‘Dancing Mothers’ Leads Silent Movie Bill

The Silent Movie, 611 N. Fairfax, has an especially strong lineup this week. Screening Wednesday at 8 p.m. is Herbert Brenon’s terse, brief “Dancing Mothers” (1926) in which a patrician Alice Joyce rebels against her self-absorbed flapper daughter (Clara Bow) and her two-timing husband; never was there a pithier comment on Roaring ‘20s mores and morals.

Playing with it is none other than the heady original vamp movie, “A Fool There Was” (1915) with the smoldering Theda Bara.

“Moran of the Lady Letty” (1922) will screen Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Dorothy Dalton has the title role as the tomboyish daughter of seafarers who crosses paths with a shanghaied San Francisco playboy (Rudolph Valentino); as a sea adventure the film rambles, but the teaming of the plain Dalton with the spectacular Valentino proves quite touching and credible under George Melford’s direction.

The film allows Valentino to play the kind of athletic hero typified by Douglas Fairbanks but with a nonchalant charm all his own. (Be on the look out for George O’Brien, later the star of “The Iron Horse” and “Sunrise,” and Hopalong Cassidy himself, William Boyd, in small roles.

Information: (213) 653-2389.

A Stripper’s Life: In his sketchy but appealing “Glamazon: A Different Kind of Girl” (at the Sunset 5 Fridays and Saturdays at midnight, Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m.) documentarian Rico Martinez follows irrepressible 60-plus stripper Barbara LeMay back to her birthplace, Morgantown, W. Va., where she was born Sammy Hoover. Totally self-enchanted but affectionate and caring of others, the gaudy Le May is endearing.

However, the time Martinez indulges in staging some amateurish and pointless dramatizations of some of LeMay’s earthier anecdotes would have been better spent in interviewing those who knew her better than her understandably rather perplexed--but admirably hospitable and accepting--hometown friends and relatives who hadn’t seen seen her in 30 years or more.

“Glamazon” is likable, but there seems to be a more substantial and illuminating film to be made of LeMay and her life.

Information: (213) 848-3500.

AIDS Diary: When Canadian physician Dr. Peter Jepson-Young learned he had AIDS in 1990, he fought back in a unique manner, commencing a series of two-minute video diaries, which aired weekly on Canadian TV. What began as a way to give meaning to his life and his struggle for survival became an educational and inspirational experience for his viewers.

Now filmmaker David Paperny has culled from some 285 minutes of diary footage the graceful, altogether extraordinary 45-minute Oscar-nominated “The Broadcast Tapes of Dr. Peter” (at the Nuart at 11 a.m. Saturday and Sunday only).

A good-looking man with a gift for communication, Jepson-Young seems to be able to talk easily about all aspects of his life. He tells us what it’s like to have grown up in a conservative family where he felt he could not tell his parents about his homosexuality, just as he explains what’s happening to him as Kaposi’s Sarcoma proceeds on its relentless course.

He faces the loss of his sight heroically, saying that he can see all the more clearly the new man in his life by not having been distracted by superficial appearances. He shares with us his spiritual quest and, later on, we sit in on a living will planning session with his sister and closest colleagues and even witness him visiting with his parents the plot where he will be buried.

By this time Jepson-Young, now accepting the inevitable, looks far older than his middle-aged father.

In facing death, Jepson-Young, quite simply, learned how to make the most of life, setting an example for all people of all ages and regardless of sexual orientation or state of health.