Friday Night Dialogue: Cruising Classic Movies
If you like movies, especially old movies, you are going to love the March 19 Friday Night Dialogue on Zoom with John DiLeo.
John DiLeo began his lifelong obsession with classic movies as a child while watching old films with his parents and grandparents. Ask DiLeo to define what he means by “classic,” he’ll say, “It’s a tag for an era, the classic movie era, spanning the 1930’s, ‘40’s, ‘50’s and ‘60’s.”
He divides movies made back then into two categories: serious classics like “Citizen Kane” and “Vertigo,” and popular classics like “The Wizard of Oz,” “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Gone with the Wind,” and “Singin’ in the Rain.”
Mr. DiLeo has written six books on classic movies with a seventh due out in January 2022. He published his first book, “And You Thought You Knew Classic Movies” in 1999 and reissued it in 2013. It was written in the form of a quiz and contained questions like, “What movies paired Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth?” (There were two: “You Were Never Lovelier” and “You’ll Never Get Rich.”)
And, “Which western found Jimmy Stewart lassoed and dragged through a camp fire?” (“The Man From Laramie.”)
Pauline Kael, the film critic for The New Yorker called DiLeo’s book “The smartest movie quiz book I’ve ever seen.”
Some of Mr. DiLeo’s other books include:
• “100 Great Film Performances You Should Remember but Probably Won’t”
• “Tennessee Williams and Company: His Essential Screen Actors”
• “Screen Savers: 40 Remarkable Movies Awaiting Rediscovery”
• “Screen Savers II: My Grab Bag Of Classic Movies”
Mr. DiLeo frequently hosts classic film series, appears on assorted radio shows, and conducts film history seminars. He’s also been an annual participant in the Black Bear Film Festival in the Poconos, where he’s interviewed numerous film stars on its stage, including Arlene Dahl, Tab Hunter, Jane Powell and Farley Granger.
Mr. DiLeo is calling his March 19 Friday Night Dialogue “Cruising Classic Movies.” For those longing to get away from the COVID-19 shutdown, he will take the Zoom audience on a virtual high seas vacation with major stars from Hollywood’s Golden Age. He’ll screen some scenes set aboard ocean liners from ,“Now, Voyager,” “Royal Wedding,” “A Night at the Opera” and “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”
And so, if you like classic movies, especially those set on the high seas, sign up to Zoom John DiLeo and his “Cruising Classic Movies.”
To register for the March 19 program, go to shelterislandpubliclibrary.org and click on Calendar Events. You should register at least 30 minutes before the event.Up next: On Friday, April 9 at 7 p.m., “Long Island Migrant Camps: Dust for Blood” with author Mark A. Torres.
