Classic Curtis

The American Cinematheque’s “The Prince and the Imposter: An In-Person Tribute to Tony Curtis,” an overdue salute to one of Hollywood’s most durable--and underappreciated--stars, commences tonight at 8 at the Egyptian Theater with “Sweet Smell of Success,” which has lost none of its bite in the 43 years since it was made. The dialogue of Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, in their script from Lehman’s short story, remains among the most corrosive in American movies, and James Wong Howe’s black-and-white cinematography of New York City locales is still stunning. Best of all are the performances director Alexander Mackendrick got from Lancaster as the megalomaniacal Broadway columnist J.J. Hunsecker, so clearly modeled on Walter Winchell, and especially from Curtis as the ambitious press agent Sidney Falco, who will stop at nothing to get an item in Hunsecker’s column, which, like Winchell’s, covers politics and crime as well as show business.

Young people seeing this film for the first time may find it hard to believe that a Hunsecker--or a Winchell--could be so powerful, but “Sweet Smell of Success” does not exaggerate. The irony is that, as this film was being made, television was already undermining the impact of Winchell on radio and in print.

What remains impressive is the symbiotic relationship between Lancaster and Curtis (Lancaster’s incestuous passion for his much-younger sister, played by beautiful Susan Harrison, which sets the plot in motion, is now not so riveting. Harrison has been back in the news since her daughter, Darva Conger, tied the knot with Rick Rockwell on national TV.) Curtis’ Falco is without redemption, but Lancaster’s Hunsecker, for all his lust for power, is not without humanity, especially when declaring his love for the New York he clearly knows better than anyone else. And, as Winchell was, Hunsecker is one helluva reporter. A discussion with Curtis and the composer of the film’s score, Elmer Bernstein, will follow. 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. (323) 466-FILM.

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“Trash” is not, repeat not, an Andy Warhol film but is in fact the second and highly effective effort of his talented assistant Paul Morrissey, who did most of the work on all the Warhol films. What Morrissey did in his first feature, “Flesh,” and then in this sometimes uproariously funny, sometimes desperately sad movie is to draw upon the decadent scene of the Warhol superstars and utilize the same basic setups of extended dialogues between two or three people. “Trash” returns Friday with a new 35mm print at the Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West L.A., for a one-week 30th anniversary engagement.

Morrissey is more interested in storytelling than Warhol was, and in “Trash” he actually has somebody convincingly playing someone other than himself.

That somebody is his Adonis-like hero, Joe Dallesandro, a natural actor who plays a junkie quite effectively. Like “Flesh,” “Trash” is an odyssey of a young man through a cross-section of human urban blight. In “Flesh” Joe had to hustle to support a wife and kid; here, he must support his heroin habit, which renders him impotent, while a go-go dancer (Geri Miller), an acid head (Andrea Feldman), a housewife (Jane Forth) and a transvestite (Holly Woodlawn) vie for his attention.

Whether intentional or otherwise the film is dominated by Woodlawn’s presence as an authentic Manhattan street urchin with awesome resilience combined with a gnawing vulnerability. (310) 478-6379.

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LACMA’s richly rewarding “Berlin Between the Wars” series continues Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Bing Theater with D.W. Griffith’s “Isn’t Life Wonderful” (1924), one of the strongest films of the later part of his career. Griffith had already gone to Europe to make his memorable World War I film “Hearts of the World” (1918) and now he returned to reveal its cruel aftermath in the plight of a family of Polish refugees, part of a vast flood of Poles seeking work and shelter in Berlin. Carol Dempster’s Inga, an orphan raised by the family, is its mainstay, a gentle but determined waif who manages to win a job in a milliner’s shop. Her spirits soar when the family’s son Paul (Neil Hamilton) at last returns from the front and takes a job at the shipyard. But Paul is quickly felled by the effects of the poison gas he was exposed to in battle. He rallies, buoyed by Inga’s love and resolve, but as the couple gradually build a future for themselves and the family, Germany is hit with the runaway inflation that paved the way for Hitler’s rise.

The film’s title strikes a starkly, indeed heavily, ironic note only to be redeemed in the course of its unfolding by the strength of Inga’s shining love. “Isn’t Life Wonderful” has the eloquence and simplicity of Griffith’s silent classics and sustains its hokey moments of comic relief, a convention of the era in serious dramas. The film may well be the finest moment for Dempster, Griffith’s muse of the mid-’20s, a successor to Lillian Gish but never in her league. And the handsome, stalwart Hamilton, whose long career was capped as a regular in the “Batman” series of the ‘60s, matches Dempster in his sensitivity and presence. “Isn’t Life Wonderful” will be screened with live musical accompaniment by Robert Israel, and will be followed by Frank Borzage’s “Little Man, What Now?” (1934), starring Margaret Sullavan and Douglass Montgomery. Bob Fosse’s “Cabaret” (1972) and Ingmar Bergman’s “The Serpent’s Egg” (1977) screen

Saturday at 7:30 p.m., 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 857-6010.

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V.V. Dachin Hsu’s “My American Vacation,” which opens a one-week run Friday at the Grande 4-Plex, at Figueroa and 3rd streets in downtown L.A., is a lively, tart family comedy starring the elegant and commanding Tsai Chin. Chin is well-remembered from “The Joy Luck Club” as a recently widowed grandmother who travels from China to join her two daughters (Kim Miyori and Deborah Nishimura) to celebrate her 70th birthday with an RV vacation that will wind up in the Sequoia National Forest. Miyori’s Ming-Yee has just divorced her husband and is in a brittle, bossy mood while Nishimura’s Ming-Na, who has been working away interminably at a novel, fears she will seem a failure to her mother, despite her happy marriage (to Dennis Dun’s amiable Henry). Chin’s Grandma Lee has no trouble bonding with her 8-year-old granddaughter, Melissa, but the road will be rocky with the daughters she has not seen for quite some time. There’s a strong dose of sitcom humor, but the film grows more serious as the family strives toward wisdom and reconciliation. This is a warm, endearing traditional-style film in which its three accomplished actresses glow in substantial roles. (213) 617-0268.

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The Laemmle Theaters’ “Documentary Days 2000” continues at the Sunset 5 on Saturday and Sunday at 10 a.m. with David Pultz’s straightforward “Eternal Memory: Voices From the Great Terror.” The film tells how the Ukraine became a special target of the infamous Stalinist purges of the late ‘30s that were to cost an estimated 20 million lives. The citizens of the Ukraine resisted turning their farms into collectives and also expressed nationalist urges, a fatal combination at a time when about 1.5 million people in that region were taken away, almost always during the night, never to be seen again by relatives, a number of whom speak on camera of their painful losses. Narrated by Meryl Streep, “Eternal Memory” also screens March 25 and 26 at 11 a.m. at the Monica 4-Plex.

Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood: (323) 848-3500; Monica 4-Plex, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica: (310) 394-9741.

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The amateurish “Vampire Night” (Fridays and Saturdays at the Sunset 5) tells of a naive aspiring actress who winds up with a little theater troupe of vampires. In her screen debut Heather Metcalfe is appropriately wide-eyed, and the seasoned Jimmy Jerman is effective as her brother, a rugged ex-Navy SEAL determined to rescue her. Metcalfe and Jerman are worthy of better opportunities.

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Note: “Paulina,” a documentary about a Mexican woman who was sold by her family to a wealthy landowner but escaped to the U.S., screens Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place, Hollywood. (323) 960-2394.

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The American Cinematheque’s “The Best of the 2000 Slamdance Film Festival” commences Wednesday at the Egyptian with Stephen Kinsella’s “Callie Thorne” at 7:30 p.m., followed by a programs of shorts. (323) 466-FILM.