On Tuesday, March 27th, my three part series, The Great Jewish Entertainers, came to a close, with a focus on the Apostle of Pep, Eddie Cantor. There were plenty of clips, including Eddie’s Colgate Comedy Hour, where he recreated his Carnegie Hall concert, which is almost like a visual autobiography of Eddie’s life and career. I also exhibited some of the Cantor sheet music from my archives. I even had a special guest: Brian Gari, Eddie’s grandson. Brian is a songwriter in his own right, and has done wonders in preserving the legacy of his grandfather. Brian also added some of some his insight to the class.  A great way to close the series!

This is the week that Kevin Brownlow’s restoration of Abel Gance’s Napoleon sees the light of day, as part of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. The five and a half hour epic, first released in 1927, will have only four screenings at a theatre in Oakland this week. It is being reported that once these four screenings are completed, that will be the last we will see of Gance’s epic film. The cost of presenting, the orchestra (five and half hours of music) is astronomical. I am hoping that someone will come forward (DeNiro, Scorcese, Spielberg?) who will fund a screening event of this film in New York City. This film must not languish in a vault. It must be seen. It must be experienced!

Hutton House Lectures Spring, 2012 semester, at Long Island University: C.W. Post campus, begins the week of March 26th. First course I will be teaching, on five consecutive Mondays, will be Hepburn and Cukor: A Sophisticated Collaboration. Films will include Little Women (1933) on March 26th, Holiday (1938), on April 2nd, The Philadelphia Story (1940), on April 9th, Keeper Of The Flame (1943), on April 16th, and closing with Adam’s Rib (1949), on April 23rd.  For more information, please be sure to call 516-299-2580.

Just returned from the Syosset Public Library, where I presented the first of three sessions on The Hollywood Musical, with a focus on dance on film. Today’s focus was on the ten films featuring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers: the nine they made at RKO Studios, and their reunion film at MGM, produced in 1949. The lecture was well received, and many will return for next week’s program on Busby Berkeley: Spin A Little Web of Dreams. The series will close with a session on Gene Kelly: Dance For The Common Man.

Guess what I will be doing on Wednesdays and Thursdays for the next seven weeks (actually eight weeks, since Queens College is closed one week for Spring Break)? In addition to coordinating the Queens College Life Long Learning Institute, I will also be teaching two workshops on Wednesday and Thursdays: The Film Director’s Vision, in which I will be focusing on such renowned Directors as Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Cecil B. Demille, and Steven Spielberg; and on Thursdays, I will be teaching Music For The Movies, which will focus on how music has acted as a psychological thread in film, with such composers as Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Sergei Prokofiev, Miklos Rozsa, Bernard Herrmann, John Williams, and Jerry Goldsmith. There are seats available for both. For more information, be sure to call Queens College at 718-997-5700.

This Friday, March 9th, I will be presenting the third and last lecture in the Hutton House Lectures series, All Aboard For Hitchcock, at Long Island University: C.W. Post campus, with a discussion and screening of Hitch’s only MGM film, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. It is the Hitchcock/Bernard Herrmann collaboration sandwiched in between Vertigo and Psycho. This has been a great series, with wonderful post film discussions. There will be a week break, and then I will be presenting a Hutton House Special Event lecture,  I WANNA BE A DANCIN MAN: Fred Astaire Solos. This will close the Winter, 2012 semester of Hutton House lectures at C.W. Post.

Stay tuned for film lectures coming up the week of March 11th!