The Friday 3/31/2023

Lee Hyeyoung, Song Sunmi: Walk Up (Courtesy of Cinema Guild)

My piece for the Scarecrow blog this week, and etc.

Walk Up. “It has a beguiling, haunted feeling—a sense that even as things are moving up, they’re slipping away.”

Our Saturday Scarecrow Academy session (4/1) is devoted to a (free, online) conversation about Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie, part of our semester titled “Women in Trouble: Great Melodrama in Film.” This is a strange and remarkable film, so I’m hoping for a spirited discussion. Register here.

New radio show this week: “The Music and the Movies” presents “Jazzwomen in Film,” in which we consider where jazzwomen have intersected with the movies; the list features some of music’s biggest names, such as Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. The undercurrent here is the way certain stars, such as the incandescent Lena Horne, were held back by the era’s racism, including the fact that standalone numbers featuring African-American performers could be cut from movie prints in order to be allowed distribution in the American South. Selections include Horne in a wild collaboration with Hazel Scott, and include choice stuff from Carmen McRae, Nina Simone, and Peggy Lee (who actually snagged a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination back in the ’50s)—and you can bet Julie London will sidle in to croon “Cry Me a River.” Listen here (or check out another episode, if that one has lapsed).

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