Bart Tare loves guns. After an ill-advised attempt to steal one at age fourteen lands him in reform school and the army, Bart returns home, where he meets Annie Laurie Starr, a sharpshooter at a local carnival. It is love at first gunsight. The fact that she’s a bad girl who may have been involved in prostitution and murder hardly seems to matter. Together they embark on a robbery spree, even pulling off a major heist, but not before Laurie has killed two people, putting the FBI  on their tail. “If you had to select a single film to justify the present enthusiasm for film noir and define its allure, few movies could compete with GUN CRAZY.”—Richard T. Jameson. (86 mins.)

PRECEDED BY

BUSY BODIES
DIRECTOR: LLOYD FRENCH
US, 1933
In this masterpiece of physical comedy by Laurel and Hardy, Stan and Ollie report for work at the sawmill, haplessly creating mayhem with planks and saws. (19 mins.)

GUN CRAZY preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute. Preserved in cooperation with Warner Bros. from the original 35mm picture and track negatives. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, YCM Laboratories, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio, Simon Daniel Sound. Special thanks to Ned Price.

BUSY BODIES preservation funded by Turner Classic Movies, Jeff Joseph/SabuCat, The Packard Humanities Institute, Laurel & Hardy Preservation Fund, including the support of many Sons Of The Desert Tents, and in honor of National Film Preserve: Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer and Julie Huntsinger. Preserved from the 35mm nitrate original picture and track negatives and a 35mm nitrate composite lavender print. Laboratory services by YCM Laboratories, The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio. Special thanks to: Richard W. Bann, Jeff Joseph, RHI Entertainment, LLC

Chuck Scott (Robert Cummings) is a down-on-his-luck ex-serviceman in need of a meal in post-war Miami. Stumbling upon a lost wallet, he traces it back to the palatial home of suave businessman Eddie Roman (Steve Cochran), who, pleased by Scotty’s honesty, offers him a job as chauffeur. Scotty soon learns that Roman is bad news, likely involved in a business rival’s death, but keeps his mouth shut for the sake of a meal ticket. His resolve is tested, however, when Roman’s trophy wife Lorna (Michèle Morgan) appeals to him to help her escape her loveless marriage and flee to Havana. “Through a series of adroit directorial strokes, in the Hitchcock tradition, the pic’s momentum is made to mount in a steady, ascending line.”—Variety. (86 mins.)

Preservation funded by The Film Foundation and the Franco-American Cultural fund, a unique partnership between Directors Guild of America (DGA), Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SACEM), Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW).

Preserved from the incomplete 35mm nitrate original picture and track negatives, an incomplete 35mm nitrate dupe picture negative, an incomplete 35mm nitrate composite dupe negative, an incomplete 35mm nitrate French composite dupe negative, and 16mm acetate picture and track negatives. Laboratory services by Cinetech, Deluxe Media Services, Fotokem Film and Video, Audio Mechanics, Chace Audio by Deluxe, DJ Audio.

Paramount Pictures paid $50,000 for Sinclair Lewis’s justifiably forgotten novel MANTRAP, but happily, screenwriters Ethel Doherty and Adelaide Heilbron turned Lewis’s misogynistic tirade into a light-as-a-feather comedy romp. New York lawyer Ralph Prescott and a friend escape city life on a camping trip near Mantrap, Canada, but soon find themselves out of their depth. After the two get into a fight, a local trading post owner takes Prescott home, where Prescott meets his flirtatious new wife Alverna (Clara Bow). Sparks fly instantly between Prescott and Alverna—all thanks to Bow and her Jazz Age characterization of an outrageous good-time girl who leads at least two men by the nose but nevertheless honors her commitment…at least until the next prospect comes along. (86 mins.)

FOLLOWED BY

MIDNIGHT MADNESS
DIRECTOR: F. HARMON WEIGHT
US, 1928
“Its very title reeks of strange people, mystery, suspense!” read the publicity for this silent melodrama, loosely inspired by “The Taming of the Shrew.” Secretary Norma Forbes accepts the proposal of wealthy diamond miner Michael Bream but reveals to her boss and actual love interest that she’s only marrying for the money. Eavesdropping through a conveniently open door, Michael schemes to teach her a lesson by leading her to believe he is penniless. After the wedding, he takes her to South Africa, where they settle in a bleak shack and where Norma discovers the hardships of life in the jungle. She sends a cable to her former employer to retrieve her. After the two men fight, Michael is bound and left prey to a lion—prompting Norma to realize her true feelings and attempt a daring rescue. (65 mins.)

MANTRAP preservation funded by David Stenn. Preserved in cooperation with Paramount Pictures from a 35mm acetate fine grain master positive. Laboratory services by YCM Laboratories.

MIDNIGHT MADNESS preservation funded by Sony Pictures Entertainment. Preserved by Sony Pictures Entertainment and UCLA Film & Television Archive from a 35mm nitrate print. Laboratory services by Film Technology Company, Inc. Additional laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory. This film was preserved through a partnership of the New Zealand Film Archive, the American archival community, and the National Film Preservation Foundation, as part of a project supported by Save America’s Treasures, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service, Department of the Interior.

The manic, boisterous energy that marks many Hollywood comedies of the early sound era owes to the vaudeville stars who found second careers on the big screen. INTERNATIONAL HOUSE features “a fortune in marquee material,” including WC Fields, George Burns, Gracie Allen, and Peggy Hopkins Joyce. The story begins when eccentric Dr. Wong (Edmund Breese) calls an international conference at a swanky hotel in “Wu Hu, China” to demonstrate his latest invention, the radioscope, which can pick up images and sound from anywhere in the world. As potential investors descend on the hotel—literally in the case of Fields’s Professor Quail, who arrives via “autogyro”—various storylines emerge. Adding to the mayhem are performances on Dr. Wong’s device by popular radio entertainers Rudy Vallee, Baby Rose Marie, and Cab Calloway. (68 mins.)

FOLLOWED BY

THIRTY DAY PRINCESS
DIRECTOR: MARION GERING
US, 1934
With an ebullient yet simple script penned by four different writers, including a pre-heyday Preston Sturges, THIRTY DAY PRINCESS stars Depression-era heroine Sylvia Sidney in a rare comedic turn—or, rather, two. First, Sidney shines as the European princess who travels to America to secure a much-needed loan for her country, but when she falls ill, someone has to take her place on a nationwide goodwill tour. Enter Nancy Lane (Sidney again), a struggling New York actress and the spitting image of the princess. To succeed in her new role, Nancy must convince a cynical newspaperman (Cary Grant) of her authenticity, even if it means losing her heart in the charade. “It’s fun. It’s clever. It’s suspenseful. And it presents a running fire of bright dialogue that keeps the corners of your mouth turned up.”—Chicago Daily Tribune. (74 mins.)

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INTERNATIONAL HOUSE preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute. Preserved in conjunction with Universal Pictures from a 35mm composite nitrate print and a 35mm acetate dupe negative. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio, Simon Daniel Sound. Special thanks to Bob O’Neil.

THIRTY DAY PRINCESS preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute. Preserved in cooperation with Universal Pictures from a 35mm nitrate composite print. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio. 

New Yorkers who flocked in the fall of 1933 to see Elizabeth McFadden’s play Double Door knew it was inspired by Manhattan’s Wendel family, a Gilded Age dynasty of fabulously wealthy eccentrics. What could be more gothic than seven sisters sequestered in a gloomy mansion, tainted by madness, forbidden to marry, presided over by an avaricious brother? DOUBLE DOOR is a dark riff on this legend, compressed into a three-act melodrama. The scion became a tyrannical spinster, holding in thrall a neurotic sister and a demoralized kid brother. When the brother makes a bid for sanity and freedom and takes a bride, the wheels of madness begin to turn. (75 mins.)

FOLLOWED BY

SUPERNATURAL
DIRECTOR: VICTOR HALPERIN
US, 1933
On the strength of their independent horror film WHITE ZOMBIE, a freak success in 1932, Victor and Edward Halperin landed at Paramount on a one-picture deal. It was the only time in their careers that the Halperins worked at a major studio with access to first-rate production facilities, competent supporting players, and a major star—in this case, Carole Lombard, eager to prove she was more than just the queen of screwball comedy. Lombard plays heiress Roma Courtenay, who is approached by a quack spiritualist claiming to carry an important message from her deceased brother. After participating in a séance in the hopes of speaking with her brother, Lombard becomes possessed by the malevolent spirit of an executed murderess with unfinished business…. (65 mins.)

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DOUBLE DOOR preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute. Preserved in conjunction with Universal Pictures from the 35mm nitrate studio composite answer print. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio, Simon Daniel Sound. Special thanks to Bob O’Neil.

SUPERNATURAL preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute. Preserved in conjunction with Universal Pictures from a 35mm composite nitrate print and 35mm acetate fine grain master. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio, Simon Daniel Sound. Special thanks to Bob O’Neil.

THAT COLD DAY IN THE PARK displayed Altman’s iconoclastic fascinations: a sensitivity to schisms within normalcy, a fascination with female subjectivity, and the construction of atmospheres as expressive of psychological states. Sandy Dennis portrays Frances Austen, a young spinster living in a well-appointed apartment in Vancouver, where she listlessly entertains an older suitor and engages in dull domestic routines. From her window one day, Frances spies a young man on a park bench outside, visibly cold and wet. Inviting him inside, she shows the handsome, apparently mute stranger every hospitality—food, clothes, conversation, and a room. Little does she realize that her guest has a complex life of his own, to which he escapes nightly through his bedroom window. The stage is set for conflict as Frances’s loneliness takes on a ferocity that drives the story to a harrowing conclusion. (113 mins.)

Preservation funded by The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, The Film Foundation.

Preserved in cooperation with Paramount Pictures from the 35mm acetate original picture and track negatives, and a 35mm magnetic track. Laboratory services by YCM Laboratories, Audio Mechanics, DJ Audio.

President Kennedy’s speech on the occasion of Robert Frost receiving the Congressional Gold Medal in March 1962 forms the epigraph for director Shirley Clarke’s powerfully human portrait of Frost, shot just months before the iconic poet’s death in 1963. Clarke intercuts footage of Frost out in the world—speaking to students, touring a naval vessel, delivering a talk at Sarah Lawrence College—and scenes of his purposeful, solitary puttering around his rural home in Vermont. While capturing the rhythmic flow of the poet’s life, Clarke also allows her subject to comment on her approach. Speaking to his audience at Sarah Lawrence, Frost comments on the cameras on stage with him: “What you’re seeing here, this sideshow, this is a documentary film going on…but it is a false picture that presents me as always digging potatoes or saying my own poems.” (51 mins.)

FOLLOWED BY

EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, ZOOPRAXOGRAPHER
DIRECTOR: THOM ANDERSEN, WITH FAY ANDERSEN AND MORGAN FISHER
US, 1975
Thom Andersen’s first feature announced the arrival of one of America’s most significant documentary auteurs. EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, ZOOPRAXOGRAPHER is at once a biography of Muybridge, a reanimation of his historic sequential photographs, and an inspired examination of their philosophical implications. Working in collaboration with filmmaker Morgan Fisher, composer Mike Cohen, Muybridge biographer Robert Bartlett Haas, and narrator Dean Stockwell, Andersen took the idea of reanimating raw material and expanded it into a profound meditation on the nature of vision. The title speaks to both Muybridge’s practice of motion study and his 1879 device, which enabled the images’ projection. As such, the film foregrounds Muybridge’s role in the invention of cinema and cinema itself as an illusion arising from stillness. “One of the best essay films ever made on a cinematic subject.” —Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader. (59 mins.)

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ROBERT FROST: A LOVER'S QUARREL WITH THE WORLD preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive and UCLA Film & Television Archive from two 35mm acetate prints. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, and NT Picture and Sound. Special thanks to Joe Lindner, Robert Gitt.

EADWEARD MUYBRIDGE, ZOOPRAXOGRAPHER preservation funded by The Packard Humanities Institute. Preserved in consultation with Thom Andersen from the original 16mm color reversal A/B rolls and the original 16mm fullcoat magnetic soundtrack. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, Audio Mechanics, Endpoint Audio Labs, NT Picture and Sound, Modern VideoFilm, Inc.