Cinema (Hollywood) (1947)

LITTLE CINEMA U.S. Film Societies Notes of West Coast Activities By PAUL BALLARD Pasadena The Pasadena Art Institute, under the direction of Miss Goudy, is showing its second series of films covering an overall picture of cinema as an art form. The present series is devoted to comedies such as David Harum, Million Dollar Legs, and early Chaplin comedies. A new series of film showings to cover a period of thirty-six weeks is now being scheduled and will include important milestones in the development of the cinema. Members of the Institute and their guests are admitted to these film showings. Los Angeles Due to the success of a short documentary film series made available to members and non-members alike at the Los Angeles County Museum last winter, a new and more comprehensive program of documentary films has been arranged for the coming year beginning in October, 1947, to cover a period of thirty-six weeks. This series will include many outstanding classics of the documentary film produced both in the United States and abroad. Among the films to be presented are People of the Coumbcrland, A Place to Live, Liberation of Paris, Peoples of Canada, Four Hundred Million, A Better Tomorrow, Art Survives the Times, Matisse, Maillol, and The Art of Persia. Unusual material such as Tjurunga and Walkabout (Australian aborigines) and Life in a Punjab Village (India) will also be shown. Of interest to specialized groups will be the showing of This Is Robert and Children Must Learn. This series was planned in association with Mr. James Breasted, Jr., Director of the Museum, and Mr. Russell Smith, Head of Education. Hollywood The Hollywood Film Society, which is a newly organized cultural, non-profit organization devoted to the study and review of motion pictures as an art form, has become an outstanding success. Aside from the Museum of Modern Art in New York it has programmed the most pretentious list of films to be shown by such a group. There are four specific series of films in progress. In Series "A" we have scheduled and are showing such films as Camille, Passion of Joan of Arc, Kamradschaft, Million Dollar Legs, and Variety. Each feature film also has outstanding short subjects accompanying it such as Studies in Abstraction by Oscar Fischinger, L'Amitie Noire, White Flood and Brotherhood of Man. In Series "B" are shown such famous classics of the documentary film as Plow That Broke the Plains, Turksib, A Child Went Forth, Gran ton Trawler, Triumph of the Will, Song of Ceylon, and Valley Town. This particular series makes available for the first time on the Pacific coast a large collection of important documentary film material. In Series "C" we are covering the history of motion pictures in chronological order and are showing these films specifically to students of the cinema as an art form. These films include early Caplin comedies, Tol'able David, Three Musketeers, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, etc. In Series "D" the emphasis is placed on material that is especially suited to children. All of these programs contain features such as Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Grandma's Boy, and Adventures of Chico; a weekly serial; and education shorts on nature, science, sports and human endeavor. Two special programs were scheduled and shown in addition to the above: Abstract and Experimental Films, including Abstractions by Fischinger, Emak Bakia and L'Etoilc de Mcr by Man Ray, Introspection by Sara-Kath Maya Deren: MESHES OF THE AFTERNOON ryn Arledge, and Abstractions with synthetic sound by John and James Whitney. The other program was a showing to a capacity audience of parents and teachers of This Is Robert, a film study of child behavior. All of the above programs are booked over a series of twelve weeks, and occur at various times during the week. Already a new series of films has been scheduled which will include Poil de Carofte, The Marriage Circle, The Wave, Kuhlc Wampe, Sunrise and Emil und die Detecktii e. Carniel The Experimental Film Society, a newly-organized group headed by Kenneth Anger and Chester Kessler, have begun a series of showings of avant garde films at the Carmel Art Gallery on the Monterey Peninsula. The initial showing, held in mid-June, was devoted to the films of Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid. On the program were Meshes of the Afternoon, At Land, Choreography for Camera, Ritual in Transfigured Time and The Private Life of a Cat. AUGUST, 1947 23