Leave your calendars open for the next five Mondays as the Parkway embarks on yet another brilliant series to feed the repertory soul. Take-up Productions presents Sweet Escapism: Screwball Comedies of the Great Depression. All films are at 7:30 and cost a sweet 5 bucks! (For those who have been carrying around the postcard fliers, there is one change to to screening schedule on April 21.)Here is me just ripping the info from Take-up's site:
March 31, 7:30pm
Easy Living (1937) directed by Mitchell Leisen, written by Preston Sturges, with Jean Arthur, Ray Milland, Edward Arnold
"Funny and gracious and generous in the best Sturges tradition; it is also velvety smooth and comfortably movie-ish...Jean Arthur gives Easy Living much of its spunky-elegant resilience." (Andrew Sarris.)
April 7, 7:30pm
Twentieth Century (1934) directed by Howard Hawks, written by Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur, with John Barrymore, Carole Lombard
"Twentieth Century was one of the earliest screwball comedies and was performed with the frenetic pacing that typified [director Howard Hawks's] later efforts in the genre. Hawks can take credit not only for John Barrymore's best comedy performance, but also for the film that first established Carole Lombard as one of the finest comediennes of the thirties." (Andrew Sarris.)
April 14, 7:30pm
His Girl Friday (1940) directed by Howard Hawks, written by Charles Lederer, based on "The Front Page" by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell
His Girl Friday is one of the greatest dialogue comedies ever made; Hawks had his cast play it at breakneck speed, and audiences hyperventilate trying to finish with one laugh so they can do justice to the four that have accumulated in the meantime. Russell is triumphant in the part, holding her own as "one of the guys" and creating an enduring feminist icon. Grant is a force of nature, giving a performance of concentrated frenzy and diamond brilliance.
"Some of the best farce lines ever written in this country." -- Pauline Kael
a last minute substitution
April 21, 7:30pm
The Whole Town's Talking (1935) directed by John Ford, with Edward G. Robinson and Jean Arthur
When the last circulating print of The Awful Truth was suddenly declared out of commission, we couldn't resist adding a little more Jean Arthur to the series. Edward G. Robinson stars as a law-abiding man who bears a striking resemblance to a killer in this 1935 comedy. Not available on DVD.
April 28, 7:30pm
You Can't Take It With You (1938) directed by Frank Capra, written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, with James Stewart, Jean Arthur
Jimmy Stewart's legendary career was just beginning when he co-starred in this Frank Capra classic, a loving and wacky paean to nonconformity. Jean Arthur plays a member of the blissful Vanderhof household who falls in love with a rich man's son (James Stewart) and brings him into her nutty home. Lionel Barrymore, who played such a bad guy eight years later in Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, is the wonderful Grandpa Vanderhof, who addresses God during the dinner prayer as "sir" and speaks plainly and beautifully of why it's good to be alive. This was the first of three masterful collaborations between Capra and Stewart, and Capra's third Best Director award in a five year span.
3 comments:
Are these screenings on prints? Excellent choices!
I am 99% sure these are all 35mm prints. Thank Barry for the choices when you go to the screenings!
All 35mm prints. That's why we had to substitute for The Awful Truth, the last print was damaged by another theater a few weeks back, and we didn't feel projecting from a DVD would be right.
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