Nothing gets us goofy more than flappers. They're the bee's knees and the elephant's eyebrows all rolled into one -- plain said, they're da berries. Smoking ciggies and wearing kiss-proof lipstick, flappers put all those killjoys, Mrs. Grundys, and wet blankets in a twist by defying the dull old school rules of female behavior. These dizzy dames defy the fuddyduddies of the day by bobbing their hair short like a boy, and attending cuddle parties like there's no tomorrow. Heck, if they get gussed up on giggle water, they'll even ride bicycles openly for all to see. These devil-may-care kids love to get dolled up and flash their gams while doing wild and woozy dances like the Charleston, the Shimmy, the Dunderklumpen and the Bunny Hug in speakeasies and juice joints of the Jazz Age. So put on the ritz, rope a dope, bring your sugardaddy and come to the Cinefamily petting pantry to catch the latest flick. They're the cat's meow!
2/3 @ 8:00pm / Series: Flappers The Flapper
Whenever we hear "flapper girl", we all think of the head-turningly beautiful, wise-cracking Jazz Age lass with the bobbed hair who's the life of the party -- but before the popularization of that image, there was The Flapper, the film that started it all, featuring of the most popular stars of the 1920s (but an elusive name to us now,) Olive Thomas. Written by influential female screenwriter Frances Marion, the story follows a teenage girl cursed with being full of life in a Footloose-style morally restrictive Florida town. She just wants to have some innocent fun and be herself, but her wily ways, along with her loose-laced shoes (her "flapper" boots) give her away to anyone who thinks she's a prim and proper maid. Add to this scenes of Olive in high society (decked out in jewelry and fancy clothes) as she aids some jewel thieves, and you've got a proto-It Girl that'll steal your heart and leave you charmed.NOTE: the password to gain entry into the evening's backyard speakeasy is..."swordfish"! Dir. Alan Crosland, 1920, 35mm, 88 min. (Restored 35mm print courtesy of The George Eastman House)
Watch an excerpt from "The Flapper"!
Co-presented by Don't Knock The Rock and The Silent Treatment
Tickets - $12 (all customers who appear in 1920s flapper/period attire get in for only $6!)
2/17 @ 8:00pm / Series: Flappers Getting Gertie's Garter shown with Up In Mabel's Room Tonight's double feature takes a look at one of the Silent era's most prolific and adorable flappers: cutie-pie Marie Prevost, who starred in over 120 silents and talkies after being discovered by Mack Sennett (who dubbed her his "exotic French girl"), and whose dark curls, full lips and beaming eyes set a nation of suitors' hearts aflutter. We start the night with the frothy comedy Getting Gertie's Garter, where attorney Ken Walrick must reclaim a sexually suggestive gift (the garter given to Gertie, natch) before his other girl (ahem, his wife) finds out. Up next is Up In Mabel's Room, featuring another undergarment-related turn of events. Mabel must fight for her husband back after divorcing him for purchasing lingerie for some hot tart (who turned out to be Mabel herself! Yowzah!). So, straighten your stockings, adjust your bra straps, and don't get your panties in a bunch because definitive flapper girl Marie Prevost is a real pistol. Getting Gertie's Garter Dir. E. Mason Hopper, 1927, 35mm, 70 min. Up In Mabel's Room Dir. E. Mason Hopper, 1926, 35mm, 70 min.
Watch an excerpt from "Up In Mabel's Room"!
Tickets - $10
2/24 @ 8:00pm / Series: Flappers The Patsy
As newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst’s real-life mistress, Marion Davies garnered a lifelong reputation for controversy and an unjustified caricature in the form of Citizen Kane’s ditzy charmer, Susan Alexander. The limelight was often unflattering to Davies, and her ill-advised turns (at Hearst’s insistence) in overwrought dramas overshadowed her wonderful run as a skilled comedienne in some of the Roaring Twenties’ most playful films. The Patsy casts Davies in the sort of role she was born to play -- a flighty, loveable flapper who's perceived as a pain by stuffy family members who aspire to be up-and-comers on the social circuit. Starting off meek, Marion "ditches washing dishes for a personality transfusion and drives her family nuts by mangling dictums and hitting on soused playboys." (cinepassion.org) In addition to the fun of watching the vivacious Davies vamping it up, don't miss the hilarious scene where she does spot-on impressions of three other silent starlets: Mae Murray, Pola Negri and Lillian Gish! Dir. King Vidor, 1928, 35mm, 78 min.
Watch an excerpt from "The Patsy"!
Tickets - $10
Silent Chic / Silent Wednesdays in March
Fashion is fleeting, but style is forever -- and the glamour and decadence of the 1920s (a decade which saw the first emancipation of American women) built an extravagant playground for the costume designers of the silent film era to explore. Along with the look of the "flapper", that new, brash breed of woman unconcerned with society's stuffy mores, trends also pointed to a softer, captivating and more beguiling look than ever before in popular culture. And so, the era bid goodbye to the corset, and gave a gracious welcome to Gilbert Adrian, Clement André-ani, and Romaine de Tirtoff (Erté)! These were the designers whose prowess defined sex appeal, turned heads and created looks that continue to stop the world in its tracks.
3/3 @ 8:00pm / Series: Silent Wednesdays The Mystic
Gypsies, scams, carnivals and magic -- all with the signature flair that director Tod Browning brought to classics like The Unholy Three, Freaks and Dracula. The Mystic follows Hungarian gypsy fortune teller Zara (played by the alluring Aileen Pringle) and her two cohorts as they take their show on the road to the U.S., and craft a scheme (backed by an unscrupulous American) to grift a gullible heiress by pretending to communicate with the dead. Even though the plot of The Mystic is to expose fraudulent spiritualism, the theme actually capitalized on the public’s persistent interest in occult themes throughout the 1920s, and Browning himself was inspired by the German Expressionist movement that sprouted just a few years earlier with distorted dreamlike carnival settings that surface in this film. As well as the visuals being superior, The Mystic also boasts the sumptuous costumes of famed French designer "Erté", whose elegant illustrations influenced the Art Deco movement. Come be hypnotized by the only Los Angeles 35mm screening of this film in ages! Dir. Tod Browning, 1925, 35mm, 70 min.
Co-presented by The Silent Treatment
Tickets - $12
3/17 @ 8:00pm / Series: Silent Wednesdays Women Love Diamonds
From its title, Women Love Diamonds sounds like a genteel, sweet romance, but is really a melodrama that's surprisingly gritty for its time, and contains enough bursts of emotion to rival works by Sirk or Borzage. Pauline Starke plays a young woman of dubious parentage supported by Lionel Barrymore, whom she claims is her uncle. Finding love in the arms of both rich suitor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and his valet, and then a brutal rejection when her family truth is revealed, Starke must climb her way back from the murky emotional depths. When original casting choice Greta Garbo went on salary strike from MGM, the film's costume designer must have breathed a sigh of relief. Clemente André-Ani, a collaborator of Erté and costumier for contract players like Norma Shearer and Marion Davies, never saw eye-to-eye with Garbo's outspoken ideas about overdone American fashion, and subsequently loaded Women Love Diamonds with enough lavish flowing gowns, hats and jewelry to clothe an army of radiant damsels.
Dir. Edmund Goulding, 1927, 35mm, 70 min.
Tickets - $10
3/24 @ 8:00pm / Series: Silent Wednesdays A Woman Of Affairs A Woman of Affairs marks the third pairing of on- and off-screen lovers Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, and is based on the 1924 bestseller "The Green Hat" -- a novel so scandalous that when it arrived on the desks of the MGM story department, it was labeled "sordid and filthy and entirely impossible for screen consideration!" Garbo plays an elegant woman who's forbidden by her family to marry Gilbert, a suave aristocrat, and so instead marries a loser who turns out to be a crook. After his death, she reunites with a now-married Gilbert, setting off an explosive and tragic spiral of events. A Woman Of Affairs is the first of almost twenty films in which Garbo's wardrobe was designed by Adrian (the costumier behind classics like The Wizard Of Oz and Camille), who very quickly rose through the ranks at MGM, and whose iconic work for Garbo is so integral to her persona that without it, it's possible she might've been just another Swedish starlet. Dir. Clarence Brown, 1928, 35mm, 91 min.
The Flapper
Getting Gertie's Garter
The Patsy
The Mystic
Women Love Diamonds
A Woman Of Affairs
