New Class at BMFI Starts Wednesday

When television came along in the late 1940s, Hollywood reacted the way the villagers reacted to the Frankenstein Monster, and for much the same reasons: They said it was unnatural, dangerous, ugly, and its very existence posed a threat to the traditional order.

The film industry’s early response to the upstart medium was a comical mix of bluster and denial. The movie studios would not produce TV shows, rent their facilities for TV production, allow their stars to appear in TV dramas, or (and you have to love this one) even show a TV set onscreen in a movie—unless it was used in the story, often in a way that mocked television.

Class:

4 Wednesdays, February 27 to March 20, 6:30 pm to 9:30 pm
Instructor: Ian Abrams, College of Media Arts & Design, Drexel University
Location: Multimedia Room
Cost: $100 for members, $125 for non-members

  This class will view and discuss four films, some contemporaneous, some nostalgic looks back, about the small screen in its formative years, including A Face in the Crowd (1957), The Front (1976), and My Favorite Year (1982). It will also consider a few other topics, such as Hollywood's always fraught relationship with new technology, the Blacklist, and what makes a show business monster. Primarily, though, we will explore the early, prickly relationship between the big and small screens, and look at how film ignored and insulted, but gradually grew to love, its one-eyed little brother.

Click here to register.

This information was provided by Bryn Mawr Film Institute.