Janet Gaynor: A Centennial Celebration
July 1–12, 2006

Janet Gaynor’s career began with a small but central role in The Johnstown Flood. A contract with Fox led to collaborations with F. W. Murnau and Frank Borzage, including Murnau’s masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Borzage’s 7th Heaven, which first paired Gaynor with Charles Farrell. Her combined work in those films, and in Borzage’s Street Angel, won her the first-ever Academy Award for Best Actress. With a successful transition from silent to sound movies, Gaynor remained a principal box office draw throughout the 1930s for her portrayals of spunky yet sincere women. In 1939, she retired and married costume designer Gilbert Adrian. For the entirety of her career, Gaynor was an incontrovertible movie star—with charm and talent that captivated and endures.

Organized for MoMA by Anne Morra, Assistant Curator, Department of Film and Media, in collaboration with Andrea Aalsberg and Jesse Zigelstein, UCLA Film and Television Archive. Deepest thanks to Robert Gottlieb and The Louis B. Mayer Foundation for their generous support.

The Shamrock Handicap. 1926. USA. Directed by John Ford. With Leslie Fenton. A kind but destitute aristocrat is forced to sell his equestrian stable against the protests of his spunky daughter. Preserved by MoMA. Approx. 67 min. 
Pep of the Lazy J. 1926. USA. Directed by Victor Noerdlinger. With Edmund Cobb. A cowboy befriends an heiress and her clever companion. Preserved by George Eastman House. Approx. 21 min.
The Johnstown Flood. 1926. USA. Directed by Irving Cummings. With George O’Brien. Fox poached Gaynor from Universal for this proto-disaster movie, inspired by the catastrophe that struck the Pennsylvania town in 1889. Restored by George Eastman House with Twentieth Century Fox. Approx. 58 min.  Program approx. 146 min. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Ben Model.
Saturday, July 1, 1:00. T1

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. 1927. USA. Directed by F. W. Murnau. With George O’Brien. Murnau’s first Hollywood feature transcends its simple love-triangle story with dazzling performances and a distinct visual language. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive, the British Film Institute, and Twentieth Century Fox. Silent, with music track. 97 min.
Saturday, July 1, 4:00; Thursday, July 6, 6:00. T1

7th Heaven. 1927. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage. With Charles Farrell. Gaynor plays a vulnerable gamine who falls tragically in love with a Parisian street cleaner during World War I. Preserved by MoMA. Silent, with music track. 118 min.
Saturday, July 1, 6:00; Thursday, July 6, 8:00. T1

Street Angel. 1928. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage. With Charles Farrell. A poor Neapolitan girl is sentenced to a year in a horrifying workhouse when she is caught stealing to obtain medicine for her dying mother. The film’s set design contains expressionistic details, yet remains startlingly realistic. Preserved by MoMA. Silent, with music track. 102 min.
Saturday, July 1, 8:15; Friday, July 7, 6:00. T1

Lucky Star. 1929. USA. Directed by Frank Borzage. With Charles Farrell. Gaynor’s last collaboration with Borzage—about the emotional and physical wounds of World War I and an embattled couple whose love overcomes all obstacles—is somewhat gothic in its visual style, featuring Borzage’s trademark atmospheric lighting. Preserved by the Netherlands Filmmuseum. 86 min. Silent, with piano accompaniment by Jon Spurney.
Sunday, July 2, 1:30; Friday, July 7, 8:00. T1

Delicious. 1931. USA. Directed by David Butler. With Charles Farrell. George Gershwin’s first original screen musical is an immigrant saga about a Scottish lass who falls in love with a wealthy New Yorker. The film is one of numerous collaborations between Gaynor and film editor Irene Morra, who worked for more than thirty-five years in the studio system. New print courtesy Twentieth Century Fox. 106 min.
Sunday, July 2, 3:30; Monday, July 10, 6:00. T1

Tess of the Storm Country. 1932. USA. Directed by Alfred Santell. With Charles Farrell. The eleventh of twelve screen pairings of Gaynor and Farrell. Based upon a more serious literary work, the film’s tone was softened to accommodate Gaynor’s performance as a plucky young woman. Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. 75 min.
Sunday, July 2, 5:30; Monday, July 10, 8:15. T1

Adorable. 1933. USA. Directed by Wilhelm (William) Dieterle. With Henry Garat. A feisty princess in a fictitious European kingdom falls for a delicatessen owner—but is he really just a working stiff? Based on a contemporaneous German film, Adorable allows Dieterle to show his patrician Teutonic roots. Preserved by MoMA. 88 min.
Monday, July 3, 4:00; Saturday, July 8, 7:30. T1

State Fair. 1933. USA. Directed by Henry King. With Will Rogers. The Frakes family hopes their hog, Blue Boy, will win a championship ribbon, while daughter Margy searches for a beau in this celebration of the titular American institution. Rogers is delightful as the Frakes family patriarch. Restored by MoMA and Twentieth Century Fox. 96 min.
Monday, July 3, 6:00. T1

Servants’ Entrance. 1934. USA. Directed by Frank Lloyd. With Lew Ayres. Faced with the possibility of losing her riches, a wealthy young woman takes work as a maid. The dream sequence, animated by Walt Disney, is not to be missed. Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. 88 min.
Monday, July 3, 8:00; Sunday, July 9, 1:30. T1

The Farmer Takes a Wife. 1935. USA. Directed by Victor Fleming. With Henry Fonda. In his screen debut, Fonda reprises his Broadway role as an unassuming farmer who falls for a spirited cook aboard a canal barge. Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. 91 min.
Wednesday, July 5, 6:00; Sunday, July 9, 3:30. T1

Small Town Girl. 1936. USA. Directed by William A. Wellman. With Robert Taylor. A sharp-witted film about a plain Jane who weds a boozing surgeon in a quickie marriage. Originally intended as a vehicle for Jean Harlow, the film was called “a smacko assignment for Gaynor” by Variety. 90 min.
Wednesday, July 5, 8:00; Sunday, July 9, 5:30. T1

Ladies in Love. 1936. USA. Directed by Edward H. Griffith. With Loretta Young, Constance Bennett. Gaynor, Young, and Bennett hunt for husbands in modern-day Budapest. The production of Gaynor’s last film for Fox was notoriously rife with friction among the three temperamental actresses. New print courtesy Twentieth Century Fox. 97 min.
Saturday, July 8, 1:00. T1

A Star Is Born. 1937. USA. Directed by William A. Wellman. With Fredric March. Esther Blodgett is a rising star, while her abusive, alcoholic husband Norman Maine is on the decline in this insider’s look at Hollywood. The reenactment of the Academy Awards dinner is renowned. Preserved by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. 111 min.
Saturday, July 8, 3:00; Wednesday, July 12, 6:00. T1

The Young in Heart. 1938. USA. Directed by Richard Wallace. With Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. A comedy about a family of swanky con artists. The original, downbeat ending was brightened to better suit the tastes of a 1938 audience. Preserved by MoMA. Preceded by a screen test of Gaynor and Maude Adams, preserved by George Eastman House. Program 104 min.
Saturday, July 8, 5:15. T1