Film
People on Sunday + Shoes
- 7PM
Directed by Robert Siodmak & Edgar G. Ulmer
With Erwin Splettstößer, Brigitte Borchert, Wolfgang von Waltershausen
1930, 74min, 35mm
Scripted by a young Billy Wilder, People on Sunday follows five young Berliners—all amateur actors, playing members of their own professions. On Sunday morning, a taxi driver fails to rouse his girlfriend from their basement apartment, so he sets out on an escapade with his friend, who brings along a dark-haired movie extra and a blonde salesgirl. As affections shift, scenes of the group swimming, picnicking, napping, and more alternate with long documentary passages showing Berlin at leisure.
Directed by Lois Weber
With Mary MacLaren, Harry Griffith, Mattie Witting
1916, 57min, DCP
Department store shopgirl Eva Mayer (McLaren) has a problem: Her only pair of shoes is falling to tatters and she barely earns enough to feed her unemployed parents and three sisters, much less buy some new kicks. What’s a girl to do? Why, go on a date! After reluctantly accepting an invitation from a guy named Cabaret Charlie, Eva stumbles home the next morning in a new pair of shoes, leading her scandalized mother to conclude that she’s prostituted herself for fashion. Directed by America’s first female film mogul, Shoes is a telegram from a time when the line between a date and a trick was, well, tricky.
This screening will feature live piano accompaniment.