Film Expert Offers an Extension of Himself

Film historian Joseph McBride once estimated he has seen at least 7,500 movies since he was a kid in Milwaukee in the 1950s.

As the new moderator of “Coming Attractions,” a fall UC Irvine Extension film course, McBride will be adding six more titles to his list.

But don’t ask which ones.

“There’s no way we can tell you what they will be ahead of time,” he said with a laugh. “They like to keep it a secret.”

The popular “Coming Attractions” course, which will be held on six consecutive Monday evenings in Edwards University theater beginning Oct. 13, presents new films before they are released to the general public. After the screenings, McBride will interview a surprise guest--a director, writer, actor or someone else connected to the film--and then open the questioning to the audience.

“We’re hoping to have a mixture of some Hollywood films, some independent films and maybe a foreign film or a documentary,” McBride said.

“Fall is an ideal time to do this because that’s when the studios put out all of their prestige films. It’s like a drought of serious films in the summer: It’s overwhelmed with mass-market stuff, so in the fall they start putting out more interesting films and more mature subjects.”

McBride is a former Daily Variety reporter and film reviewer who has written 11 film books, including acclaimed biographies of Frank Capra and Steven Spielberg.

“It’s exciting to see new films and to be able to talk to the filmmakers, which I think is fascinating for the people who attend. It’s a great way to feel a connection with the [filmmaking] process--and it’s great for the filmmakers to have a dialogue with their audience. It keeps them from being in an ivory tower.”

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Now in its fourth year, “Coming Attractions” was moderated the first two years by Charles Champlin, The Times’ arts editor emeritus. Illness forced Champlin to bow out last fall, and Chantal Westerman, longtime Hollywood correspondent for “Good Morning America,” was invited to take over for a year.

Champlin, whom McBride has known since the mid-’70s when they would see one another at screenings, recommended McBride for the UCI job.

“Joe’s revisionist biography of Frank Capra and recent biography of Steven Spielberg are just extraordinary works,” Champlin said. “He’s a very articulate and interesting guy, so I think the people that take the course will have a lot of fun.”

The son of a Milwaukee newspaperman who reviewed films and received free movie passes, McBride made a weekly habit of haunting the first-run movie houses in downtown Milwaukee. (Those were the days when suburban theaters typically didn’t get new movies for several months after their release.)

But it was while majoring in English at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the mid-’60s that, McBride said, “I really became a film fanatic.

“There were 35 film societies on the campus then,” said McBride, who served as president and programmer for the oldest and largest one, the Wisconsin Film Society. Consequently, “I spent most of my time watching great movies, all day long, for years.”

So much so that he never graduated: When he wasn’t watching old movies--sometimes five a day--he was writing his first book, a critical study of Orson Welles.

Having worked on the campus newspaper, McBride was hired as a reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal, the daily paper in Madison. He moved to California in 1973, landing a reporting job at Daily Variety, which he considered “a film buff’s dream come true.”

“With the cachet of writing for Variety you could call anybody up and go see them and get on the set of almost any film. I interviewed all the great directors I wanted to meet,” he said, reeling off such legendary names as Capra, George Cukor, Howard Hawks, John Huston and Billy Wilder.

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McBride’s career includes a 10-year-stint writing screenplays--his biggest credit is the cult film “Rock & Roll High School,” a 1979 punk-rock musical. He also wrote five of the American Film Institute’s “Life Achievement” tributes on CBS in the early ‘80s for which he received two Emmy nominations.

“That was a real thrill, doing those shows. My job mainly was recruiting the talent, and sometimes you had to persuade people to come because there were old animosities between them and the honoree.”

On Oct. 4, “Obsessed with ‘Vertigo’: New Life for Hitchcock’s Masterpiece,” a half-hour documentary McBride co-produced, will air on cable’s American Movie Classics, followed by the restored 1958 classic starring the late James Stewart.

McBride is no stranger to the academic arena. Over the years, he’s made guest appearances at UCLA, USC, UCI and other schools.

“I want to get more into teaching because I think it’s a good time for me to do this,” said McBride, who recently turned 50. “When you’re a writer, you get a little isolated from the audience. It’s very good to have direct contact with a lot of different people, so it’s going to be fun to do this.”

“Coming Attractions” won’t be the Los Angeles writer’s only visit to Irvine.

Beginning Jan. 19, he’ll moderate “Frank Capra: The Man and His Films,” a six-week UCI Extension class that will include film screenings and appearances by film historians, critics and other guests who worked with Capra.

* “Coming Attractions” starts Oct. 13 at the Edwards University theater, 4245 Campus Drive, Irvine. $125. Registration: (714) 824-5414.