Passions

There was another birthday party in town last month when friends and colleagues from the world of the movies staged a bash for Visiting Professor Arthur L. Mayer, to celebrate his 90th year of youthfulness.

Staged is the word. The dinner, set up on the boards on the Center Theater, brought former film executive Max Youngstein and critic Pauline Kael to pay affectionate tribute to the Peter Pan of the business, "a one-man history of films." His local admirers spoke glowingly of his wit and warmth, his skill as a teacher, his success at adding film study to the body of respectable academic pursuits.

Arthur Mayer saw his first movie in 1896, at the age of ten. Some 68 years later, unwilling to dally longer over a permanent career decision, he became a college professor, soon settling into a demanding schedule of teaching one term a year at Dartmouth, one at Stanford, and one at the University of Southern California. Meanwhile, he had toyed with such "temporary" occupations as directing Paramount Pictures advertising and publicity, promoting Mae West, managing Broadway's Rialto Theater, importing foreign films, and chronicling the history of films in The Movies and a volume of personal reminiscences entitled MerelyColossal.

So much more than "merely colossal" was Mayer's birthday celebration that it was staged as a double feature. In his honor David Picker '53, president of Paramount, sent Won Ton Ton, the DogWho Saved Hollywood to the - Hopkins Center for its world premiere on May 14th. Stay Hungry, the latest film directed by Bob Rafelson '54, and the documentary Arthur and Lillie, which was nominated for an Academy Award this year, were shown on May 28th, Mayer's actual birthday. Both programs were benefits for the Fund for the Advancement of Film Studies at the College. This spring, his 13th at Dartmouth, Mayer is teaching his course on the history of film to 186 undergraduates and, not infrequently, to Lillie, his bride of 63 years, who shares his enthusiasm for young people and young ideas, as well as his defiance of time's passage.

After all the speeches and all the smooches at the birthday love-in, the guest of honor bemoaned his new nonagenarian status: "Last night I went to bed a mere youngster with a promising career ahead of me. This morning I woke up an elderly character. I have no desire whatsoever that my passions should be spent. I like my passions."

Mayer on being 90: "I can't even say when seeing a young girl, 'Oh, to be 80 again!' "But who is this fellow nuzzling with film critic Pauline Kael at the birthday party?