SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS is part of journalism series at New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, Bruno Walter Auditorium
40 Lincoln Center Plaza (111 Amsterdam Ave. & 66th St.)
Thursdays at 6:30 from May 31 to June 28
www.nypl.org
Playing off the New York Times motto “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts is honoring the career of journalist Helen Bernstein Fealy with the free film series “All the News That’s Fit to Screen.” Celebrating the twenty-fifth anniversary of the NYPL’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism, the institution will be presenting five films set in the world of newspaper and magazine publishing, taking place on successive Thursday nights in the Bruno Walter Auditorium, with each program including a postscreening discussion. The festival begins May 31 with Shattered Glass (Billy Ray, 2003), which tells the story of disgraced New Republic reporter Stephen Glass; professor Adam L. Penenberg, who broke the story for Forbes, will be on hand to talk about it. On June 7, New York Times golf writer Karen Crouse will discuss female sports reporters following a screening of the classic Katharine Hepburn / Spencer Tracy battle of the sexes Woman of the Year (George Stevens, 1942). On June 14, gossip columnists George Rush and Lindsay Powers will dish it out after Sweet Smell of Success (Alexander Mackendrick, 1957), the Walter Winchell-inspired tale starring Burt Lancaster as columnist J. J. Hunsecker and Tony Curtis as his protégé, Sidney Falco. On June 21, Marina Goldovskaya will talk about and screen her 2011 documentary, A Bitter Taste of Freedom, which tells the tragic story of Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya. The series concludes on June 28 with one of the most famous bombs ever made, The Bonfire of the Vanities (Brian De Palma, 1990), with Julie Salamon, author of The Devil’s Candy: The Bonfire of the Vanities Goes to Hollywood, ready to share some inside tidbits following the screening.