was unable to handle the more acrobatically elaborate stunts of his youth, but he's still an amazingly fleet and graceful presence. This is the only movie in which Fairbanks dies onscreen. It's not just the character of D'Artagnan passing into legend, but an 11-movie collaboration between the director and the actor, as well as the art of silent cinema itself.
Mon Feb 24: 8:30 with live piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin

WHILE PARIS SLEEPS
USA, 1932; 67m
This moody little pre-code programmer has a story that bears marked resemblances to Paul Schrader's Hardcore, over 40 years later - Victor McLaglen is an escaped convict from the French provionces who goes to Paris to rescue his daughter (Helen Mack) from a gang of pimps. The film is drenched in fog and shadow, the result of a great collaboration between Dwan and his cinematographer Glen MacWilliams. With Jack LaRue, one of the most lovably cornball actors of the early 30s.
Wed Feb 26: 3 & 6:15

ROBIN HOOD
USA, 1922; 127m
Actually, it was called Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood, and it was, at the time, the most lavishly produced movie ever made, with a full-scale castle set that was one of the largest and most elaborate ever built. It remains a gloriously robust and visually thrilling action movie, and when you watch Fairbanks flashing his all-American smile or doing his soaring stuntwork, you'll understand why he was a hero to everyone from Carl Sandburg to Orson Welles. With Wallace Beery as King Richard the Lion-Hearted and Alan Hale as Little John - he would play the same role 16 years later in the beautiful Errol Flynn version.
Wed Feb 26: 8 with live piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin

TIDE OF EMPIRE
USA, 1928; 77m
Dwan made this partial sound film about the Gold Rush in 1929, right in the midst of the transition from silence to sound. As pictorially beautiful as all the director's work from this period, TIDE OF EMPIRE is an invigorating outdoor melodrama, shot on location in Northern California gold country. It's also notable for a purely technical reason, as one of the first films to employ an early, experimental version of a device that's now an industry standard - the zoom lens. With Tom Keene, later in Vidor's Our Daily Bread, and the great silent star Renée Adorée.
Thurs Feb 27: 4; Fri Feb 28: 6:45

FRONTIER MARSHAL
USA, 1939; 70m
This small, spare, funny 1939 version of the legendary gunfight at the O.K. Corral was the first of many screen versions of the tale, and John Ford drew from it for his My Darling Clementine. The irony is that Dwan never intended to make a movie about Wyatt Earp. "Zanuck just decided to call him Wyatt Earp," Dwan told Bogdanovich, "and in order to do that we had to clear it with every living relative he had." With a young Randolph Scott as Earp and Cesar Romero as Doc Halliday.
Fri Feb 28: 5 & 8:30

MOST DANGEROUS MAN ALIVE
USA, 1961; 82m
Shot in Mexico, Dwan's final film is this mournful story of a gangster (Ron Randell) who gets caught in a cobalt explosion when he's escaping from prison, and who becomes a man of steel. He sets out to revenge himself on all his enemies. With Elaine Stewart and Debra Paget as the women in his life, current and former. As tough as flint, as beautifully engineered as the best of Dwan's films, this is B filmmaking at its best. Incidentally, this is the movie being remade in Wim Wenders' The State of Things. Sat March 2: 1:30; Sun March 2: 9:15

RENDEZVOUS WITH ANNIE
1946; 89m
Dwan moved to Republic in the late 40s and made this small, sweet romantic comedy, one of his very best films. Eddie Albert, a far more soulful presence than Dennis O'Keefe, is the man who's stationed in England, and who flies home on a three-day pass, without letting the army in on it. When he comes back home and finds his wife with a baby, he can't tell anyone that he's the father. A funny film, but an oddly poignant one as well, with the keenest sense of longing for home. With C. Aubrey Smith as the English aristocrat who befriends Albert in the London bomb shelter, and Sturges perennial Raymond Walburn as the hypocritical mayor.
Sat March 2: 3:20; Mon March 3: 2:30

SLIGHTLY SCARLET
1956; 99m
This version of James M. Cain's Love's Lovely Counterfeit is one of Dwan's very last films, and it's like a bolt from the blue: as lurid and hyper-sexual as movies get. John Payne is mob lawyer Ben Grace, who gets himself mixed up with two red-headed sisters: good June (Rhonda Fleming), a secretary to the "reform candidate," and bad kleptomaniac Dorothy (Arlene Dahl). Dahl and Fleming's sister act is nothing short of astonishing - they all but burst the screen apart with lush 50s-era eroticism. Maybe the real star of this movie is cinematographer John Alton, who fills his noirish shadows with vibrant, menacing color.
Sat March 1: 5:20; Thurs March 6: 4:20

A Western Dreamer 1911; 7m
The Poisoned Flume 1911; 14m
The Reformation of Sierra Smith 1912; 14m
Manhattan Madness 1916; 47m
A program of silent westerns, including Dwan's first, dreamlike short. Actually, the hair-raisingly fast-paced Manhattan Madness is an eastern western, one of the best of Dwan's Douglas Fairbanks vehicles. Fairbanks is a westerner who takes his friends' bet that he can find more excitement in town than in the country. Before he knows it, he's thwarting a band of kidnappers and thieves. A program of genuinely pioneering cinema, not to be missed.
Sat March 1: 7:30 with live piano accompaniment by Donald Sosin

THE RIVER'S EDGE
1957; 87m
An intricate adventure film that pulses with conflicting loyalties between a nasty gangster (Ray Milland), his former girlfriend (Debra Paget) and the decent man she's married to (Anthony Quinn). Milland shows up at the couple's ranch with a million dollars he's just stolen. He needs Quinn to guide him across the Mexican border. After Milland runs down a border cop, he forces Quinn and Paget to join him. A thrilling outdoor movie, and a sharp psychological melodrama as well. One of Milland's best late roles.
Sat March 1: 9:15; Sun March 2: 5:45

UP IN MABEL'S ROOM
1944; 76m
Dwan worked for independent producer Edward Small in the 40s, and made a series of fast, furious comedies based on romantic farces of the 20s - this one, and its 1945 twin Getting Gertie's Garter, are based on farces by Wilson Collison and Avery Hopwood. Dennis O'Keefe is the hapless young man who is trying to keep an old flame (Gail Patrick) from showing a piece of lingerie he's given her to his fiancée (Marjorie Reynolds). These films are built for speed, and they whiz along like the 20th Century Limited. With Mischa Auer pushing his ethnic bit to the hilt as the butler.
Sun March 2: 7:35; Tue March 4: 2:30

BREWSTER'S MILLIONS
1945; 79m
This is Dwan's bright and beautiful version of the old George Barr McCutcheon story about the man who must spend a million dollars in a month without telling anyone what he's doing, in order to inherit a fortune. It's impossible to imagine another film that's as trim and fleet as this one: it simply soars along from beginning to end. With Dennis O'Keefe as Brewster, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson as his trusted butler, and Helen Walker as his long-suffering fiancée.
Mon March 3: 9; Tue March 4: 4:15; Thurs March 6: 1

GETTING GERTIE'S GARTER
1945; 72m
Almost identical to Mabel's Room. In this one, O'Keefe is a scientist and the MacGuffin is the titular garter, which he's trying to keep out of the hands of his wife (Sheila Ryan). With Barry Sullivan, very engaging as the husband-to-be of the old flame Gertie (Marie MacDonald), and J. Carroll Naish as the ethnic relief. These films were an enormous influence on Martin Scorsese when he was making his own comedy of haplessness, After Hours.
Thurs March 6: 2:45 & 6:30

SPECIAL EVENT: EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE
Restored print with live music accompaniment
1927; 91m
March 5 at 8pm
Recently restored by MoMA's film archive from an original release print in its Fox Collection -- the only copy of the film known to survive anywhere -- EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE is a brisk, beautifully visualized melodrama and also a glorious document of New York in the late 20s. George O'Brien is the boy from the slums who longs for the finer things in life, and almost sacrifices his beloved (Virginia Valli) to get them. With wonderful location work on the streets of Manhattan and on the waterfront, and two astonishing action set-pieces: a sinking ocean liner and a collapsing subway construction site.

This presentation of Allan Dwan's 1927 silent film. EAST SIDE, WEST SIDE is part of Sounds French, a month-long festival of new French music taking place in New York City in March of 2003. The festival is coordinated by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in partnership with the Association Française d'Action Artistique (AFAA), and operated under the auspices of the Society for French American Cultural Services and Educational Aid (FACSEA).

Admission: $20 regular admission, $15 Film Society members