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4/8/2002

Fear and Fury

BAMcinematek, New York

BAMcinématek Announces Fear and Fury: The American Cinema of Fritz Lang, Featuring Fifteen Masterpieces by the Legendary German Filmmaker

Highlights of the series, August 5-October 22, include Fury, House by the River, Manhunt, and The Big Heat

Series includes six new prints and three rarely shown archival prints

2002-From August 5-October 22, BAMcinématek, the repertory film program at BAM Rose Cinemas (30 Lafayette Avenue), presents Fear and Fury: The American Cinema of Fritz Lang, fifteen films made by legendary director Fritz Lang in the United States from 1936-1956. After fleeing from the Nazi regime in Germany, Lang made his way to Hollywood and began a string of films that melded his highly expressive and stylized visuals with a dark, brooding sensibility. Lang continued to make masterful crime thrillers and film noirs (The Big Heat, Scarlet Street, While the City Sleeps), but also excelled at other genre pictures, including his often-overlooked westerns including Clash by Night, Western Union, The Return of Frank James, Rancho Notorious (to screen in October). The New York Times said of his American-made films, "his vaunted ability to make a visual statement with every frame elevated many a standard tale-like Fury and The Big Heat-into potent dramas."

This series is a continuation of the highly successful November 2001 series Fatal Passion: The German Cinema of Fritz Lang, which culminated in a preview screening of the newly restored, definitive version of Metropolis. The series opens on August 5 with Fury (1936), about a honest man wrongly accused of a kidnapping. Starring Spencer Tracy, it was Lang's first film in the United States. Other highlights include a rare archival print of House by the River (September 9), in which a man kills his wife's maid then manages to place the blame on his brother; a new print of Man Hunt, a gripping noir thriller set on the eve of World War II about a big game hunter who decides to stalk Hitler (September 25, a Cinemachat with Elliott Stein follows 6:50pm screening); and Lang's best known film noir, The Big Heat, which stars Lee Marvin as a policeman who uncovers a web of corruption when investigating an officer's suicide. (September 30 and October 1). General admission tickets to BAM Rose Cinemas are $9. Tickets are $6 for students (with valid I.D. Monday-Thursday, except holidays), seniors, BAM Cinema Club members, and children under twelve. Tickets are available at the BAM Rose Cinemas box office, by phone at 718.777.FILM (order by "name of movie" option for advance tickets, or day of screening use theater express code #545), or online at www.bam.org. For more information, call the BAMcinématek hotline 718.636.4100.


About Fritz Lang

Fritz Lang (1890-1976), one of the creative giants of German and American cinema, brought a unique artistic sensibility to cinema over a four-decade career. His films, often populated by villains and psychopaths, were not only provocative in content but also in vision; his unique use of somber lighting and suspenseful sound effects foreshadowed the American film noir genre. Lang was born in Vienna in 1890, the son of a construction company manager who was expected to follow in his father's footsteps. An aspiring painter, Lang fled architecture school at the age of 20 to study art in Munich and Paris. At the onset of World War I, he returned to Vienna and enlisted in the military. After four war injuries, Lang was discharged in 1916; while he recovered, he began writing screenplays and acting in Red Cross stage productions. He sold several screenplays to German directors, including filmmaker Joe May, and eventually moved to Berlin to join the film production company Decla as a reader and story editor.

In 1919, he directed his first film from his own script-The Half-Breed (Halbblut). Lang's third film, The Spiders (Die Spinnen) (1919), became his first commercial success, and two years later he enjoyed critical acclaim for the first time with Destiny (Der Müde Tod) (1921). Metropolis, Lang's visionary work of science fiction, was released in 1929 (the definitive restored version was screened at BAM last November). Lang continued directing in Germany until 1933, when his film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

(Das Testament Des Dr. Mabuse) (1933) was banned due to its thinly disguised anti-Nazi sentiments. Lang fled Germany for Paris when, as the legend goes, Joseph Goebbels requested that he direct films for the Nazi regime. It was believed that Lang was afraid the Nazis would discover his mother was Jewish. The next year, Lang settled in the United States, where he became a naturalized citizen and directed films in a wide variety of genres, including a trio of films about wrongful persecution in America (Fury, 1936; You Only Live Once, 1937; You and Me, 1938); a collection of strikingly authentic westerns (The Return of Frank James, 1940; Western Union, 1941; Rancho Notorious, 1952); and his famous American film noirs (Man Hunt, 1941; Scarlet Street, 1945;The Big Heat, 1953). Lang died in 1976 in Beverly Hills, California.

Fear and Fury: The American Cinema of Fritz Lang August/September schedule

August 5 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm; August 6 at 4:30, 9:10pm
Fury (1936), 90 min
With Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sidney
Lang's first film in the United States stars Spencer Tracy as an honest man wrongly accused of a kidnapping. The brutal crime stirs the town to riot and leads to larger reflection on the media, mob rule, and lynching. Lang reportedly spent almost a year traveling through the U.S. to acquaint himself with the country; the film reflects his remarkable attention to detail and local customs.

August 12 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
You Only Live Once (1937), 86 min
With Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda, and Barton MacLane
An early forerunner of "lovers-on-the-run" pictures (including Bonnie and Clyde), Henry Fonda plays a career criminal down on his luck. Sylvia Sidney's character believes that he's just had some hard breaks, and tries to help him to go straight. Lang's meticulous direction and Fonda's characterization prevent this from becoming a simple moralistic tale; instead the audience is left to draw its own conclusions.

August 13 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
You and Me (1938), 90 min, Archival print
With Sylvia Sidney, George Raft, and Barton MacLane
A true oddity, this film is Lang's attempt to merge a Hollywood romantic comedy with the sensibility of Bertolt Brecht and even uses a score by Kurt Weill, with several passages of dialogue timed to the music. The story of two ex-cons who fall in love while working in a department store is a mix of German morality plays, American gangster films, and light comedy. This was Lang's third film in the U.S., and also his third (and last) with Sylvia Sidney, who lights up the screen as the ex-con Helen.

August 19 at 4:30, 7, 9:30pm
Hangmen Also Die (1943), 131 min
With Brian Donlevy, Anna Lee, and Walter Brennan
One of Lang's wartime efforts, Hangmen Also Die is the rare propaganda film that is also a work of art. The film's anti-Nazi sentiments are cloaked in a thick shroud of film noir, with Donlevy starring as an Allied assassin in hiding with the Resistance, and constantly on the run from the Gestapo. Though he would later disown his contributions, Bertold Brecht worked with Lang on the screenplay, and many of the speeches and tense dialogue bear his unmistakable stamp.

August 20 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
Ministry of Fear (1944), 84 min
With Ray Milland, Marjorie Reynolds, and Carl Esmond
Milland stars as a man trying to overcome great personal tragedy, who stumbles upon an espionage plot in World War II London. Adapted from Graham Greene's novel by the same name, Lang's thriller is a masterpiece of mood and atmosphere. "The opening scene (an innocent country fair turns out to be a nest of spies) is reminiscent of Lang's expressionist films of the 20s, but this is a more mature, more controlled film, Lang at his finest and purest," wrote The Chicago Reader.

August 26 & 27 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
Scarlet Street (1945), 103 min, Archival print
With Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett, and Dan Dureya
Married to a nagging, shrewish wife, and stuck in a dead-end job, Maurice Legrand (Robinson) is looking for a way out when he meets Lulu (Bennett), a conniving prostitute. In his attempts to take her as his mistress, Legrand is drawn into a web of crime and murder. Robinson gives one of his best and least characteristic performances as the pitiful Legrand. Lang's superb direction underlines the fatalism in this seminal film noir, a remake of Jean Renoir's La Chienne.

September 9 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
House by the River (1949), 88 min, Rare archival print
With Louis Hayward, Jane Wyatt, and Lee Bowman
A rare period film for Lang, concerning the master of a house (Hayward) who kills his wife's maid, then manages to place the blame on his brother, while his wife suspects nothing. Even for Lang, the film is unusually moody and dark, and it finds a potent central metaphor in the nearby river, giving the film an element of the supernatural.

September 10 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
While the City Sleeps (1956), 100 min
With Dana Andrews, Ida Lupino, and George Sanders
While a deranged sex killer roams the streets of New York, a group of reporters are offered the chance to run a newspaper if they catch the murderer. Andrews initially refuses, but is soon caught up in the chase, even to the point of using his wife as bait. Lang's underrated classic features multiple storylines and desperate, amoral characters weaving in and out of each other's paths in their search for the killer.

September 23 & 24 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
Human Desire (1954), 91 min, New Print
With Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Broderick Crawford
Tough guy Glenn Ford returns home from Korea to the train yards, only to become ensnared in the explosive relationship between Gloria Grahame and Broderick Crawford. A loose adaptation of Zola's La Bête Humaine (also adapted to film by Jean Renoir in 1938), Human Desire is emblematic of Lang's best work in the 1950s.

September 25 at 4:30, *6:50, 9:20pm
Man Hunt (1941), 105 min, New print
With Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, and Roddy McDowall
Lang's gripping noir thriller-bleak, complex, and nightmarish-is set on the eve of World War II and is about a big game hunter who decides to stalk Hitler. In a bit of offbeat casting, Joan Bennett is touching as a cockney prostitute who becomes the hunter's ally when he is in turn hunted by the Nazis. Much of the film takes place in a chiaroscuro London, brilliantly lit by genius cameraman Arthur Miller.
*A Cinemachat with Elliott Stein follows 6:50pm screening.

September 30 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm; October 1 at 7:15, 9:20pm
The Big Heat (1953), 89 min, New print
With Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, and Lee Marvin
Possibly Lang's best known and imitated film noir, The Big Heat is about a policeman who uncovers a web of corruption when investigating an officer's suicide. He's pulled from the case but his desire for revenge leads him down a dark path not unlike that of the men he tries to convict.

Fear and Fury: The American Cinema of Fritz Lang October schedule

Oct 7 and 8 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
Clash by Night (1952), 105 min
With Barbara Stanwyck, Paul Douglas, Robert Ryan, and Marilyn Monroe Based on Clifford Odets' play of the same name, Clash by Night is a study of adultery. Returning to live with her brother at her family's home in a small fishing village, Mae Doyle (Stanwyck) has reached rock bottom. Soon she is befriended by a recently married young woman played by Monroe. Mae also meets a kindhearted fisherman whom she quickly marries; but before long she enters into a tumultuous affair with another man. Stanwyck's performance as a world-weary vamp is juxtaposed with Monroe's performance as a sassy, naive newlywed. This is Marilyn Monroe's first major role.

October 14 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
Western Union (1941), 92 min, New Print
With Robert Young, Randolph Scott, and Dean Jagger
This mid-19th historical tale of the first trans-continental telegraph wire is transformed by Lang: "[he] was the first director really to exploit the possibilities of color in the western and his marvelous sense of composition lifts an otherwise conventional story," wrote Time Out. The film tells the story of two brothers: Vance Shaw (Randolph Scott) is an ex-criminal whose job is to protect the Western Union workers against attacks by bandits, but he soon learns that his brother is a gang leader.

October 15 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
The Return of Frank James (1940), 92 min, New Print
With Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, and Jackie Cooper
Lang's first western and first film in color, the tale is a sequel to Henry King's Jesse James and underlines the director's interest in the pitfalls of revenge. Jesse James' older sibling Frank James (Fonda) begins to hunt the Ford brothers after they are pardoned for killing his brother. His pursuit threatens to destroy his long-held ideas of justice. Child star Jackie Cooper plays his sidekick.

Oct 21 and 22 at 4:30, 6:50, 9:10pm
Rancho Notorious (1952), 89 min, New Print
With Marlene Dietrich, Arthur Kennedy, and Mel Ferrer
In this western based on Silvia Richards' story Gunsight Whitman, a rancher seeks to avenge his fiancée's murder during a robbery. His quest leads him to Altar Keane's ranch, a criminal hideaway where he slowly becomes indistinguishable from the men he was hunting.

Credits

BAMcinématek is made possible through the leadership support of The Joseph S. and Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust. The BAM Rose Cinemas are named in recognition of a major gift in honor of Jonathan F.P. and Diana Calthorpe Rose. BAM Rose Cinemas would also like to acknowledge the generous support of The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, Richard B. Fisher and Jeanne Donovan Fisher, James Ottaway, Jr., Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn Delegation of the New York City Council, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, HSBC Bank USA, Bloomberg Radio AM1130, and Bowne Enterprise Solutions. Additional support is provided by Coca-Cola Enterprise of New York. French films are supported by The Florence Gould Foundation, and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York.

BAMcinématek would like to offer special thanks to Marilee Womack/Warner Brothers, Peter and Betty Lang/IPMA, Paul Ginsburg/Universal, Mike Mason/Library of Congress, Tim Lanza/Douris Corporation, John Kirk/MGM-UA, Mike Schlesinger/Columbia, Margaret Deriaz/BFI, Pierre Rissient, and Anne Goodman/Criterion.

General information

BAM Howard Gilman Opera House, BAM Rose Cinemas, BAMcafé, and Shakespeare & Co. BAMshop are located in the main building at 30 Lafayette Avenue (Lafayette and Ashland) in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn. BAM Harvey Theater is located at 651 Fulton Street (between Ashland and Rockwell) in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. BAM Rose Cinemas is Brooklyn's only movie house dedicated to first-run independent and foreign film and repertory programming. J.A.M Catering Services provides food and beverages at BAMcafé (BAMcafe is closed in August and will reopen in September with hours TBA).

Posted by BAMcinématek
BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Avenue Brooklyn
New York
718.636.4194
fax 718.230.3338

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