The Reel McCoy Film Society

Screening world cinema and forgotten gems since 1990

Screenings are at 6:00pm every second Wednesday

All screenings are at the National Library of Australia. Please enter by the front doors and go down to the theatre on level LG1 by the stairs on the right hand side or use the foyer lift.

Click here for our entire February - June program (PDF download)

Upcoming screenings:

February 3
TOPPER

(USA 1937) 97 min. 16mm
Director: Norman Z McLeod. Cast: Constance
Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young, Billie
Burke, Alan Mowbray, Eugene Pallette, Hedda
Hopper and Hoagy Carmichael.

Based on a novel by Thorne Smith, this classic
comedy features Grant and Bennett as playful
ghosts who dominate the life of Cosmo Topper
(Young). The film tells the story of a stuffy,
stuck-in-his-ways man who is haunted by the
ghosts of a fun-loving married couple who try
to give him a complete lifestyle makeover. The
film was so popular that it spawned two sequels
and a TV show. Along with the three great leads
there are a number of familiar faces in
supporting roles.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

February 17
GOODBYE PARADISE
GUEST SPEAKER: Dr David Headon, Advisor on the Centenary of Canberra, Chief Minister’s Department

(Australia 1983) 119 min. 16mm
Director: Carl Schultz Cast: Ray Barrett,
Robyn Nevin, Janet Scrivener, Kate Fitzpatrick
and Lex Marinos.

A cult classic. Disgraced Queensland Assistant
Police Commissioner Michael Stacey (Barrett)
retires to the Gold Coast to write a book
exposing police corruption. He's drawn into
investigating a disappearance, and must deal
with the re-emergence of associates from his
military past. Produced prior to the Fitzgerald
enquiry into corruption in the Queensland police,
this film did not achieve wide release due to the
attitudes of the time. Bob Ellis wrote ‘Stacey’
especially for Barrett, who provides a memorable
world-wise and -weary performance.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

March 3
THE THIRD MAN

(UK 1949) 104 min. 16mm
Director: Carol Reed. Cast: Joseph Cotton,
Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, Orson Welles, Ernst
Deutsch, Bernard Lee and Wilfrid Hyde-White.

A serious contender for the crown of Greatest
Film Ever, The Third Man is a rare moment in
cinema which finds many extraordinary and
perfectly apt talents fortuitously assembled, at
individual zeniths and in perfect synergy. This
taut, masterful and most atmospheric story of
unreciprocated loyalty, persistence, opportunism
and ultimate betrayal, brings together the MI6-
influenced screenplay of no less a genius than
Graham Greene, the direction, production and
script revision of an inspired Carol Reed, the
Oscar-winning cinematography of Australian
Robert Krasker, the legend-in-its-own right
zither score of local Viennese beerhall musician
(and remarkable Reed discovery) Anton Karas,
the exceptional casting and defining
performances of Cotten, Valli, Howard and an
already exasperating but ever-genial Welles, and
the perfectly congruous melancholic atmosphere
of a physically and morally war-damaged former
grand dame of Europe, Vienna.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

March 17
UGETSU MONOGATARI (Tales of Ugetsu)

(Japan 1953) 94 min. 16mm
Director: Kenji Mizoguchi. Cast: Masayuki
Mori, Machiko Kyô, Kinuyo Tanaka, Eitarô
Ozawa, Ikio Sawamura and Mitsuko Mito.

Within the chaos and misery of the civil wars
in 16th century Japan, two brothers, a potter and
an aspiring samurai, both dream of better times
for themselves and their wives. Mizoguchi’s
most acclaimed film, this ghostly tale moves
between realism and lyricism within its blackand-
white atmosphere. Based on stories by
Akinari Ueda and Guy de Maupassant, it won
a Silver Lion at Venice, and was nominated for
an Oscar for its Costume Design.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

THURSDAY April 1
BABY DOLL
GUEST SPEAKER: Ian Warden, Canberra based writer

(USA 1956) 115 min. 16mm
Director: Elia Kazan. Cast: Karl Malden,
Carroll Baker, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach
and Rip Torn.

Black comedy/drama about a bizarre romantic
triangle between a child bride, her frustrated
husband and a business rival keen on exploiting
both of them. Condemned by The Legion of
Decency on its release, this film may be tame
by today’s standards, but it still has a lot of sizzle
in it. Baker and Dunnock were nominated for
Oscars for their roles (and Kazan won a Golden
Globe for his direction), and it’s the screen
debuts of both Wallach and Torn (in an
uncredited role as “The Dentist”).

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

April 14
LE NOTTI DI CABIRIA (Nights of Cabiria)

(Italy 1957) 109 min. 16mm
Director: Federico Fellini. Cast: Giulietta
Masina, François Périer, Franca Marzi and
Amedoe Nazzari

Masina stars as Cabiria, in a fine performance
as a gentle, naive prostitute whose spirit
triumphs through a number of harsh encounters.
The film is regarded as symbolic of the triumph
of good over evil.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

April 28
THE LOST WEEKEND
JOINT SCREENING WITH THE CANBERRA SOCIETY OF EDITORS

(USA 1945) 101 min. 16mm
Director: Billy Wilder. Cast: Ray Milland, Jane
Wyman, Phillip Terry, Howard da Silva, Doris
Dowling, Frank Faylen and Mary Young

Wilder’s unflinching film about a man’s
ongoing battle with the bottle. Because of its
graphic realism, it caused a sensation when
released in 1945, and then went on to win the
Oscar for Best Picture. It was not just the topic,
but the gritty way Wilder refused to avoid
or romanticise the central issue. Oscar
winner Milland is unforgettable as the
protagonist, who uses every trick in the book
to hide his addiction, and Wyman gives a subtle
performance as his partner who is not fooled
for a moment about what is really happening.
A landmark movie showing again how powerful
film can be.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

May 12
LOGAN’S RUN

(USA 1976) 120 min. 16mm / DVD
Director: Michael Anderson. Cast: Michael
York, Richard Jordan, Jenny Agutter, Peter
Ustinov, Roscoe Lee Browne and Farrah Fawcett-
Majors

In the 23rd century, in a dome-enclosed city on
what’s left of Earth, life is good until one reaches
30 years of age: then it’s the end on Carousel,
or become a Runner. Logan (York) is a Sandman,
a policeman whose job it is to hunt and kill
Runners. He is sent to find the mysterious
Sanctuary, a beyond-the-dome destination for
Runners.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

May 26
WATER

(Canada-India 2005) 115 min. DVD
Director: Deepa Mehta. Cast: Seema Biswas,
Sarala and Lisa Ray

The final part in Mehta’s Earth, Fire, Water
trilogy. The title comes from the setting in an
ashram for widows beside the Ganges during
monsoon season. The film explores the stories
of Chuyia, a child widow, Kalyani, a young and
beautiful widow and Shakuntala the ashram’s
deeply religious leader. It is 1938 and Gandhi is
attempting to change the traditional treament of
women in India, such as these widows,
condemned to either die on a funeral pyre, marry
their husband’s younger brother if permitted or
live out a chaste life in a widow’s house such as
this. Will these political changes be able to affect
any change for these women? A beautifully
photographed film with realistic performances
and humour leavening the serious story.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

June 9
MARLENE

(West Germany 1984) 94 min. 16mm
Director: Maximilian Schell

Marlene Dietrich was an 81-year-old recluse
when film maker Schell convinced her to
cooperate with a documentary about her life.
Unfortunately for Schell but luckily for the
audience, Dietrich didn’t cooperate much.
Dietrich refused to be shown on screen,
instead agreeing to 40 hours of audio recording.
Even then she often ignores or dismisses his
questions. These limitations only make
the film more interesting as it becomes a
story of the film maker’s quest to make a
documentary about an elusive star.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)

June 23
AMPHITRYON: aus den Wolken kommt das Glück (from the clouds comes happiness)
JOINT SCREENING WITH THE FRIENDS OF THE ANU CLASSICS MUSEUM

(Germany 1935) 105 min. 16mm
Director: Reinhold Schünzel. Cast: Willy
Fritsch, Paul Kemp, Käthe Gold, Fita Benkhoff and
Adele Sandrock

The general Amphitryon goes to war, giving Jupiter an
opportunity to descend from Mount Olympus and seduce
Amphitryon’s wife, Alkmene. Then Juno, Jupiter’s wife, gets
into the act. Staged countless times over the centuries, most
treatments of the story have been comic - as is this musical,
based loosely on Molière’s play and made in early Nazi-era
Germany. Fritsch, a popular screen starbefore, during and
after theNazi reign, plays both Jupiter and the cuckolded
husband.

(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)