Taking Pride
Series | COBRA WOMAN, SCARECROW IN A GARDEN OF CUCUMBERS, MA VIE EN ROSE
ABOUT THE SERIES:
The American Cinematheque is proud to welcome authors Alonso Duralde and Caden Mark Gardner to present ‘Taking Pride,’ a series highlighting three films explored in Duralde’s Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film and Gardner’s Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema.
Our series begins with Robert Siodmak’s COBRA WOMAN, the 1944 Maria Montez vehicle and a deliciously over-the-top exercise in exotica, colonial fetishization, and general absurdity. (The trailer calls it “A Pagan Sensation!”) Montez stars as twin princesses – one good, one evil, both in love with strapping Jon Hall – in a tale that incorporates volcanoes, blowguns, Sabu, a forbidden dance of the snakes, and a valuable stone that Montez memorably calls the “Cobra jool.”
Next is Robert J. Kaplan’s SCARECROW IN A GARDEN OF CUCUMBERS. Once feared as a ‘lost film’, it runs in the mold of other cult classics like Robert Downey Sr.’s PUTNEY SWOPE (1969), Tom Schiller’s NOTHING LASTS FOREVER (1984) and Timothy Carey’s THE WORLD’S GREATEST SINNER (1962) as a feverish live-action fairytale. The legendary Warhol Superstar and trans icon Holly Woodlawn plays Eve, who gets off the bus from New York City with ambition but finds herself in an urban fantasy where cursing nuns drive taxis and Chelsea Hotel bellboys wear gas masks. Robert J. Kaplan’s 1972 musical comedy is full of Old Hollywood callouts with characters having the names of Margo Channing, Eve Harrington, and Blanche DuBlois with musical numbers that are a cocktail of Broadway kitsch and Sesame Street.
Our series closes out with Alain Berliner’s MA VIE EN ROSE. Berliner skillfully captures the reality of the suburban bourgeoisie, as well as the cotton-candy fantasies where Ludo can be herself in the company of a Barbie-like doll named Pam, in a gently moving story of parents learning that truly loving their child means truly understanding her.
Program notes by authors Alonso Duralde and Caden Mark Gardner
4:00 PM
COBRA WOMAN
$10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.
Los Feliz 3 | Introduction by author Alonso Duralde
Book signing with Alonso Duralde for his book Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film prior to the screening at 3:30pm at the Los Feliz 3, in partnership with Skylight Books.
4:00 PM
SCARECROW IN A GARDEN OF CUCUMBERS
$10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.
Los Feliz 3 | Introduction by author Caden Mark Gardner
Book signing with Caden Mark Gardner for his book Corpses, Fools and Monsters: The History and Future of Transness in Cinema prior to the screening at 3:30pm at the Los Feliz 3, in partnership with Skylight Books.
4:00 PM
MA VIE EN ROSE
$10.00 (member) ; $15.00 (general admission)
Ticket prices include a $2.00 online booking fee.
Los Feliz 3 | Introduction by author Alonso Duralde
Book signing with Alonso Duralde for his book Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film prior to the screening at 3:30pm at the Los Feliz 3, in partnership with Skylight Books.
