Welcome to all who long for REALLY great films in a REAL cinema – not just today's blockbusters. Great directors from any time. Big screen with top-quality projection at the Wells Film Centre. Monday and Tuesday evenings (YOU choose which) every 4 weeks throughout the year. That's what this film society is for.
Don’t believe us? Just look at what you’ve already missed!
Latest:
Next film: Mon-Tue 5-6 Apr
Site updated: 8 Mar 2010
What’s it about?
To the deep, un-PC past and a Hans Christian Andersen story about a conceited girl who, despite protest, continued to wear red shoes in going to church, but could not stop them from dancing even when her feet were cut off. [They wrote stories like that in those days. You should read the splendid Norse tales that I was brought up on! Ed]
This film avoids much of the story, including most of the nastier bits. It is, however, Powell & Pressburger, who then, with Carol Reed, of course, dominated the best British cinema. At that time, also the world. So, to compensate it is visually utterly outstanding – as with so many of their films. [Remember Black Narcissus, TWFS film in Sep 2007, and the sudden appearance of Sister Ruth on her way to murder above the abyss?] The acting and ballet are great too.
Shown to acclaim at Cannes last year, after remastering of the print. Not bad for a 60-year-old!
You MUST see this remarkable film. In a year or so it will again have vanished from the big screen where it belongs, and for too long for most of us.
Some views?
VFG: “Magical.”, 5*.
TOFG: “... in texture, it’s nothing like the British cinema had ever seen ...”.
H1000 waxes unusually lyrical in placing it at 53 out of its 1000 best films of all time: “Never was a better film made from such a penny-plain story ... The splendour of the production ... the whole film is charged with excitement ... a story of art as something to die for ... a compelling work of dark fantasy, of art for death’s sake.”
DP: “… if one accepts the story, talent becomes a small word for the quality of its handling … and extraordinary audacity informs the screen … Let me say again that, in this matter of enjoyed authority and daring, Powell and Pressburger have in my opinion no rival anywhere, either in America or in Europe.”
Awards: 2 Oscars and a Golden Globe. (Puny? In the 1940s there wasn’t today’s plethora of film festivals. So there were very few awards. What would it have won today?)
Some on-line reviews: IMDB, Wikipedia.
(TOFG, VFG, 1001, EFG, H1000, RT, BN100, DP, NYFCC, DT, ...? What do these acronyms mean?)
