This program is presented by the UCLA Film & Television Archive. Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive screening series “Going My Own Way”: Celebrating Ivan Dixon. In-person: Filmmaker Christine Acham; Nomathande Dixon, daughter of Ivan Dixon; and Natiki Hope Pressley, daughter of Sam Greenlee. The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973) New 35mm restoration! The parallels between the story told in The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973) and the film’s production are striking and powerful. Based on the explosive 1969 novel by Sam Greenlee, who co-wrote the screenplay, director Ivan Dixon’s pull-no-punches adaptation follows the CIA’s first Black agent (Lawrence Cook) — recruited as part of a Potemkin integration policy — from the halls of power to the streets of Chicago where he uses the agency’s own training to foment a violent Black revolution. For his part, Dixon shot the film guerrilla-style, deploying the action tropes of Blaxploitation to revolutionary ends, using their camera as a weapon in the ongoing cultural war of self-representation. The Archive is honored to present the world premiere screening of a new 35mm restoration of this underground classic. 35mm, color, 102 min. Director: Ivan Dixon. Screenwriters: Sam Greenlee, Melvin Clay. With: Lawrence Cook, Janet League, Paula Kelly. Infiltrating Hollywood: The Rise and Fall of The Spook Who Sat by the Door (2011) This fascinating documentary preserves the story of one of the most stunning acts of government interference in American film history: the suppression of The Spook Who Sat by the Door. It features candid interviews with novelist and screenplay co-writer Sam Greenlee as well as several cast members (J.A. Preston, David Lemieux) and Berlie Dixon, Ivan Dixon’s widow. Screened at over 20 film festivals in America and abroad, the colorful details of how the film was financed, produced and, eventually, once it began playing to sold out theaters, suppressed, easily resonate in today’s political climate. In the article “Subverting the System: The Politics and Production of The Spook Who Sat by the Door,” Christine Acham, who co-directed, edited and produced the film, writes “Federal and local governments considered it too dangerous to screen The Spook for volatile black audiences. The film relayed a powerful message of self-reliance and black power.” DCP, color, 57 min. Directors: Christine Acham, Clifford Ward. With: Sam Greenlee, Berlie Dixon, J.A. Preston, David Lemieux, Paul Butler, Todd Boyd, Melvin Clay, Ed Guerrero, Janet League.