Suburban teens win local Film Fest
Teens from Arlington Heights and Oak Park won the top three awards in the fifth annual Teen Film Fest sponsored by the Arlington Heights Memorial Library last Friday. Ross Constable, 15, of Oak Park (and son of Daily Herald columnist Burt Constable) won first place for “Becoming X,” a dark and violent rock video oozing with David Lynchian tones.
Kyrie Fiedler, 15, of Arlington Heights won second place for her joyously delightful music video “Wonder If She'll Get It: Unofficial Music Video.” Danaca Fiedler, her twin sister, won third place for directing the silent dramatic short “A Knight of Murder.”
(Kyrie and Danaca told me they worked on each other's films fairly equally, so they kinda both earned the second and third place awards.)
To see the winning entries, go to ahml.info/teen or to teen librarian Tom Spicer's new group at facebook.com/hub500.
A true ‘Miracle' worker
We're back!
Dann and Raymond's Movie Club opens for a fifth season at 7:30 p.m. next Thursday, Sept. 1, at the Schaumburg Township District Library, 130 S. Roselle Road, Schaumburg. (Go to schaumburglibrary.org for details.)
Our back-to-school topic: A Tribute to Teachers in the Movies. Film historian and James Bond novelist Raymond Benson and I will survey some of the best teacher movies ever made, among them “To Sir With Love,” “Class,” “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” “Dead Poets Society” and “The Miracle Worker.”
In “The Miracle Worker,” a 16-year-old Patty Duke won the best supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Helen Keller opposite Anne Bancroft as Anne Sullivan, her teacher. At 12, Duke had teamed up with Bancroft to create the Broadway play version of the story.
I telephoned Duke, now 64, at her California home and asked her to tell us her best memories of her “Miracle Worker” experience.
“The best memory I have of anything to do with ‘The Miracle Worker' is Anne Bancroft,” Duke said. “I went to school on her, as well as adoring her. I have tremendous respect for how she lived her life. You know, I still have trouble remembering she's gone. For me, she's still here.”
What made her so special?
“She did a Broadway play ‘Two for the Seasaw' before she did ‘Miracle Worker,'” Duke said. “She was the belle of Broadway. I mean, the waters parted when she walked by! Then along comes ‘The Miracle Worker,' and suddenly there's this little kid who's suddenly getting all this attention. She's the best thing since sliced bread!
“Annie found it in herself a gracious way to share the spotlight. Every day she would allow me to come into her dressing room during what we called ‘the sacred half-hour.' We would talk, joke around, she'd show me something she'd bought.”
So, you and Bancroft became good friends, despite your age difference?
“She certainly became a friend, almost a girlfriend, because I didn't have any,” Duke said. “It was Anne Bancroft who tutored me about the menstrual cycle. Go figure! I was 12. But I didn't mature until I was 17. I'm a late bloomer.”
Duke will be appearing Sunday, Sept. 18, at the Arcada Theatre in St. Charles to raise funds for the Open Door Clinic, an AIDS and STD clinic in Elgin and Aurora.
After a screening of “The Miracle Worker,” Duke will join me onstage for a Q&A session. Anything goes.
More of my interview with the actress will be coming up in Reel Life, including her lifelong obsession with death, plus her many friends who've died from AIDS. (“More than I can count,” she said.)
Too much ‘all the time'
Hard-core James Bond fans know that one of the great lines of dialogue from a 007 thriller is “We have all the time in the world,” uttered by Bond as he cradles his murdered wife at the end of “On Her Majesty's Secret Service.” (The line came from Ian Fleming's novel.) Louis Armstrong sings the film's signature song, “We Have All the Time in the World.”
Now, the famous line is being unfairly smudged by two new movies. Robert Rodriguez taps it for the title of his sequel “Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World.”
At the end of the horror tale “Don't Be Afraid of the Dark,” opening this weekend, evil fairies utter it over and over.
Dialogue desecration, I say!
Say hello, little friend!
Brian De Palma's classic gangster film “Scarface” gets a one-time, silver-screen showing at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at selected theaters in the suburbs. Check Daily Herald ads or fathomevents.com.
“Scarface” was originally rated X for its harsh violence — particularly a scene in which a chain saw cuts off a man's arm in a shower stall — but came out in an R-version after De Palma edited his footage.
Next week's showings will be in high-def and feature a 20-minute short with filmmaker interviews.
Ÿ Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire's column runs Fridays in Time out!