The Secret Cinema celebrates Women's History Month
with Girl Films
Friday, March 21
8:00 pm
Admission: $7.00
Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
In the past the Secret Cinema has presented programs of films about cars, films about war, and even a program called He-Man Films. In recognition of National Women's History Month (March), it's time for a kinder and gentler program, as the Secret Cinema presents special selections from the better half of our archive: Girl Films.
No, not "girlie films" (although we've been known to show those too) -- Girl Films is a program of rare short films made for, about, or by women. OK, only one of the shorts was (partially) produced by females, but that was kind of unusual in the time that these films were made (the 1930s through the 1970s).
Some of the shorts selected for Girl Films were originally intended for an all-girl audience, in segregated hygiene or home economics classrooms. Others were made for all to see, and celebrate women's contributions to sports, arts, the military, and industry. The one quality they all share is that they were the products of very different eras than the present one.
There will be one complete show, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $7.00.
Highlights of Girl Films include:
Mother Melodies (1930s) - Forgotten crooner Jack Arthur, with help from Philadelphia-born organist Lew White, sings a trio of sentimental songs about mothers, in what is surely the most maudlin film in the Secret Cinema archive.
The March of Time: Careers for Girls (1949) - This topical newsreel from Louis DeRochemont's legendary series (produced under the auspices of Time, Life and Fortune magazines) takes a look at the likely jobs women could aspire to in the post-war years. These included expected jobs in offices and retail stores, but also shows more glamorous possibilities, as we see glimpses of singing great Marian Anderson performing in the NBC radio studios.
The Ancient Art of Belly Dancing (1977) - An intimate look at an art form 5000 years old, featuring interviews with several of its practitioners. Produced by the Belly Dancing Co-op.
Arranging the Buffet Supper (1946) - Kodachrome educational film that instructs the precise rules of etiquette for the title subject.
She Serves Abroad (1943) - Produced by Britain's Ministry of Information, this fast-moving newsreel shows the female role in World War II, ranging from teletypists in the RAF's Middle East Command, to ambulance drivers in South Africa.
Women's Wrestling Matches (1950s) - Two pairs of tough gals go at each other in no-holds-barred style -- and heaven help the poor referee who winds up between them!
Love Carefully (1970s) - "This movie is about having babies...and about NOT having babies." Most hygiene classes were still single-sex at the time of this film, aimed at a presumably female audien/ce, but that didn't stop the male hippie announcer's gentle narration style from using "street" slang and terminology as he explains various birth control options.
...and much more!
Famous Films II at Moore
Saturday, February 23 (new date because of Friday's snow)
8:00 pm
Admission: $7.00
Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
The Secret Cinema is known for presenting rarest-of-the-rare, otherwise impossible to see celluloid treasures. That changes on Saturday, February 23, as we present our second program of Famous Films.
Once again, we've scoured our archive shelves for the most famous short film titles we could find...and realized there was still more great, non-obscure viewing that we'd not shown before. The program will include legendary documentaries, silent films and theatrical subjects. Some were landmark achievements for their unusual style, use of music, or other innovative techniques. Others endure simply as great entertainment.
Of course, "famous" is a relative term, and fame is a fleeting thing. One reason we wish to air these great works is the growing realization that even classic films are becoming hard to see in their original form (projected celluloid on a large screen). Not so long ago, all of these films would have been mandatory viewing (via 16mm or 35mm prints) in university courses and repertory cinemas, but that is sadly no longer true. Indeed, several of these reels will be unknown to today's casual viewer -- all the more reason to celebrate them again.
There will be one complete show, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $7.00.
Highlights of Famous Films II include:
Kid's Auto Races (1914, Dir: Henry "Pathe" Lehrman) - Charlie Chaplin's second film -- and the first in which he adopts the "Little Tramp" costume and persona he was to use for more than 30 years. Improvised at a real-life children's soapbox derby in Venice, California, Charlie plays a mischievous troublemaker who comically interferes with the shooting of a newsreel.
The Plow That Broke the Plains (1936, Dir: Pare Lorentz) - This unique film documents not only its subject (soil erosion and the resulting dust bowl of the depression years), but a fascinating, long-gone time when the federal government funded politically progressive and artistically avant-garde art. FDR's Resettlement Administration assigned this project to Pare Lorentz, a political columnist freshly-fired by William Randolph Hearst. Lorentz assembled a crew of notable photographers, including Leo Hurwitz, Ralph Steiner and Paul Strand, all from the leftist Film and Photo league. He set their dramatic footage to haunting music from prominent modernist composer Virgil Thomson, and poetic narration read by Metropolitan Opera baritone Thomas Chalmers. The troubled and controversial production ultimately became one of the most famous documentaries of all time. It was hugely popular with theater audiences, and its influence on later Hollywood productions like The Grapes of Wrath is clear.
A Trip to the Moon (1902, Dir: Georges Méliès) - One of the very first science-fiction films, and one of the longest and most elaborately produced motion pictures of its time. Former stage magician Méliès employed his trademark whimsical two-dimensional sets and innovative special effects to their best and grandest use yet, showing the planning and execution of a manned flight to the moon and back (even predicting the "splashdown" landing method still used by NASA). Much of the story ideas were based on books by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, but Méliès' unique vision infuses every frame. The shot of the rocket ship landing in the eye of the "man in the moon" is one of the most iconic (and charming) images in film history.
Toys (1966, Dir: Grant Munro) - This notable anti-war short was seen by millions, both in international film festivals and by schoolchildren (it was a staple of school film libraries). A group of schoolchildren stare into the window of a toy shop, where the toys come to life via stop-motion animation, to horrifying effect.
The Stolen Jools, aka The Slippery Pearls (1931, Dir: William C. McGann) - Over half a century before Band Aid's "Do They Know it's Christmas," this curio was made as an all-star and all-studio effort to raise funds for a Tuberculosis sanitarium (later to become the Will Rogers Hospital), under the aegis of the National Variety Artists. Every movie studio contributed its production facilities and contract players to make a star-studded spoof of a detective yarn, about the search for Norma Shearer's missing jewelry. Paramount handled distribution; the film stock was paid for by sponsor Chesterfield Cigarettes. The gigantic cast includes such 1930s superstars as Laurel & Hardy, Our Gang, Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Maurice Chevalier, and Barbara Stanwyck, plus many beloved character players such as Eugene Pallette, Charles Butterworth, Mitzi Green, and Gabby Hayes.
Plus: Men in Black (1934), The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912, Dir: D.W. Griffith), Porky's Hare Hunt (1938), and more.
Bon Voyage: Vintage Travel Films
at Hiway Theatre film series
Friday, February 15, 2008
10:00 pm
Admission:
Adults, $8.50; Seniors/Students: $6.50;
Children: $5.50; Hiway members: $5.00
Hiway Theatre
212 Old York Road, Jenkintown, Pa.
(215) 886-9800
On Friday, February 15, 2008, The Secret Cinema will present its first-ever screening at the historic Hiway Theatre, in Jenkintown. As part of the Hiway's Road Trips and Amazing Journeys, a week-long series of special programming, the Secret Cinema will show Bon Voyage: Vintage Travel Films. A collection of rare original prints from the Secret Cinema archives, this program will focus on one of the earliest yet most enduring uses of motion pictures -- bringing views of far-off lands to audiences unlikely to experience them in person.
(This is the same program that was shown at Moore College of Art & Design in 2005. An all-new Bon Voyage program is in the works for Moore in the coming months).
The assortment of short subjects collected for Bon Voyage: Vintage Travel Films illustrates the range of styles and approaches used by travel filmmakers through the years. There will be examples of shorts made by Burton Holmes, who originally gave live lectures illustrated by silent film footage, and also by his latter-day rival, James A. FitzPatrick, who produced dozens of one-reel "Traveltalks" for MGM. There will be some color and some silent tinted prints, some films made as promotion for travel and others meant to be more educational. Yet, all are fascinating (and sometimes amusing) just by virtue of their vintage. The styles of filmmaking and narration are definitely from another time, and often politically incorrect by present standards. On the other hand, most of the films still have a lot to teach in the context of their original intent, too.
There will be one complete show at 10:00 pm.
Just a few highlights of Bon Voyage: Vintage Travel Films are:
The Story of Our National Parks (U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 1920s silent) - Early government film promoting use of National Park system. Begins with the framing device of a well-to-do housewife showing off a photo album of her recent trip to Yellowstone; soon, the photos come to life for a detailed look at the park and its attractions.
6-1/2 Magic Hours (Pan Am, 1954) - This delightful color film takes a promotional look at 1950s transatlantic air travel, complete with onboard powder rooms, lounges and gourmet food.
A Dutch Treat (1920s) - Four very short films (in yellow and amber tints) made for direct sale to owners of home 16mm projectors, with picturesque looks at Amsterdam, Volendam, and "The Cheese Market of Alkmaar."
An Egyptian Adventure (1928) An early sound adaptation of an even earlier silent film, "produced in Egypt" by Louis de Rochemont, who later created the acclaimed March of Time documentary series. This short previews the March of Time modus operandi of using staged scenes in reality films, by mixing in an amusing story of U.S. sailors on shore leave being hoodwinked by crafty Egyptian antique traders.
Hong Kong: Gateway to the Orient (Castle Films, 1957) - Color short showing, by day and night, an already-crowded city that has changed greatly since this film.
European History Atlas: Ethiopia (1930s, Burton Holmes) - Rather disparaging narration sets the tone for this short, which shows then-ruler Haile Selassie, and the Coptic Church, "a strange mixture of the supernatural and barbarism."
Fairest Eden (1931, William M. Pizor Port O' Call series) - Early sound ("recorded on the Cinephone System") travel film of Pago Pago in American Samoa. See tattoos, ukuleles, a nude boy in a canoe made from discarded gasoline cans, and much more. "Unlike the women, the men are rarely corpulent."
Native Africa (1940s, Castle Films) - Sensational if exploitive narrated short made for the non-theatrical market, with looks at tamed elephants, rickshaws, Victoria Falls, ritual scarification, and much more.
Panama - The Peculiar Prodigy (1933, Kodascope Libraries) - A look at the Canal Zone and operations at the Panama Canal. Old tinted print has added bonus of a spliced-on title from its sub-distributor, Cunard-White Star Ltd.'s Sunshine Cruises.
With roots going back to 1913, the Hiway Theatre has had many names and owners over its nearly century-long history. After a period of being closed, the Hiway was bought by local residents and set up as a non-profit organization. The comfortable single-screen cinema has since undergone a major renovation. The Road Trips and Amazing Journeys series celebrates one year of operations in its present incarnation, and in addition to special programming, the Hiway shows first-run foreign and independent features throughout the year.
Remember Pearl Harbor!
Films of Vengeance and Fear
Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
Remember Pearl Harbor! Films of Vengeance and Fear
Friday, December 7
8:00 pm - Behind the Rising Sun + short subjects
10:00 pm - Samurai + short subjects
On December 7, 2007 -- the 66th anniversary of the "Day that will live in infamy," the Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art & Design presents a very special program, reflecting on both world history and film history. Remember Pearl Harbor! Films of Vengeance and Fear is a look back on Hollywood's response to the Japanese sneak attack on the American naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The pre-emptive military strike by the Empire of Japan's Imperial Japanese Navy (which killed 2,333 men) not only immediately drew the United States into World War II, it just as quickly ignited flames of anti-Japanese hatred that would smolder for many years. And, as usual, Hollywood films both reflected and exploited their times, for better and worse.
Much popular culture of that era became xenophobic, racist, and jingoistic, though it is important to view them through the context of their place in history: the threat to the U.S. and the free world was certainly not imaginary, and there were clearly identifiable bad guys. That said, the Japanese probably fared even worse in Hollywood product than Hitler did.
Remember Pearl Harbor! will include two feature films, one made on a big budget by a major studio (R.K.O.'s Behind the Rising Sun) and one extremely independent "Poverty Row" production (Samurai). Filling out the program will be short films of the era, including rare propaganda reels and cartoons.
There will be a single admission charge of $7.00 for one or both parts.
Descriptions of the two features follow:
Behind the Rising Sun (1943, Dir: Edward Dmytryk)
"SEE captive women treated with unspeakable barbarity! SEE girls forced into gilded Geisha palaces! SEE cruel acts of war committed against even babes in arms!" The ad campaign for this look at the face of America's new enemy pulled no punches, nor did the film itself, created by the same writer/director team that one year before made the similarly themed Hitler's Children. When a Japanese minister of propaganda forces his American-educated son (played in heavy makeup by Tom Neal, of Detour fame) to join the Nipponese army, the son becomes more of a nationalistic warmonger than he wished for. Though filmed as a sensationalistic call to arms, the atrocities depicted -- including Japanese soldiers tossing Chinese babies onto bayonets -- were based on fact. Scenes like American boxer Robert Ryan's fight with a Japanese jiu-jitsu expert (played, like many of the Japanese villains, by a white American), however, were more likely the concoction of the script department.
Samurai (1944, Dir: Raymond Cannon)
American evangelists adopt a boy orphaned by a Japanese earthquake, and raise him in their home in San Francisco. He becomes Americanized and a talented artist, but is visited by a Japanese priest, who recruits him into the doctrine of Bushido. When the boy travels to Europe for his education, he comes back a changed man, believing the Japanese are destined to conquer the world. He hides code messages in his paintings, murders a reporter and his parents, and in preparation for the military invasion of California, becomes governor of that state with the help of fellow double agents.
This incredible tale is told in documentary style, with narration about the Samurai, "a creed of hate, lust and death." The film was made by the otherwise unknown Cavalcade Pictures on an incredibly low budget, making use of unknown Chinese actors, stock footage, and even backgrounds of stock still photos! Marketed with an exploitation-style ad campaign, the film was released in the final days of the war in the Pacific, and is virtually lost to history. "Has to be one of the most outrageous (and cheapest looking) American WWII propaganda movies" - Michael Weldon, Psychotronic Video magazine.
A Birthday Salute to Larry Fine
Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
Friday, September 14, 2007
8:00 pm
Admission: $7.00
Just a year and a half after a memorable tribute to underappreciated "third Stooge" Shemp Howard, the Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art & Design is excited to now turn the spotlight onto another member of the Three Stooges: one of Philadelphia's greatest movie stars, Larry Fine.
On October 5, 1902, Larry entered the world as Louis Feinberg, at the Southwest corner of Third and South Streets (today the site of Jon's Bar & Grille, which now features a giant mural of Larry). A childhood mishap with a bottle of acid in his father's jewelry shop burned his arm badly, and doctors suggested violin lessons as a form of therapy. His musical skill soon became so impressive that he became a professional entertainer, leading him, after graduation from Central High School, to a vaudeville career that took him across America. At a fateful Chicago booking in 1925, he was asked to join a rising comedy act called Ted Healy and his Stooges. Larry clicked with the group, and after they left Healy some years later, the Three Stooges began a movie career unparalleled in film history, starring in 190 two-reel shorts for Columbia that have been replayed on television around the world ever since. Today they are more popular than ever.
On Friday, October 5, 2007 -- Larry's 105th birthday! -- we will begin a two-day, two-location celebration that includes a screening of some of his greatest Stooge appearances, rare footage, guest speakers, and a special Secret Cinema visit to a nearly unbelievable, private Three Stooges museum containing the world's largest and greatest collection of Stoogeiana.
A Birthday Salute to Larry Fine, Part 1: The presentation at Moore
Friday, October 5 - 8:00 pm
Admission: $7.00
At the auditorium of Moore College of Art and Design, to celebrate Larry Fine's 105th birthday, we will present several of the best Three Stooges shorts from throughout their career, focusing on films that show Larry to especially good (or unusual!) effect. Additionally, we will show some extra-rare Stooges footage, including TV commercials and other little-seen clips.
Our presentation at Moore will also include two very special guest speakers, both of whom are travelling to Philadelphia just to be a part of this weekend celebration:
Scott Reboul is a lifelong Stooges fan, who in the early 1970s began a cross-country correspondence with Larry Fine. Larry invited his young pen pal to visit him if he was ever in Los Angeles, and thanks to a very understanding father, Scott got to do just that! In fact, he not only met Larry Fine, but also Moe Howard, Joe Besser and Curly Joe DeRita too. Scott will share his memories with a multi-media presentation, employing unique photos, audio recordings and home movie clips. This fascinating, funny, and touching talk will provide a revealing look at the real personalities of some of the world's best-loved screen comics.
Also appearing at Moore will be Larry Fine's niece, Phyllis Goldbloom. Phyllis' mother was Larry's younger sister Lyla Budnick, and her father Nate Budnick served as the Stooges' road manager for their personal appearance tours in the 1950s and '60s. Like Scott, as a child Phyllis was able to meet not only her famous uncle Larry, but the other Stooges as well (including Shemp!). Phyllis has many funny anecdotes to share.
All who attend the Moore event will receive a free voucher and directions to...
A Birthday Salute to Larry Fine, Part 2: The museum visit!
Saturday, October 6, 10:00 am through 5:00 pm
Admission: Included free with voucher from Friday night Moore screening
Screening of newly discovered color footage of the Three Stooges, and more.
In recent years, the Secret Cinema has partnered with some of the Philadelphia area's greatest museums to create some unique film events: The Franklin Institute, The Academy of Natural Sciences, and Eastern State Penitentiary, to name three. However, we've never been prouder than we'll be on this day, when we offer the second Secret Cinema visit to The Stoogeum.
What's a Stoogeum? Opened in 2004, it's a fantastic private museum devoted exclusively to the Three Stooges! This is not simply an array of collected objects mounted in somebody's rec room -- it's a bonafide, purpose-constructed, multi-floored museum, with exhibits created by a museum design firm in collaboration with owner Gary Lassin, president of the Three Stooges Fan Club and possessor of the world's largest and best collection of Stoogeiana. Housed there are thousands of rare posters, photos, clippings, fan merchandise, and jaw-dropping personal objects (The Three Stooges' pay checks! Jules White's driver's license! Shemp's custom-made watch chain! Shemp's honorable discharge papers from the army -- documenting his bedwetting!!) More than a collection of memorabilia, the informative displays and groupings provide a context explaining the Three Stooges long journey through stage, movies and television to become pop culture icons. There are also exhibits devoted to the many other performers and creative personnel they worked with. Even if you don't like the Three Stooges, the Stoogeum would provide a fascinating walk through the history of 20th century American show business.
Of course the designers of The Stoogeum thought to include a screening room, and our visit will take advantage of it! Throughout the day there will be various presentations (our Saturday trip coincides with a meeting of the Three Stooges Fan Club), including a viewing of newly discovered color footage of the Three Stooges at work filming a comedy short.
The Stoogeum would be on the maps of every regional tourism group, except that it is not open to the public. This private museum is usually open only to fan club members by special invitation, and very occasionally has special event open houses like this one. There is no extra charge to visit the Stoogeum, but to attend you must pick up the voucher (with directions) at the Friday night Moore screening. The Stoogeum is located in the nearby Northwestern suburbs of Philadelphia, easily accessible by car. Do not miss this rare opportunity!
The Stoogeum was recently covered in a nationally-distributed story by Associated Press, viewable here.
The Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art & Design
celebrates 10-Year Anniversary!
Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
Friday, September 14, 2007
8:00 pm
Admission: $7.00
Earlier in 2007, the Secret Cinema marked 15 years of showing weird and wonderful film fare in Philadelphia and beyond. This fall, we have another milestone to note. On Friday, September 14, The Secret Cinema will celebrate our tenth anniversary of showing films at our flagship venue, Moore College of Art & Design.
In September of 1997 we inaugurated the series with the Philadelphia premiere of So Wrong Theyt're Right, a feature-length documentary about people who collect 8-track tapes. Since then we've presented 87 unique programs on the big screen at Moore, including hard-to-see features, themed groupings of rare shorts and cartoons, silent films with live accompaniment, special guest filmmakers and speakers, and more.
We're very happy to be partners with Moore in this endeavor. Their auditorium is by far the best, most cinema-like setting we've been able to call home in all of our years of showing films, with a screen larger than that in many multiplexes, comfortable seating and great sight lines.
Friday, September 14 will be an opportunity to look back on our years at Moore, with another of our always-popular best-of programs, Secret Cinema Shorts: The Best of a Decade.
There will be one complete show, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $7.00.
Since we began in early 1992, all Secret Cinema screenings of feature films have included bonus short subjects, and some of our best presentations have been comprised entirely of short films. While we have shown several rare old theatrical shorts (including classic cartoons and musicals), often the most popular shorts have been such oddities as campy educational reels, industrial films, TV commercials, and home movies. Most of these films have only been shown once, despite frequent requests to repeat them. Just four times before, we presented all--encompassing "Best of" shorts programs. Secret Cinema Shorts: The Best of a Decade will highlight strange, funny and fascinating short subjects chosen from the 486 titles we've run at Moore in the last ten years.
The program is still being compiled, but a few highlights will likely be...a surprise! You'll just have to come and see!
To further mark this momentous occasion, we've prepared a mini-history of our years at Moore.
Click here to read it!
Riot on Sunset Strip: super screening and author event,
rare photos and films, plus after-party! Exciting new venue!
Philadelphia Society of Free Letts (Latvian Society)
531 N. 7th Street, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
Friday, August 10
8:00 pm
Admission: $8.00 (for talk, film, & after-party)
Earlier this year, the Secret Cinema presented a sold-out evening of music and rock history, when Lenny Kaye co-hosted a garage-rock themed event called Nuggets. We're happy to continue that tradition on Friday, August 10, when the Secret Cinema presents another very special program called Riot on Sunset Strip, celebrating an old movie and a brand new book of the same name.
The subject of each is Hollywood's famed Sunset Strip itself, the winding road that for a brief but memorable time became the epicenter of a whole new world of youth based excitement, especially including a new wave of home-grown rock music. From the moment the Byrds debuted at Ciro's on March 26th 1965 -- with Bob Dylan joining them on stage -- through the demonstrations of November 1966, Sunset Strip nightclubs introduced Love, Buffalo Springfield, the Mothers of Invention, the Doors, and so many more.
Our special guest will be rock historian Domenic Priore. His just published book, Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock 'n' Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood (published by Jawbone Press, with foreword by the late Arthur Lee), shows how this legendary scene came together, burned briefly but brilliantly, and then fell apart after the Summer of Love.
Our August 10 event takes place in an exciting new venue for the Secret Cinema: The roomy upstairs ballroom of the venerable Philadelphia Society of Free Letts (Latvian Society), at 7th and Spring Garden. The night starts with an illustrated talk by Domenic about this fascinating moment in pop culture, accompanied by rare slides from original scene photographers like Henry Diltz, Yoram Kahana and Marc Wanamaker, as well as some relevant film clips from the Secret Cinema archives.
After some Q&A with our guest author, there will be a screening of the classic, garage rock-filled exploitation feature film Riot on Sunset Strip, which obviously provided the inspiration for the book's title (as well as the scorching Standells' theme song). The film will be presented, as usual, in glorious 16mm film on a giant screen.
Then, we provide a built-in after-party, in the funky (and reasonably priced!) downstairs bar of the Latvian hall with music provided by Domenic Priore and D.J. Silvia. Domenic will bring a choice selection of Sunset Strip sounds, including records by L.A. locals (Byrds, Standells, Bobby Fuller Four) and touring bands that made the Strip scene (Them, Velvet Underground), plus some valuable vinyl rarities. D.J. Silvia will add some international flavor, to show how the new sixties teen scene reverberated around the globe.
The approximate schedule is as follows:
8:00 pm - Illustrated talk by Domenic Priore: "Rock 'n' Roll's Last Stand in Hollywood"
9:00 pm - Film screening: Riot on Sunset Strip
10:30 pm until ? - After party with Domenic Priore and D.J. Silvia, book signing, etc.
Admission to all of the above is $8.00
More info follows about both the guest speaker and feature film...
Domenic Priore is a writer and television producer specializing in pop culture and music. He is the author of Beatsville (with Martin McIntosh) and Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece (with forewords by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks), and was the main writer on the AMC documentaries Hollywood Rocks The Movies. His great and long running, if infrequently published (four issues spanning three decades!) zine, The Dumb Angel Gazette, explores his various obsessions; its 1989 book-sized special edition Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile! kick-started a revival of interest in Brian Wilson's unreleased Smile project that ultimately led to Wilson recording a new album of this music. A native of Los Angeles, Priore met Secret Cinema programmer Jay Schwartz when both served as contributing editors to Marshall Crenshaw's book Hollywood Rock: A Guide to Rock 'n' Roll in the Movies (1994, Harper Collins).
Riot on Sunset Strip (1967, Dir: Arthur Dreifuss)
One of the best loved of American International's late-60s drive-in fodder movies, "the most shocking film of our generation" purported to blow the lid off the wild goings on in the Hollywood discotheques of the day. Producer Sam Katzman, ever watchful of trends, based the film on the real-life violent riots that erupted on the Sunset Strip after police harassment of the mobs of teenagers there.
Mimsy Farmer (who also starred in Hot Rods to Hell before moving to Europe) plays a troubled girl who gets in with a bad crowd at the local rock club. She then goes off to a wild party where she is slipped LSD in her diet coke and is taken advantage of by five boys. Her absent father happens to be the chief of police, and the previously-tolerant man's violent reaction triggers a massive demonstration (the father is played by the late Aldo Ray, who began his career in mainstream movies and by the '70s had fallen to accepting a non-sexual role in a hardcore porno film).
As fun as all of this acid-crazed wild youth business is, the best reason to see Riot on Sunset Strip is the great footage of the garage rock heroes who appear in the nightclub scenes. The Standells (of "Dirty Water" near-fame) play the great title track and "Get Away From Here." The amazing Chocolate Watch Band, featuring genius Mick Jagger-imitator Dave Aguilar (now an astronomy professor) dish up two scorching punk anthems. Aguilar's snarling performance of "Don't Need Your Lovin" (a canny rewrite of "Milkcow Blues") stands as the cinematic definition of punk rock, past, present and future. The underrated Enemies (who left behind a few 45s on MGM before singer Cory Wells reunited with founding member Danny Hutton to form Three Dog Night) also perform.
The Secret Cinema brings '50s shockumentary Karamoja!
to International House
International House
3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
Thursday, May 17,
7:00 pm
General admission is $7.00 ($5.00 students & seniors)
On Thursday, May 17, the Secret Cinema will return to guest program a night at International House, featuring a rare "shockumentary" from the early 1950s. The film, Karamoja!, features an unforgettable look at the primitive and brutal rites of an obscure African tribe. This rare film will be presented using an archival 35mm print.
The screening will include surprise short subjects.
There will be one complete show, starting at 7:00 pm.
General admission is $7.00 ($5.00 students & seniors)
A complete description of the feature follows:
Karamoja! (1954, Dir: William B. Treutle)
"This is the story of a man with six months to live...and of the strangest honeymoon a bride ever had." California dentist William B. Treutle had never made a film when doctors gave him his fatal prognosis. It gave him the courage to fulfill his lifelong ambition to travel to Africa, and while doing so, he filmed this unforgettable documentary, in a closed territory of Uganda.
An early entry into the "Shockumentary" genre (an international phenomenon ten years later, in the wake of Mondo Cane, Ecco, and countless others), this often-unsettling look at the rites and lives of the primitive people of Karamoja does have a fascination with the bizarre and the visceral. There are graphic scenes of blood drinking, ritual scarification, tattooing, and knocking out of teeth, and the eating of raw bull intestines, not to mention copious full frontal nudity, both male and female.
Notorious exploitation distributor Kroger Babb played this up to the fullest ("See it all! Uncut! Uncensored! Unclothed! Unashamed!"), but behind the sensation was a revealing, sincere and even sensitive look into a way of life 6000 years out of step with the Western world. Treutle, who met and married his wife early on his African voyage (she worked as sound recordist while he ran the camera), surely felt a kinship with the excited, shy young nuptials in a filmed Karamojan wedding ceremony...as he documented their many differences (in one tradition, the bride and groom smear cattle dung on each other).
The Secret Cinema at Moore presents
Counter-Culture Obscurities double-feature
Saturday, May 12
The Monitors - 8:00 pm
A Session With the Committee - 10:00 pm
Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
On Saturday, May 12, The Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art and Design will offer a special double-feature event called Counter-Culture Obscurities. Comprised of two ultra-rare feature-length films from the late-1960s. The two films are quite different from each other, but both clearly could only have been made in the hippie era, and oddly, are both centered around underground comedy troupes. Needless to say, both of these features are hopelessly forgotten in 2007, not available on DVD, and unlikely to be shown anywhere else ever again on the big screen!
First off will be The Monitors. This sci-fi farce, about an Orwellian race of bowler-hatted aliens who set out to control human behavior, was centered around the talents of the already-legendary Second City comedy group. It was produced by film-equipment maker Bell & Howell, who hoped to encourage filmmaking in their hometown of Chicago.
Next we'll show A Session With the Committee, a straight-up performance film showcasing a long-lost live concert with the titular improv comedy group, whose familiar faces included Howard Hesseman and Peter Bonerz.
Each feature will be preceded by unusual short subjects. Admission is $6.00 for either one or both films.
Complete descriptions of the two features follows:
The Monitors (1969, Dir: Jack Shea)
In an Orwellian dystopia of unknown date, an omnipotent army of suited, turtle-necked, bowler-hat clad overseers monitor citizens for illegal acts -- including sex, violence, politics and display of emotions -- in an effort to force peace on the world. Loudspeakers instruct that "The Monitors are your friends." Underground, a right-leaning resistance movement plots the overthrow. That's the minimal storyline, and it frequently makes little sense.
The Monitors is a real curiosity from a time when filmed strangeness was in theaters everywhere (just a few examples from the same year are Head, Alice's Restaurant, The Bed-Sitting Room, Putney Swope, and Wonderwall). The production of The Monitors was a collaboration between Bell & Howell (makers of motion picture equipment -- including Secret Cinema's most-used projectors!), prolific industrial film studio Wilding, and the then fast-rising (and now truly legendary) Second City comedy troupe. They all had hoped to promote Chicago as a major feature-filmmaking city, but The Monitors did not succeed in this mission (though the city's futuristic skyline contributed a suitably eerie look). The cast includes all of the following, and more: Guy Stockwell, Susan Oliver, Avery Schreiber, Keenan Wynn, Ed Begley, Larry Storch, Alan Arkin, Xavier Cugat, Senator Everett Dirksen, Stubby Kaye, Peter Boyle and Jackie Vernon. The often-excellent music was composed by Fred Kaz, with singing by Odetta. Cinematography was by Vilmos Zsigmond.
A Session With the Committee (1968, Dir: Del Jack)
In the "head-y" atmosphere of the late-'60s/early-'70s, pot-friendly comedians could be like rock stars, and some popular hipster comedy teams were even named like bands: The Firesign Theater, The Conception Corporation, Ace Trucking Company...and The Committee. Though forgotten today, The Committee were among the most visible during their brief prime, even providing some "relevant" improv scenes to popular films like Petulia, Billy Jack, and Steelyard Blues. Before those, they made this lost concert film, shot minimally and cheaply, capturing the troupe's propless, setless skits in a nightclub, live in front of a real audience.
The cast includes a few instantly recognizable faces -- Howard Hesseman (then calling himself "Don Sturdy") and Peter Bonerz (best known as the dentist on The Bob Newhart Show) -- and perhaps a few familiar yet less-placeable ones (character actors Garry Goodrow and Mel Stewart). Being from the late 1960s, there are some predictable comedy themes: marijuana, race relations, draft boards, and fear of police. Quite a few bits are still funny, however, and deserve to not be lost. Thanks to the past golden age of repertory cinemas (which provided a readymade market for movies like this), and to the hardy nature of non-digital media, the hippie humor of the Committee is still with us, to amuse and confuse future generations.
The Secret Cinema at Moore presents
Totally Wired: The Films of Bell Telephone
Friday, April 20
8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
On Friday, April 20, the Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art & Design will present an evening of short films from one of the major motion picture producers of the 20th century -- the phone company!
For 99 years, until its breakup in 1984, the Bell System (aka A.T. & T.) enjoyed an unprecedented monopoly of the telephone communications business in America. And one of the ways it consolidated its strength was by utilizing movies to their fullest potential as a shaper of attitudes: of its employees, its business customers and the general public.
Totally Wired: The Films of Bell Telephone is a varied collection of short, non-theatrical films produced by the Bell System, covering all of these uses. As the largest corporation in the world, Bell had unlimited resources, producing corporate films more skillfully and more entertainingly than most companies could. They spared little expense, with frequent use of color, animation, and expert talent, on both sides of the camera.
We will show an assortment of rare Bell sales films, in-house training films, commercials and public relations films. As they depict the various missions and agendas of one business throughout the years, the movies also provide a revealing look at mid-century America in general. Many of these reels have never been shown to the general public -- until now.
As with all Secret Cinema presentations, Totally Wired will be shown using real 16mm film projected on a giant screen (and not using video or DVD projection, which is inferior).
There will be one complete show, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $6.00
Just a few of the highlights of Totally Wired: The Films of Bell Telephone will be:
Telephone Highlights (1947) - Using the lively techniques of the classic theatrical newsreel (quick editing, enthusiastic narration, peppy background music), this action-packed one-reeler details post-war news and accomplishments of the New York Telephone Company. Shown are the top-to-bottom construction of a new (pre-electronic) phone exchange in midtown Manhattan, and the connecting of the one-millionth telephone in upstate New York. Producer Leslie Roush was a veteran director of short subjects for Paramount in earlier years.
What's in a Name? (1950s) - This rare business office training film uses a dramatized story to explain the potentially snowballing impact of getting just one character of a customer's phone listing incorrect.
Dial "O" for Operator (1965) - A peculiar and possibly frightening short, using dramatic scenes from the Sidney Poitier film The Slender Thread to demonstrate the advancements made in the technology of...tracing phone calls.
Invisible Diplomats (1965) - This humorous look at business telephone etiquette, made in gorgeous Technicolor, tells its message through the perspective of two cheerful but harried PBX (private branch exchange, or in-house switchboard) operators. The familiar cast includes not only The Honeymooners' Audrey Meadows, but also One Day at a Time's Bonnie Franklin and Harold Peary of radio's The Great Gildersleeve (he was also a character actor in countless TV and voiceover credits). Directed by prolific Hollywood choreographer Leroy Prinz.
Operator (1969) - Documentary pioneer Richard Leacock (working here for Maysles Films) uses the cinema verite techniques he helped invent to show the challenging but rewarding work of a telephone operator, in an effort to recruit young women into the profession. With psychedelic music provided by the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble.
Picture Phone (1970) - This demonstration film shows off the enhanced business capabilities of an updated version of the Picture Phone, famously demonstrated at the 1964 New York World's Fair. It was sadly to remain one of Bell Telephone's greatest failures.
D.J.'s Silvia & Jay spin international vinyl rarities at
third Made in Spain night at Tritone
Thanks for the kind words in response to our emailed memories of Rick D.
The last time we saw Rick was at the second Made in Spain party, a night of Spanish rock 'n' roll spun at Tritone by D.J. Silvia and Secret Cinema's Jay Schwartz (me). Our final conversation was about when we would do Made in Spain next -- while we originally contemplated this being a monthly event, as we parted that night we decided to hold off on doing it in April. Rick really felt it could build into a very popular monthly party, and I felt almost guilty saying we preferred to space them out more.
Well, as it turns out Rick will get his wish of an April Made in Spain: It seems he never did get a chance to book another event for Tuesday, April 24 before he passed away, which we realized when we saw Tritone's strip ad in the Philadelphia Weekly and City Paper this week. Rick's surviving Tritone partner Dave Rogers confirmed that he had nothing else available to book for this date, so we agreed to pack up the vintage vinyl and do it again. In fact, D.J. Silvia will be out of the country in May, so this will be the last MIS until at least late June.
So, if you missed out previous MIS's, or if you came and dug it, then come next Tuesday for another night of rare rock and Iberian oddities, plus a chance to meet some interesting bilingual party-ers. And while you're at it, raise a drink to Rick. Admission is free. More details below...
Tuesday, April 24,
9:00 pm until late
Admission: FREE
Tritone
1508 South Street, Philadelphia
(215) 545-0475
On Tuesday, April 24, Tritone will once again host a special music party called Made in Spain, featuring a variety of beat, mod and soul music from the sixties -- all of it recorded in Spain.
It all starts at 9:00 pm and runs until the end of the night. Admission is free.
The first Made in Spain party, in February, was a smashing success. Crowding into Tritone were a happy mix of Spanish expatriates, other Spanish-speaking locals, sixties/mod music devotees, and just regular people seeking some fresh sounds and good times. A few days after the event, D.J. Silvia was even interviewed live on Spain's RTPA radio station, to report on the growing presence of Spain's culture in Philly!
The event will again be hosted by "La Chica Ye Ye," D.J. Silvia. A favorite spinner at many past sixties-music events in Philly, New York and her native country of Spain, Silvia is sure to have some new surprises and rare sides in the multiplying boxes of discs she keeps bringing over. Silvia moved to Philadelphia in 2004, from her birthplace in the Spanish city of Gijón, in the green province of Asturias.
Assisting will be Jay Schwartz. Jay is of course the long-time programmer/creator of the Secret Cinema film series, and is the musical (and marital!) partner of D.J. Silvia.
Some of the artists to be played at Made in Spain will be Los Brincos (the period's most inventive group; arguably the Beatles of Spain), Los Bravos (Spain's most successful export act, of "Black is Black" fame), Los Iberos (produced by U.K. "Nothing But a Heartache" songwriting team Bickerton and Waddington), Los Salvajes, Los Sirex, Formula V, and many more, plus Spanish "Ye Ye" girls like Karina and Conchita Velasco. Records played will include both original songs and several Spanish language versions of familiar American and British pop hits.
In addition to sixties sounds, some time will also be devoted to Spanish music of today in the garage, indie and power pop styles.
As part of what is planned to be a regular series of events, Made in Spain is co-sponsored by The Secret Cinema and Los De Pata Negra En Philadelphia, a group recently formed to unify the growing community of Spaniards in Philadelphia and promote friendship, culture and networking.
The Secret Cinema returns to Philadelphia Film Festival, dirty movies
...plus a selective guide to PFF highlights
We at the Secret Cinema are excited to be back presenting a program in the Philadelphia Film Festival. It happens next Friday the 13th, and is a reprise of an old SC classic, Stag Movie Night: Vintage Porno From the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Some of you may remember our past presentations of these naughty reels at the late (and deeply lamented) Silk City Lounge. It's been about five years since we've shown them, however, and it seemed like a good time and good place to dust them off and corrupt some more unsuspecting viewers. If you've never seen vintage stag movies, you're in for a surprise! More details below...
Meanwhile, we'd like to possibly steer you towards some of the other very nice repertory/classic programming in this year's PFF, with appearances from some of our favorite people! The shows cater to many film obsessions of the Secret Cinema...
This weekend, don't miss the opportunity to see and hear Leonard Maltin present several great programs...well, we THINK he is going to be at the Disney shorts programs (the festival's program guide does not make this clear). But, Leonard will definitely lead A Conversation with Roy Disney (Walt's nephew), and also present Silent Our Gang shorts (accompanied by our friend Don Kinnier!).
Leonard Maltin is a true national treasure, a movie maniac who wrote the first edition of his best-selling Movie Guide books (originally called TV Movies) before he reached voting age. His many other published works are classics and well-thumbed reference sources in the Secret Cinema programming office (our favorite: 1972's The Great Movie Shorts). Besides being the leading authority on Hollywood's golden age, Leonard manages to see and review every new movie, too!
If you didn't take our last-minute advice to catch Leonard Maltin at the Syracuse Cinefest in March (and I think only one of you did), here's a much easier appearance to get to! If you only know Leonard from his television appearances, you probably like him anyway, but if you own any of his books or numerous video/DVD intros/commentary tracks, then you're already planning to attend these very special events.
Our afore-mentioned friend Don Kinnier will be adding music to another PFF silent film presentation, Saluting Siegmund Lubin on Wednesday, April 11. If you attended our 1999 special program A Tribute to the Siegmund Lubin Film Studios of Philadelphia, note that this will be a somewhat different event (though also presented by our friend Joseph Eckhardt, with contributions from Don Kinnier's wife Judy, and another good friend of Secret Cinema, Lou DiCrescenzo! It also affords another opportunity to see The Silver King, a rare Lubin short discovered by the Secret Cinema. Here's a full description of the show:
The Philadelphia Film Festival presents "A Tribute to Siegmund Lubin." Experience a recreation of movie-going one hundred years ago with this nickelodeon program in tribute to Philadelphia movie pioneer, Siegmund Lubin.
April 11 at 7:00 p.m. at International House. $10.00
Curated by film scholar Joseph Eckhardt, the Lubin film program will recreate the unique experience of a nickelodeon circa 1907-- with live music, Magic Lantern slides, songs, narration, and sound effects. The films program includes comedies, melodramas and westerns, and offers a glimpse of Oliver Hardy in his earliest surviving movie role, and a cameo appearance by Siegmund Lubin himself. Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Don Kinnier with vintage songs and sound effects by Judy Townsend. In addition, film technology expert Lou DiCrescenzo will demonstrate the way that movies were originally shown by hand-cranking one film through a vintage Edison 1897 Kinetoscope.
The importance of film pioneer Siegmund Lubin to the American film industry would be hard to overestimate. He was America's first movie mogul, opening theaters, building projectors and fighting Edison in an endless stream of patent litigation. By 1910 he had built one of the world's largest studio complexes, "Lubinville," located in Northern Philadelphia. By 1917 he was bankrupt. In recognition of Lubin's work, the Philadelphia Film Festival is proud to participate in an evening screening of some of his best surviving films, on a day that also will see the unveiling of a Pennsylvania State Historical Marker at the site of his former home at 1608 N. 15th St.
[and don't miss the Lubin-centric Betzwood Film Festival in May; check the Betzwood link below]
On Friday, April 13, just before our own Stag Movie Night, you can see The Burglar, showing at the Ritz 5 at 7:00 pm. This is the shot-in-Philadelphia Jayne Mansfield film noir that we presented at Moore in 2001, produced by Secret Cinema hero Louis Kellman. This time, however, you can see it in an improved 35mm print, with introduction by our friend Irv Slifkin, author of the new book Filmadelphia: A Celebration of a City's Movies. Then, grab a taxi and tell him to step on it, to catch...
The Secret Cinema presents
Stag Movie Night: Vintage Porno from the 1920s, 30s And 40s
Friday, April 13
9:30 pm
Admission: $10.00 (see here for ticketing info)
International House
3701 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
(215) 387-5125
This collection of rare erotica films will surprise and shock those who believe the "sexual revolution" of the sixties and seventies gave birth to the celluloid depiction of sex.
The seedy adult theaters of the seventies and the home video industry that followed it did not exist when these films were made behind closed doors. The classic stag movies were distributed through a covert network of all-male screenings at lodges, bachelor parties, and fraternities. Though illegal contraband at the time, seeing these forbidden films was nonetheless a fairly common rite of passage for the American male back then, as the surviving reels testify.
The earliest extant pornographic film dates from 1915, and they were probably made well before then. The introduction of 16mm film in 1923 really opened the floodgates of stag production, and a standard format was established. Virtually all stag films are black and white, one reel in length (10 to 15 minutes), and silent -- assuring compatibility with the relatively low-cost home movie projectors that were rented along with a night's worth of programming.
What shocks today's audiences about these films is that most (though not all) of them are completely explicit in their depiction of sexual acts. The variety of acts and couplings filmed long ago is another eye-opener, and it is somehow comforting to note that the camera angles for such action, worked out nearly a century ago, survive in today's adult videos.
All of the films will be projected using 16mm film prints from the Secret Cinema archives onto a giant movie (not video) screen. The films will be accompanied by vintage period music, including early jazz, swing and dirty blues.
Titles to be screened include Sally's Sunbath, Mortimer The Salesman, Through A Keyhole, A Jazz Jag, Buried Treasure and more.
The Secret Cinema celebrates 15-Year Anniversary
with screening of The Touchables, more
Friday, March 23
8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
We almost let the occasion pass, but through a last-minute programming change, it came to our attention that we've just had our 15th birthday.
The Secret Cinema was born on March 9, 1992, with its debut film screening in a then unused upstairs at the Khyber Pass nightclub. The program consisted of the 1956 rock 'n' roll movie Don't Knock the Rock, plus bonus "unusual short subjects." Shorts shown that night included an educational film called Effective Listening, a 1950s infomercial for a spot-removing product, and a "coming attractions" trailer for an obscure psychedelic wonder called The Touchables. Total attendance for the event was eight persons, but the Secret Cinema continued on. A four-film schedule had already been distributed, so we really had no choice. By the fourth program (yep, The Touchables), we had our first sell-out.
The full history of the Secret Cinema is beyond the scope of this announcement, but suffice to say that since that humble start, we have presented hundreds and hundreds of screenings, in countless venues from San Francisco to Spain. The vast majority of those events happened right here, in the nightclubs, cafes, bookstores, art galleries, open fields and even movie theaters of Philadelphia. In every single one of them -- even when they took place in as informal an environment as a coffee house with whooshing espresso machines -- we took great pains to make the presentation as high-quality as possible, always using real film in real movie projectors. And each one of them has continued the mission that we began 15 years ago: To show the neglected, the rare, and the unclassifiable parts of film's rich culture, both high and low -- films that would otherwise just not get seen.
To celebrate this anniversary, we thought it would be appropriate to bring out a favorite film that has been an enduring part of Secret Cinema history. The Touchables, an incredibly inventive, fast-moving, colorful and wholly original plunge into late-sixties pop culture (directed by famed Beatles photographer Robert Freeman), is a movie that seems to get no love elsewhere. Either wholly ignored or quickly dismissed by traditional critics as so much psychedelic excess, it has enjoyed a tremendous reception at each of several screenings we've presented. Having created an audience for this essentially lost film is one of our proudest achievements.
The 15-Year Anniversary screening of The Touchables will happen at Moore College of Art & Design*, on Friday, March 23.
Rounding out the program will be an extra helping of surprise short subjects.
There will be one complete show, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $6.00
A complete description of the feature follows:
The Touchables (1968-Great Britain) Dir: Robert Freeman
The Touchables is a cult film waiting to be discovered. Ignored or quickly dismissed in most film reference books, it is both ahead and wholly a part of its unique moment in time. The Touchables is also the best example of a heretofore unrecognized film genre, the Psychedelic Screwball Comedy (other British examples include The Magic Christian and the obscure Work Is A Four Letter Word). Like the classic screwball comedies of earlier decades, the plot zigzags through a series of unlikely complications and is populated by outrageous characters. Unlike any Carole Lombard or Cary Grant vehicle, The Touchables is set in a surreal, pop-art world and features characters that act irrationally and with little exposition (possibly Cary Grant imagined such a world during his admitted LSD experiments!).
Robert Freeman was a top fashion photographer who made many memorable photos of the Beatles (including the Rubber Soul album cover). He directed The Touchables with great pop-art flair. Combining bright, colorful photography, stylish editing, spirited performances, and a zippy Ken Thorne score, Freeman has left a film that is both a unique vision and an evocative time capsule.
*Another Secret Cinema anniversary will be marked later this year, in September, when we celebrate a full decade at our flagship venue, Moore College of Art & Design.
Friday, February 16
Moore College of Art & Design
On Friday, February 16, The Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art and Design will revive a special program last shown over six years ago. Nuggets: Celluloid Artyfacts of Sixties Rock is a unique hodgepodge of ultra-rare reels consisting of various short films and television shows showcasing mod, garage and pop music from the mid-to-late 1960s. When we named that program back in 2001, it was in naked homage to the inestimably influential 1972 garage rock compilation album of the same name. This year, we are thrilled to announce that in addition to the rare films, we will have with us the creator of the original Nuggets, Lenny Kaye.
Prior to his 30-plus years as Rock Hall of Fame inductee Patti Smith's chief musical collaborator, Lenny Kaye was a prolific rock critic and historian. He contributed to leading rock periodicals, wrote legendary liner notes (even earning mention within a Steven King novel), and was one of a handful of rock critics at the time to take serious interest in the supposedly frivolous corners of rock history, from doo wop to the previously-unlabeled genre of garage rock. This work reached a pinnacle when he compiled for Elektra Records a double-LP of what were then considered regional obscurities and "one hit wonders" of mid-late sixties rock, titled Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968. The collection brought together great proto-punk singles by The Electric Prunes, The Standells and The Seeds, sides that had been recorded just a few years earlier but had already been forgotten in the wake of progressive rock and singer-songwriters.
Nuggets insured that this music would never be forgotten again. It first spawned a host of similarly-named compilations of garage rock (Pebbles, Boulders, et al), and then Rhino Records turned the name Nuggets into something of a sixties reissue franchise, culminating in no less than three deluxe CD box sets of psych and garage rarities. Lenny Kaye, meanwhile, moved on, as leader of the Patti Smith Group, record producer, teacher of a university class in rock history, and author. His latest book is You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon.
At Nuggets, the film screening, Lenny Kaye will discuss sixties rock and add his insightful commentary between films.
To make this an even more special event, we'll have Stewkey (lead singer and keyboardist of Philadelphia's greatest sixties band The Nazz) in person to present a rare print of the promo film for "Open My Eyes."
There will be one complete show at 8:00 pm. Admission is $6.00.
A few highlights of Nuggets include:
Girls In Short Short Dresses (1966) - Paramount made this topical film in the final days of the theatrical short subject era, to capitalize on the worldwide interest in then very-Swinging London. It stars actual mod band The Thoughts, who are best known to collectors for their recording of Ray Davies' otherwise unreleased song "All Night Stand," on Shel Talmy's Planet Records label. In this previously unheralded Technicolor film, they perform two songs in the famous Blaise's nightclub, and in a reverse on the usual rock band scenario, they chase girls around tube stations and Carnaby Street boutiques. The film also makes a visit to the studio of fashion designer Mary Quant, inventor of the mini-skirt.
The Ecstasy Is Sometimes Fantastic (1966) - Made by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, this is a rare cinema verite look at a working, not-quite-made-it rock group. Toronto garage band Jon and Lee and the Checkmates reveal all sides of their world, from belting out James Brown numbers in packed clubs, to going over itineraries and accounting, to the crucial business of getting the right haircut.
The Nazz: Open My Eyes (1968) - Rock videos weren't invented in the eighties; they've been around since sound film was perfected. In the sixties they were called "promo films," and this was one of the better ones. Stewkey, the lead singer and keyboardist of Philly's greatest mod band, will introduce this rare public screening of his personal 16mm print (which is actually a rare alternate edit of the clip MTV has shown!)…and be interviewed by Lenny Kaye, who included this great song on the original Nuggets LP!
Plus clips from feature films and television with music performed by The Standells, The Chocolate Watchband, The Seeds, The Birds (UK), The Marmalade, The Orphan Egg, The Zombies and more!
Tuesday, February 27,
Tritone
On Tuesday, February 27, Tritone will host a special music party called Made in Spain, featuring a variety of beat, mod and soul music from the sixties -- all of it recorded in Spain.
It all starts at 9:00 pm and runs until the end of the night. Admission is free.
Some of the artists to be played at Made in Spain will be Los Brincos (the period's most inventive group; arguably the Beatles of Spain), Los Bravos (Spain's most successful export act, of "Black is Black" fame), Los Iberos (produced by U.K. "Nothing But a Heartache" songwriting team Bickerton and Waddington), Los Salvajes, Los Sirex, Formula V, and many more, plus Spanish "Ye Ye" girls like Karina and Conchita Velasco. Records played will include both original songs and several Spanish language versions of familiar American and British pop hits.
In addition to sixties sounds, some time will also be devoted to Spanish music of today in the garage, indie and power pop styles.
The event will mark the return of "La Chica Ye Ye," D.J. Silvia. A favorite spinner at many past sixties-music events in Philly, New York and her native country of Spain, Silvia is sure to have some new surprises and rare sides in the multiplying boxes of discs she keeps bringing over. Silvia moved to Philadelphia in 2004, from her birthplace in the Spanish city of Gijón, in the green province of Asturias.
Assisting will be Jay Schwartz. Jay is of course the long-time programmer/creator of the Secret Cinema film series, and is the musical (and marital!) partner of D.J. Silvia.
The first night of what is planned to be a regular series of events, Made in Spain is co-sponsored by The Secret Cinema and Los De Pata Negra En Philadelphia, a group recently formed to unify the growing community of Spaniards in Philadelphia and promote friendship, culture and networking.
Friday, December 8
Moore College of Art & Design
On Friday, December 8, the Secret Cinema will present The Secret Cinema Holiday Spectacular. The Spectacular will begin with an assortment of surprise short films, then climax with a screening of The Greenwich Village Story, a super-rare 1963 independent feature about life among the beats, shot entirely on location in downtown Manhattan.
The short film portion will probably total about one hour in running time, and is included as a bonus Christmas gift to the Secret Cinema audience. The final selection has not been completed, but it will include unusual tributes to some film talents that we lost in 2006, including Robert Altman and Don Knotts.
There will be one complete show, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $6.00.
A full description of the feature follows:
The Greenwich Village Story (1963, Dir: Jack O'Connell)
Most of the cast, including ex-Off Broadway lead actors Robert Hogan and Melinda Plank, would remain unknown, but they give good, earnest performances. A few went on to bigger things: James Frawley, who plays a bearded, horn-rimmed, pipe-smoking publisher's agent, would just a few years later help develop The Monkees as the start of a long directing career in television. John Avildsen, who has a minor role and served as assistant director, would later direct Joe, Rocky and The Karate Kid. But TGVS director Jack O'Connell stayed true to form: His later made the hippie documentary Revolution (which spawned a soundtrack album that was much more successful than its film), then updated it decades later as The Hippie Revolution.
"With the aid of the principals and the unwitting citizens of Manhattan's Bohemia who never previously faced cameras professionally, and with the excellent assistance of his photographer, Baird Bryant, Mr. O'Connell has roamed the bars and beatnik caverns, the dingy pads and lofts and the colorful, clangorous confines of Washington Square Park and Bleecker Street to come up with a Cook's Tour that is both picturesque and germane to his tale of young love and desire for a place in the arts in Gotham." - A. H. Weiler, New York Times
Friday, November 17
Moore College of Art & Design
On Friday, November 17, the Secret Cinema will revisit a favorite themed program of shorts that has not been seen in nearly seven years. Focusing on all things that go! go! go!, the title of Hot Wheels! Short Films About Hot Rods, Slot Cars, Skateboards and More, pretty much says it all -- except for the fact that most of the films come from those wonderful mid-1960s.
Last shown at the late, lamented Silk City Lounge back in January of 2000, this new presentation of Hot Wheels! will include some new acquisitions never before shown.
There will be one complete show, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $6.00.
Just a few program highlights are:
The Wonderful World of Wheels (1965?) - This super-colorful industrial film, produced by the Petersen group of automotive magazines, is hosted by the late actor Lloyd Bridges. Covering all forms of car racing, from the NHRA Winternationals of drag racing, to slot cars, the Indy 500, and the custom space-age creations of George Barris and Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, this 30-minute film was the inspiration for this entire Secret Cinema presentation! With great "now sound" music, photography by Vilmos Zsigmond (around the same time he was shooting Mondo Mod) and Laszlo Kovacs, plus an appearance by "Fabian, the popular singer-actor," you just can't go wrong.
Skaterdater (1966) - This amusing, touching, and wordless drama tells the story of an adolescent boy who is shunned by the fellow members of his skateboard gang when he falls for a young girl. The much-praised soundtrack consists of instrumental surf rock played by Davie Allan and the Arrows (and included his first use of fuzz guitar). The film was directed by Noel Black (Pretty Poison).
Hot Wheels (1969) - An episode from this rarely seen Saturday morning cartoon show, loosely based (or at least named after) the popular, then-new Mattel toy. The plot concerns crime fighting auto racers, and the theme song is by "Mike Curb and the Curbstones" (also with Davie Allan involvement?)
It's Wanton Murder (1946) - Lowell Thomas narrates this melodramatic driver safety film, which includes some rather graphic car crash images considering the film's age. Eerier, however, are shots in which fatal accident victims fade away from scenes of their once-daily life. One old-fashioned touch in our original release print of It's Wanton Murder is the use of hand-colored frames of a traffic light, a technique harking back to the earliest days of cinema.
Plus much, much more!
Friday, October 6
Sedgwick Cultural Center
On Friday, October 6, The Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art and Design will offer From Philadelphia With Love Again: More Industrial, Educational and other Lost Local Films. This latest entry in one of our most ambitious and best-loved series will include the same set of films shown last spring in Center City. Note that it is 100% different programming than what was previously shown at the Sedgwick.
A sure highlight of this new Sedgwick event will be the appearance of Chestnut Hill resident Ralph Hirshorn, who will be on hand to introduce his 1960 satirical short film The End of Summer.
While most area residents are familiar with Philadelphia films such as Rocky, Trading Places, and the works of M. Night Shayamalan, there is a whole world of locally-made films that have been forgotten -- the "ephemeral" short films that were primarily made by small independent companies for a once booming non-theatrical market. While most school districts, television stations and traveling salesman have long ago discarded their 16mm film projectors, we at Secret Cinema have not, and are proud to present a look back at these celluloid time capsules that would otherwise not be seen again.
If you've never been to the Sedgwick and are interested at all in classic movie theaters, you really need to check it out -- and this Secret Cinema event offers a rare chance to see actual projected celluloid in this site that was once a cathedral of celluloid. The Sedgwick Cultural Center consists of the surviving lobby areas of what was once the Sedgwick Theater, a mammoth movie palace built in 1928. The survival of even some of the Sedgwick's areas reminds us that earlier generations were lucky enough to have amazing theaters not just downtown but also in their residential neighborhoods. The huge auditorium, which once seated 1636 patrons on one level, was bricked up and essentially gutted in the 1960s (it survives as a giant storage warehouse with a rather ornate ceiling). What remains in today's Cultural Center are the original facade, and two separate lobbies, which together are larger than many multiplex screening rooms. Many original art deco features are intact.
There will be one complete show at 8:00 pm. Admission is $7.00.
Just a few highlights of From Philadelphia With Love Again are:
Wonders of Philadelphia (1962) - This amusing and rare theatrical short was part of a series of musical "Travelarks" that Columbia Pictures released. This segment is narrated by Dick Clark, who takes a look at Philly nightlife and other local sites as they were in the early sixties.
The Cherry Hill Story (1969) - Produced by the Cherry Hill, New Jersey Board of Education, this colorful short takes a quick look around local sites before settling down to the main business at hand -- trumpeting the strengths of the local school system, with an emphasis on the newly-constructed, state-of-the-art Cherry Hill East High School.
The Maestro (1971, Dir: Jim and Janet Hirschfeld) - This color documentary short, produced for local television, gives a behind-the-scenes look at Eugene Ormandy, legendary conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The film shows Ormandy at work in Philadelphia, on tour, and at rest in his Berkshires summer home. Includes nice looks at the Academy of Music and the Robin Hood Dell, and its illustrious "cast" includes Zubin Mehta, Isaac Stern, Marian Anderson, Aaron Copland, Frank Rizzo and Richard Nixon! Narrated by the great John Facenda.
The End of Summer (1960, Dir: Ralph Hirshorn) - This award-winning satirical short was intended as a gentle spoof of then popular avant-garde films, somewhat in the style of Roman Polanski's Two Men and a Wardrobe. It shows "a girl in summer" as she wanders around such bucolic locales as West Mount Airy, Wissahickon Creek, Fairmount Park, the Curtis Arboretum and the Art Museum. Print courtesy of the director, who will be familiar to many as a film festival regular and overall friend of film.
United We Stand, Issue #112 (1949) - This title was made by the American Legion for distribution to their members, and in this episode takes a look at their largest ever national convention, held in Philadelphia in 1949. The members are seen parading and convening all around our fair city, the film providing invaluable recordings of how it (Ben Franklin Parkway, Bellevue-Stratford, the navy yard) looked 57 years ago. Most speeches mention "the shadow of Communist power." Of special interest are the many scenes shot inside Convention Hall (aka Municipal Auditorium, later renamed the Civic Center), including a visit from President Truman. This monumental Art Deco structure that previously hosted presidential conventions and later was the site of the first Beatles concert in Philadelphia was sadly demolished only last year.
And much, much more...
Friday, September 29
Moore College of Art & Design
On Friday, September 29, The Secret Cinema begin its ninth season at Moore College of Art and Design, with a hand-picked program of nearly-lost treasures from the deepest depths of the Secret Cinema film vaults. Curator's Choice 2: Unseen Corners and Forgotten Favorites from the Secret Cinema Archives will include just that -- films never shown before, and films not shown in many years.
The Secret Cinema's private archive contains literally thousands of reels of 16mm (and 35mm, and 8mm) features, theatrical shorts, cartoons, newsreels, television shows, educational films, travel films, industrial films, and home movies. Together, they add up to well over one million feet of often rare celluloid, with several prints thought to be the only extant copies in the world.
Since 1992, the Secret Cinema has sought to create programming that exposes every type of these films, by showing these fascinating, historical, and often hilarious short films before features or in themed groupings. Yet, despite exposing hundreds of rare works this way, there are still many choice reels that we've never got around to screening publicly, often unclassifiable films that had inconvenient running times or could fit into no common theme.
Some of the best of these amazing films will again see the light of a projector bulb in Curator's Choice 2. This previously ungroupable group of short films will include films that were made to entertain, to teach, to encourage commerce and to alter opinion. Spanning many decades, many show wondrous places, styles and things that have long-since vanished. Some of them now seem campy, others still have valid lessons to teach, but all are fascinating, and extremely unlikely to be seen anywhere else, including on video.
There will be one complete program, starting at 8:00 pm. Admission is $6.00.
The program is still being assembled, but just a few highlights are:
It Takes Everybody to Build This Land (1951) - This unusual educational film tells the story of "our basic interdependence," by showing various workers in industry and agriculture, and weaving their stories together through the voice of "Oscar Brand, American Folksinger." Brand, a nationally prominent performer since the 1940s, hosted radio and TV programs of American folklore (some of which featured a young Bob Dylan).
Dream Girl (1967?) - This reel -- combining both black & white and color scenes -- is actually unfinished workprint footage from what was going to be either an unusually arty softcore sex film, or an unusually adult student film.
Wings to Tomorrow (1957) - Pan Am produced this colorful short about teen aviation buffs that build working model airplanes out of balsa wood. Printed in non-fading Kodachrome stock, the better to enjoy the super-saturated colors of a long-gone era.
The Meaning of Patriotism (1961) - Produced by school film giant Coronet Films at the height of the Cold War, this film wonders out loud if ordinary citizens like teachers and housewives can be true patriots, by comparing them to great figures that preceded them in American history. Coincidentally (?), the film's title was shared by that of a speech made by presidential candidate Richard Nixon just one year earlier.
The Mysteries of Science (1920s) - This film gives an example of the final activities of one of the great pioneers of early cinema. American-born Charles Urban developed one of the first projectors, then moved to England to avoid patent problems from his rival Edison. He experimented with an early color process, and when this failed to catch on, produced this, one in a series of early educational films making full use of such techniques as time-lapse and macro-photography, exploring the science to be found in soap bubbles and sound waves.
...plus much, much more!
Friday, June 2, 2006
Eastern State Penitentiary
The Secret Cinema will return to its most historic and atmospheric venue ever on Friday, June 2, with a screening at Eastern State Penitentiary of the 1950 prison-break thriller Convicted.
There will be one complete show, starting at 8:30 pm, which includes the usual unusual short subjects. Doors open at 7:30 pm, allowing the audience time to take a look at many new and existing museum exhibits at ESP. Admission is $8.00.
Eastern State Penitentiary, built in the 1820s, is a world famous historic landmark, which influenced the design of hundreds of other prisons. Closed as a working prison since 1971, the decaying structure, which once housed Al Capone and Willie Sutton, has become a popular tourist attraction and museum over the last decade. This will be the seventh Secret Cinema presentation at ESP. The film will be projected right inside the main prison building in a hallway just outside Capone's cell, surrounded by iron bars and ghosts of convicts past.
A full description of the feature follows:
Convicted (1950, Dir: Henry Levin)
"There is a noir quality in (Convicted) due primarily to the presence of Glenn Ford. Ford's presence in many of the noir films of Columbia Pictures during that period (Framed, Undercover Man, and the superb Gilda), established a screen personality that. of itself, articulated a close affinity to the noir world. The ironies of the plot, playing off Ford's assumed persona, imbue Convicted with a noir sensibility that would have been unattainable without Ford." - Carl Macek, Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style. Glenn Ford recently turned 90.
Director Henry Levin was a University of Pennsylvania graduate who worked for many years in Broadway theater. After being brought to Hollywood as a dialogue coach, he enjoyed a lengthy career directing films for Columbia and 20th Century-Fox in an amazing variety of genres, ranging from his first film Cry of the Werewolf in 1944 to Dean Martin's Matt Helm movies in the 1960s.
Saturday, May 13
Moore College of Art & Design
On Saturday, May 13, The Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art and Design will offer a special double-feature event called Exploration/Exploitation. Comprised of two ultra-rare feature-length films from the 1930s, the program will take a look back on a time when exploration and exotic peoples were the stuff of popular entertainment, and the concept of political correctness was many years away.
First off will be Congorilla. Made by the then-famed husband and wife explorer team of Martin and Osa Johnson, this 1932 documentary was the first sound film made in Africa. While offering many fascinating glimpses of pygmy life and nature in the wild, Congorilla is most notable today for the sometimes-excruciating political incorrectness of the filmmakers, who show a disrespect for their subjects worthy of the most sensational exploitation film producers.
Our second feature is even more obscure and curious. Beyond the Caribbean was produced and directed by a nephew of Theodore Roosevelt. It mixes actuality footage shot in Central American jungles with a concocted plot about lost treasure and heathen savages who follow the strange sado-masochistic rituals of the Penitente cult.
Showtimes for Exploration/Exploitation are as follows:
Saturday, May 13
Each feature will be preceded by exotic short subjects. Admission is $6.00.
Complete descriptions of the two features follows:
Congorilla (1932, Dir: Martin & Osa Johnson)
Congorilla, covering trips to Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and the Congo basin, and billed as being about "big apes and little people," is a good example of their movie style. Martin usually manned the camera, allowing perky Osa to frequently star on screen, and make friends with monkeys and pygmies alike. The Johnsons clearly had a love of their subjects, but latter-day writers have taken a more critical view of their efforts. Film historian Erik Barnouw (in his book Documentary: A History of the Non-Fiction Film) noted that "Self-glorification was the keynote. Unabashed condescension and amusement marked their attitude toward natives...Johnson's narration speaks of 'funny little savages,' 'happiest little savages in Earth.' His idea of humor was to give a pygmy a cigar and wait for him to get sick...to give a monkey beer and watch the result. During a shot of a crocodile opening its mouth. Johnson's narration comments: 'Gee, what a place to throw old razor blades.'" We will be showing a flawless archival print of Congorilla.
Beyond The Caribbean (1938, Dir: Andre Roosevelt, Ewing Scott)
Though reportedly filmed off the coast of Panama and in Central American jungles, the natives are labeled "Penitentes." They perform the sado-masochistic rituals of the actual, mainly New Mexico-based Catholic cult, including flagellation and crucifixion (perhaps not coincidentally, Beyond The Caribbean was filmed as the 1937 exploitation film Lash of the Penitentes was gaining notoriety). This strange production (which lasts only 51 minutes) has always-stilted dialogue, endless use of stock music, some horrendous acting, and confusing action and continuity. Its strengths are the documentary footage of exotic/cute jungle animals and the depictions of religious rites, clearly calculated to give nightmares to white audiences.
According to the film's own dialogue, Andre Roosevelt was an authority on underwater life. He also directed the more widely-distributed, Balinese-themed exotica semi-documentary Goona-Goona (1932).
Saturday, May 6
Sedgwick Cultural Center
Hot on the heels of a highly-successful screening of From Philadelphia With Love 3 at Moore College of Art & Design, the Secret Cinema is happy to have a chance to present a night of highlights from earlier entries in this series of rare locally-oriented films at the newly re-opened Sedgwick Cultural Center, on Saturday, May 6.
Many area residents are familiar with Philly films such as Rocky, but there is a whole world of locally-made movies that have been forgotten -- "ephemeral" shorts made by small companies for a once-booming non-theatrical market. While most school districts, television stations and traveling salesman have long discarded their 16mm film projectors, the Secret Cinema has not, and proudly presents a look back at these celluloid time capsules that would otherwise not be seen again.
This special presentation of rare Philly film at the re-opened Sedgwick Cultural Center includes the best short films from the first two editions of From Philadelphia With Love, previously presented by Secret Cinema years ago at Moore College of Art & Design (however, there will be no overlap with any of the films just shown in From Philadelphia With Love 3 at Moore).
If you've never been to the Sedgwick and are interested at all in classic movie theaters, you really need to check it out -- and this Secret Cinema event offers a rare chance to see actual projected celluloid in this site that was once a cathedral of celluloid. The Sedgwick Cultural Center consists of the surviving lobby areas of what was once the Sedgwick Theater, a mammoth movie palace built in 1928. The survival of even some of the Sedgwick's areas reminds us that earlier generations were lucky enough to have amazing theaters not just downtown but also in their residential neighborhoods. The huge auditorium, which once seated 1636 patrons on one level, was bricked up and essentially gutted in the 1960s (it survives as a giant storage warehouse with a rather ornate ceiling). What remains in today's Cultural Center are the original facade, and two separate lobbies, which together are larger than many multiplex screening rooms. Many original art deco features are intact.
There will be one complete show at 8:00 pm. Admission is $7.00.
Just a few highlights of From Philadelphia With Love are:
Our Changing City (1955) - Made by the city during the administration of Mayor Joseph Clark, this vivid color film makes the case for urban renewal (i.e., demolition and new construction) while showing a wide range of cityscapes, from new homes in the Northeast to the poverty of people living in houses without plumbing or electricity.
Philadelphia With Love (1972) - Our "title film" is a colorful, tourism boosting paean to "Philadelphia, a fabulous city that puts it all together!" The most recently-made part of our program, this perky reel still manages to show a lot of things that are gone, including Playhouse In The Park, the Perelman Toy Museum, Pub Tiki and George X. Schwartz -- not to mention a lot of long-vanished hairstyles. With special guest Sergio Franchi, singing the theme song on the Ben Franklin Parkway!
Brooklyn Goes To Philadelphia (1954) - This obscure theatrical short from Universal was part of a series of humorous travelogues narrated by wisecracking, thickly-accented Brooklynite Phil Foster. "Philadelphia is the third largest city in America ... big deal!" Aside from dwindling population, the jokes about demolition of historic property and confusing parking regulations show that some things don't change.
The Story of Bubblegum (1952) - This beautiful Kodachrome film sets out to answer the question, "Can bubblegum be good food?" Along the way we get a complete tour of the recently shuttered Fleer bubblegum plant in Olney, from its giant vats of pink rubber to its plant cafeteria and gardens and their amazing R&D department. Fleer is believed to have invented bubblegum in 1928, and its Dubble Bubble brand was a household name for most of this century. The best film ever made, anywhere?
The Troc (1966) - A confusing yet amusing Penn student film, with dancers creative interpretive art along colorful views of the banks of the Schuylkill River, and a climactic visit to the titular burlesque house.
And much more...
Free parking is available in the municipal lot across the street.
Friday, April 21
Moore College of Art & Design
On Friday, April 21, The Secret Cinema at Moore College of Art and Design will offer From Philadelphia With Love 3: Still More Industrial, Educational and other Lost Local Films. This new entry in one of our most ambitious and best-loved series (first presented in 1999, with FPWL2 following in 2001 and a "Best of FPWL" show in 2003) will feature 100% new programming.
While most area residents are familiar with Philadelphia films such as Rocky, Trading Places, and the works of M. Night Shayamalan, there is a whole world of locally-made films that has been forgotten -- the "ephemeral" short films that were primarily made by small independent companies for the then-booming non-theatrical market. While most school districts, television stations and traveling salesman have long discarded their 16mm film projectors, we at Secret Cinema have not, and are proud to present a look back at these celluloid time capsules that would otherwise not be seen again.
There will be one complete show at 8:00 pm. Admission is $6.00.
Just a few highlights of From Philadelphia With Love 3 are:
Wonders of Philadelphia (1962) - This amusing and rare theatrical short was part of a series of musical "Travelarks" that Columbia Pictures released. This segment is narrated by Dick Clark, who takes a look at Philly nightlife and other local sites as they were in the early sixties.
The Cherry Hill Story (1969) - Produced by the Cherry Hill, New Jersey Board of Education, this colorful short takes a quick look around local sites before settling down to the main business at hand -- trumpeting the strengths of the local school system, with an emphasis on the newly-constructed, state-of-the-art Cherry Hill East High School.
The Maestro (1971, Dir: Jim and Janet Hirschfeld) - This color documentary short, produced for local television, gives a behind-the-scenes look at Eugene Ormandy, legendary conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The film shows Ormandy at work in Philadelphia, on tour, and at rest in his Berkshires summer home. Includes nice looks at the Academy of Music and the Robin Hood Dell, and its illustrious "cast" includes Zubin Mehta, Isaac Stern, Marian Anderson, Aaron Copland, Frank Rizzo and Richard Nixon! Narrated by the great John Facenda.
The End of Summer (1960, Dir: Ralph Hirshorn) - This award-winning satirical short was intended as a gentle spoof of then popular avant-garde films, somewhat in the style of Roman Polanski's Two Men and a Wardrobe. It shows "a girl in summer" as she wanders around such bucolic locales as West Mount Airy, Wissahickon Creek, Fairmount Park, the Curtis Arboretum and the Art Museum. Print courtesy of the director, who will be familiar to many as a film festival regular and overall friend of film.
United We Stand, Issue #112 (1949) - This title was made by the American Legion for distribution to their members, and in this episode takes a look at their largest ever national convention, held in Philadelphia in 1949. The members are seen parading and convening all around our fair city, the film providing invaluable recordings of how it (Ben Franklin Parkway, Bellevue-Stratford, the navy yard) looked 57 years ago. Most speeches mention "the shadow of Communist power." Of special interest are the many scenes shot inside Convention Hall (aka Municipal Auditorium, later renamed the Civic Center), including a visit from President Truman. This monumental Art Deco structure that previously hosted presidential conventions and later was the site of the first Beatles concert in Philadelphia was sadly demolished only last year.
And much, much more...
A special night featuring the best films from past editions of From Philadelphia With Love will be presented at the re-opened Sedgwick Theater in Mount Airy on Saturday, May 6.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Many comedy fans love The Three Stooges, and most Three Stooges fans would name Curly as their favorite Stooge. A growing cult would argue that the oft-overlooked Shemp is the greatest, funniest Stooge, and the Secret Cinema is proudly among that group. In fact, for many years we've promised a night in tribute to Shemp, but wanted to wait until the effort was as worthy of its great subject as possible. That time has come. On Friday, March 24 (111 years after his birth, nearly to the day!) we will begin a two-day, two-location tribute to the original "third Stooge" that includes a screening of some of his rarest and funniest films, and a special Secret Cinema visit to a nearly unbelievable, private Three Stooges museum containing the world's largest and greatest collection of Stoogeiana.
For those confused about all of this third Stooge business: What would become the best-loved, most-televised comedy team in the history of film began as the trio of brothers Moe and Shemp Howard, and Philadelphian Larry Fine. They worked under straight man Ted Healy and became stars of vaudeville, finally answering Hollywood's call to bring their slapstick to the movies just as the talkie era began. They made but one film with this original lineup, the 1930 feature Soup To Nuts, before Shemp decided he was tired of Healy and left to work solo. A third Howard brother, the rotund, crew-cut Curly, was recruited to fill Shemp's place, and not much later they all left Healy to begin what would be the longest running act in two-reel comedy. After suffering a stroke, Curly needed to be replaced, so Shemp rejoined in 1946, and continued with the group until his own death in 1955. After that, The Three Stooges continued to make shorts with Joe Besser, and later made features with "Curly Joe" DeRita.
The first decade's worth of shorts that the Curly-featured lineup made for Columbia were undeniably the best films ever to star The Three Stooges. They had the biggest budgets, and employed the best gagmen in the business (many of whom had cut their teeth in the early silent films of Mack Sennett). And younger brother Curly was a comic natural, whose often childlike mannerisms and high-pitched exclamations were both hilarious and original. Does this mean Curly is the greatest Stooge? We say no!
Shemp Howard (born Samuel Horwitz on March 17, 1895) had already proved himself to be his own man by the time he rejoined the Stooges, having already starred or co-starred in multiple series of comedy shorts for Vitaphone, R.K.O. and Columbia, and also appeared as a comic character actor in at least 38 feature films, alongside the likes of W.C. Fields and Abbott and Costello. Through his film career, in and out of the Three Stooges, Shemp maintained a singular presence -- comically unattractive (he was once even voted "The ugliest man in Hollywood"!), nervous, and with a seemingly endless supply of improvised, side-splitting asides.
A Loving Tribute to Shemp Howard, Part 1: The screening at Moore
At the auditorium of Moore College of Art and Design, to celebrate Shemp Howard's 111th birthday, we will present a special program featuring his "solo shorts." Since most people are very familiar with the films of the Three Stooges, we will instead focus on the little-seen two-reel comedies Shemp starred in away from the Three Stooges.
While perhaps only the Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang shorts are as well-known as the Three Stooges' are, during the era of the sound short subject (1930s through 1950s), Hollywood's studios produced dozens of other comedy series in much the same format. Shemp Howard's unique gifts were tried in a number of these series, sometimes as the star performer, and sometimes in experimental pairings with other once-famous comic players like Tom Kennedy, Andy Clyde, Ben Blue and Roscoe Ates. Many of these films featured the same producers, directors, writers, character actors and sometimes gags as Three Stooges shorts from the same time. In some, all that's missing is Moe and Larry!
Just a few highlights of the feature-length program will be: The Choke's On You (1936; one of a series of shorts based on the popular comic strip Joe Palooka, with Shemp appearing as the young fighter's trainer Knobby Walsh), the cruelly hilarious Mr. Noisy (1946; Shemp plays an obnoxious, heckling baseball fan; with famed Three Stooges player Vernon Dent.), the very Stooges-like Boobs in the Woods (1940; Shemp is the trouble-making brother-in-law of Andy Clyde, as they go on a camping trip; directed by frequent Stooges director Del Lord), and much more!
The evening will begin with a brief illustrated talk on the life and work of Shemp Howard, by Secret Cinema programmer Jay Schwartz.
All who attend the screening at Moore will receive a free voucher and directions to...
A Loving Tribute to Shemp Howard, Part 2: The museum visit! (and another screening)
Saturday, March 25, 11:00 am through 5:00 pm
Screening of Soup To Nuts at 2:00 pm
In recent years, the Secret Cinema has partnered with some of the Philadelphia area's greatest museums to create some unique film events: The Franklin Institute, The Academy of Natural Sciences, and Eastern State Penitentiary, to name three. However, we've never been prouder than we'll be on this day, when we offer a Secret Cinema visit to The Stoogeum.
What's a Stoogeum? Opened in 2004, it's a fantastic private museum devoted exclusively to the Three Stooges! This is not simply an array of collected objects mounted in somebody's rec room -- it's a bonafide, purpose-constructed, multi-floored museum, with exhibits created by a museum design firm in collaboration with owner Gary Lassin, president of the Three Stooges Fan Club and possessor of the world's largest and best collection of Stoogeiana. Housed there are thousands of rare posters, photos, clippings, fan merchandise, and jaw-dropping personal objects (The Three Stooges' pay checks! Jules White's driver's license! Shemp's custom-made watch chain! Shemp's honorable discharge papers from the army -- documenting his bedwetting!!) More than a collection of memorabilia, the informative displays and groupings provide a context explaining the Three Stooges long journey through stage, movies and television to become pop culture icons. There are also exhibits devoted to the many other performers and creative personnel they worked with. Even if you don't like the Three Stooges, the Stoogeum would provide a fascinating walk through the history of 20th century American show business.
The Philadelphia City Paper ran a nice article about The Stoogeum last year, viewable here
Of course the designers of The Stoogeum thought to include a screening room, and we will be taking full advantage of it! At 2:00 pm there will be a special screening of the first film starring The Three Stooges, Soup To Nuts (details below). As with all Secret Cinema screenings, we will project this in real film, using an archival 16mm print restored through the efforts of the Three Stooges Fan Club.
The Stoogeum would be on the maps of every regional tourism group, except that it is not open to the public. This private museum is usually open only to fan club members by special invitation, and very occasionally has special event open houses like this one. There is no extra charge to visit the Stoogeum, but to attend you must pick up the voucher (with directions) at the Friday night Moore screening. The Stoogeum is located in the nearby Northwestern suburbs of Philadelphia, easily accessible by car. To accommodate the carless, the Secret Cinema will pick up attendees at the nearby Septa train station, and details about this will also be provided at the Moore screening. Do not miss this rare opportunity!
Soup To Nuts (1930, Dir: Ben Stoloff. 71 min.)
Tritone
Saturday, January 28
On Saturday, January 28, the Secret Cinema will produce its first music event in nearly a year. It will be a special one, though -- headlining will be unique '60s songwriter/performer Brute Force, giving his first Philadelphia concert ever! Supporting will be Philadelphia's own Mr. Unloved, and in between there will be rare sixties pop records from d.j.'s Silvia & Jay.
The event starts at 9:30 pm and runs until 2:00. Admission is $7.00.
Brute Force (who was born Stephen Friedland), is a fascinating performer, a music industry veteran, and possessor of a wholly original sense of humor. Beginning as a professional songwriter in the golden era of the Brill Building, he went on to record his own releases, some of which are among the most valuable collector's items in rock.
A few Brute Force factoids:
- He had a lengthy stint as a staff songwriter for Bright Tunes, the innovative music publishing and production company owned and operated by vocal group The Tokens. He later performed as a singer and guitarist for the band.
- His songs have been recorded by The Chiffons, Little Peggy March, Randy & The Rainbows, Del Shannon, The Cyrkle, and legendary UK mod band The Creation ("For All That I Am," recorded while Ron Wood was in the group).
- Brute recorded the unusual pop album I, Brute Force - Confections of Love, released in 1967 by Columbia Records. It combines Brute's often strange lyrical perspective with inventive arrangements and orchestrations. Just two highlghts are "Tapeworm of Love" and "To Sit on a Sandwich."
- George Harrison personally signed Brute Force to Apple Records upon hearing his song "King of Fuh," which EMI subsequently refused to press because of its alleged obscenity. The few copies of the single that Apple did manufacture constitute the rarest release on the Beatles' label.
- Life magazine published a photo of Brute in 1969 when he swam halfway across the Bering Strait.
- Another mega-rarity was the LP Extemporaneous, which captured a set of improvised music and comedy, live in a recording studio in front of a small audience. Originally released in 1969 on the B.T. Puppy label, it has recently been issued on CD by England's Rev-Ola label.
The show at Tritone will feature a full band: Brute Force (vocals and keyboard), Christy Edwards (drums), Steve DeSeve (bass), Peter Pierce, (guitar), plus background singers Lilah (Daughter of Force) and Aaron Diskin. New songs and selected songs from his 1967 album Confections of Love are in the set.
Also playing is Chaz Zimerman, aka Mr. Unloved. The solo performer is a self-described "insensitive singer-songwriter," combining elements of Tom Waits and Tom Smothers.
Manning (and womaning) the record players throughout the evening will be D.J.'s Silvia and Jay, with a mix of sixties pop emphasizing Brill Building and girl group sounds (among other things). The (now married!) duo haven't aired their record collection in public for a long time now, and will have some great new/old sides to share.
BRUTE FORCE APPRECIATION BY ROCK HISTORIAN DAWN EDEN
BEATLES UNLIMITED WEBSITE WITH BRUTE FORCE INTERVIEW
Moore College of Art & Design
Friday, January 20
We've shown many themed groupings of short films over the nearly 14 years of Secret Cinema programming -- nights devoted to music films, stag films, travel films, old color films, TV commercials, World War II films, films made in the 1970s, films made in Philadelphia, and yes, even boring films. Somehow, though, we've never devoted an entire program to the now-celebrated social guidance film.
A subset of the educational, or classroom film genre, social guidance films exist not to teach children the traditional school wisdom of history, science and grammar, but to impart to their unformed minds the correct attitudes and behavior. They came into their own in the post-war years, and were omnipresent in American schools in the 1950s and '60s. More recently, they have been rediscovered, in documentaries like The Atomic Cafe, in the 1999 book Mental Hygiene, and on cable television and numerous home video compilations. The Congress-created National Film Registry has even selected one of the most (in)famous social guidance films, Duck and Cover, for eternal preservation.
Well, now it's our turn. While social guidance shorts have made appearances throughout the history of Secret Cinema (within other programs and before feature films), on Friday, January 20, we will compile for the first time some of the best S.G. reels from our private archive into one big show. And while social guidance films seem to be everywhere nowadays (yep, on the internet too), the best way to see them is in the dark -- using real film projected onto a big screen (albeit a screen much bigger than found in any classroom), among a group of one's peers (albeit peers many years past the target audience of most of these films).
There will be one complete show, at 8:00 pm. Admission is $6.00.
A Child's Introduction to Social Guidance Films will include many rare titles never before shown by us, and others not seen for many years. They will span many different years and show examples of work from important producers of social guidance film like Coronet (originally a division of Esquire Magazine) and Young America Films. Just a few highlights will be: Courtesy at School, Helpers in the Community, What is a Contract?, Toward Emotional Maturity, What Does Our Flag Mean?, It's Wonderful Being a Girl, and Safety Patrol.
If you are near a radio or internet connection this late afternoon, we understand there will be a piece about BORING FILMS during WHYY's broadcast of ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (4:00 - 6:30 pm), includ
A group of four beautiful, inexplicably wealthy and exceptionally whimsical girls live together. When not attending their American friend's ballet-like pro-wrestling bouts, they commit outlandish pranks, such as stealing a wax dummy of Michael Caine. They take their impulsive behavior a step further when they kidnap a young pop star and take him to their bizarre country retreat, a large inflatable dome filled with pinball machines and mod furnishings. There they tie him down and take turns having their way with him. Things start to get out of hand -- especially when their friend's wrestling rival, a wealthy black gangster, decides he must also possess the pretty boy.
Lenny Kaye and Nazz singer Stewkey join Secret Cinema
for Nuggets: Celluloid Artyfacts of Sixties Rock
8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
D.J.'s Silvia & Jay spin international vinyl rarities
at Tritone's Made in Spain night
9:00 pm
Admission: FREE
1508 South Street, Philadelphia
(215) 545-0475
Indie beatnik rarity The Greenwich Village Story
to headline The Secret Cinema Holiday Spectacular at Moore
8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
This independently produced movie -- which has seemingly vanished from all channels of film, video and television distribution -- offers an invaluable, inside look at New York bohemia in the early-1960s. Its heartfelt (if slight) plot involves a young writer struggling to complete his first novel, his live-in ballet dancer girlfriend who wants to marry, and their circle of eccentric friends. The camera follows them to parties that get raided by the cops, poetry readings, and smoky cafes. Shot in 1961, and with a strong (and early) pro-choice message, this arty exploitation film's real strength is its documentary-like photography of real locales and faces, shot in the heart of the world capital of beat-era bohemia, Greenwich Village. We go on location to Washington Square Park singalongs, or to legendary folk club the Gaslight Café (including a brief glimpse of Noel Paul Stookey's pre-Peter & Mary comedy act), or to Elaine Starkman's real-life clothing boutique (where a young Mary Travers once worked).
Hot Wheels! Short Films About Hot Rods, Slot Cars,
Skateboards and More at Moore
8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
From Philadelphia With Love Again:
More Industrial, Educational and other Lost Local Films
at Sedgwick Cultural Center
8:30 pm
Admission: $7.00
7135 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia
(215) 248-9229
Curator's Choice 2: Unseen Corners and
Forgotten Favorites from the Secret Cinema Archives
at Moore
8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
Convicted
at historic Eastern State Penitentiary
8:30 pm (doors open 7:30 pm)
Admission: $8.00
22nd & Fairmount Sts., Philadelphia
(215) 236-3300
Glenn Ford plays an innocent man framed for the murder of a prominent citizen, and when denied parole after years in prison he joins in with hardened violent prisoners in an escape plot. Broderick Crawford is the honest warden trying to set things straight, in this noir era remake of the 1931 film (and earlier Broadway play) The Criminal Code. "Some good twists and turns in this well-scripted and tautly directed wrong man story wherein Ford excels as the victim." - Motion Picture Guide.
Exploration/Exploitation double-feature
closes season at Moore
Congorilla - 8:00 pm
Beyond the Caribbean - 10:00 pm
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
Congorilla - 8:00 pm
Beyond the Caribbean - 10:00 pm
Congorilla was the first sound film from Martin & Osa Johnson, a husband and wife explorer team who achieved huge popularity in the early 20th century by blending daring adventure with Hollywood entertainment values. Martin Johnson had traveled the South Pacific with Jack London. While home in Kansas he met 16-year-old Osa and promptly married her. Thus began a lifelong partnership summed up in the title of Osa's later autobiography, I Married Adventure. They journeyed to Africa, the South Seas and Borneo, becoming celebrities as pioneering pilots, filmmakers, authors, photographers and lecturers, sharing their studies of the people and nature of previously unseen lands. Their eight feature films were released by major Hollywood studios and were box office hits. Their successful marketing concepts included their own clothing line, and even early product placement in their films.
Not even listed in most film reference books, we guarantee that you will never see this movie projected again in your lifetime. Produced and directed by Andre Roosevelt (a nephew of President Theodore Roosevelt), it mixed actual travel footage with awkwardly staged dramatic scenes, cheaply shot with post-dubbed dialogue. The simple yet contrived plot concerns a pair of fortune hunters who get stranded on an island. They are rescued by Andre Roosevelt (playing himself), and find their way to a dangerous tribe of natives who are engaged in weird voodoo ceremonies.
The best of From Philadelphia With Love:
Industrial, Educational and other Lost Local Films
at Sedgwick Cultural Center
8:00 pm
Admission: $7.00
7135 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia
(215) 248-9229
From Philadelphia With Love 3: Still More
Industrial, Educational and other Lost Local Films
8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 965-4099
The Secret Cinema presents long-promised
A Loving Tribute to Shemp Howard
Friday, March 24
8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
at
Moore College of Art & Design
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 568-4515, ext. 4099
Saturday, March 25
11:00 am through 5:00 pm
Admission: FREE with voucher from Friday night Moore show
at
The Stoogeum (see below)
Friday, March 24 - 8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
Admission: Included free with voucher from Friday night Moore screening
This early talkie, written by popular cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is quirky and undeniably dated, but not always in a bad way. A madcap mix of music, stagy vaudeville humor and grand-scaled cinematic slapstick, it shows some early approaches to using the new medium of sound movies to showcase the previously uncapturable American arts of musical theater and variety. The thin plotline concerns a troubled costume shop owner who invents wacky devices (like a hat-tipping machine) as a hobby. Soup To Nuts' greatest value is the vivid snapshot it provides of the earliest lineup of the Three Stooges, as they were still honing their unique comedic style (The Three Stooges films would not again include Shemp Howard for another 16 years). It also shows how they worked with their straight man mentor Ted Healy, the top-billed star of the picture and one of the biggest names in vaudeville. His physical comedy and cynical manner were a great influence on the Stooges and others -- no less than Milton Berle called him "my idol" -- but Healy was doomed to be forgotten after his early, tragic death, following a vicious beating by three men outside a Hollywood nightclub.
The Secret Cinema presents evening with legendary
'60s Apple Records recording artist Brute Force
(plus Mr. Unloved and D.J.'s Silvia & Jay)
1508 South Street, Philadelphia
(215) 545-0475
9:30 pm to 2:00 am
Admission: $7.00
A Child's Introduction to Social Guidance Films
at Moore
20th & Race Streets, Philadelphia
(215) 568-4515, ext. 4099
8:00 pm
Admission: $6.00
