From the Film Vault
Program Notes: Nights of Cabiria (1957)
In Nights of Cabiria actress Giulietta Masina and director Federico Fellini give us a funny, beguiling, and heartbreaking examination of innocence that has yet to be surpassed.
Program Notes: The Birds (1963)
Alfred Hitchcock liked to take chances. He took a huge one with The Birds, a story about our feathered friends turning homicidal and waging war on humanity with one of his most puzzling endings.
Program Notes: Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
Sleepless in Seattle is a romantic comedy that slyly ridicules Hollywood's unrealistic depictions of love and at the same time wants to be the same sort of preposterous-but-beloved screen romance it spoofs.
Program Notes: Bye Bye Birdie (1963)
It says something that Bye Bye Birdie, a musical inspired by a very specific news story of the late 1950s and devised as a humorous commentary on the cultural ethos of that era, has over the last 50 years become timeless.
Program Notes: The Big Sleep (1946)
Raymond Chandler, on whose novel The Big Sleep was based, confessed that even he couldn't figure out the plot of the movie version. But Bogie’s sardonic tough guy and the heat generated by Lauren Bacall make it a film noir classic.
