San Francisco Film Society Oral History Project Interview with ...

CLAUDE JARMAN: Just people who had the time to attend.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: A lot of film students, young people.
CLAUDE JARMAN: Yes, exactly.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: And also, journalists noted that the Festival was attracting younger
crowds. You think the retrospectives were a part of that?
CLAUDE JARMAN: It was part of it, I think. It was’65, ’66; and there was a lot of turmoil around the
country. Vietnam, student unrest at Berkeley, it got to be a very big boiling pot, and San Francisco was
right in the heart of it, so there was a lot going on in those days. A lot of anger—it was interesting.
When you get into some of the movies that, for example, Clint Eastwood did, people didn’t want to see
anything to do with violence on the street. Over 15 years, it went through several cycles.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: How was this kind of—
CLAUDE JARMAN: I don’t think we were mindful of it, but I don’t think it affected how we went
about our business. Let’s get into the second year, the tenth Festival.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: OK. This is the tenth. There were, again, some great retrospectives that
year. Why don’t you talk a little about some of your favorites.
CLAUDE JARMAN: Well, let’s see. What happened in the second year, we had a new general
chairman. Mel Swig was one year, and then we had Dave Sacks, who was the general manager of KGO.
We still had Bill Boyd. We had Albert on the payroll at that point; I don’t think he was the first year.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: He did it as a volunteer?
CLAUDE JARMAN: I think that first year—Maybe he got some money. During the first year we had
Lorena Cantrell coming in.
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