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.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 16

Each Thursday in November, Megan McGurk introduces a classic woman’s picture in the Brooks Hotel cinema.

Popcorn included!

Tickets are available through Eventbrite

Be sound and wear a mask. Bring your vaccine cert.

Primrose Path (1940)

Ginger Rogers is supposed to follow the women in her family who work in the world’s oldest profession. She hides out in tomboy duds until one day she falls for Joel McCrea. Ashamed of her family, she tells a whopper about being thrown out of the house to hasten their nuptials. Trouble follows when he learns the truth. Director Gregory La Cava had an eye and ear for sass mouth dames–he was always on our side.

Screens 4 November

The Seventh Veil (1945)

I bet you can name at least a dozen pictures about a male genius and the woman who loved him. How many can you think of where the woman is the genius and the man devotes his life to serving her art? Ann Todd and James Mason flip the traditional script in a gorgeous tale about the collision of art and desire with some psychological twists.

Screens 11 November

Sleep, My Love (1948)

Claudette Colbert can’t figure out how she woke up on a train without having any memory of getting there. Nor can she account for other foggy recollections or why she’s sleepwalking on her balcony. Could it have anything to do with the strange man in thick glasses who scratched up her upholstery? Is it because of another strange man who seems so solicitous? Or is her handsome husband, played by Don Ameche, with that pillow talk voice, the one responsible? Douglas Sirk goes full Bluebeard.

Screens 18 November

Tension (1949)

Technically, this isn’t a woman’s picture. But there would be no other reason to watch it but for the sublime acid tongue, unabashed greed, and self-absorption of star Audrey Totter. If they had assembled 90 minutes of Audrey Totter scowling at men, I’d still be watching it. And Cyd Charisse is along for the ride.

Screens 25 November

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club Series 14

Series 14 of Sass Mouth Dames Film Club screens four outstanding Bluebeard pictures, a theme which developed from a 17^th century French folktale about a nobleman who killed multiple wives. During the post-war era, while men in film noir explored paranoid fantasies about two-timing dames, woman’s pictures gave an audience a chance to imagine their deepest fear about husbands who had murder on the brain. Women kept the home fires burning, but when men returned, did they wonder: Who was the trained killer in their bed?

Megan McGurk introduces the pictures, Thursday in March.

Brooks Hotel Cinema, Drury Street, Dublin.

Popcorn is free!

Tickets are available 13 February through Eventbrite.

Undercurrent (1946)

5 March

Nearly every star of woman’s pictures during the 1930s made a Bluebeard story—even Katharine Hepburn. Initially content to run her father’s house, Hepburn’s character becomes overwhelmed with desire for a suave inventor sporting a chiselled widow’s peak and sad eyes from the war, played by Robert Taylor. What she mistakes for a romantic disposition turns out to be something much more sinister. Bob Mitchum turns up as Taylor’s ‘bad boy’ brother, making traditional ideas about ideal masculinity even more complicated.

Secret Beyond the Door (1947)

12 March

Just like many of us, Joan Bennett’s character prefers to sleep until eleven, and needs three cups of coffee before she can feel conscious in the morning. On holiday in Mexico, she becomes aroused watching two men throw knives, fighting over a woman. Ripe for a fling with a handsome stranger (Michael Redgrave), she gives way to passion, which leads to a trip down the aisle. Once she’s installed in his family home as the new missus, Bennett faces a brutal truth that she married a total stranger who has a macabre hobby.

Too Late for Tears (1949)

19 March

Although Lizabeth Scott’s husband does not try to kill her, he does attempt to keep her from spending a bag of money they find one night, which is a cut too deep, especially for a woman with dreams of mink. Soon enough, she’s in grave danger when Dan Duryea attempts to recover the loot and delivers one of his best sleazy characters—a gangster who takes pleasure in threatening women. Lizabeth Scott is not easily deterred from her plan to buy things. Impressed, Duryea realises that he hasn’t stumbled upon an average housewife.

Sudden Fear (1952)

26 March

Joan Crawford enjoys an independent life based on inherited wealth and a successful career as a playwright at the beginning of the film. During rehearsals for her new theatre production, she sacks an actor (Jack Palance), because from every seat in the house, at any angle, he was not what she considered to be a swoon merchant leading man. On the train home to California, she meets up with the disgruntled actor and succumbs to his charms. After a hasty exchange of vows, Joan discovers her new groom wants her dead, so that he can cash in and run off with a mistress, played by sexpot Gloria Grahame.

(Original Caption) Look Who’s Selling Tickets! New York: Delightfully surprised, these early customers buy their tickets from film actress Joan Crawford, who out put in a personal appearance at the New York movie theater where her latest film, Sudden Fear, held its world premiere. Not only did the glamorous Miss Crawford sell first tickets, but she passed out photos of herself and shook hands with thousands of fans. After all that, she almost passed out herself.

If you want to cancel your ticket, I will send a refund up until noon on the day of the screening.

Use the cancel/refund option on Eventbrite.

Thanks so much for supporting the film club!

Sass Mouth Dames is a non-profit venture.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club Series 13

Pick any year out of a hat between 1929 and 1959, and you could draw an impressive list of films that put women at the centre of the narrative universe. The five pictures from 1949 selected for series 13 feature juicy plots, outstanding performances, and exquisite production values.

Megan McGurk introduces each film in the Brooks Hotel Cinema, Thursdays in January.

Tickets available from Eventbrite.

The Heiress (1949)

Screens 2 January

As fortune hunters go, you would be hard pressed to find a bigger swoon merchant than Montgomery Clift. Olivia de Havilland won the Best Actress Oscar for her role as Catherine Sloper, a woman who is psychologically battered by her father, played by Ralph Richardson. Dr Sloper believes his daughter plain and lacking grace, so he assumes that a dashing rogue with coxcomb hair only cares for her inheritance. Scene stealing minx Miriam Hopkins turns up to build the drama.

Beyond the Forest (1949)

Screens 9 January

Bette’s character Rosa Molina wants her heart’s desire in hot sex with David Brian, rather than settle for a safe marriage to Joseph Cotten. During a scene meant to clarify ‘the problem with no name’, Bette delivers one of her most quotable lines: ‘What a dump.’ But the line has no exclamation mark. Bette’s discontent and fury are so palpable that some prefer to read it as camp. Make no mistake, Bette plays for keeps through withering glances and acid-laced retorts while she gathers kindling to launch a scorched-earth campaign for independence.

My Foolish Heart (1949)

Screens 16 January

Adapted from J.D. Salinger’s ‘Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut’, from his collection Nine Stories. Julius and Philip Epstein improve upon the original story with dimension for Susan Hayward’s tragic dame. The Epstein brothers create empathy for a woman whose life went off the rails. How does a gal in the wrong dress meet the right guy at the wrong time? Susan Hayward received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a role which reminded audiences that women suffered and made sacrifices during the war—and they weren’t given medals or ticker tape parades.

Flamingo Road (1949)

Screens 23 January

Joan Crawford re-teams with Mildred Pierce (1945) director Michael Curtiz and co-star Zachary Scott to play a carnival cooch dancer who decides to put down roots in a quiet town. As the local political big wig, Sydney Greenstreet decides she isn’t fit to wait tables, and frames Joan for solicitation. Thirty days in the cooler give her plenty of time to figure out the next move. Joan Crawford looks every bit the business when she applies true grit to occupy a home in the best address—Flamingo Road.

A Letter to Three Wives (1949)

Screens 30 January

Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote and directed the picture that everyone went to see. He earned two Oscars for his efforts. The following year, Mankiewicz made Oscar history when he won the same awards for All About Eve. In his huge success in 1949, three husbands sing the unqualified praises of a suburban siren, Addie Ross. The ‘queen in a silver frame’ sends a letter addressed to three wives: Ann Sothern, Linda Darnell, and Jeanne Crain. Addie’s letter includes a bit of a shocker by way of farewell, when she confesses that she’s run off with one of their husbands. Thelma Ritter and Connie Gilchrist play two hardboiled sass mouth dames who steal every scene they’re given.

Please note the new refund policy: you can request a refund on your ticket up to noon on the day the picture screens. But after that, I don’t have enough time to re-sell the ticket, so it’s up to you to find a taker.

Thanks very much! See you with the dames.