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Home , May Fools, Mikhail Kalatozov, One Hour with You, Paul Fejos, The Narrow Margin

edinburgh film guild 2018/2019

PROGRAMME filmedinburgh guild The Edinburgh Film Guild, established in 1929, is Between October 2018 and March 2019 the Guild How to join: the oldest continuously running film society in will be showing over 60 films, three a week: Becoming a member is easy. You must be aged 18 the world. • Sunday afternoon, starting at 4:30pm or over, and you can join in person before any of • Sunday evening, starting at 7pm our screenings or online. The Guild is run and managed by volunteers. • Friday evening, starting at 8pm Membership: Full Membership...... £60 The Guild has its own cinema and clubrooms We do not sell tickets for individual films, or (complete 2018/19 season of films) within the Filmhouse building, which are located for any particular films − members choose the Basic Membership...... £20 next to Screen 3. films that they wish to see within the terms of (5 tickets - any 5 films) their membership. Top-Up Subscription...... £20 Our 30-seat cinema has a state-of-the-art digital (5 tickets - any 5 films). Those with a ‘Basic’ projector and a 5.1 sound system. membership can purchase additional ‘top-up’ blocks of 5 tickets until they reach a total of £60, You can enjoy a drink and a chat in the Guild when they automatically become Full Members. Clubrooms before a film.

EDINBURGH FILM GUILD, FILMHOUSE, 88 LOTHIAN ROAD, EDINBURGH EH3 9BZ www.edinburghfilmguild.org.uk OCTOBER — NOVEMBER 2018 page PROGRAMME | USA 04 2018/2019 Paul Fejos 05 May ’68 | 50th Anniversary 06 Lino Brocka | Philippines 07 Mexican Horror | 1950s-60s 08 Special Screening: Hallowe’en 30 ‘Kimchi & Noodle’ Westerns | Asia 09 NOVEMBER — DECEMBER 2018 Keisuke Kinoshita | Japanese War Time Films 10 Soviet Cinema | ‘Thaw’ Period 11 | Musicals 12 George Stevens | Comedy 13 Keith’s 5-Star Favourites 14 Anime | Japan 15 Special Screening: Christmas/AGM 30 Screening List (in date order): 16 JANUARY — FEBRUARY 2019 Whodunnit? | Crime 18 Documentaries | French Rural Life 20 Pharaohs on Film 21 Vintage British Thrillers 22 Monster Movies 23 FEBRUARY — MARCH 2019 Complicated Women | Pre-code Hollywood 24 Slovakian Cinema 25 Fabián Bielinsky | Argentina 26 Satyajit Ray | The Apu Trilogy 27 Surreal | Fantasy 28 Alt. Sci-Fi 29 FilmFilm NoirNoir | USAUSA

The

Ride The Pink Horse Moonrise Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 4:30pm Sunday, 14 October 2018 at 4:30pm Robert Montgomery | USA | 1947 | 101 min Frank Borzage | USA | 1948 | 90 min The Narrow Margin Hollywood actor turned idiosyncratic auteur Robert “Cinema’s great poet of outcasts redeemed by love, Sunday, 21 October 2018 at 4:30pm Montgomery directs and stars in this striking crime [director] Borzage made his only foray into film noir | USA | 1952 | 71 min drama. He plays a tough-talking former GI who comes with this Southern gothic tale about a young man Nail-hard detective Walter Brown (Charles McGraw) to a small New Mexico town to shake down the gangster (Dane Clark) tormented by a legacy of guilt and is assigned to protect gangster's widow Mrs. Neall who has killed his best friend; things quickly turn nasty. violence.” Filling “the screen with symbolic images () as she rides the train from Chicago to With its relentless pace, expressive cinematography by of hunting, confinement, and unbearable tension. LA, to testify before a grand jury. "This train's headed the great Russell Metty, and punchy, clever script by Ben Lyrical, expressionistic, yet unflinching in its depiction straight for the graveyard. There's another one coming Hecht and Charles Lederer, this is an overlooked treasure of small-town bullying and intolerance, Moonrise has a along, the gravy train." from the heyday of 1940s film noir. feeling for the natural world and the traditions of rural life rarely found in noir. Atmospheric settings convey “The Narrow Margin is generally considered a “model” “Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer’s script is absolutely the...weight of the past, but also a delicate, shadowy B picture; some film buffs...labelling this...the best low- phenomenal. Highly recommended.” (Blu-ray.com) romanticism.” (IndieWire) budget studio production ever made. “ (Rotten Tomatoes) 4

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER

Paul Fejos Audacious and one-of-a-kind auteur, who bridged the gap between the silent and sound eras.

Lonesome Broadway | SUNDAYS, 4:30PM Sunday, 28 October 2018 at 4:30pm Sunday, 4 November 2018 at 4:30pm Paul Fejos | USA | 1928 | 69 min Paul Fejos | USA | 1929 | 104 min Two lonely people (Barbara Kent, Glenn Tryon) in the big Lonesome A naïve dancer in a Broadway show becomes involved city meet and enjoy the thrills of an amusement park, with backstage bootlegging and accidental murder. only to lose each other in the crowd after spending a great day together. Will they ever see each other again? “The great Hungarian stylist Paul Fejos received a million-dollar budget for this adaptation of George “Full of energy, sadness, love, and life itself, Paul Fejos’ Abbott’s stage success, a backstage musical with a Lonesome is an incredibly simple story with profound gangster twist. Glenn Tryon is the hapless hoofer implications, making it a love story that stands alongside trying to pry his girl from the clutches of a bootlegger, other masterpieces like F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise. though the real star is the gigantic nightclub set, a “Lonesome feels and looks very modern; it constantly tiptoes Cubist hallucination that Fejos explores through the the fine line that separates documentary and art. This type vertiginous camera movements made possible by the Broadway of poetic realism really is virtually impossible to detect in world’s largest camera crane.” (MoMA) any of the big silent films from the same era.” Blu-ray.com( ) “Paul Fejos’ film is a near-perfect amalgam of American filmmaking technique and energy combined with a rich heritage of European influences. Lonesome testifies to an internationally sophisticated visual language that few other movies of the period can equal.” (Jonathan Rosenbaum) 5 Marking the 50th anniversary of one of May ‘68 | the great upheavals in French society.

Something In The Air

Jonah Who Will Be 25 In The Year 2000 May Fools Something In The Air Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 7:00pm (Milou en mai) (Après mai) Alain Tanner | Switzerland | 1976 | 116 min | French Sunday, 14 October 2018 at 7:00pm Sunday, 21 October 2018 at 7:00pm with English subtitles | | 1990 | 107 min | French with Olivier Assayas | France | 2012 | 122 min | French The revolutionary upheaval of 1968 rocked Europe, English subtitles with English subtitles and led to many changes. For a while, it was possible An eccentric French family meets in the country for In the months following the heady weeks of May ‘68, to think that the radical idealism of the youth protests the funeral of their matriarch, which takes place at the a group of young Europeans (Clément Métayer, André would bare fuit and be realised in the world. In this same time as the 1968 student revolts in Paris. Even Marcon, Lola Créton) search for a way to continue the film, eight people in their late twenties and early with the latest updates of the riots coming in over the revolution they believed to be only just beginning. airwaves, the family prefer to focus on petty squabbles thirties try to keep the radical flames burning, each “Olivier Assayas’ wise and wistful memory-piece on the and personal matters rather than the current political seeking an alternative life to the mainstream. revolutionary fervor that suffused his young adulthood. climate. The film was scripted by Louis Malle and Conjuring the mood and attitudes of 1970s European “It’s a heady experience following their [Tanner and Jean-Claude Carrière, director Luis Buñuel’s longtime counterculture with pinpoint detail... [and] capturing co-writer John Berger’s] agile ruminations on time, collaborator. Cast incudes: Paulette Dubost, Michel how political zeal gives way to confusion, compromise language and perception, deftly superimposed on a Piccoli, Michel Duchaussoy, Miou-Miou. film that pleases visually and formally.” Time( Out) and a dawning sense of personal identity.” (Variety) 6

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018 | SUNDAYS, 7:00PM 7 Philippines

| Lino Brocka is widely regarded Lino Brocka (1939–1991) significant and most the of one influential as mix films His cinema. Philippine figures in the with documentary-like realism visceral, focus and melodrama.noir narrative film of

) ­drama, set in the slums of Manila. is a savage commentary on the Insiang at 7:00pm 4 NovemberSunday, 2018 Lino Brocka | 94 | The min Philippines | | 1976 subtitles English with Tagalog Jealousy and violence take centre stage in this claustrophobic melo Lino Brocka crafts an eviscerating portrait of an and her Insiang Koronel), (Hilda innocent daughter, bitter mother as women Lisa) scorned. (Mona Insiang is trapped in an environment of destitution and abuse against which she can only struggle violently Insiangand vainly. degradations of urban poverty, especially for women. “Brocka’s portrait of familial treachery and societal abandonment channels its melodrama through the Magazine filter (Slant of .” “Brocka was a force like of nature in world cinema. Insiang was among his greatest achievements.” () ) (Maynila Sa Mga Kuko Ng Liwanag) October 28 at 7:00pm Sunday, 2018 Lino Brocka min | | The | 125 Philippines | 1975 subtitles English with Tagalog A young fisherman(Bembol from Roco) a provincial village arrives in the capital on a quest track to down his girlfriend who was Koronel), (Hilda lured there with the promise of work and been hasn’t heard from In thesince. meantime, he takes a low-wage job at a constructionsite and witnesses life on the streets, where death strikes without warning, corruption and exploitation are commonplace, and protests hint at escalating civil unrest. “Brocka’s painting of life in the corrupt, teeming and polluted city of chief Manila is the movie’s glory. It is an unforgettable portrait which invites interpretation as an allegory for the whole of the underdeveloped (Derek Guardian Malcolm, The world.” Manila in the Claws of Light Mexican Horror | 1950s-60s Classic horror that has moody atmosphere and an abundance of style.

El Vampiro The Black Pit of Dr. M The Witch's Mirror Friday, 12 October 2018 at 8:00pm Friday, 19 October 2018 at 8:00pm Friday, 26 October 2018 at 8:00pm Fernando Mendez, Paul Nagel | Mexico | 1957 | Fernando Mendez | Mexico | 1959 | 82 min | Chano Urueta | Mexico | 1961 | 75 min | Spanish 95 min | Spanish with English subtitles Spanish with English subtitles with English subtitles After the death of her aunt, Marta (Ariadna Welter) Two eminent doctors make a pact that whoever dies The Witch's Mirror recounts the story of a sorceress returns to her family’s estate in the Black Sierra first will find a way to get a message to the other, (Isabela Corona) who enchants a looking-glass to mountains. Marta meets a doctor Enrique (Abel revealing the means by which a person can travel protect her adopted daughter (Dina de Marco) from Salazar) who arranges transport for both of them back to the world of the dead and return to the realm of domestic violence. When her magic fails, the witch to her family’s estate. Once there, it soon becomes the living, and thus reveal the secrets of the world embarks on a journey of vengeance. apparent that all is not well with her relatives, and beyond the grave. Cast includes: Gastón Santos, Rafael “If you are looking for classic horror that has moody that their new neighbour Count Karol de Lavud Bertrand, Mapita Cortés. atmosphere and an abundance of style, The Witch’s Mirror (Germán Robles) is the cause of the problems. “One of the true classics of Mexican horror cinema, The is a film you should check out ASAP.” (10,000 Bullets) “El Vampiro is one of the most compelling retellings of Black Pit of Dr. M is not to be missed.” (DVD Drive-In.com) “It’s all part of the fun of dipping into the wide the Dracula story.” (10,000 Bullets) “Indispensable viewing for those who enjoy their horror wonderful world of Mexican horror, where logic as we “Fernando Mendez is truly one of the Mexican masters in black and white, especially those who cherish the understand it is truly thrown to the winds. Bizarre, of fantastic cinema.” (Guillermo del Toro) original 1930s’ Universal cycle to which much on offer hallucinatory, jaw-dropping, and in its own weird here owes strong inspiration.” (Richard Bowden) way, essential.” (Fantastic Movie Musings & Ramblings) 8

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018 OCTOBER/NOVEMBER

Kimchi The Good, The Bad, The Weird Let The Bullets Fly and Noodle Friday, 2 November 2018 at 8:00pm Friday, 9 November 2018 at 8:00pm ester ns Kim Jin-Woon | Korea | 2008 | 130 min | Korean Wen Jiang | China, Hong Kong | 2010 | 132 min | (W ) with English subtitles Mandarin with English subtitles Korean director Kim Jin-Woon pays homage to the In 1920s China, a bandit arrives in a remote provincial master of the ‘spaghetti’ Western, Sergio Leone, town posing as its new mayor, where he clashes with with this action-packed adventure film set in 1930s a tyrannical local nobleman (Chow Yun-Fat). Asian filmmakers Kim Jin-Woon and Japanese-occupied Manchuria. A trio of Korean

“Let the Bullets Fly is just good, old fashioned fun. 8:00PM | FRIDAYS, Wen Jiang pay tribute to a master of the outlaws (Kang-Ho Son, Byung-Hun Lee, and Woo-Sun Jiang manages to craft a film that is supremely ‘spaghetti’ Western, Sergio Leone. Jung) battle with the Japanese army and various energetic and dramatic while at the same time being Chinese and Russian bandits, bounty hunters and train laugh out loud hilarious at regular intervals. robbers, to gain control of the lawless territory. Sumptuously beautiful and full of “Sergio Leone meets Steven Spielberg in Kim Jee- fantastic performances.” (Blu-ray.com) woon’s...rollicking “western” adventure. The practical stuntwork and effects here are fantastic.” Blu-ray.com( ) “Between the kung fu, the gunplay, a gentle romantic subplot and the extreme gastronomy – there’s The Good, The Bad, The Weird something for everyone.” (The Guardian)

The Good, The Bad, The Weird Let The Bullets Fly Let The Bullets Fly

9 Keisuke Kinoshita | Two war time films

Jubilation Street Sunday, 11 November 2018 at 4:30pm Keisuke Kinoshita | Japan | 1944 | 73 min | Japanese with English subtitles As the Second World War escalates, the tight-knit community of a street in Tokyo must leave their Morning For The Osone Family homes and relocate so the government can use the Jubilation Street Sunday, 18 November 2018 at 4:30pm area for the war effort. Kinoshita’s sensitive film − Keisuke Kinoshita | Japan | 1946 | 81 min | beautifully and resourcefully shot − traces the Japanese with English subtitles fears and desires of the evacuees. Kinoshita’s first film after the end of the war is a “Here there is a sense of loss both in terms wrenching, superbly wrought tale of a liberal- of the established community being torn minded Japanese family torn apart by war and apart and on an individual level. Despite imperialist politics. Morning for the Osone Family “A bastion of cinematic grace and gentility, the need for propagandistic uplift, the is both palpably bitter about the nation’s fresh Keisuke Kinoshita’s...films betray a humane reality of the war... [cannot] be kept wartime wounds and hopeful about a future in ethos and lightly expressive stylistic impulse at bay.” (Cagey Films) which the repressive power of the military has which would carry on in the director’s work (Note: Damage to both the image and sound been broken and a freer, more democratic society well past the war years.” (Slant Magazine) is evident throughout this restored film.) may be possible. 10

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER Soviet Cinema of the ‘Thaw’ Period* 2018

A Letter Never Sent Welcome, or No Trespassing I Walk Around | SUNDAYS, 4:30PM Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 4:30pm Sunday, 2 December 2018 at 4:30pm Sunday, 9 December 2018 at 4:30pm Mikhail Kalatozov | | 1959 | 96 min | Elem Klimov | Soviet Union | 1964 | 75 min | Georgi Daneliya | Soviet Union | 1963 | 78 min | Russian with English subtitles Russian with English subtitles Russian with English subtitles This absorbing tale of exploration and survival Comrade Dynin (Yevgeni Yevstigneyev) is the clueless In this romantic comedy, a young Siberian writer named concerns the four members of a geological expedition, head counsellor of a Young Pioneer camp. Dynin’s Volodya travels to Moscow to meet a famous author. who are stranded in the bleak and unforgiving arch-nemesis is the tow-headed young troublemaker Along the way, Volodya makes friends with Kolya and Siberian wilderness while on a mission to find Kostya Inochkin (Vitya Kosykh), who sneaks back into Sasha. These new friends become enamoured with a diamonds. The great Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov, the camp after Dynin expels him, and slowly brings pretty shopgirl, Alyona, and vie for her affections. Other known for his virtuosic, emotionally gripping films, down the adult ruling class through both intentional little adventures also ensue. In this film, we are offered perhaps never made a more visually astonishing one and accidental subterfuge. a unique and touching portrait of Moscow, youth, than A Letter Never Sent. Luxuriating in wide-angle friendship, love and innocence in the summer of 1965. “Elem Klimov’s first feature...commences with a beauty and featuring one daring shot after another Funny and gentle, dreamy and humorous, romantic but multilayered verbal and visual dedication (“For (the brilliant cinematography is by Kalatozov’s realistic, the film radiates eternal youth. Cast includes: grownups who used to be children and children frequent collaborator Sergei Urusevsky), A Letter Never , Aleksei Loktev, Galina Polskikh. who will eventually be grownups”) that hints at the Sent is a fascinating piece of cinematic history and a episodic comic craziness to come and carries within “Before Truffaut’s Stolen Kisses, there was this universal adventure of the highest order. its deceptive ingenuousness an acute, potentially wonderful picture with a similar light feeling in the revolutionary political charge.” (Slant Magazine) heart.” (Valtteri Lepistö)

*The ‘Thaw’, which occurred largely during Nikita Khrushchev’s leadership of the Soviet Union (1953–1964), created an environment where Soviet writers and film directors were relatively free of government interference and censorship. 11 Ernst Lubitsch | Musicals CLAUDETTE COLBERT

The Smiling Lieutenant The Smiling Lieutenant Sunday, 11 November 2018 at 7:00pm MIRIAM HOPKINS Ernst Lubitsch | USA | 1931 | 89 min Maurice Chevalier’s randy Viennese lieutenant is JEANETTE MACDONALD enamoured of Claudette Colbert’s freethinking, all- girl-orchestra-leading cutie. Yet complications ensue when the sexually repressed princess of the kingdom of Flausenthurm, played by Miriam Hopkins, sets her sights on him. “Wit and melody swing through Maurice Chevalier’s latest picture, The Smiling Lieutenant.” (New York Times, 1931)

One Hour With You One Hour With You The Smiling Lieutenant Sunday, 18 November 2018 at 7:00pm Ernst Lubitsch, | USA | 1932 | 78 min Maurice Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald are a seemingly blissful couple whose marriage hits the skids when her flirtatious school chum comes on to her husband a bit too strong. Necking in the park at nighttime, husbands and wives indulging in casual dalliances, and a butler telling his employer, “I did so want to see you in tights!”: it’s one of Lubitsch’s sauciest musical escapades. One Hour With You One Hour With You 12

NOVEMBER George Stevens | Comedy / DECEMBER 2018

Woman Of The Year The More The Merrier | SUNDAYS, 7:00PM Sunday, 2 December 2018 at 7:00pm Sunday, 9 December 2018 at 7:00pm George Stevens | USA | 1942 | 112 min George Stevens | USA | 1943 | 104 min Tess Harding (Katharine Hepburn) is a progressive- During the World War II housing shortage in minded political journalist. Sam Craig (Spencer Tracy) Washington D.C., two men (Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn) is a sports writer with very traditional values. Despite and a woman (Jean Arthur) share a single apartment an initial and mutual dislike, the two eventually fall in and the older man plays Cupid to the other two. The Talk Of The Town love and get married. When Tess wins the ‘Woman of “A delightful romantic comedy of the homefront at Sunday, 25 November 2018 at 7:00pm the Year’ award, traditional gender roles flip and their wartime, exploring the problems of housing-bed-man relationship suffers as a result. George Stevens | USA | 1942 | 118 min shortages.” (Classic Film Guide) An escaped prisoner (Cary Grant) and a stuffy law “Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are absolutely “This superior example of the “genius of the professor (Ronald Colman) vie for the hand of a magnificent together. Highly Recommended.” Blu-ray.com( ) spirited schoolteacher (Jean Arthur). Hollywood studio system” may not be as well known “Until that final scene, the modernity of Woman of the as [some] screwball comedy classics...but is every bit A “sparkling, risquée romantic comedy.” (DVD Beaver) Year is breathtaking, exhilarating, almost too bold to be their equal as a battle-of-the-sexes masterpiece.” “Talk of the Town is a quick-witted comedy driven believed... That it doesn’t blend easily only reinforces the (White City Cinema) by wonderful performances by Cary Grant, Ronald power of the rest of the film, and the fact that, in all other Colman and Jean Arthur.” (All Movie) ways, Woman of the Year is a spirited, honest picture. This is one of the least frenetic screwball comedies...and for Nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture and at least seven-eighths of its duration, it’s one of the most (Note: For information on our Sunday, 16 December Screenplay. enjoyable.” (Stephanie Zacharek, Time) ‘Christmas & AGM’ film see page 30, ‘Special Screenings’.) 13 Keith’s Favourites A mini-season of films in recognition of the late Keith Hennessey Brown’s contribution to the Edinburgh Film Guild

Danger: Diabolik Suspiria The Uninvited Guest Friday, 16 November 2018 at 8:00pm Friday, 23 November 2018 at 8:00pm (El Habitante Incierto) Mario Bava | | 1968 | 96 min | Italian with Dario Argento | Italy | 1977 | 101 mins | Italian with Friday, 30 November 2018 at 8:00pm English subtitles English subtitles Guillem Morales | Spain | 2004 | 109 min | Spanish International man of mystery Diabolik (John Phillip Suzy (Jessica Harper), a young American ballerina, with English subtitles Law) and his sensuous lover Eva Kant (Marissa Mell) comes to train at a prestigious German dance academy What if … you let a stranger into your house to use pull off heist after heist, while European cops led by and uncovers the school's dark and menacing secrets. your phone, but while you’ve been patiently waiting Inspector Ginko () and envious mobsters in the kitchen, he just disappears … or does he? “Argento plunges the audience into Suzy’s fragile are closing in on them. Félix (Andoni Gracia), an architect who has just split consciousness, painting a rich and bottomless up with his girl-friend (Monica Lopez) and inhabits “The trick to appreciating a good comic book is to tapestry of fear.” (Slant Magazine) a huge mansion in Barcelona, finds out how many savor the art as well as the story. The same holds “This is horror shot with dazzling energy yet with the hiding places there really are in his house. But are true for appreciating the merits of 1960s and ‘70s visual depth and acuity of a Renaissance painting. there enough to hide another person? Or is Félix really European exploitation cinema. In Italy, the master Those who doubt the artistic potential of the horror going insane? criminal of the comics was Diabolik, and the master of genre should be nailed down and made to watch it.” exploitation cinema was Mario Bava.” (Pop Matters) “Make no mistake The Uninvited Guest is a (Jennie Kermode, Eye For Film) phenomenally good film.” (Keith Hennessey Brown) 14

NOVEMBER /DECEMBER 2018/DECEMBER

Anime | Japan FRIDAYS, 8:00PM | FRIDAYS,

Akira Ghost In The Shell Friday, 7 December 2018 at 8:00pm (Kōkaku kidōtai) Friday, 14 December 2018 at 8:00pm Katsuhiro Ôtomo | Japan | 1988 | 124 min | Japanese with English subtitles Mamoru Oshii | Japan | 1995 | 83 min | Japanese with English subtitles A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic A cyborg policewoman and her partner hunt a mysterious psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of and powerful hacker called the Puppet Master. psychics can stop. “Ghost in the Shell − and other examples of intelligent “Akira deserves its reputation − it’s really just that cinema − offer much more to those audiences that simple. This is one of the most consistently amazing choose to explore the darker yet more rewarding side anime from a visual perspective ever produced, and even of both the human mind and filmed entertainment, better, it backs up its incredible aesthetic with an actually and it is for those viewers that Ghost in the Shell comes intelligent plot.” (Blu-ray.com) recommended as either an introduction to the world of Japanese animation or as a film that merely broadens the horizons and, more importantly, challenges the mind.” (Blu-ray.com)

15 PROGRAMME 2018

OCTOBER 2018 NOVEMBER 2018 DECEMBER 2018 Date Film Time Date Film Time Date Film Time Sun Ride The Pink Horse (p.4) 4:30 Fri The Good, the Bad, the Weird (p.9) 8:00 Sun Welcome, or No Trespassing (p.11) 4:30 7 Oct Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 7:00 2 Nov 2 Dec Woman of the Year (p.13) 7:00 2000 (p.6) Sun Broadway (p.5) 4:30 Fri Akira (p.15) 8:00 4 Nov Insiang (p.7) 7:00 7 Dec Fri El Vampiro (p.8) 8:00 12 Oct Fri Let the Bullets Fly (p.9) 8:00 Sun I Walk Around Moscow (p.11) 4:30 Sun Moonrise (p.4) 4:30 9 Nov 9 Dec The More the Merrier (p.13) 7:00 14 Oct May Fools (p.6) 7:00 Sun Jubilation Street (p.10) 4:30 Fri Ghost In the Shell (p.15) 8:00 11 Nov The Smiling Lieutenant (p.12) 7:00 14 Dec Fri The Black Pit of Dr. M (p.8) 8:00 19 Oct Fri Danger: Diabolik (p.14) 8:00 Sun The Murder of Father Christmas 4:30 Sun The Narrow Margin (p.4) 4:30 16 Nov 16 Dec (Christmas Special Screening & Guild AGM) (p.30) 21 Oct Something in the Air (p.6) 7:00 Sun Morning For The Osone Family (p.10) 4.30 18 Nov One Hour With You (p.12) 7:00 Fri The Witches Mirror (p.8) 8.00 26 Oct Fri Suspiria (p.14) 8:00 Sat Bride of Frankenstein (Hallowe’en 7:00 23 Nov 27 Oct Special Screening) (p.30) Sun A Letter Never Sent (p.11) 4:30 Sun Lonesome (p.5) 4:30 25 Nov The Talk of the Town (p.13) 7:00 Hallowe’en Special Screening: 28 Oct The Bride of Frankenstein Manila in the Claws of Light (p.7) 7:00 Fri The Uninvited Guest (p.14) 8:00 Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 7:00pm 30 Nov See page 30 for details.

16 Note: Brackets (p.1,2,3 etc) show the page number with details of each film. PROGRAMME 2019

JANUARY 2019 FEBRUARY 2019 MARCH 2019

Date Film Time Date Film Time Date Film Time Sun The Kennel Murder Case (p.18) 4:30 Fri See No Evil (p.22) 8:00 Fri Valerie & Her Week of Wonders 8:00 13 Jan Farrebique (p.20) 7:00 1 Feb 1 Mar (p.28) Fri Sun Le Pasha (p.19) 4:30 Sun Safe In Hell (p.24) 4:30 Cash On Demand (p.22) 8:00 3 Feb 18 Jan Land of the Pharaohs (p.21) 7:00 3 Mar Pather Panchali (p.27) 7:00 Sun Green For Danger (p.18) 4:30 Fri THEM! (p.23) 8:00 Fri Gold (p.29) 8:00 20 Jan Cousin Jules (p.20) 7:00 8 Feb 8 Mar Fri Sun Insomnia (p.19) 4:30 Sun The Boxer and Death (p.25) 4:30 Fragment of Fear (p.22) 8:00 10 Feb 25 Jan Pharaoh (p.21) 7:00 10 Mar Aparajito (p.27) 7:00 Sun Zero Focus (p.19) 4:30 Fri Godzilla (p.23) 8:00 Fri Who Wants To Kill Jessie? (p.29) 8:00 27 Jan The Loves of Pharaoh (p.21) 7:00 15 Feb 15 Mar Sun The Divorcee (p.24) 4:30 Sun A Path Across the Danube (p.25) 4:30 17 Feb Nine Queens (p.26) 7:00 17 Mar Apur Sansar (p.27) 7:00 Fri Fabulous Baron Munchausen (p.28) 8:00 Fri Dark City (p.29) 8:00 22 Feb 22 Mar Sun The Bad Girl (p.24) 4:30 Christmas Screening & Guild AGM: 24 Feb The Aura (p.26) 7:00 The Murder of Father Christmas Sunday, 16 December 2018 at 4:30pm See page 30 for details.

17 Note: Brackets (p.1,2,3 etc) show the page number with details of each film. Whodunnit? | Criminally Neglected Films

The Kennel Murder Case Green For Danger Sunday, 13 January 2019 at 4:30pm Sunday, 20 January 2019 at 4:30pm | USA | 1933 | 73 min Sidney Gilliat | UK | 1946 | 91 min Philo Vance (William Powell), accompanied by In the midst of Nazi air raids, a postman dies on the his prize-losing Scottish terrier, investigates the operating table at a rural English hospital. But was locked-room murder of a prominent and much-hated the death accidental? Enter Inspector Cockrill of the collector whose broken Chinese vase provides an Yard (Alastair Sim) to clear the whole mess up. The important clue. cast also includes Rosemund John, Trevor Howard and Sally Gray. “Probably the best of all the Philo Vance mysteries, with Powell as the super-suave private eye “A hugely likeable gem of postwar British film.” Film4( ) investigating a suicide that turns out to be murder. “Green For Danger is a satirical combination of dry The plot is fairly preposterous, but Powell brings just humour and clever sleuthing, British specialities enough credibility to the task to make the film at once which blend together into a delicious piece of cinema ingenious and entertaining. In all there were a dozen history.” (Eye For Film) Philo Vance novels, and many more films featuring the character, but this one is vintage.” (Time Out) 18

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 | SUNDAYS, 4:30PM

Zero Focus Le Pacha Insomnia (Zero no shôten) Sunday, 3 February 2019 at 4:30pm Sunday, 10 February 2019 at 4:30pm Sunday, 27 January 2019 at 4:30pm Georges Lautner | France | 1968 | 85 min | French Erik Skjoldbjærg | Norway | 1997 | 97 min | Yoshitarô Nomura | Japan | 1961 | 95min | Japanese with English subtitles Norwegian, Swedish with English subtitles with English subtitles Six months before his retirement from the police, In this elegantly unsettling murder mystery, Stellan After one week of marriage Teiko Uhara’s (Yoshiko Inspector Joss (Jean Gabin) finds his colleague Skarsgard plays an enigmatic Swedish detective Yuga) husband, Kenichi (Koji Nanbara), leaves on a Gouvion dead, in a poorly faked suicide attempt. Joss with a checkered past who arrives in a small town in short business trip but never returns. Teiko travels loses his temper, and investigates on his own, which northern Norway to investigate the death of a teenage across Japan to Kanazawa, where her husband was leads him through the bas-fonds of Paris. girl. As he digs deeper into the facts surrounding the last seen, to search for him. With only a pair of old heinous killing, his own demons and the tyrannical “Georges Lautner’s Le Pacha is a chic French gangster photographs among his belongings to go on, Teiko midnight sun begin to take a toll. One of Skarsgard’s film...with a cracking score Requiem( for a Jerk) by Serge tries to figure out what has happened to him. greatest performances. Gainsbourg. Gabin is terrific as the old detective who “Zero Focus has the most overtly film noir stylings of all confesses to his boss that he is tired of playing by the “This immaculately constructed psychological thriller...is [director] Nomura’s films, and is the one most clearly rules and takes justice into his own hands.” (Blu-ray.com) one of the most unusual and gripping films...compelling indebted to Alfred Hitchcock, with a dual-identity plot the viewer to enter its haunting world, where truth slips and elevated showdowns reminiscent of both Vertigo like an eel through the fingers of a detective riding the and Rebecca , plus a Bernard Hermann-like score.” (ICA) edge of hysteria.” (Peter Cowie) 19 Documentaries Cousin Jules Sunday, 20 January 2019 at 7:00pm Dominique Benicheti | France | 1973 | 91 min | French with English subtitles Shot between 1968 and 1973, this is a nearly dialogue-free documentary about the self-sustaining life of an octogenarian farmer couple in Burgundy (director Benicheti’s cousin Jules Guiteaux and his Cousin Jules wife Félicie). The result is a ravishing, totally immersive work (filmed in CinemaScope and with stereo sound), in which we not only enter into the subjects’ world but also into the very rhythms of their lives. Unreleased for 40 years, this award-winning documentary lyrically Farrebique evokes the passing away of a form of French rural life. Sunday, 13 January 2019 at 7:00pm Award: Grand Jury Prize, Locarno Film Festival 1973 Georges Rouquier | France | 1946 | 90 min | French with English subtitles “Cousin Jules doesn’t seek to elevate its elderly subjects so much as For one year, from 1944 to 1945, Georges Rouquier shared the life of capture them in a state of being. A genuinely extraordinary work of a peasant family, his own, in the Farrebique farm in Goutrens, in the art. For 91 minutes, the pleasure of the Guiteauxes’ company is ours. Rouergue region. He shows us life on a farm, marked by the rhythm of We are ultimately the richer for it.” (Time Out) the seasons, from harvesting in summer to the grandfather’s rituals of slicing the bread for dinner. The film also dwells on the hardships of life on a farm, as well as the transformations brought about by the arrival of electricity. Farrebique reveals the beauty of these people, their closeness to their animals and to nature, facing an often harsh life.

Awards: Grand Prix de la Critique Internationale, Cannes (1946), Grand Farrebique Prix du Cinéma Français (1946). Note: Farrebique was the opening film at the first Edinburgh International Festival of Documentary Films (now the Edinburgh International Film Festival), which was founded by the Edinburgh Film Guild in 1947. 20

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 How Does A Pharaoh Talk? | SUNDAYS, 7:00PM

Pharaoh Land of the Pharaohs Sunday, 10 February 2019 at 7:00pm Jerzy Kawalerowicz | Poland | 1965 | 152 min | Sunday, 3 February 2019 at 7:00pm Polish with English subtitles Howard Hawks | USA | 1955 | 104 min After the death of his father, young Ramses XIII (Jerzy Obsessed with his fate in the afterlife, Pharaoh Khufu Zelnik) becomes the ruler of Egypt. But he quickly (Jack Hawkins) recruits oppressed architect Vashtar realises that the priests wield the real power. When The Loves of Pharaoh (James Robertson Justice) and forces him to design Ramses defiantly assumes command of the army, he the most lavish and secure pyramid ever built. Vashtar becomes locked in a bitter struggle with the well- Sunday, 27 January 2019 at 7:00pm struggles to meet Khufu’s lofty expectations, knowing connected priests. With the country divided between Ernst Lubitsch | Germany | 1922 | silent | 100 min that if he does so the ruler will release his enslaved those loyal to Ramses and those loyal to the old guard, The Ethiopian King offers his daughter to a powerful brethren from bondage. As construction begins, the priests begin warning of a devastating solar eclipse. Pharaoh to secure peace between the two countries. Khufu’s new wife, Princess Nellifer (Joan Collins), plots “Mr. Kawalerowicz’s cameras, moving through to secure her own piece of the tyrant’s riches. “Digitally restored and reconstructed by the same authentic, picturesque locales in Luxor, Cairo and image restoration team that worked on ’s “Joan Collins steals the show as Pharaoh’s sexy and Bokhara in Uzbekistan, have captured the vivid colors of Metropolis, Ernst Lubitsch’s The Loves of Pharaoh has treacherous second wife Nellifer. Dimitri Tiomkin Egypt’s mammoth temples, pyramids and statuary and literally been given a new life. Truly, this is one of the provided the score, and two great cinematographers, the dune desert wastes on which thousands of extras, most stunning presentations of a that I’ve Lee Garmes and Russell Harlan, teamed up to lined up in military array, clash to the sounds of roaring seen...to date. Very highly recommended.” (Blu-ray.com) photograph the film.” Combustible( Celluloid) voices, horns and drums.” (The New York Times) 21 Vintage British Thrillers

Cash on Demand Fragment of Fear See No Evil Friday, 18 January 2019 at 8:00pm Friday, 25 January 2019 at 8:00pm Friday, 1 February 2019 at 8:00pm Quentin Lawrence | UK | 1961 | 80 min Richard C. Sarafian | UK | 1970 | 94 min Richard Fleischer | UK | 1971 | 89 min A charming but ruthless criminal (André Morell) holds Reformed drug addict Tim Brett (David Hemmings) Sarah (Mia Farrow), a young blind woman, is pursued the family of a bank manager (Peter Cushing) hostage is holidaying in Italy with his aunt. When she is by a maniac while staying with family in their English as part of a cold-blooded plan to steal £97,000. murdered he tries to investigate, and soon his whole country manor. life is out of control. “A tense little thriller.” (Time Out) “See No Evil is a well-done cat-and-mouse game “If you fancy a bit of blackmail, a touch of conspiracy between Sarah and her unseen stalker. Mia Farrow “A superbly subtle and convincing performance by and a soupcon of insanity, you could do worse than is great as the blind woman...[the film is] tense and Cushing, but Morell is no less effective in what is largely a tracking down Fragment of Fear.” (British Horror Films) suspenseful.” (Through the Shattered Lens) psychological game of cat and mouse.” (Horror Cult Films) “Structured and executed really well. It is a bit like an odd “Nice, taut suspense in this solid entry in the “blind woman “Cash On Demand is a delight and is very worthy of the reimagining of Memento but delivered in a unique period in jeopardy” subgenre...Farrow delivers an admirable esteem it is now held in.” (The Celluloid Highway) setting. Highly recommended.” (Blu-ray.com) performance hitting all the right marks.” (The Terror Trap) 22

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019 MonstersMonsters FRIDAYS, 8:00PM | FRIDAYS, THEM! GODZILLA Friday, 8 February 2019 at 8:00pm Friday, 15 February 2019 at 8:00pm Gordon Douglas | USA | 1954 | 94 min Ishiro Honda | Japan | 1954 | 96 min | Japanese The earliest atomic tests in New Mexico cause with English subtitles common ants to mutate into giant man-eating A fire-breathing behemoth terrorizes Japan after an monsters that threaten civilization. atomic bomb awakens it from its centuries-old sleep. “By far the best of the ‘50s cycle of ‘creature “What you see is not simply a monster movie, but features’, Them! and its story of a nest of giant rather the ravages of war in all their grim reality.” radioactive ants retains a good part of its power (Anton Bitel, Eye For Film) today. All the prime ingredients of the total “It’s exciting, sober, plausible and never mobilisation movie are here: massed darkened unintentionally comic. The film’s power resides in its troops move through the eerie storm drains of having been made less than decade after Hiroshima , biblical prophecy is intermixed with and Nagasaki, the memories of which are vivid both gloomy speculation about the effect of radioactivity. for the people making the movie and the characters Almost semi-documentary in approach, the formula in it.” (Philip French, The Observer) is handled with more subtlety than usual, and the special effects are frequently superb.” Time( Out)

23 A number of pre-censorship code era Hollywood films (between 1929 and 1934) Complicated Women featured complex female characters and the complexities of womens’ lives that would not be seen again until decades later.

The Divorcee Bad Girl Safe in Hell Sunday, 17 February 2019 at 4:30pm Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 4:30pm Sunday, 3 March 2019 at 4:30pm Robert Z. Leonard | USA | 1930 | 84 min Frank Borzage | USA | 1931 | 88 min William Wellman | USA | 1931 | 73 min When Jerry (Norma Shearer) discovers that her husband A man (James Dunn) and a woman (Sally Eilers), “Dorothy Mackaill is perfect as the all-but-in-name Ted (Chester Morris) has been unfaithful to her, she sceptical about romance, nonetheless fall in love and prostitute who is whisked off to a Caribbean island to decides to respond to his infidelities in kind. are wed, but their lack of confidence in the opposite flee a murder charge and lands in a jungle slum that the sex haunts their marriage. dregs of the...world have taken refuge in.” (Parallax-View) Award: Best Actress, Academy Awards 1930. Awards: Best Director, nominated for Best Picture, “A visual feast full of symbols and shadows. Feminist “The Divorcee is a high water mark for early talking Academy Awards 1931. and bold, Dorothy MacKaill knocks it out of the park pictures, doing a fine job of grappling with the new as she attempts to survive the sweltering heat with medium [of film] with wit and verve. Shearer’s portrayal “Bad Girl is all about wit and speed, approaching the her virtue intact. It’s vicious, beautiful, and well worth of a good woman with a healthy sexual appetite who battle of the sexes with an acidic take on relationship seeking out.” (Pre-Code.com) is not condemned for pursuing it, either in or out of woes...delivering an electric jolt of a picture that largely marriage, was revolutionary at the time.” (Pre-Code.com) does away with precious displays of romance...in this ”Forthrightly told and extremely well acted.” (All Movie) 24 biting domestic drama.” (Pre-Code.com)

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019 Slovakian Cinema | SUNDAYS, 4:30PM

The Boxer and Death A Path Across the Danube Sunday, 10 March 2019 at 4:30pm Sunday, 17 March 2019 at 4:30pm Peter Solan | Czechoslovakia | 1963 | 105 min | Miloslav Luther | Czechoslovakia | 1989 | 92 min | Slovak/Czech with English subtitles Slovak/Czech with English subtitles In a Nazi concentration camp, a prisoner awaiting At the outbreak of the Second World War, execution is spared when camp commandant Kraft Czechoslovakia is split into the Slovak State and the (Manfred Krug), a former prize-fighter, discovers that Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Former pilot the prisoner, Komínek (Stefan Kvietik), has boxing Viktor Lesa (Roman Luknár) works for the Slovak ability. Komínek quickly discovers that he is a much Railway Mail and often comes to the border town of better boxer than Kraft but must fight the urge to Ludendorf, the former Czech town of Břeclav. With reveal his true abilities in order to stay alive. the impulsiveness of youth, and in order to impress a young female colleague, he redirects an important “A well made film that uses the horrid conditions package. Lesa must flee for his life when the Gestapo of the concentration camp as a backdrop to a tense turns up in the town to find out what has happened to psychological drama. With poignant images, solid acting, the package. and impressively choreographed boxing, Solan delivers a powerful film and sadly mostly forgotten gem that deserves to be seen by more people.” (Bonjour Tristesse) 25 Fabián Bielinsky | Argentina

Nine Queens Sunday, 17 February 2019 at 7:00pm Fabián Bielinsky | Argentina | 2002 | 107 min | Spanish with English subtitles Professional swindler Marco (Ricardo Darin) joins The Aura forces with small-time crook Juan (Gaston Gastón Pauls) in order to dupe a rich mafioso with facsimiles Sunday, 24 February 2019 at 7:00pm of ultra-valuable rare stamps called ‘The Nine Queens’. Fabián Bielinsky | Argentina | 2006 | 134 min | Spanish with English subtitles “Nine Queens is lots of fun.” (Slant Magazine) On his first ever hunting trip, in the calm of the The Guardian described director Fabián “David Mamet might kill for a script as good.” (Variety) Patagonian forest, a shy epileptic taxidermist (Ricardo Darin), who secretly dreams of executing the perfect Bielinsky (1959-2006) as a “fresh new spirit “The less the filmgoer knows about the narrative’s twists crime, stumbles upon an opportunity to make his and turns, the better − except to remember that nothing of mainstream cinema in Argentina”. dreams come true. and nobody is quite what they seem.” (BBC Review) A “fantastic thriller. Tense and twisty, this is what thrillers We are screening both of his completed “Sheer energy drives the story. The film is like a should be about.” (Amber Wilkinson, Eye For Film) feature films in this retrospective of his Chinese box. There are secrets within secrets within brief career. secrets. Who’s fooling who? That is the intrigue. Like a “Mr. Bielinsky, in what would sadly be his last film, script by David Mamet. Only in Buenos Aires. Without demonstrates a mastery of the form that is downright rules. (Angus Wolfe Murray, Eye For Film) scary.” (The New York Times) 26

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019

“The great, sad, gentle sweep of The Apu Trilogy remains in the mind of the Satyajit Ray | The Apu Trilogy moviegoer as a promise of what film can be. The three films swept the top prizes “A masterpiece, inarguably.” (Time Out) at Cannes, Venice and London, and created a new cinema for India.” (Roger Ebert) | SUNDAYS, 7:00PM

Pather Panchali Aparajito Apur Sansar Sunday, 3 March 2019 at 7:00pm (The Unvanquished) (The World of Apu) Satyajit Ray | India | 1955 | 125 min | Bengali with Sunday, 10 March 2019 at 7:00pm Sunday, 17 March 2019 at 7:00pm English subtitles Satyajit Ray | India | 1956 | 110 min | Bengali with Satyajit Ray | India | 1959 | 106 min | Bengali with A depiction of rural Bengali life in a style inspired by English subtitles English subtitles Italian neorealism, this naturalistic but poetic evocation Aparajito picks up where the first film leaves off, with This extraordinary final chapter brings our protagonist’s of a number of years in the life of a family introduces Apu and his family having moved away from the journey full circle. Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee) is now us to little Apu (Subir Banerjee) and the women who country to live in the bustling holy city of Varanasi in his early twenties, out of college, and hoping to live will help shape him: his independent older sister, (then known as Benares). As Apu (Pinaki Sen Gupta/ as a writer. Alongside his professional ambitions, the Durga (Uma Dasgupta); his mother, Sarbajaya (Karuna Smaran Ghosal) progresses from wide-eyed child to film charts his romantic awakening, which occurs as Banerjee), who, with her husband away, must hold the intellectually curious teenager, eventually studying in the result of a most unlikely turn of events, and his family together; and his kindly and mischievous elderly Kolkata, we witness his academic and moral education, eventual, fraught fatherhood. Featuring soon to be Ray “auntie,” Indir (Chunibala Devi) − vivid, multifaceted as well as the growing complexity of his relationship regulars Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore in characters all. With resplendent photography informed with his mother. This tenderly expressive, often heart- star-making performances, and demonstrating Ray’s by its young protagonist’s perpetual sense of discovery, wrenching film, which won three top prizes at the ever more impressive skills as a crafter of pure cinematic Pather Panchali is an immersive cinematic experience Venice Film Festival, including the Golden Lion, not only imagery, Apur Sansar is a moving conclusion to this and a film of elemental power. extends but also spiritually deepens the tale of Apu. monumental trilogy. 27 Music for the Apu Trilogy by Ravi Shankar Surreal | Fantasy

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders Friday, 1 March 2019 at 8:00pm The Fabulous Baron Munchausen Jaromil Jires | Czechoslovakia | 1970 | 77 min | Friday, 22 February 2019 at 8:00pm Czech with English subtitles Karl Zeman | Czechoslovakia | 1961 | 85 min | Czech Valerie, a girl on the verge of womanhood, finds herself with English subtitles in a sensual fantasyland of vampires, witchcraft, and Zeman’s wildly inventive and comic take on the surreal other threats in this eerie and mystical film daydream. adventures of the bragging Baron explodes on to the Inspired by fairy-tales such as Alice in Wonderland and screen in a riot of colour, visual wit and poetic verve. Little Red Riding Hood, it is a surreal tale in which love, Often described as the ‘Czech Méliès’, visionary filmmaker fear, sex and religion merge into one fantastic world. Karel Zeman’s ground-breaking innovations in the use of “The film’s logic is that of the subconscious, its images live action and animation mark him as one of the great those of the Gothic fairytale and the psychiatrist’s masters of 20th century fantasy cinema. couch, and its overall effect is stunning.” Time( Out) “This film’s stunning flights of fancy utilize Zeman’s “Valerie, like Lewis Carroll’s Alice, is oddly matter of trademark mastery of combining live action and animated fact and accepting of the deep strangeness elements together in the frame, along with vibrant that envelops her.” (Electric Sheep Magazine) color tints, to create an effect like a rich, vintage storybook come to life on The Fabulous Baron Munchausen 28 the screen.”(Mondo-digital)

FEBRUARY/MARCH 2019

Alt. Sci-Fi FRIDAYS, 8:00PM | FRIDAYS,

Gold Who Wants to Kill Dark City Friday, 8 March 2019 at 8:00pm Jessie? Friday, 22 March 2019 at 8:00pm Karl Hartl | Germany | 1934 | 120 min | German Friday, 15 March 2019 at 8:00pm Alex Proyas | USA | 1998 | 111 min with English subtitles Milos Macourek, Vaclav Vorlicek | Czechoslovakia | John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) is an amnesiac man who Ancient desires of alchemy meet modern-day science, 1966 | 80 min | Czech with English subtitles finds himself suspected of murder. Murdoch attempts where scientists believe they’ve discovered nature’s Three comic-strip characters are inadvertently to discover his true identity and clear his name while secret to turning lead into gold in a process called brought to life and cause chaos in the real world. on the run from the police and a mysterious group nuclear transmutation. known only as the “Strangers”. Cast includes: Kiefer “The Jessie in question is a Bardot-lookalike comic- Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, and William Hurt. This “classic sci-fi film speaks to issues of scientific strip damsel who scampers through the dreams of a progress versus corporate greed and the sobering fear of mild-mannered academic. When his wife develops the “Ambitious sci-fi noir, with rich production design the two melding together leading to economic collapse. technology to bring sleep-time visions to life, Jessie and a dense, Kafkaesque concept. For all fans of With expert craftsmanship and style that contemporary – and a musclebound superhero always chasing her mind-bending sci-fi entertainment, Dark City earns audiences can still marvel at...It's an extraordinary piece down – invade the prof’s waking life as well; he and the my highest recommendation.” (Blu-ray.com) of cinema with impressive special effects and a striking cartoon crew are even hauled into court on charges of A “great visionary achievement...a film so original and production design.” (High-Def Digest) ‘dangerous dreaming’. A charmingly silly tale told with exciting, it stirred my imagination like Metropolis and verve and sprightly good humour.” (Time Out) 2001: A Space Odyssey.” (Roger Ebert) 29 The Bride of Frankenstein “The best of the Frankenstein movies − a sly, Special subversive work that smuggled shocking material Saturday, 27 October 2018 at 7:00pm past the censors by disguising it in the trappings of Screenings James Whale | USA | 1935 | 75 min horror. Some movies age; others ripen. Seen today, Mary Shelley (Elsa Lanchester) reveals that the main Whale's masterpiece is more surprising than when it characters of her first novel survived: Dr. Frankenstein was made because today's audiences are more alert (Colin Clive), goaded by an even madder scientist, to its buried hints of homosexuality, necrophilia and decides to build his monster (Boris Karloff) a mate. sacrilege. But you don't have to deconstruct it to enjoy “Tremendous sequel to Whale’s own original, with a it; it's satirical, exciting, funny, and an influential clever prologue between Lord Byron and Mary Shelley masterpiece of art direction.” (Roger Ebert) setting the scene for the revival of both Frankenstein “The Bride of Frankenstein and Blu-ray are a match and his monster. What distinguishes the film is... made in heaven.” (Blu-ray.com) Hallowe’en its macabre humour and sense of parody. Strong on atmosphere, Gothic sets and expressionist camerawork, Marking the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s novel it is...a delight from start to finish. Time( Out) Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

The Murder of Father Christmas This was the first film released in France during the (L’Assassinat du père Noël) Nazi Occupation. Films de France says that L’Assassinat Sunday, 16 December 2018 at 4:30pm du père Noël is “one of the most blatant examples” Christian-Jaque | France | 1941 | 104 min | French of a film containing “an alligorical subtext” − the with English subtitles killing of Father Christmas symbolising “the loss of As an Alpine village prepares to celebrate Christmas, cherished ideals”. By “juxtaposing the innocent realm the centerpiece for the occasion − a valuable ring of childhood fantasy with an adult world mired in refered to as St Nicholas − is stolen. The normally fear and corruption [symbolic of Nazi Occupation], close-knit community, already fearful and suspicious Christian-Jaque transforms a whimsical murder following the theft, is also shocked to find that the mystery into a cogent morality tale.” Christmas/AGM man who has played the village père Noël for many The film will be followed by the Edinburgh Film years (Harry Baur) appears to have been murdered. Guild AGM and Christmas Party. 30 the Drifters and ’s Battleship Potemkin, Strawberries, which led to the screening of his earlier “Vive with both directors present. The Film Society closed films there, his work was well known in Scotland Guild!” in April 1939, but a decade before it expired, it had through the percipience of the Guild’s organisers. inspired the creation of the Edinburgh Film Guild, Among those, I must mention my late friend Forsyth which to this day shows no sign of dimming the lights. Hardy, co-founder of the Guild and the Festival, From the Guild came the Edinburgh Film Festival that who died in 1994. Long-time film critic of The A bit of history: Philip French on the Edinburgh has run alongside and complemented the Edinburgh Scotsman, biographer of Grierson, author of books Film Guild, marking its 75th anniversary in 2004 International Festival since its inception in 1947. on Scandinavian Cinema, Scotland on Film, and a Before the coming of television, video cassettes, From the start, the Guild spread its net as those charming history of the Guild and the Film Festival media studies, the art house, the National Film trawlers celebrated in Drifters, including classics itself, he produced a couple of hundred films for Theatre and its regional equivalents, the principal from the silent period which had just then come to the various Scottish Government Departments. He source of systematic serious film-going was the film a close, documentaries, foreign movies and works was also co-editor of the seminal Cinema Quarterly, society movement. That’s where we saw – often from the international avant-garde. “The old London another offshoot of the Guild, published between in joyfully masochistic discomfort – new foreign Film Society” wrote Grierson in 1951, “was the first 1932 and 1935. Hardy was a beacon of common sense, language movies, the canon from the silent and the to break from somewhat exclusive attention to the a man of catholic tastes and wide sympathies, but talking eras. There are few alive today who attended avant-garde and take the longer and harder way of an enemy of cant, pretentious jargon and ideological the first British institution of its kind, known simply as the Russians and more purposive users of the cinema. judgements. Meeting him every August at the the Film Society, launched in London in 1925 to show But it was the Edinburgh Film Guild which completed Festival was one of the highlights of my cinema-going avant-garde work and films banned by over restrictive the movement – as the London Film Society did year. No one, not even Grierson, has made a greater censors. Its founding members included Bernard not – and saw the infinite variety of a Film Society’s contribution to the Scottish film culture. It is good to Shaw, H G Wells, Roger Fry and John Maynard Keynes, obligations to all categories of the medium”. Having find that what he helped to create – the Guild and the and it was one of the few occasions when all kinds of been inspired by London, the Guild did not take its Festival – is flourishing and responsive to change. artists and intellectuals came together in Britain to cues from there or look to the English metropolis On this auspicious occasion, I can only resort to the celebrate the great new art of the 20th century. This for leadership. Like the Auld Alliance with France, it language of the Auld Alliance and say, Vive the Guild! Film Society was already a legendary organisation looked directly abroad, establishing its own cultural — Philip French, 2004 when my friends and I began to pay serious attention links and exerting its own vision, as has its creation, Philip French (28 August 1933 – 27 October 2015) was an English to the cinema in the years following World War II and the Film Festival. film critic who began writing for The Observer in 1963, and continued to write criticism regularly there until his retirement discovered with something like awe that in 1929 the Long before Ingmar Bergman achieved belated in 2013. Upon his death, French was referred to by his Observer Society had put on a double bill of John Grierson’s fame in London with The Seventh Seal and Wild successor Mark Kermode as “an inspiration to an entire generation of film critics.” 31 EDINBURGH FILM GUILD THE GUILD ROOMS, FILMHOUSE, 88 LOTHIAN ROAD, EDINBURGH EH3 9BZ www.edinburghfilmguild.org.uk