Program Notes
Program Notes: Between Two Worlds (1944)
Meet Sutton Vane, great-granddaddy of the afterlife drama. His play, Outward Bound, set the template for many of the films featured in the Library’s current film series, "Beyond this Vale of Tears: Hollywood visits the Afterlife."
Program Notes: A Guy Named Joe (1943)
In A Guy Named Joe (1943), a dead man’s spirit returns to Earth to watch over the woman he left behind and, eventually, to help guide her to a new love.
Program Notes: Stairway to Heaven (1946)
Produced in 1946 at the behest of the British government, Stairway to Heaven from the writing-producing-directing team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is one of the most satisfying film fantasies ever made.
Film Series: Beyond This Vale of Tears
Throughout December the Kansas City Public Library’s free film series Beyond This Vale of Tears: Hollywood Visits the Afterlife looks at the many ways in which filmmakers have sought to depict the after-death experience.
Program Notes: Silent Tongue (1993)
Sam Shepard always has been obsessed with families in crisis, so no one should be surprised that he wrote a drama about family and collective guilt. What is surprising about Silent Tongue (1993) is the flat-out weirdness of this Western.
