SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our JOHN FORD FUNDAMENTALS series! Saturday, January 22, 2022
LOCATION: The Secret Movie Club Theater, 1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90021
*Please note entrance/parking is actually in the back of the building. Make a right on Wilson Street, then a right behind the building. We’re the first set of black steps after the big gate. We’ll have staff to help guide/park you.
730pm THE INFORMER (1935, dir by John Ford, Warner Brothers, 35mm, 91mns)
930pm THE FUGITIVE (1947, dir by John Ford, Warner Brothers, 35mm, 107mns)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
***ALL AUDIENCE will be required to show proof of vaccination at the door. PLEASE HAVE YOUR VIRTUAL OR PHYSICAL VACCINATION CARD READY BEFORE ENTERING THE THEATER. If you have an exemption, please have proof of a negative PCR level COVID test within 3 days of the screening.
***ALL GUESTS WILL BE TAKEN THROUGH PROTOCOLS PRIOR TO ENTERING THEATER SO EVERYONE CAN HAVE A FUN AND SAFE TIME.
***EVERYONE WILL STILL BE REQUIRED TO WEAR MASKS INDOORS WHEN NOT EATING/DRINKING CONCESSIONS IN THEIR ASSIGNED SEATS.
HOW TO:
1)PLEASE BRING AND WEAR A PROPER MASK AT ALL TIMES WHEN NOT EATING/DRINKING INSIDE THE THEATER AS A SAFETY PRECAUTION.
2)PRE-ORDER ANY CONCESSIONS OR MOVIE MERCHANDISE you would like from the additional Add-Ons. You can pick up all concessions & merchandise at our tables in our lobby prior to the screening.
We will be able to sell concessions & merchandise at the theater. But it will make everything much quicker and easier if you pre-order!
3)PLEASE BE AWARE THAT ANYONE EXHIBITING COVID OR FLU LIKE SYMPTOMS AT THE DOOR, WILL BE OFFERED COMPLIMENTARY TICKETS TO A FUTURE SHOW AND ASKED TO RETURN WHEN HEALTHY. So please, if you’re feeling sick, just write us at community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer your complimentary tickets to a future screening when you’re healthy. Let’s all do our part to beat this thing so we can go back to the complete movie going experience!
Our JOHN FORD FUNDAMENTALS series continues with two of his works most expressionistic and explicitly spiritual works. Both on 35mm!
First up is the movie that firmly catapulted John Ford into the cinematic firmament: THE INFORMER for which he won the 1st of four (!!) Best Director Academy Awards. A record still not matched or beaten near 80 years later.
THE INFORMER tells the story of Gypo Nolan (played by John Ford ensemble regular, the amazing Victor McLaglen), an IRA soldier who sells out a friend to the authorities to claim the reward money to help his streetwalker girlfriend get a ticket to America.
But across the night, Gypo is plagued with guilt, visions of the friend he has betrayed, and moral and ethical doubts about himself and everyone around him.
Though much of the psychology and the story itself may strike us as heavy handed today, the movie is undeniably a German Expressionist trumpet blast made in an era of sparkly high key upper class society comedies. It also combines two of Ford's lifelong obsessions: his spiritual faith and his Irishness. Here we see fully, for the first time, how deeply German auteur F.W. Murnau has affected Ford's approach. Ford uses his near 16 years (even at this early stage) of directing/filmmaking experience to tell a story in purely visual, cinematic, emotional, and character terms.
Still a knockout of a movie, The Informer is a must for any student of Ford.
We follow this up with one of Ford's lesser known but most loved (by the Old Man himself) works, The Fugitive starring Henry Fonda and Pedro Armendariz and shot by famed Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa.
This is an adaptation of Graham Greene's profoundly Catholic novel The Power and the Glory. Though quite a bit had to be changed to get by the censors (something Ford himself acknowledged), The Fugitive still possesses a profound and spiritual power punctuated by some of the best edited sequences of Ford's career.
The story follows priest on the run Henry Fonda who is wanted by the law in a country where religion has been outlawed. A hypocritical police chief (played wonderfully by Armendariz) and a bandit (played by Ford regular Ward Bond) conspire to trap the Priest. But through it all, the Priest retains his basic tenets of faith, forgiveness, and mercy.
Ford, unlike many moviemakers, by all reports, retained his deep spiritual faith to the end of his life. Though he often sublimated it in his movies in more general and archetypical ways, he would, on occasion make movies which explicitly dealt with the eternal conflict of the spirit and the flesh. The yearning to do right with the temptation to do what's in one's own self-interest.
Ford and Scorsese may be the two most explicitly spiritual American moviemakers who still somehow were able to wrestle with and examine the reality that often makes a spiritual life so difficult. They join a very small pantheon of filmmakers which include Robert Bresson, Krystof Kieslowski, Ingmar Bergman who devoted some of their most important works to examining the spiritual struggle.
Join us for two of Ford's most fascinating works. Both on 35mm!
Best always,
Craig Hammill
35mm Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS FOR OUR IN-DOOR THEATER SCREENINGS
REFUNDS:
We can offer refunds up to 24 hours before showtime. Please request a refund through Eventbrite and we will process ASAP. After that, no refunds. Sorry.
However if something last minute comes up and you can’t make the screening, for whatever reason, just write us at: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening.
HELPFUL SECRET MOVIE CLUB (1917 Bay Street, 2nd Floor, LA, CA 90021) THEATER PARKING TIPS:
We recommend that you park just outside our theater. Remember our theater is actually in a beautiful street art alleyway in the back of the 1917 Bay Street building. You get to our entrance by taking a right on Wilson, then a right behind the building. We are the first set of black steps on the right after the big gate.
We will have a staff member on duty to monitor all cars parked in the street-art alleyway at our entrance.
There is also a parking lot at the corner of Mateo and Violet Street, just 2 blocks from our theater, which costs $7 per car.
HOW CAN WE STAY ON TOP OF NEWLY ANNOUNCED 35MM SCREENINGS, EVENTS, ETC?
You can follow us on Facebook: @secretmovieclub35mm or Instagram/Twitter: @secretmovieclub
You can also subscribe to our weekly email newsletter by writing us at community@secretmovieclub.com and using the header “SUBSCRIBE ME TO NEWSLETTER”.
HOW CAN I CONTACT YOU IF I HAVE OTHER QUESTIONS/RECOMMENDATIONS:
You can always email us at community@secretmovieclub.com with any other questions, concerns, thoughts, recommendations.