SECRET MOVIE CLUB present
Part of our EDITING MASTERWORKS series! Thursday, June 23, 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.
7pm SERPICO (1973, edited by Dede Allen, directed by Sidney Lumet, Paramount, USA, 130mns, 35mm)
9:30pm DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975, edited by Dede Allen, directed by Sidney Lumet, Warner Brothers, USA, 125mns, 35mm)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
***As of April 1, 2022, masks are now optional for indoor theater events if you're fully vaccinated. Anyone without proof of vaccination will be required to wear a mask for their own safety. We will continue to update our protocols with the dynamic situation. We are working to make sure we make the theater going experience the most enjoyable and safest possible.
HOW TO:
1)PLEASE BRING YOUR VACCINATION CARD (digital cards accepted).
2)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 you complimentary tickets to a future screening when you’re healthy. (Disclaimer under “REFUNDS” applies)
Tonight, part B of our two-night Editing Masterworks series, we look at two seminal works by editor Dede Allen.
One of my great sadnesses is that I will never get to have Dede Allen edit something I directed. One can only imagine what one would learn working with one of the greatest editors ever to work in Hollywood.
In addition to the two movies we're screening tonight, Allen edited The Hustler, Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man, Reds and The Breakfast Club - to name just a few classics she helped whip into shape.
Her work with Sidney Lumet represents some of her best-ever editing and tonight we’re showing two of those classics.
Serpico helped solidify Al Pacino’s status as one of the greatest actors of his generation with the true life story of NYPD detective Frank Serpico whose life was imperiled when he began to resist the rampant corruption and bribery in the NYPD force of his time.
A fascinating story of a character trying to do the right thing, Serpico initially tries to get by simply by not taking bribes and keeping his head down. But as fellow corrupt cops grow more and more suspicious of him, Serpico finds he has to fear for his life on the street AND in the department.
Lumet and Allen do a masterful job of making a character study propulsive and cinematic.
We follow this up with maybe their greatest collaboration, again written by Frank Pierson and starring Al Pacino: Dog Day Afternoon.
Another based-on-real-events New York story, Dog Day Afternoon veers from comedy to heist movie to idiosyncratic drama as it tells the story of Sonny and his unstable friend Sal (the always incredible John Cazale) as they attempt to rob a bank to get the money to help Sonny’s lover Leon get surgery for a sex-change.
But Sonny and Sal just aren’t experienced or even particularly good bank robbers and soon they find themselves holed up in the bank with hostages surrounded by half the New York police force.
The movie is a taut moment-by-moment look as the day turns to night and Sonny and Sal struggle to figure out how they’ll get themselves out of what appears like an inescapable situation.
One of those movies the 70’s did so well that seems almost impossible to make now (but new filmmakers will find a way), Dog Day Afternoon is one of those pictures where every contributor is firing on all cylinders working together in common cause to make a movie that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Editor Dede Allen finds a way to make the movie compulsively watchable at the same time that she finds moments and beats and nuances to show fully shaded characters in all their humanity.
Two triumphs of movies. Both on 35mm!
Best always,
Craig Hammill
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 to us before showtime: community@secretmovieclub.com and we’ll offer you complimentary tickets to a future screening. (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.