“You’re shivering. Keep your handcuffs hidden and we’ll get some brandy.”
Alfred Hitchcock’s THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG (1927)will be showing Wednesday, October 13 at 8 pm. This night is presented by Silents, Please STL. Tickets are free, but donations are highly appreciated. All donations go to Silents, Please STL. The Arkadin is located at 5228 Gravois Ave, St Louis, MO 63116.Films are currently showing on the Backlot Patio (Enter through the Heavy Anchor) and bringing extra lawn chairs is strongly encouraged. Donations are accepted that evening or in advance HERE. The Arkadin Cinema site can be found HERE
In THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG, a serial killer known as “the avenger” is murdering blonde women in London. A new lodger, Jonathan Drew, arrives at Mr. and Mrs. Bounting’s in Bloomsbury and rents a room. The man has some strange habits, he goes out during foggy nights and keeps a picture of a blonde girl in his bedroom. The Bounting’s daughter, Daisy, is a blonde model and she is engaged to Joe, a detective. When Joe finds out that Bounting suspects Jonathan, he is jealous of the lodger flirting with Daisy and arrests the man accusing him of being the avenger.
THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG stars June Tripp, Ivor Novello and Marie Ault
Alfred Hitchcock’s DIAL M FOR MURDER (1954) starring Grace Kelly and Ray Milland is one of the most suspenseful films of the 1950’s . Those thrills will be on the big screenwhen it plays at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville, IL (252 N Main St, Edwardsville, IL 62025) at 7:00pm Tuesday August 17th. $3 Tickets available starting at 3pm day of movie at Wildey Theatre ticket office. Cash or check only. (cash, credit cards accepted for concessions) Lobby opens at 6pm.
In London, wealthy Margot Mary Wendice had a brief love affair with the American writer Mark Halliday while her husband and professional tennis player Tony Wendice was on a tennis tour. Tony quits playing to dedicate to his wife and finds a regular job. She decides to give him a second chance for their marriage. When Mark arrives from America to visit the couple, Margot tells him that she had destroyed all his letters but one that was stolen. Subsequently she was blackmailed, but she had never retrieved the stolen letter. Tony arrives home, claims that he needs to work and asks Margot to go with Mark to the theater. Meanwhile Tony calls Captain Lesgate (aka Charles Alexander Swann who studied with him at college) and blackmails him to murder his wife, so that he can inherit her fortune. But there is no perfect crime, and things do not work as planned.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, nominated for three Academy Awards and celebrated as one of the most popular spy thrillers of all time, NORTH BY NORTHWEST comes to life on the big screenwhen it plays at The Wildey Theater in Edwardsville, IL ( 252 N Main St, Edwardsville, IL 62025) at 7:00pm Tuesday June 8th. $3 (or free with proof of vaccination) Tickets available starting at 3pm day of movie at Wildey Theatre ticket office. Cash or check only. (cash, credit cards accepted for concessions) Lobby opens at 6pm. Attendance limited to 150.
Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau give fast and furious chase across the country, from the skyscrapers of Manhattan to the dizzying peaks of Mount Rushmore, set to the music of Bernard Herrmann, don’t miss your chance to see NORTH BY NORTHWEST on the big screen
With only a couple of months left, 2020 cruelly claimed yet another silver screen icon. Reuters broke the news this past Sunday:
Scottish movie legend Sean Connery, who shot to international stardom as the suave, sexy and sophisticated British agent James Bond and went on to grace the silver screen for four decades, has died aged 90.
“Father Time” seemingly took our first (and for many the favorite) incarnation of the ultimate super spy (tough break you SPECTRE creeps and megalomaniacs). For much of the 1960s, he was the most popular movie star on the planet. We Movie Geeks respectfully raise a martini glass (shaken, not…you know) to his long career.
That’s Sean in the middle, number 24.
His journey to movie stardom started fairly humbly across “the pond”. After stints as a coffin-polisher (really), milk delivery man, and bodybuilder (he competed in the 1950 Mr. Universe contest), Connery took up acting, first on stage in “South Pacific”, then on the “telly”. Soon his rugged six foot two physique caught the attention of film studio casting agents. NO ROAD BACK was his feature debut in 1957, followed by the crime thriller, HELL DRIVERS. His big break would come the next year in the “tear-jerker” ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE in a supporting role opposite American film goddess Lana Turner. From there he filled his days third or fourth-billed in everything from jungle action (a “baddie” in TARZAN’S GREATEST ADVENTURE) to a Disney kids’ fantasy (DARBY O’GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE), even crooning a tune:
A couple of years later Connery would take on the role that would change his life (and the entire film industry) forever. Producers Harry Saltzman and ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, after a long search, cast him in the first of their adaptations of Ian Fleming’s best selling “potboilers”, DR. NO. Here’s how 007 entered cinema superstardom:
The film was a surprise hit around the globe with Connery’s cool charisma as its biggest asset. Every man wanted to be him, and every woman…wanted him. The next year, its follow-up FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE built on the former’s box office. Sure, there had been film series before, but most were “B” pictures (Boston Blackie, Mr. Moto) or “A” films that eased into “Bs” with smaller budgets (Tarzan, the Thin Man). That was true even later with the Planet of the Apes flicks, but Bond was different. Each new film was bigger: more elaborate stunts and action sequences, more wild gadgets. and new “Bond girls”. Audiences couldn’t get enough, as United Artists began re-releasing previous films in very profitable double feature packages (they wouldn’t be leased to TV until the mid-70s). Companies lined up to the producers, hoping that their cars, clothes, and liquors would be used by that “gentleman agent”.
Everyone was wowed by the series, with the exception of its star. Connery was uncomfortable with the intense glare of publicity and intrusive cameras. Plus, he wanted to branch out and prove that he was more than, as the Italians called his character, “Mr. Kisskiss Bangbang”. He was the leading man for Alfred Hitchcock’s twisted MARNIE. Then he worked with Sidney Lumet (the first of four films) in the gritty war drama THE HILL. Connery even saddled up with Brigette Bardot in the Western SHALAKO. All this in between his Bond missions. After his fifth, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, Connery left the series (supposedly over money issues).
He returned to his homeland for THE MOLLY MAGUIRES. Then he did a curious thing while promoting his next Lumet film, the crime caper THE ANDERSON TAPES. Connery’s hair had begun thinning during his second Bond film and was wearing a series of toupees. A friend of mine told me that he and a buddy saw Connery, “au natural”, on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. This pal was stunned and mumbled, “He’s bald as a cueball” for the next hour or so. This might have wrecked any other leading man’s career but Connery’s appeal remained intact.
So much so that he was lured back to Bond (after the limp box office of the non-Connery 007 effort) with DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER, after which he told the press “Never again.” (ahem). Thus began a decade of interesting role choices for the actor. Sure, there were misfires, like the trippy fever dream ZARDOZ (his wardrobe, or lack of, was quite scandalous), but there were enduring critical favorites with some of the greatest directors. Connery finally got to work with old chum Michael Caine in THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING from director John Huston (supposedly he had wanted to make it in the 40s with Gable and Bogart). There was also THE WIND AND THE LION for John Milius. He was a weary swashbuckler in Richard Lester’s ROBIN AND MARION opposite Audrey Hepburn. Later Connery would be part of big ensemble films like MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (again with Lumet) and the WWII epic A BRIDGE TOO FAR. He even did a 70s disaster flick, METEOR, with Natalie Wood.
As the 80s began Connery was still a cinema staple. With the “sci-fi’ craze in bloom, he starred in a futuristic riff on HIGH NOON, OUTLAND. Then it was on to a big kids’ fantasy from Monty Python’s Terry Gilliam, TIME BANDITS. But the biggest “stunner” was Connery’s return to Bond in the “unofficial” (Brocolli was not involved) remake of THUNDERBALL, NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN as a greying, but still dashing, fifty-something superspy. He would kick off a different, new series with HIGHLANDER before playing a mystery-solving monk in THE NAME OF THE ROSE. The next year Connery when experience a career resurgence, and some of his best reviews ever, as a world-weary tough Irish Chicago cop in the big-screen version of the 60s TV classic:
THE UNTOUCHABLES. Brian DePalma’s sprawling lawman versus gangsters saga would even net him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1988. Connery was now in even bigger demand as his busy “second act” began in earnest. The next year he joined another big movie series as Professor Henry Jones, Sr. in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE as the father of Harrison Ford’s globe-trotting hero, in the third installment from director Steven Spielberg. Around the same time, People magazine crowned him “sexiest man alive”. Pretty good for a nearly bald, grey-bearded Scottsman pushing sixty.
A dozen or so years of film roles followed. Action thrillers and dramas, from the nautical submarine story THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER to King Arthur in FIRST KNIGHT. He even got to play a villain in the 1998 movie version of the 60s spy TV show (not the Marvel heroes) THE AVENGERS. And somehow Connery found the time to be knighted in 2000. He finally bid adieu to the big screen (at least in front of the cameras) in 2003 with THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN with his role as Alan Quatermain along with producing duties.
But in the next ten years, he lent his voice to several projects, from a Bond videogame to the animated feature SIR BILLI, though none could top his turn as Draco in DRAGONHEART from 1996.
Connery continued to be a pop culture fixture. In the “Gumby Winter Special” comic book story cartoonist based his Santa Claus on the actor’s likeness.
And we have to recall Darrell Hammond’s mimicry of him in a recurring Saturday Night Live sketch parodying “Celebrity Jeopardy”, as the tormentor of host Alex Trebek played by Will Farrell.
Now “M” (or would it be “G”) closes and seals the dossier on the movies’ first Bond, perhaps stamping it “for your eyes only”. But the character continues on, perhaps as a testament to the original. Aside from that “special agent”, Mr.Connery has left us a most impressive legacy of film work that movie fans will enjoy forever. Though he has gone, from reports whisked away in his sleep, we invoke that end credit from the film series: “James Bond will Return”. And Sean Connery will never be forgotten.
” One final thing I have to do… and then I’ll be free of the past.”
Classics on the Loop at The Tivoli happens Mondays at 4 pm and 7 pm This week, March 16th is Alfred Hitchcock’s VERTIGO (1958)!.Admission is just $7.The Tivoli is located at 6350 Delmar Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63130. A Facebook invite for the screening can be found HERE
Let’s state this right from the top: VERTIGO is one of the greatest films ever made. It’s not simply hyperbole that notables such as Leonard Maltin and Martin Scorsese have called the film Hitchcock’s masterpiece. To paraphrase Scorsese, rarely have we seen the complexity of a man’s thoughts and feelings portrayed so beautifully and compellingly onscreen. Everything in VERTIGO – from the costumes to the location scenery to the performances of its lead actors is quite simply, perfect. Hitchcock had long wanted to film a story in the City by the Bay, and with the French novel FROM AMONG THE DEAD, he had the framework for his most personal and revealing film. The San Francisco backdrops contribute greatly to the overall dreamlike quality of much of the film, with the Spanish architecture, redwood forests, and of course, the Golden Gate. The plot of VERTIGO is famously convoluted, but suffice to say that Hitch had yet another morally ambiguous lead character in Scottie (the always solid Jimmy Stewart, here playing against his all-American every guy type), and a plethora of dualities in almost every character – and then some. Madeleine (the wonderful Kim Novak) is not really Madeleine, but Judy. And Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes) wants to be Madeleine, but paints a portrait of herself as Carlotta. The old college buddy is really a calculating murderer. Hitchcock uses paintings, reflections, mirrors, and shadows to show us these dual personas constantly throughout the film.
Here’s the rest of the Classics in the Loop lineup:
” My theory is that everyone is a potential murderer. “
Classics on the Loop at The Tivoli happens Mondays at 4 pm and 7 pm This week, March 9th is Alfred Hitchcock’s STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951)!.Admission is just $7.The Tivoli is located at 6350 Delmar Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63130. A Facebook invite for the screening can be found HERE
Hitchcock indulges his penchant for locomotives once again in the 1951 classic STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. One of his greatest thrillers begins innocently enough on board said train when tennis player Guy Haines ( Farley Granger ) has a casual conversation with one of cinema’s creepiest villains Bruno Anthony ( Robert Walker ). Both have people in their lives causing them problems. Bruno has a mean, tight-fisted father while Guy has a loose, shrewish wife who won’t grant him a divorce so he may marry a gorgeous US senator’s daughter Anne Morton ( Ruth Roman ). Hmmm, what if they did murders for each other? The police would never suspect. Guy light-heartedly agrees, but Bruno believes that it’s real and binding. He tracks down Mrs. Haines to a carnival and strangles her ( in a low angle shot we observe the killing through the woman’s discarded spectacles-this party gal wore glasses! ). Soon Bruno calls on Guy to keep his end of the deal or he’ll alert the authorities. What to do?
Walker gives a mesmerizing performance as the dead-eyed murderer with serious parental issues ( foreshadowing Norman Bates? ). Strolling through the carnival he barely breaks his stride to pop the balloon of a passing youngster. Later Bruno attends Guy’s big tennis match. All eyes in the stands are on the back-and-forth moving tennis ball except Bruno. He fixes his steady, unmoving, unblinking stare on Guy. The suspense doesn’t let up through the wild climax as both men fight aboard a whirling, spinning out-of-control merry-go-round. The influence of this masterwork continues to this day in films ( the comedy THROW MOMMA FROM THE TRAIN ) to a recent episode of TV’s ” Modern Family “. Watch for Hitchcock attempting to board the train toting a cumbersome double bass case ( ya’ know, a body could fit in that! ).
Here’s the rest of the Classics in the Loop lineup:
” There are 20 million women in this island and I’ve got to be chained to you.”
Classics on the Loop at The Tivoli happens Mondays at 4 pm and 7 pm This week, March 2nd is Alfred Hitchcock’sTHE 39 STEPS (1935)!.Admission is just $7.The Tivoli is located at 6350 Delmar Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63130
In THE 30 STEPS, Robert Donat plays Richard Hannay, a Canadian visitor to London. At the end of “Mr Memory”‘s show in a music hall, he meets Annabella Smith, who is running away from secret agents. He agrees to hide her in his flat, but she is murdered during the night. Fearing that he could be accused of the murder, Hannay goes on the run to break the spy ring.
Here’s the rest of the Classics in the Loop lineup:
“She might have fooled me, but she didn’t fool my mother.”
PSYCHO screensSunday Night September 8th at the Sky View Drive-in in Lichtfield, Il. (1500 Historic Old Route 66) This is part of the Sky View’s ‘Throwback Sundays’. The second Sunday of the month, they screen a classic movie. Admission is only $3 (free for kids under 5). The movie starts at dusk (8:00-ish). The Sky View’s site can be found HERE.
Everyone remembers the most famous scene in PSYCHO: the oft-copied but seldom equaled artistry of the shower murder, with its nerve-wracking staccato string music, its implied nudity and stabbing, and its 78 separate edits. But what everyone does not realize is that this iconic sequence – one of the most famous in film history – was actually a creative response thought up by Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock to avoid censorship. In 1959, censorship (the Code) was still alive and well in Hollywood, movie ratings were still years away, and Alfred Hitchcock was at a crossroads in his career. With a string of box office hits and a popular hit TV show, Hitch was one of Hollywood’s most bankable and recognizable directors. But Hitch was also troubled by the critical and box office failure of VERTIGO, one of his most personal films. He felt that his next project should be something different other than the same big studio crowd-pleasers he had built his reputation on, so when he read a review of a new novel by Robert Bloch inspired by the real-life serial killer Ed Gein , Hitch was immediately attracted to the lurid subject matter, with its themes of transvestism, incest, necrophilia, and a dose of taxidermy. Hitch began story conferences with screenwriter Joseph Stefano (later to produce TV’s OUTER LIMITS), getting more and more excited at the prospect of filming cheaply, dealing with taboo subject matter, and – most importantly – killing off his leading lady in the first act. He decided to forgo the usual studio crew for one made up primarily from his TV show, which could shoot quickly and economically.
With a few exceptions, such as visual consultant Bass and composer Bernard Herrmann, Hitch kept the production low-budget and under the radar. At a time when Technicolor had become almost commonplace, PSYCHO was shot in black and white for both artistic and cost-saving reasons. (Hitch once responded to a question of why he didn’t film in color with, – That would have been in bad taste.) In today’s horror climate of “torture porn” and overblown SAW-like deaths, it’s easy to forget how difficult it was to make a film like PSYCHO, breaking new ground in telling an adult story in adult terms. The problem of how to film a brutal murder without actually showing anything was just one of many hurdles Hitch had to solve. Setting the tone with its opening voyeuristic shot of a barely-clad couple in the throes of a passionate affair, PSYCHO portrayed an openness about sex that only foreign films at that time had shown.Hitch tread carefully with the censors, often asking for more than he actually wanted, but Stefano remembers that even such a mundane item as a toilet had never been shown onscreen in a major studio film, let alone a toilet flushing! Made at the peak of his genius, Hitchcock’s PSYCHO has rightly claimed its throne as Father (or Mother) of the modern horror film, influencing thrillers for decades and creating a new sense of realism that continues through the slasher films of today. Stripping the bleak essence of human nature to austere, colorless banality, PSYCHO would have assured Hitchcock’s reputation even if it were his only film.
Don’t miss PSYCHO when it screens at the Sky View Drive-in September 8th!
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, nominated for three Academy Awards and celebrated as one of the most popular spy thrillers of all time, NORTH BY NORTHWEST comes to life on the big screen Monday July 22nd as part of the ‘Classics on the Loop’ series. Showtimes are 4pm and 7pm. Admission is $7.A Facebook invite can be found HERE
Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau give fast and furious chase across the country, from the skyscrapers of Manhattan to the dizzying peaks of Mount Rushmore, set to the music of Bernard Herrmann, don’t miss your chance to seeNORTH BY NORTHWEST on the big screen
“She might have fooled me, but she didn’t fool my mother.”
The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is checking into the Bates Motel as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho comes to the big screen at Powell Hall for an evening of spine-tingling and hair-raising terror Saturday June 22nd at 7pm. From the shrieking strings and the slashing chords, the SLSO performs Bernard Herrmann’s suspenseful score live and intensifies this black & white psychological thriller. Experience the dangerous duo of a cinematic masterpiece and iconic score from the safety of your red velvet chair. Conducted by Norman Huynh.Tickets can be purchased HERE
Featuring the strings of the SLSO.
One of the greatest suspense thrillers of all time unfolds on the big screen.
Film with live score.
Everyone remembers the most famous scene in PSYCHO: the oft-copied but seldom equaled artistry of the shower murder, with its nerve-wracking staccato string music, its implied nudity and stabbing, and its 78 separate edits. But what everyone does not realize is that this iconic sequence – one of the most famous in film history – was actually a creative response thought up by Saul Bass and Alfred Hitchcock to avoid censorship. In 1959, censorship (the Code) was still alive and well in Hollywood, movie ratings were still years away, and Alfred Hitchcock was at a crossroads in his career. With a string of box office hits and a popular hit TV show, Hitch was one of Hollywood’s most bankable and recognizable directors. But Hitch was also troubled by the critical and box office failure of VERTIGO, one of his most personal films. He felt that his next project should be something different other than the same big studio crowd-pleasers he had built his reputation on, so when he read a review of a new novel by Robert Bloch inspired by the real-life serial killer Ed Gein , Hitch was immediately attracted to the lurid subject matter, with its themes of transvestism, incest, necrophilia, and a dose of taxidermy. Hitch began story conferences with screenwriter Joseph Stefano (later to produce TV’s OUTER LIMITS), getting more and more excited at the prospect of filming cheaply, dealing with taboo subject matter, and – most importantly – killing off his leading lady in the first act. He decided to forgo the usual studio crew for one made up primarily from his TV show, which could shoot quickly and economically.
With a few exceptions, such as visual consultant Bass and composer Bernard Herrmann, Hitch kept the production low-budget and under the radar. At a time when Technicolor had become almost commonplace, PSYCHO was shot in black and white for both artistic and cost-saving reasons. (Hitch once responded to a question of why he didn’t film in color with, – That would have been in bad taste.) In today’s horror climate of “torture porn” and overblown SAW-like deaths, it’s easy to forget how difficult it was to make a film like PSYCHO, breaking new ground in telling an adult story in adult terms. The problem of how to film a brutal murder without actually showing anything was just one of many hurdles Hitch had to solve. Setting the tone with its opening voyeuristic shot of a barely-clad couple in the throes of a passionate affair, PSYCHO portrayed an openness about sex that only foreign films at that time had shown.Hitch tread carefully with the censors, often asking for more than he actually wanted, but Stefano remembers that even such a mundane item as a toilet had never been shown onscreen in a major studio film, let alone a toilet flushing! Made at the peak of his genius, Hitchcock’s PSYCHO has rightly claimed its throne as Father (or Mother) of the modern horror film, influencing thrillers for decades and creating a new sense of realism that continues through the slasher films of today. Stripping the bleak essence of human nature to austere, colorless banality, PSYCHO would have assured Hitchcock’s reputation even if it were his only film.
