When Jeanine Basinger created the film studies program at Middletown’s Wesleyan University 50 years ago, the serious study of movies in colleges was a rare occurrence.

“[At other schools] it was pretty much an ad hoc thing,” says Basinger, 84, who has been teaching at Wesleyan for 60 years. “People in English or art departments might teach ‘film appreciation,’ which was very high-toned. And it was all about what was wrong with Hollywood and how superior foreign films were.”

But Basinger saw brilliance in the American film heritage and her classes took a different approach. It also began a long list of popular, but academically grounded, books about the movies including A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930–1960, The Star Machine, The ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ Book, and Silent Stars.

Basinger’s latest book, The Movie Musical! is currently earning wide praise. Her next book is on American film comedy (tentatively titled How Funny Is Hitler?).

Basinger will be in conversation with this writer as the kick-off of the Mark Twain House & Museum’s A Little Harmless Fun spring series on Wednesday, March 4 at 7 p.m. at 351 Farmington Ave, in Hartford. The talk will be followed by a book signing.

Basinger says she turned a hobby into a life-long profession. Beyond the film program—which has grown into the College of Film and the Moving Image—she also founded Wesleyan’s film archives, which houses the collections of such diverse film figures as Martin Scorsese, Elia Kazan, Federico Fellini, Ingrid Bergman, Frank Capra, and John Waters.

Wesleyan’s Center for Film Studies capital project is completing its third phase of building this fall, which will also mark Basinger’s half century in film there. The building will be named for Basinger.

Today there are 100 film majors and 50 minors.

“Today, we have an enormous amount of students and all the film classes are lab classes,” she says. “It’s an amazing amount of work just doing the day to day stuff.”

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