Our dining area will be transformed into a theater for the evening, including a canteen that will serve period refreshments.

Prior to the screening of the feature, we will be treated to the next episode of the serial, “Daredevils of the Red Circle.”

Please invite your family and friends to join us for this entertaining event.

Date: Saturday, May 29th 2010
Time: 7:00 PM
Location: Sunset Lodge, 1720 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica

Here is a review of Lawrence of Arabia by Roger Ebert:

What a bold, mad act of genius it was, to make ”Lawrence of Arabia,” or even think that it could be made. In the words years later of one of its stars, Omar Sharif: ”If you are the man with the money and somebody comes to you and says he wants to make a film that’s four hours long, with no stars, and no women, and no love story, and not much action either, and he wants to spend a huge amount of money to go film it in the desert–what would you say?”

The impulse to make this movie was based, above all, on imagination. The story of ”Lawrence” is not founded on violent battle scenes or cheap melodrama, but on David Lean’s ability to imagine what it would look like to see a speck appear on the horizon of the desert, and slowly grow into a human being. He had to know how that would feel before he could convince himself that the project had a chance of being successful.

There is a moment in the film when the hero, the British eccentric soldier and author T.E. Lawrence, has survived a suicidal trek across the desert and is within reach of shelter and water–and he turns around and goes back, to find a friend who has fallen behind. This sequence builds up to the shot in which the shimmering heat of the desert reluctantly yields the speck that becomes a man–a shot that is held for a long time before we can even begin to see the tiny figure. On television, this shot doesn’t work at all–nothing can be seen. In a movie theater, looking at the stark clarity of a 70mm print, we lean forward and strain to bring a detail out of the waves of heat, and for a moment we experience some of the actual vastness of the desert, and its unforgiving harshness.

By being able to imagine that sequence, Lean was able to imagine why the movie would work. ”Lawrence of Arabia” is not a simple biography or an adventure movie–although it contains both elements–but a movie that uses the desert as a stage for the flamboyance of a driven, quirky man. Although it is true that Lawrence was instrumental in enlisting the desert tribes on the British side in the 1914-17 campaign against the Turks, the movie suggests that he acted less out of patriotism than out of a need to reject conventional British society, choosing to identify with the wildness and theatricality of the Arabs. There was also a sexual component, involving his masochism.

T.E. Lawrence must be the strangest hero ever to stand at the center of an epic. To play him, Lean cast one of the strangest of actors, Peter O’Toole, a lanky, almost clumsy man with a beautiful sculptured face and a speaking manner that hesitates between amusement and insolence. O’Toole’s assignment was a delicate one. Although it was widely believed that Lawrence was a homosexual, a multimillion-dollar epic filmed in 1962 could not be frank about that. And yet Lean and his writer, Robert Bolt, didn’t simply cave in and rewrite Lawrence into a routine action hero. Everything is here for those willing to look for it.

Using O’Toole’s peculiar speech and manner as their instrument, they created a character who combined charisma and craziness, who was so different from conventional military heroes that he could inspire the Arabs to follow him in a mad march across the desert. There is a moment in the movie when O’Toole, dressed in the flowing white robes of a desert sheik, does a victory dance on top of a captured Turkish train, and he almost seems to be posing for fashion photos. This is a curious scene because it seems to flaunt gay stereotypes, and yet none of the other characters in the movie seem to notice–nor do they take much notice of the two young desert urchins that Lawrence takes under his protection.

What Lean, Bolt and O’Toole create is a sexually and socially unconventional man who is simply presented as what he is, without labels or comment. Could such a man rally the splintered desert tribes and win a war against the Turks? Lawrence did. But he did it partially with mirrors, the movie suggests; one of the key characters is an American journalist (Arthur Kennedy), obviously inspired by Lowell Thomas, who single-handedly laundered and retailed the Lawrence myth to the English-language press. The journalist admits he is looking for a hero to write about. Lawrence is happy to play the role. And only role-playing would have done the job; an ordinary military hero would have been too small for this canvas.

For a movie that runs 216 minutes, plus intermission, ”Lawrence of Arabia” is not dense with plot details. It is a spare movie in clean, uncluttered lines, and there is never a moment when we’re in doubt about the logistical details of the various campaigns. Lawrence is able to unite various desert factions, the movie argues, because (1) he is so obviously an outsider that he cannot even understand, let alone take sides with, the various ancient rivalries; and (2) because he is able to show the Arabs that it is in their own self-interest to join the war against the Turks. Along the way he makes allies of such desert leaders as Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif), Prince Feisal (Alec Guinness) and Auda Abu Tayi (Anthony Quinn), both by winning their respect and by appealing to their logic. The dialogue in these scenes is not complex, and sometimes Bolt makes it so spare it sounds like poetry.

I’ve noticed that when people remember ”Lawrence of Arabia,” they don’t talk about the details of the plot. They get a certain look in their eye, as if they are remembering the whole experience, and have never quite been able to put it into words. Although it seems to be a traditional narrative film–like ”Bridge on the River Kwai,” which Lean made just before it, or ”Doctor Zhivago,” which he made just after–it actually has more in common with such essentially visual epics as Kubrick’s ”2001” or Eisenstein’s ”Alexander Nevsky.” It is spectacle and experience, and its ideas are about things you can see or feel, not things you can say. Much of its appeal is based on the fact that it does not contain a complex story with a lot of dialogue; we remember the quiet, empty passages, the sun rising across the desert, the intricate lines traced by the wind in the sand.

Although it won the Academy Award as the year’s best picture in 1962, ”Lawrence of Arabia” might have been lost if it hadn’t been for the film restorers Robert A. Harris and Jim Painten. They discovered the original negative in Columbia’s vaults, inside crushed and rusting film cans, and also about 35 minutes of footage that had been trimmed by distributors from Lean’s final cut. They put it together again, sometimes by one crumbling frame at a time (Harris sent me one of the smashed cans as a demonstration of Hollywood’s carelessness with its heritage).

To see it in a movie theater is to appreciate the subtlety of F.A. (Freddie) Young’s desert cinematography–achieved despite blinding heat, and the blowing sand, which worked its way into every camera. ”Lawrence of Arabia” was one of the last films to actually be photographed in 70mm (as opposed to being blown up to 70 from a 35mm negative). There was a hunger within filmmakers like Lean (and Kubrick, Coppola, Tarkovsky, Kurosawa and Stone) to break through the boundaries, to dare a big idea and have the effrontery to impose it on timid studio executives. The word ”epic” in recent years has become synonymous with ”big budget B picture.” What you realize watching ”Lawrence of Arabia” is that the word ”epic” refers not to the cost or the elaborate production, but to the size of the ideas and vision. Werner Herzog’s ”Aguirre, the Wrath of God” didn’t cost as much as the catering in ”Pearl Harbor,” but it is an epic, and ”Pearl Harbor” is not.

As for ”Lawrence,” after its glorious re-release in 70mm in 1989, it has returned again to video, where it crouches inside its box like a tall man in a low room. You can view it on video and get an idea of its story and a hint of its majesty, but to get the feeling of Lean’s masterpiece you need to somehow, somewhere, see it in 70mm on a big screen. This experience is on the short list of things that must be done during the lifetime of every lover of film.

The event will open with a Laural and Hardy short and other festivities, prior to the screening of the 1920’s classic film.  This silent film will be scored by a live performance on the Music Hall’s Wurlitzer Organ.

The event begins at 8:00 PM, and those attending are encouraged to arrive a bit early for parking and to buy tickets.  There is a parking lot directly beside the theater, and parking is free.  Tickets are $8.00 at the box office.

For additional information on this event and directions, please visit the Old Town Music Hall website.

Date: Friday, October 30th 2009
Time: 8:00 PM
Location: Old Town Music Hall, 140 Richmond St., El Segundo CA
This is a public event

Our lodge dining area was transformed into a movie theatre for the evening, which was a nostalgic look at cinema in the 1930’s.

The serving area of our kitchen was transformed into a refreshment stand with 1930’s style sodas and confections, as well as traditional popcorn, very much to the delight of those attending.

The program began with an introduction by Bro. Warren Lewis, co-chair of the society and coordinator of the Bijou event.  Following Bro. Lewis’ remarks, a 1930’s travel film of Los Angeles was screened, which offerd a fascinating glimpse of LA life seven decades ago.

Following the travel film, an episode of a action series from the 30’s was shown, followed by the feature film of the night, “Sons of the Desert” with Laural and Hardy.

Bro. Lewis also included period intermission advertisements for refreshments, which lent a great deal to creating a 1930’s atmosphere.

Over forty people were in attendance for the event, and the reviews were overwhelmingly positive, with many claiming that the event was one of the best to be held at our lodge in some time.

We are all eagerly looking forward to the next Society event.

Congratulations to Bro. Lewis and all those who helped organize an Evening at the Bijou.

The event will feature a series of short films from the 1930’s, including Laurel and Hardy’s “Sons of the Desert” in which they tell their wives that they are going on a cruise for medicinal purposes, while they are actually planning on sneaking off to a Shriner’s convention.

In addition to the shorts, the society will be presenting a feature.

The 1930’s atmosphere will be brought to life with period correct candy and other refreshments.  Those attending are encouraged to get int0 the spirit of things by dressing in costume for the event.

Admission into the “theatre” will be 50 cents.

Date: Friday, May 22nd
Time: Show starts at 7:00 PM
Location: 1720 Ocean Park Blvd., Santa Monica CA

This is a public event, so please invite your friends, family and any film buffs who may enjoy historic cinema.

The Sunset Cinema Society looks forward to seeing you at the movies!

This Man Who Would Be King is a 1975 film adapted from the Rudyard Kipling story of the same title. It was adapted and directed by John Huston and starred Sean Connery as Daniel Dravot, Michael Caine as Peachey Carnehan, Saeed Jaffrey as Billy Fish, and Christopher Plummer as Kipling (giving a name to the story’s anonymous narrator).

The Kipling story tells the tale of two time-served, NCO, rogue ex-soldiers of the British Raj who set off from 19th century British India in search of adventure, and end up as kings of Kafiristan. The story is believed to have been inspired by the travels of American adventurer Josiah Harlan during the period of the Great Game between Imperial Russia and the British Empire.

Shot on location in Morocco, Huston had planned to make the film since the 1950s: originally with Humphrey Bogart and Clark Gable, then Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, and then Robert Redford and Paul Newman — Newman suggested British actors Connery and Caine. Like much of his writing, Kipling’s original story takes a nuanced, and in the end cold-edged view of imperialism; in Huston’s telling, both East and West have their faults and virtues. In a retrospective review, the New York Times remarked “Gloriously old-fashioned in its approach – right down to the characters’ politically incorrect attitudes toward anyone who isn’t one hundred per cent British – The Man Who Would Be King is pure entertainment in the grand tradition of Gunga Din.”

Michael Caine has maintained that if any film of his is remembered after his death, it would be The Man Who Would Be King because it is the sort of film that everyone says, even when the film came out, “No-one makes pictures like this any more.”

This film is truly a favorite of Masons, as it heavily delves into Masonic symbolism, and Freemasonry features very prominently in the story.