Archives & Manuscripts #14 - International League of Antiquarian ...

8 Art Carduner. Collection of 31 Programs for The New Strand Independent Theater. Lambertville,
New Jersey: Art Carduner 1963-1967. $1750
A collection of 31 monthly programs published between 1963-1967 for The New Strand, an independent film theater. All octavos. In several
formats from single sheets folded to stapled wrappers in a variety of page counts, typically 16pp. to 32pp. Overall near fine with some minor
wear and age toning; a half dozen with addresses and canceled stamps from being mailed. The New Strand Theater was located in Lambertville,
New Jersey on the banks of the Delaware and Raritan Canal, just one block from the Delaware River in West Central New Jersey. The theater
was opened in 1962 by Art Carduner, a film lover and bookseller who also ran the Brand Box, a Philadelphia theater. Both venues displayed his
eclectic taste in cinema with monthly programs that ran the gamut from silent films to modern studio films, but specialized in obscure, foreign,
and art films.
The programs are particularly notable for their informative and idiosyncratic writings by Carduner. The untitled and unsigned text pieces start
small but grow increasingly longer and more involved with each monthly release. While most hit all the usual marks touting the month’s new
releases and highlights, along with brief descriptions of the films, Carduner also recaps audience (and box office) responses to the previous month’s
showings, relays interesting anecdotes and complaints, as well as his philosophy behind his decision making. For Luis Bunuel’s Viridiana, the 1961
winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes, he states bluntly, “This is not a pleasant film, nor an easy one to understand. … finding the real meaning
of the film is like finding the real meaning of Finnegan’s Wake.” To fill a distributor’s requirement that the films he show “be used solely for study
purposes and not for entertainment” he explains that short lectures will be held before screenings in the hope it will “satisfy the requirements of
pedantry and tarnish any possible pure enjoyment.”
Later issues have Carduner veering from serious film talk to fictitious film industry interviews, analysis of promotional efforts for Beach Blanket
Bingo, and one program includes a long piece on the response he received over the hyperbolic use of the word “nigger” in a discussion of thencontemporary
liberal vs. conservative views of the Civil Rights Struggle. His writing style is epitomized in a lengthy piece from 1967 that discusses
his reactions to Kenneth Anger’s Scorpio Rising and Robert Nelson’s Oh Dem Watermelons which references Ben Johnson, D.W. Griffith, Charlie
Chaplin, Adlai Stevenson, Jonas Mekas, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Paddy Chayevsky, to name just a few.
A wonderful collection of programs from a passionate supporter of art films from a golden era of independent film theaters. OCLC locates no issues.
[BTC #383657]