Janet Gaynor: A Centennial Celebration

7/21/06 to 8/13/06

Lucky Star, July 22

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Past Films

7th Heaven
Friday, July 21 21:00
The first of three exquisite films directed by Frank Borzage and starring Gaynor and Charles Farrell. "Capitalizes on Gaynor's warmth and presence and Farrell's rough and ready masculinity to create a fantasy romance that manages to include realistic World War I trench warfare and a beyond-words ending."-L.A. Times
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Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Friday, July 21 19:00
The great German director F. W. Murnau handpicked Gaynor to star in his first Hollywood feature, an elemental fable of country and city, marriage and adulterous desire, rendered with virtuosic visual invention.
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Lucky Star
Saturday, July 22 20:50
Judith Rosenberg on Piano. "An immersion in over-the-top romanticism. . . . Farrell gives perhaps his best performance, playing a World War I veteran who comes home in a wheelchair. . . . [Borzage's film] showcases Gaynor's gift for underplaying in extreme situations."-L.A. Times
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Street Angel
Saturday, July 22 18:30
Gaynor plays an impoverished Neapolitan waif who finds refuge with a traveling circus and painter Charles Farrell. "Borzage damns 'morality' and opts for the pure passion of a sacred amour fou."-Time Out
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Tess of the Storm Country
Sunday, July 23 17:30
This unabashedly sentimental melodrama of fisherfolk, squatters, and malevolent landowners makes a perfect vehicle for plucky Gaynor and appealing Farrell, in one of their last appearances together. With short Pep of the Lazy "J." Judith Rosenberg on Piano.
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State Fair
Friday, July 28 19:00
Gaynor costars with Will Rogers and a prize pig called Blue Boy in Henry King's 1933 rustic comedy, a classic of nostalgic Americana.
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Adorable
Friday, July 28 21:00
Gaynor is rebellious princess of a mythical European kingdom in this charming musical comedy, directed with panache by William Dieterle. "A most agreeable entertainment."-N.Y. Times
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Servants' Entrance
Sunday, July 30 17:30
Gaynor plays an erstwhile rich girl who takes work as a maid and falls in love with a handsome chauffeur in this unpretentious charmer from 1934. Watch for the cartoon anxiety dream produced by none other than Walt Disney.
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The Farmer Takes a Wife
Wednesday, August 2 19:30
"Almost shockingly young and drop-dead handsome [in his screen debut], Henry Fonda plays a farmer who moonlights on an 1850s Erie Canal barge and falls in love with Gaynor's feisty cook. . . . The result is a charming romance that takes full advantage of Gaynor's unquenchable spirit and winsome egalitarianism."-L.A. Times
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Small Town Girl
Friday, August 4 19:00
A sophisticated romantic comedy directed with energy and wit by William Wellman, starring Gaynor as the titular young provincial swept away to the city by rich Robert Taylor.
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Ladies in Love
Friday, August 4 20:50
Gaynor appears alongside Constance Bennett and Loretta Young in a romantic drama about three girlfriends sharing a deluxe apartment while they search for husbands in 1930s Budapest.
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A Star Is Born
Saturday, August 5 20:30
"One of the actress's last roles and one of her best, good enough to get her an Oscar nomination. Shot in lovely early Technicolor . . . it follows a young woman's trajectory from star-struck kid to major star."-L.A. Times
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Delicious
Sunday, August 6 17:30
George Gershwin's first original screen musical is graced with some spectacular (and spectacularly strange) set pieces revolving around Gaynor as an innocent Scottish lass in melting-pot New York.
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The Young in Heart
Wednesday, August 9 19:30
In her last released feature, a witty, heartfelt screwball comedy from 1938, Gaynor plays the wily daughter in a family of high-class con artists. Shown with a screen test made for the film of Gaynor and stage star Maude Adams, a unique record of the latter's work-she didn't get the part.
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The Johnstown Flood
Sunday, August 13 17:30
Judith Rosenberg on Piano. A key supporting role in this 1926 proto–disaster movie was Gaynor's big break. With The Shamrock Handicap, a lighthearted horse-racing drama set in Ireland and directed by John Ford.
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Janet Gaynor: A Centennial Celebration

7/21/06 to 8/13/06

Vulnerable yet strong, demure yet vivacious and piquant, actress Janet Gaynor (1906–1984) had the rare ability to project real emotions in a naturalistic, down-to-earth style. Gaynor earned her first break with a small but crucial part in The Johnstown Flood (1926); a long-term contract with Fox led to starring roles in several more studio movies that brought her to the attention of the great directors F. W. Murnau and Frank Borzage. (Borzage is a featured director at PFA this season: see our series Frank Borzage's Philosophy of Desire.) Her powerful work in Murnau's Sunrise (1927) together with radiant performances in Borzage's 7th Heaven (1927) and Street Angel (1928) won her the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress. 7th Heaven was the first pairing of delicate Gaynor with gawky leading man Charles Farrell; they were an unlikely but irresistible team that stayed together through twelve movies, successfully making the transition from silents to sound. Gaynor remained a top box-office draw well into the 1930s; her career in talkies peaked with an Oscar-nominated performance in A Star Is Born (1937), and she retired from show business shortly thereafter. This series of archival gems and sparkling new prints will show you why Gaynor was a perennial favorite of the American public-she charmed, she appealed, and she endured.

A free souvenir program guide accompanying the series, published by the UCLA Film and Television Archive, will be available at the box office.

Piano Accompaniment for Silent Films

Judith F. Rosenberg has provided piano accompaniment for silent films at PFA since 2000. Since 1973 she has been artist/lecturer and music director of the dance department at Mills College. Rosenberg has also performed at the Niles Silent Film Series and the Castro Theatre. She will accompany many of the films in our Janet Gaynor and Frank Borzage series, as well as our Winsor McCay program on August 26.

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Program notes are adapted from the series brochure. The Pacific Film Archive acknowledges the following organizations for their generous support of this series: the Louis B. Mayer Foundation; the UCLA Film and Television Archive for taking on the job of coordinating this important touring retrospective; and the archives, named in each film note, who have contributed to the preservation of prints or the striking of new prints for this series.