History Lesson 
Film Fatale
Not one, but TWO film festivals were held in Dallas, and the battle scenes weren't all on the screen.
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I left in time to make it back to the Municipal Auditorium Theater for the last moments of the other festival. The monolithic grey building, dimly lit on the outside in the darkness and chilly drizzle, looked especially bleak after a house so brightly lit and crowded. Home From the Hill was the final movie, a fitting end to a festival held in Texas. The movie was supposed to start at 10 but actually started much later, and Home is not the shortest movie ever made. It was after one o'clock when Minelli walked down the aisle of the theater to the front of the stage. The 20 of us who were still there moved to the first few rows and listened to him talk about the making of the picture. Several people commented that George Peppard and George Hamilton had never acted better. Here and in other films, Minelli had somehow gotten fresh and convincing performances from players not known for their range. "Yes," he said, "they were very good." There was no indication of what he had done—surely something—to make them good. No indication except, perhaps, that yellow tie he was wearing again tonight. It represented something strong, obstinate, demanding, confident: a broad streak of brilliant, eccentric color in a setting of taste, propriety, and logic.
Kit Carson came forward to present Minelli with a commemoration of the festival. Whatever Kit's faults may or may not be, on this occasion he was eloquent: "Mr. Minelli, you've said that the goal of your films is to bring people 'a little magic.' You've certainly done that this week both through your films and by your presence. I wish we could have given you larger audiences. But those who did come to see your magic have, I think, given you some thing in return—their hearts."
Spontaneously we rose to our feet and applauded warmly in that cold theater built to hold more than 50 times our number. "Thank you," MineIli murmured. He looked at us. He seemed both bemused by our meagerness and touched by our sincerity. The applause built and continued. Faces flushed. Hands were emotionally shaken. "Thank you," he said again. "Thank you. Thank you."
This seems as good a time as any to explain how each festival selected the films it showed. The United States Festival program was chosen by a board of critics whose members included Rex Reed, Dwight MacDonald, Jay Cocks and several others. They chose what they thought were the best among the group of films the festival organizers were able to gather together. The USA festival selected critics and paid them to bring to Dallas a designated number of films of their own choosing.
Certain advantages accrue to each method, but it should be pointed out that critics, who are in positions of tremendous power, might not always be comfortable asking the various studios for permission to show films since they may no longer be free of obligation in their critical judgments. Some films brought to the USA festival the selection critics had not even seen, a situation that produced some embarrassing results. Hollis Alpert, who writes for Playboy and World, brought a film called Mother's Day which he had not seen. The movie was produced and directed by Darren McGavin.
In explaining his choice Alpert said, "I know Darren from a while back. I heard about his film and bringing it here seemed like a good way for us to see one another again." The movie turned out to be a tedious, mindless, commercial little melodrama about a boy's search for his parents. The "mystery" is maintained by tired and phony dialog like this: "I wouldn't do that, son, your moth...uhh, the people of the town, that is, don't need you around here." In the discussion that followed McGavin explained that this was the first movie made by a production company he had formed which had searched out "scripts on subjects we knew would sell." It was embarrassing to watch Alpert, who had at last seen the film, do critical somersaults to defend its minimal merit.
At the same time there is no doubt that the USA festival was better organized and planned, much better attended, and showed overall a somewhat more prestigious selection of movies. It had precisely the same format as the United States Festival, with a Raoul Walsh film at 10 a.m. and p.m. and two showings of the new critic-chosen films, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. But there the similarity ends. Held in the 300-seat Bob Hope Theater at SMU, the USA festival was a glittering spectacular whose honored guest, Walsh, proved as straightforward and boisterous as Minelli had been quiet and provocative.
The first time I saw Walsh after the party was Monday morning when I came into the theater as he was holding forth on The Roaring Twenties with critic Judith Crist. They were on a small stage that extends in front of the movie screen, before a 20-foot replica of a Texas license plate that was raised and lowered throughout the festival for these discussions. Its significance remained a mystery to everyone who saw it.
Walsh sat leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and expounded in a rough, old, wind-tempered voice.
His sense for anecdote was superb. I have, since then, tried repeating some of his stories only to watch them fall flat without the benefit of Walsh's voice, boots, Stetson, waving arms and tremendous chest that swayed forward and back, side to side with the beat of his tales. It was Bogie this and Cagney that and Charlie Chaplin showed up with a girl one day and Flynn didn't want me to know he'd pulled that stunt so...Ms. Crist simply asked him a question or two, then rested her cheek in her palm and watched him go. So energetic was his presence that it came as a shock when the discussion was over to see that age really had taken its toll. He held arms on both sides as he walked, his legs quivered unsteadily beneath him, and he could barely see. "A step," Ms. Crist warned him coming down from the stage. "Another step."
Through the week the festival proceeded in its tightly organized, up-tempo way. It started off strongly on Monday with two of Judith Crist's selections, Images and The Long Goodbye, both directed by Robert Altman. Wednesday brought Ten From Your Show of Shows, selected by Hollis Alpert, a movie of skits from the original television show starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. It earned Caesar, who was present at the festival, tremendous ovations. On Thursday came Love and Pain, and the whole, damn thing, also selected by Hollis Alpert, which stars Timothy Bottoms and Maggie Smith in a story about a love affair between an adolescent and an older woman. For Friday critic Esme Dick had selected, among others, Frederick Wiseman's documentary The Essenes, one of the few movies able to show an analytical intelligence behind it. Kid Blue, brought to the festival by critic Arthur Knight, Jr., played Sunday. It stars Dennis Hopper, was written by Texas' Edwin Shrake and had the audience cheering.
The rest of the new films at the festival, seven full length features, seemed to me indistinguishable in their ordinariness. Whether this was due to the general state of movies in America, the competition between the two festivals, the critics' judgments, or the eccentricity of my tastes, I do not wish to speculate.
I left Dallas Sunday afternoon in the midst of heavy thunderstorms and a tornado alert. Somewhere around Waco the storm became so violent that I stopped my car under an overpass to wait things out. One thing came to me just then—I knew I wasn't going to be able to fill much space with my account of the USA Festival. I had no feel for what had happened there, anymore than you're able to get a feel for what goes on, really, at a movie theater you've visited for an evening's entertainment. The whole thing went off like clockwork and that was pretty much the story; next year, (since it is doubtful that the Moving Image Association will repeat its festival) the USA will be an even bigger success.
Bill Jones, USA festival director, seemed exactly the man to put on such an event. In the space of a week, he had exhibited not one rough edge. Energetic probing, I was sure, would have found some; but when it came right down to it I wondered who such probing would benefit. Neither did I care, really, whether he or Kit Carson was at fault in their feuding. The basic difference between the festivals was this: At the USA festival you watched movies; the United States festival let you hang out around movies.
The storm had let up some but I sat watching the sky clear and become large again. Far, far in the distance I could see thin streaks of lightning explode into tiny electric rivulets. Forty movies, I thought. Two weeks of my short life. It wasn't worth it at all.
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