american romantics: frank borzage and margaret sullavan aug 22 - sept 16, 1997 photo: HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT

All films are double-featured. One ticket buys admission to any two consecutive screenings. Frank Borzage won the first Academy Award ever given for best direction, and got a second within five years. His career stretched from 1916 to 1959, and he worked at virtually every major studio in Hollywood. Yet although some of his films are staples of Hollywood's "golden age" repertory, his name is rarely invoked in selling them. This is unfortunate and unfair, for at his peak Borzage was one of Hollywood's most distinctive stylists--a true romantic whose emotional and visual sensibilities were in absolute accord. In Hollywood by 1912, as an actor, Borzage was soon directing himself in program pictures--mostly Westerns and action melodramas. It wasn't long till directing was his main job. By the mid-20s Borzage was established at Fox, then known as "the directors' studio." Borzage was one of the principal reasons: his misty cinematography, sympathetic camera movement, and atmospheric lighting that suggested the very emanation of his characters' souls had become signature elements of his style, and were being emulated--but rarely equaled--by other filmmakers. SEVENTH HEAVEN was named best-directed film of 1927-28, and Janet Gaynor won best actress playing a Borzage waif in that picture and 1928's STREET ANGEL. Borzage repeated the magic in STREET ANGEL and Lucky Star. Then came LILIOM, another tale of love, death, and redemption, later adapted as Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel. Borzage won his second Oscar in 1931-32 for Bad Girl, and scored a major hit, at Paramount, with A Farewell to Arms. Man's Castle, for Columbia, was an ethereal love story set amidst the tangible squalor and hopelessness of the Depression. By now the pattern was clear: in the words of critic John Belton, "two lovers, adrift on a stormy sea of war or economic depression, find, through their love, calm weather and a provident, following wind that carries them to a safe harbor." Such a formula could well have produced mawkish results, but Borzage's commitment to his lovers' "inner lives" (in Andrew Sarris's phrase) was genuine, and his stylistic integrity awesome. His work took on even greater strength as it acquired political dimension in three of his most enduring achievements--all set in Weimar Germany, and all starring the radiant, whispery-voiced Margaret Sullavan: Little Man, What Now?, THREE COMRADES, and THE MORTAL STORM. After 1940's THE MORTAL STORM and Strange Cargo--a tale of Devil's Island escapees touched by an agent of divine providence--Borzage's work fell off markedly. Only the poetic, "rural noir" Moonrise (1948), which achieved extraordinary atmospheric results on a shoestring budget, came near the power and distinction of the director's great 20s and 30s films. Partly it was a matter of declining powers. Partly it was changing fashions, even a changed world: there was no place for romanticism, even of Borzage's exalted variety, in postwar, post-neorealist Hollywood. But upon revisiting, his artistry and his passionate love-death themes prove stronger and braver than ever. Frank Borzage is overdue for, and richly deserves, rediscovery. -- Richard T. Jameson Margaret Sullavan was a distinguished, if reluctant, star of stage and screen in the 30s and 40s and into the early 50s. Her incandescent performance in Frank Borzage's THREE COMRADES garnered a New York Film Critics Award and an Academy Award nomination; yet to modern audiences she is virtually unknown. She made a scant 16 films, not all of them notable except for her performance, and she was ambivalent about acting in general and especially moviemaking, dismissing it as childish and deadly dull. "Perhaps I'll get used to the bizarre, elaborate theatricalism called Hollywood, but I cannot guarantee it," she said rather grandly but candidly soon after arriving to make her debut in Only Yesterday (1933) for Universal. Originally she wanted to be a dancer and studied briefly at the Denishawn School in Boston, but switched to acting and soon joined the University Players in Falmouth, Mass. There, she worked with director Joshua Logan and two young actors destined to become Hollywood idols--Henry Fonda and James Stewart. Briefly her husband and her co-star in the romantic comedy, The Moon's Our Home, Fonda testified that "Sullavan was not an easy woman to categorize or explain. If I've ever known anyone in my life, man or woman, who was unique, it was she. There was nobody like her before or since. In talent, in looks, in temperament. Everything. There sure wasn't anybody who didn't fall under her spell." Defining the qualities that made Sullavan special is like trying to capture air. As soon as one adjective comes to mind, its opposite appears alongside: fragile and fearless; romantic and down-to-earth; intense and playful. This same duality existed in her appearance. A near-perfect ingenue type--petite, fine-boned and graceful--she could look radiantly happy one minute, ineffably sad the next. Her husky, slightly breathy voice was like honey laced with bourbon. She spoke in a gush of words that cascade impetuously one over the other but never lose their eloquent clarity. Reportedly always letter-perfect in her lines, she managed to create the impression of total spontaneity. James Stewart, her co-star in four films, including the delightful THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, called Sullavan's acting approach "planned improvisation." Never a diva but often a muse, her on-screen persona was much shaped by director Frank Borzage, with whom she made three remarkable films. "She was one of the most generous and unselfish people I ever knew when it came to other actors," Borzage said years later. "She boosted them, encouraged them, always wanted them to give their best." Despite Sullavan's emotional problems and avowed "loathing" of acting, when she worked she was a consummate, dedicated professional, interested in every detail of the production. Watching her on screen confirms this impression--there is no grandstanding, no theatrics, only a vibrant aliveness suffused with keen intelligence, even when she is called upon to suffer and endure. Truly a romantic figure, Margaret Sullavan deserves to be rediscovered and appreciated all over again. -- Joanna Ney (Research drawn from Brooke Hayward's Haywire, a daughter's take on Margaret Sullavan's life.) calendar program notes and times

Margaret Sullavan a scene from THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER a scene from THE MORTAL STORM

HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT (1937; 97 minutes) Lovely Jean Arthur is married to a pathologically jealous and malevolent Colin Clive. Fleeing him, she meets and falls in love with Charles Boyer, perfect as headwaiter and gallant gentleman. Insane hubby then goes after his wife's lover. Critic Richard T. Jameson marvels how HISTORY "proceeds from screwball-comedy romance to melodrama to tragedy to a mystical epiphany on a foggy sea." Pauline Kael particularly admired the film's "demonic passions and tender glances and elegant photography." Friday, August 22: 2, 6 and 10 pm Saturday, August 23: 6 and 10 pm THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (Ernst Lubitsch, 1940; 97 minutes) Pauline Kael, not easily given to superlatives, called SHOP "close to perfection--one of the most beautifully acted and paced romantic comedies ever made in this country. It is set in the enclosed world of the people who work together in a small (Hollywood) Budapest department store. Unwitting lonelyhearts-penpals Sullavan and Stewart bicker continually, and in no other movie has this kind of love-hate been made so convincing. Their performances are full of grace notes...[with] a peerless performance by Sullavan: she makes the shopgirl's pretenses believable, lyrical and funny." Friday, August 22 and Saturday, August 23: 4 and 8 pm THREE COMRADES (1938; 98 minutes) In Weimar Germany, bright-burning partygirl Sullavan is understandably the object of desire for three war-weary young men (Robert Taylor, Franchot Tone and Robert Young). F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the script (adapted from a novel by Erich Maria Remarque),but there's more than a hint of Hemingway in this Sun Also Rises tale of bittersweet love between wars, shadowed by inevitable loss and cataclysm to come. COMRADES is a prime example of Borzage's deft combining of the personal with the political--in a time when love, however brief, seems the only sure thing in a world collapsing into chaos. Sunday, August 24 and Monday, August 25: 4 and 7:40 pm THE SHINING HOUR (1938; 80 minutes) This glossy Metro special costars Sullavan with the studio's melo queen, Joan Crawford. Crawford's a nightclub dancer taken to wife by a member of the landed gentry (Melvyn Douglas). As if that weren't scandalous enough, back at his family home in Wisconsin she strikes sparks with brother-in-law Robert Young, whose country wife Sullavan plays. With Fay Bainter, Allyn Joslyn, Hattie McDaniel; screenplay by Jane Murfin and Ogden Nash. Sunday, August 24: 6 and 9:40 pm Monday, August 25: 2, 6 and 9:40 pm

a scene from SHOPWORN ANGEL a scene from SEVENTH HEAVEN a scene from THE GOOD FAIRY a scene from BACK STREET

HUMORESQUE (1920; silent, six reels) With piano accompaniment by Curtis Salke. A poor young musician makes his way to the top with the help of a wealthy older woman. Borzage's first significant film, adapted by Frances Marion from Fannie Hurst's tearjerking tragedy, HUMORESQUE celebrates maternal love. A rare opportunity to see this silent version of a film later more famously made with John Garfield and Joan Crawford. Tuesday, August 26: 4 and 7 pm SECRETS (1933; 85 minutes) By 1933, Borzage was a two-time Academy Award winner and at the top of every Hollywood wish-list. So it's not surprising that Mary Pickford--actress, mogul, Hollywood royalty and American icon--selected him to direct her in SECRETS, based on a stage relic that had already served as a film vehicle for Norma Talmadge in the silent era. SECRETS falls into the early-30s cycle of feminized semi-Westerns (Cimarron, The Conquerors) in which a gentle-born but redoubtable woman carves a place for herself on the frontier while her fickle husband--here, Leslie Howard--conducts himself as something of a rotter. The former "America's sweetheart" still had the moxie for the film's strongest scenes--e.g., the death of her child during a bandit siege--but this would be her last movie. Wednesday, August 27: 2, 6 and 9:30 pm Thursday, August 28: 4 pm LILIOM (1930; 89 minutes) You'll recognize the source for the musical Carousel in this adaptation of a Ferenc Molnar play: A Budapest ne'er-do-well (Charles Farrell) falls in love with and impregnates a girl, then takes to stealing in order to support her. In short order, he's killed by the cops, but heaven gives him a second chance. In true Borzage style, love effortlessly erases time and space. Wednesday, August 27: 4 and 7:45 pm Thursday, August 28: 2 and 9 pm THE MORTAL STORM (1940; 100 minutes) The final entry in Borzage's Weimar trilogy, all starring Sullavan, STORM is a legitimate heartbreaker. The rise of the Nazis tears a loving family--and lovers--apart, until only flight remains. The film features one of the tensest chase sequences ever, as well as the death of love that could only have been imagined by a romantic poet of the cinema. With an outstanding James Stewart, and Frank Morgan, Maria Ouspenskaya, Robert Stack and Robert Young. Friday, August 29: 2, 6 and 9:45 pm Saturday, August 30: 6 and 9:45 pm SHOPWORN ANGEL (1938; 85 minutes) Sullavan is a tough, chain-smoking Broadway actress who is so charmed by the love of a naive young soldier that she marries him just before he goes off to war. Pauline Kael noticed the "special rapport" between Sullavan and James Stewart, "a tenderness that seemed to allow for her hard edges and conflicts." Walter Pidgeon plays the rich fellow who's been supporting Sullavan as his mistress. Friday, August 29: 4 and 8 pm Saturday, August 30: 4:20 and 8 pm SEVENTH HEAVEN (1927; silent with soundtrack, 119 minutes) Chico (Charles Farrell), a young Parisian, has a dream--to trade his sewer-worker job for an aboveground position as street cleaner--and a prayer: that God should send him a loving blonde wife. What he's sent is Diane (Janet Gaynor), a street gamine two jumps ahead of the gendarmes. Chico rescues her and pretends that they are married, and indeed the two set about creating a heaven for themselves in a garret under the stars. Then world war comes, the couple are separated, and... but see for yourselves. For this luminous romance, which lifts a simple boy-meets-girl love story to transcendental heights, Frank Borzage won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Direction; Janet Gaynor also won as Best Actress (for three roles: in this film, Sunrise, and Borzage's STREET ANGEL). Sunday, August 31: 4:20 and 8:30 pm Monday, September 1: 4 and 8 pm STREET ANGEL (1928; 102 minutes) Borzage's follow-up to his enchanted SEVENTH HEAVEN holds its own with the previous film: some think it even surpasses HEAVEN in delicacy of emotion. Janet Gaynor plays an Italian gamine on the run from the cops. Joining up with the circus, she meets and falls in love with a young artist (Charles Farrell) for whom she becomes beloved muse. Sunday, August 31: 6:40 pm Monday, September 1: 2 and 6:15 pm BAD GIRL (1931; 90 minutes; special 35mm archival print) Borzage won his second Oscar for BAD GIRL, which stars Sally Eilers and James Dunn as two young people who meet on a Coney Island outing. One thing leads to another, and soon the couple are looking forward to a baby--Out of Wedlock! as they would have said in 1931. As is usual in the Bible according to Borzage, with love comes salvation, if not economic ease, and Dorothy and Eddie face hard times as staunch allies. BAD GIRLwas adapted from the novel and play by Vina Delmar. Tuesday, September 2: 2 and 6 pm THEY HAD TO SEE PARIS (1929; 96 minutes; special 35mm archival print) Making his sound film debut, Will Rogers plays down-home Pike Peters in this "Americans in Paris" comedy. After the Peters family strikes it rich in Oklahoma oil, Mrs. Peters takes it into her head that the family needs culture--read Trip to France--and drags reluctant husband, daughter and son across the pond. When an impoverished aristocrat expects to be enriched by marrying Pike's daughter and a sexy artist's model shacks up with his son, Dad decides it's time to get back to the simple life--but he finds himself alone in that resolve! Tuesday, September 2: 4 and 8 pm ONLY YESTERDAY (John Stahl, 1933; 105 minutes) Margaret Sullivan's performance in her screen debut in ONLY YESTERDAY ignites this romantic saga which spans the endof of World War I to the Depression depicting the relationship of an unwed mother through a series of flashbacks. The opening scenes show th effect of the stock market crash on some live-it-up high rollers. In addition to Sullavan the cast includes John Boles, Billie Burke, Reginald Denny, Edna May Oliver and Benita Hume. This is the film that made Sullavan an overnight star. Wednesday, September 3: 2 and 6 pm SO RED THE ROSE (King Vidor, 1935; 82 minutes) SO RED THE ROSE is King Vidor's quietly affecting Civil War romance, starring Margaret Sullavan as a Southern aristocrat, the mistress of a Southern plantation, whose sheltered life is torn apart by the War between the States. During the war's darkest days she is sustained by her love for a distant cousin, a Confederate officer, played by Randolph Scott. Maxwell Anderson was one of the screenwriters. It was based on a novel by Stark Young. The cast includes Walter Connolly, Elizabeth Patterson and Robert Cummings. A sort of precursor to to Gone wth the Wind, SO RED THE ROSE has the distinction of having two genuine Southerners in the leads. The film was not successful at the box office and that was the principal reason why so many producers turned down Gone with the Wind a few years later. Wednesday, September 3: 4 and 8 pm

a scene from MAN'S CASTLE a scene from CRY HAVOC a scene from A FAREWELL TO ARMS a scene from LITTLE MAN, WHAT NOW? a scene from SO ENDS OUR NIGHT

MAN'S CASTLE (1933; 66 minutes; 35mm print) Toughguy Spencer Tracy offers sanctuary to Depression casualty Loretta Young, and not surprisingly falls deeply in love with the homeless girl. Writer Richard T. Jameson describes MAN'S CASTLE as "an ethereal love story set amidst the tangible squalor and hopelessness of the Depression.... Tracy and Young give literally luminous performances." Friday, September 5: 6 and 9:30 pm Saturday, September 6: 8 pm THE GOOD FAIRY (William Wyler, 1935; 97 minutes) The incomparable Preston Sturges--here writer, but not director--polished this Ferenc Molnar play to a high comic shine, a proper setting for the glowing Margaret Sullavan, who is, of course,"the good fairy." Luisa Ginglebusher, a delightfully innocent movie usher, is pursued by an amorous moneybags (Frank Morgan) while she only has eyes for a struggling lawyer (Herbert Marshall). Naturally, the charmer creates hilarious chaos in everyone's life. (Director Wyler quarrelled with his leading lady, who looked tense and unhappy on screen as a result. He took her out to dinner to establish a truce. It worked so well, they were married two weeks before the film was completed.) With Cesar Romero, Alan Hale, Beulah Bondi, and Eric Blore. Friday, September 5: 7:30 pm Saturday, September 6: 6 and 9:30 pm NO GREATER GLORY (1934; 117 minutes; 35mm print) Adapted from The Paul Street Boys, an autobiographical novel by Ferenc Molnar, GLORY is an unusually sensitive evocation of the pain of youth and the senselessness of war. Frail Nemecsek, a lonely boy who yearns to belong, worships Boka, the self-sufficent, charismatic leader of a well-organized gang, decked out in uniforms and sporting their own flag. The perennial outsider sees his chance to win a respected place in Butler's army when their flag is stolen and war breaks out with another gang. The performances in Borzage's heartbreaking almost-allegory are superb, especially George Breakston as Nemecsek and Jimmy Butler as Boka. Ironically, the latter was to die 11 years later in WWII. Sunday, September 7: 4 and 7:40 pm CRY HAVOC (Richard Thorpe, 1943; 96 minutes; 35mm print) A rare all-woman (with a few minor exceptions) movie, set in Bataan during WWII, CRY HAVOC started out as a play called Proof Thro' the Night. After evacuation from the Philippines, nine nurses' aides--among them Margaret Sullavan, Joan Blondell, and Ann Sothern--end up in a bomb shelter, dishing about life, men, and war as the Japanese army gets closer and closer. All of the women are from very different backgrounds, but they find common ground during these terrible hours. With Fay Bainter, Ella Raines, Marsha Hunt, Heather Angel, et al. (Look for Robert Mitchum in a small role as a dying soldier.) Sunday, September 7: 5:40 and 9:15 pm I'VE ALWAYS LOVED YOU (1946; 117 minutes; special 35mm archival print) A conductor (Philip Dorn) means to destroy the career of a former student, pianist Myra Hassman (Catherine McLeod). Showing no quarter in his cruel obsession, he conspires to ruin her even as she wrestles with Rachmaninoff at Carnegie Hall. Borzage allows the power of superb music to move his film, with Artur Rubenstein providing unforgettable off-screen performances of Chopin, Beethoven, Bach, Mendelssohn, and Wagner. With a standout Maria Ouspenskaya, Felix Bressart, and Fritz Feld. Monday, September 8: 2 and 6:15 pm BACK STREET (John M. Stahl, 1941; 89 minutes) Fannie Hurst's tearjerking novel was filmed three times; this version, starring Margaret Sullavan and Charles Boyer as endlessly thwarted lovers, is ranked as the best. The star-crossed couple meets at the turn of the 20th century, falling into passionate love. Trouble is, Boyer's promised to another, and even when that impediment goes by the wayside he and Sullavan miss the marital boat. Their lives are forever linked, but fate only allows them leftover happiness. With Richard Carlson as Sullavan's faithful suitor, Frank McHugh, and Tim Holt. Monday, September 8: 4:15 and 8:30 pm THE MOON'S OUR HOME (William Seiter, 1936; 80 minutes; special 35mm archival print) In this delightful screwball comedy, a writer (Henry Fonda) and an actress (Margaret Sullavan) meet and marry without really knowing each other--they are even unaware that both bride and groom are equally famous. During the honeymoon, all hell breaks loose as a comedic war of the sexes leads inevitably to love--and authentic intimacy! Tuesday, September 9: 2 pm Wednesday, September 10: 3:30 and 7 pm AFTER TOMORROW (1932; 70 minutes; special 35mm archival print) Photographed by the incomparable cinematographer James Wong Howe, AFTER TOMORROW looks at Borzagean love from a hard, Depression angle. Charles Farrell and Marian Nixon play a couple who fight killing economic odds by working night and day--often separated from each other--to make enough money to marry. In this early talkie, the physical--as well as emotional--cost of the lovers' effort is acknowledged far more directly than was usual in a 30s film: the word "sex" is even uttered out loud as the two consider making love outside of marriage. Tuesday, September 9: 4 pm Wednesday, September 10: 2, 5:30 and 8:50 pm SO ENDS OUR NIGHT (John Cromwell, 1941; 120 minutes) An anti-Nazi on the run (Fredric March) and a young Jewish couple (Margaret Sullavan and Glenn Ford) race across Europe--through Prague, Zurich, and Geneva--trying to escape Hitler's ever-lengthening shadow. When March risks his life to see his dying wife (Frances Dee) in Austria, he has a dangerous encounter with "the man you love to hate," Erich von Stroheim as a rabid Third Reicher. As always, March is impeccable, but critics were especially charmed by the romantic chemistry generated by Sullavan and a very young Ford. SO ENDS OUR NIGHT was based on Flotsam, a novel by Erich Maria Remarque. Thursday, September 11: 2 and 6 pm A FAREWELL TO ARMS (1932; 78 minutes; special 35mm archival print) Borzage's adaptation of the heartbreaking book by Ernest Hemingway was a major box-office hit. Exquisitely photographed by Charles Lang (Oscar for cinematography), this romantic WWI tale of love found and lost is true to the beautifully tragic tone of the novel. A very young, impossibly handsome Gary Cooper is the American soldier who falls hard for Catherine Barkley, a British nurse (Helen Hayes) he meets after he's wounded at the front. WRT audiences will have the very rare opportunity of viewing a print that features an alternate, seldom-seen happy ending. (In the release version, Catherine dies in her lover's arms; Lt. Frederic Henry lifts his eyes to a skyful of gulls and utters an ambiguous "Peace....") With Adolph Menjou as Rinaldi and Jack LaRue as the priest. Thursday, September 11: 4:20 and 8:20 pm LITTLE MAN, WHAT NOW? (1934; 91 minutes) The first in Borzage's trilogy of Weimar dramas (THREE COMRADES, THE MORTAL STORM), LITTLE MAN chronicles the hard life of a couple of impoverished newlyweds (Douglas Montgomery and Margaret Sullavan) who travel from the country to Berlin to find success. At first, things look rosy, but when the Pinnebergs discover that the husband's stepmother--withwhom they are living--is a notorious madame, groom and now-pregnant bride must take to the road. With Alan Hale, Hedda Hopper, Mae Marsh and Alan Mowbray. Friday, September 12: 2, 6 and 9:45 pm Saturday, September 13: 6 and 9:45 pm NEXT TIME WE LOVE (Edward H. Griffith, 1936; 87 minutes) Margaret Sullavan drops out of college to marry Jimmy Stewart, playing a young, ambitious journalist. Their happiness is derailed when Sullavan's rich admirer (Ray Milland) sees that she gets the acting job she dreams of just as Stewart is sent off to cover the news from Rome. The marriage goes stale as separations follow reunions, and the two pursue their respective careers--until unexpected tragedy strikes. Preston Sturges is an uncredited screenwriter on this sob story with class, elevated by excellent performances by all. Friday, September 12: 4 and 8 pm Saturday, September 13: 4 and 8 pm MOONRISE (1948; 90 minutes) Critic Richard T. Jameson rightly describes this dark tale as "rural noir"; it's surely country kin to Fritz Lang's You Only Live Once and Nicholas Ray's They Live By Night. Dane Clark plays an angry, alienated young man whose father was executed for murder. Taunted all his life by a banker's son, he finally fights back--killing in self-defense. Beautifully directed, MOONRISE also stars Gail Russell as the woman who loves the man on the run. With Ethel Barrymore, Lloyd Bridges, Harry Carey, and Henry Morgan. Sunday, September 14: 4 and 7:40 pm Monday, September 15: 2 and 6 pm NO SAD SONGS FOR ME (Rudolph Mate, 1950; 89 minutes) Margaret Sullavan's (last) performance and Rudolph Mate's direction more than redeem this Dark Victory knockoff. Happily married to Wendell Corey and mother of Natalie Wood, the pregnant Sullavan suddenly discovers she's got a terminal illness. Needless to say, she decides to keep her death sentence a secret. With gloriously beautiful Viveca Lindfors as the friend--and "other woman" in Corey's life--whom martyred Margaret chooses for her successor. Sunday, September 14: 5:50 pm Monday, September 15: 4 and 7:50 pm