The Dryden will screen The Human Comedy (Clarence Brown, U.S. 1943, 117 min., 35mm) with an introduction by author David Bordwell as part of the Reinventing Hollywood series.

Multiple protagonists tell the home-front story of the small town of Ithaca, California. Homer Macauley (Mickey Rooney) takes a night job as a telegraph messenger to help his mother make ends meet while his older brother is off to war. This puts Homer in contact with many others in the town, including his brother and sister (Van Johnson, Donna Reed), the young lovers Tom and Diana (James Craig, Marsha Hunt), and wire chief Willie Grogan (Frank Morgan). Life in all its possibilities plays out against this backdrop of the average American town.

[source: George Eastman Museum calendar, 2018-Sep-10]