Every month, films from the Library’s collection are shown at the Mary Pickford Theater in the James Madison Building, ranging from titles newly preserved by the National Audio Visual Conservation Center film lab, classics from the National Film Registry, and lesser known titles worthy of discovery.

Thursday, December 19th at 7:00 p.m.

KEY WITNESS (Columbia, 1947). Directed by D. Ross Lederman. Screenplay by Edward Bock, from an original story by J. Donald Wilson. With John Beal, Trudy Marshall, Jimmy Lloyd, Helen Mowery, Wilton Graff, Barbara Reed. (67 min, black & white, 35mm).

Lobby card for “Key Witness” (Columbia, 1947). Image courtesy of Ebay.

THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE (RKO, 1947). Directed by Felix E. Feist. Screenplay by Felix E. Feist, from the novel of the same name by Robert C. DuSoe. With Lawrence Tierney, Ted North, Nan Leslie, Betty Lawford, Andrew Tombes. (62 min, black & white, 35mm).

Lobby card for “The Devil Thumbs a Ride” (RKO, 1947). Image courtesy of Collectors.com.

We close the year with a pair of brand new 35mm prints of two forgotten film noirs recently preserved by the Library’s Packard Campus Film Preservation Lab. In “Key Witness,” John Beal goes through enough plot twists to fill two full-length features as a man wrongly suspected of murder who runs away and tries to hide under an assumed identity. “The Devil Thumbs a Ride” stars Lawrence Tierney in what is arguably the most unnerving of his many nasty and malevolent bad guys, in this case a murderous sociopath who hitches a ride from San Diego to LA with a young traveling salesman.

Seating is on a first-come first-serve basis. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.

For more information on our programs, please visit the Mary Pickford Theater website.

The Mary Pickford Theater is located on the 3rd floor of the Library of Congress James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. SE, Washington, DC, 20540.