April 1, 2018 – April 22, 2018
The UCLA Film & Television Archive is, after the Library of Congress, the largest collection of media materials in the United States and among the premier film preservation institutions in the world. The Archive’s annual preservation efforts—an ambitious, eclectic range of everything from lost silents to at-risk mid-century features, shorts, and documentaries—find new audiences in each year’s Festival of Preservation in Los Angeles and in the works selected for a smaller touring program. We are pleased to present the 18th Festival Tour, a surprise-filled treasure trove sure to delight cinema lovers of many persuasions. “Forget Blu-ray discs and plasma TVs. For true cinephiles, nothing lets a movie really sing like a pristine celluloid print. In which case, UCLA’s Festival of Preservation is a veritable opera.”—Matt Sussman, Flavorpill.
Special thanks to the Head of Public Programs; Steven Hill, Circulation; Paul Malcolm, Film Programmer; Todd Weiner, Archivist; and Dr. Jan-Christopher Horak, Director, UCLA Film & Television Archive, for making these new preservation prints available. Full program notes, are adapted from the 2018 Festival of Preservation catalogue, which includes additional information about the films and the Archive’s ambitious preservation efforts and complete restoration credits.
Desert Hearts
Directed by Donna Deitch
Based on Jane Rule’s novel Desert of the Heart (1964), Donna Deitch’s narrative feature debut centers on a burgeoning lesbian …
He Walked By Night
Directed by Alfred Werker
Inspired by the true story of Erwin “Machine Gun” Walker's shocking Los Angeles crime spree throughout 1945 and 1946, He …
Los Tallos Amargos
Directed by Fernando Ayala
Los tallos amargos is based on a novel by journalist Adolfo Jasca, winner of the Emecé Literary Prize, Argentina's highest …
Open Secret
Directed by John Reinhardt
In the back room of a seedy, small town bar, a group of men pronounce someone guilty of an unknown …
Sons of the Desert
Directed by William A. Seiter
Drawing on story elements from their earlier shorts We Faw Down and Be Big, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's fourth …
Stranded
Directed by Juleen Compton
Juleen Compton was an independent American filmmaker—and one of the only women making features during the decade—working in both Europe …
The Lost Moment
Directed by Martin Gabel
It's ironic that the film version of The Aspern Papers by the 19th-century American author Henry James, revered for his …
The Murder of Fred Hampton
Directed by Howard Alk
The Murder of Fred Hampton has never felt more relevant. It serves as a document of the late 1960s, but …
The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean
Directed by Juleen Compton
Written, directed, and self-financed by Juleen Compton, The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean is the story of a clairvoyant teenage …
Trouble In Paradise
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
Lubitsch’s whip-smart pre-code love triangle sees thieves Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins team up on the rich of the Riviera, …