Well, Well, Look Who Was Catching Eyes in 1927

Tonight, the UCLA Film Archive and the Silent Society screen a John Gilbert 1927 double feature, “Man, Woman and Sin” and “Twelve Miles Out.” Both are minor entries for Gilbert, a great romantic screen idol, but of interest because of their leading ladies, Jeanne Eagels and Joan Crawford, respectively.

In the first, Gilbert plays a naive cub reporter smitten with the paper’s elegant society editor (Eagels), completely unaware that she is the mistress of the married publisher (Marc McDermott). The film is maudlin and contrived, but Gilbert’s declaration of love to Eagels is remarkably expressive in its passion and utter vulnerability.

Eagels won raves as shady Sadie Thompson in “Rain” on stage but made only seven films before she overdosed on heroin at 35 in 1929. (The news of her death was broken by none other than then-newspaperman Sam Fuller.) Eagels’ role is underdeveloped, but she certainly radiates beauty tinged with sadness; luckily, she did make “The Letter” (1929), another adaptation from Somerset Maugham, a talkie in which her presence is electrifying.

Directed by Monta Bell, “Man, Woman and Sin” is, above all, a triumph for the often treacly, possessive mother love sometimes criticized but more often sentimentalized in the silent era; Gladys Brockwell plays Gilbert’s sweetly clinging mother, a figure surely more consciously disturbing in the ‘90s than the ‘20s.

“Twelve Miles Out” is a routine, macho adventure in which Gilbert and Ernest Torrence are rum-running pals whose volatile friendship entangles Crawford, whom Gilbert kidnaps yet wins her heart. Directed by Jack Conway, “Twelve Miles Out” was Crawford’s 12th feature in only two years, but she was already a vibrant screen presence, poised for the stardom that awaited her one year--and seven pictures--later, with “Our Dancing Daughters.” Double feature starts at 7:30 tonight in Melnitz Hall’s James Bridges Theater. (310) 206-FILM.

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Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, launches a weekly film series tonight at 7 at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center’s Village at Ed Gould Plaza, 1125 N. McCadden Place, with John Keitel’s “Defying Gravity,” a highlight of last July’s festival. It matters little that this shot-in-13-days film is a tad rough around the edges, for it confidently goes right to the heart of the matters of coming out and of gay-bashing. College fraternities are officially as emphatically heterosexual as the military, and it’s no wonder that Griff (Daniel Chilson) wants to keep a new gay relationship secret--even from his best friend (Niklaus Lange).

Griff is not yet ready to accept that he’s gay or bisexual, while his lover (Don Handfield) has moved out of the fraternity house to explore a more openly gay way of life. A brutal gay-bashing incident thrusts Griff, very well played by Chilson, into profound conflict. “Defying Gravity” is taut, to the point and totally involving, and is a reminder that coming out remains a painful process for many even as the end of the 20th century approaches. (323) 960-2394.

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Benoit Jacquot is a quintessentially French filmmaker, coolly probing matters of the heart with the utmost gravity and rigor. His 1990 film, “The Disenchanted,” deceptively simple and surprisingly demanding, will commence screening Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Monica 4-Plex (1332 2nd St., Santa Monica). The picture is tough going at times because it’s so unremittingly glum and so very familiar. Yet in steadfastly seeing the world through the eyes of beautiful, grave 17-year-old Beth (Judith Godreche), Jacquot gradually builds emotional impact.

Beth, who identifies with her favorite poet, Rimbaud, is having her first affair, with a handsome, cocky youth (Malcolm Conrath), who remarks that she ought to have sex with the ugliest man she can find, all the better to appreciate him. He’s not really serious, but his words propel Beth into a process of self-discovery in her encounters with men in the next couple of days. The ultimate and most important figure is her ailing mother’s longtime “sugar daddy” (Ivan Desny, the distinguished veteran star of both German and French films), a physician who expresses himself with the driest of wit and irony, a man who is a sensualist so icy as to be chilling.

“The Disenchanted” is a luminous film that depends upon Godreche, who shows admirable ability in expressing the torrent of emotions and thoughts that Beth experiences as she reaches a turning point in her life. (310) 394-9741.

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UCLA Performing Arts presents “Koyaanisquatsi Live!” Tuesday at 8 p.m. in Royce Hall. Philip Glass’ score for Godfrey Reggio’s celebrated 1983 surreal documentary feature will be performed live by the Philip Glass Ensemble. There will also be a discussion with Glass and Reggio.

Taking its title from a Hopi word meaning “life out of balance,” this dazzler is film as metaphor rather than film as story. Utilizing time lapse and slow-motion, it is a collage of American vistas that moves from wilderness to city, embracing industry and the masses. Accompanied by Glass’ majestic, insistent score, the film culminates in a glittering, unnerving image of a society lurching out of control.

“Koyaanisquatsi,” however, is not without paradox, as film critic Myron Meisel was the first to point out, in that it puts an impressive mastery of technology in the service of protesting that very technology. Out of circulation for more than a decade, “Koyaanisquatsi” spawned a sequel, “Powaqqatsi,” and Reggio and Glass are planning a third film, dealing with life in war. In October, Nonesuch Records released the first complete digital recording of Glass’ “Koyaanisquatsi” score. (310) 825-2101.

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The Nuart is presenting Saturdays at midnight “All About Andy,” in which filmmaker Mark Schwartz has used two rare documentaries on Warhol to bookend his new “15 Minutes,” an amusing imagined encounter between Warhol (David Drake) and a youthful Arnold Schwarzenegger (Roland Kickinger, Mr. Austria 1994), who receives coaching from Andy on how to become a celebrity. Drake and especially Kickinger are quite good, but Schwartz might better have lived up to his film’s title. At 27 minutes, his film overstays its welcome by about half.

The documentaries, Juan Drago and Bruce Torbet’s 21-minute “Superartist” (1965-67) and Bob Smith’s 22-minute “Andy Makes a Movie” (1968), are both intriguing and revealing. “Superartist” finds Warhol in his prime, at work in the Factory, shooting the video portion of “Outer and Inner Space” (which was only recently restored). Edie Sedgwick holds forth as she is confronted with the sound but not image of the video. Meanwhile, Warhol’s early mentor, the late Henry Geldzahler of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, serves as Warhol’s mouthpiece as Warhol stands by and offers an occasional aside.

In May 1968, Warhol and his troupe headed for La Jolla to make the never-released “San Diego Surf.” As Smith records, cinema instructor-film distributor Aaron Sloan heavy-handedly barrages Warhol et al. with questions. Sloan’s laboriousness sets off the free spirits of the Warhol ensemble frolicking on the beach, but it also yields some valuable comments from the cagey and enigmatic Warhol, including his remark, “I like the way Godard works, just because I think he’s bringing television into the movies, and I think that’s what we’re trying to do sometimes.”

“Andy Makes a Movie” marks the end of an era. Just days later, Warhol returned to New York, where he was shot by Valerie Solanis on June 3. (310) 478-6379.