After a pandemic enforced hiatus, one of the highlights of the TPFC calendar is back! back! back! A whole day of screenings, where each film is no more (approx) than an hour long!
Because of the nature of the festival, there is no need to book for individual screenings: just turn up n take a seat!. Non-members are more than welcome to join on the day. (Annual membership is £20 - payable in cold hard cash - and entitles you to a year’s worth of free weekly screenings AND 10% off food on a film club night.)
12.30pm - Opening with Orson
Too Much Johnson (Orson Welles, USA, 1938) - 66 mins
Welles’ pre-Kane movie is a silent comedy starring a very young Joseph Cotton as a would-be philanderer on the run from an angry cuckold. Originally filmed as part of a theatre production and long-thought lost, Too Much Johnson is often visually stunning and offers a fascinating glimpse of the budding genius that would fully bloom in Citizen Kane just a few years later.
2pm - The Dulcet Tones of James Mason double bill
The Tell-Tale Heart (Ted Parmalee, USA, 1953) - 8 mins
James Mason narrates Columbia Pictures’ animated adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe classic.
The London Nobody Knows (Norman Cohen, UK, 1969) - 45 mins
James Mason narrates this charming doc about London in the late 60s.
3.15pm - WC Fields classic comedy
The Dentist (Leslie Pearce, USA, 1932) - 22 mins
Previous TPFC Shorter Film Fests have featured classic shorts from Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. Now it’s W.C. Fields’ turn to step into the spotlight. Here he plays an unconventional dentist dealing with a variety of eccentric and difficult patients. Slapstick inevitably ensues…
4pm - Cinematic memories
La Morte Rouge (Victor Erice, Spain, 2006) - 34 mins
Director Victor Erice (The Spirit of the Beehive) recalls his earliest filmgoing memories in 1940s Spain.
4.45pm - Contemporary Short Films
A selection of contemporary short films with intros from their makers. (Schedule TBC)
6pm - Celluloid Jukebox
A selection of great music videos staring Hollywood A-listers such as Greta Gerwig, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Walken and Cate Blanchett , to name but four…
7pm - Scorsese x 1
American Boy (Martin Scorsese, USA, 1978) - 55 mins
Marty’s rarely seen 70s short about larger-than-life raconteur Steven Prince ( whose memorable turn as Easy Andy, the gun salesman in Scorsese’s Taxi Driver , is revealed to have probably not been too much of a stretch for Prince’s acting talents). Quentin Tarantino was obviously taking notes…
8.15pm - Funny Business
A selection of great comedy shorts from the likes of Wes Anderson and the Safdie Brothers. (Schedule TBC)
9pm - a classy conclusion
The Holy Man (Satyajit Ray, India, 1965) - 65mins
We finish with TPFC favourite Satyajit Ray and his typically wry tale about a devout Hindu family who fall victim to a charlatan posing as a holy man.
