Danger & Despair's  
  Thursday Night  
   
     
  on 16mm Film  
     
   

    Presents:

 
   

 

 
  Misunderstood Actresses  
  with film historian Marc Kagan  
     
 

Thursday April 28th  -  Thursday May 19th

 
     
 

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    Thursday April 28th     8:00 pm  
       
    Subject :  Jennifer Jones as  
       
    'Ruby Gentry'      1952     b&w      Director   King Vidor    -     Bernhard-Vidor Productions  
    w/  Charlton Heston, Karl Malden, Tom Tully,  Josephine Hutchson & Phyllis Avery  
       
    Script:  Silvia Richards   from a story by Arthur Fitz-Richard  
    Cinemaography:  Russell Harlan  
       
    Jennifer Jones
5'8"
120 Pounds
Brown Hair
Gray-Green Eyes
Pisces
Real Name: Phyllis Flora Isley
Born: March 2, 1919
Place: Tulsa, Oklahoma
 
When Jennifer Jones arrived in Hollywood in 1939, she still called herself Phyllis Isley. Her face and especially her eyes drew the attention of producer David O. Selznick, who did not only allow her a great career but also fell in love with her and finally married Jennifer Jones in 1949. For her role in The Song Of Bernadette (1943), she won an Oscar as best actress. Between the years 1946 and 1949, she consolidated her fame as either the innocent adolescent or the passionate lover: e.g. in Cluny Brown (1946), Love Letters (1945), Duel In The Sun (1946) or
     
Portrait Of Jennie (1948).
     
     
     
 

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    Thursday May 5th     8:00 pm    
         
    Subject :  Merle Oberon  in    
         
    'Dark Waters'      1944   b&w    Director   André De Toth   -    Benedict Bogeaus Productions    
    w/  Franchot Tone, Thomas Mitchell, Fay Bainter,  Elisha Cook Jr. & John Qualen    
         
    Script :  Joan Harrison, Marian Cockrell, Arthur T. Horman & John Huston (uncredited)      
    Story by:   Marian &  Frank  Cockrell    
    Cinemaography:  John Mescall & Archie Stout        
    Original Music by Miklos Rozsa    
         
   
Merle Oberon
5'2"
112 Pounds
Black Hair
Brown Eyes
Pisces
Real Name: Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson
Born: February 19, 1911
Place: India
Died: November 23, 1979
 
In the annals of motion-picture achievement, Merle stands somewhere between Marlene Dietrich and Loretta Young. The former is more consistently exotic and carefully sophisticated; the latter is a more fashionable mannequin with a more ingratiating, if forced personality. All three female stars offer contrasting variations of the personification of the Fountain Of Youth.
     
What was Merle's deep secret that she hid for years?
     
     
     
 

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    Thursday May 12th     8:00 pm    
         
    Subject :  Hedy Lamarr  in    
         
    'Experiment Perilous'   1944  b&w   Director   Jacques Tourneur   -    RKO Radio Pictures    
    w/  George Brent, Paul Lukas, Albert Dekker & Carl Esmond    
         
    Script :  Warren Duff    from the novel by Margaret Carpenter    
    Cinemaography: Tony Gaudio   ( The Letter  1940 & High Sierra  1941 )    
         
   
Hedy Lamarr
110 Pounds
Black Hair
Green Eyes
Scorpio
Real Name: Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler
Born: November 9, 1913
Place: Vienna, Austria
Died: January 19, 2000
 
Venus, as envisioned by Botticelli, came from the sea and so Hedwig Kiesler was reborn Hedy Lamarr, with the blessings of Louis B. Mayer, on the ocean voyage taking her to Hollywood. Internationally famous as a teenager because of her nude aquatic scene in Ecstasy (1933) produced in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Undeniably the most beautiful screen actress of the late 1930s and up to the early 1950s few would disagree. Her beauty took people's breath away. After a sensational American film debut in Algiers (1938) and during her years at MGM, the challenge, the opportunity her mesmerizing beauty offered as a catalyst --- if not for art at least for compelling drama --- was continually fumbled.
"Any girl can be glamorous," Hedy once said. "All she has to do is stand still and look stupid." The film star belied her own apothegm by hiding a brilliant inventive mind beneath her photogenic exterior. In 1942, at the height of her Hollywood career, she patented a frequency-switching system for torpedo guidance that was two decades ahead of its time and now the cell phones today use that system.
     
     
     
     
 

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    Thursday May 19th     8:00 pm    
         
    Subject :  Joan Crawford  in    
         
    'Flamingo Road'    1949    b&w    Director   Michael Curtiz   -    Michael Curtiz Productions    
    w/  Zachery Scott, Sydney Greenstreets, David Brian, Gladys George & Gertrude Michael    
         
    Script :  Robert Wilder & Sally Wilder  from their play  -  Edmund North additional dialogue    
    Cinemaography: Ted McCord    
    Original Music by Max Steiner    
         
   
Joan Crawford
5'4"
125 Pounds
Brown Hair
Blue Eyes
Aries
Real Name: Lucille Fay Le Sueur
Born: March 23, 1904
Place: San Antonio, Texas
Died: May 10, 1977
 
Joan Crawford ---- Superstar!!! That face, those arched eyebrows, that red slash for a mouth, those high cheekbones, those wide shoulders and wider shoulder pads, that stare, that walk: That is a MOVIE STAR! No other cinema actress, before or since, has succeeded in establishing and maintaining so definite an impression as a glamorous star. Through her willful and highly concerted efforts, with exhaustless energy and ambition, Joan set out to become the best of the movie stars, never entertaining thoughts of failure. Her first film was Lady Of The Night (1925) and her last was Trog (1970).
     
     
     
     
     
 

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with Classic Movies Whiz-kid
Marc Kagan
( as usual, right on the money!! )
 
 
 
 
 
     
     
     
    Free Admission with a Reservation     email:  screenings@hotmail.com  or call  415 552-1533  for seats    
         
    Location given through a invitation request  -   Doors open at 7:00 pm  -  Films at 8:00 pm    
         
    Come early for a drink - Enjoy Our No Host Bar    -   Start your weekend countdown on Thursday night    
         
 

 

 
     
     
    Programmed & Hosted by Marc Kagan   who also wrote the film notes.    
       
    With a special thanks to Paul Meienberg.    
       
    Presented by     
    The Danger & Despair Knitting Circle:    
 
Roma Dolezal, Alan Rode, Ilene Shapiro,
Jim Cassady, Marc Kagan, Edward Dickey,
Eddie Sudol, Allen Petrich, Abby Staeble,
Don Gieb, Daniela Powers, Paul Meienberg,
Jessica Levant, Ron Rich, Marc Dolezal
     
     
     
 

The Thursday Night Screenings are private film events, admission to these events are by

 
 

invitation only through a request and is solely at the discretion of Danger & Despair.

 
     
 

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