Nicholas Ray retrospective begins July 24

July 07, 2009 Born Nicholas Raymond Kienzle in Galesville, Wisconsin, Ray won a scholarship at age 16 to study drama and architecture at the University of Chicago, and would later earn a fellowship with Frank Lloyd Wright. Remaining in ill health for the rest of his life, Ray moved back in New York, where he lived until his death in 1979. The festival opens on July 24 with "Bigger Than Life," starring James Mason as a cortisone-addicted schoolteacher, which critic Scott Foundas calls "one of the best, most radical, least known films of the 1950s."

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