iU3A Classic Film Group

Autumn Programme 2016-17

4th October Matrimonio all'italiana (Marriage Italian Style)

Italy/1964 94 mins

Director: Vittorio De Sica

Cast: Marcello Mastroianni, Sophia Loren

An Italian classic from 1964 with director De Sica and beautiful stars Loren and Mastroianni at the top of their game. Over a twenty-year period, beginning during the latter days of WWII and initially a farce, this film develops into a beautifully-played tragi-comedy about the battle of the sexes and paternal responsibility. Sophia Loren, subtly ageing from seventeen-year-old prostitute to care-worn, middle-aged former mistress who has her day, is amazing. She was rightly nominated here for a second Best Actress Oscar.

18th October Song of Summer and Elgar (excerpts from the latter)

UK/ 1968/1962 73 mins/55 mins

Director: Ken Russell

Ken Russell was the enfant terrible of late 60s/early 70s British cinema. Fuelled by studio money and artistic freedom after the box-office success of Women in Love, he went – to many minds - seriously off the rails with The Devils, The Music Lovers, Mahler, Lisztomania and Tommy. Our look at Russell is when he was in more understated mode, constrained by budget and, creatively, by Huw Weldon and the BBC's Monitor and Omnibus programmes for whom he made the films on today's iU3A Classic Film programme. Song of Summer: Frederick Delius is about the expatriate British composer's last five years and in particular his relationship with his amanuensis, Eric Fenby (Christopher Gable). Max Adrian plays the blind, terminally-ill Delius, and there's a lovely turn by Maureen Pryor as his long-suffering German wife, Jelka. To complement Song of Summer we'll also watch a few excerpts from Russell's earlier film on Elgar.

1st November Un Homme et Une Femme (A Man and a Woman)

France/1966/98 mins

Director: Claude Lelouch

Cast: Jean-Louis Trinignant, Anouk Aimée This (late-nouvelle-vague?) offering from French director Lelouch, who is still making films today, was a big critical and popular hit world-wide back in 1966, picking up Oscars, Golden Globes, BAFTAs and the Palme d'Or at Cannes. It was recently voted No.2 favourite French film of all time by ciné enthusiasts in France. Whether you've seen the film before or not, it'll be interesting to learn what CFG members make of it fifty years after the movie's initial release. It's certainly handsomely filmed and there's a smart reliance on voice-over to convey the emotions of the principals. There are some vestiges of French nouvelle vague cinema in the reliance on location-shooting, on philosophising about Life (with a capital L) and on improvisation (particularly with the splendid young actors playing Trintignant's and Aimée's son and daughter respectively). And for all its da-da-da-da-da clichés and over-indulgent flashbacks the final scene of Un Homme et Une Femme still has the power to bring tears to the eyes.

15th November Terminus/A Diary for Timothy/The Open Road (Excerpt)

UK/1961/1945/1926 33/40/64 mins

Directors: John Schlesinger, Humphrey Jennings/Claude Friese-Green

We included the non-fiction works Dreams of a Life and The Gleaners and I during Classic Film 2015-16, and here's another opportunity to study documentary as a cinematic genre. Terminus is a day-in-the life of Waterloo Station in 1960 made by a young John Schlesinger, just prior to his gaining fame for the likes of A Kind of Loving, Billy Liar, Darling and Far From the Madding Crowd. The poignant A Diary for Timothy uses the device of a visual diary for a baby boy born in September 1944 to celebrate the courage and war effort of the British population and to point to a better future for 'new Englishmen' like Timothy. Finally, The Open Road, from which we'll watch a short extract, is a travelogue in vibrant colour of a motor journey from Land's End to John O'Groats. Three fascinating social documents, each with their own style and agenda, of Britain in the 20s, 40s and very early 60s.

6th December It Always Rains on Sunday

UK/1947/87 minutes

Director: Robert Hamer

Cast: Googie Withers, Edward Chapman, John McCallum

An early classic from Ealing Studios, though not one of its famous comedies, directed by Robert Hamer (Kind Hearts and Coronets). A British film noir, the setting for It Always Rains on Sunday is a post-war London East End of rationing, black-market nylons and dodgy deals amongst the spivs and decent denizens of Bethnal Green. The film's sense of place, time and character is palpable. Googie Withers plays an ex- barmaid, now married to a decent widower with two grown-up daughters, who is visited by on-the-run convict John McCallum, a former lover. Withers delivers a wonderfully sensitive performance and there is great on-screen chemistry between her and gangster McCallum. Following completion of the film the pair married and remained so for 62 years! 13th December An American in Paris

USA/1951/108 mins

Director: Vincent Minelli

Cast: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant

An American in Paris was made a year before Singin' in the Rain, a popular 'champion's choice' in our last year's Classic Film programme. The latter film is very much the crowd-pleaser of the two, but it's the athletically-balletic An American in Paris that won all the plaudits (including Best Film Oscar). Aspiring artist Kelly falls in love with the already-engaged gamine Leslie Caron (in her first role). In contrast to Singin' in the Rain the tone is whimsical and the story which also involves a predatory blonde (Nina Foch) and a perennial, fellow American, piano student is largely a clothes-line on which to hang the splendid Gershwin songs e.g. I Got Rhythm and inventive dance numbers. The final 20 minutes of the film feature no dialogue and the whole fairy-tale (filmed on Hollywood sets) concludes with an astonishing 17-minute ballet, the choreography for which won an Oscar in its own right