Released 1/20/2010

Middle School's cinematic time machine

By Barbara Minakakis, movie club adviser

For two years, sixth- and seventh-graders have had the option of joining the Black and-White Movie Club, whose movies have often played to a packed house (Room 79, that is). The club is dedicated to the great films of the 1930s and 1940s, both renowned and underrated — movies that, for decades, made Americans laugh and thrill, and that now are part of our culture.

Discovering what once drew Americans to the silver screen, and what their hopes and fears were, is what attracts students to the club.

“The [black-and-white] movies are different from the ones now,” said Sophia Kanavos, Class 7. “There’s a different perspective.” Her classmate Elizabeth Schweizer added, “I like to see how movies have evolved and how they used to be.” And, even for the most sophisticated Middle School watchers of classic films, there are always new directors, actors and topics to explore. “It’s great to watch exciting films that I have never seen before,” said Juliet Graham, also in Class 7.

Movies are the great American art form — if not invented in America, then perfected here. In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, our cinema cheered an impoverished public and reflected its worries. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers danced their way through an Art Deco wonderland, while Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula embodied the “other,” preying on an innocent population. Though from the late 1930s until December 1941 the United States was neutral in the war overseas, Hollywood produced anti-Nazi films such as The Mortal Storm and So Ends Our Night. After Pearl Harbor was attacked, it began to turn out what we now call “World War II movies,” which show ordinary people performing heroic deeds.

Many of the era’s movies are wonderful, if not always faithful, film versions of great books, introducing students to Emily Bronte, Victor Hugo and Bram Stoker. Later in life, when a Chapin girl encounters Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, she might recall having seen Laurence Olivier portray him in the film version.

The students have seen many movies that influenced “the greatest generation.” Gallantry, courage, high romance, dry wit and a certain elegance — not to mention correctly spoken English! — are hallmarks of Hollywood’s Golden Age. And, as Sophia pointed out, “sometimes they incorporated comedy and horror into everyday things.”

This spring, the Black-and-White Movie Club will take a temporary hiatus to make room for the Foreign Movies Club, but it will return next autumn to a Middle School classroom near you to continue its backward glance at this most American of art forms.