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narrative or most deeply-felt scenes carefully composed and relatively lengthy shots with nearly imperceptible camera movement, actor stability, and minimal interposed cuts. Even more essential to Howard's style was his penchant for chiaroscuro. The sharpest black-white contrasts seem to have represented for him the indissolubility of joy and darkness in life, and their continual juxtaposition in shot after shot of film after film testifies to the director's philosophical duality (although it is clearly darkness which predominates in his compositions). All these : features are notably part of the aforementioned scene of Back Door in which Frankie returns to his childhood home to question the black family living there about his mother. And it is precisely in its so-called "static" quality, of which Nugent complained, that Howard's attitude and approach are distilled to their essence; for it is this quality which supports and at the same time reveals and becomes part of the filmmaker's concept of the somber, crushing, but inevitable and somehow dignifying burden of existence. - The characters-Frankie, Mrs. Hambleton and her two children-are set in position at the start of the scene and scarcely gesture during its several minutes' length. In an unstressed allusion to his own childhood' in the house, Frankie is placed next to the seated and Inexpressive boy of the family, at whom he occasionally glances while listening respectfully and attentively, but with a kind of intense distraction, to the mother as she talks about the fate of his parents. He finally addresses the boy directly to ask if the child is going to be a railroad porter like the relative whom the mother has held up as a success in life. The passive boy returns Frankie's neutral look and murmurs a noncommittal "Maybe," fusing as he does into a composite figure with the man across the years' difference in their ages, forming because of his color nearly the photographic negative of the boy Frankie visible in and indivisible from the man. It is a rich and reverberatory understatement of the kind that in- forms the entire scene. When Mrs. Hambleton reports i to Frankie that they took his mother "away to Toleda. Is that the place where they carry crazy people?" Ford as Frankie replies, "Yeah, that's the place," in the same simple, straightforwardly accepting manner that characterizes Lydon's performance -and the entire cast's, for that matter-without resorting to a blink, a gulp or even a tremor of the lower lip. And when the chance to display a theatrical bitterness presents itself with the black woman's attempt to comfort him that his father "died with the most loveliest .smile.on his face," his response-v'Was he plastered?"-is still muted and given with almost a flush of embarr.assment at being unable to contain, not his bitterness, but his anguish. Sentimental, to be sure, but sincere, authentic and without guile, subterfuge or appeal for effect. This distinctive' vision extends to the technical aspects of the film and also provides another instance of the widely, and sometimes wildly, varying nature of B films so often overlooked. Though there are literally hundreds of Bs that appear to have been made by Brownies with Brownies in front of High School Drama Society settings, there are many, like Back Door, that reflect the most precise attention to aesthetic and technical matters. The finished film clearly displays Howard's (and Hal Mohr's) careful compositions and lighting setups; the director's (and the art director's) stress on the importance of appropriate and veracious, though not necessarily expensive, sets; and the most detailed consideration in casting, exemplified by the exact physical pairing of child with adult actors-not just Lydon with Ford, but also with the look-alike youngsters who are matched to the unusual appearances of Patricia Ellis and Van Heflin. It is a categoric demonstration of the range of possibilities and the freedom of choice inherent in the B system. Freedom is perhaps the most difficult concept for the general consciousness to reconcile with the B film, for the misapprehension of the classification has centered on two of its comparatively few restrictions: the lack of star actors and the limited budget. There were others, of course, and serious ones-the small salaries, for example, most often meant besides poor acting, even poorer direction and scripts. But what should be realized is that this process of minimization did not operate unfailingly, and that when a filmmaker of even a limited talent and vision apprehended and responded to the possibilities of the category, it provided to some extent a less encumbered outlet for his expression than 'the nominally grander categories of film.• James Damico is a play- and TV-writer who resides in New York City. He has previously published film criticism in The Journal of Popular Film.
The Seattle Film Society is proud to present A TRIBUTE TO JEAN RENOIR featuring 5 of his least-seen films: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, March 11 - 2 French films MADAME BOVARY 1934 - 1st Northwest showing ELENA ET LES HOMMES 1956 - in color, with Ingrid Bergman 7:30 & 9:30 Friday, March 12 - the legendary film of Indian life THE RIVER By special arrangement with producer Kenneth McEldowney, we are showing a rare 35mm Technicolor print 7:30 Saturday, March 13 - 2 American Renoirs SWAMPWATER 1941 - Walter Brennan THE SOUTHERNER 1945 - Zachary Scott & Betty Field All shows in 130 Kane Hall, University of Washington Admission Thurs. & Sat.: SFS $1.00, UW student $1.50, others $2.00 Admission for THE RIVER: SFS $1.50, UW student $2.00, others $2.50 Phone 329-3119 for more information.
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MOVIETONE NEW8 . - Parallax View Annex

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