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

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MARGARITA LANDAZURI: So she came to Opening Night even though her film was not— CLAUDE JARMAN: Yes, she was there. Anyway, it was one of those things that was a very delicate situation. I liked her, but I still think we saved her a lot of grief by not showing the movie. Let’s talk about Clint Eastwood. You know, this was a period when people were very anti-violence. Any movie with violence, the audience just couldn’t stand it. They were violent about violence. And Clint Eastwood was somebody they didn’t want to deal with. They just thought he was the worst because he was doing all this stuff. It was all the Berkeley young crowd that really didn’t want anything to do with him. In fact, when we had his tribute, Albert did not interview him; Lorena interviewed him, because they just didn’t want anything to do with him. And Clint had always come up to our Opening Nights, too. He would drive up in his pickup truck, with his wife. He was big friends with the Syufy family, too. So I felt bad about what was going on, because I thought he was getting a bum rap. Later it turned out people started to see what kind of a talent he had. We also had a film that Peter Bogdanovich had made called Directed by John Ford. And I called John Ford: “You know, we’re showing this film. Do you want to come up for it?” “No, I don’t want to come up for it.” I said, “Well, anything you want me to tell the audience?” And he said, “Yeah, tell them it was not directed by John Ford.” (LAUGHS) MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Crusty and cantankerous to the last, huh? CLAUDE JARMAN: Yes. MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Wasn’t part of the controversy over Eastwood the fact that he was being kind of honored as a director, and Play Misty for Me was his first film as a director? CLAUDE JARMAN: Like he hadn’t earned his spurs yet, and it was kind of a first thing, and it was more of a throwing something in and—we were honoring violence and all this stuff. I don’t know— things were still going on in the world. There was a lot of turmoil. They were more interested in Frank Capra and that type of thing. But we had Arthur Penn. Duh! Bonnie and Clyde? Talk about violence, huh? That seemed to be OK, but Eastwood just really was a red flag for some reason. MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Antifeminist too, because of the theme of the film, Play Misty For Me. 47
CLAUDE JARMAN: Exactly. And because at that point his films were still A Fistful of Dollars and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly— and, of course we had Minnelli as a finale—which was a tour de force of things that we could do. MARGARITA LANDAZURI: What about Capra? He had ties to San Francisco, didn’t he? CLAUDE JARMAN: I think so, yes. A lot of those guys did. Mervyn LeRoy used to sell papers in Union Square. But Capra was a legendary guy. And I think we had a retrospective to popular British cinema, so we had Blithe Spirit, King Solomon’s Mines, Pygmalion. Each day at 11:00 a.m. we were showing British films. MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Were those free? CLAUDE JARMAN: Yes. MARGARITA LANDAZURI: So you still had free films. CLAUDE JARMAN: We did have some free films. MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Just not the retrospectives. CLAUDE JARMAN: Right. MARGARITA LANDAZURI: This was the longest Festival ever, and with the most films—or up to that point, anyway. How did that work out? CLAUDE JARMAN: I just think we had a lot of things, a lot of films. We did not have restrictions when we moved to the Palace, as opposed to the Masonic. If we wanted to stretch it out a day, we could do that. We had the John and Yoko film at midnight. 48
Page 1 and 2: San Francisco Film Society Oral His
Page 3 and 4: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: And this was 1
Page 5 and 6: party at the Fairmont. We got a lot
Page 7 and 8: CLAUDE JARMAN: There was Bill Boyd,
Page 9 and 10: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Was it black-t
Page 11 and 12: CLAUDE JARMAN: You know, it’s int
Page 13 and 14: CLAUDE JARMAN: He showed up occasio
Page 15 and 16: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: What was her r
Page 17 and 18: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: What makes a g
Page 19 and 20: CLAUDE JARMAN: Oh, man! Barney stil
Page 21 and 22: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Did she attend
Page 23 and 24: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: And he was not
Page 25 and 26: CLAUDE JARMAN: No. We did not know
Page 27 and 28: money to organizations that need it
Page 29 and 30: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: So did you eve
Page 31 and 32: CLAUDE JARMAN: Something that would
Page 33 and 34: have a place to go.” And he said,
Page 35 and 36: CLAUDE JARMAN: “Put it back in th
Page 37 and 38: CLAUDE JARMAN: But we had the Bo Wi
Page 39 and 40: control, because it wasn’t fair.
Page 41 and 42: CLAUDE JARMAN: He was. He had his o
Page 43 and 44: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: There’s a fu
Page 45 and 46: CLAUDE JARMAN: We were downtown. At
Page 47: down and took a look at it, and it
Page 51 and 52: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: He was becomin
Page 53 and 54: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Who was he wit
Page 55 and 56: CLAUDE JARMAN: Is this the year tha
Page 57 and 58: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Before we leav
Page 59 and 60: CLAUDE JARMAN: We had Mark. Joanne
Page 61 and 62: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: So this year y
Page 63 and 64: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: There’s a le
Page 65 and 66: CLAUDE JARMAN: I heard he was stayi
Page 67 and 68: CLAUDE JARMAN: Let’s talk about t
Page 69 and 70: CLAUDE JARMAN: We probably had a fe
Page 71 and 72: said, “Let’s go to lunch,” an
Page 73 and 74: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: I think I have
Page 75 and 76: CLAUDE JARMAN: I regret that we had
Page 77 and 78: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Were they work
Page 79 and 80: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: You mean, of w
Page 81 and 82: CLAUDE JARMAN: Correct, but at leas
Page 83 and 84: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: Yeah. That was
Page 85 and 86: CLAUDE JARMAN: Well, it was. I’m
Page 87 and 88: CLAUDE JARMAN: Maybe the city cut u
Page 89 and 90: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: But you had ho
Page 91 and 92: eally been sick.” It wasn’t lik
Page 93 and 94: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: But I guess he
Page 95 and 96: exposure and get a good response. A
Page 97: MARGARITA LANDAZURI: What, to rinse

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