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Film Night at the Pickford Theater – Thursday, March 19

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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, March 19 at 7:00 p.m.

SIMON AND LAURA (Group Film Productions, U.K., 1955). Directed by Muriel Box. Screenplay by Peter Blackmore, based on the play by Alan Melville. With Peter Finch, Kay Kendall, Muriel Pavlow, Hubert Gregg, Maurice Denham, Ian Carmichael. (91 min, Technicolor, 35mm).

Lobby card for “Simon and Laura” (Group Film Productions, U.K., 1955). Image courtesy of IMDb.com.

A pair of squabbling stage actors on the cusp of divorce are hired to feature in a TV soap opera about a happily married couple. A witty satire of the then booming medium of television, “Simon and Laura” is an exemplary introduction to the work of Muriel Box, Britain’s most prolific female director. A “forgotten pioneer,” Box directed fourteen films from 1949 to 1964 and wrote nearly twice as many screenplays (often in collaboration with her husband and producer Sydney Box), an output without peer for a woman working in the male dominated realm of post-World War II commercial cinema. Archival print from the Library’s Copyright Collection.

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

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.

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