THURSDAY, AUGUST 3 9:00 pm (ET)/6:00 pm (PT) THE LOVE LIGHT (1921) — U.S. television premiere of the film - restored by UCLA and Timeline Films The Love Light is based on a story Frances Marion witnessed during her honeymoon in Italy. Her tour guide pointed out a young woman holding a baby and told Marion the story of how this young woman became a heroine to the villagers. While acting as the sole caretaker for the town’s lighthouse after her father died, the girl fell in love with a German soldier who washed up on the rocks. She hid him for months until she discovered that he was using the lighthouse to signal German ships. Love for her country triumphed, she betrayed his hiding place and watched the soldiers drag him away to be executed. Mary Pickford, who was the most celebrated star at the time and a close friend of Marion’s, was captivated when Marion recounted the story to her. At Pickford’s urging, Marion directed and cast her handsome, athletic new husband Fred Thomson as Pickford's leading man. Pickford was the unequivocal star of The Love Light but, during the shooting of the film, she felt neglected because she thought Marion spent too much of her time making sure her husband was properly directed and well-presented on the screen. This was Marion's last film as sole director and the only restored one of the three she directed. It was filmed on location in Monterey, California. Written by: Laura Drazin Boyes, Film Curator, North Carolina Museum of Art References: Without Lying Down by Cari Beauchamp 12:00 am (ET)/9:00 pm (PT) THE BIG HOUSE (1930) Prison riots and prison reform were hot topics in 1929 when screenwriter Frances Marion and director George Hill collaborated on this grimly realistic and often brutal story about the results of first-time offenders being incarcerated with hardened criminals. The film stars Walace Berry and co-stars Robert Montgomery, Chester Moris and Lewis Stone. Marion won an Oscar® for writing The Big House, and an Academy Award® also went to Douglas Shearer for his sound recording. The claustrophobic sets and the innovative use of sound effects, including the stomping of prisoners’ feet, the clang of prison doors shutting and rat-a-tat of machine guns virtually created a new genre of film. Written by: Laura Drazin Boyes, Film Curator, North Carolina Museum of Art References: Magill's Survey of Cinema, Series II v 1 Off With Their Heads, by Frances Marion Without Lying Down, by Cari Beauchamp 1:30 am (ET)/10:30 pm (PT) THE CHAMP (1931) Frances Marion came up with the idea for The Champ while visiting Mexico. MGM’s Irving Thalberg wanted an old-fashioned Western for Wallace Beery, but Marion returned to his office with The Champ, a new type of love story about an old drunken ex-prizefighter and the son who idolizes him. The Champ (Wallace Beery) and his son Dink (Jackie Cooper), shabby but determined, battle both the custody demands of The Champ's ex-wife, and his one last opponent in the ring. Beery won a Best Actor Oscar® (shared with Frederic March for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Marion won her second Oscar® for her original story. Director King Vidor’s skill with the actors, many of whom gave him their most sensitive performances, is evident and he credited the script with giving him the freedom to concentrate on the actors. Written by: Laura Drazin Boyes, Film Curator, North Carolina Museum of Art References: Without Lying Down, by Cari Beauchamp Off With their Heads, by Frances Marion The Film Encyclopedia, by Ephraim Kat 3:00 am (ET)/.12:00 am (PT) ANNA CHRISTIE (1930) Greta Garbo was MGM’s biggest box office star and, in 1930, the only one yet to talk on screen. For her talkie debut, Frances Marion adapted Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Anna Christie, directed by Clarence Brown. Written in 1920, it had already been filmed as a silent in 1923 with Blanche Sweet. Marion's adaption was extremely close to the original text, minus the "hells" and "damns" that were acceptable on stage but not on screen. In addition, she wrote a new scene set in an amusement park to open up the play and to give more depth to the character of Marthy. Marion’s friend Marie Dressler was cast as Marthy, the kindly waterfront slattern in whom Anna recognizes a kindred spirit - herself in 40 years. Dressler brought warmth and emotion to Marthy, and Anna Christie jump-started her new career as MGM’s box office star. Written by: Laura Drazin Boyes, Film Curator, North Carolina Museum of Art References: Anna Christie, by Eugene O'Neill The Commonweal, March 26, 1930 Sin in Soft Focus: Pre-Code Hollywood, by Mark Viera Without Lying Down, by Cari Beauchamp 4:30 am (ET)/1:30 am (PT) THE SECRET SIX (1931) The Secret Six is a gangster film for which Frances Marion penned three-dimensional characters; even the bad guys have sympathetic quirks. Meant to be a hard-hitting expose of a Capone-like mob, the film's tough-talking script was based on a Saturday Evening Post expose of an actual group of Chicago businessmen who banded together with the state attorney and the Federal government to stop illegal activities in the city. Wallace Beery portrays ganglord Louis Scorpio. The hero, played inertly by former Alabama football player Johnny Mack Brown, is completely upstaged by a young, seventh-billed Clark Gable. Screenwriter Marion thought Gable had star potential, and she made his part bigger with every script revision. Originally, Marion planned Scorpio's death to be poetic justice, trampled to death "in the muck of the stockyards" from which he had come, but the censors decreed a conventional "crime does not pay" solution. Forced to write a new ending, she penciled on her script, "the proverbial happy ending." Written by: Laura Drazin Boyes, Film Curator, North Carolina Museum of Art References: Without Lying Down , by Cari Beauchamp