The Mary Pickford Theater is a free film theater located on the 3rd floor of the Madison Building of the Library of Congress / 101 Independence Avenue SE. Seating is on a first come, first serve basis. Doors open at 6pm.
Thursday, March 16th at 6:30 p.m.
THE MALTESE FALCON (Warner Bros., 1941). Directed by John Huston. Screenplay by John Huston, from the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett. With Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane, Lee Patrick, Sydney Greenstreet. (100 min, black & white, 35mm).
Lobby card from”The Maltese Falcon” (Warner Bros., 1974)
A private eye, his murdered partner, a priceless statue and a coterie of deceitful characters are the main ingredients of this seminal film noir, the first to introduce the Bogart persona that turned an already well-known actor into a Hollywood icon. Making his directorial debut, John Huston closely followed the structure and hard-boiled dialogue of Hammett’s novel, first published in 1929-30 in serialized form in the pulp magazine “Black Mask.” A truly canonical work presented in a pristine 35mm print generated by the Packard Campus Film Preservation Lab from the original nitrate negatives in the United Artists Collection. Selected for the National Film Registry in 1989.
Thursday, April 13th at 6:30 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 from”Simon and Laura” (Group film Productions, U.K., 1955)
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 14 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.
More Info: //www.loc.gov/programs/audio-visual-conservation/events-and-screenings/screenings/