8:40 p.m.	Sweet Love, Bitter Herbert Danska (U.S., 1967)

(a.k.a. It Won't Rub Off, Baby!). A recently retrieved gem from the sixties, Sweet Love, Bitter shadows the life of Charlie “Yardbird” Parker with radical black comedian Dick Gregory in the solo spot. Gregory’s character, Richie “Eagle” Stokes, is a saxophonist of misunderstood repute, a mind-blowing bebopper whose real love is in vein; we first meet him in a pawnshop, where he is swapping his sax for the next fix. But it’s not drugs that are his downfall, nor jazz, but racism, plain and simple, and all the humiliation and injustice it carries. Sweet Love, Bitter righteously plays the race card with a trio of beat buddies: Dave (Don Murray), a dropout professor who befriends the agonized Eagle; and Della (Diana Varsi), a white hipster in love with Keel (Robert Hooks), a black coffeehouse owner. With all his ability to blow off the beat, Eagle just can’t get in step with society. For this alto giant, there’s no place to go but the lower registers.

—Steve Seid

• Written by Danska, Lewis Jacobs, based on the novel Night Song by John Alfred Williams. Photographed by Victor Solow. Music composed by Mal Waldron. With Dick Gregory, Don Murray, Diane Varsi, Robert Hooks. (92 mins, B&W, 16mm, From Herbert Danska)