Hitchcock: Master of Suspense
A Film Lecture Series with Librarian Doug Swiszcz
Wednesdays October 7 - November 4 at 1 pm

Hitchcock: hear the name, even just the surname, and you know exactly what kind of film to expect. Films of mystery, suspense, of beautiful women in peril, of men who find themselves wrongly accused or pursued. Films that show the very thin line that separates good from evil. Films that exploit the voyeuristic nature of watching movies, that make those sitting in the cinema complicit in the crimes committed, the compulsions unable to be repressed up on the screen.

Hitchcock began by making silent films in England. He keenly understood the purely visual aspect of storytelling that is such an intrinsic part of movies, one which carried over to his "talking pictures." He meticulously planned each shot long before filming began, and there was little to no deviation from this blueprint once the cameras started rolling.

For my Fall 2015 film lecture series, I've chosen five Hitchcock movies from his Hollywood era--a career trajectory that began when he was signed by producer David O. Selznick and made Rebecca. Based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier, this Oscar-winning Best Film explored the strong grip that the past can exert on the present. A new bride comes to live with her husband at his Cornish estate, where the memory of his deceased first wife hangs as thickly and oppressively as dense fog. Just who was Rebecca, and what are the secrets surrounding her?

Strangers on a Train was based on a book by Patricia Highsmith, who is probably best known for creating the character of  the murderous, amoral Tom Ripley in a series that included The Talented Mr. Ripley. The anti-hero in Strangers on a Train, Bruno Anthony, is no less morally compromised--and just as murderous. Bruno suggests to famed tennis player Guy Haines that he would be happy to kill Guy's promiscuous wife, if Guy would return the favor by killing Bruno's despised father. Only Bruno is (pardon the expression) dead serious, and soon Guy is in over his head.

Hitchcock's penchant for voyeurism was never better exploited than in Rear Window, in which a photographer convalescing with a broken leg peers through his binoculars to watch his neighbors. Soon he becomes convinced that one neighbor, who bickers with his wife, has killed her. Just like a movie audience, the observer suddenly finds himself complicit in the transgressions of those being observed.

The object of the gaze also figures prominently in Vertigo, in which a retired police detective is asked to tail a friend's wife--and becomes mesmerized with her to the point of obsession. Even after the woman is gone, the ex-cop feels the need to try to bring her back, to recreate her, even as his blurring of fantasy and reality sends him reeling towards a nervous breakdown.

Finally, The Birds ostensibly looks at the onslaught by hundreds of birds on a small Pacific Coast town. Is the film making a comment on the human race's arrogant belief that it is in control of nature, or is all of this man-versus-nature terror merely a pretext for exploring the relationships between a widow, the grown son that she fears losing, and the pretty young heiress to whom he has become attracted?

Hitchcock's films are like onions: peel off one layer, and another is revealed. His movies can be dense, inscrutable, revealing new facets with each viewing, yielding new secrets with each coaxing.

I invite you to join me so that we can discover anew the joys and complexities of Alfred Hitchcock's work. I look forward to seeing you soon.

Here's the lineup:

October 7 - Rebecca (1940) - Joan Fontaine, Laurence Olivier, Judith Anderson, George Sanders. B&W - 130 min. - unrated

October 14 - Strangers on a Train (1951) - Farley Granger, Robert Walker.  B&W - 101 min, - unrated

October 21 - Rear Window (1954) - James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter.  Color - 112 min. - unrated

October 28 - Vertigo (1958) - James Stewart, Kim Novak.  Color - 128 min. - unrated

November 4 - The Birds (1963) - Color - 119 min. - rated PG-13 for violence involving bird attacks, some disturbing images, and brief language

BIG MOVIES ON THE BIG SCREEN

FILM LECTURE SERIES - WEDNESDAYS, JULY 8 - AUGUST 5, 2015 - 1:00 p.m.

It hardly seems as though summer is almost here, it's been so cool lately.

But we all know that it's only a matter of time before summer takes up residence, bringing with it heat and humidity.

Why not leave the stifling midday heat for the air-conditioned comfort of the library's auditorium, to enjoy some outsized films the way that they were meant to be experi-enced: on a large screen, with immersive sound that will place you right in the middle of the action.

Feel the rush of adrenaline as Charlton Heston is pitted against Stephen Boyd in the heart-pounding chariot race that is the centerpiece in Ben-Hur.

Watch rival gangs the Jets and the Sharks fight to defend their New York turf, while lovers Tony and Maria play out their ill-fated romance on back alley fire escapes, in the musical West Side Story.

Join the enigmatic T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) as he leads the Arabs' revolt against the Turks in the expansive Arabian Desert during World War I, in director David Lean's epic Lawrence of Arabia.

Experience, along with (fictional) couple Jack and Rose (Leonardo Di Caprio Jr. and Kate Winslet), the fateful night in April 1912 when the S.S. Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage, in James Cameron's blockbuster Titanic.

Finally, be swept up in the heartwarming story of the bond between a young man and his horse, and the separation that they must endure when the horse is consigned to the British Cavalry during World War I, in Steven Spielberg's War Horse.

As usual, I'll provide you with brief pre-film commentary to help you better appreciate the pictures that we'll be watching together.

But wait!!--
Because these movies are rather epic in scope (and length!), they are better enjoyed with an intermission. These breaks will give you a chance to stretch your legs, go to the powder room, and absorb what you've experienced during each film's first half. During these 15-minute intermissions, complimentary light refreshments will be served. Enjoy a cool drink and an edible goody before settling back in for the remainder of the movie.

I hope that you'll enjoy this experience as much as I am looking forward to presenting it to you.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian & Film Enthusiast

Here's the lineup (all running times include my pre-film commentary and the 15-min. intermission):

July  8 - Ben-Hur (1959 - Color - 4 hrs., 15 min. - Rated G)

July 15 - West Side Story (1961 - Color - 3 hrs., 15 min. - Unrated)

July 22 - Lawrence of Arabia (1962 - Color - 4 hrs., 15 min. - Rated PG)

July 29 - Titanic (1997 - Color - 4 hrs. - Rated PG-13)

Aug. 5 - War Horse (2011 - Color - 3 hrs. -Rated PG-13)

SINATRA 100 - A FILM LECTURE SERIES IN HONOR OF THE CENTENARY OF HIS BIRTH

Wednesdays, May 6 - June 3, 2015 at 1:00 PM

There he sits, apparently between shots on a movie set. Although Frank Sinatra logged more time in recording studios and on concert and nightclub stages during his lengthy career, he was able to parlay his success into all kinds of media: radio, television, and, germane to this post, movies.

It was only natural that Hollywood would come calling in the early 1940s, at a time when young Francis Albert Sinatra was making bobby-soxers swoon at venues like New York's Paramount Theater. He was "all the rage," as they say, and Hollywood wanted a piece of the action.

What followed was a film career that carried him into the early 1980s, although the last two decades showed a decrease in output.

But, for a time, Sinatra was a constant presence up on the big screen, appearing in musicals (naturally), dramas, comedies, detective stories, war pictures, even a western or two.

This coming December will mark the 100th anniversary of Sinatra's birth, and I thought that it would be a good time for us to share a handful of the close to 60 movies that the Chairman of the Board made.

On the Town teamed the slim, jug-eared movie neophyte with star Gene Kelly and fellow supporting player Jules Munshin, in Leonard Bernstein's and Comden & Green's story of three sailors' 24-hour shore leave in the city that, Sinatra would tell us decades later in song, "doesn't sleep"--namely, New York. Vera-Ellen, Ann Miller, and Betty Garrett offered fine support in this singing-dancing extravaganza.

From Here to Eternity, based on the James Jones novel set on a Hawaiian army base shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, was part of a career renaissance that Sinatra experienced in the early 1950s, after he hit rock bottom personally and professionally. Playing a private with a chip on his shoulder who runs afoul of a sadistic stockade warden, Sinatra won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award--one of eight gold statuettes that the production earned.

No longer a supporting player, Ol Blue Eyes headlined a 1955 film noted for its frank (you'll pardon the pun) depiction of a heroin addict in The Man With the Golden Arm. Sinatra earned an Oscar nomination for his harrowing portrayal of a one-time junkie who struggles to turn his life around. With Kim Novak, Darren McGavin, and Eleanor Parker.

Pal Joey, the screen adaptation of the Broadway hit, was retooled to serve as a permanent record, if you will, of the 1950s-era Sinatra, with a reputation for being a likable cad with a knack for charming the ladies. Torn between wealthy socialite Rita Hayworth and young chorus girl Kim Novak, Sinatra got to sing those great Rodgers and Hart songs with arrangements from his Capitol Records arranger of the day, Nelson Riddle.

We conclude the series with The Manchurian Candidate, one of the greatest political thrillers ever committed to film. Sinatra played a former Korean War military commander troubled by dreams involving an officer who served with him during the war. Laurence Harvey, Janet Leight, and Angela Lansbury all lent solid support in this tense exploration of America's Cold War fears.

I look forward to seeing you in May, as we collectively salute the cinematic career of a man who stands as, arguably, one of the greatest entertainers of the 20th century--or of any century.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian and Film Enthusiast

Here's the lineup, at a glance:

May  6: On The Town - 1949 - Color - 98 minutes

May 13: From Here to Eternity - 1953 - Black & white - 118 minutes

May 20: The Man With the Golden Arm - 1955 - Black & white - 119 minutes

May 27: Pal Joey - 1957 - Color - 111 minutes

June   3: The Manchurian Candidate - 1962 - Black & white - 126 minutes

FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS! - A BETTE DAVIS FILM LECTURE SERIES

There was no one quite like her. Small in physical size but larger than life on the silver screen, Bette Davis was a movie star back in the days when that term--movie star--meant something. Not fitting into the roles normally available to actresses of her time--neither demure, girl-next-door ingenue, nor sex goddess--Davis found a niche for herself playing women who often resented (either outwardly or with simmering repression) the strictures that society placed upon them.

My early Spring 2015 film lecture series (yes, think spring!) will salute Davis with six movies that show the different ways that she expressed the battles that her characters fought.

In Jezebel, Davis is a willful Southern belle in antebellum New Orleans who refuses to follow the social mores of her day, and whose tempestuous ways bring about unhappiness for herself and others.

The Letter has Davis playing the wife of a man who runs a rubber plantation in Singapore (they're both British colonialists). She shoots and kills a man, claiming that she was defending herself from his physical advances. But what of the existence of a letter that may present the facts of the case differently?

Now, Voyager shows the resilience of the human spirit, with Davis playing a repressed spinster who evolves into a confident woman, but who nevertheless does not adhere to the path in life expected of her.

All About Eve has Davis in fine form as an aging stage actress who is not willing to settle comfortably into the quiescence imposed by her youth-centered profession, even as a young admirer plots to steal her thunder.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? proves that Davis herself was not ready for retirement, even as she passed the half-century mark, with a warts-and-all portrayal of a faded child star who plans a comeback, as she holds her crippled sister (Joan Crawford) captive in their home. What's so impressive is that, despite the gargoyle-like outward appearance of the over-the-hill star, Davis mines the pathos at the core of the character.

Dead Ringer concludes the series, and this post-Baby Jane entry has Davis playing twins, one of whom has spent the majority of her life in the lap of luxury, while the other has eked out a hardscrabble life. Just how does the poor twin deal with her resentment of her more fortunate sister? By killing her and assuming her identity, of course.

Davis certainly led a tumultuous life, marked by the separation of her parents when she was a child (which left her without paternal love), four failed marriages, the discovery that one of her adopted children was mentally retarded, and the betrayal of her only natural-born daughter late in life. But Davis was in many ways a trailblazer. Dropped by her first movie studio because she wasn't considered sexy, she helped to recast the ways that we define beauty, paving the way for actresses like Streisand, Cher, Bette Midler, and Meryl Streep. At Warner Bros. studio, she battled fiercely for better scripts and directors, even walking out of her contract in defiance. But it was never about being a diva. If Bette was troublesome on some of her movie sets, it was always in service to the integrity of her character and the film. And, as headstrong and tenacious as she could be, Davis was insightful enough to know that she needed a strong director to temper her histrionic ways.

I look forward to you joining me, on six consecutive Wednesdays at 1:00 PM beginning March 4th, to contemplate and enjoy just a sampling of the work of this most iconic actress of the golden days of Hollywood cinema.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian & Film Enthusiast

Here's the line-up:

March  4th - Jezebel (1938 - black &white - 104 minutes)

March 11th - The Letter (1940 - black & white - 95 minutes)

March 18th - Now, Voyager (1942 - black & white - 117 minutes)

March 25th - All About Eve (1950 - black & white - 138 minutes)

April    1st - Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962 - black & white - 134 minutes)

April    8th - Dead Ringer (1964 - black & white - 116 minutes)

JUST IN TIME FOR VALENTINE'S DAY....
MOONSTRUCK
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015 AT 1:00 PM

It's always fascinating to consider the less than rational, circuitous route that Cupid's arrow can take on its way to the heart. In this delightful romantic comedy from 1987, Cher plays Loretta Castorini, a late thirties widow who hopes to reverse the streak of bad luck that began with her first, short-lived marriage. She accepts a marriage proposal from her safe, steady boyfriend, Johnny Cammareri (Danny Aiello). However, things get messy when Loretta meets Johnny's estranged brother Ronny (Nicolas Cage), a fiery, brooding man with a kind of raw sensuality. Ronny is as over-the-top as the grand operas that he loves, and Loretta feels an attraction to him that she doesn't feel with Johnny. A full moon casts a spell of enchantment over all of New York in a wise, funny film about taking chances, not settling, and following your heart, even when your sane, reasoned side tells you otherwise. Cher won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance, and Olympia Dukakis won for Best Supporting Actress for her world-weary but wise portrayal of Cher's mother. Also in the cast are John Mahoney and Vincent Gardenia. (Color - 102 minutes - Rated PG for sensuality and language)

I look forward to enjoying this film with you on the Wednesday before Valentine's Day.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian & Film Enthusiast

COLLATERAL DAMAGE: WW II OFF THE FRONT LINE

WEDNESDAYS, OCTOBER 1-29, 2014 at 1:00 PM - Library Auditorium

In choosing a theme for my fall film series, my thoughts turned to movies about World War II—but not those set on the battlefields. We all recognize and honor those who fought on the front line during World War II, the sacrifices made, the lives given so that the world could be restored to peace and order.

But I thought that it might be interesting to look at other kinds of battles fought during the war. Collateral damage is a term used in the military to describe “unintentional or incidental damage to persons or objects that would not be lawful military targets in the circumstances ruling at the time” (Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, US Department of Defense, 2005). I think of the term in a broader sense, to include damage that is not necessarily suffered in combat, but which manifests itself as a result of war. No one who lived through the war remained untouched by it.

Think of the adjustments to civilian life that needed to be made on the home front during the war. Never was this more acutely felt than by the English during the time of the Blitz, the strategic bombing campaign conducted by the Germans against London and other cities of England from September 1940 through May 1941. Here were a people who steadfastly refused to “lie down and die.” The courage that it took for the British to endure these aerial raids is explored through the lives of one upper-middle class family in the first film in the series, Mrs. Miniver.

Consider as well the plight of Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl who, together with her family and some friends, hid in an Amsterdam attic for two years to escape Nazi persecution. Unlike Mrs. Miniver, Anne was a real-life individual—a girl on the verge of adolescence, whose resolute belief in the basic goodness of people, even as she hoped to escape the horrors of Hitler’s “final solution,” found its expression in the written word. Whether as a physical artifact, a play, or the film that’s part of my series, The Diary of Anne Frank lives on as a testament to the tenacity of the human spirit.

Battle did not necessarily end when surrender came. The aftermath of war lived on long afterward, as those who survived returned to a world that was not the same as the one that they had left behind.  And neither were they the same. How was that possible?  After all that they had experienced in combat, did the mundane trials back home even matter? Some came home with physical changes as well, whether it was a hearing impairment or the loss of an appendage.  Both kinds of adjustments, both psychological and corporal, are explored in The Best Years of Our Lives, the third movie in my series.

Children were also a part of the collateral damage of the war. Its horrors prematurely robbed them of their innocence. If they didn’t die, they were often separated from their families, displaced little beings who might then face a world alone once the war ended. In The Search, Montgomery Clift plays an American private who tries to help a young Czech boy find his mother. Complicating the search is the fact that the boy has suppressed many of his memories—including those of his parent.

My series concludes with a very recent film, The Railway Man, in which Colin Firth plays a veteran who was a prisoner in a Japanese labor camp during the war. When he learns, some 35 years later, that the Japanese military policeman who mistreated him at the camp is still alive, he vows to exact revenge.

Please join me, Wednesdays in October at 1:00 PM, as we look at collateral damage, the ways that the war spilled into so many lives in so many different ways, as depicted on film.

As always, I look forward to your taking this journey with me.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian & Film Enthusiast

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Here's the series schedule:

Oct.  1st - Mrs. Miniver (1942 - black & white - 134 min. - not rated)

Oct.  8th - The Diary of Anne Frank (1959 - black & white - 180 min, - not rated)

Oct. 15th - The Best Years of Our Lives (1946 - black & white - 172 min. - not rated)

Oct. 22nd - The Search (1948 - black & white - 104 min. - not rated)

Oct. 29th - The Railway Man (2013 - color - 116 min. - rated R for prisoner of war scenes)

INSPIRATIONAL LIVES: BIOGRAPHICAL FILMS ABOUT EXTRAORDINARY INDIVIDUALS

Wednesdays, July 9-August 6, 2014 - 1:00 PM
Barrington Library Auditorium

The first day of summer has already come and gone, and as we put graduations and Father's Day celebrations behind us, and look forward to enjoying fresh strawberries during their all-too brief season as the Fourth of July fast approaches, it's a good time to start planning our recreational activities for the season. Picnics anyone? A swim in the ocean or a refreshing sailboat cruise? Attendance at a baseball game? There are so many possibilities for enjoyment during a time of year that can seem as fleeting as the "in season" for strawberries that I mentioned above.

I've got one more recommendation for you. Why not seek solace from the heat and humidity and join me on five consecutive Wednesday afternoons in the air-conditioned comfort of the Barrington Library auditorium, for a movie lecture series called Inspirational Lives: Biographical Films About Extraordinary Individuals?

I've gathered a handful of films that look at individuals who faced challenges and obstacles in their lives: the blind deaf-mute Helen Keller, who learned to thrive once her dedicated teacher, Annie Sullivan, broke through the barriers that isolated the girl (The Miracle Worker); Sir Thomas More, who followed his conscience by refusing to endorse King Henry VIII's plan to separate from the Roman Catholic Church--exemplifying the principle of "the courage of one's convictions" (A Man For All Seasons).

Karen Blixen, a Danish woman who wrote under the pseudonym Isak Dinesen, endured the infidelities of her husband, and years of hard work trying to run a successful coffee plantation in early 20th-century Kenya (Out of Africa); James Braddock was a Depression-era light heavyweight boxing contender whose career seemed to be derailed by an injury, until fate gave him a second chance (Cinderella Man).

And then there's Johnny Cash, who rose from humble beginnings in Arkansas to a career as arguably one of the greatest country music performers of our time, dealing with all of the temptations and pitfalls that can come with fame, including drug dependency and infidelity (Walk the Line).

Like all of us, these men and women had to find their own way, in a world that often dealt them cruel blows. That they were able to surmount these travails serves as a testament to the strength of the human spirit. Self-determination. Courage. When necessary, the willingness to let others help us.These are all traits that, hopefully, we can find within ourselves.

Let's make a date to meet in the library's auditorium. One o'clock. Wednesdays. Together, let's be inspired by the lives that we see depicted up on the screen.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian & Film Enthusiast

Here's the rundown:

July  9 - The Miracle Worker - Patty Duke, Anne Bancroft. (1962 - Black & white - 106 min. - unrated)

July 16 - A Man For All Seasons - Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Hiller, Orson Welles. (1966 - Color - 120 min. - unrated)

July 23 - Out of Africa - Meryl Streep, Robert Redford. (1985 - Color - 161 min. - rated PG, for sexuality, profanity, violence involving animals, and smoking and drinking)

July 30 - Cinderella Man - Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, Paul Giamatti. (2005 - Color - 144 min. - rated PG-13, for intense boxing violence and some language)

Aug.  6 - Walk the Line - Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon. (2005 - Color - 136 min. - rated PG-13, for language, thematic material, and depiction of drug dependency)

Ingrid Bergman: A Celebration

A Film Lecture Series - Wednesdays at 1 PM, March 5, 12, 19, 26 and April 2, 2014

Hello All,
What a winter it's been. Cold weather made more intolerable by a seemingly endless barrage of snow and ice. Those who ski must be quite happy. Those who lean more towards sitting in a window seat, sipping a cup of warm cocoa are content to remain indoors. Please include me in the latter group.

But spring is (hopefully) just around the corner. March will be here before you know it, and each day is getting a little longer. In the meantime, one way to beat the winter doldrums is to attend my latest film lecture series.

I'm saluting a female Swedish movie star of yesteryear. No, not Garbo. The other one:
Ingrid Bergman. Hollywood producer David O. Selznick saw her in a Swedish film and brought her over to America in the late thirties, where she was signed to a contract.

Her exquisite beauty and singular acting style made her the darling of both the critics and the public for a time. However, events in her private life--she left her first husband and their child for neo-realist Italian director Roberto Rossellini in the early 1950s--made the public turn on her. She was even denounced on the floor of Congress for her indiscretions.

But time heals all wounds, and--after several years living with Rossellini and their children in Rome--Bergman returned from her exile to star in Anastasia on the American movie screen. Apparently all was forgiven, for she was awarded with the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in that film.

I've selected a handful of Ms. Bergman's movies that I hope will serve as a fitting celebration of her work, allowing us to appreciate her anew.

Even those who don't necessarily like old movies must nevertheless be familiar with Bergman's work in Casablanca. This World War II era romance film, in which Bergman and Humphrey Bogart agree that, in memory, they'll "always have Paris," is a Hollywood classic. And if you are a classic film fan, you'll swoon again to the strains of "As Time Goes By," the movie's theme song.

Bergman etched for us a portrait of a woman driven to the brink of insanity in Gaslight, in which she plays a new bride who starts to experience disconcerting things once she begins living with her new husband (Charles Boyer). What's behind these strange events--and can they be stopped before Bergman falls over the precipice into madness?

Spellbound is one of three films that Bergman made with director Alfred Hitchcock (who, as he did with so many of his leading ladies, felt unrequited love for her). This one casts the actress as a clinically cold psychoanalyst who tries to help an amnesiac accused of murder, and finds herself falling in love with him in the process. Gregory Peck is her co-star.

In Anastasia, the film with which she was welcomed back into the good graces of America, Bergman plays a woman who claims to be daughter of deposed Russian Emperor Nicholas II. Supposedly the entire royal family was killed by the Bolsheviks in 1917...but did she somehow escape the overthrow? Yul Brynner and Helen Hayes co-star.

Finally, we'll see Bergman in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, playing a missionary in charge of a roadside hostel in remote China, who must endure the invasion of the area by the Japanese. Based on true events, it's the story of a woman forced to summon her inner strength to face great external turmoil.

I am looking forward to getting this series underway--and to seeing all of you again.

The auditorium, second floor of the library. I'll be there.

Doug Swiszcz

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Here's the series at a quick glance:

March  5 - Casablanca 

March 12 - Gaslight

March 19 - Spellbound

March 26 - Anastasia

April  2 -    The Inn of the Sixth Happiness

THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT: A SPINE-TINGLING FILM LECTURE SERIES

Wednesdays at 1:00 PM -- October 2, 9, 16, 23 and 30, 2013

Autumn is nearly upon us, a time when the air turns crisper, when one can smell burning leaves in the distance, and when the days grow shorter. Or perhaps I should say, when the nights grow longer.

October is, of course, the month of Halloween, an annual tradition that evokes memories of childhoods past, of ghosts and goblins and witches cackling in the moonlight. Our passage into adulthood may force us into wingtips and high heels, but do we ever truly leave behind the thrill that comes from being scared out of our wits? Perhaps there's some primal urge in us that makes us squeal with delight from being frightened. How else do we explain the fun of sitting around the campfire and telling chilling stories?

I thought that I would devote my Fall 2013 film lecture series, Things That Go Bump in the Night, to movies that tap into our primal urges, our primal fears.

Anyone who knows my love of film is aware that I gravitate toward older movies, or at least toward those that are similar in style to those made during what has been often called the golden age of cinema. You have to know that the last thing that I would do is to inundate you with gratuitous blood and gore. I prefer the tack of showing films that build suspense, that lay out before you an evolving story that will increase your sense of unease or, perhaps, of dread. It's often not what is shown, but rather what is implied, that scares the dickens out of us.

Although the movies that I am presenting this fall  will be screened in the early afternoon, once the lights are turned down and the films begin, we'll be alone in the dark--collectively, that is. So bring a friend or a significant other with you, someone whose arm you can grasp when something on the screen suddenly makes your heart race or sends chills down your spine.

I look forward to seeing you in October when, together, we can rekindle our childhood fascination with things that go bump in the night...

Doug Swiszcz

Librarian & Film Enthusiast

The schedule:

Oct. 2nd: Psycho - Janet Leigh, who's absconded with some money from work, makes the mistake of checking into the Bates Motel in this Hitchcock classic. Co-starring Anthony Perkins. (1960 - B&W - 109 min. - Unrated)

Oct. 9th: The Innocents - Deborah Kerr is a governess who fears that her young charges are possessed by the spirits of a former governess and her sadistic lover. Based on Henry James' The Turn of the Screw. (1961 - B&W - 100 min. -- Unrated)

Oct. 16th: Rosemary's Baby - Mia Farrow is a young mother-to-be who comes to suspect that her husband and neighbors are involved in a nefarious plot concerning the baby. With John Cassavetes and Ruth Gordon. (1968 - Color - 136 min. - Rated R for profanity, a dream sequence involving sexuality, and frightening sequences)

Oct. 23rd: Dead Again - A Los Angeles cop (Kenneth Branagh) helps an amnesiac (EmmaThompson) to recover her memory with the aid of a hypnotherapist, but past life regressions reveal a disturbing link between the two of them. (1991 - Color - 107 min. - Rated R for language and violence)

Oct. 30th: The Others - A woman (Nicole Kidman) who lives with her two photosensitive children in a darkened old house fears that it may be haunted. (2001 - Color - 104 min. - Rated PG-13 for thematic elements and frightening sequences)

A Slice of Lemmon

A Jack Lemmon Summer Matinee Film Series

Wed., July 10-31, 2013 - 1:00
Library Auditorium

Hello Friends,

Summer has rolled around once again, and as I sit here composing this blog entry, the weather outside is hot and muggy. I know that the expression "dog days of summer" is normally used much later in the season, but I'm panting like a member of the canine family even now. I don't normally seek out the sun and heat during the summer. The hole in the ozone isn't getting any smaller, and I've always felt that it is not worth the effort to slather myself with sunscreen. For what? To then lie on a towel and sweat?

Why don't you join me in the cool comfort of the library's auditorium for my July film lecture series, saluting Jack Lemmon? I thought that I'd show a handful of Lemmon's comedic movies, even though we all know that he was a dramatic actor of distinction as well. But it's summer, after all. So I thought that I'd "serve up" something light and refreshing--namely, a slice of Lemmon.

We'll get to enjoy Jack's first feature film role, as a young filmmaker who takes a liking to dizzy blonde Judy Holliday, in It Should Happen to You. Directed by the esteemed George Cukor, the film looks at our culture's preoccupation with fame and celebrity. This movie opened in 1954--nearly a decade and a half before Andy Warhol spoke about everyone eventually getting their own fifteen minute of fame. Talk about being prescient!

Who doesn't love Some Like It Hot, the Billy Wilder-directed classic with Lemmon and Tony Curtis as two musicians in 1920's Chicago who disguise themselves as women to evade gangsters whose mob slaying they have witnessed. Here we have Lemmon the farceur on display, as his character gets caught up perhaps a bit too much in the pleasures of his masquerade. And the film has Marilyn Monroe at her breathless, jiggly best.

Wilder also directed The Apartment, with Lemmon playing the kind of role at which he would come to excel: the little man, lost in the sea of humanity, but trying desperately to carve out a niche for himself. Here, he's a small cog in the wheel at an insurance agency, who lends his apartment to his philandering bosses for their trysts. But is this the best way to climb the ladder to success, if it means compromising your self-respect? Shirley Maclaine co-stars.

We close the series with The Odd Couple, based on Neil Simon's successful Broadway play (and forerunner to the long-running Tony Randall-Jack Klugman TV series). One of several films that Lemmon made with Walter Matthau, it pairs the two as mismatched roommates, one a neurotic fussbudget, the other  a sloppy sportswriter. Lemmon's performance is filled with tics,wheezes, and just about anything else that could drive Matthau to distraction. And does. 

Come in from the stifling heat and join me for a good laugh this summer, watching an actor who stands as one of the exemplars of comedic acting. A chuckle, after all, is better than a sunburn.

Doug Swiszcz

Librarian and Film Enthusiast

Here's the schedule, at a glance:

July 10 - It Should Happen to You - 1954 - Black & white - 86 min. - not rated.

July 17 - Some Like It Hot - 1959 - Black & white - 120 min. - not rated.

July 24 - The Apartment - 1960 - Black & white - 125 min. - not rated.

July 31 - The Odd Couple - 1968 - Color - 105 min. - rated G.

Audrey in the Afternoon: A Film Lecture Series
Wednesdays at 1:00 PM, May 1 through June 5, 2013

I barely have to even mention her last name, right? Who among us was immune to the charms of Miss Hepburn, the bewitching, beguiling beauty with the petite frame and the big eyes? She was the perfect example of what a movie star was back in the days of classic films.

I'll be honoring Audrey in my latest film series for six consecutive Wednesdays at 1:00 PM, beginning May 1st.

From her first American movie, Roman Holiday, in 1953, for which she won the Best Actress Academy Award, this waif-like performer entered into a love affair with the public--a love affair that would last until her untimely death from cancer in 1993.

A drab bookstore clerk who becomes the toast of Paris high fashion in Funny Face. A young Belgian woman who decides to enter a convent in The Nun's Story. Manhattan socialite Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle, transformed into the belle of the ball courtesy of Professor 'enry 'iggins in My Fair Lady. A young widow whose husband left behind a large sum of money in Charade (paired with Cary Grant). These are just some of the highlights of her career, in my opinion.

Would you ever guess that Audrey didn't think that she was particularly attractive? Or that she was very honest in admitting that her talents as an actress were acquired in piecemeal fashion, as she moved from one role to another? That she prized family enough to put her film career on hold for more than half a decade? All true.

Come rediscover the magic of Audrey Hepburn on the big screen. I can assure you that you'll fall in love with her all over again.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian and Film Enthusiast

The lineup:
May 1st - Roman Holiday - with Gregory Peck - Black & white - 118 minutes

May 8th - Funny Face - with Fred Astaire, Kay Thompson - Color - 103 minutes

May 15th - The Nun's Story - Color - 149 minutes

May 22nd - Breakfast at Tiffany's - with George Peppard, Patricia Neal - Color - 115 minutes

May 29th - My Fair Lady - with Rex Harrison - Color - 3 hours, with one 15-minute intermission

June 5th - Charade - with Cary Grant - Color - 113 minutes

FOND OF FONDA: A MOVIE MATINEE LECTURE SERIES
Wednesdays at 2:00 PM
March 6, 13, 20, 27, and April 3, 2013

Hello Again-
It seems like forever since I've hosted a film lecture series at the Library. This time out, I thought that I'd salute one of our most revered actors from the cinema of yesteryear with a Henry Fonda series.
Fonda, with his tall, thin frame and reedy, midwestern-tinged voice, epitomized a kind of grace and quiet intelligence. Conscientious. Morally upstanding. Given to deliberation before offering his thoughts on an issue (and then speaking with that distinctively sloooow pace). A winning personifcation of the common man.

And yet there always seemed to be something else that percolated beneath the surface--a darker, deeper side that was not wholly scrutable. If Henry Fonda faced demons, he faced them alone. For a man who chose a profession in which communication is vital, Fonda was emotionally buttoned down in his private life. He was married five times; his children Peter and Jane found him remote. To him, life was about moving beyond your failures and disappointments, perhaps about rising above them.

But what Fonda couldn't express privately, he used in his art. Sometimes his characters were plain spoken; at other times, what was hidden behind that look in his eyes added complexity and nuance to his performances.

The films of Fonda's that I plan on showing include his career-defining role as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, in which he evinced a kind of resilience in the face of personal misfortune. Then there's young Henry as the naive, much put-upon heir to a brewery fortune who falls prey to Barbara Stanwyck in director Preston Sturges' screwball comedy The Lady Eve. Fonda reunited with his Grapes of Wrath director, John Ford, to portray Wyatt Earp in all of his principled glory in My Darling Clementine. The actor that we've come to equate with the voice of reason tries to face down dissenting jurors in 12 Angry Men. Finally, the series wraps up not with a theatrically-released motion picture, but with a videotaped performance for television of Fonda in his one-man, tour de force portrayal of famed lawyer Clarence Darrow.

I look forward to seeing you all at the beginning of March.

Doug Swiszcz

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Here's the rundown (all are Wednesday showings that begin at 2:00 PM):

March 6th: The Grapes of Wrath - 1940, black & white, 129 minutes, unrated.

March 13th: The Lady Eve - 1941, black & white, 94 minutes, unrated.

March 20th: My Darling Clementine - 1946, black & white, 97 minutes, unrated.

March 27th: 12 Angry Men - 1957, black & white, 96 minutes, unrated.

April 3rd: Clarence Darrow - 1974, color, 81 minutes, unrated.

Gotta Sing! Gotta Dance! The Evolution of the Movie Musical

A Film Lecture Series Presented by Librarian Doug Swiszcz 

 

 Wednesdays, September 26-October 31, 2012 at 1:00 PM

Barrington Public Library

We're all familiar with the image: a euphoric Gene Kelly, so happy that he is in love that--inclement weather be dashed--he just has to sing and dance in the street. Pouring rain can't dampen his spirits; that's how effusive his feelings are.

On the stage, song and dance are an accepted means of expression.  What about song and dance in the movies? Film is a more natural, realistic medium--worlds removed from the artifice and high degree of stylization that we think nothing of when we experience live performance.

But once the technology of talking pictures came about, movie makers attempted to wed the artifice of the one medium with the naturalism of the other. It was definitely a growth process. Early movie musicals were often revue-style productions that featured singers and dancers performing "face out,"  as if they were on a proscenium stage, in a Broadway theater. Many early movie musicals, in fact, revolved around a "let's put on a show" story, as if the only way that filmgoers would readily accept the idea of people breaking into song and dance was if these "numbers" took place on stage within the movie.

Movie musicals really started coming into their own when song and dance were used in a cinematic way, with a camera that incorporated their rhythm and movement to advance the story, or to reveal characters' feelings. In the film that opens my series, Love Me Tonight (1932), the Rodgers and Hart song "Isn't It Romantic" is introduced by a tailor (Maurice Chevalier) in the city of Paris, and is then taken up by other characters, through various means of transportation, to the countryside, where we find it being sung by a lovely princess (Jeanette MacDonald). Here, we see music used as a means of linking two disparate characters--the lowly city tailor and the high-born princess in her country chateau.

Of course, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers used song and dance as a kind of "courtship ritual" in the many movies that they made together--he wooed, she initially demurred, but in the end they ended up in each others' arms.We'll see such a love story told through dance to a tuneful Irving Berlin score in Top Hat (1935).

Musicals written specifically for the screen were quite common in the hey day of movie musicals--and no studio excelled at this form better than MGM, thanks to a creative and technical team headed up by producer Arthur Freed. And with talents like Judy Garland and Gene Kelly--whose films Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) and Singin' in the Rain (1952), respectively, will be shown as part of this series--how could they go wrong?

As the golden age of the Hollywood musical started to decline in the late fifties and early sixties, we saw movie studios increasingly turning to Broadway properties to transfer to the screen (for fear that audiences would not come to a movie musical unless the show already have a proven track record on stage). Some of these adaptations were quite successful, but many of them were unimaginative transcriptions of their stage version. Like the early movie musicals, these movies were staged and filmed in such a way that the casts might as well have been up on a proscenium stage. Where was the cinematic expression that could enliven these properties? Of course, not all such adaptations were so static and "stagey." The film version of Fiddler on the Roof (1971) presented a robust adaptation of a smash Broadway musical.

As tastes in popular music changed, Hollywood musicals all but died out. Younger film audiences, raised on rock music, were less likely to be captivated by characters bursting into song up on the screen. But director Rob Marshall found a way to adapt the Broadway musical Chicago (2002) into a film so that it appealed to these younger moviegoers. The snappy, savvy movie went on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture in the year of its release--the first film musical to earn that accolade in over 30 years.

I hope that you will join me for this look at the evolution of the movie musical.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Doug Swiszcz

The line-up:

Sept 26^th Love Me Tonight (1932) -- Black & white -- 89 minutes -- Unrated.

Oct  3^rd  Top Hat (1935)  -- Black & white -- 101 minutes -- Unrated.

Oct 10^th  Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) -- Color -- 113 minutes -- Unrated.

Oct. 17^th  Singin’ in the Rain (1952) -- Color -- 103 minutes -- Unrated.

Oct. 24^th Fiddler on the Roof (1971) -- Color -- 181 minutes -- Rated G.

Oct 31^st  Chicago (2002) -- Color -- 113 minutes -- Rated PG-13.

                        

JAMES STEWART ON THE BIG SCREEN: A FILM LECTURE SERIES

Hello Friends:

Why not escape from the summer heat to enjoy five movies starring one of filmdom's most beloved movie stars, Jimmy Stewart--or James Stewart, as he was always officially billed.

Stewart. It almost makes one think of the word STALWART. The website yourdictionary.com defines this word as follows: "A description for someone who is loyal and strong or for something that is reliable and sturdy." Perhaps the website should feature a photo of James Stewart next to its definition. Few other actors conjure so vividly an image of reliability, strength, and loyalty--traits that spring to mind when we use the term "All American."

Certainly these traits, when coupled with honesty, idealism, and integrity, are on exhibit in Stewart's portrayal of Jefferson Smith in the film that opens the series, director Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. But while Smith was a career-defining role for Stewart, there was a tendency, perhaps, to assume that, because the actor played characters who possessed these traits, they were uncomplicated and one-dimensional.

Following Stewart's stint of duty as a bomber pilot during World War II, he returned to acting a changed man. The war had aged him, and he brought a less light, more complex sensibility to most of his screen portrayals from that point on.

For example, the five westerns that Stewart made with director Anthony Mann brought a darker, psychological dimension to the genre. Winchester '73 is one such film that will be featured in this series.

He also appeared in four films for director Alfred Hitchcock, including Vertigo, in which he plays a man who becomes obsessed with a woman to the point that he wants her look-alike to be in his thrall. In Rear Window, which will be shown during this series, Stewart plays another obsessed character, this time a convalescing photographer who takes to watching his neighbors. Is it possible that he is projecting many of his unresolved feelings about interpersonal relations onto the lives of the people in whose windows he is peering?

The series is rounded out by two romantic comedies: The Shop Around the Corner, an Ernst Lubitsch-directed confection that derives its sweetness from its Old World setting and characters; and Bell, Book & Candle, a late fifties piece of whimsy with Stewart's book publisher falling under the spell of beautiful witch Kim Novak.

Here's the series schedule -- all films are on Mondays at 1:00 P.M.

July  9th -- Mr. Smith Goes To Washington - Idealistic scout master Jefferson Smith is appointed to the senate and tries to fight corruption. With Jean Arthur, Claude Rains. 1939 -- Black & white -- 129 minutes.

July 16th -- The Shop Around the Corner - Two employees in a Budapest shop clash, but are unaware that they are sending anonymous love letters to one another. With Margaret Sullavan. 1940 -- Black & white -- 99 minutes.

July 23rd -- Winchester '73 - A man tries to find his father's murderer and the one-of-a-kind rifle that was stolen from him. With Shelley Winters, Dan Duryea. 1950 -- Black & white -- 92 minutes.

July 30th -- Rear Window - A photographer with a broken leg fears that a neighbor was murdered. Co-starring Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter. 1954 -- Color -- 112 minutes.

Aug.  6th -- Bell, Book & Candle - A beautiful witch (Kim Novak) casts a spell to make a man fall in love with her. With Elsa Lanchester, Jack Lemmon, Ernie Kovacs. 1958 -- Color -- 106 minutes.


I look forward to seeing you all in our air-conditioned movie theater here at the Barrington Library.

Doug Swiszcz
Librarian and Film Enthusiast