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 July - November program (PDF download)
Upcoming screenings:
July 7
I MARRIED A WITCH
(USA 1942) 76 min. 16 mm
Director: René Clair. Cast: Fredric March, Veronica Lake, Cecil Kellaway,
Robert Benchley and Susan Hayward.
The inspiration for the longrunning TV show and subsequent film.
March plays the baffled mortal male who finds himself involved with
two women, his extremely difficult and challengingfiancé (Hayward)
and the supernatural spirit (played by the girl with the curl, Lake)
who has come down through the ages to deliver a curse that was
placed on March’s ancestors. Much fun, drollery and sexual crackle
as all the actors enjoy themselves.
Door prizes at screening. 2 double passes to Rain Man at The Playhouse
Wed 14 July at 8pm worth $100 each plus a DVD for third prize.
(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
July 21
STAGECOACH
(USA 1939) 96 min. 16 mm
Director: John Ford. Cast: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, Thomas Mitchell,
George Bancroft, John Carradine and Andy Devine.
This is the ultimate western that influenced every western made after it.
John Wayne plays the Ringo Kid, an outlaw seeking revenge. He joins a
stagecoach containing a mix of western characters brought together
by the confines of the coach and the increasing threat of Indian attack.
It all builds to a climax in the majestic Monument Valley (a location Ford
would use again and again). This was the beginning of a long partnership
between director John Ford and actor John Wayne and the beginning of
John Ford's string of films exploring the mythology of the west.
(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
August 4
LAURA
(USA 1944) 88 min. 16 mm
Director: Otto Preminger. Cast: Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb,
Vincent Price and Judith Anderson.
One of the classics of film noir as detective (Andrews) proceeds to fall in
love with the painting of murder victim (Tierney). His investigations throw him
into the world of New York's cynical upper crust with entertaining snakes,
poseurs and vixens everywhere: Webb, Price and Anderson in exhilarating
form. There's also of course the beautiful score by David Raksin.
(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
August 18
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Joint screening with the Dickens Reading GroupACT
(UK 1958) 117 min. 16 mm
Director: Ralph Thomas. Cast: Dirk Bogarde, Dorothy Tutin, Paul Guers, Ian
Bannen, Christopher Lee and Stephen Murray.
Duplicity abounds for lookalike lads Sydney Carton (Bogarde) and Charles
Darney (Guers) in this tortuous trans Channel tale that points out
unpalatable parallels between social conditions in England and France
before and during the French Revolution. One of them gets the girl,
Lucie Manette (Tutin), daughter of the doctor (Murray) with a Bastille
background; the other gets the ... Knit me a scarf, Madame Defarge, my
neck's cold. It is a far, far better film ...
(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
September 1
INVADERS FROM MARS
(USA 1953) 82min. 16 mm
Director: William Cameron Menzies. Cast: Jimmy Hunt, Helena Carter,
Leif Erickson and Hillary Brooke.
Young David MacLean (a “boy astronomer”) wakes up one night to
see a UFO landing near his house, and urges his skeptical father to
investigate. His father returns eventually with a lame excuse about
why he took so long, a strange mark on his neck, and a personality
transplant. It's obvious to Jimmy that aliens have taken over his father
and perhaps others in the town as well. But who, apart from a few broad
minded eccentrics, will believe him? One of the classic 1950s works of scifi
paranoia, and the only one told from the point of view of a child.
(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
September 15
LA NUIT AMÉRICAINE (Day for Night)
(France/Italy 1973) 120min. DVD
Director & actor: François Truffaut. Cast: Jacqueline Bisset, JeanPierre Aumont,
Valentina Cortese, JeanPierre Leaud, Dani and Alexandra Stewart.
In this timeless movie about making a movie Truffaut lovingly shows us how
he does what he does best, answers many questions about the on/off set
interaction, and demonstrates just what a director actually does. He
homages widely, from the opening still of the Gish sisters, to the Kane
newsdrop headline. The title refers to a technique for filming night scenes in
daylight, creating a dimmed effect by reducing lens aperture or using filters.
(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
September 29
ROOF NEEDS MOWING
(Australia 1972) 10 min. 16 mm
Director: Gillian Armstrong.
An early Armstrong short, this is a funny satire on the rituals of
suburban living.
Plus
BINGO, BRIDESMAIDS AND BRACES
(Australia 1988) 95 min. 16 mm
Director: Gillian Armstrong.
The third in an ongoing series of candid and engaging documentary
films which follow the lives of three women, Diana, Josie and Kerry,
through puberty to adulthood. Through detailed flashbacks, the three
women share the critical times in their lives, and their satisfaction (and
surprise) at having reached 26.
(Prints courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
October 13
BLACK NARCISSUS
(UK 1947) 99 min. 16 mm
Directors : Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger. Cast: Deborah Kerr,
Sabu, Jean Simmons and Flora Robson.
Stunningly designed (Academy Awards for cinematography and art
direction) psychological study of the physical and spiritual tribulations
that overwhelm five missionary nuns in the Himalayas.“....an artistic
accomplishment of no small proportions.” (New York Times). Repeat
screening of a film shown in our first year (1990)
(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
October 27
ADVISE AND CONSENT
(USA 1962) 139 min. 16 mm
Director: Otto Preminger. Cast: Charles Laughton, Henry Fonda, Walter Pidgeon,
Burgess Meredith, Franchot Tone, Lew Ayres, Gene Tierney and Don Murray.
A candidate for the USA's Secretary of State must be vetted first through a
Senate investigation. From that point on, Communist links are unearthed,
political dirt is slung, false accusations are put forward and closet
skeletons emerge. This is one of Preminger's underrated gems, with
the same level of engaging story, witty quips and wellwritten speeches
familiar from his more wellknown film Anatomy Of A Murder.
(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
November 10
DIE BERGKATZE (The Wildcat)
(Germany 1921) 82 min. DVD
Director: Ernst Lubitsch. Cast: Pola Negri, Victor Janson, Paul Heidemann,
Wilhelm Diegelmann and Hermann Thimig
This little known film has been described as a masterpiece. Ernst
Lubitsch was one of Germany's top silent directors whose films with the
notorious vamp beauty Pola Negri were popular enough to win them both
Hollywood contracts. Rischka (Negri) and her gang of robbers hold up Alexis
(Heidemann) who is on his way to marry the daughter of the commander
of the local fortress. Of course, they fall in love but mixed with the pratfalls
and the subversive comedy is a sharp view of social conventions and the
class divide.
(DVD courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
Followed by the Annual General Meeting. Come along and have your say.
TUESDAY November 23
LA REGLE DU JEU (The Rules of the Game)
(France 1939) 110 min. 16 mm
Director: Jean Renoir. Cast: Marcel Dalio, Nora Gregor, Roland Toutain,
Jean Renoir, Mila Parely, Paulette Dubost and Gaston Modot
The film starts with a public denunciation of a mistress as disloyal
because she stayed with her husband rather than meet her lover on his
return from a transAtlantic flight and ends with a shooting. The film is a
comedy of manners with elements of farce, dealing with tangled love lives
of both masters and servants. However, the film contains undertows which
reflect the seriousness of the challenges facing French society at the
time. Jean Renoir looks very critically at how that society works.
(Print courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive)
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