ST. LOUIS BLACK FILM FESTIVAL Continues This Week with IMITATION OF LIFE and COOLEY HIGH

The folks behind the St. Louis Black Film Festival Presents a Classic Black Film Double Feature for Black History Month at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in St. Louis’ Loop) each Thursday in February. Last year the St. Louis Black Film Festival presented a series of new films by black filmmakers, but this year are going back into the vaults and digging out some vintage cinema for audiences with an interest in black history to enjoy on the big screen.

The offerings for this Thursday, February 16th are IMITATION OF LIFE (1959), at 5pm and COOLEY HIGH at 7pm.

Get out your handkerchiefs for IMITATION OF LIFE (1959), the second filming of the Fannie Hurst book previously filmed in 1934. It’s a gloss-heavy production which takes actress Lana Turner from penniless single mom to lavishly-coiffed and gowned movie star. Sandra Dee plays her bitter, neglected daughter and John Gavin is Lana’s eternal best friend. A parallel plot with maid Juanita Moore and her troubles with rebellious daughter Susan Kohner (a black girl trying to pass for white) provides the emotional backbone of the plot, Saddled with a story that still keeps the black woman in the kitchen while the white woman plays, Juanita Moore nonetheless gives an outstanding and ultimately heartbreaking performance, and Susan Kohner (actually a half Mexican-half Jewish actress) matches her every bit of the way as the wayward daughter who makes one bad choice after another in her refusal to knuckle under to a repressive society. Director Douglas Sirk’s over-the-top send-off for one stricken character will bring the house down.

COOLEY HIGH (1975) is set in the mid-1960′s and is about a group of high school friends who live on the Near North Side of Chicago. They enjoy life to the fullest…parties, hanging out, meeting new friends. The two central characters are Leroy “Preach” Jackson (Glynn Turman) and his best friend Richard “Cochise” Morris (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs.) Both have promising futures. Preach is a great writer but a lazy student, and Cochise has just received a college scholarship for basketball. When they’re not hanging out at the local diner shooting craps with their friends, or hanging out at a friend’s house or chasing girls, they’re skipping school, riding the trains through Chicago or going to parties.Things go wrong when Preach and Cochise make the mistake of getting involved with two hoods and go joyriding in a stolen car. COOLEY HIGH was the basis for the classic 70′s sitcom What’s Happenin! which aired on ABC from 1976-1979. Even though the show is most famous for the character Rerun, he is not in this film, nor is there any character like him. The soundtrack features songs from that period by Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Temptations, Martha & the Vandellas, and Smokey Robinson which add a fun, youthful, exuberant tone to the film.

So head to Landmark’s Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in St. Louis’ Loop) this Thursday to take in some black film history during Black History Month. The St. Louis Black Film Festival wraps up with A RAISIN IN THE SUN and SUPERFLY on Feb. 23. Stay tuned here at We Are Movie Geeks for details on those films.