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Wilde on Film: Masculinity, Sexuality and Queer Code

Fresh City Life presents two special film versions of Oscar Wilde tales, both esoteric in their own way, and each celebrating their source material and creator. Hosted by film critic Walter Chaw (www.filmfreakcentral.net). Oscar Wilde once wrote that you could send a man to prison for being homosexual, and he would still come out a homosexual. These odd films prove that you can send a Wilde story to Hollywood, but it will still come out Oscar!
	The Picture of Dorian Gray Sunday, May 4, 2 - 4:30 p.m. Shown in the Central Library, Level B2 Conference Center	1945. Directed by Albert Lewin. Starring George Sanders, Hurd Hatfield, Donna Reed, Angela Lansbury, Peter Lawford. Spouting some of Oscar Wilde's best epigrams, George Sanders plays Svengali to impressionable and gorgeous Hurd Hatfield (Gray). Sanders – older, refined, witty, elegantly debauched – is Wilde's celluloid representative. Hatfield – youthful, athletic, yearning to be corrupted – could be Lord Alfred Douglas (Wilde's real life lover). The irony is that Wilde met and fell in love with Lord Alfred after The Picture of Dorian Gray had been published, evoking one of Wilde's finest bon mots, "Life imitates art." Though Dorian's transgressions are vague, this film version of Wilde's best known story is infused with unspoken moral conflicts. 110 minutes. Unrated.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, we were unable to show The Canterville Ghost as scheduled on May 4. The Picture of Dorian Gray was shown instead and The Canterville Ghost will be shown on May 11. Sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused.
	The Canterville Ghost Sunday, May 11, 2 - 4:30 p.m. Shown in the Central Library, Level B2 Conference Center	1944. Directed by Jules Dassin. Starring Charles Laughton, Robert Young, Margaret O'Brien. The consummate character actor, Charles Laughton, is a mischievous ghost playing pranks on a castle filled with American GIs during World War II. He's doomed to roam the castle because of the cowardice (read queerness) that he suffered from in life. Robert Young as affable soldier (read unrequited crush), and Margaret O'Brien as cheerleader to the friendly ghost (read fruit fly), are engaging. And like Oscar's best plots, it hides as much as it reveals. 95 minutes. Unrated.

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