Library Screens Black History Films 42 And STORMY WEATHER

FLORENCE-The free series The Screening Room:  Classics, Crowd-Pleasers, Cult Favorites and Neglected Gems commemorates Black History Month with two special screenings.

Brian Helgeland’s 42 (2013) – based on the life of Brooklyn Dodgers baseball legend Jackie Robinson, who wore the uniform number “42” – will be shown at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20, at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, 350 N. Wood Ave., Florence, Alabama.

Chadwick Boseman plays Robinson, the first black player to break the color barrier in baseball, with Harrison Ford as Dodgers executive Branch Rickey. The cast also features three talented actors from north Alabama – Lucas Black, Linc Hand and Danny Vinson – plus Nicole Bharie, Christopher Meloni, John C. McGinley, Max Gail and James Pickens Jr.

The Screening Room’s Black History Month showcase concludes at the library at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 23, with Andrew L. Stone’s musical Stormy Weather (1943), starring Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway, Fats Waller, the Nicholas Brothers, Katherine Durham and Matthew “Stymie” Beard.

The series has also rescheduled its special Valentine’s Day-themed movie romance – Christopher Reeve, Jane Seymour, Christopher Plummer and Teresa Wright in the time-travel fantasy Somewhere in Time (1980) – for 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 26. The cult-movie favorite, directed by Jeannot Szwarc (Night Gallery, Jaws 2) and adapted by Richard Matheson from his novel Bid Time Return – was postponed due to last week’s winter weather.

The film series – sponsored by the library and Pillar of Fire – is organized and hosted by film historian and Pillar of Fire director Terry Pace, who teaches English at the University of North Alabama. Admission is free. For details, call Pillar of Fire at 256-366-4512 or the library at 256-764-6564.

“You give me a uniform, you give me a number on my back, I’ll give you the guts.” – Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman) in Brian Helgeland’s 42 (2013)