THEY MADE ME A CRIMINAL

(1939, Busby Berkeley) Champ boxer John Garfield, on the lam from a phony murder rap, takes The Dead End Kids under his wing at an Arizona ranch…but detective Claude Rains is still on the trail. Rare Berkeley non-musical. 35mm print preserved by Library of Congress. Approx. 90 mins.
4:05, 7:20

“Dramatic and realistic, occasionally violent and harrowing, demonstrates that [Berkley’s] talent for directing was not limited to musicals and light comedies. […] According to Busby Berkeley, They Made Me A Criminal is one of the pictures of which he is the most fond.”
– Tony Thomas and Jim Terry, The Busby Berkeley Book

NIGHT WORLD

(1932, Hobart Henley) Grand Hotel in a seedy nightclub (dance director: Busby Berkeley), as boozing playboy Lew Ayres and dancer Mae Clarke (Cagney’s grapefruit recipient) are befriended by surprisingly sympathetic owner Boris Karloff. 35mm. Approx. 60 mins.
2:45, 6:00, 9:10

“Features something you don’t see often: a Berkeley routine on a lifelike nightclub stage, rather than the soaring, impossible soundstage he would shortly learn to rule.”
– Farran Smith Nehme, The Village Voice