THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY
Individual Film Titles
Almos' A Man
Dave is a black teenage farm worker in the late 1930s. Misunderstood by his family, patronized by his elders, taken for granted by the man he works for, he is at the stage in his life when he is no longer a boy and not yet a man. With a second-hand gun that he persuades his mother to let him buy-- "I'm almos' a man," he argues--he accidentally shoots a mule and opens himself anew to misunderstanding and ridicule. In a final act of resolve, he retrieves the gun he buried in panic--the very object that symbolizes his adulthood- and hops a passing freight train, to be borne off to somewhere he could "be a man," free at last from the bonds of family and place.
Almos' A Man by Richard Wright 39 minutes, color.
Barn Burning
Abner Snopes, a proud, poor Southern tenant farmer in the late 19th century believes his employer has treated him unfairly. Revenge. Abner will get revenge by burning his employer's barn. Abner's son, Sarty, wants his father's acceptance and love, but is horrified by the fire. Abner senses this and lectures his son on loyalty and the value of taking justice into your own hands. The burning can't be pinned on Snopes, but he and his family are told
to move on. In a new job with a rich Major DeSpain, Snopes once again is offended. So he tracks dirt on his employer's rug. The Major demands $100 compensation. Sarty sees the fire beginning to rage in his father's cold eyes. Sarty agonizes. He hesitates. Then he warns the Major to look after his barn and thus betrays his father.
Barn Burning by William Faulkner, 41 minutes, color.
Bernice Bobs Her Hair
Bernice is of the pre-flapper generation, but her struggles in learning to "fit in" are as modern as today. Bernice starts out as the prototypical "drag." She is taken in tow by her know-it-all cousin. Marjorie, who sets out to remake her. Under Marjorie's tutelage, Bernice becomes so adopt in applying the lessons in how to attract and beguile men that she begins to rival Marjorie at her own game. When Marjorie attempts to humiliate Bernice, and actually succeeds in goading her into bobbing her hair, Bernice strikes back in an act of revenge that gives the story a delightful, ironic twist.
Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F. Scott Fitzgerald, 48 minutes, color.
The Blue Hotel
A cowboy, a journalist from the east and a foreigner called "The Swede" arrive by train in the small Nebraska frontier town, Fort Romper. A game of cards in the local hotel is interrupted when the foreigner suddenly announces, "I am going to be killed here." Events unfold to the dramatic and fatal conclusion.
The Blue Hotelby Stephen Crane, 55 minutes, color.
The Displaced Person
Literally, "the displaced person" refers to Guizac, a Polish refugee of World War II, brought as a new worker to a Georgia farm by the local priest. The Pole's compulsive efficiency soon becomes a source of suspicion; his driving industriousness, a source of alienation; his superior intelligence, a threat to the other easy going, ignorant farm people. Through his mere presence at first, and later, through his death--by accident, or was it planned?--everyone's life is wrenched from its course, and, in different ways, each becomes a "displaced person."
The Displaced Person by Flannery O'Connor, 58 minutes. color.
The Golden Honeymoon
Charlie Tate is an old windbag, a braggart, but always somehow lovable. He and his wife, Lucy, go to St. Petersburg to celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary. The husband of the couple they meet turns out to be the man who "was engaged to Mother 'til I stepped in and cut him out over fifty-two years ago. Yes sir." brags Charlie. The two vacationing couples form an instant friendship, yet under the surface there is comic competition brewing between Charlie and his former rival. The old beau beats Charlie at cards. Then Charlie wipes him out at the checkers board. The old beau wins at pitching horseshoes and on it goes. Charlie has to win his girl all over again. And win her he does.
The Golden Honeymoon by Ring Lardner, 52 minutes. color.
The Greatest Man in the World
It is 1937--Admiral Byrd has flown over the North and South Poles. Lucky Lindy has flown solo from New York to Paris. But what if our next aviation hero turns out to be a slob, author James Thurber wonders. Enter Pal Smurch, a foul-mouthed, gin-guzzling mechanic who becomes the first man to fly solo around the world. Here is a hero in a new mold whom the press and even the President try to make into the Byrd-Lindbergh model. It doesn't work. Smurch scratches himself and bellows, "When do the parties start? Where's the broads? Where's the dough?" Smurch has to go. He simply can't be allowed to besmirch his officially created public image.
The Greatest Man in the World by James Thurber, 51 minutes, color.
I'm A Fool
Andy is a young boy, making it on his own as a "swipe" on the Ohio racetrack circuit in the 1900s. One day, as a spectator in the grandstand, he meets a beautiful young lady-- his feminine ideal come to life--to whom he tells some monumental lies about his wealth and his position in an attempt to win her. When she reveals a fondness for him and a desire to keep in touch, Andy is trapped-hopelessly enmeshed in the web of his own falsehoods.
I'm A Fool by Sherwood Anderson 38 minutes, color.
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall
Granny Weatherall is spunky, 80, and bosses her doctors and children. On her death bed she realizes that all her accomplishments in life and matriarchal control cannot compensate for the day that George Heatherton left her standing at the altar. Many decades ago she donned her white veil, set out her cake and waited in the house with the priest for tall handsome George to arrive. He never came. She snaps to her daughter: "Go and find him. Tell him I forgot him years ago." Something has been held back in Granny Weatherall. She waits for life to claim her rather than seeking out life for herself.
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall by Katherine Ann Porter, 57 minutes, color.
The Jolly Corner
Spencer Brydon, an expatriate American who fled the Civil War, returns after 35 years to a changed and highly commercialized America that both attracts and repels him. He wonders: what might I have become had I remained?-and in an effort to rediscover himself, he frequently visits the house of his youth, The Jolly Corner. Eventually, both he and Alice, the woman he might have married, confront the "hidden" Brydon-she in a dream, he in a horrifying vision that leaves him shaken.
The Jolly Corner by Henry James, 43 minutes, color.
The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg
Hadleyburg is just about the most honest town there is. Townspeople are proud of their virtue of being unfriendly to strangers, and staying honest by simply avoiding temptation. Or do they? A stranger in town is rebuffed. He concocts a delicious scheme to get even and to reveal the true nature of Hadleyburg's citizens. He deposits a large amount of money in the local bank which can be claimed by the dozen who supposedly once gave him $20 and some good advice. One by one the stranger tempts the leading citizens to scheme for the money, and the veneer of Hadleyburg is stripped away.
The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburgby Mark Twain, 40 minutes. color.
The Music School
A contemporary writer struggles, during a twenty-four hour period, to find a focus in his life. He sees in his existence analogs from religion, technology, contemporary violence, and social change, and we share them with him in the vivid imagery of this film that serves as visual accompaniment to Updike's subtle but provocative prose. His visits with his daughter to her music school are a source of great pleasure, although the order and harmony which she learns will continue to elude him, as a pattern for his life.
The Music School by John Updike, 30 minutes, color.
Parker Adderson, Philosopher
Captured behind the enemy lines at the end of the Civil War, Parker Adderson, a Union spy, confronts a weary Confederate general, knowing that he must die. The spy's flippancy and mordant humor in the face of imminent death annoy the general, who professes a strong will to live. A change in the schedule for the spy's execution causes a sudden, violent reversal in his casual attitude. A vicious struggle ensues in which the general himself is mortally wounded. His last. cryptic words suggest that the general in his last moments of life, like the spy, has changed his view of death.
Parker Adderson, Philosopher by Ambrose Bierce, 38 minutes. color.
Paul's Case
Paul was born into a respectable neighborhood in turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh. He comes to hate its "ugliness and commonness." His defiant manner, red buttonhole carnation and "hysterical brilliant" blue eyes infuriate his teachers. But Paul simply lives for the hours after school when he works as an usher in a concert hall. He loses himself in the majesty of the arts. Finally, his widower father takes him out of school and puts him to work at a job that won't "heat his brain…" Paul retaliates by stealing money and flees to New York. He just wants to float on waves of beauty. Briefly he lives in luxury and illusion--until reality comes crashing down.
Paul's Case by Willa Cather, 54 minutes, color.
Rappaccini's Daughter
Young Giovanni comes to Padua to study. His apartment window overlooks a voluptuously beautiful garden which comforts him in his otherwise dismal surroundings and homesick state. The garden is cultivated by Dr. Rappaccini, a strange man of science who grows deadly plants for use in medicines. One day Giovanni sees Rappaccini's daughter tending the garden. Her bloom is as deep and vivid as the poisonous flowers in her care. But she has been nourished by the garden and her very breath and touch are deadly. Giovanni's love for her and fateful quest to free her begins. But he is unable to save his innocent mistress from her fate. His fears and mistrust ultimately destroy her.
Rappaccini's Daughter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 57 minutes, color.
The Sky is Gray
James is an eight-year-old black boy in rural Louisiana in the early I 940s. He valiantly tries to ignore a raging toothache. His mother has taught him not to complain, look for sympathy or squander money. After both aspirin and prayer fail to quell the toothache, his mother takes James to town to have it pulled. In the dentist's office they hear a preacher and student quarrel about the troubles of black people. The dentist closes for lunch before getting to James. The boy and his mother must walk around hungry in the cold sleet until the office reopens because they must save their money for bus fare home. The child hero in this odyssey begins to realize the world is complicated and neither black nor white.
The Sky is Gray by Ernest Gaines, 47 minutes, color.
Soldier's Home
Harold Krebs is a soldier returned. Quietly and without ceremony he comes home after World War I. No longer does he fit into the life he left. Despite gentle pressure from family and friends, he cannot get hold of his own future. Between the non-changed hero and his past there is a desperate incompatibility. A climatic scene between mother and son foreshadows Kreb's decision to find himself again in a new place, away from the old and familiar, which, for all time, he has outgrown.
Soldier's Home by Ernest Hemingway, 42 minutes, color.
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