Eddie Cantor, among the Jewishperformers featured in the Skirball Cultural Center’s current filmseries.
The Skirball Cultural Center is continuing its “Vaudeville: JewishPerformers in Early Sound Film” series with screenings of the MarxBrothers, Eddie Cantor, and Burns and Allen, among others. Here’s thelineup:
- Thursday, Jan. 29, 7:30 p.m.: “The Cocoanuts,” the Marx Brothers’ first film, based on their Broadway stage hit, about a greedy hotel manager trying to cash in on Florida real estate.
- Sunday, Feb. 1, 2 p.m.: An Eddie Cantor double bill of “Glorifying the American Girl,” featuring a Ziegfeld Follies routine, and “Whoopee!” with a singing cameo by Betty Grable.
- Sunday, Feb. 8, 3 p.m.: “Short Takes,” a program of short films featuring classic routines by George Jessel, Fannie Brice, Milton Berle, Jack Benny and Cantor.
- Sunday, Feb. 22, 2 p.m.: “An Afternoon with George and Gracie” features their first talkie (“Fit To Be Tied”), shorts “The Antique Shop” and “Walking the Baby,” and the 1934 feature “Six of a Kind,” in which the couple encounters W.C. Fields.
The Skirball is located at 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles.Individual admissions and series subscriptions are available bycalling (213) 660-TKTS.
Animation fans can rejoice this week, thanks to the enterprisingfolks at the New Beverly Cinema. The theater will present a doublebill of films by famed Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer. “Faust,” adark variation on the legend, is about a Prague businessman who fallsvictim to the Devil; it will screen with “Conspirators of Pleasure”on Wednesday, Jan. 28, through Saturday, Jan. 31.
Svankmajer’s puppet animation is a work of technical wizardry andis a style of cinematic art that, unfortunately, is not attempted bymainstream filmmakers, for whom animation increasingly meansdigitalization.
His films, depressing, albeit visually stunning, are definitelynot for everyone, and are much more enjoyable if viewed withoutexpecting to see something Disney-esque.
The theater is located at 7165 Beverly Blvd., one block west of LaBrea Ave. Call (213) 938-4038 for show times.
