On Sunday, Feb. 2, at 2 p.m.,

The Sterile Cuckoo

(1969), a film shot on and around Hamilton College’s campus in the late 1960s, was screened in Bradford Auditorium. The event was part of the Forum on Image and Language Motion (F.I.L.M.) Series organized by Scott MacDonald, Director of Cinema and Media Studies.

The film is an adaptation of the novel of the same name written by alumnus John Nichols ’62, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Alvin Sargent. The director and producer was Alan J. Pakula, who had produced

To Kill a Mockingbird

(1962) and would go on to direct

All the President’s Men

(1976). For these films, Pakula was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director, respectively. Nichols advocated shooting the film as near as possible to Hamilton College, where he had been an undergraduate and from which experience he had derived much of the novel’s source.

The Sterile Cuckoo

chronicles a year of experiences between two college freshmen, “Pookie” (Liza Minnelli) and Jerry (Wendell Burton), each only beginning to determine their life path. Meeting on the bus to their respective campuses, the outspoken Pookie overwhelms the unassuming Jerry, who nonetheless agrees to see her regularly as they begin their education. While they both initially seem to benefit from being together, Jerry is having an easier time adapting to meeting new people and being social, whereas Pookie’s combination of brash, alienating behavior and crippling loneliness only increases.

Pakula and his 65-member Paramount crew were on and around the Hill from Sept. 11 until Oct. 15, 1968. They rounded up about 125 Hamilton and Kirkland College students to use as extras and filmed largely on campus. Jerry’s residence hall is a composite, which is fairly obvious to the Hamilton student viewer. When Jerry looks out his window, he is at 3 College Hill Road, looking across the street at 20 College Hill Road, the “boarding house” where Pookie stays when visiting campus. In the scenes outside his residence hall, though, they’ve been transported to the front of Eells House or — in the memorable houseparty scene — to the back porch of Woollcott House. Stairwell scenes were shot in South Hall.

Other key scenes were filmed at Oudin’s Court in Sylvan Beach (now Sunset Cottages) and the Union Chapel next door — which were added to the script on the spot because the chapel’s proximity to Pookie and Jerry’s love nest “seemed too good to be true.” Oddly, Hamilton’s Chapel went unused except for brief exterior shots. The film’s cemetery scene, set in Hamilton’s cemetery in the novel, was moved to nearby Skyline Drive. Vernon Center’s park at the western end of College Hill Road served as the rural bus stop near “Winslow.” Interior and exterior shots were also filmed in Clinton Village, featuring the Breakaway Lounge and the Village Tavern (which even got a passing mention).

Ultimately, Nichols said, “I thought Pakula made a gentle, delicate, awkward film. It made Liza Minnelli a star, got her an Academy Award nomination, won a Grammy for its sappy theme song, and sent Pakula on his way toward

All the President’s Men

and

Sophie’s Choice

, and Liza got to do

Cabaret

. You know, it wasn’t my movie, it was their movie, as it should have been, and I’m glad it kind of worked out.”