Ball of Fire: Barbara Stanwyck Centennial
July 6, 2007 - July 31, 2007
"Thank God I wasn't an ingenue. That would have killed me," Barbara Stanwyck said, reflecting late in life on her early career in Hollywood. Anything but ingenuous, Stanwyck (1907–1990) was the screen archetype of the independent woman with her wits about her, alert and often on the make. Born Ruby Stevens in Flatbush and orphaned early, she started working as a chorus girl at age fifteen; by 1930 she had embarked on a film career that ran from scandalous pre-Code sagas and "women's weepies" through noirs, smart-mouthed comedies, and whip-cracking Westerns (after retiring from the big screen, she was the memorable matriarch of TV's Big Valley). The movies made the most of her tough-broad-from-Brooklyn persona, but her performances also convey a certain reserve and a private tenderness, her vigor and slangy vivacity tempered by the ambivalence that comes with knowledge. Douglas Sirk, with whom she made a devastating pair of 1950s melodramas, called her "more expressive than any actress I ever worked with. . . . She had depth as a person. There is this amazing tragic stillness about her, and there is nothing the least bit phony. She isn't capable of phony." Our centennial tribute showcases the very real qualities of this extraordinary actress: the knowing precision of glance and gesture, the husky voice that deepened with time and smoke—and then there were those legs. . . . But why try to itemize her attributes? As Stanwyck said, "What the hell. Whatever I had, it worked, didn't it?"
Juliet Clark
Editor
Friday, July 6, 2007
7:00 p.m. Night Nurse
Stanwyck and Joan Blondell expose Hippocratic hypocrisy—and plenty of skin—in this pre-Code medical melodrama, also featuring Clark Gable as the heavy.
Friday, July 6, 2007
8:40 p.m. Stella Dallas
In the ultimate 1930s "women's weepie," directed by King Vidor, Stanwyck sacrifices everything to give her daughter a shot at respectability.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
5:00 p.m. Ball of Fire
Nightclub singer Stanwyck gives innocent encyclopedist Gary Cooper lessons in slang, and love, in this Howard Hawks comedy.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
7:15 p.m. Forty Guns
Sam Fuller's wildly Freudian Western stars Stanwyck as a "high-ridin' woman with a whip."
Thursday, July 12, 2007
7:00 p.m. There’s Always Tomorrow
Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray rekindle an old flame in Douglas Sirk's wonderful, melancholy melodrama that "demolishes the social fantasy of the 'happy home.'"—Time Out
Thursday, July 12, 2007
8:50 p.m. All I Desire
Sirk's period melodrama resolutely refuses nostalgia: Stanwyck returns to her small-town family and soon discovers why she left in the first place.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
7:00 p.m. Baby Face
Stanwyck sleeps her way to the top in this notorious pre-Code melodrama, shown in a fabulous print that reinstates censored scenes. "Even the cut version is a jaw-dropper; with its full five minutes of sleaze restored, it has to be seen to be not quite believed."—N.Y. Times
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
8:35 p.m. Remember the Night
D.A. Fred MacMurray takes jewel thief Stanwyck home to Indiana for the holidays in this tender comedy scripted by Preston Sturges. "As smart-mouthed as it is stunningly compassionate."—Village Voice
Thursday, July 26, 2007
7:00 p.m. Double Indemnity
Stanwyck's toxic peroxide blonde is the archetype of the noir femme fatale in Billy Wilder's gleefully cynical tale of murder and insurance fraud, costarring Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
9:05 p.m. Clash by Night
Stanwyck, Robert Ryan, and a young Marilyn Monroe in Fritz Lang's noir filmed on location in Monterey. "The backwater atmosphere is as authentic as it is oppressive."—Chicago Reader
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
7:00 p.m. Ladies They Talk About
Stanwyck plays a gang moll sent up to San Quentin in this preposterous and thoroughly satisfying pre-Code women-in-prison picture.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
8:30 p.m. The Lady Eve
Starring Stanwyck as a cardsharp who plays naive ale heir Henry Fonda not once but twice, Preston Sturges's comedy of innocence and experience is "one of the most liberatingly funny films ever made."—New Yorker
Series curated by Susan Oxtoby.
PFA wishes to thank the individuals and institutions who have helped make this retrospective possible: Michael Mashon, Library of Congress; Todd Wiener and Mimi Brody, UCLA Film and Television Archive; Schawn Belston, 20th Century Fox; Chris Chouinard, MGM; Paul Ginsburg, Universal Pictures; and Marilee Womack, Warner Bros. Classics.
