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

Berkeley, William Wellman, John Frankenheimer, Lewis Milestone, Leo McCarey, King Vidor, Gene
Kelly and Hal Roach.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Did you attend all of those?
CLAUDE JARMAN: Oh yes, of course. There were maybe 500 people there at the John Ford, and
during the weekends. It was just beginning to take off. Those were the focal points. When you look back
at the films, we had some good films that year, but it was hard to get Opening Night films.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Why?
CLAUDE JARMAN: Studios were afraid of festivals. The studio system was still running and still
distributing, and so they were very afraid of them. They still are.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Why were they afraid?
CLAUDE JARMAN: They had their own way of distributing and they always wanted a big film in the
Festival that was going to open up the next day, to capitalize on it, because they realized they only get
the reviews once. So if you have a film in the Festival, and then the film’s going out three months
later—it really doesn’t fit into their marketing plans. But anyway, that was our first year, and I thought it
went very well.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Did you still have studio contacts at this point?
CLAUDE JARMAN: Somewhat. We ended up dealing mostly with a lot of PR firms down south. There
were contacts that we would use to go through these things. I can’t remember what films we had though.
MARGARITA LANDAZURI: That first year?
CLAUDE JARMAN: But I know we decided to use the Masonic Auditorium because we wanted a place
where you could bring the Festival into the heart of town. And the hotels wanted the Opening Night
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