Karina Longworth, the writer, film historian and voice behind the podcast You Must Remember This, will be stopping at Varsity Cinema in Des Moines and FilmScene in Iowa City in the days ahead to tour the latest season of the show, titled “The Bisexuals.”
First launched in 2014, You Must Remember This features diligent research on Hollywood history, particularly its first century, to highlight the various, often conflicting reports that come out of the past. Longworth will be visiting cinemas across the country that are programming screenings of films mentioned throughout the season. Little Village spoke with Longworth before her visits to talk about the inspiration for the season, embarking on a national tour and the importance of repertory cinema in today’s film landscape.
For “The Bisexuals,” Longworth centers on actress, torch singer and socialite Libby Holman, who found success in 1930s New York City, but is more likely to be regarded for the mysterious death of her husband Zachary Smith Reynolds. Holman also engaged in several romantic relationships with women, and in the ’50s, became involved with American actor and heartthrob Montgomery Clift, who worked to keep his own long-term relationships with men a secret. It was here that Longworth found her title for the season.
“I wanted to tell the story of Libby Holman and Montgomery Clift, and then I expanded it out from them to some of the people that they collaborated with and were in their social lives. It just kind of happened that most of those people were queer, in the sense that they would have sex with both men and women.”…