What’s Screening: April 16 – 22

The Sonoma International Film Festival continues through Sunday, and the San Francisco International Film Festival opens Thursday. And we’ve got an earthquake to commemorate.

A- The Palm Beach Story, Stanford, Saturday through Tuesday. No one wrote and directed screwball comedies as well as Preston Sturges, and if this one doesn’t quite come up to the brilliant level of The Lady Eve, it’s still too good to earn a mere B. It’s not just the absurdity of casting singer Rudy Vallee as the millionaire rival ready to win Claudette Colbert from husband Joel McCrea, it’s also the Weenie King, the Ale and Quail Club, Toto, and the most ridiculous happy ending ever filmed. On a double-bill with another Preston Sturges comedy, Unfaithfully Yours, which I’ve seen too long ago to comment on.

B- San Francisco, Castro, Sunday, 8:00. A big, silly, melodramatic special effects vehicle made before people thought of movies as special effects vehicles, San Francisco is a classic example of code-era Hollywood trying to have it both ways. It celebrates the non-conformist, hedonistic, open-minded joy that, at least to the screenwriters, symbolized the Barbary Coast. But it covers itself in a thick layer of Christian moralizing that’s as annoying as it is laughable. Still, San Francisco has considerable pleasures, especially in the last half hour when the earth shakes and the fires break out. And let’s not forget the title song–the best ever written about a city. And speaking of music, the evening’s entertainment includes a live performance by Blackie Norton’s Paradise Club Band (the group’s name is a reference to the movie). In honor of the Big One’s 104 anniversary.

C Old San Francisco, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:00. And while we’re honoring the big one, let’s do it with aristocratic Spaniards, corrupt Chinese, a caged dwarf, an Irishman in love, and an evil land speculator with a humiliating secret–all shaken by the 1906 earthquake and stirred by lurid melodrama. Silly and offensively racist, but still fun, Old San Francisco offers considerable historical interest with its fascinating glimpse at how Hollywood (and white America) saw the world in 1927. With its pre-Jazz Singer Vitaphone music-and-effects soundtrack, the essentially silent Old San Francisco stands as an important early film in the transition to sound. But you won’t hear that soundtrack at Niles; Frederick Hodges will be tickling the ivories, instead.

B Enchanted, Cerrito, Sunday, noon.  Howard Hawks’ famous criteria for a great film–three good scenes and no bad ones–almost applies to this family fantasy. It has  more than three great scenes. But it also has a few that border on the edge of just plain bad. Riffing on traditional, Disneyesqe fairy tales, Enchanted transplants the familiar characters (a beautiful blonde princess, handsome prince, and so on) from an animated fantasy land into live action New York. Amy Adams nails the princess part perfectly, and the two big production numbers are among the funniest ever staged. But other cast members, especially Patrick Dempsey, are just plain dull, and near the end, the movie forgets it’s a comedy. But when it works, it’s enchanting. Read my full review.

Hippie Temptation, Red Vic, Friday. I saw this already aging CBS news special in a club not too far from the current location of the Red Vic, probably about 1977. At the time, I thought it was hilarious (unintentionally, of course). I have no idea how I would react to it today.

A The Gold Rush, Davies Symphony Hall, Friday, 8:00, Saturday, 2:00. Of all the important works of the silent era—at least the preserved ones—none is more difficult to see properly than Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 masterpiece (his own personal favorite). The fault lies in Chaplin himself, who re-edited The Gold Rush and added narration in 1942, then insisted that the alteration was the definitive version. (See The Altered Charlie Chaplin Problem.) But now is your chance to see the original, accompanied not by piano, or organ, or even by spoken narration from the world’s greatest mime, but by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. The catch: It’s expensive, and seats are running out.

BThe Big Lebowski, Red Vic, Sunday through Tuesday. Critics originally panned this Coen Brothers gem as a disappointing follow-up to the Coen’s previous endeavor,  Fargo. Well, it isn’t as good as the Coen’s masterpiece, but it’s still one hell of a funny movie. It’s also built quite a cult following; The Big Lebowski has probably played more Bay Area one-night stands in the years I’ve been maintaining this site than than any three other movies put together.