OCTOBER CHILLS: THE INNOCENTS (1961)

'Tis the season, so expect at least a few posts on The Rain Falls Down on Portlandtown during October to focus on horror (and/or just plain spooky) movies.  That being said, I wanted to start things off with a bang by highlighting a film from my personal top-ten.  Pauline Kael called Jack Clayton's 1961 gothic horror masterpiece The Innocents, "the best ghost movie I've ever seen."  Despite disagreeing with Kael on a few of her more controversial opinions (her vocal distaste for Hitchcock and Shoah being the most glaring examples), we're absolutely cine-buddies when it comes to the creepy atmospherics on offer in The Innocents.

One could certainly quibble with Pauline over the matter of whether or not Clayton's adaptation of Henry James' "The Turn of the Screw" is, in fact, a ghost story at all: Deborah Kerr's governess character, Miss Giddens, is arguably the most sinister thing going on in the film, given her determination to "love people and help them...even if they refuse my help...even if it hurts them sometimes."  Indeed, much of the pleasure of watching The Innocents boils down to the question of whether Miss Giddens supernatural encounters are real or imagined.

With two damaged, young children under her care, Kerr's unreliable sense of the objective steers the film towards a terrifying close, where no viewer can truly know whether the children (and Giddens) are being haunted by the spirits of their former governess and her lover or by Miss Giddens' stringently orthodox notions about morality and humanity's failure to rise to it.  As the college film professor who turned me on to The Innocents noted, there are strong clues present during the opening title sequence, just listen to the trembling prayer being offered up by Giddens.

In addition the central conundrum of the film, The Innocents sports crisply composed black and white compositions by the great English cinematographer Freddie Francis (Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, The Elephant Man), biting dialogue script doctored by none other than Truman Capote, and two of the creepiest child actors (Martin Stephens and Pamela Franklin) ever to have graced the silver screen.  All of which falls under the direction of Jack Clayton, whose later work on Something Wicked This Way Comes spooked an entire generation of Disney fans.

Out of the entire pack of older films that I'll be posting about this month in this "October Chills" series, The Innocents is by far the best of the bunch. 

Highly recommended viewing!

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SING-A-LONG WITH CAPTAIN VON TRAPP AT CINEMA 21

You can't get much more iconic than Julie Andrews spinning through Austrian hills in Robert Wise's The Sound of Music.  Well, beginning Thursday, Cinema 21's going to give you a chance to try your hardest to outsing the old girl when Sing-A-Long Sound of Music returns to Portland.  Whether you bring a group of friends or decide to caterwaul with a bunch of strangers, the event promises you the rare opportunity to be loud at the movies without getting tossed out of the theater on your head. 

Here's a glimpse at the release for the event:

The hit, interactive, musical phenomenon, SING-A-LONG SOUND OF MUSIC, returns to Portland for 7 full performances at Cinema 21 September 26 - October 6, 2013! Having started in the UK back in 1999, the Sing-a-Long Sound of Music show has now become a worldwide hit, playing to packed houses across the globe with over 10,000 performances in 11 different countries! It’s even filled the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles – 7 times! 

For those of you not yet converted, Sing-a-Long Sound of Music is a screening of the classic Julie Andrews film musical in glorious, full-screen technicolor, complete with subtitles so that the whole audience can sing along! The fun-filled show starts with a vocal warm-up led by the evening’s host, who also takes the audience through their complimentary "magic moments pack," containing various props to be used at strategic points throughout the film. Then there is the famous fancy-dress competition in which everyone who has come in costume is invited onto the stage to show off their fantastic tailoring skills. And the more venues we play, the more elaborate the costumes get. Previous entries have included: nuns of both genders (including a pregnant nun!), girls (and boys!) in white dresses with blue satin sashes, a lonely Goatherd, a man in a gold lycra catsuit (Ray a Drop of Golden Sun!), a gazebo and more! 

Get out your wimples and warm woolen mittens, put on your white dresses with blue satin sashes, cut up those chintz curtains and get your vocal cords warmed up because the city is alive with SING-A-LONG SOUND OF MUSIC! SING-A-LONG SOUND OF MUSIC is a fun, joyful, interactive event that makes an ideal girls' night or a unique family outing!

Sing-A-Long Sound of Music runs  Thursday, September 26th through Sunday, September 29th, plus Saturday, October 5th through Sunday, October 6th at the Cinema 21.  More info available here.

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