Day for Night (1973)
French melodrama Je Vous Présente Paméla stars an older screen legend, a younger sex symbol, and a British actress (Jacqueline Bissett). During filming, the cast and crew wish the interminable, troubled shoot would end.
In a charming bit of camera winking meta narrative, the director, Francois Truffaut, plays Ferrand, the director of the film within the film.
Before directing the seminal French New Wave film, The 400 Blows (1959). Truffaut began his career as a film critic, developing the auteur theory, which positioned the director as the primary artistic engine in the filmmaking process.
This love letter to the collaborative process of movie making, challenges his theory. Rather than the product of a deeply personal vision of a singular director, Je Vous Présente Paméla is the result of an unpredictable collaboration, the director’s vision filtered through fights over actor motivation and budgets.
Panic in the Streets (1950)
When Kochak is killed by gangster Blackie (Jack Palance), the coroner finds elements of bacteria in his blood and realizes Kochak was carrying “pneumonic plague.” The film becomes a mad dash to identify his murderers to avoid a pandemic.
Palance was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in Shane (1953) forty years before he won for his work as Curly Washburn. He played Fidel Castro in Che! (1969) and had a small role in Tim Burton’s Batman (1989), but he’s most famous for his impromptu one-handed push-ups at the 64th Academy Awards.
Zero Mostel has a small role as Raymond Fitch, a gangster associate of Blackie. Mostel made an indelible impression in The Producers (1968), but his film career was limited because of his refusal to testify before the House Un-American Activites Committee.
An early proponent of The Method, Eliza Kazan revolutionized film acting with the freedom he allowed Marlon Brando, James Dean, and Andy Griffith, but, unlike Mostel, Kazan gave friendly testimony to HUAC. He continued to work into his old age, but his reputation in Hollywood never recovered. When he received an honorary Academy Award, a significant portion of the audience refused to applaud.
The value of this generic film lies in seeing young Palance, Mostel, and insight into the later work of Kazan.
MECCA: The Floor that Made Milwaukee Famous (2014)
In 1978, the owners of the MECCA Arena commissioned pop artist Robert Indiana, most well-known for Love, to paint their basketball floor.
The home of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks became a source of local pride, but after the team moved in 1988, the arena was renovated and the floor removed.
This short documentary traces the efforts of a Milwaukee man to locate and preserve the iconic floor.
It’s a cute, but slight film about passion and the attachments we develop with inanimate objects.