PTFF News
Newsletter Archives
September 30, 2008
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While we’re still counting the numbers and basking in the sun and residual glow from the 9th annual Port Townsend Film Festival, the projectors are still rolling and new opportunities are opening for you to see classic films on a big screen.
"You will laugh at Bringing Up Baby from beginning to end," says Joey Pipia about the first movie shown as part of Funny First Fridays: the new monthly series featuring classic comedies shown at The Chameleon Theater.
The madcap fun starts this Friday night (October 3rd) at 7:30 PM.
The Port Townsend Film Festival is partnering with The Chameleon Theater to present the series.
Be ready to relive the classic era of movies with live entertainment on the bill; Pipia will open the evening with one of his pet magic effects; a delightful new treat that wasn't included in The Magic Chamber, last year's sold out hit.
Then comes the main event; Bringing Up Baby (1938). In this screwball comedy, heiress Susan (Katharine Hepburn) is determined to catch stuffy paleontologist Cary Grant. She uses her pet leopard, Baby, to help get his attention, as well as a yappy terrier who steals and buries an irreplaceable fossilized bone, a pompous big game hunter, a rich old aunt, and a jealous fiancée. The plot includes a case of mistaken identity involving a second, vicious, leopard. Howard Hawks directs.
"This is great fun for everyone," says Peter Simpson, the Port Townsend Film Festival director, about this movie, the upcoming series, and co-sponsorship of the event.
"This is one of the true classic screwball comedies of the thirties," adds Simpson.
The screwball comedy has proven to be one of the most popular and enduring film genres, according to Wikipedia. It first gained prominence in 1934 with It Happened One Night, and, although many film scholars would agree that its classic period ended sometime in the early 1940s, elements of the genre have persisted, or have been paid homage to, in contemporary film.
While there is no authoritative list of the defining characteristics of the screwball comedy genre, films considered to be definitive of the genre usually feature farcical situations, a combination of slapstick with fast-paced repartee, and a plot involving courtship and marriage or remarriage. The film critic Andrew Sarris has defined the screwball comedy as "a sex comedy without the sex.”
Admission is $10 plus a canned good for the food bank. (The donation for the food bank is this First Funny Friday only.) Proceeds of future First Funny Fridays will help support the PTFF. For further information please contact The Chameleon Theater Box Office at 379-1068, or e-mail joey@olympus.net
The Chameleon Theater is located in the Port Townsend Business Park (near the Department of Motor Vehicles). Signs will direct you in.