Last Updated: 2/7/25
Since 1992, the Secret Cinema has been the Philadelphia area’s premiere floating repertory cinema series, bringing hundreds of unique programs to nightclubs, bars, coffee houses, museums, open fields, colleges, art galleries, bookstores, and sometimes even theaters and film festivals. Drawing on its own large private film archive (as well as other collections), the Secret Cinema attempts to explore the uncharted territory and the genres that fall between the cracks, with programs devoted to educational and industrial films, cult and exploitation features, cartoons, rare television, local history, home movies, erotic films, politically incorrect material, and the odd Hollywood classic. As long as it exists on real celluloid, that is—Secret Cinema screenings never use video/digital projection. While mainly based in Philadelphia, the Secret Cinema has also brought programming to other cities and countries.
Friday, February 28, 2025
8:00 pm
Admission: $10.00
Old Pine Community Center
401 Lombard Street, Philadelphia
215-627-2493
On Friday, February 28 -- two nights before the Academy Awards telecast -- the Secret Cinema will present an all-new edition of And the Envelope, Please: Oscar-Winning Short Films. This program showcases films that rose to the highest of honors, yet unlike the longer prize-winning films of their time, are now largely overlooked. We feel they all deserve to be seen again! They include live-action short dramas, animation, a documentary and the only short film to ever win the best screenplay award.
There will be one complete show at 8:00 pm. Admission is $10.00.
The screening will be shown in the Old Pine Community Center, at the Northwest corner of 4th & Lombard Streets in Center City, steps away from South Street restaurants and shopping.
The films in this program span from 1946 through 1969.
A few highlights of the program include:
The Bespoke Overcoat (1956, Dir: Jack Clayton) - This British production, about a Jewish tailor visited by the ghost of a poor friend who needed an overcoat, won the Academy Award for Best Two-Reel Short Subject. The film was based on a play by author/screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz (Expresso Bongo). The short was the second film directed by Clayton, who had previously assisted Alexander Korda, Michael Powell and David Lean. Clayton later made several notable features, including Room at the Top, The Innocents and Something Wicked This Way Comes. His career suffered from a number of setbacks, including several proposed projects that never saw completion -- among them an early adaptation of The Bourne Identity that was to star Burt Reynolds.
Frank Film (1973, Dir: Frank and Caroline Mouris) - This dense, unusual work resembles few other animated works, yet took the Best Animated Short Subject Oscar. Mouris used a multiplane animation camera to capture a cascading collage of over 11,000 images of consumer goods that dance across the screen. The painstakingly assembled frames are related, in a confusing dual narration (mixed by audio documentarian Tony Schwartz), to Frank Mouris' own life. Frank Film is both an Academy Award winner and a National Film Registry entry.
The Red Balloon (1956, Dir: Albert Lamorisse) - Perhaps the least-forgotten film of our program is this delightful Technicolor fantasy, about the adventures of a young boy who wanders the streets of Paris followed by a large, magical balloon with a mind of its own. Director Lamorisse cast his own young son and daughter to star in the film. While it captures many decayed parts of the city that were later lost to urban renewal projects, The Red Balloon has had an incredible reception and longevity for a short film. Unusually it won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar -- besting features like La Strada and The Ladykillers. It won a host of other awards and honors around the world, has been a staple of school film libraries since its release, has been released on every home video format, and has been the subject of numerous homages and parodies in pop culture (even an Elliott Smith rock video). Lamorisse directed more shorts, features and documentaries -- and also invented the popular board game Risk.
Plus The House I Live In (1946 honorary award winner) and The Magic Machines (1969 Best Documentary Short Subject).
About Old Pine Community Center: Since 1977, Old Pine Community Center's mission has been to enrich the lives of its neighbors through dynamic programs and services focused on children and families, food insecurity, and community engagement. Their goal is to create welcoming and safe spaces for children, adults, seniors, and neighbors for their benefit and the benefit of future generations.
Glen Foerd on the Delaware
Grant Avenue & Milnor Street, Philadelphia
215-632-5330
Friday, March 7, 2025
7:30 pm (doors open 7:00 pm)
Admission: $25, $20 students and seniors
On Friday, March 7, the Secret Cinema will again be hosted by one of the most impressive venues in our long history -- Glen Foerd on the Delaware, a historic 1850 mansion and estate located in the Torresdale neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia. Glen Foerd is Philadelphia's last remaining Delaware River estate open to the public.
This silent film presentation will not be silent, as expert keyboardist Don Kinnier (veteran collaborator for several past Secret Cinema programs) will bring the movie alive with his accompaniment on the mansion's recently restored 1902 Haskell pipe organ.
We'll be showing one of our favorite Lon Chaney features, the first film released by the MGM studio, and an unlikely commercial hit in 1924: He Who Gets Slapped. With its twisted themes of madness, masochism, and dangerous clowns, this is as odd a film as Secret Cinema has ever screened.
The screening will also include surprise silent short subjects.
There will be one complete show at 7:30 pm. Doors will open at 7:00 pm to allow touring of the mansion and grounds.
The film will be shown in the gilded-age mansion's beautiful second floor art gallery (stair access only).
Admission is $25, $20 students and seniors. Seating is limited.
Buy tickets here.
Glen Foerd on the Delaware is a 5-minute walk from the Torresdale station of SEPTA's Trenton Regional Rail Line or the 19 & 84 bus routes. There is ample free parking within the estate.
He Who Gets Slapped (1924, Dir: Victor Seastom)
Lon Chaney (Sr.), increasingly the silent era star with perhaps the most appeal to modern audiences, played a variety of unusual roles throughout the 1920s -- but none were more bizarre than in Chaney stars as a scientist driven mad when both his thesis and wife are stolen by his mentor. Leaving the academic world behind, the beaten man transforms himself into the ultimate masochist, and reemerges as HE, a famous circus clown whose celebrated routine consists of being humiliated by other clowns that line up to repeatedly slap his face, tear out his heart and tread it into the dirt! The crowds laugh at HE without knowing the torture in his psyche, but when HE crosses paths with his unwitting enemy, the lonely clown plots a devious and sweet revenge…in hopes of triumphing as "the one who laughs last."
He Who Gets Slapped was the most famous play by the Russian writer Leonid Andreyev. As a young law student Andreyev suffered extreme depression and made several suicide attempts. Upon graduation he turned to writing, under the tutelage of Maxim Gorky. In addition to many successes with novels and plays, Andreyev was also an accomplished photographer.
The first production of the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was the second American film by Swedish director Victor Seastom (born Sjöström). The dark, symbolism-filled work was considered a risky venture, but proved quite popular and prompted Chaplin to label Seastom "the greatest director in the world." Seastom was raised in America but returned to Sweden after his mother's death, finding work as an actor in the theater. His first film role was in 1912, under Sweden's other great silent era director, Mauritz Stiller. Seastom began directing the following year, and after much acclaim was brought back to the U.S. in 1923. He directed his last film in 1938 but continued acting, until his final role as Professor Berg in Bergman's (1957).
About Glen Foerd on the Delaware: The Glen Foerd mansion was built in 1850 by businessman Charles Macalester, Jr. The estate was later purchased by leather manufacturer Robert Foerderer, who enlarged and added extensive enhancements to the property, including a formal dining room, an impressive art gallery, a pipe organ, parquet floors, a grand staircase and elaborate leaded glass skylights. The Foerderers' daughter Florence lived in the estate until her death in 1971. In 1985 the property was taken over by the Glen Foerd Conservation Corporation and the Fairmount Park Commission, and is today operated as a historic house museum and public park.
About Don Kinnier: The silent film era, from its tentative first steps to its final artistic masterpieces, lasted for about 35 years. Musician Don Kinnier has been accompanying silent film screenings for over 55 years! Pennsylvania's foremost exponent of this very specialized art form, he has studied the techniques and repertoires of the original theater musicians of the silent era. A Philadelphia native (now based in Lititz), Don has toured internationally, and has maintained a long and fruitful relationship with Longwood Gardens, playing recently at the Fanfare Weekend rededication of the large Aeolian organ there. He also plays at The Strand Capitol Performing Arts Center and the Allen Theatre, and provided the soundtrack for many past Secret Cinema events.
NEW! 2008 interview with Secret Cinema's Jay Schwartz from an academic journal
Channel 29 news piece on Secret Cinema from 1999!
Secret Cinema 1999 Annual Report
Secret Cinema 1998 Annual Report
Secret Cinema 1997 Annual Report
Information about the 1998 Secret Cinema "Class Trip" to the Syracuse Cinefest