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.
