Sunday, May 3 – The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts (Film Studies Center) Screening Room 201
– 915 E. 60th St – Free Parking
Tickets: $10 at the door or Purchase in Advance
1:00 PM
HIS WIFE’S LOVER
Directed by Sidney M. Goldin • 1931
In Yiddish with English subtitles
The arrival of the talkies didn’t just open ears to American English vernacular, but presented an unprecedented opportunity for immigrant communities to hear their own patois at the movies. Promoted as the “first 100% Yiddish singing and talking picture,” His Wife’s Lover was a vehicle for Ludwig Satz, a real-life music hall star who plays the fictional music hall star Eddie Wien. Eddie’s unscrupulous uncle Oscar (Isidore Cashier) resents and mistrusts women, and bets his nephew that vivacious Golde (Lucy Levine) would marry any random wealthy suitor, just like any gold digger. Eddie disguises himself as an embarrassing caricature of decrepit capital, loses the bet by winning the reluctant Golde, and then loses anew when his bride refuses to consummate their marriage. Can Eddie double-down on his wager, Safdie-style, and win Golde back as himself? Shot in nine days, His Wife’s Lover emerged as a deliriously entertaining musical — and racy enough to rival any pre-Code Hollywood mishegoss. (KW)
80 min • High Art Pictures Corp. • 35mm from the National Center for Jewish Film
3:00 PM
CARAVAN
Directed by Erik Charell • 1934
Being a Hungarian countess is annoying. Servants follow you around making sure you follow all the dumb ancient traditions — that is, until you turn 21. Then, if you’re like Wilma (Loretta Young, actually 21 at the time), you’ll inherit your dad’s estate and you can make your own rules, but only if you’re married. Ugh! Living as a “gypsy,” however, is a little more relaxing, as Latzi (Charles Boyer, in a star-making turn) can attest. Life is filled with music, you sleep under the stars, and your heart bursts with passion and wanderlust. The downside is, people are always accusing you of stealing, and sometimes you fall in love with a countess who doesn’t know you exist. This is Hollywood, though, so their worlds are about to collide; when they do, it’s with a surprising gentleness and patience. Director Charell, who’d just escaped Nazi Germany, guides us through the contrived reality-show premise with a light and romantic touch, drenched in sweet musical motifs and delicate balletic gestures. (GW)
102 min • Fox Film Corp. • 35mm from the Museum of Modern Art, permission Criterion Pictures, USA
6:00 PM
ANYBODY’S WOMAN
Directed by Dorothy Arzner • 1930
Dorothy Arzner and co-writer Zoe Akins (Working Girls, Christopher Strong) had a knack for imbuing their pictures with more complexity, emotional intelligence, and proto-feminist nuance than most contemporary male-driven studio fare. This one, a slippery sort of comic melodrama with a side of dry social satire, gives us the memorable Pansy Gray (Ruth Chatterton), a down-and-out former showgirl tired of bouncing from dead-end job to degrading hustle amid the Depression-era gig economy. We first meet her sprawled bare-legged across an overstuffed chair in a sweltering Manhattan hotel room, belting out a melancholy blues (she knows her way around a ukulele!). Listening from a nearby open window is heartsick Delaware attorney Neil Dunlap (Clive Brook), blackout drunk and unusually receptive to Pansy’s earthy charms. An impromptu hotel party ensues, and the next morning Pansy and Neil wake up having drunkenly wed; to make their marriage work, both must now navigate different gauntlets of shame and prejudice. Paul Lukas, who’d later pair with Chatterton so memorably in the similarly twisty Dodsworth, shines here as a wealthy rival for Pansy’s affection. (GW)
80 min • Paramount • 35mm from UCLA Film & Television Archive, permission Universal
Preceded by: “The Golf Specialist” (Monte Brice, 1930) – 20 min – 35mm
NEXT UP: SALOMÉ on Saturday, May 16 at the Music Box