SUMMER 2008

Classic British Comedy, French Farce
& American Madness – in Film

Instructor:  Dr. Benito Rakower

Course Description:   Heeding suggestions from last year’s participants, this summer’s film festival will be devoted exclusively to outstanding British, French and American hilarity.

1.  The Tall Blonde Man With One Black Shoe  - French.  An unbearably funny film about a naïf musician who gets caught up in a gigantic government plot.
2.  Lavender Hill Mob  -  English.  This is the first of the great British comedies to sweep America.  A fleeting glimpse of a youthful Audrey Hepburn in her very first screen appearance.
3.  Mr. Hulot’s Holiday  -  French.  This film is perhaps the most endearing comedy ever made.  To have seen it when it first came out was a transfiguring experience.  A fool on summer vacation on the Normandy coast who disrupts everything but wins the heart of a cool woman.
4.  The Big Lebowski  -  American.  For some, this film causes paroxysms of laughter.  Some people consider it the funniest film ever made.  Also a biting satire on California hippies and people that bowl in tournaments.  New insights into the American anarchism.
5.  Lolita  -  American.  (Kubrick version)  This dark comedy requires some sense of the novel. Two consummate British actors expose the shallow pretentiousness of American morals and culture.  Almost surreal in its nastiness.  James Mason’s facial expressions are funnier than his comments.  A Mr. Hulot of disaster. 
6.  Whiskey Galore – This sparkling British comedy is set on a remote island in Scotland.  A ship at sea breaks up and boxes of whiskey – wartime rationing – float onto shore.  The ingenuity of the islanders outwits the British army and British government.
7.  The Ladykillers -  This is the original Alec Guinness version done with greater English style and sense of the absurd.  A must for lovers of inadvertence and dry humor.
8.  After Hours  -  This is a brilliant exposition of how everything can go wrong in New York City.  The underlying assumption is no one is safe in New York, “after five p.m.”

Biographical Information:  Dr. Benito Rakower was educated at Queens College and graduated from Harvard University with a doctorate in English, dissertation on Hamlet.  He trained to be a pianist and French music became his specialty.  He has taught film and literature courses at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education concerning Camus, Sartre, Debussy and Ravel, and lectured at the French Library in Boston.