What’s Screening: March 22 – 28

~ Lincoln Spector

This week we have Anna May Wong, Carol Doda, Spider-Man, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, and James Dean. I set up this newsletter earlier than usual, so there may be some changes.

Festivals & Series

Something special

Piccadilly (1929), Roxie, Monday, 6:15pm

I haven’t given this film a grade because I haven’t seen it in nine years. The always-amazing Anna May Wong plays a scullery maid turned dancer in this British film. If memory serves, it’s a great film. Along with the film, there will be a discussion with Katie Gee Salisbury, the author of Not Your China Doll. It’s a silent film, and I’m not sure if there’s live music.

New films

B Carol Doda Topless at the Condor, check dates and times at the Rafael & Roxie


If you’re interested in recent San Francisco history, this documentary is well worth watching. As far as I know, Doda was the first woman who became famous by dancing topless in a bar (and one a piano). At first, she seemed to enjoy her work and celebrity, but her life was not a happy one. After all, no one wants middle-aged nude dancers. And yet, some of the now-old strippers who were interviewed for this film, seemed nostalgic for that time. What shocked me the most? The police allowed sex acts on stage…as long as both performers were both white.

Vintage films on the big screen

A Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, New Parkway, Thursday, 9:30pm

This animated superhero feature brings laughs and joy. True, Peter Parker dies in the first act, but there’s another Peter Parker, older and with a pot belly. There are several other Spider people from different dimensions as well. But the main Spider-Man here is Miles, a black kid from Brooklyn who must learn how to use his new powers. He’s awkward, funny, and just entering adolescence. And the last thing he wants to do is fight supervillains.

Fritz Lang Double Bill at the Roxie: Metropolis & Woman in the Window

A Metropolis (1927), opens Saturday
The first important science fiction feature film still strikes a considerable visual punch. The images – workers in a hellish underground factory, the wealthy at play, a robot in the form of a beautiful woman – are a permanent part of our collective memory. Read my longer report.
C The Woman in the Window (1944)
It’s a clear-cut case of self-defense, and yet the main characters do all sorts of stupid things to hide their connection to the corpse. With direction by Fritz Lang and a screenplay by Nunnally Johnson, this should have been a much better movie. But it has a great cast: Edward G. Robinson (in his weakling persona), Joan Bennett, Dan Duryea, and Raymond Massey.
Introduced by Rob Byrne
Co-Presented by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco

A- The Cameraman (1928), Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30pm

Buster Keaton’s first film at MGM, his first without creative control, and his penultimate silent, comes close to being among his best. He plays a tintype photographer trying to break into the movie newsreel business. That provides plentiful opportunities for befuddlement, extended comic routines, and Keaton’s patented pratfalls. And yet, you can tell that something is different. Preceded by two shorts starring Mabel Normand, Roscoe Arbuckle, and Edward Everett Horton. Jon Mirsalis will play live music on the Kurzweil Keyboard.

A- La Pointe Courte (1955), BAMPFA, Sunday, 2:00pm
I overlooked this screening, so I added it on Friday. Ever admire an artist for their daring, original work, and then discover who they stole it from? I experienced that revelation over and over again while watching Agnès Varda’s first feature– arguably the first film of the French New Wave. Set in a small, somewhat impoverished fishing village, it introduces us to fishermen worried about government health inspectors, a family with a very sick child, a teenage girl with an over-protective father, and mostly two young lovers visiting the man’s childhood home. Varda shows an instinct for camera setups that rivals John Ford’s. Part of the series, Viva Varda!

A- Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Orinda, Tuesday, 1:00pm

James Dean, who would define the word teenager for several generations, became a star in this melodramatic message picture about what’s wrong with kids these days. Thanks largely to Dean’s electrifying and sympathetic performance, it’s a far better movie than it has any right to be. Of course, he got a lot of help from director Nicholas Ray and supporting players Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. In very wide early Cinemascope.

B+ Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), Vogue, Wednesday & Thursday, 7:30pm

A young couple in the blush of first love get separated by war and other inconveniences. Their young dreams and the world’s harsh realities come into conflict, bringing the story to an ending that is neither happy nor sad, but bittersweet. And yet, director Jacques Demy made this film as a musical…or even an opera, since the characters rarely talk, but always sing. Read my Blu-ray review.

B+ Frances Ha (2013), Balboa, Wednesday, 7:30pm & 9:11pm

Screenwriter Greta Gerwig and director Noah Baumbach created this comedy about that period of life when you realize that you’re actually an adult. The title character, played by Gerwig, has been out of college for a few years, but she’s living on unrealistic dreams. Unlike her best friend, she doesn’t seem ready to make that difficult transition into maturity. There’s no real plot; just an assortment of incidents–jobs, places to live, men to sleep with–as she moves slowly and reluctantly into true adulthood. The result is quirky, touching, and funny.

Too long ago to remember

Continuing engagements

Movies I can’t review

Published by Lincoln Spector

Lincoln Spector writes about cinema, technology, and cinema technology. From 1986 through 2008, he wrote Gigglebytes, the first technology-oriented humor column. From 1977 through 2016, he wrote PC World's Answer Line column and blog.