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This Week's Revivals
By Richard von Busack
The Devil to Pay/One Man's Journey (1930/1933)
Ronald Colman plays an remittance man from Argentina who returns to London, only to start up with his sister's pal (Loretta Young). Meanwhile, an ingénue he knew (Myrna Loy) comes out of the woodwork. BILLED WITH One Man's Journey. Lionel Barrymore as a rural doctor who does his best to heal the broken hearts of his community. (Plays Nov 23 in Palo Alto at the Stanford Theatre.)
Lost Horizon/The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1937/1033)
Frank Capra adapts James Hilton's famous novel about the lost Tibetan kingdom of Shangri-La, where the wise rule and lives can last centuries. To this paradise comes a great British politician (Ronald Colman) sickened by the prospect of the upcoming World War II. Perhaps this film is most valuable as an early example of New Age art, because it was the Celestine Prophecy of its day: here we see the usual vagueness, the disquieting imperialist undertones, the implicit threat underneath the offer of spiritual awakening and longevity. Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton and Sam Jaffe co-star. BILLED WITH The Bitter Tea of General Yen. See review at right. (Plays Nov 24-27 in Palo Alto.)
Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum
Regularly scheduled program of silent films. Tonight: The Knockout (1914) starring Charlie Chaplin. Coney Island (1917) with "Fatty" Arbuckle and Buster Keaton, Bumping into Broadway with Harold Lloyd (1919), and Bacon Grabbers with Laurel and Hardy. That Laurel and Hardy title is apparently pungent yet sadly extinct slang for "repo men"; the unlucky pair try to repossess a radio belonging to the evil-tempered Edgar Kennedy. Frederick Hodges at the piano. (Plays Nov 24 at 7:30pm in Fremont at the Lincoln Theater, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, 37417 Niles Blvd; www.nilesfilmmuseum.org.)
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