Before the year-long exhibit of the Lost Theatres of Somerville closes at the end of March the Somerville Museum celebrates with two special film screenings.
The sexual liberation of silent film starlet Olive Thomas set the tone for jazz age. But the life of world's first flapper met a tragic end in 1920, turning her promising career into Hollywood's first major scandal. Olive Thomas: Everybody's Sweetheart receives its New England premiere at the Somerville Museum on Thursday, February 19, 2004 at 7 pm. Produced by Timeline Films and narrated by Roseanna Arquette, the documentary is followed by a discussion with director Andi Hicks, co-producer/screenwriter Sarah Baker, and film historian Michele Gouveia.
Then, on March 11 Zampano's Playhouse presents "The Vintage Film Extravaganza" with a screening some of the film collection of Albert Steg. During Cinema's Golden Age a night at the movies wasn't just a feature and a couple trailers. It included cartoons, newsreels, serials and other film shorts. Among the shorts in this screening may include the early animation of Winsor McKay, Melies, and Fleischer Bros, the Buster Keaton comedy short "Cops" and a 1930s newsreel of jaw-dropping daredevils.
These events are sponsored by Somerville Museum as part of the year long exhibit, "Lost Theatres of Somerville" now on display at the Museum at One Westwood Road. "The Lost Theatres of Somerville" explores the history of Somerville's fourteen movie theatres -- only one of which still survives -- and their role in creating a sense of place and "neighborhood." Oral histories, photographs, and memorabilia, as well as interactive media, bring the theatres to life, demonstrating the central role of cultural institutions in creating a sense of community in this and other working class American cities.
On Thursday, February 26, 2004 at 7 pm curator David Guss will lead a tour of the exhibit. His collection on the neighborhood movie-going experience in the United States includes archival photographs from theatres and surrounding businesses, posters, ads, dish sets and other give-aways, seats, original stained glass and fixtures, and even a ten foot neon marquee from the Paramount.
For more information: http://www.losttheatres.org/
EXHIBIT RUNS:
March 29, 2003 through March 28, 2004
WHERE:
Somerville Museum, One Westwood Road, Somerville. The museum is at the corner of Westwood Road and Central Street.
MUSEUM HOURS:
Thursdays 2:00-7:00 PM, Fridays 2:00-5:00 PM, and Saturdays 12:00-5:00 PM VISITOR INFORMATION:
Telephone 617-666-9810, www.losttheatres.org
UPCOMING EXHIBIT EVENTS:
Thursday, February 19, 2004 -- 7 pm
Area Premier of "Olive Thomas: Everybody's Sweetheart" with director Andi Hicks, co-producer/screenwriter Sarah Baker, and film historian Michele Gouveia At the Somerville Museum Screening of the TimeLine film directed by Andie Hicks documenting the tragic life and career of silent film star Olive Thomas with discussion to follow. Donation: $5
Thursday, February 26, 2004 -- 7 pm Curator's Tour with David Guss At the Somerville Museum Donation: $5.
Thursday, March 11, 2004 - 7 pm The Vintage Film Extravaganza At the Somerville Museum During Cinema's Golden Age a night at the movies wasn't just a feature and a couple trailers. It included cartoons, newsreels, serials and other film shorts. Zampano Playhouse and Albert Steg share some of his collection. Program may include the early animation of Winsor McKay, Melies, and Fleischer Bros, the Buster Keaton comedy short "Cops" and a 1930s newsreel of jaw-dropping daredevils.
For Immediate Release:
SOMERVILLE MUSEUM FEBRUARY & MARCH CLOSING EVENTS
Media Contact: Mimi Graney, 617-620-1497, mimi@luckyinlove.org
Olive Thomas (1894-1920)
Press photo
Olive Thomas was born in Charleroi, Pennsylvania, on October 20, 1894. She
began her career behind the gingham counter of Horne's Department Store in
Pittsburgh. Her meteoric rise to fame started with modeling assignments for
illustrators in New York. Within a year of leaving home, she signed with
the Ziegfeld Follies and became the toast of Broadway, starring in the
Ziegfeld Follies of 1915 and the more risque(A Midnight Frolic. She then made
a successful leap to a film career, signing first with Triangle Film
Corporation, and then with Myron Selznick, who made her Selznick Pictures'
first superstar. After playing the "baby vamp" character in Upstairs and
Down (1919), Thomas went on to star in the title role in The Flapper
(1920), the first time a flapper made a screen appearance. A popular
actress, she was nicknamed "America's Kid Sister" by the press and joined
Hollywood royalty with her marriage to Jack Pickford, Mary Pickford's baby
brother. The marriage proved to be chaotic and unstable. Thomas died on
September 10, 1920, while on her second honeymoon with Pickford in Paris,
after drinking bichloride of mercury. She was only 25 years old.
About Zampano's Playhouse:
Zampano's Playhouse is devoted to obscure, outdated, and orphaned films projected in vintage 8mm and 16mm formats. The various cartoons, educational films, home movies, TV shows, industrial films, and other odd footage come from the vintage film collection of Albert Steg. These sort ephemeral films often provide startling and provocative examples of American attitudes in the 20th century - What were they thinking? is often the underlying question in the programs. For each event Steg draws together a group of films on a common theme, time period or location, sometimes adding music to the images for humorous or dramatic effect. He sees his programs as a revival of the small movie house or traveling filmshow traditions capturing the thrill and charm of the gently flickering film image.
This is the second year of Zampano's Playhouse, currently presenting monthly screenings at the Zeitgeist Gallery in Cambridge as well as taking part in special events such as the Lost Theatres of Somerville exhibit.
Previous press releases
Release date: December 1, 2003
Media Contact: Mimi Graney, 617-620-1497, mimi@luckyinlove.org
The Somerville Museum announces "Frances Dee and the Golden Age of Hollywood" and other events related to their year long exhibit, "Lost Theatres of Somerville."
The Somerville Museum welcomes Frances Dee, one of the most glamorous stars of Hollywood's Golden Age for a special event on December 12. The former actress will share her experiences starring in such classic movies as "Little Women," "Of Human Bondage," "Becky Sharp," "Gay Deception," and "If I Were King," working alongside screen legends including Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Gary Cooper, and Ronald Coleman. But Dee considers her most important co-star to be Joel McCrea, with whom she was married for fifty-seven years.
On Friday, December 12 at 7 pm in Tufts University's Barnum Hall, Ms. Dee will introduce her 1943 classic, "I Walked With A Zombie." Following the film she will be joined by her biographer, Andrew Wentink, and Lost Theatres Curator David Guss for a discussion of the film and her career. Admission is free. Seating is limited.
"I Walked with a Zombie", was produced in 1943 by Val Lewton and directed by Jacques Tourneur. While the RKO studio dictated the campy title, Tourneur made the film his own, creating what Lewton called "Jane Eyre of the Indies" and a serious masterpiece of psychological horror. Like much of Tourneur's work, the films leaves viewers unsure about whether there are supernatural forces at work or the danger is all in the minds of the characters. Frances Dee plays Betsy Conwell, a nurse called to a Caribbean island to care for the near catatonic wife of a wealthy plantation owner. Suspecting voodoo, the nurse brings her patient to a priestess for a secret ceremony.
This event is part of a year-long exhibit at the Somerville Museum. "The Lost Theatres of Somerville" explores the history of Somerville's fourteen movie theatres -- only one of which still survives -- and their role in creating a sense of place and "neighborhood." Oral histories, photographs, and memorabilia, as well as interactive media, bring the theatres to life, demonstrating the central role of cultural institutions in creating a sense of community in this and other working class American cities.
The exhibit is curated by David Guss. A Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University, Guss has gathered what is perhaps the largest collection of the neighborhood movie-going experience in the United\ States. Included in the exhibition are archival photographs from theatres and surrounding businesses, posters, ads, dish sets and other give-aways, seats, original stained glass and fixtures, and even a ten foot neon marquee from the Paramount.
For press photos: http://www.losttheatres.org/press/
LOST THEATRES OF SOMERVILLE
Media contact: Mimi Graney, 617-620-1497, mimi@luckyinlove.org
EXHIBIT RUNS: March 29, 2003 through March 28, 2004
WHERE: Somerville Museum, One Westwood Road, Somerville. The museum is at the corner of Westwood Road and Central Street.
MUSEUM HOURS: Thursdays 2:00-7:00 PM, Fridays 2:00-5:00 PM, and Saturdays 12:00-5:00 PM
VISITOR INFORMATION: Telephone 617-666-9810, www.losttheatres.org
UPCOMING EXHIBIT EVENTS:
Friday, December 12, 2003 -- 7 pm
Frances Dee and the Golden Age of Hollywood
At Room 8, Barnum Hall, 163 Packard Avenue, Tufts University
Frances Dee presents her 1943 classic "I Walked With a Zombie." Discussion
to follow with Dee, her biographer Andrew Wentink and Lost Theatres Curator
David Guss.
Admission is free. Seating is limited.
Thursday, February 19, 2004 -- 7 pm
Area Premier of "Olive Thomas: The Most Beautiful Girl in The World" with
co-producer and writer Sarah Baker and film historian Michele Gouveia.
At the Somerville Museum.
Screening of the TimeLine film directed by Andie Hicks documenting the
tragic life and career of silent film star Olive Thomas with discussion to
follow.
Donation: $5
Thursday, February 26, 2004 -- 7 pm
Curator's Tour with David Guss
At the Somerville Museum
Donation: $5.
Click for high resolution image.
Click for high resolution image.
Click for high resolution image.
Press Release: LOST THEATRES OF SOMERVILLE
Release Date: December 1, 2003
Media Contact: Mimi Graney, 617 620 1497, mimi@luckyinlove.org
ABOUT FRANCES DEE
Born in Los Angeles, Frances Dee was raised in Chicago, where she lived
until her second year at the University of Chicago, when she returned to
California for summer vacation. On a whim, she auditioned as an extra in
Hollywood and within a year, had been discovered by Maurice Chevalier,
co-starring with him in his 1930 Paramount film Playboy of Paris.
By 1936 she had been featured or starred in thirty films, sharing top billing with Katharine Hepburn , Bette Davis, Ginger Rogers, lrene Dunne, Miriam Hopkins, Leslie Howard, Charles "Buddy" Rogers, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Joel McCrea. McCrea, whose career had skyrocketed after being cast by Cecil B. DeMille in his 1929 film Dynamite, co-starred with Frances Dee in 1933 in The Silver Cord. They were married soon after. From that point on, Frances Dee's top priority was her marriage and family. Their first son, Jody, was born several months after starring with Bette Davis and Leslie Howard in Of Human Bondage. A second son, David, arrived soon after her completion of The Gay Deception, a classic comedy directed by William Wyler. Ms. Dee continued to make films for the next twenty years, starring opposite some of Hollywood's greatest leading men including Gary Cooper (Souls at Sea), John Wayne (Wheel of Fortune), Frederic March (So Ends Our Night). Don Ameche (Happy Land), William Holden (Meet the Stewarts), and George Sanders (The Private Affairs of Bel Ami). In 1954, after completing Gypsy Colt with Ward Bond, she gave birth to her third son, Peter, and the following year retired from film.
She is the last surviving actress to have auditioned for the part of Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, a film for which she was eventually a finalist for the part of Melanie. It is said that Selznick chose Olivia De Havilland, fearing that Dee's beauty might challenge that of the lead, Vivien Leigh. Today she continues to live on the same ranch she purchased with Joel McCrea in 1933, forty miles north of Los Angeles. Since McCrea's death in 1990, Ms. Dee has devoted much of her time to the completion of a book concerning her Hollywood career and long marriage to Joel McCrea. In 1997, she turned down the part of Rose Dawson Calvert in James's Cameron's Titanic, a role subsequently played by Gloria Stuart who was nominated for an Academy Award. Ms. Dee continues to appear at selected festivals featuring her work in such films as Frank Lloyd's If I Were King (1938) and Jacques Tourneur's I Walked with a Zombie(1943), the latter now considered a classic of the thriller genre.
PROGRAM FUNDING:
Verizon
Toupin Fund for the Arts, Tufts University
Departments of Sociology and Anthropology, Art History, American
Studies, and Drama and Dance, Tufts University
Nancy Busnach and Joseph D'Ovidio
EXHIBITION FUNDING:
Tufts University, Office of the Provost and the University College of
Citizenship and Public Service
Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities
Somerville Theatre
LEF Foundation
Somerville Arts Council
The National Endowment for the Humanities, for archive preservation of
the exhibit
BACKGROUND
This special year-long exhibit explores the history of
Somerville's fourteen movie theatres and the role of these cultural
institutions in defining a sense of place and "neighborhood." Oral
histories, photographs, and memorabilia, as well as interactive media,
bring to life the theatres-only one of which still survives-that created
a sense of community in this and other working class American cities.
"Lost Theatres of Somerville" looks at the movie-going experience
before the explosion of suburbia and television, when theatres were
gathering places for not only the family but the entire neighborhood,
communal living rooms where news, gossip, and the promotional give-away
were all part of the entertainment. It tells the story of the rise and
fall of public entertainment, from 1904 when movies first came to
Somerville to the present world of multiplexes and malls.
The exhibit is curated by David Guss. A Professor of Anthropology at Tufts University, Guss has gathered what is perhaps the largest collection of the neighborhood movie-going experience in the United States. Included in the exhibition are archival photographs from theatres and surrounding businesses, posters, ads, dish sets and other give-aways, seats, original stained glass and fixtures, and even a twenty foot neon marquee from the Paramount.
A grant from the LEF Foundation has enabled seven of the area's most talented photographers to document the theatre sites as they are today. Among these photographers are Jim Dow, Mary Kocol, Henry Cataldo, and Stefanie Klavens. Extensive oral histories gathered by students from Tufts University and Somerville High School present the life stories of each theatre. Videos in the exhibit show the re-use of one theatre as a rock-climbing gym and also document the history of Union Square's three theatres through interviews with area residents.
Click for high resolution image.
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