Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 36

Dublin’s most glamorous film club returns in November!

Megan McGurk introduces three classic Hollywood pictures in The Dot Theatre.

Get your tickets at Eventbrite

You Can’t Have Everything (1937)

(Screens 13 November at 7.00)

Alice Faye is a playwright, down on her luck, despite having an impeccable literary pedigree. Her grandfather was Edgar Allan Poe, which explains how she can keep her chin up while doing a gloomy job like wearing a sandwich board in the rain. Instead of being accosted by a raven, she must fend off a successful author of popular Broadway musicals, played by Don Ameche. He thinks that she should give up writing and sing on the stage. But Alice Faye plays a highbrow, aghast at his hackneyed productions. Gypsy Rose Lee, gowned to the teeth by Royer, makes her screen debut as the bitchy ‘other woman.’ Gypsy in her prime is not to be missed.

Too Many Husbands (1940)

(Screens 20 November at 7.00)

Jean Arthur, newly married to Melvyn Douglas, discovers that her first husband Fred MacMurray wasn’t lost at sea after all. With two husbands under one roof, until she makes up her mind, Jean has the men bunk together in a frilly satin boudoir that looks like the inside of a music box. Wesley Ruggles directs a sublime screwball comedy where the men behave like absolute idiots to win her hand. When the film was released, in March 1940, Life magazine ran a feature which declared, ‘Next to Garbo, Jean Arthur is Hollywood’s reigning mystery queen.’ Amidst the macho slapstick, she seems like an open book.

The Major and the Minor (1942)

(Screens 27 November)

Billy Wilder left nothing to chance for his Hollywood directorial debut. The script, co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett, is a glorious screwball farce starring Ginger Rogers, who calls it quits on the big city then disguises herself as a child when she can’t afford the train fare home. In pigtail braids, Ginger fools the train conductor, but she also convinces a swoon merchant on board, played by Ray Milland, that she’s only twelve years old. She falls for him while stuck in a masquerade. Ginger wrote in her memoir that she had more fun working on the picture than any other, except Kitty Foyle (for which she won her Oscar).

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 35

Megan McGurk introduces three classic Hollywood pre-Codes in September.

Join us at the Dot Theatre for a glass of wine and a sparkling picture.

Tickets available at Eventbrite.

City Streets (1931)

Screens 4 September at 7.00

Modern audiences tend to know Sylvia Sidney from her late-career work with Tim Burton, yet she was an instant star in Hollywood after her screen debut in City Streets. Dashiell Hammett claimed that he wasn’t pleased with Paramount’s version of his story, ‘After School’ which he later revised and retitled, ‘The Kiss-Off.’ But he was smitten with Sylvia Sidney, citing her as his favourite screen actress. Sylvia plays Nan, a girl in the rackets who falls for a carnival sharpshooter named The Kid, played by swoon merchant Gary Cooper. Will their love survive, or will gangsters tear them apart?

The Story of Temple Drake (1933)

Screens 11 September at 7.00

Temple Drake, played by the luminous Miriam Hopkins, has the world on a string. She’s rich, beautiful, and part of an influential family, which gives her the freedom to thumb her nose at society’s rules. But one night, on a spree, she wanders into a spooky roadhouse, where instead of finding restless ghosts rattling chains, she’s surrounded by cutthroat bootleggers and rapists. Miriam was delighted with the heroine taken from Faulkner’s lurid novel Sanctuary. She noted: ‘that Temple Drake, now there was a thing. Just give me a nice, unstandardized wretch like Temple three times a year, and I’ll interpret the daylights out of them.’

Bonus short: On the Loose (1931)

Since Temple Drake is a lean 70 minutes, we’ll start with a short from Hal Roach comedy team Thelma Todd and Zasu Pitts. The gals are fed up with dates who take them to Coney Island. Comic mayhem ensues.

Twentieth Century (1934)

Screens 18 September at 7.00

Set at a breakneck pace that moves faster than the train it’s named after, Carole Lombard and John Barrymore give such animated performances in Twentieth Century that you could turn the film stills into a flipbook. They gesticulate, glower, and sling verbal darts at each other throughout the run of Howard Hawk’s screwball gem. Carole plays Mildred Plotka, a lingerie model who becomes a star thanks to the maniacal tutelage of Barrymore. Once she’s on top, with the stage name Lily Garland, he refuses to let go. The clash of their theatrical egos zings like a musical score, thanks to a brilliant script by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 34

Megan McGurk introduces two classic woman’s pictures.

Join us for a complimentary glass of wine or bring your own.

Tickets are available at Eventbrite

The Palm Beach Story (1942)

Screens Friday May 9 at 7.00

In Preston Sturges’s glorious screwball comedy, ‘sex always has something to do with it,’ which means that Claudette Colbert can step on Rudy Vallee’s face (twice), and rather than give out to her, he buys her a new wardrobe. Claudette plays a mug’s game, by convincing herself that she can divorce her swoon merchant husband Joel McCrea, who happens to be broke, just to grab the first millionaire she meets. In a classic woman’s picture, economic pragmatism flies out the window when Eros shoots an arrow in your can.

The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)

Screens Thursday, May 15 at 7.00

Lana Turner takes as much pride in her Twin Oaks uniform as the soldiers who stormed Normandy Beach. She’s a hard worker, keen on amounting to something. But what’s a gal to do when a drifter (John Garfield) gives you a look that promises to give you the business? Her husband (Cecil Kellaway) plans to cart her off to another country to be a caretaker for his sister. It will take an attorney more twisted than a corkscrew (Hume Cronyn) to pull her heels out of the fire. Lana should have gotten her flowers for playing a woman caught in a jam between duty and desire.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 33

Megan McGurk introduces two classic gems from the 1950s.

Tickets available at Eventbrite.

Have a glass of wine or bring your own.

Death of a Scoundrel (1956)

Screens Thursday March 13 at 7.00

Who killed George Sanders? Was it Bridget Kelly, the wharf hustler who became his executive secretary, played by Yvonne DeCarlo? Was it Mrs Ryan, the widow he swindled, played by real life ex-wife Zsa Zsa Gabor? Could it be Mrs. Van Renasslear (Coleen Gray), the married woman he seduced and tossed aside? Or was it Stephanie North (Nancy Gates), the budding ingenue he promised Broadway glory? Directed by Charles Martin, with cinematography by James Wong Howe, and a score by Max Steiner, the picture offers a glamorous postmortem of a savage financier who had it coming.

Beloved Infidel (1959)

Screens Wednesday March 19 at 7.00

Sheilah Graham was part of the mighty ‘unholy trio’ of gossip columnists that ruled Hollywood, along with Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper. Sheilah distinguished herself by printing acid barbs about stars who were used to flattering publicity. In multiple books she covered a bigger story about her own affair with F. Scott Fitzgerald. The literary lion was a studio screenwriter on the skids when she threw him a lifeline. Deborah Kerr captures the unique torment of loving a man haunted by his own demons. Although critics believed Gregory Peck was miscast as Fitzgerald, the actor taps into the enduring appeal the Jazz Age novelist had for Graham.

Sass Mouth Dames Film Club series 32

Megan McGurk introduces two superlative melodramas to ring in the new year.

Complimentary wine and snacks or bring your own.

Tickets are available at Eventbrite

The Best of Everything (1959)

Screens 9 January at 7.00

Rona Jaffe’s bestselling novel follows Hope Lange, Suzy Parker, and Diane Baker, three roommates who work as secretaries in a New York City publishing house. Their career path is littered with the usual perils: The louche boss who chases them around desks (Brian Aherne), a detached and judgy know it all (Stephen Boyd), a heartless Broadway lothario (Louis Jordan), a rich fuck boy (Robert Evans), and a boss who fears they are after her job (the exquisite Joan Crawford). This picture has the best of everything.

All That Heaven Allows (1955)

Screens 16 January at 7.00

Douglas Sirk’s portrait of suburban America highlights the poisonous underbelly that lurks behind the large homes and manicured lawns. Jane Wyman plays a widow who falls for the hunky gardener, played by Rock Hudson, a man who’s built like one of the trees he cultivates. Unfortunately, their passion is uniformly disapproved of by the local gossips and her snotty kids. Like so many heroines before her, Wyman’s character ignores what she desires just to please everyone else. Melodrama, thy name is Sirk.