THE CAROLINA THEATRE - RETROFANTASMA

WELCOME TO RETROFANTASMA!

A monthly film series of double-features dedicated to bringing classic horror movies back to the big screen in 35mm! Created in 1998, RETROFANTASMA has developed a large dedicated audience of horror movie enthusiasts whose desire to see their favorite terror flicks is matched only by their willingness to cheer at the screen.

From John Carpenter to Dario Argento to Lucio Fulci, this diverse film series offers it's audience a joyful jolt of terror and nostalgia. You'll likely find yourself screaming and applauding in the same breath. Before long, you'll be joining the thousands of people who have whispered in the dark to their friends, "Did you ever see the one where....?" Much like the infamous midnight screenings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, The RETROFANTASMA Film Series is pure devilish fun for anyone who loves the mysterious.

STARMAN
(PG, 1984, 115 min.)
Friday, May 18th
7:00 p.m.

Starman is John Carpenter's warmest film, and the only one that ever earned an Oscar nomination. That honor went to Best Actor nominee Jeff Bridges for his performance as an alien visitor who assumes the physical form of the dead husband of a Wisconsin widow (Karen Allen). Together, they take an interstate road trip to rendezvous with a mother ship from his home planet.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

RUNAWAY
(PG-13, 1984, 101 min.)
Friday, May 18th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Starman

Written and directed by Michael Crichton, Runaway is set in the near future, when robots do most daily chores, but often break down and damage people and property. Sergeant Jack Ramsay (Tom Selleck) is in charge of shutting down "runaways." With his new partner, he stumbles upon a scheme by an evil scientist (Gene Simmons) who's unleashed a torrent of killer robots upon an unsuspecting city!
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
Christmas 1984 was overstuffed with high-profile movies. Beverly Hills Cop, 2010, and City Heat opened on the same day. One week later, we received Starman, Runaway, Dune, and The Cotton Club. I remember the TV ads for Runaway and Starman. That Christmas, every commercial break was touting Carpenter’s alien love story or Tom Selleck’s futuristic thriller, and not just as any ordinary films, but as the most important movies for 16 year-old boys of all time! All of us thought these ads were pointless, because everyone knew that Dune was gonna be the biggest movie of the season, maybe the biggest movie of all-time; Star Wars-big. (What did we know?) Movies taught my generation that the future was going to be shiny, metallic, and pointy. Runway and Starman were no exception, except now the future would also have pointy, metallic, killer robots and aliens who looked like that guy who starred with Farrah Fawcett in 1978’s Somebody Killed Her Husband. What more could you ask for, the ads cooed?

PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES
(NR, 1965, 88 min.)
Friday, June 1st
7:00 p.m.

Italian horror master Mario Bava directed this classic science fiction story that follows the horrific experiences of the crew members of two giant spaceships that have crash landed on a forbidding, unexplored planet. The disembodied inhabitants of the world possess the bodies of the crew who died during the crash, and use the animated corpses to stalk and kill the remaining survivors.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

BARBARELLA: QUEEN OF THE GALAXY
(NR, 1968, 85 min.)
Friday, June 1st
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Planet of the Vampires

Here is Roger Vadim's sexy sci-fi opus to the 1960s starring his then-wife Jane Fonda. Set in the 41st Century, Barbarella goes in search of the evil renegade scientist Duran Duran and instead manages to shag half the planet! See Barbarella demolish the amazing Orgasmatron and get herself locked into a funky chamber of dreams! See Barbarella save the day with a bubble of goodness.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
I love selecting the classic trailers that screen before every film because they give me ideas for future programs. Take Planet of the Vampires, for instance. It was a random trailer that played before King Kong vs. Godzilla last October. Sure, I’d heard of the film but could have never anticipated the audience reaction once its trailer started playing. People cheered and applauded; a reaction more common for things like The Shining and Evil Dead 2. But Planet of the Vampires? It’s moments like this when my job becomes easy. If you’re wondering, there’s been just one trailer that received a greater pop than Planet. It was for 1968’s The Green Slime, although I suspect it has more to do with that film’s catchy theme song than anything depicted on the screen. (No prints, says Warner Brothers.) Because it’s the start of summer, I figured a fun program was in order. Thus, Jane Fonda debuts at Retrofantasma. (Yes, Ms. Fonda’s debut would have been more appropriate in 1971’s Klute, but there’s no prints of that film, so Barbarella it is.)

JAWS
(PG, 1975, 125 min.)
Friday, June 22nd
7:00 p.m.

One of the greatest horror movies of all time returns…just in time for beach season. Amity Island is terrorized by surprise attacks from a great white shark. Three unlikely partners team up to hunt down the rogue and destroy it: the new chief of police from New York (Roy Scheider), a young university-educated oceanographer (Richard Dreyfuss), and a crusty old-time fisherman (Robert Shaw).
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

KING KONG
(PG, 1976, 134 min.)
Friday, June 22nd
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Jaws

Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange star in this ambitious remake which adds a great deal of fun to the story. It’s silly to compare this version of King Kong with the original. Each is representative of the times in which they were made. And yet, there is a splendor in watching the gargantuan ape battle attacking aircraft above the streets of New York City…from atop the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
Hard to believe, but it has been three years since we last ran Jaws at Retrofantasma. Jaws is credited with the creation of wide platform releases and summer blockbusters, but give me a break. I could play a lot of cards to explain its inclusion, but none are necessary. It’s a classic about a man-eating shark, and that’s all that matters. When it was released at Christmas 1976, King Kong was the movie that was supposed to topple Jaws as the all-time box office champ. It didn’t. And yet, the film was still the 3rd highest-grossing movie of the year. (Rocky was #1.) I’ve spent more than a decade looking for a 35mm print. Finally, Paramount agreed to loan us the last surviving copy which, until late 2011, I’m convinced they were not even aware existed. Special shout-out goes to Matt House for being such a fan of this movie that his enthusiasm caused me to hassle Paramount into combing their warehouse for a print. Incredibly, both movies inspired children’s toys. We’ll have a rare King Kong Board Game on display at the show.

Charles Laughton's NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
(US, NR, 1955, 93 min.)
Friday, July 6th
7:00 p.m.

Nobody has ever made anything approaching Hunter's phantasmagoric, overheated style in which German expressionism, religious hysteria, and fairy-tale fantasy are brought together in a furious boil. Like a premonition of stalker movies to come, Hunter tells the tale of a demented preacher (Robert Mitchum) who torments a boy and his little sister because he's certain the kids know where their late bank-robber father hid a stash of stolen money.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

Stanley Kubrick's THE KILLING
(US, NR, 1956, 85 min.)
Friday, July 6th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Night Of The Hunter

Stanley Kubrick's third feature, and first screen classic, is one of the great crime films of the 1950s. Jim Thompson (The Grifters) joined with Kubrick to concoct a story about a desperate gang of lowlifes led by a grim, determined Sterling Hayden. Together they devise and execute a complex racetrack robbery, but inner tensions and the iron fist of fate work against them.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
Exactly six seconds after introducing last December's Cape Fear, fans surrounded me as I stepped off-stage and demanded to know why I hadn't programmed Night of the Hunter as the double feature. After all, both films starred Robert Mitchum. The answer, I explained, was easy. I'd never seen or heard of Night of the Hunter. Was that the film where James Brolin searched for his daughter? No, fans informed me. A bit testily, I recall. That was 1980's Night of the Juggler. Oh, I shrugged, I'll have to research who owns the rights and see if any 35mm prints exist. (My standard response when I haven't a clue what-the-hell movie some pushy nerd is gushing on about.) Whereupon, I completely forgot about Night of the Hunter until its name appeared on a list of films owned by Park Circus, the distributor who acquired the MGM library. For reasons unbeknownst to me, they had a 35mm print. Imagine my surprise when I finally researched this barely-remembered Mitchum flick and realized it was considered one of the best films ever made, period. Yes, sometimes I am a dunderhead. After 17 years, the thrill of being a film programmer is partially wearing off and the struggle to justify keeping this job is settling in. (Ho, ho.) And sometimes, it does indeed pay to hound me at the prize table and insist that I watch a film or two. (But not too often because I don’t need the competition.) As for the second film? That was easy. For years, I've been itching to screen The Killing. Paired with Night of the Hunter, cinematic heaven has now been achieved. Sometimes, it pays to listen to the fans.

Dino De Laurentiis’ FLASH GORDON
(US, PG, 1980, 111 min.)
Friday, July 27th
7:00 p.m.

When energy waves pull the moon out of orbit, New York Jets quarterback Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) unwittingly finds himself heading for the planet Mongo where he'll take on Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow) and rescue humankind. Featuring spectacular thrills, out-of-this world special effects and unforgettable music by Queen, Flash Gordon is an exciting live-action adaptation of one of the most popular characters of all time!
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

Francis Ford Coppola's PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED
(US, PG-13, 1986, 103 min.)
Friday, July 27th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Flash Gordon

Kathleen Turner received a Best Actress nomination for portraying an unhappy, middle-aged woman who travels back in time to her high school years and has to decide whether to marry her future husband (Nicolas Cage) all over again. Co-starring Joan Allen, Helen Hunt, and Jim Carrey, Peggy Sue is a humorous, heartfelt fantasy about a golden opportunity almost everyone has longed for at least once.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
When Flash Gordon screened at Escapism in 2009, I was stunned by its attendance. Here's an example of a box-office bomb which transformed itself over time into another generation’s can't-miss movie event. Since Escapism, Flash has become one of the most-requested films on our surveys. This is the last-surviving 35mm print in the Universal Pictures archives. A lot of films could have paired with this goofy outer space epic including 1978’s Laserblast or 1984’s The Ice Pirates, but no. That would have been too predictable. One of the joys in selecting the vintage trailers which screen at of every Retro is gauging the audience's reaction to them. No one was more surprised than me when laughter and applause greeted the trailer for Peggy Sue during our presentation of 1986's Blue Velvet. It had never occurred to me that Peggy Sue was a genre film. For about ten minutes, I contemplated pairing it with Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, but (fortunately) came to my senses. It's coupling with Flash Gordon marks one of my personal favorite programs this season.

Billy Wilder's WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION
(US, NR, 1957, 116 min.)
Friday, August 3rd
7:00 p.m.

Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton star in this brilliantly made courtroom drama that left audiences reeling from its surprise twists and shocking climax. When a wealthy widow is found murdered, her married suitor, Leonard Vole (Power), is accused of the crime. Vole's only hope for acquittal is the testimony of his wife (Dietrich) but his airtight alibi shatters when she reveals some shocking secrets of her own!
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

Sydney Lumet's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS
(UK, PG, 1974, 128 min.)
Friday, August 3rd
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Witness For The Prosecution

Albert Finney is Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in this classic Agatha Christie thriller. Someone has knocked off a nasty American businessman aboard the Orient Express and, to Poirot's puzzlement, everyone seems to have a motive---just the setup for a terrific whodunit. Ingrid Bergman (who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar), Lauren Bacall, Anthony Perkins, Sean Connery, Jacqueline Bisset, John Gielgud, and Vanessa Redgrave head the all-star cast!
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
I love Agatha Christie. There, I turn myself in. Nothing totally delights me more than a good, old-fashioned, slap-to-the-forehead murder mystery like 1982's Deathtrap and 1972's Sleuth. (There are other things, but I am not discussing those here because my contract with this theatre is apparently based on work output and not charisma.) My personal favorite Christie adaptations are 1978's Death on the Nile and 1982's Evil Under the Sun. (Once again, I can find the rights but not the 35mm prints.) I even love the BBC's Poirot TV series. Once when the theatre sent me to a film conference in Utah (in January, I only mention), I spent an entire afternoon reading The Mysterious Affair at Styles in my warm condo rather than attend another boring panel discussion. (I later asked some attendees if I'd missed anything important, just in case, you know, my bosses back in NC should inquire. Not for nothing was I born in 1968.) It may come as a surprise when I write that I've never seen or read Witness for the Prosecution, despite its pedigree as one of the greatest mysteries ever made. And also because I’m pretty sure if I watched it by myself at my age, the accumulated slaps-to-the-forehead would probably blind me. I realize pairing it with 1974's Orient Express might seem uneven, but this is the last surviving 35mm print in the Paramount archives and I figured it best to screen this movie before some horrible fate befell it like one of Christie’s unfortunate poison victims.

David Cronenberg's SCANNERS
(US, R, 1981, 103 min.)
Friday, August 24th
7:00 p.m.

Cronenberg's masterpiece is a paranoid story of Cameron Vale, a homeless man mistakenly believed to be insane, who in fact can't turn off the sound of other people's thoughts in his telepathic mind. When a rogue madman of unparalleled power (Michael Ironside) wages a bloody war against the normals, Cameron is enlisted in a program of "scanners"---telepaths who can cause heads to explode---and recruited to track him down.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

Ken Russell's ALTERED STATES
(US, R, 1980, 102 min.)
Friday, August 24th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Scanners

William Hurt made his bold film debut as the psycho-physiologist who plays guinea pig to his own experiments. From the eternal channels of sense memory to the restorative power of a loving embrace, this movie rocks you to the birth of the universe and back again. Altered States uses symbolic imagery and mind-blowing special effects to depict one man's physical and hallucinatory journey through the history of human evolution.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
Incredibly, Scanners has never screened at Retrofantasma. Over the years, we’ve screened almost every other Cronenberg film (with the exception of 1988’s Dead Ringers; no prints available), but Scanners proved to be the Cronenberg film fans have most loudly been screaming for. As a double feature, I considered John Carpenter’s They Live. For sheer audacity, I even thought about 1983’s 10 to Midnight, that awesome Charles Bronson nude-slasher flick. In the end, Cronenberg’s head-exploding masterpiece needed something even nuttier to play against. Nuttier, that’s the word I needed to hear. I immediately thought of Ken Russell. For years, I had searched for prints of 1971’s The Devils, 1987’s Gothic and 1988’s Lair of the White Worm, but come up empty. At last, I had found the perfect place to program Russell’s Altered States, the most loopy, headache-inducing, psychedelic mindfuck I’ve seen since 2001: A Space Odyssey, another film which has apes. If you’ve never seen Altered States, prepare yourself.

Georges Franju's EYES WITHOUT A FACE
(France/Italy, NR, 1959, 88 min.)
Friday, September 7th
7:00 p.m.

Dr. Genessier (Pierre Brasseur), a famed plastic surgeon, lures a young woman to his secluded mansion with the help of his mistress Louise (Alida Valli), where he proceeds to remove their faces in an attempt to restore his daughter's scarred visage. Christiane (Edith Scob), disfigured in car accident caused by her guilt-ridden father, hides behind a spooky blank mask that exposes only her sad, lonely eyes. In French with English subtitles
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

Jacques Tourneur's CURSE OF THE DEMON
(UK, NR, 1955, 95 min.)
Friday, September 7th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Eyes Without A Face

After Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie, Tourneur returned to peak form with this first-rate supernatural thriller. It's a horror-noir set in England and built around the ominous notion that black arts---particularly the use of ancient runic symbols---can summon a deadly beast from hell. Dana Andrews is the stubborn American skeptic, determined to debunk a genteel occultist (Niall MacGinnis) whose evil powers are ultimately incontestable.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
When I first proposed this double feature to a friend of mine who happens to be a genre-buff, his response was, "Wow, that's a bit high-brow, isn't it?" I confess that I've never seen either of these films. (I know, I know. Two tickets to Prometheus, please?) And although I’ve apologized repeatedly and profusely to the cinematic gods, I can tell they think a little bit less of me. Originally, I'd intended a pair of spiffy Mario Bava films for this month's program, but after laying-out the selections (Black Sunday and Twitch of the Death Nerve), I learned that the rental fees had risen about a billion dollars since my last inquiry and had to say no. Who knew that Italy relied on a movie rental-based economy? You’d think I’d asked them to ship the skeletal remains of Leonardo da Vinci. Anyways, Retro fans are constantly flooring me by the movies they ask for. I could buy a brand-new Hublot Black Caviar Bang (go look it up) if I got handed a dollar for every time Star Wars appeared on the surveys. (I am not a guidance counselor.) But there's also a slew of movies that are new even to someone like myself, the world’s greatest genre film buff. Movies like 1956's Day the World Ended and 1966's Incubus. I hope that the inclusion of this month's selections broadens the scope of what Retro Classics stands for. Both are considered genre classics. It's not often that I jump into the programming abyss without a net, but here we are. Let's discover (or rediscover) these films together. And then I’ll plot my revenge.

George Romero's CREEPSHOW
(US, R, 1982, 120 min.)
Friday, September 28th
7:00 p.m.

Inspired by the controversial E.C. Comics of the 1950s, George Romero and screenwriter Stephen King serve up five delightfully frightful stories. Leslie Nielsen, Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, and even King appear in the stories, which include tales of a sinister father's day celebration, a mysterious meteor, seaweed-draped zombies, a monster in a crate, and a cockroach-phobic millionaire. Fiendishly fun fare from one of horror's most famous directors.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
(US, R, 1985, 91 min.)
Friday, September 28th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Creepshow

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the cemetery, those brain-eating zombies are back and hungry for more tasty mortals! On his first day on the job at an army surplus store, poor Freddy unwittingly releases nerve gas from a secret U.S. military canister, unleashing an unbelievable terror. The gas re-animates a corps of corpses, who arise from their graves with a ravenous hunger for human brains!
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
I’m sometimes stunned when I examine our archives and realize how much time has passed since a specific film last screened at Retro. What feels like several months to me is quite often, in fact, several years. For example, I am embarrassed to admit that it’s been more than four years since Creepshow last screened at Retrofantasma and more than a decade since Return of the Living Dead. No wonder they appear so often on our surveys! Originally, this program was supposed to screen in October for Halloween, however the print availability of Return necessitated a switch to September. Horror comedy mash-ups (Murder by Death and ‘The Burbs) have historically done well at Retro, and it’s a tradition I enjoy pursuing. At first, I’d considered bringing Clue back as a double feature with 1978’s Foul Play. I even briefly pondered 1979’s Love at First Bite (no prints) and 1986’s Haunted Honeymoon. How about a mash-up of Solarbabies and The Heavenly Kid, you ask? Someday, my friends. Someday.

Jack Arnold's THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON in 3-D
(US, NR, 1954, 79 min.)
Friday, October 5th
7:00 p.m.

Creature spawned two iconic images: the web-footed gill-man with a hankering for women and the leggy, luscious Julia Adams, the object of his desire, swimming the lagoon in a luminous white bathing suit. Not since King Kong has the "beauty and the beast" theme been portrayed in such sexually charged terms. A small expedition up a remote Amazon river captures a prehistoric amphibian man, who escapes to wreak havoc.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

James Whale's THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN
(US, NR, 1935, 75 min.)
Friday, October 5th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Creature From The Black Lagoon

One of the most popular horror classics of all time and an acclaimed sequel to the original Frankenstein. The legendary Boris Karloff reprises his role as the screen's most misunderstood monster who now longs for a mate of his own. Colin Clive is back as the overly ambitious Dr. Frankenstein, who creates the ill-fated bride (Elsa Lanchester). Directed by the original's James Whale (his last horror film), Bride ranks as one of the finest films of all time.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
Attendance for last season's Universal Monsters double feature of 1931's Dracula and 1941's The Wolf Man was tremendous. Almost immediately, I was pounced upon by psychotic fans to program another set of these classics. My original intent was to screen a combo of James Whale movies like The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein, but I couldn’t find prints of House. It had been several years since we screened Creature at the Nevermore Film Festival. Seeing all those people in the audience wearing old-fashioned cardboard 3-D glasses still makes me chortle. I figured it was high-time to bring that experience to Retro Classics. Is it necessary for me to defend the inclusion of either film in this series? I don’t think so, either. If you consider yourself a genre fan in the least, you need to experience these movies in 35mm on the big screen, period. That you can actually watch Creature while wearing 50's style anaglyph glasses only makes that experience even cooler. Plus, I get to laugh at you. This is the last surviving 35mm print of Bride in Universal's vault, so if you plan to see it the way it was meant to be seen, this might be your last chance. (I know, I beat this horse a lot.) Next time Bride screens in local theatres, it will probably be shown on some cheap-ass DVD or BluRay, and that plain sucks. If it helps make up your mind, we aren't charging three bucks for the glasses. And you don't have to "recycle" them in some plastic bin on your way out the door. They'll be your souvenir, okay?

Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's DRACULA
(US, R, 1992, 128 min.)
Friday, October 26th
7:00 p.m.

With dizzying cinematic tricks and astonishing performances, Francis Coppola's version of the oft-filmed Dracula story is one of the most exuberant, extravagant films of the 1990s. Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder, as the Count and Mina Murray, are quite a pair of star-crossed lovers. Anthony Hopkins plays Van Helsing, the vampire slayer. There's a little bit of everything in this version of Dracula: gore, high-speed horseback chases, passion, and longing.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

John Badham's DRACULA '79
(US, R, 1979, 109 min.)
Friday, October 26th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Dracula

This lush, atmospheric adaptation of the smash Broadway stage play from the director of Saturday Night Fever and Wargames has Frank Langella, repeating his award-winning stage performance as the bloodthirsty Count, and Sir Laurence Olivier as the devout vampire hunter, Abraham Van Helsing. A great cast that also includes Donald Pleasance and Kate Nelligan and a superbly atmospheric score by John Williams make this the ultimate 70s version of Dracula.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
In the history of Retrofantasma, we’ve never screened two different versions of the same story. It’s a concept so mind-bogglingly brilliant that I’m a bit ashamed it’s never earlier occurred to me. Here are two vastly alternative takes on Stoker’s myth, each originally intended for a different generation. Although released just 13 years apart, both versions are products of the times in which they were made. (Check out the disco laser effects in the ’79 version. See Coppola attempt to redeem himself after Godfather III.) Some might argue that 1958’s The Horror of Dracula with Christopher Lee is the definitive screen version of this story and that I should have instead selected that film for this double-bill. It’s a solid argument, but one that I have no intention of rebutting. The purpose here is not to quibble about which actor played a better vampire but to make a back-to-back comparison of more-recent cinematic versions of this story. And besides, I suspect that Chris and Peter will be appearing sometime soon at Retro Classics anyways.

Alan J. Pakula's THE PARALLAX VIEW
(US, R, 1974, 102 min.)
Friday, November 2nd
7:00 p.m.

The Parallax View is an absolute acid trip of a movie, and as pure a distillation of psychological paranoia as has ever been filmed. Warren Beatty plays Joe Frady, a loutish reporter who becomes convinced that an assassination witnessed by his ex-girlfriend was actually a conspiracy when she dies under mysterious circumstances. Joe goes undercover to infiltrate the Parallax Corporation, a secretive entity that, as it turns out, recruits and trains political assassins for hire.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

Sydney Pollack's THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR
(US, R, 1975, 117 min.)
Friday, November 2nd
Begins 15 minutes after the end of The Parallax View

CIA researcher Joe Turner (Robert Redford) literally returns from lunch to discover everyone in his office has been assassinated. When he desperately tries to contact his superiors and get spirited away to safety, someone tries to kill Turner as well. His only option is to kidnap a random woman (Faye Dunaway) and use her apartment as his hideout while he attempts to uncover the conspiracy against him.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
Of all the double features in this season's edition of Retro Classics, this is the one I'm most proud of. One of the things I love most about my job is the overlap of skill sets between my personal and professional taste in movies. As this series has evolved over the years, it's been my intention to keep erasing that stigma that seemingly exists between high art and high fun. I mean, come on. This is a double feature about spies, secret agents, and government cover-ups. What could be cooler that that? The 70's were ripe with these kinds of movies. In that decade, conspiracy thrillers developed as a genre unto themselves, mirroring the political context of the times. These slices of paranoid darkness managed to strike the difficult balance of being uncomfortably subversive, profoundly dark and unsettling, and yet richly entertaining and often quite successful. All the President's Men, Chinatown, Klute, The Conversation, and Winter Kills. I could program an entirely different film series with these movies. (Which, now that I think about it...) Anyways, here are two of the biggest box-office stars of the 70s: Warren Beatty and Robert Redford, each making his debut at Retro Classics. This, I dare to say, is a fantastic double feature. Why? Because the paranoia films of the 70s took the suspicion of our political institutions and ran with it, in the process creating one of the most exciting, unnerving, and important bodies of art in American cinema.

David Lynch's DUNE: The 1984 Theatrical Cut
(US, PG-13, 1984, 137 min.)
Friday, November 16th
7:00 p.m.

Even more than most of David Lynch's deliberately bizarre and idiosyncratic movies, Dune is a love-it-or-hate-it affair. Visit an unbelievable world beyond time and space and experience the ultimate adventure that goes beyond the imagination. This is the saga of intergalactic warrior Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan) and his messianic rise to leadership, featuring an all-star cast including Max Von Sydow, Linda Hunt and Sting.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

Walt Disney's THE BLACK HOLE
(US, PG, 1979, 98 min.)
Friday, November 16th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of Dune

Disney's foray into big-budget science fiction, The Black Hole is in many ways the most beautiful films of its era and is a veritable haunted house of futuristic phenomena, from the cloaked zombie-like drones shuffling through corridors to the devilish, crimson robot Maximillian, the strong arm of the mad scientist played by Maximilian Schell. Robert Forster, Anthony Perkins, Yvette Mimieux, Ernest Borgnine, and Joseph Bottoms fill out the cast.
• Link to movie trailer
• Link to IMDb listing

What Jim says…
When I programmed Dune three years ago, it was based on a stupid whim, nothing more. “Dune,” I asked myself the night before the screening, convinced no one would attend. “Why in hell did I pick Dune?” So certain was I that the program would belly flop, I bet my projectionist on how much money we would lose. He refused to participate, claiming I was a moron for programming Dune in the first place. Imagine our surprise when more than 200 fans arrived and turned one of the most-expensive sci-fi box-office disasters in history into one of our highest-attended Retros of all time. Of course, fans have been asking for the return of Dune ever since. But what sci-fi flop to round out the double bill? The one that really came to mind was 1979’s The Black Hole, if only because Disney had stockpiled such high hopes on it. Thus, here are two of the most-infamous sci-fi disasters in history, programmed because I hope that if one flop can draw 200 people, then two flops should draw 400. Never mind that our cinema only holds 276.

Ray Harryhausen's IT CAME FROM BENEATH THE SEA
(US, NR, 1955, 79 min.)
Friday, December 7th
7:00 p.m.

It Came...was the first collaboration between Ray Harryhausen and producer Charles H. Schneer. A giant radioactive octopus attacks a Navy submarine. Captain Pete Mathews (Kenneth Tobey) tracks down the beast before it can do damage to other boats or worse, coastal cities. As the giant octopus wreaks havoc on San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge, the military must figure out a way to destroy this monster before it takes more lives.
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Walt Disney's 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA
(US, NR, 1954, 127 min.)
Friday, December 7th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of It Came From Beneath The Sea

Climb aboard the Nautilus and into a strange undersea world of spellbinding adventure! Based on Jules Verne's classic novel, Kirk Douglas, Paul Lukas, and Peter Lorre star as shipwrecked survivors taken captive by the mysterious Captain Nemo (James Mason.) Wavering between genius and madness, Nemo has launched a deadly crusade across the seven seas. But can the captive crew stop his evil crusade before he destroys the world?
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What Jim says…
What better way to end the season than a good, old-fashioned creature double feature? Don't fall in love with me. As I reviewed the line-up, I realized that (with the exception of Black Lagoon) the films this July-November were especially dark. What was missing was that thunderous sense of cheap fun that could be found in movies like Them! and The Giant Gila Monster. For the holidays, I decided to drop all high-brow pretensions and simply program a set of films that would make gobs of money but not win me any more awards. Originally, I'd chosen It! The Terror Beyond Space rather than 20,000 Leagues. Ultimately, the idea of two giant octopus movies grew on me. Plus, it was a chance to show a Walt Disney film, which (except for Mulan) are mostly classics unto themselves. One of these days, I’ll program 1981’s The Devil and Max Devlin, a personal favorite. As for screening another Harryhausen film after last season's Jason and the Argonauts and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad? It's because time is gaining on these aging 35mm prints. Once they're gone, it's unlikely that studios will invest to strike new ones. And while I could go on about this for literally thousands of pages, I think by now you get the idea. You better not just be skimming over this part as you’re standing in line at the concession stand. I feel like I’ve been pretty blabby, you know, preservation-wise. And did I mention there's a totally awesome giant octopus in each of these flicks?

John Carpenter's THE THING
(US, R, 1982, 109 min.)
Friday, December 14th
7:00 p.m.

Man is the warmest place to hide. Carpenter's harrowing remake of the '50s classic centers on a snowbound research team in Antarctica (including Kurt Russell) who dig up the remains of a spacecraft that has long been frozen in the ice. But the alien life unthaws and infects the living. Cut off from the rest of the world, paranoia and mistrust begin to set in as the men realize any one of them could be the creature.
• Link to movie trailer
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Phillip Kaufman's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS
(US, PG, 1978, 115 min.)
Friday, December 14th
Begins 15 minutes after the end of The Thing

Invasion fits perfectly into the cycle of paranoid thrillers that thrived in American movies of the 1970s. Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams lead a distinguished cast (including Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy, and Veronica Cartwright) who must fight for survival as the population of San Francisco is systematically cloned by alien "pods" from a distant, dying planet.
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What Jim says…
Everybody loves to boo and hiss at the remakes. Never as good as the originals, the argument goes. Here is a double-bill that proves that not all remakes suck. Both are updated versions of 1950’s sci-fi/horror classics, and both have earned their place as modern classics of the genre, despite being retreads of previously-filmed material. So solid are their reputations, some people forget they’re remakes. The theme for this double-feature could have easily been post-Watergate paranoia. It never occurred to me, but The Thing and Invasion are essentially the same story when you think about it. In both films, characters suspect one another of being cold, calculating creatures from other worlds. Who can you trust, each film asks? John Carpenter is, of course, a staple of Retrofantasma. I doubt we’ve had a single season in which one of his movies hasn’t made an appearance. Invasion previously screened at Retro in August 2009. Originally, the name of this program was Rarities of the Remakes.