THE CONQUERORS

New 35mm Print!
(1932) In the wake of the 1873 panic, Richard Dix and Ann Harding shrug off an attack by river pirates and a mass lynching to build a successful bank in Nebraska, living to see their grandson (Dix again) become a flyboy hero in WWI and take on the Depression. Preserved by the Library of Congress.
2:30, 7:00

FRISCO JENNY

(1933) After the 1906 quake, desperate single mom Ruth Chatterton turns tricks in Chinatown, then takes the fall for a murder rap, her fortunes improving with the golden age of bootlegging.
4:10, 8:40

YOUNG EAGLES

(1930) On leave in Paris from ongoing WWI air duel with Paul Lukas’s German ace the Grey Eagle, American flyboy Buddy Rogers falls for expatriate Jean Arthur, but there’s spy vs. spy and air battles — highlighted by a spectacular crash — still to come.
1:05, 5:35, 10:05

REVIEWS

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THE CONQUERORS
“One of Wellman's most interesting films… Along with the same year's American Madness, directed by Frank Capra, The Conquerors was the first picture to deal frankly with the collapse of the nation's financial structure.” 
– John Andrew Gallagher & Frank Thompson

“Comes to life with bursts of savage action, including a grim lynching scene that is far stronger than the one in The Ox-Bow Incident… Its highlights (apart from the rare sight of Edna May Oliver in a bathtub scene) are the five or six stunning montages by Slavko Vorkapich.”
– William K. Everson

FRISCO JENNY
“An improbable soap opera inspired by Madame X and Stella Dallas, transformed by Wellman’s direction into an atmospheric melodrama… Succeeds with Chatterton's hard-bitten performance, its lightning-fast pace, bitter irony, and unhappy, uncompromising ending.”
– John Andrew Gallagher & Frank Thompson

“Lively melodrama in which the forgotten Ruth Chatterton (with Jeanette MacDonald’s eyes and a deep, vinegary voice) goes from cynical and pregnant San Francisco barmaid to earthquake survivor and full-on whore-mongeress, given to enduring her girls’ complaints about their furniture expenses (such as the ‘wear and tear!’ on a divan), rolling her eyes at coppers and hiding a murder-weapon handgun by sinking it into a buttercream cake.”
– Michael Atkinson

“Surprisingly moving, thanks mainly to one of Ruth Chatterton’s best performances… One of the better of the lesser-known Wellmans of the period.”
– William K. Everson