SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our ALFRED HITCHCOCK: THE MASTER Series, Saturday, January 21, 2023
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.
7pm BLACKMAIL (1929, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Rialto, UK, 85mns, 35mm, Sound Version)
8:45pm MURDER! (1930, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Rialto, UK, 101mns, 35mm)
10:45pm NUMBER SEVENTEEN (1932, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, UK, 64mns, 35mm)
Before Hitchcock was HITCHCOCK, he was honing his craft. Though his silent film The Lodger (an amazing riff on Jack the Ripper we’ll be showing in August 2023 with a new original score by the Jack Curtis Dubowsky Ensemble) showed Hitchcock to be a young director of wild talent, it was his 1929 Blackmail that proved that Hitch was going to be a force in the dawning sound area. Like Fritz Lang in M a few years later, Hitchcock immediately went to work finding out what he could do with sound to make it cinematic.
In fact, Blackmail is often considered Britain’s first talkie. It tells the story of Alice White who is blackmailed by someone after she kills a man who tries to rape her.
Despite the intense subject matter, Hitchcock found a way to be both true to the material AND cinematic with a climactic chase through the British Museum where Hitch uses all his production design skills learned from the German Expressionists in a kind of rough draft for the climactic Mount Rushmore chase in North by Northwest.
Blackmail is the next step in the evolution of Hitchcock from silent movie apprentice to a filmmaker growing increasingly more comfortable with their voice, world view, and bag of tools.
We follow Blackmail with the rare chance to see two of Hitch’s early 1930’s works. ON 35mm! Murder!, made in 1932 deals with one of Hitchcock’s favorite themes-an innocent person the entire world thinks is guilty of crimes they didn’t commit. Hitch, a lifelong Catholic, often examined the psychology and cinematic potentials of characters who know they are innocent but find themselves clashing with a society that wants to punish them. Murder! does have a number of problematic elements including a subplot with a bi-racial person that does not hold up at all in 2022. So come prepared to watch this movie analytically.
Yet, as an example of Hitch’s slow but steady ascendancy to mastery of his craft, Murder! provides another key piece of the puzzle.
We end the night with Number Seventeen (also on 35mm!), a 1932 comedy thriller (that runs a fleet 64mns) about a group of jewel thieves who have their hideout over a railway. Hitch made the movie under protest because he wanted to film something else but found himself conscripted to adapt this story which he found riddled with cliches.
Still, he found a way to create a number of stunning and fun cinematic sequences (often using elaborate miniatures for the trains) that presage movies like Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive and Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in discovering ways to intercut miniatures with live action to create jaw dropping action.
Taken together, Blackmail, Murder!, and Number Seventeen show a director on the cusp of becoming an international master of his craft. Hitchcock would deliver on his early promise only 3 years later with his first out and out classic, The 39 Steps (which would combine learned tools of the craft from all three of these movies).
Come see these three rare Hitchcocks. All on 35mm!
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
*Please note that though we strive to always show titles on 35mm film if advertised, we may have to screen digitally if the print we receive is in such bad shape or if we don't receive the print in time because of a shipping delay. We will do our best to alert the audience. When this does occur, we will offer each ticket holder who chooses not to attend a complimentary ticket to a future event in exchange. (Disclaimer: Good for 90 days – Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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 to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening, good for 90 days. (Disclaimer: Future screening must have available tickets, cannot be a fundraiser, and must be comparably priced)
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.
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 Instagram/Twitter: @secretmovieclub or Facebook: @secretmovieclub35mm
You can also subscribe to our weekly email newsletter at secretmovieclub.com or by writing to 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.