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We return to the dark world of film noir this Friday, July 23 at 7:00 PM with the showing of one of its masters, Jules Dasin's THIEVES HIGHWAY from 1949. This noir classic deals with a veteran's (Richard Conte) attempt to avenge the assault of his father by a stop-at-0nothing produce kingpin (Lee J. Cobb). We will begin the evening with episode 5, THE PALACE OF PERIL, from the 1940 serial, FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE. |
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When Tol'able David premiered about a 100 years ago, it was a major box office success. It has aged well as its still on of the most revered of all American silent films. The film is based on the Joseph Hergesheimer short story of the same name. It was adapted to the screen by Edmund Goulding and directed by Henry King for Inspiration Pictures. In 2007, Tol'able David was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". |
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Classic film noir is on the plate for Friday nite as we will show one of the seldom seen Glenn Ford gems, FRAMED, from the "Golden Age" of Hollywood. Directed by Richard Wallace, this solid noir is quite a thriller, despite its ultra low production cost. |
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This Friday, June 4, Cafe Cinema will show one of the best stories ever transferred to the silver screen, THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME. It is also one of the most imitated. The fast paced story never lets up. It concerns a world class hunter played by Joel McCrea who mysteriously gets shipwrecked near a small island. He is taken in by Count Zaroff who has some big plans for him. Count Zaroff really likes to hunt and he only goes after the most dangerous of all game...HUMANS. Before the main feature, we will show episode I of the most famous serial of all time, FLASH GORDON. You may want to bring your ray gun with you just in case. |
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This Wednesday night at 7:00, we thought it would be fun to show another crowd-pleaser from the recent Art Lyons Film Noir Festival, the gothic-romance-noir classic, THE STRANGE LOVE OF MARTHA IVERS (1946). This is one of just a few big budget noirs to come out of the Hollywood Golden Age. It sports one of the most scintillating casts ever put on celluloid... Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Kurt Douglas, Lizabeth Scott and Judith Anderson. Although this film is known primarily as Kurt Douglas's first role, there are quite a few other reasons it should be famous ... such as for the acting, direction, writing and cinematography... all of which are to die for. Before the main feature, we have a surprise short video showing. You won't want to miss ITHER. |
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At the recent Art Lyons Film Noir Festival, we got to see quite a few films. Probably the one that stuck out most for those who attended is this week's Cafe Cinema offering, PITFALL. Directed by Hungarian born director, Andre de Toth, PITFALL tells the startling tale of a bored husband that on the surface, seems to have as idyllic an existence as any man could want, a beautiful wife, home, kids and lucrative job. For John Forbes, played by Dick Powell, the American dream hasn't crossed his path. He feels trapped and longs for a less routine life. |
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During the white man's drive to settle in California during 19th Century, very few "suitable" women made the trip. In this terrific western western genre gem by famed director, William Wellman, WESTWARD THE WOMEN follows 150 women who make the pilgrimage from Chicago across the Great American Desert. They are picked by farmer Roy Whitman so as they can marry his lonely farm hands. The results are epic. |
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"You're Norma Desmond. You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big," William Holden barks at the aging former movie star, Norma Desmond. Real life actress, Gloria Swanson, playing Norma, reflexively bites back in one of cinema's most espressive and certainly one it's most famous comebacks, "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." No single reponse could so accurately capture the self absorbing nature of the many who work in Hollywood. So, with satire clearly on our minds and to help cure the headaches caused by the obligatory tax filing day, we at Cafe Cinema thought it would be appropriate to show the 1950 film noir classic and Oscar winner for Best Picture, director Billy Wilder's SUNSET BLVD. |
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This Friday, March 26 at 7:00 PM, we will show the quite hillarious 1948 Preston Sturges black screwball comedy/romance classic, UNFAITHFULLY YOURS, starring Rex Harrison and Linda Darnell. |
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This Friday, March 12 at 7:00 PM, we will show the winner this year's Oscar for Best Documentary, THE COVE. If you would like to get involved with stopping of this senseless slaughter of over 20,000 dolphins, which will resume this September unless something is done now, please visit their website, The Cove. |
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Next Friday, February 26 at 7:00 PM, we will show the romance silent blockbuster from the visual director extraordinaire, Frank Borzage, the recipient of three Academy Awards, 7TH HEAVEN. The setting is pre-World War I Paris and it follows Diane (Janet Gaynor) and Chico (Charles Farrell) in their journey of a lifetime. Gaynor won the first Best Actress Award Oscar for her magical performance. |
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Our next film event is the 1945 classic film noir from England, DEAD OF NIGHT. DEAD OF NIGHT (1945) is a very scary HORROR film from Alberto Cavalcanti. There is not much blood but your back will have a major tingle throughtout the film. A collection of four stories, the film centers around a architect who's suffering from deja vu while visiting a country house. He is forced to listen to the guests' stories about their own paranormal experiences and the nightmares begin. The film shown at the Green Cafe Theatre at the corner of Saunders Meadow and Highway 243 and is directly across from the Elementary School. Showtime is at 7:00 PM. |
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THE WOMAN ALONE (1936) is a very underated THRILLER from the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Even in 1936, England was suspicious of Hitler's military machine. British filmmakers began making films warning England's citizens of the dangers that lurk in Germany. In THE WOMAN ALONE, Nazis have infiltrated England and plan to destroy much of its industrial infrastructure. The government is keen to this, and through extremely clever means, attempt to trap the Nazis. Hitchcock manages to keep us at the edge of our seats throughout in this seldom seen early thriller. |
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When I was growing up, it was fairly common for me to watch a film starring Fred MacMurray. After all, he was in alot of Disney flicks and there were the reruns of MY THREE SONS. If my dad checked out what I was watching, he would break out with his "You know, I discovered HIM" routine. Dad's story went something like this. While my dad was a radio announcer in New York City, when he took breaks, he would let the janitor cover the mike for a bit. Well, the janitor was Fred MacMurray and my dad, and apparently quite o few of his listeners (who wrote in) thought he was hysterically funny with his no-nonsense and well-intentioned delivery. MORE >>> |
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