SECRET MOVIE CLUB presents
Part of our JOHN FORD FUNDAMENTALS Series, Friday, November 11, 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 UPSTREAM (1927, dir. John Ford, Fox, USA, 60mns, DCP)
8:30pm MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946, dir. John Ford, Fox, USA, 97mns, *35mm being sought with DCP backup if necessary)
Tonight we screen a kind of exhibit A and ultimate result of the effect that FW Murnau’s German Expressionist style had on John Ford (an influence he would most likely be loathe to discuss at length for fear you think him an artist who studies other artists. . .which he was).
The short 60-minute silent film Upstream about the relationship between a Shakespearean actor and a female knife thrower was actually thought lost for decades until a 35mm print turned up (!!) in the New Zealand Film Archive in 2009. Thank God! Because Upstream was the first movie to definitively mark the break between Ford’s early “naturalist” style and the idiosyncratic stunningly poetic style filled with shadow and light, bold compositions, all in the service of emotion and poetry that would mark the rest of his career.
The apotheosis of this mixture of expressionism and naturalism occurs several times in Ford’s career and one of those high watermarks is the western he made just after returning from World War II: My Darling Clementine starring Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp.
More than any of Ford’s other westerns, My Darling Clementine feels like it takes place in some kind of nocturnal dream world. When the brutish violent Clantons (headed by a surprisingly sinister Walter Brennan) kill several Earp Brothers, you know that Wyatt Earp won’t forget. The movie actually tells the story of how Earp tries to overcome the trauma of losing his brothers by being a good sheriff in Tombstone. Along the way he encounters Victor Mature as Doc Holliday, cultured but dying of tuberculosis, with whom he has a rocky relationship of respect. But the Clantons hate Earp and his attempts to civilize Tombstone and soon we sense the approaching famous “shoot out at the OK Corral” that will decide the matter once and for all.
My Darling Clementine is often considered one of Ford’s absolute best movies and westerns alongside Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. It’s a beautiful and poetic movie with a dark complexity about human nature that strives to both transcend violence and embrace it when necessary. The scenes of a church dance on the newly built foundation of a church in a town slowly moving from lawlessness to society have been oft copied most famously by Robert Altman in McCabe and Mrs. Miller.
But what makes My Darling Clementine such a masterpiece ultimately is its deep un-judgmental humanity. The hallmark of all of Ford’s great work.
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.