SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our SECRET MOVIE CLUB SPECIALS series! Saturday, December 3, 2022
LOCATION: The Camelot Theater/Palm Springs Cultural Center, 2300 E. Baristo Rd, Palm Springs, CA 92262
*Please note we aim to make this night very special. Part of your purchase is a contribution to help Secret Movie Club’s 2023 year! The historic Camelot Theater is a 500 seat theater with a huge screen. Exactly the kind of theater in which to see these wonderful movies. On top of that, the bar will be open upstairs before and in between each movie. Finally remember this event is in Palm Springs. So plan accordingly.
5:30pm Star Wars: A New Hope (1977, wri & dir by George Lucas, Lucasfilm, 105mns, DCP)
8pm Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back (1980, dir by Irvin Kershner, wri by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, executive produced and story by George Lucas, Lucasfilm, 124mns, DCP)
11:15pm Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983, dir. Richard Marquand, written by Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas, Lucasfilm, 131mns, DCP)
What better way to kick off the holiday season than to treat yourself to George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy all in one night in one of the great historical theaters in California!
If you’ve never been to Palm Springs’ Camelot Theater, you’re in for a treat. This 490 seat theater built in 1967 has one of the largest screens around, amazing sound, amazing comfort. The Camelot is even opening up their bar before and in between each movie.
To this day, 45 years after the premiere of the very first Star Wars film, the original Star Wars trilogy remains THE gold standard of space adventure storytelling.
Taking his inspiration from 1930’s and 1940’s sci-fi movie serials along with world mythology, Akira Kurosawa, and cinema love, George Lucas poured every ounce of his being into crafting the most epic saga possible.
The stories of Lucas’s battles to see his vision through for Star Wars: A New Hope are now themselves the stuff of legend. At the time, science fiction was still considered (2001 notwithstanding) a B-movie genre at best. The movie, save for Alec Guiness, was full of relative unknowns. It’s amazing to think that Harrison Ford at the time was only known to audiences for his small supporting parts in Lucas and Coppola movies.
But when Star Wars: A New Hope opened in June of 1977, it was exactly the kind of wildly imaginative, hopeful, speculative space adventure fantasy epic moviegoers had been craving.
Maybe the biggest surprise was that Lucas’s follow up, 1980's Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, would in many ways surpass the achievements of the first film. Just as A New Hope would set the template for how to start a series, The Empire Strikes Back would become the platinum standard for what the middle movie in a trilogy should be. Darker in tone, complex and rich in theme, The Empire Strikes Back achieved the near impossible feat of feeling absolutely NECESSARY to one’s understanding of the Star Wars universe and its characters. The shocking (at the time) reveal at the end of the movie deepened everything that had come before.
The final chapter in the original trilogy, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi achieved again the near impossible in bringing to a satisfying conclusion all the open storylines of The Empire Strikes Back. It also added a level of Shakespearean tragedy and redemption that would deepen the fates of some of the original trilogy’s most fascinating characters.
Sometimes, it’s best to enjoy the original trilogy the way it was made to be seen. In a big theater, with a wonderful audience, on a big screen.
We aim to make this a night to remember. If you love Star Wars, we think you’ll love this Secret Movie Club special night.
© & TM Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Used Under Authorization.
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)
HOW CAN WE STAY ON TOP OF NEWLY ANNOUNCED 35MM SCREENINGS, EVENTS, ETC?
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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.