The 9 best movies to see in this weekend's UCLA Festival of Preservation

The biennial marvel that is the UCLA Festival of Preservation is backmost astatine the Billy Wilder Theater astatine the Hammer Museum successful Westwood — and Los Angeles moviegoing quality doesn’t get overmuch amended than that.

Presenting the world-class restorations turned retired by UCLA’s Film & Television Archive, the festival, present successful its 22nd edition, ne'er fails to delight arsenic it showcases the widest assortment of question pictures successful impeccable condition. This includes not lone Hollywood and foreign-language features but newsreels, shorts, animation, documentary and experimental enactment arsenic good arsenic tv programming. Admission is free, nary reservations necessary, truthful beryllium bold successful your choices. Even if you’ve ne'er heard of something, if the festival has programmed it, it volition marque you happy.

Running each time connected Saturday and Sunday, the festival begins connected Friday nighttime with 2 films focusing connected the Black experience, starting astatine 7:30 p.m. with the Ossie Davis-directed “Black Girl” with screenwriter J.E. Franklin successful attendance.

Misleadingly released successful 1972 arsenic an exploitation item, the diagnostic stars Peggy Pettitt arsenic an aspiring dancer and tin beryllium seen contiguous arsenic a delicate autarkic movie astir women attempting to find their paths successful life. Familiar faces see Brock Peters and a pre-“Roots” quality by Leslie Uggams.

Those with the stamina to enactment up aboriginal that aforesaid nighttime volition beryllium rewarded with a 10:15 p.m. screening of “…& Beautiful,” an entertaining 1969 syndicated TV peculiar hosted by legendary comedian Redd Foxx (with an improbable Wilt Chamberlain cameo arsenic his son) featuring philharmonic performances by classical acts similar Wilson Pickett, Della Reese and the Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band. The time-travel quality of the acquisition is emphasized by commercials from the show’s sponsor, Johnson’s haircare products.

Because UCLA volition surface each time long, it has taken vantage of that flexibility to enactment films successful the astir due clip slots. The prime-time evening programs, for example, showcase features that person the highest amusement value, starting with the Saturday 7:30 p.m. screening of Budd Boetticher’s 1955 “The Magnificent Matador.”

Though champion known to cineastes arsenic the manager of a fistful of superb B-westerns starring Randolph Scott known arsenic the Ranown films, Boetticher’s idiosyncratic passionateness was bullfighting. He made 3 films connected the taxable and, acknowledgment to the dazzling widescreen colour cinematography of the large Lucien Ballard (“The Wild Bunch”), “Magnificent Matador” is the astir gorgeously mounted.

Set successful Mexico, the movie stars Mexican-born Anthony Quinn arsenic a superb but aging matador facing interlocking idiosyncratic crises, and Maureen O’Hara arsenic the affluent American who sets her headdress for him. There’s tons of colour and pageantry and the galore bullfighting scenes (gore-free to fulfill the Production Code) stress the classical substance of grace and daring.

Aided by Eddie Muller and the Film Noir Foundation, UCLA has pioneered the restoration of exceptional noirs from 1950s Argentina. The champion known, “The Bitter Stems,” is disposable connected disc done Flicker Alley, and the archive’s latest restoration, 1952’s “If I Should Die Before I Wake,” has the 2nd Saturday nighttime slot, starting astatine 9:25 p.m.

Noir fans volition admit the rubric arsenic belonging to a abbreviated communicative by William Irish, the pen sanction of that maestro of unease, Cornell Woolrich. Starting with the epigraph “Only a kid tin termination a monster,” the movie follows a small lad arsenic helium attempts to find the antheral who kidnapped his schoolmate, a tiny girl. Filled with dark, deserted streets and way-spooky buildings, this visually atmospheric movie is not for the faint of heart.

On Sunday night, some prime-time slots are devoted to features by Andre de Toth, the Hungarian émigré manager whose films, professional Andrew Sarris wrote, “reveal an knowing of the instability and outright treachery of quality relationships.”

Starting things disconnected astatine 7:30 p.m. is 1948’s “Pitfall,” a tip-top sunlight noir starring Dick Powell arsenic an acerbic security adjuster who’s becoming bored with his matrimony to a weary Jane Wyatt, striking a antithetic housewife enactment than successful her second relation connected “Father Knows Best.”

The plot’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice” vibe kicks successful erstwhile Powell’s security enactment connects him with a exemplary played by husky-voiced Lizabeth Scott successful possibly her champion part. There’s besides a malevolent backstage oculus played by Raymond Burr successful the disconcerting relation that made him a star. If you privation your noirs to truly sizzle, you won’t beryllium disappointed.

Barbara Stanwyck and Richard Conte successful 1947’s “The Other Love,” a noir romance directed by Andre de Toth.

(United Artists / Photofest / UCLA Film & Television Archive)

De Toth’s 1947 “The Other Love,” screening astatine 9:35 p.m., is besides unsettling, though its genre is the high-toned weepie. Barbara Stanwyck plays a celebrated performance pianist being treated for tuberculosis successful an elite Swiss Alps sanitarium. Two men are entranced by her, a suave doc played by David Niven and Richard Conte’s impulsive race-car driver. This restoration features an extended ending that has not been seen since the 1940s.

UCLA’s archive has besides smartly programmed a brace of matinee-type films for its greeting screenings. Showing astatine 10:30 a.m. connected Saturday (and preceded by the animated “The Mouse of Tomorrow,” the archetypal Mighty Mouse quality successful vivid color) is 1948’s “Adventures of Casanova.”

A rousing costume extravaganza from B-picture stalwart Eagle-Lion Films, “Adventures” is acceptable successful 18th period Sicily warring for its state from the Austrian Empire. When archetypal met, Casanova (Arturo de Cordova) prefers the “warmth of women’s curves” to martial matters. But it turns retired — spoiler alert — that he’s “something of a subject genius” who has unlooked-for gifts arsenic a guerilla leader. Who knew?

Playing successful the 11 a.m. matinee slot connected Sunday are 2 soundless films, starting with the 1911 abbreviated “Dr. Cupid,” which provides a uncommon accidental to glimpse the celebrated John Bunny, a comic unit successful aboriginal cinema small seen contiguous due to the fact that fewer of his films survive.

The main matinee event, however, is the nifty 1921 soundless “Trailin’” featuring the large occidental prima Tom Mix. Based connected a Max Brand novel, “Trailin’” flips the publication by starring Mix arsenic a polo-playing, dress-shirt-wearing Easterner who comes retired westbound to wide up a household matter. But woe befall immoderate atrocious guys who mistake him for a fool. “I seen him ride,” 1 section avers, “and helium ain’t nary tenderfoot.”

Silent movie fans, oregon those conscionable funny astir this underappreciated medium, person different dainty successful store: a gorgeous restoration of 1922’s epic “Lorna Doone,” based connected the fashionable 19th period caller that inspired the cookie. It screens connected Saturday astatine 11:55 a.m.

Director Maurice Tourneur was a celebrated pictorialist who strove for ocular quality and naturalistic show and achieved some successful this communicative of the romanticist adventures of Lorna (Madge Bellamy), the girl of a affluent countess kidnapped arsenic a young miss by “the bloody Doones, a clan of thieves and cutthroats.” Her puerility beau, John Ridd (John Bowers), grown into “the strongest antheral successful Devonshire,” besides plays his part.

A last movie worthy noting is 1938’s screwball drama “Merrily We Live,” screening astatine 4:10 p.m. connected Saturday and preceded by a 1939 cartoon, “The Nutty Network,” that deftly lampoons Orson Welles’ celebrated 1938 “The War of the Worlds” Martian penetration vigor broadcast.

“Merrily” turns retired to beryllium an unexpectedly amusing farce with echoes of “My Man Godfrey.” The movie earned 5 Oscar nominations, including a champion supporting histrion motion for the seasoned Billie Burke arsenic the materfamilias of a affluent but wacky family. Everyone, including glamorous girl Constance Bennett, someway mistakes a vacationing novelist (Brian Aherne) for a down-on-his-luck tramp. Much merriment ensues.

For much accusation connected the implicit program, which includes aggregate newsreels and a shorts programme titled “Touring California,” spell to cinema.ucla.edu/events. But immoderate you do, don’t miss your accidental to spot these seldom screened films connected the large surface wherever they belong.