On Sunday, August 12th, Nine Queens College Lifelong Learning Institute students joined me at the Paley Center For Media, in Manhattan, for the first Queens College Lifelong Learning Institute Field Trip. Our goal was to see the 1953 Goodyear Playhouse television broadcast of Horton Foote’s A Trip To Bountiful, starring Lillian Gish and Eva Marie Saint (one year before she made her feature film debut in On The Waterfront). We received a nice welcome from both the museum’s Manager of Group Services and the Executive Curator. This presentation of the “Bountiful” is part of a series of Foote broadcasts which will be shown in the museum’s Concourse, spacious theatre, and is a companion piece to an Off-Broadway Horton Foote revival about to open soon. Since we were a group, it was nice to get the special group discount: $5.00 admission, instead of the usual $10. Also, since I will be teaching a course on the Golden Age of Television at both Queens College in the Fall, and a more expansive course at 92nd Street Y Tribeca in the Winter, I have been invited to bring students for additional group screenings of broadcasts. Since most of the museum’s collection has been digitized, we choose a broadcast, and it will be booted up to the Museum’s theatre on the sixth floor, which seats 40. Later in the day, we all got together for a nice lunch at Burger Heaven. Afterwards, some of us parted company, but a few of us returned to the museum, to partake in the over 200,000 broadcasts in the Paley museum’s collection. Three of our group opted for Seinfeld. I opted for the 1954 General Foods Tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein. Overall, a nice start to the future of Queens College Lifelong Learning Field Trips.

This has been a very eventful Summer. With less than the month of August to go, it has been extremely enriching: As you may know, I brought my series, The Jewish Composer And THe Hollywood Musical, up to the Berkshires, back in June. Each week, I would present lectures on Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and the Gershwins, at the Knesset Congregation Temple, in Pittsfield, MA, and then stay over at the beautiful Inn At Stockbridge. This series was a major success, and I have been invited to lecture in Pittsfield, next Summer. Over at Queens College, while preparing for the upcoming Fall semester (which begins October 1st), I presented this Summer’s Lifelong Learning 2012 Film Festival, Partners In Romance, in which I discussed and screened such films as Top Hat, Adventures of Robin Hood, Girl Crazy, The Big Sleep, Adam’s Rib, and closing with Annie Hall. I have received requests for next Summer’s series, which will be devoted to the collaboration of Director Alfred Hitchcock, and Composer Bernard Herrmann. Over at Long Island University: C.W. Post, the Hutton House Lectures have been very successful, with such series as Judy Garland at MGM and Bon Voyage: Ocean Liners. At the 92nd Street Y Tribeca, I presented Make Em’ Laugh: The Golden Age of FIlm Comedy, with sessions on Silent Film Comedy, Comedy Teams, and Screwball Comedy. My current series at the Y, Broadway To Hollywood: Film Adaptations of Broadway Musicals, has had a healthy enrollment. My first session, focusing on Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, and The Gershwins, had a very heallthy enrollment, and will be followed on August 16th with a focus on Rodgers, Hart, and Hammerstein, and closing on August 23rd with The 1960’s and Beyond. On a personal level, I just attended my 30th High School Reunion, reuniting with my West Hempstead High School classmates. That was an experiience. I would have liked to have SEEN many of my classmates, but with the low lighting (I think that’s called ambiance), I could not make out half of my former classmates. Also, some classmates were not wearing nametags, so I did not know who the Hell they were. However, I put up a good front: “Hey! How are you? So good to see you! (A lie, since I could not recognize certain people with the low lighting and lack of name tags).  Ofcourse, the highlight of August, will be the upcoming 16th Annual Long Island Al Jolson Festival, hosted by International Al Jolson Society President, Jan Hernstat, and featuing the wonderful Tony Babino. Eddie Cantor’s grandson, Brian Gari, and Joe Franklin will also be in attendance. Oh, and also broke up with my girlfriend of three months. However, one minor flaw like that should not upset a very eventful Summer.

Looking ahead to the Fall of 2012, I will be presenting two film series with lectures, at the 92nd Street Y in Tribeca. Beginning October 2nd, and running on October 9th, 30th, and November 6th, I will be presenting The Dawn Of The Hollywood Musicals. Films in this series will include a special 85th anniversary screening of The Jazz Singer, the first film with sound sequences, starring Al Jolson, Harry Beaumont’s The Broadway Melody, from 1929, and two 1933 musicals: Robert S. Leonard’s Dancing Lady, starring Clark Gable, Joan Crawford, Nelson Eddy, the Three Stooges, and Fred Astaire (in his film debut); and lloyd Bacon’s Footlight Parade, featuring the dream like musical numbers of Busby Berkeley. Then, beginning on November 13, and running also on November 20th, 27th, December 4th, and 18th, I will be presenting RKO 1935: The Great Films, which focuses on the milestone films released at the studio in that year: Astaire and Rogers in Mark Sandrich’s Top Hat, John Ford’s The Informer, Ernest Schoesdack and Merian C. Cooper’s Last Days of Pompeii, Lansing C. Holden and Irving Pichel’s She, and George Stevens’ Alice Adams. Registration has just begun for the Fall semester, at 92nd Street Y Tribeca.