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Fall In for Flicks

Written by Bill DeLapp

Film projectors light up the screens for several autumn slates

As daylight inevitably ebbs amid our autumnal evening skies, with fair-weather ducks bidding noisy farewells as they take it on the lam, the urge to hibernate within our cozy homes deepens. So get off your duffs and go out to see an old movie, for cryin’ out loud!

For nearly 40 years the Syracuse Cinephile Society has been unspooling their Tinseltown treats at various venues, and it looks like they’ve found a happy home at the Spaghetti Warehouse, 680 N. Clinton St. Each Monday at 7:30 p.m. the restaurant sets aside a dining room for the screenings, with menu items available for consumption while viewing the society’s own eclectic menu of classics and rarely seen items. Biz is good, according to society vice president Gerry Orlando, who reports a capacity crowd of 78 turned out for a June program featuring the Fred Astaire musical You Were Never Lovelier.

The fall slate boasts a few ringers such as a Jimmy Cagney hoodlum epic, but there are also plenty of features that haven’t been shown in years. The season continues on Monday, Sept. 21, with Ronald Colman as sleuth Bulldog Drummond (1929), followed by the 1936 all-star comedy College Holiday (Sept. 28) with Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen; Fred MacMurray in the 1936 airplane adventure 13 Hours By Air (Oct. 5); the aforementioned Cagney suffering from an Oedipal complex as badass Cody Jarrett in 1949’s White Heat (Oct. 12); Betty Grable and Alice Faye in the 1940 musical Tin Pan Alley (Oct. 19); and a Halloween double bill featuring Bela Lugosi in sawtooth mode for 1935’s Mark of the Vampire plus the memorably bizarre 1933 Paramount thriller Murders in the Zoo (Oct. 26).

Later in the season, check out the 1934 soaper There’s Always Tomorrow (Nov. 2); Abbott and Costello in the 1941 wartime lark In the Navy (Nov. 9); Jimmy Stewart and Marlene Dietrich in the 1939 cowpoke classic Destry Rides Again (Nov. 16); Alec Guinness in the 1953 British comedy The Captain’s Paradise (Nov. 23); Lloyd Nolan as the now-forgotten movie detective Michael Shayne in 1941’s Dressed to Kill (Nov. 30); and Cesar Romero, Milton Berle and Sheldon Leonard in the 1941 gangster comedy Tall, Dark and Handsome (Dec. 7). Admission is $3, although Cinephile members get in for $2.50, with membership forms available at every screening. For Spaghetti Warehouse information, call 475-1807.

Meanwhile, the Brew and View movie series is up and running at Eastwood’s Palace Theatre, 2384 James St., with Brew-meister Jeff Meyer fielding a 35mm schedule that’s heavier than usual on star power—although programmer Meyer’s jones for grislier fare will also be occasionally satisfied. On Friday, Sept. 18, a 7 p.m. twin bill of Spielberg’s Jaws and Hitchcock’s The Birds will cost $8, with proceeds to benefit the Eastwood Skateboard Park. Then on Sept. 25, 7 p.m., the skate park again benefits from a $10 triple header featuring Jurassic Park, Alligator and the 1959 camp howler The Giant Gila Monster.

The madness continues on Oct. 9 with the 1988 remake of The Blob plus the underrated horror comedy Night of the Creeps and the Eurotrash slaughterhouse Nightmare City (7 p.m.; $10). On Oct. 23 the cult comedies Repo Man and Rock’n’Roll High School are paired with Herschell Gordon Lewis’ notorious 1970 opus The Wizard of Gore (featuring Henny Youngman!), also with a 7 p.m. start time and $10 tariff. Auteur Brian DePalma is feted on Nov. 6 with the gangster melodramas Scarface and The Untouchables (7 p.m.; $8), with Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II checking in on Nov. 22 (7 p.m.; $5). More gore is in store with the Nov. 13 slasher party featuring Friday the 13th Part 2, Bloodsuckers from Outer Space and the 1985 self-referential Troma spoof The Toxic Avenger (6:30 p.m.; $10).

The Dec. 11 John Travolta double feature of Pulp Fiction and Saturday Night Fever (7 p.m.; $12) includes a musical set from the United Booty Foundation, while Star Trek fans will set their phasers on stun during the Dec. 18 screenings of The Wrath of Khan and First Contact (7 p.m.; $8). Meyer encourages patrons to get into costumes according to each program’s theme, because they’ll get a few bucks shaved off the admission. Drinkers have to be 21 and over, however, while some movies will be age-restricted to 16 and up. For Palace information, call 463-9240.

Further afield, Rome’s Capitol Theater, 220 W. Dominick St., also presents 35mm films in its 1928-vintage bijou. The third annual Mystery Night, taking place Saturday, Sept. 19, 7 p.m., offers two durable whodunits, 1936’s Charlie Chan at the Circus and 1942’s Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, plus an interactive murder-mystery presented on the Capitol’s stage.

The movie house switches to horror flicks during October, including George Romero’s definitive zombie spectacle Night of the Living Dead (Oct. 10; 2:30 and 7 p.m.); a 3-D screening of 1954’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon, paired with the 2001 B-movie spoof The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (Oct. 17; 2:30 and 7 p.m.); and Vincent Price in the 1959 spooker The House on Haunted Hill (Oct. 24; 7 p.m.), featuring a recreation of shlockmeister William Castle’s Percept-O gimmick, with the prospects of lost skeletons falling into the laps of unsuspecting moviegoers.

The Capitol caps its 2009 schedule with Frank Capra’s immortal It’s a Wonderful Life, on Dec. 18 at 7 p.m., and Dec. 19 at 2:30 and 7 p.m. Movie admission is usually $5.50 for adults (Night of the Living Dead is $3.50, however) and $1.50 for children, although the theater strongly advises that the zombie flick shouldn’t be witnessed by youthful peepers. For more information, call 337-6453.