TONIGHT at 8 PM on TCM! SAFE IN HELL (1931) a very lurid pre-code in the RAIN tradition, directed by unflinching two-fisted auteur William PUBLIC ENEMY/NIGHT NURSE Wellman. TCM’s Roger Fristoe notes:
Mackaill plays Gilda, a character who – in the best Wellman tradition – chooses death over dishonor. A prostitute who believes she has killed one of her clients, Gilda escapes with her true love’s aid to a Caribbean island from which criminals cannot be extradited. “You are safe from jail and gallows – safe in Hell,” says the island’s jailer and executioner…..
There’s also a mini La Cava festival on TCM on Thursday — especially noteworthy: Bed of Roses and She Married Her Boss.
House Next Door’s Dan Callahan (who’s also written quite a bit for us at Bright Lights) mentions the Catherine Deneuve festival over at BAM this month, and the importance for even the laziest film fans (especially me, since I live up the street) to check out her second collab with Bunuel: “Tristana.. might be the best of them, or at least the most representative, isn’t on Region I DVD and isn’t shown too often, so that one should definitely be a priority.”
It’s playing Saturday 3/19 at 6:50 PM, see you there!
OUT 1 James Hansen advises us to check out the Kayne West / Spike Jonez collab, “We Were Once A Fairytale:”
It is a performer performing a performance of himself as a performer performing.
It is Kanye’s stilted slurrings and their amateur-professional truth.
It is the dancefloor tears that slyly suggest both autobiography and shameless solipsism.
It is confetti blood.
It is Godard.
But Hansen’s link is…. dead. Can you find it on your own??
Damn, more later. Tape SAFE IN HELL!!! See you at TRISTANA!! Let me know if you find FAIRY!!
