The Historic Elsinore Theatre and Chemeketa
Community College
The
Wednesday Evening Film Series
Spring-Summer 2013
Program notes offering
commentary are provided at our sound-era movies screenings.
Silent film presentations feature digitally restored prints
whenever possible and live musical accompaniment by Rick Parks
on the “Mighty Wurlitzer Organ.”
Tickets are $5 each and can
be purchased at the Historic Elsinore Theatre, and at all
Tickets West locations. Phone 503.375.3574 for information.
Box office and doors open at 6:15 pm, movies start at 7:00 pm.
Series Coordinator: Robert Bibler, Chemeketa CC Film Studies
Program.
Silent Film Organist: Rick Parks.
Sustaining Partner:
Allied Video
Productions
Series Sponsors: Cubanisimo
Vineyard, Vitae Springs Vineyard,
Domaine Margelle Vineyard
May 22
7:00 pm Black Narcissus (Michael Powell &
Emeric Pressburger, UK, 1947)
Deborah Kerr leads a group
of English nuns up the soaring heights of India’s mountains to a
former Sultan’s palace. Perched on the edge of a high
precipice, it is to become their convent. The trek is
formidable, but the palace ––as though alive with spirits––
challenges the nuns’ faith. As with The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre, this is an adventure into unfamiliar
territory where the task is ambitious, emotions run high, and
temptation is ever-present. This gorgeous Technicolor film won
Oscars for both cinematography and art direction. New
restoration in high definition. With David Farrar, Sabu, Jean
Simmons. 101 minutes.
“ Visually sumptuous, dramatically charged
movie. One of the most breathtaking color films ever made.”
––Leonard Maltin
“Color and emotion swirl through Michael Powell’s
Black Narcissus, set
at a convent school and hospital perched 8,000 feet up in the
Himalayas. An Indian general used to keep his women at this
place…, and it still feels buffeted by strong currents of eros.
Even the walls, painted with lush nudes, whisper of sex.
What’s a nun to do? […The] exaggerated atmosphere, an odd
blend of mountain mysticism and tropical languor, is not to be
found in nature but in cinema only. See this great film as it
was meant to be seen — on the big screen.” ––Rachel Saltz,
New York Times, Jan. 4, 2013
May 29
7:00 pm Ministry of Fear (Fritz Lang, USA,
1944)
Incarcerated for two years,
Stephen Neale (Ray Milland) is released from an English mental
institution to an outside world that is oddly unreliable. As he
makes his way to London, events become increasingly menacing
––nightmarish and surreal–– in this film noir suspense
thriller by Fritz Lang (Metropolis, The Big
Heat, The Woman in the Window). Based on
the novel by Graham Greene. Newly restored. 85 minutes.
“This is a wonderfully
atmospheric, almost expressionistic thriller, packed with
memorable moments… And right from the opening shot of Milland
waiting alone in a darkened room for the stroke of midnight
––the magic hour which will release him from one paranoiac
nightmare… into another–– Lang sets his characteristic seal of
fatality on the action.” ––Time Out
“Suffused with dread and
paranoia, [Ministry of Fear]
…is a plunge into the eerie shadows of a world turned upside
down by war… . Lang was among the most illustrious of the
European émigré filmmakers in Hollywood during WWII, and
Ministry of Fear is one of his finest productions, an
unpredictable thriller with style to spare.” ––David Hare
June 12
7:00 pm City Girl (F.W. Murnau, USA, 1930)
*SILENT*
Minnesota farmer Lem
(Charles Farrell) goes to the city to sell his family’s wheat.
He returns with a Chicago diner waitress (Mary Duncan) as his
wife ––to his father’s fury. As with director Murnau’s
Sunrise and Nosferatu, we have the
simplest material in the hands of a cinematic artist. Shot
partly on location in the wheat fields of Pendleton, Oregon. 90
minutes.
“Murnau is realism +
poetry . . . You have never seen a city diner in American film,
felt its heat, its hubbub, its routine, its turnover, its charm,
its tedium and its spunk until you have seen City Girl
and you see how Farrell casually meets and unconsciously courts
Duncan at the diner counter.”
––Daniel Kasman, theauteurs.com, 2008
June 19
7:00 pm Shanghai Express (Josef von
Sternberg, USA, 1932)
Described as “Grand
Hotel on a train,” this exotic, pre-Code tale of
romantic and foreign intrigue stars Marlene Dietrich as
“Shanghai Lily,” a notorious American woman taking the Express
from Peking to Shanghai during the Chinese civil war. It’s a
risky journey, and among the various international passengers is
a British officer (Clive Brook), her former lover. In 1934,
this daring film was classified as unfit for re-release by the
Breen censorship office. You’ll see why. Nominated for three
Oscars, including Best Picture and Director, it won for Best
Cinematography. It’s gorgeous. Restored. With Anna May Wong,
Gustav von Seyffertitz, Eugene Pallette. 83 minutes.
“Irresistibly enjoyable.
In this glossy mixture of sex and intrigue, Shanghai Lily and
her exquisitely stoic beloved (Clive Brook) fall into the hands
of sinister Chinese revolutionaries led by Warner Oland. This
movie has style––a triumphant fusion of sin, glamour,
shamelessness, art, and, perhaps, a furtive sense of humor.”
––Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
“The plot concerns an evacuation from Peking to
Shanghai, but it's in every sense a vehicle for something else:
a parade of deceptive appearances and identities, centering on
the notion of a prostitute with more honor than those around
her. Dietrich's Shanghai Lily hasn't aged a day…”
––Time Out
June 26
7:00 pm Safety Last (Fred C. Newmeyer, USA,
1923)
*SILENT*
One Week (Buster Keaton, USA, 1920)
*SILENT*
In his most famous thrill-comedy, Harold Lloyd
leaves his small-town home and his girlfriend (Mildred Davis) to
seek his fortune in the big city. Among Harold’s urban
misadventures is a publicity stunt he concocts for a department
store: a professional climber will scale the face of their
twelve-story building. But, when the stunt climber fails to
show, Harold must attempt the climb himself! Lloyd’s famous
comic acrobatics high above the street were performed without a
stuntman. In Keaton’s hilarious short One Week,
Buster attempts to build a prefabricated house from a kit that
has scrambled part numbers. 95 minutes.
“Crackerjack silent
comedy… [Lloyd’s] justly famous building-climbing sequence [is]
still hair-raising after all these years.”
––Leonard Maltin
July 3
7:00 pm The Four Feathers (Zoltan Korda,
UK, 1939)
Just prior to a 19thc.
Sudan campaign to capture Khartoum for Britain, an alienated
young British officer (John Clements) resigns his commission,
returning to his fiancée (June Duprez). Three white feathers
are delivered, signaling that the three friends in uniform he
left behind regard him as a coward. A spectacular, big-screen,
desert adventure ensues as he embarks on a daunting, heroic
journey to redeem himself. A landmark film and a Technicolor
milestone, filmed partly on location in North Africa. Newly
restored from a British Film Institute 35mm negative. With
Ralph Richardson, C. Aubrey Smith. 115minutes.
“Grand adventure.”
––Leonard Maltin.
“Directed with flair and
imagination…, with a rousing score by Miklos Rosza, superb
Technicolor camerawork…, and solid performances all round. The
fourth (and best) version of A.E.W. Mason’s ripping yarn.”
––Time Out.
“Perfectly cast and
presented.” ––Halliwell’s Film Guide
*SILENT*
denotes silent film with live organ accompaniment
The Film Studies Program at
Chemeketa Community College offers courses in film appreciation.
See the College Catalog, the quarterly Schedule of Classes, or
contact Steve Slemenda at 503.399.6237 for further information.
Historic
Elsinore Theatre
170 High St SE, Salem OR 97301
503.375.3574
All films at the Historic
Elsinore Theatre. Box office and doors open at 6 pm, movies
begin at 7 pm.
Films subject to
change.
