Films made in New York are focus of James Card Memorial Lecture Sept. 13

Guest speaker is film historian and author Dr. Richard Koszarski

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House welcomes film historian and Rutgers University professor Dr. Richard Koszarski at 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 13, who will deliver the James Card Memorial Lecture—the annual lecture named in honor of the legendary founder and first curator of the George Eastman House motion picture collection.

This year's James Card Memorial Lecture will feature a program derived from Koszarski's new book, Hollywood on the Hudson: Film and Television in New York from Griffith to Sarnoff. The 105-minute presentation of films made in New York includes Robert Florey's short Skyscraper Symphony (1929) and the animated Ko-Ko's Earth Control (1928) from the celebrated Fleischer Studios. The evening concludes with the rare feature film The Cooperhead (Charles Maigne, US 1920, 70 min.).

Live piano will be performed by Philip C. Carli. For more info, visit dryden.eastmanhouse.org. Included with Dryden admission: $7 general admission and $5 members and students.

More about Dr. Richard Koszarski and Hollywood on the Hudson

He has been described as "one of the preeminent film historians of our time." Koszarski is an associate professor of English and film studies at Rutgers University, and the editor-in-chief of Film History: An International Journal. His books include The Man You Loved to Hate: Erich von Stroheim and Hollywood and An Evening's Entertainment: The Age of the Silent Feature Picture.

In Hollywood on the Hudson, he rewrites an important part of the history of American cinema. During the 1920s and 1930s, film industry executives had centralized the mass production of feature pictures in a series of gigantic film factories scattered across Southern California, while maintaining New York as the economic and administrative center. But as Koszarski reveals, many writers, producers, and directors also continued to work here, especially if their independent vision was too big for the Hollywood production line. East Coast filmmakers—Oscar Micheaux, Rudolph Valentino, Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur, Paul Robeson, Gloria Swanson, Max Fleischer, and others—quietly created a studio system without back-lots, long-term contracts or seasonal production slates. They substituted "newsreel photography" for Hollywood glamour, targeted niche audiences instead of middle-American families, and pushed the boundaries of motion picture censorship. Rebellious and unconventional, they saw the New York studios as laboratories and used them to pioneer the development of new technologies, new genres, new talent, and ultimately, an entirely new vision of commercial cinema.

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