Films normally start at 7.30pm in The Guildhall of St George, King Street. Members and their guests can sign in from approx 7pm.
Forthcoming Film Dates for your Diary
▓ Special Events
▓ We are delighted to once again be working in partnership with the King’s Lynn Festival and have arranged these films as part of the Festival. Tickets for these films will be £4 for members and £5 for the public and will be available from the Corn Exchange. Details will be sent to you on how to purchase at the reduced rate.
Thursday 12th November 2020 — JUDY (2019) Postponed due to lockdown
Thursday 10th December 2020 — THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS (2017)
Thursday 14th January 2021 — PAIN AND GLORY (2019)
Sunday 24th January 2021 — THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)
Thursday 4th February 2021 (DATE TBC) — THE LAST TREE (2019)
Thursday 11th March 2021 — THE MUSTANG (2019)
Thursday 8th April 2021 — DAYS OF THE BAGNOLD SUMMER (2019)
Thursday 29th April 2021 (DATE TBC) — A WHITE WHITE DAY (2019)
Thursday 10thDecember 7.30pm
THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS
Biography, Comedy, Drama — (2017) — 100 mins — Cert PG
mild bad language, brief scary scenes
Director: Bharat Nalluri
Cast includes Dan Stevens, Christopher Plummer, Jonathan Pryce, Justin Edwards, Morfydd Clark, Donald Sumpter
In 1843 Charles Dickens is at a low point in his career with three failures behind him and his family expenses piling up at home. Determined to recover, Dickens decides to write a Christmas story and publish it in less than two months. As Dickens labours writing on such short notice, his estranged father and mother come to stay with him. Still haunted by painful memories of his father ruining his childhood by his financial irresponsibility, Dickens develops a writer’s block which seems to have no solution. As such, Dickens must face his personal demons epitomized through his characters, especially in his imagined conversations with Ebenezer Scrooge. Now with a looming deadline, Dickens struggles for inspiration against his frustrations and his characters’ opinions in a literary challenge creating a classic tale that would define the essential soul of modern Christmas.
TRIVIA
Dickens’ family did, indeed, keep a pet raven, which died unexpectedly while the family was away. Dickens told this story to another author – Edgar Allan Poe – who was then inspired to write a poem about a raven.
Filming took place mostly in Ireland, and some sets which had been used for the TV series Penny Dreadful (2014) were used for the production.
The booklet Dickens borrows from Tara the maid, “Varney The Vampire or The Feast of Blood”, is a real gothic novel written between 1845 and 1846 by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Preskett Press. The novel was written in a format of monthly weekly deliveries, one penny apiece pamphlets, usually containing cheap horror literature, so each was commonly known as a “penny dreadful”.
Thursday 14thJanuary 7.30pm
PAIN AND GLORY
Drama — (2019) — 108 mins — Cert 15
Spanish subtitled — drug misuse
Director: Pedro Almodóvar
Cast includes Antonio Banderas, Asier Etxeandia, Leonardo Sbaraglia
Pain and Glory tells of a series of re-encounters experienced by Salvador Mallo, a film director in his physical decline. Some of them in the flesh, others remembered: his childhood in the 60s, when he emigrated with his parents to a village in Valencia in search of prosperity, the first desire, his first adult love in the Madrid of the 80s, the pain of the breakup of that love while it was still alive and intense, writing as the only therapy to forget the unforgettable, the early discovery of cinema, and the void, the infinite void that creates the incapacity to keep on making films. Pain and Glory talks about creation, about the difficulty of separating it from one’s own life and about the passions that give it meaning and hope. In recovering his past, Salvador finds the urgent need to recount it, and in that need he also finds his salvation as past and present come crashing down around him.
TRIVIA
Julieta Serrano and Antonio Banderas already played mother and son, more than 30 years before, in another two movies by Pedro Almodóvar: Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988) and Matador (1986)
Has been selected as the Spanish entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.
When Federico talks about his family to Salvador during a drink, Antonio Banderas (Salvador) was actually on the verge of tears performing the scene.
Sunday 24thJanuary
THE PHILADELPHIA STORY
Comedy, Romance — (1940) — 112 mins — Cert U
Director: George Cukor
Cast includes Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn, James Stewart
This classic romantic comedy focuses on Tracy Lord (Katharine Hepburn), a Philadelphia socialite who has split from her husband, C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant), due both to his drinking and to her overly demanding nature. As Tracy prepares to wed the wealthy George Kittredge (John Howard), she crosses paths with both Dexter and prying reporter Macaulay Connor (James Stewart). Unclear about her feelings for all three men, Tracy must decide whom she truly loves.
TRIVIA
The film was shot in eight weeks, and required no retakes. During the scene where James Stewart hiccups when drunk, you can see Cary Grant looking down and grinning. Since the hiccup wasn’t scripted, Grant was on the verge of breaking out laughing and had to compose himself quickly. Stewart (apparently spontaneously) thought of hiccuping in the drunk scene, without telling Grant. When he began hiccuping, Grant turned to Stewart, saying, “Excuse me.” The scene required only one take.
Spencer Tracy turned down James Stewart’s role because he was eager to make Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941).
Katharine Hepburn starred in the Broadway production of the play on which this film was based and owned the film rights to the material; they were purchased for her by billionaire Howard Hughes, then given to her as a gift.
Cary Grant demanded top billing and $137,000 salary, a huge amount at the time. As it turned out, however, he donated his entire earnings to the British War Relief Fund.
