The Portage Theater – 4050 N. Milwaukee Ave – 7:30 – $5.00 per ticket
For the full schedule of classic film screenings at the Portage, please click here.
February 15
BACK STREET
Directed by John M. Stahl • 1932
What would you sacrifice for love? Ray (Irene Dunne) is just another small town girl, a fixture at her father’s Cincinnati storefront. A chance meeting with financier Walter (John Boles) sets off decades of promises, pining, and private love. One chance occurrence prevents Ray from marrying Walter, so she settles instead for being his “back street” secret, a lifelong (and class-conscious) love affair. If the setup sounds conventional, rest assured that no one has ever filmed it with so much weight and emotional resonance as John M. Stahl. (By the end, even a lifetime of romantic misfortune earns a cosmic dignity.) Remembered today largely for the misfortune of having so many of his films remade, but not necessarily improved (Strictly Dishonorable, Imitation of Life, Magnificent Obsession, and two subsequent versions of Back Street), Stahl emerges as a director who treated women’s pictures with a sincerity and sobriety never equaled. (Tom Milne even compared him once to Ozu!) His big-budget Universal melodramas are all ripe for rediscovery. (KW)
93 min • Universal Pictures • 35mm from Universal
Cartoon: Woody Woodpecker in “Drooler’s Delight” (1949, Dick Lundy) – 35mm
