SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our ALFRED HITCHCOCK: THE MASTER Series, Saturday, May 13, 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 SHADOW OF A DOUBT (1943, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Universal, USA, 108mns, 4K DCP Restoration)
9:45pm SABOTEUR (1942, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, Universal, USA, 109mns, 4K DCP Restoration)
It’s funny to remember that even though many critics and fans consider Hitchcock’s 1950’s to early 1960’s run to be the pinnacle of his artistry, he still produced several of his absolute greatest movies in the 1940’s.
Exhibit A is 1943’s Shadow of a Doubt starring Teresa Wright as a doting niece who idolizes her visiting Uncle Charlie (a never better and profoundly unsettling Joseph Cotten) who just may be a serial killer of widowed wealthy women.
Actually, he is definitely a murderer of widowed wealthy women, something we learn in the very first few minutes of the picture. This reveal demonstrates Hitchcock’s firm belief in suspense over surprise. In other words, tell the audience everything so they know more than the other characters. This creates irony and suspense-rich scenes from minute one.
As niece Charlie realizes that Uncle Charlie is a murderer just hiding out with the family, Uncle Charlie realizes that niece Charlie is becoming a problem and might blow his cover.
This was one of Hitchcock’s own personal favorites of all the movies he ever directed. And it is one of this Programmer’s absolute top Hitchcocks as well.
Hitchcock worked with famed playwright Thornton Wilder, biographer of small town Americana, and Hitchcock’s own wife Alma Reville (who contributed to countless Hitchcock movies), to craft a movie where the horror, suspense, and tension comes almost completely out of a battle of wills between two characters who both adore and fear the other.
An unnerving slice of terror served up as a slice of Americana apple pie, Shadow of a Doubt also has one of Hitchcock’s greatest ever shots. . .
We follow this up with the endlessly enjoyable confection Saboteur, made one year earlier. Saboteur plays like exactly what it is: one half The Thirty Nine Steps and one half rough draft for North By Northwest.
Airplane factory worker Barry gets blamed for an act of sabotage and has to go on the run to clear his name and find the real saboteur, a man named Fry whom no one believes really exists.
The movie takes our hero cross country from Glendale, California to New York City. Along the way he ropes in innocent Patricia and the two fall in love across a series of near misses.
The famous ending at the top of the Statue Of Liberty is clearly a sketchbook for the even more iconographic Mount Rushmore ending of North by Northwest.
Even when Hitchcock is making an interstitial movie, he’s making an entertainment heads and tails above what 99.9% of other moviemakers are capable of.
Join us for an evening of two knock out pictures from Hitchcock’s first few years in the U.S.
Best always,
Craig Hammill
Secret Movie Club Founder.Programmer
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.
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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.