Supported by Wiltshire Council’s Future High Streets Fund
The Best in Classic & Independent Cinema
Programme
Friday 29th November
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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A ROOM WITH A VIEW (1986) Cert PG
Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham-Carter, Denholm Elliott. Directed by James Ivory. (1h 52m)
Merchant Ivory's delightful adaptation of EM Forster's A Room With A View is still a glorious piece of entertainment. It's not just an enchanting comedy of manners about the English upper class at home and abroad, but also a soaring romantic drama about being true to your heart rather than to society's rules. Helena Bonham-Carter is well brought-up young Englishwoman Lucy Honeychurch, touring Italy in the early 20th century with her prim older cousin, played by the marvellous Maggie Smith. At a hotel in Florence, she encounters the free-spirited George Emerson (Julian Sands). Confused and stirred by the raw unfettered romanticism of Tuscany, Lucy returns to England and accepts a proposal from her pompous and buttoned-up suitor Cecil (played to comic perfection by Daniel Day-Lewis). It's an eminently sensible match, but is it the right one for the spirited and headstrong Lucy? When George reappears in her life, she must decide between the two men... No film has better captured that awkward transition in history from strait-laced Victorian morality to the free-thinking emotion of the Edwardian era, all set against a sumptuous backdrop of picturesque Florence and the English countryside. A superb roll-call of some of Britain's finest character actors provide rich support, not least the divine Maggie Smith and wonderful and much-missed Denholm Elliott as George's impassioned father. This is pure delight from start to finish.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 6th December
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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PULP FICTION (1994) Cert 18
John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis. Directed by Quentin Tarantino. (2h 34m)
Quentin Tarantino's superlative tale of the criminal underworld celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. It's a phenomenal achievement. It was only his second movie but Pulp Fiction radiates sheer confidence from the get-go. What other novice director would have had the sheer cojones to insist on this breathtaking out-of-sequence structure? One that knits together multiple intertwined stories about a disparate group of LA low-lifers: boxers, hoodlums, hitmen, drug dealers, an unforgettable gangster and his equally unforgettable moll – Uma Thurman in the role that has defined her entire career. With clockwork symmetry the whole story circles back over the course of 2 1/2 hours to the place where it begins: the diner that is being held up a wannabe Bonnie & Clyde odd couple, played by Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer. Unfortunately for them, they've picked the same diner where another odd couple, off-duty assassins John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson, are enjoying an uncharacteristically quiet breakfast. Meanwhile buried somewhere in the heart of this wonderful concoction lies the tale of eager-to-retire boxer Bruce Willis who double-crosses a top gangster and then redeems his debt in a memorable episode set in a backstreet S&M dungeon. And that's not something you find in the movies every day! If you've never seen Pulp Fiction, where have you been for the last 30 years? If you have, come and enjoy it all over again on our Big Screen as our festive treat!
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 13th December
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959) Cert 12
Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon. Directed by Billy Wilder. (1h 57m
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Come and celebrate the arrival of Christmas and drink a toast to Parade House with one of the greatest screwball comedies ever made. After accidentally witnessing a Mafia murder, musicians Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon improvise a crazy plan to escape Chicago with their lives. Disguising themselves as women, they join an all-female jazz band and hop a train bound for sunny Florida. While Curtis pretends to be a millionaire to win the band's sexy singer -- played by the incomparable Marilyn Monroe -- Lemmon finds himself pursued as a potential bride by a real millionaire. Meanwhile things heat up as the mobsters close in... Billy Wilder's brilliant movie is sheer perfection in every detail. It's 65 years old this year but still a comedy masterpiece.
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Why not join us for dinner before the movie? Ushers Bar is open for drinks and dinner from 6pm.
Friday 20th December
Doors open 6pm for 8pm start
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IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946) Cert U
James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Henry Travers. Directed by Frank Capra.
For our final performance in The Screening Room at Parade House, a genuine Christmas classic, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. If it's been a while since you saw it, you might remember the film only for its sentimental seasonal finale, guaranteed to touch even the hardest of hearts. But in fact this is at its core a surprisingly hard-edged tale, arguably one of the first Hollywood "noir" films in its grown-up and clear-eyed view of a jaded post-war world. In despair at the way his life has turned out, and unable to prevent his home town from being ravaged by a heartless property developer, James Stewart's kindly smalltown banker George Bailey considers ending it all. He's saved from self-destruction by an impish guardian angel who takes him at his word when he declares "I wish I'd never been born!". In a brilliant reverse twist on Dickens' A Christmas Carol, good-hearted George is forced to revisit his sleepy little town as it would have turned out had he indeed never existed. It turns out to be a nightmare vision of a past that never was but would have been if not for George's personal intervention. (The same idea was borrowed 40 years later for Back To The Future II). Of course George finds redemption in the end and is returned to the real world - and his adoring family - just in time for Christmas. But the film's underlying holiday message remains, and is as true now as it has ever been: in a cruel world, we can all make a difference simply by being kind to one another. Happy holidays!
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