Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 23

Megan McGurk introduces five stellar woman’s pictures from the 1940s each Thursday in March.

Tickets are available from Eventbrite.

Third Finger, Left Hand (1940)

Screens 2 March, 7.00

Myrna Loy plays a successful magazine editor who pretends to be married. She wears a gold wedding band for protection against wolves and sexual harassment on the job. But then suddenly, Melvyn Douglas shows up and claims to be her husband. What’s a busy editor to do? Art director Cedric Gibbons understood the appeal of seeing a woman seated behind a very big desk. And costume designer Dolly Tree combines a glorious wardrobe for Loy’s career woman, including sobersides tweed and a whimsical cherry basket hat.

Moon over Miami (1941)

Screens 9 March, 7.00

Shot in gorgeous, sweet-shop Technicolor, director Walter Lang styles a durable feel-good premise: How will three ambitious dames snare a man with deep pockets? Betty Grable, Carole Landis, and Charlotte Greenwood pool their resources to hunt for a millionaire in a fashionable Miami resort. Costumes by Travis Banton and choreography by Hermes Pan embellish a breezy romantic comedy musical. Betty Grable leading a conga line has the cure for what ails you.

The Gay Sisters (1943)

Screens 16 March, 7.00

Wicklow-born Geraldine Fitzgerald belongs to an elite quartet of co-stars who managed to upstage Barbara Stanwyck, alongside Joan Blondell, Gary Cooper, and Walter Huston. Stanwyck, an emotional firebrand in front of a camera, usually dominated every scene. In Irving Rapper’s film about orphaned heiresses, Fitzgerald plays the horny adventuress sister and steals more than one scene from the star. Three poor little rich gals (Nancy Coleman plays the nice one) are beset by a greedy developer (George Brent) who tries to win their familial property in court. As Fiona, the eldest, Stanwyck figures she knows all the angles to fix the legal ties that bind the Gaylord sisters.

Nocturne (1946)

Screens 23 March, 7.00

When a skirt-chasing composer is murdered, the prime suspects are all brunettes named Dolores. George Raft would no more have stepped on a star’s line of dialogue than he would a dance partner’s feet, which makes him ideal in the role of a police detective who leads the investigation. Raft questions a glamorous rogue’s gallery of hardworking women trying to catch a break in Hollywood, including platinum sex bomb Myrna Dell (playing a maid!) and Lynn Bari, a film studio extra. Producer Joan Harrison, who also contributed to the script, began her career as screenwriter for Hitchcock before she became an executive in RKO.

Forever Amber (1948)

Screens 30 March, 7.00

Linda Darnell shines in the screen adaptation of Kathleen Winsor’s bestselling bonkbuster. Darnell’s character is a ruthless mercenary, a Restoration-era Baby Face who sleeps her way to the top. Amber juggles demands from many men in return for a life of luxury, much like Darnell did in real life. René Hubert’s lavish designs set the stage for Twentieth Century Fox’s epic bodice-ripper costume drama that was fiercely condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 22

Megan McGurk introduces four classic woman’s pictures in January 2023.

Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

Take a Letter, Darling (1942)

Screens 5 January at 7.00

Office politics are turned upside down in this whip-smart comedy from Mitchell Leisen. Rosalind Russell plays an advertising executive who lands multi-million accounts, but she needs a man on her arm to appear non-threatening to the wives and sweethearts of men in business. Fred MacMurray becomes her personal secretary and soon feels de-sexed by the subordinate role. Roz cornered the market on career gal roles during the 1940s.

Lady of Burlesque (1943)

Screens 12 January at 7.00

Barbara Stanwyck could do anything, and that includes break-dancing and singing about her G-string. William Wellman directs the ultimate crossover in woman’s pictures: Barbara Stanwyck plays Gypsy Rose Lee, America’s most celebrated burlesque queen, with a name so red-hot, the censors wouldn’t even allow it to appear on the big screen.

No Time for Love (1943)

Screens 19 January at 7.00

Due to the war effort, the man shortage was at an all-time high by 1943. You know the song about how they’re either too young or too old? Director Mitch Leisen knew what women wanted was to see burly bare-chested men roll around in the mud. The women were horny, and Claudette Colbert showed them what to do about it when she snapped photos of Fred MacMurray looking like a caveman.

Lady on a Train (1945)

Screens 26 January at 7.0

Deanna Durbin’s pictures in the 1930s were such box office hits that she singlehandedly kept the lights on at Universal studio when she was only a child. It’s a cinch she could solve a murder mystery. She gives a glorious performance as a singing detective. I feel compelled to mention Deanna’s wardrobe by Howard Greer. She wears so many mad hats you simply don’t want to miss.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 19

Each Thursday in May, Megan McGurk presents four classic melodramas from the 1940s.

Tickets are available through Eventbrite.

IN THIS OUR LIFE (1942)

Benjamin Franklin kept a checklist of 13 virtues that he monitored each day to reflect on his growth as an upstanding citizen. By contrast, Stanley Timberlake, played by Bette Davis, keeps a scorecard of vice. She runs off with her sister’s fiancé then drives him to commit suicide. She’s manipulative, greedy, reckless. For the coup de grâce, she pins a homicide on an innocent Black man. Olivia de Havilland, as Stanley’s unfortunate sister Roy, holds her own with a steady underplay. In one scene, Olivia takes her time putting on a hat, which is enough to tell the audience she’s no doormat. John Huston’s Southern Gothic melodrama reaches a steady boil.

MY REPUTATION (1946)

Before Douglas Sirk exposed narrow-minded views about widowhood in vivid Technicolor with All That Heaven Allows, Curtis Bernhardt painted a stark monochrome portrait of a community who expects a woman to put herself in mothballs once she loses her husband. Barbara Stanwyck’s character shares the same fate as many other women after the war. Should Jessica wear black, stay single, and avoid gossip? Or should she follow the advice of wing woman Eve Arden and see what happens with George Brent?

THE GHOST AND MRS MUIR (1947)

Gene Tierney takes her adorable daughter (Natalie Wood) and trusty housekeeper (Edna Best) to live in a cottage by the sea. Unlike past occupants, she refuses to leave when she learns it has a resident ghost, a former ship’s captain played by Rex Harrison. Instead of rattling chains or disturbing her sleep with a repertoire of sea shanties, the mariner allows the women to stay and even strikes a bargain: Gene can write his salty memoirs and make herself financially independent.

DAISY KENYON (1947)

Joan Crawford stars in a three-cornered romance, caught between a cynical married man (Dana Andrews), who has strung her along for years and a battle-scarred veteran (Henry Fonda), who rushes to commitment one minute and disappears the next. Otto Preminger fashions a postwar melodrama about hot-and-bothered men who upset the placid life of a successful career gal.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 18

Megan McGurk introduces a classic woman’s picture each Thursday in March.

Tickets available through Eventbrite

Cleopatra (1934)

Screens 3 March

Cecil B. DeMille’s ‘epic with sex’ was subjected to changes by the newly installed Production Code Administration, led by po-faced Joseph Breen. Even with the bluenose interference, DeMille’s production is full of lusty charm, glamorous design, and erotic choreography. Travis Banton’s costumes for Claudette Colbert will knock your eye out. And it clocks in at an economical one hour and forty minutes.

Desire (1936)

Screens 10 March

Marlene Dietrich marches into a jewellery shop with the same royal command she used for playing Catherine the Great, mounted on horseback, clearing the palace of enemies. The most glamorous jewel thief on the planet is prepared for every contingency, except falling for a big galoot from Detroit (Gary Cooper). Directed by Frank Borzage and produced by Ernst Lubitsch, it’s a prized gem of sexy romance.

Libeled Lady (1936)

Screens 17 March

Once you set aside disbelief that Jean Harlow wants to marry a ham-fisted thug like Spencer Tracy, the farcical hijinks and snappy dialogue of this stylish ensemble piece, also starring Myrna Loy and William Powell, create one of the bubbliest screwball comedies of classical Hollywood.

History Is Made at Night (1937)

Screens 24 March

Jean Arthur is almost raped during a scheme engineered by the wealthy husband she’s trying to divorce (Colin Clive wearing a permanent sneer). At the last minute, she’s rescued by Charles Boyer. Before dawn, she has fallen in love with the dashing head waiter. But the psycho ex refuses to let her go. Director Frank Borzage’s romantic melodrama argues that nothing can keep two lovers apart.

The Awful Truth (1937)

Screens 31 March

A fake tan and close quarters with a singing instructor are two random details misconstrued by a husband and wife. Irene Dunne and Cary Grant discover that love is doomed when faith goes out the window. Leo McCarey sets the gold standard for the screwball ‘comedy of remarriage,’ proving that inside every dedicated gag man beats the heart of an incurable romantic.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 17

Join Megan McGurk for a series of woman’s pictures in glorious Technicolour, Thursdays in January 2022.

Screenings begin at 6.00 sharp to comply with new restrictions.

Tickets are available from Eventbrite

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951)

6 January

Ava Gardner plays a petulant beauty who toys with men for kicks until James Mason appears in this lush romantic fantasy. The gorgeous cinematography by Jack Cardiff is a sight for sore eyes.

The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956)

13 January

Run out of town on a morals charge, Jane Russell sails to Hawaii, turns brick top, and finds a lucrative loophole that brings financial independence and freedom from the small minds of men.

Bells are Ringing (1960)

20 January

Judy Holliday played the switchboard operator who works miracles for her clients over 1000 times before she faced the camera for this seratonin-boosting Metrocolor musical. Each little bit of business she performs is as fresh as a daisy.

Madame X (1966)

27 January

Lana Turner proves that when a star falls to pieces on the big screen, she still has an inner reserve of strength from years of studio training. Deep in her cups, at her lowest point, Lana’s character retains the MGM walk. She gives an exquisite performance from start to finish.