Previewing the American Cinematheque's 2026 Nitrate Film Festival
January 29, 2026
The first classic film fest that I’m attending this year is right around the corner: the American Cinematheque’s Nitrate Film Festival! I think this is the fest’s third year, and I love that it’s an annual event. Nitrates are rarely screened, because so many surviving prints (struck before 1951, when they stopped producing nitrate film) have shrunk too much for safe projection. Thus, the opportunity to see so many of them is truly a treat. Below is a short preview of this year’s fest, including what I'm hoping to see and what I'm missing out on.
Friday 2/13, 7pm:
Dead Reckoning (1947), print from the Library of Congress
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this Humphrey Bogart-Lizabeth Scott drama at Noir City Hollywood before, but it’s been a while. Bogart plays a veteran trying to figure out who framed his friend for murder… and took him out in the process. His investigating leads him to Scott, naturally, his friend’s former flame who works in a club owned by a gangster. All very standard noir stuff, but it's elevated by Bogart and Scott. I’m excited to see this again on the big screen.
Saturday 2/14, 3pm:
The Good Fairy (1935), print from the UCLA Film & Television Archive
When the American Cinematheque announced this schedule, The Good Fairy was my only must-see. And of course, it’s playing almost exactly opposite a UCLA gymnastics home meet, which I usually never miss. I made the hard call to forgo gymnastics in favor of getting to experience this rarely screened movie—nitrate or not! I had only heard of The Good Fairy, starring naïve Margaret Sullavan as a movie usher who is caught between businessman Frank Morgan and doctor Herbert Marshall, a few years ago… when I missed it at the TCM Classic Film Festival and everyone RAVED about it. I was not about to make the same mistake again—and this is probably the *only* opportunity I’d get to see it projected on nitrate. (Now watch when TCM programs it for the festival this year or something!)
Saturday 2/14, 7pm:
My Man Godfrey (1936), print from Filmarchiv Austria
A classic screwball starring real-life exes William Powell and Carole Lombard? Usually, I’d say sign me up. I love getting to watch comedies with an audience, and this nutty film about rich, scatterbrained Lombard turning “forgotten man” Powell into her family’s butler is peak screwball. However, I’ve seen this movie recently, and it’s Valentine’s Day and other plans prevail.
Friday 2/20, 7pm:
Nothing Sacred (1937), print from the George Eastman Museum
So I’m making up for missing My Man Godfrey with another Carole Lombard screwball comedy, Nothing Sacred. Fredric March co-stars here as a newspaper man jumping on a story about a small town woman (Lombard) dying of radium poisoning—or so she thinks. It obviously all goes to hell from there. It’s been many, many years since I’ve seen this classic, and I’m excited to have the chance to see it in all its Technicolor glory on the big screen!
Poster for Wife! Be Like a Rose!
Saturday 2/21, 3pm:
Wife! Be Like a Rose! (1935), print from the George Eastman Museum
I always perk up when I hear a new-to-me title, like Wife! Be Like a Rose! Unfortunately, right off the bat, a previously planned trip makes this (and the rest of the Nitrate fest screenings) an automatic no for me. I’m a little bummed, because what better venue to discover a film for the first time—and on nitrate!—than the Egyptian Theater? Now that this Japanese drama about a young working girl setting off to find her biological father, who abandoned his first family for a new one, is on my radar, I hope that I can watch it soon. Even if it’s not on the big screen!
Saturday 2/21, 7pm:
Blithe Spirit (1945), print from The Museum of Modern Art
I’ve had the opportunity to witness this Noël Coward play in person—with Angela Lansbury, no less!—but I’ve never seen the David Lean-directed movie. It’s one that has alluded me for a really long time, so of course seeing this Technicolor comedy on the big screen with an audience would be the best first viewing experience, but alas, it won’t happen. This film is readily available, so there is no excuse for me to keep missing out on seeing Margaret Rutherford play a medium who summons ghost Kay Hammond to pay a visit to husband Rex Harrison and his new wife Constance Cummings. Plus, I’m curious about some of these 1940s color effects…
Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr in Samson and Delilah.
Sunday 2/22, 6pm:
Samson and Delilah (1949), print from The Library of Congress
Biblical epics are not normally my cup of tea, but if I were in town this day, I probably would make it a point to see Cecil B. DeMille’s retelling of this classic tale starring Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr. Why? As I mentioned before, what better way to experience a movie for the first time than in a theater? And when it’s in Technicolor and on nitrate? I don’t think you can really get any better than that!
If you’re planning on attending any of the fest events, let me know in the comments!
thanks for stopping by!
I See a Dark Theater is a website dedicated to classic movie-going—and loving—in the City of Angels. Whether it's coverage on screenings, special presentations, or Q&As around Los Angeles that you're looking for, or commentary on the wonderful and sometimes wacky world of classic cinema, you've come to the right place for a variety of pieces written with zeal, awe, and (occasionally) wit. Enjoy.
