CINEVENT 45 REPORT
Posted: Thu May 30, 2013 3:35 pm
It was the coldest and wettest Memorial Day Weekend I’ve ever experienced in Columbus, rainy and averaging 42-45 degrees in the morning, and grey and drizzly much of the time. Not that much of this matters when your busy in the basement banquet rooms of the Ramada Midwest Conference Hotel, but as one who actually liked to get up and go outside once in awhile, especially in the lovely town of Columbus, the rain cheered up this old Desert Dweller.
But there was less reason to go out and enjoy the rain, because things were hopping at the 45 Annual Cinevent, one of the oldest and best of the four Cinephile Conventions currently dotting the map. It has the rep due to a terrific film program made up of pictures that may be rare to some degree or another, but you can also guarantee that they were run because some one saw them and they’re actually good or worth seeing, not just films programmed so some Cinephile can check a title off a list. Cinevent also has the best dealers room of all the other Cinephile Conventions, with some serious salesmen of film, video, posters, movie paper and memorabilia of all sorts. This collector returned with 103 pounds of film (Linda weighed it for the suitcases) and a lot of DVD’s and some paper, so I can attest to the quality and quantity of materials available for purchase.
I also spent more time than usual in the Dealers rooms because I was hocking a little something of my own this last weekend. I was proud and pleased that my ol buddy John McElwee of the fabulous blog GREENBRIAR PICTURE SHOWS was unveiling his new book SHOWMEN, SELL IT HOT, a terrific read and education that can be bought currently at his blog here:
http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot. ... lable.html
John was unveiling his book alongside myself who was also introducing my new opus SMILEAGE GUARANTEED, PAST HUMOR, PRESENT LAUGHTER, THE COMEDY FILM INDUSTRY 1910-1945, HAL ROACH VOLUME ONE AT Cinevent as well. Here’s a link to purchase my book from Grapevine Video:
http://www.grapevinevideo.com/past-humo ... ter-1.html
So not only did we sell a lot of books, but I got to sit with John at the same table and talk movies for more time than the meal or two we usually get in during the Fest. Here we are hocking our books:
Now, on with the films (at least, the ones I saw):
THE GOLDEN WEST (1932) Cinevent started off with a rare George O’ Brien Fox western that we have to admit was one of his weaker ones. Starts off like Buster Keaton’s OUR HOSPITALITY with feuding Southern Families (one of which George is a member) and an incident where George kills one of the other clan’s kin in a fair self-defense in an unfair fight, but is forced to flee as the rest of the dead man’s kin want George’s hide. It then turns into a wagon-train western and multi-generational plot complications and a few Indian battles, but Director David Howard can’t make a whole film out of it. Linda and the female George O’Brien fans were also disappointed by the films original poster promising the site of O’ Brien in a loin cloth, but the visage lasted only seconds.
THE 5000 FINGERS OF DOCTOR T (1953) was shown in a beautiful IB Technicolor print and, though a financial disaster for Stanley Kramer when it was released, was a fun and bizarre bringing of Dr Seuss’s universe to the live-action screen. Hans Conried plays the mad piano-teacher of the title, and it was one of the few showcases for the husband and Wife Radio and Television team of Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy (who is apparently still with us at the age of 95). Definitely worth seeing the surreal art direction (by Cary Odell) in Technicolor.
WOMAN OF THE WORLD (1925) A great premise for a Pola Negri picture with Pola playing a European Countess who, after romantic scandal, decides to visit her relatives who live in some small-town American burg, where she wows the locals, including Holmes Herbert, Chester Conklin, and Dot Farley. Negri seems to be having a good time playing down market, even if she has to work to keep from being upstaged by comedians like Conklin and Farley.
Friday Evening was a Memorial Tribute to the late Dave Snyder, one of Cinevent’s Programmers and Projectionists who was also in charge of the Annual Saturday Morning Cartoon program. Three of Dave’s favorites were shown in his memory, a Walter Lantz cartoon called VOODOO IN HARLEM (1936), a Gus Arnheim band short called SWINGTIME HOLIDAY (1944), and for the feature, Frank Capra’s THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN (1933).
Saturday Morning, after the Annual Cartoon Show (I never get up that early), was a rare showing of the 1954 Errol Flynn swashbuckler CROSSED SWORDS, which Flynn produced and shot in Italy and has been in a rights-issue morass for decades, and seldom seen. When seen, it is usually in beet-red Pathecolor prints, but Cinevent secured a lovely Kodachrome original for it’s showing, highlighting Jack Cardiff’s excellent camerawork and proving CROSSED SWORDS is much better than it’s reputation (probably coming from a lot of folk who actually haven’t seen it). It’s a fun and light-hearted romp, with Gina Lolobrigida as Flynn’s leading lady (and the last Mrs Orson Welles, Paolo Mori as Gina’s lady-in-waiting) and nice Italian locations and period costumes. Flynn still looks well, and pulls off some more fine swordsmanship in the climax. Definitely needs to be given more looks than it gets these days.
End of Part One
RICHARD M ROBERTS
But there was less reason to go out and enjoy the rain, because things were hopping at the 45 Annual Cinevent, one of the oldest and best of the four Cinephile Conventions currently dotting the map. It has the rep due to a terrific film program made up of pictures that may be rare to some degree or another, but you can also guarantee that they were run because some one saw them and they’re actually good or worth seeing, not just films programmed so some Cinephile can check a title off a list. Cinevent also has the best dealers room of all the other Cinephile Conventions, with some serious salesmen of film, video, posters, movie paper and memorabilia of all sorts. This collector returned with 103 pounds of film (Linda weighed it for the suitcases) and a lot of DVD’s and some paper, so I can attest to the quality and quantity of materials available for purchase.
I also spent more time than usual in the Dealers rooms because I was hocking a little something of my own this last weekend. I was proud and pleased that my ol buddy John McElwee of the fabulous blog GREENBRIAR PICTURE SHOWS was unveiling his new book SHOWMEN, SELL IT HOT, a terrific read and education that can be bought currently at his blog here:
http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot. ... lable.html
John was unveiling his book alongside myself who was also introducing my new opus SMILEAGE GUARANTEED, PAST HUMOR, PRESENT LAUGHTER, THE COMEDY FILM INDUSTRY 1910-1945, HAL ROACH VOLUME ONE AT Cinevent as well. Here’s a link to purchase my book from Grapevine Video:
http://www.grapevinevideo.com/past-humo ... ter-1.html
So not only did we sell a lot of books, but I got to sit with John at the same table and talk movies for more time than the meal or two we usually get in during the Fest. Here we are hocking our books:
Now, on with the films (at least, the ones I saw):
THE GOLDEN WEST (1932) Cinevent started off with a rare George O’ Brien Fox western that we have to admit was one of his weaker ones. Starts off like Buster Keaton’s OUR HOSPITALITY with feuding Southern Families (one of which George is a member) and an incident where George kills one of the other clan’s kin in a fair self-defense in an unfair fight, but is forced to flee as the rest of the dead man’s kin want George’s hide. It then turns into a wagon-train western and multi-generational plot complications and a few Indian battles, but Director David Howard can’t make a whole film out of it. Linda and the female George O’Brien fans were also disappointed by the films original poster promising the site of O’ Brien in a loin cloth, but the visage lasted only seconds.
THE 5000 FINGERS OF DOCTOR T (1953) was shown in a beautiful IB Technicolor print and, though a financial disaster for Stanley Kramer when it was released, was a fun and bizarre bringing of Dr Seuss’s universe to the live-action screen. Hans Conried plays the mad piano-teacher of the title, and it was one of the few showcases for the husband and Wife Radio and Television team of Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy (who is apparently still with us at the age of 95). Definitely worth seeing the surreal art direction (by Cary Odell) in Technicolor.
WOMAN OF THE WORLD (1925) A great premise for a Pola Negri picture with Pola playing a European Countess who, after romantic scandal, decides to visit her relatives who live in some small-town American burg, where she wows the locals, including Holmes Herbert, Chester Conklin, and Dot Farley. Negri seems to be having a good time playing down market, even if she has to work to keep from being upstaged by comedians like Conklin and Farley.
Friday Evening was a Memorial Tribute to the late Dave Snyder, one of Cinevent’s Programmers and Projectionists who was also in charge of the Annual Saturday Morning Cartoon program. Three of Dave’s favorites were shown in his memory, a Walter Lantz cartoon called VOODOO IN HARLEM (1936), a Gus Arnheim band short called SWINGTIME HOLIDAY (1944), and for the feature, Frank Capra’s THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN (1933).
Saturday Morning, after the Annual Cartoon Show (I never get up that early), was a rare showing of the 1954 Errol Flynn swashbuckler CROSSED SWORDS, which Flynn produced and shot in Italy and has been in a rights-issue morass for decades, and seldom seen. When seen, it is usually in beet-red Pathecolor prints, but Cinevent secured a lovely Kodachrome original for it’s showing, highlighting Jack Cardiff’s excellent camerawork and proving CROSSED SWORDS is much better than it’s reputation (probably coming from a lot of folk who actually haven’t seen it). It’s a fun and light-hearted romp, with Gina Lolobrigida as Flynn’s leading lady (and the last Mrs Orson Welles, Paolo Mori as Gina’s lady-in-waiting) and nice Italian locations and period costumes. Flynn still looks well, and pulls off some more fine swordsmanship in the climax. Definitely needs to be given more looks than it gets these days.
End of Part One
RICHARD M ROBERTS