Ah, Wilderness

We’re partnering with the Knox County Public Library’s Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound in a rare showing of the movie version of Eugene O’Neill’s only comedy, Ah, Wilderness! Even though the movie has a New England setting, it opens with a genuine old Knoxville High School banner, thanks to the fact that its director was a KHS alumnus (and a UT graduate) who became our most prolific contribution to Hollywood’s filmmaking industry: Clarence Brown. The movie in fact has several surprising Knoxville fingerprints on it—as Jack Neely will explain in a brief talk before the showing of the film at Central Cinema. And it’s right in the middle of Clarence Brown’s old neighborhood. The location, in Happy Holler (a district Brown would have known by that name), occupies the space of an old neighborhood movie theater once known as the Joy. Be there at 7:15. Part of TAMIS’s monthly series at this unique venue, it’s a free program, and anticipates the Clarence Brown Film Festival envisioned for later in the year.