Missouri Southern Film Society
Program Schedule

Buster Keaton, Florence Turner, Ann Cornwall. Buster plays a student who worships brain and deplores brawn until he learns his girlfriend is under attack by a romantic rival. He then becomes an athlete, resulting in one disaster after another. It is not until the finale that he masters all of the elusive skills and rescues the girl. A fast-paced, hilarious film.

Oct. 2
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
(Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos)
(Brazil, 1977) in color.

Bruno Barreto's intoxicating carnival of a film concerns a widow whose late, libidinous husband keeps returning to earth to disrupt her boring second marriage. Gary Arnold of the Washington Post described it as "A classic erotic comedy...Barreto can express lust with class, and it's an exhilarating, civilized gift."

Oct. 16
ll Bidone (The Swindle)
(Italy, 1955)

Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart, Giulietta Masina. This is Federico Fellini's revealing drama which focuses on a trio of petty thieves who swindle people in an elaborately contrived fraud. It was labeled in Ephraim Kat's Film Encyclopedia as "...a starkly realistic and bitter drama...a sincere social document and worthy intermezzo between La Strada and Nights of Cabiria..."

Oct. 30
Torment
(Hets/Frenzy)
(Sweden, 1944)

Alf Sjoberg directed and Ingmar Bergman wrote the screenplay for this compelling film about a sadistic school master who hounds one of his pupils and a frightened girl. Noted for Bergman's vigorous script, Sjoberg's brilliant pictorial flair and Mai Zetterling's marvelous performance, it won the Grand Prize at the Canned Festival.

Nov. 13
Masculin-Feminin
(Masculine-Feminine)
(France, 1966)

Jean-Pierre Leaud, Chantal Goya. Here Jean-Luc Godard explores adolescence, sexuality, violence, political protest, suicide and other problems that plagued the 1960's. Pauline Kael recognized it as "a rare movie achievement: a work of grace and beauty in a contemporary setting...it shows the most dazzlingly inventive artist in movies today at a new peak."

Feb. 19
Espoir
(Hope/Sierra de Teruel)
(France/Spain, 1939)

The filmmakers/novelist Andre Malraux documented this remarkable account of the struggle of Loyalist Air Force pilots against Fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. All the actors in this film were combatants who recreated the events. Only one print of the film escaped destruction by the Nazis. Winner of the Prix Louis Delluc.

March 5
Barrier (Barlera)
(Poland, 1966)

Jerzy Skolimowski reveals his concern for Poland's alienated youth as he follows the adventures of a medical student through a maze of dreams, hallucinations and realities. The story is about the director's own generation which must overcome all the symbolic barriers in life. Awarded the Grand Prix at the Bergamo Festival.

March 19
The Only Son
(Hitori Musuko)
(Japan, 1936)

In Yasujiro Ozu's first sound film a mother who sacrificed everything to give her son an education is heartbroken over his lack of success. Ozu delineates the continuity of failure and disappointment in the cycle of human life. The sensibility of his later masterworks like Tokyo Story is already fully developed here.

April 2
The Rake's Progress
(The Notorious Gentleman)
(Great Britain, 1945)

Rex Harrison, Lilli Palmer. This a humorous chronicle of a playboy who becomes a famous war hero, with Rex Harrison in the title role. The rake is an amiable, Noel Cowardish, sort of cad who is unable to take anything very seriously. The director Sidney Gilliat manipulated the prankster's fast, downhill progress with top notch fun and affection.

Apr. 16
Zoya
(Russia, 1944)

Lev Arnshtam directed this biography of an 18-year-old Russian heroine, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, a partisan fighter who was captured and hanged by the Nazis in 1941. New York Times called it "a gallant and inspiring picture. Galina Vodianitskaya plays the title role with fervor..." The original score was by Dmitri Shostakovich.