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Honor society woos movie lovers in ‘Great Dates’
By Will Wingfield
Graphics Editor

> February 16, 2001

AHoping to bring back a film culture reminiscent of past generations, Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society, is sponsoring the “Great Dates and Romances” film series.

The society showed Swingers Feb. 7 and Room with a View, based upon E.M. Forster’s novel, Feb. 14 in Pugh Auditorium. The series will run until May 3, showing 11 additional films, including a “Screwball Comedy Festival” of romantic comedies next week. Ed Wilson, senior vice president and professor of English, and Lisa Sternlieb, an assistant professor of English, also contributed to the festival.

“Our primary objective was to show romantic movies that we hoped had good conversation between men and women because we found that there’s a lot of lack of conversation on campus,” she said.

Lindsey Faber and Melissa Newman, two seniors from Sternlieb’s Literature and Film class last fall, decided to bring some of the types of films they saw in class to the university community.

“We feel that it is really important to … promote film culture but also to think of ideas of dating and romance in society and on campus.” Faber said.

“Every one needs to see movies with Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Audrey Hepburn in them,” Newman said.

According to Sternlieb, the university used to have one of the best film societies in the country. “You could get an entire education in film in the four years you were here,” she said.

Alumnus Hayes McNeill, ’68, was involved in the film program at the university between 1964 and 1968. “For many folks, this was an artistic experience they hadn’t had,” he said. “It seemed to us to be a valid part of what a liberal arts education was about.”

According to McNeill, they would show American classics, foreign classics and old American films in DeTamble Auditorium in Tribble Hall. McNeill also held film festivals every semester, celebrating films by Humphrey Bogart, Orson Welles, the Marx brothers and W.C. Fields.

Wilson, whose office is funding the series, said, “I have a lifelong interest in films. It’s an important part in any person’s, particularly young persons’ experiences.”

The screwball comedy festival will show The Awful Truth Feb. 20, Ball of Fire Feb. 21 and It Happened One Night Feb. 22 in the Library Screening room at 7 p.m. The rest of the films in the series include Sabrina (1954) Mar. 1, Notorious Mar. 8, An American in Paris Mar. 22, Casablanca Mar. 29, The Apartment Apr. 5, Roman Holiday Apr. 19, Get Out Your Handkerchiefs Apr. 25 and Tess May 3. Unless posted otherwise, the films will be held in Pugh Auditorium at 7 p.m.

“We’ve got a Hitchcock movie and a Billy Wilder, then on up to Roman Polanski, who directed Tess,” Newman said.

Wilson said that out of the movies, his favorite is “any of the movies with Audrey Hepburn … because she is such a charming and elegant actress.”

“Based on our turnout last week, we’re hoping this is going to be really successful,” Faber said.