SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our HEISTS, CAPERS & CONS Series, Friday, June 23, 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.
7:30pm BOB LE FLAMBEUR (1956, dir. Jean-Pierre Melville, Rialto, France, 102mns, DCP)
9:40pm LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970, dir. Jean-Pierre Melville, Rialto, France, 140mns, 35mm)
Tonight we get two pours of Gallic heists, capers, and cons Jean-Pierre Melville style. If you’ve never seen a Melville movie, you’ll suddenly understand much of the ur-text for filmmakers like John Woo, Michael Mann, Jim Jarmusch, and others deeply influenced by Melville’s no nonsense, brutal, code of honor narratives about swindlers, thieves, criminals, cops, and killers.
Melville movies are all about codes of conduct either met or failed whether it be among cops, resistance fighters, or thieves. Tonight, we meet one of the most gentlemanly of thieves ever, Bob The Gambler (Bob Le Flambeur) who for almost twenty years has managed to keep his nose clean and stay out of trouble. But the arrival of Anne, a young street walker, who needs shelter from her loathsome pimp, seems to bring with it the arrival of a new opportunity for Bob to pull a heist at, of all places, a casino.
Bob Le Flambeur is this programmer’s favorite Melville. It is the movie where Melville (for this writer) got the cocktail PERFECT. The characters, the story, and especially the mind blowing third act twist which almost no one ever sees coming until it happens all adds up to a perfect blend. A wine at its apex. Cinema at its best.
We follow this with one of Melville’s later period classics Le Cercle Rogue starring a who’s who of swinging stars of the 60’s and 70’s including Alain Delon and Yves Montand. Playing almost as a kind of bookend to Bob Le Flambeur which Melville had made almost 15 years earlier, Le Cercle Rogue follows both the thieves and the police as everyone catches wind of a massive heist and tries either to further it or stop it.
It’s hard not to see a lot of the DNA of Michael Mann’s Heat in Le Cercle Rogue which pulsates with the amazing set pieces and sense that character is destiny that defines Michael Mann’s 1990’s cops and robbers opera. Even more so, Le Cercle Rogue is guided by Melville’s minimalist hand which refuses to overplay or overstate anything. In fact, understatement is such a tool in Melville’s stylistic kit that in some ways the whole movie becomes a brutal, brutal haiku on the terminus stop of the lifestyles of the law enforcers and the law breakers.
And we’re showing it on 35mm! So come join us for two pillars in the body of work of one of cinematic crime’s greatest poets: Jean Pierre Melville.
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.