“We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the time I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.” So begins the famous short piece entitled “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” by James Agee.
This year marks the centennial of his reminisced summer of 1915. Please join us on September 4 at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 S. Gay Street, for a commemoration of this centennial with an evening of vintage film and local photography celebrating the literary legacy of one of East Tennessee’s own, James Rufus Agee. Free. Refreshments will be served.
Schedule
6:00 – Photography Exhibit: Knoxville in 1915
Curated by Steve Cotham. An exhibition of vintage photography from the Jim Thompson Collection at the Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection
7:00 – Film Screenings
Agee Lost and Found
Introduction by Paul Brown, author of an upcoming book on the filming of the 1963 Paramount film All The Way Home
A compilation of unique footage featuring the local filming and Knoxville premier of All the Way Home, plus footage of Agee’s Fort Sanders boyhood home and home movies filmed on-location by Knoxville residents
All the Way Home
Introduction by Michael Kearney, featured co-star of All the Way Home
Director: Alex Segal. Starring Jean Simmons, Robert Preston, John Cullum, Michael Kearney, and a cast of Knoxville extras
In early 1900's Tennessee, a loving family undergoes the shock of the father's sudden, accidental death. The widow and her son must endure the heartache of life following the tragedy, but slowly rise up from the ashes to face the hope of renewed life. A rare 16mm screening of the 1963 film partially shot in Knoxville, and based on James Agee’s autobiographical Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Death in the Family.
This "Knoxville: Summer of 2015" commemoration is produced by the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound (TAMIS), a department of Knox County Public Library's McClung Historical Collection.