Friday, April 7, 2006

Movie Night

Stanford Theater
We went to the Stanford Theater in Downtown Palo Alto (221 University Ave) to see some old movies. The theater is a wonderfully restored 1920's era theater. The weekend shows are the best because during intermission between the double features, the theater organ is played by very talented organists. The show is done properly by talented projectionists. The contour curtain rises and then the Oleo curtain draws out as the show starts. Everything is done the way I used to do it when I was a projectionist 40 years ago. What fun!
Tonight’s features were "The Prisoner of Zenda" and "The Talk Of The Town". They are, of course, old black and white movies made way back when there were good scripts and good actors, unlike the "stuff" made today. This is a Ronald Coleman Film Festival.
The Prisoner of Zenda starred Ronald Coleman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Madeleine Carrol, David Niven, Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, C. Aubrey Smith, Byron Foulger and Montagu Love. A man, who looks identical to a soon to be crowned king, has to act as the king and save the country from the villainous royal brother.
The Talk Of The Town starred, of course, Ronald Coleman, Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Edgar Buchanan, Glenda Farrel, Charles Dingle, Emma Dunn, Rex Ingram, Leonid Kinskey, Tom Tyler, and Don Beddoe. A nice Romantic Comedy about a falsely accused murderer saved, eventually by a brilliant lawyer. Excellent movie but I found many parallels to recent politics including blind acceptance of what politicians say and mob response based on propaganda.
It is so nice that movie houses such as this still exist. They definitely should be supported.

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