Joan Blondell plays a waitress on the hunt for a rich husband. She strikes up a friendship with Melvyn Douglas, a swoon merchant disguised as a stuffed-shirt professor who can’t help giving lessons on how to be a lady. Trying to curb her penchant for accepting gifts from men, he advises that she only accept flowers, fruit, candy, and hospitality. Just how creative can Joan Blondell get with those directions?
The Big Street (1942)
Screens 10 October at 7.00.
Best known for being a comedic powerhouse who invented appointment TV and later bought the studio that once considered her only a second-tier contract player, Lucille Ball proves her dramatic chops in one of the best Broadway fables from Damon Runyon. Lucy plays a hard-boiled canary with a cash register where a heart ought to be. Henry Fonda, a bus boy, worships her from a far and then up close.
Old Acquaintance (1943)
Screens 17 October at 7.00.
Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins play college pals who become rival novelists. Bette is the highbrow author who struggles writing literary fiction. Miriam writes bodice rippers that turn into commercial best sellers. Bette wears jackets and ties; Miriam wears ruffles and lace. Sparks fly whenever they meet, making the love interests with men the least interesting thing about the picture.
Tallulah Bankhead plays an heiress who lives on caviar, champagne, and designs by Adrian. She scoffs at the idea of living on the $400 a week her fiancé Robert Montgomery makes in advertising. After the Wall Street Crash, the best laid plans of sables, diamonds, and Monte Carlo go bust, catapulting our heroine into a rapid downward spiral. Tallulah loses everything—her money, possessions, and self-respect. When she hits rock bottom, will Bob Montgomery stick?
The Richest Girl in the World(1934)
Screens 9 May at 7.00
Miriam Hopkins shares a fizzy rapport with Joel McCrea in a picture that made a bundle at the box office and brought the co-stars together for four more pictures. Playing a savvy scion inspired by Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, Miriam fends off a shower of fortune hunters who toy with her affections. Since she can’t be sure of any man’s intentions, Miriam switches places with her secretary, played by Fay Wray, to discover if Joel is after her heart or her money.
Stella Dallas (1937)
Screens 16 May
Director King Vidor’s classic three-hankie melodrama captures the way society pressures women to conform within traditional roles. Barbara Stanwyck plays a brassy, fun-loving gal from the wrong side of the tracks who catches the eye of the son from a wealthy small-town family. John Boles falls for her unpolished charm, but as soon as they exchange vows, he tries to smooth her rough edges. Their daughter, played by Anne Shirley, inherits her father’s snobbery, and is mortified by her mother’s loud wardrobe. Barbara Stanwyck’s performance is a belter.
Joan Crawford contributed to the script which was loosely based on the life of social-climber and Bugsy Siegel’s main squeeze, Virginia Hill. Joan spends the run-time in a quest for good taste and a life of her own. After leaving a bitter husband in the rear-view, she sells cigars, models clothes, and dallies with important men. Joan becomes the kind of quality dame who matches appropriate flowers for the time of day. In one scene, she scoffs at the flower box in Steve Cochran’s hands: ‘I don’t care for orchids in the afternoon.’
Mister 880 (1950)
Screens 14 March
On one level, the picture adapts a classic New Yorker essay about a counterfeiter who eluded capture for years. In the middle of the manhunt, a sparkling romance develops between Dorothy McGuire and Burt Lancaster. Screenwriter Robert Riskin had been a master of the ‘meet cute’ for nearly twenty years. Looking for any excuse to prolong contact with the broad-shouldered G-man, Dorothy makes herself a suspect in the investigation by learning antiquated forgerer’s slang, such as ‘boodle of queer.’
Tomorrow Is Another Day (1951)
Screens 21 March
Ruth Roman plays a platinum blonde taxi dancer kept under the thumb of a shady police detective. One night in the club, she picks up Steve Cochran, a chaste ex-con who seems like an easy touch for presents. Hardboiled and world-weary, Ruth realises that Steve is as innocent as a polished apple. After the cop is killed in her apartment, she lets Steve think he pulled the trigger. The star-crossed lovers on the run find refuge among farm workers. Can they make a fresh start? Or will the law catch up with them?
Peyton Place (1957)
Screens 28 March
Lana Turner’s star power summoned box office gold and the sole Best Actress nomination that she received during a long career. Lana kept the lights on at Twentieth Century Fox when the studio was almost bankrupt by the competition from television. The lush melodrama was based on the best-selling novel by Grace Metalious, an impoverished young housewife who lived without running water and fed a family of five on $20 a week. Peyton Place stirred controversy with a frank depiction of taboo topics such as rape, incest, and abortion.
Refunds are available until noon on the day of the screening.
Woody Van Dyke’s screwball comedy lampoons polite marital norms. College professor Don Ameche writes a dull book arguing that jealousy is nothing but a holdover from the cave man. Rosalind Russell, as his wife, believes it’s the spice of life. If her husband really loved her, he’d knock out any man who got fresh. Their theories are put to the test with the arrival of Kay Francis, a lusty publisher, and Van Heflin, a horny devil with a goatee and a satin make-out couch.
Phantom Lady (1944)
Screens 11 January at 7.00
Joan Harrison, former screenwriter for Hitchcock, steps into the role of executive producer in a stylish mystery directed by master of noir Robert Siodmak. Ella Raines tries to prove her boss is innocent of a murder charge. During her search for a woman in a standout hat, Ella bargains for answers by egging on a musician who uses a drum kit to perform a frantic masturbatory jazz solo. It’s all in a night’s work for a razor-sharp investigator.
Down to Earth (1947)
Screens 18 January at 7.00
Terpsichore, goddess of dance, played by Rita Hayworth, is outraged by a Broadway show using her likeness. The divine Rita descends on the ‘Big Street’ to mount a highbrow production replacing the formerly glitzy portrayal of the Muses. But Olympian art clashes with American taste and the show flops. Will the goddess ditch the boards for the heavens, or will she be a trouper?
The Fountainhead (1949)
Screens 25 January at 7.00
Forget about the cartoonish polemic of Ayn Rand’s novel. The real draw of this sly adaptation from Warner Brothers studio is the relationship between its stars. Director King Vidor trades ham-fisted politics for the volcanic heat between Patricia Neal and Gary Cooper. Vidor skirts the Production Code censors with scenes staged with a drill, a whip, and a fireplace poker to underscore the explosive chemistry of stars embroiled in a real-life affair. Patricia risked it all for Coop, just like her character on the big screen.
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.
