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The Film Screening Cooperative

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UCLA’s Melnitz Hall

When I was in the graduate film program at UCLA around 1970, I served as the second chairman of the Film Screening Cooperative (FSC). I didn’t realize it at the time, but it was actually a seminal film society. We invited director Budd Boetticher to screen and talk on the subject of his film Arruza about Mexican bullfighter Carlos Arruza. We also had some wild programs, most notably a quintuple feature of Edgar G. Ulmer films.

Among the voting members of the Film Screening Cooperative were:

  • Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, the husband-wife team who wrote American Graffiti
  • Thom Andersen, a filmmaker, critic, and film teacher who served as the first chairman of the FSC
  • Steve Manes from USC, a screenwriter (Mother, Jugs & Speed), author, and magazine columnist
  • Alain Silver and James Ursini, who collaborated on numerous books on film, particularly Film Noir
  • Charley Lippincott of USC, who was closely associated with George Lucas

The films were screened at the luxurious theater connected to UCLA’s Melnitz Hall.

It was at Melnitz that I was badly spooked on February 9, 1971, the day of the Sylmar earthquake that was ranked at 6.5 on the Richter scale and cause extensive damage and fatalities across Southern California. That evening, I attended a screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Sabotage (1936) at Melnitz. Just when Hitch showed an anarchist sabotaging the electrical system of London, we all felt an aftershock; and all the lights went out.

Two Blind Warriors

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Shintaro Katsu as the Blind Swordsman Zatoichi

I am thinking of two incredible blind warriors. One is from the Japanese cinema circa 1970s; and the other is from the literature of Edwardian England, around the time of the First World War.

During the 1970s I was a big fan of Daiei Studio’s Zatoichi films. At the time, Daiei owned two movie theaters in Los Angeles: the Sho Tokyo in Downtown L.A.’s Little Tokyo and the Kokusai on Crenshaw just south of Adams. Both theaters are long since gone.

Zatoichi was a blind masseur and gambler who also was a samurai-grade swordsman who could slice his opponents to ribbons due to his superior hearing ability. Between 1962 and 1989, Daiei produced some 26 Zatoichi films starring Shintaro Katsu. At the time, Daiei had some excellent action directors such as Kazuo Ikehiro, Issei Mori, Tokuzo Tanaka, and Kenji Misumi. Probably my favorite title was Zatoichi’s Fire Festival (1970).

Skipping to the other blind warrior, we have Private Investigator Max Carrados created by Ernest Bramah, a London tea merchant, who was also responsible for the Kai Lung stories, which can be described as fantasy Chinoiserie.

Max Carrados may not have been a swordsman, but his skills were no less incredible.In “The Coin of Dionysius,” a man named Carlyle investigates a Sicilian tetradrachm, taking it to the blind detective:

For a few seconds Carrados handled the piece with the delicate manipulation of his finger-tips while Carlyle looked on with a self-appreciative grin. Then with equal gravity the blind man weighed the coin in the balance of his hand. Finally he touched it with his tongue.

“Well?” demanded the other.

“Of course I have not much to go on, and if I were more fully in your confidence I might come to another conclusion—”

“Yes, yes,” interposed Carlyle, with amused encouragement.

“Then I would advise you to arrest the parlourmaid, Nina Brun, communicate with the police authorities of Padua for particulars of the career of Helene Brunesi, and suggest to Lord Seastoke that he should return to London to see what further depredations have been made in his cabinet.”

Both the Zatoichi films and the Max Carrados stories are highly entertaining, even if a bit fanciful.

Why We Fight

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How the Axis Powers Planned to Divide the Spoils

In my senior year in college, the frontal headaches from my pituitary tumor (which I didn’t know I had) typically lasted twelve hours, usually noon to midnight. It was at midnight that I would begin to do my homework assignments. Naturally, as an upperclassman I stayed away from classes that began before noon.

The headaches didn’t come every day, usually every other day on the average.So, half the time, I took my classes with the tumor pressing on my optic nerve. I had complained about it at the student infirmary several times, but my real pain was pooh-poohed by the doctors and nurses—which left me thinking I was a terrible wuss.

Around that time, I hung around at Fairbanks Hall, headquarters of Dartmouth Films, which acted as an audio-visual service for the college, and which ran the Dartmouth Film Society, of which I was second in command. In the evenings, I would check out what 16mm film prints had been ordered for various classes and, if the titles interested me, I would screen them for myself.

This is how I watched the “Why We Fight” series of U.S. World War 2 propaganda films, which were produced under the supervision of the man who directed It’s a Wonderful Life, namely Frank Capra, who served as a Major in the Army Signal Corps. Capra served directly under General George C. Marshall in directing or supervising these films. They consisted of:

  • “Prelude to War” (1942)
  • “The Nazis Strike” (1943)
  • “Divide and Conquer” (1943)
  • “The Battle of Britain” (1943)
  • “The Battle of Russia” (1943)
  • “The Battle of China” (1944)
  • “War Comes to America” (1944)

Not part of the series, but viewed by me around the same time, was “Know Your Enemy: Japan” (1945), which was embarrassingly racist.

Other films I remember from this period are two French musicals directed by René Clair (Sous les toits de Paris and Le million, made in 1930 and 1931 respectively). Then there was a French documentary directed by Nelly Kaplan entitled Abel Gance, hier et demain (1963). Once I got to Los Angeles, I made every effort to see as many of Gance’s films as I could. His silent biopic Napoléon (1927) is one of the greatest films ever made.

When I wasn’t screening films for myself, I would chat with my friend Peter Jensen, who was using Dartmouth Films’ Movieola to edit a film he had made based on a Chekhov short story.

Dartmouth Films had a major impact on my life.

The Eyes of Hedy Lamarr

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Clark Gable and Hedy Lamarr in Comrade X (1940)

It was a strange movie made at a strange time by an eminent director (King Vidor). I had never seen Comrade X before, and what I remember most about it were the eyes of Hedy Lamarr. It was an early Hollywood film—released by MGM no less—by the Austrian actress who caused a succès de scandale seven years earlier when she appeared in the buff in a Czech film by Gustav Machaty called Ecstasy.

The strange thing is that Hedy was one of the most intelligent-looking actresses in Hollywood. This is borne out by the fact that she also had a career as an inventor. Not the sort of thing one would expect with a nudie actress.

Hedy Kiesler (Later: Lamarr) in Ecstasy (1933)

I have always regarded Hedy Lamarr as one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood. I watch her films whenever I can because seeing her films gives me a frisson of sorts.

Comrade X was released a year before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. We were officially an ally of Russia at the time and were running aid ships to Stalin via the port of Murmansk. In addition to Gable and Lamarr, the film starred all the usual Slavic suspects, such as Oscar Homolka, Vladmir Sokolov, Felix Bressart, and Mikhail Rasumny. In a few short years, the film’s goofy innocence would be a red flag to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who saw the film as a kowtowing to the Soviet enemy.

Hedy Lamarr as a Russian Streetcar Motorman in Comrade X

When I have recovered sufficiently from my broken collar bone, I plan to seek out and read Lamarr’s ghost-written autobiography, Ecstasy and Me.

Quadruple Feature

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Shin Sabure and Michiyo Kogura in Ozu’s The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice

I had not done such a thing since my early film freak days. Then it was not unusual to sit through five John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, or Budd Boetticher films projected one after the other in a screening room. Yesterday I did the same sort of thing as I watched four Yasujiro Ozu postwar films from Shochiku Studio screened between 5 pm and 12:30 am by Turner Classic Movies (TCM). I could have made it five pictures, but I had to miss Tokyo Twilight (1957) because I was beginning to fade by the time that midnight rolled around.

The films I saw were:

  • Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947) about a small child lost in the ruins of a bombed-out Tokyo
  • A Hen in the Wind (1948) about a young wife sells her body to pay her son’s medical bills
  • The Flavor of Green Tea Over Rice (1952) about a middle-aged couple that begins to separate over various issues, but comes together again in the end
  • Early Spring (1956) about the travails of salary-men in Tokyo

All four films were brilliant, and all featured interpersonal problems which ended in some form of reconciliation. In the divided West, such reconciliation would be replaced by buying a gun, wearing camouflage clothing, and committing a hate crime. We seem to prefer the irreconcilable in our own entertainment.

I am enthralled by TCM’s Ozu festival. So far this month, I have seen nine Ozu films; and there are four more screening next Tuesday, plus two more that I missed but could see using TCM’s WATCH NOW feature.

Why do I love Ozu’s films so much? For one thing, they are jewel-like in their perfection—even the silent films Ozu made before 1937. Also, they make me feel good without being saccharine in any way: His films, psychologically, are true to life. (In two of the films, there are depressed little boys with a bed-wetting problem.) Finally, Ozu’s films have a Buddhist sense of Mono no aware, which can be translated as “the pathos of things” or “the bittersweet awareness of impermanence.”

Yes, his films are all bittersweet. But they all end in sweetness.

The Spaces Between Scenes

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Japanese Film Director Yasujiro Ozu (1903-1963)

I did not post yesterday because I was enthralled by an evening of Yasujiro Ozu films on Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Likely, I will be equally remiss on the remaining Tuesdays in May, because TCM will be screening his films on those days.

If not the greatest filmmaker who ever lived, he is certainly one of the top three. Ever since I saw Late Spring (1949) and Tokyo Story (1953) at Dartmouth College, I have been enthralled by Ozu. I literally cannot let a film of his go unwatched if there is any chance I could see it. Consequently, I was up last night past midnight watching a triple feature of:

  • The Ozu Diaries (2025), a biopic directed by Daniel Raim based on the director’s diaries
  • I Was Born But … (1932), a silent feature by the director
  • The Only Son (1936), the director’s first sound feature

I could have stayed up until 3 am to watch A Story of Floating Weeds (1934), but I was starting to flag past the midnight hour.

What makes Ozu’s films so special?

Most of the dozen or so features I have seen to date concentrate on family relationships, especially where children are involved. This is interesting because Ozu never married. In fact, he lived with his mother until her death in 1961. Yet his portrayals of female characters and children are second to none in the entire history of the cinema. If you see Setsuko Hara as Noriko in Late Spring or the little boys in I Was Born But …, you will know what I mean.

No other filmmaker so lovingly includes scenes in which (apparently) nothing happens. Perhaps there is a scenic shot in which a train passes by. Other times there are empty rooms or laundry hanging up to dry or simple kitchen household objects. In one of his diaries, Ozu admits to being interested in “the spaces between scenes.”

Very Buddhist, this. In fact, Ozu and his mother are buried under a stone in which the only identification is the Japanese character mu, “Nothingness.”

At times, Ozu’s directorial touch is so perfect that even God Himself could do no better if he took a turn behind the camera.

No, Not Tonight, I Have a Headache

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#OscarsSoPolitical

Usually around the time of the Academy Awards, I write a negative appraisal of the Oscars, if not of all award shows. Here are just some of my negatory yawps in no particular order:

This year I will refrain from casting aspersions on the awards except to say that I have no idea who won what this year, nor do I care.

Instead, I will say that I have not seen any current movies this last year. I am tired of paying an inordinate amount of money to see a bunch of young actors making faces at one another in a vehicle that is devoid of story or cinematic value. The filmmakers I worshiped are all gone: John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Jean-Luc Godard, Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Carl Theodor Dreyer, and Luis Buñuel among others. They have been replaced by people from television, video games, and TikTok.

When people watch films on smart phones and other small screens, it’s pretty much game over.

Perhaps this marks me as an old-timer, but I don’t give a damn. I will continue to watch the great films that have meant so much to me, and to boycott the current product unless it shows signs of genius. So far, there haven’t been many films worth watching.

Fairbanks Hall

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Fairbanks Hall As It Is Today

In the picture above, the left half of the building shown was added some time after I graduated from Dartmouth College in 1966. To see the Fairbanks Hall that I knew and loved, put your hand over the left half of the picture.

When I was a freshman at Dartmouth, I paid a visit to Fairbanks Hall in its old location just north of Baker Library. I heard that Dartmouth Films, which occupied the building, was showing free films. One day, I wondered into the small auditorium and saw Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1943 masterpiece Day of Wrath (Vredens Dag) about witchcraft in the 17th century. The Danish film electrified me. I had seen a handful of foreign films back in Cleveland, but nothing this good.

That year, the Hopkins Center for the Arts had its grand opening, and the Dartmouth Film Society was able to screen films in the center’s large and fancy auditorium. At the time, I was planning on being an English major; but suddenly new possibilities opened up. The Film Society inaugurated the Hopkins Center auditorium with the world premier of John Huston’s Freud.

In my sophomore year, the college lifted Fairbanks Hall from its north campus location and plunked it down in the middle of the parking lot between Massachusetts Hall and the Hanover, New Hampshire cemetery. I started hanging out there, having long conversations with Blair Watson, who headed up Dartmouth Films, and David Stewart Hull, his assistant.

By my junior year, I was an active member of the Dartmouth Film Society; and the next year, I was its assistant director. By that time, my pituitary tumor was causing intense pain, usually in the form of frontal headaches which started just before noon and (for some reason) ended around midnight. In between those hours, I figured I could screen films for myself on the 16mm projector. I dropped in daily to see what films had been received for screening in classes around campus and threaded the projector if any of them looked interesting. There was a small screening booth I could use for the purpose.

Among the highlights of the films I saw that year were the Frank Capra Why We Fight films made to show Americans why we were fighting in the Second World War; Nelly Kaplan’s great documentary about the films of Abel Gance; René Clair’s French musicals Sous les toits de Paris and Le million; and a whole host of other highly miscellaneous films.

While in Fairbanks, I usually ran into my friend Peter, who was busy editing one of the films he had shot. Today, he lives some twenty-five miles south of me.

Fairbanks Hall had a major influence on my choice of graduate school. I had received a citation for excellence in a class on film history; and I decided to apply to the UCLA film school for an advanced degree in motion picture history and criticism.

I Vitelloni (1953)

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Scene from Fellini’s I Vitelloni (1953)

We’ve all been there. In our salad days, we hung out with our buds in the town of our birth. In Federico Fellini’s case, the town was Rimini on the Adriatic Sea, a fading resort town in Emilia-Romagna. We all admired the leader of our band, who married the cute local girl (Miss Mermaid), but whose eyes kept wandering, even when his daughter was born.

Perhaps La Strada was Fellini’s best film, or La Dolce Vita; but my favorite was I Vitelloni, an Italian term that, translated, means “The Layabouts” or “The Slackers.” We see the band slowly break up. The autobiographical Fellini character, Moraldo, leaves Rimini at the end with no specific destination in mind.

I might be going out on a limb when I say this, but I Vitelloni is my favorite film about surviving one’s youth. I, too, hung out with a bunch of slackers. As I was a graduate student in film history at UCLA, the layabouts I hung out with were all film freaks. We used to get together at Canter’s Deli on Fairfax after a movie and engage in what I called “trading bubble-gum cards.” This involved saying which film was great and which wasn’t. There was seldom any agreement.

In the last few years, I lost two of my vitelloni, Norm Witty and Lee Sanders, who were integral parts of the band. But I left the group long before. I marked my departure by writing an article for the UCLA Daily Bruin entitled “Confessions of an Ex-Film-Freak, or: Slow Death Twenty-Four Times a Second.” Some day I’ll find my copy of that article and put a few quotes from it in a blog post.

Escape from the Big Game

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The View from My Brother’s Back Yard

There is always a big game on TV, so I usually make my escape from the drone of the sports announcers by heading to my brother’s back yard with a book. Fortunately, the book I was reading was a humdinger: Edward John Trelawny’s Records of Shelley, Byron, and the Author.

Unlike me, Dan likes to relax by watching football, basketball, and baseball games on the weekend. Unlike our late father, he is not a dyed-in-the-wool fan of any particular team: He enjoys the game even when the local boys lose, as the Los Angeles Rams did on Sunday against the Seattle Seahawks.

And, as I was with him all weekend, I had to entertain myself part of the day. This last weekend, the mercury in the early afternoons was in the low 70s Fahrenheit (low 20s Celsius). By the late afternoon, however, it started to cool down; so I was exposed to a broad spectrum of televised sports. My favorite was the game between the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots in a white-out blizzard. All the yard indicators and hatch marks were covered with snow, forcing the stadium maintenance personnel to melt the snow at key points.

Football in the Snow

As always, it was fun to get together with my brother and sister-in-law. We watched several movies on TV, including Bubba Ho-Tep (2003). This was a film all three of us liked twenty years ago. In the intervening years, however, we seem to have changed and now regard the film with some disfavor. The other film we saw was Takeshi Kitano’s Broken Rage (2024), which started great but descended into randomness.

To make up for the sports and bad movies, the food was great, There are some wonderful Mexican restaurants in the Coachella Valley, and my brother’s cooking is superb or better.