A black-clad figure, visible only in silhouette against the sparkling moon, slinks silently across the rooftops of Paris, bringing her stolen loot of priceless jewels back to the sinister cabal of which she is a member.
A diabolical madman bent on world domination builds his doomsday device from his grandiose lair inside the belly of an active volcano.
A faceless, nameless mastermind strikes horror into the heart of the city. No one knows when this shape-shifting criminal genius will strike next. The only purpose of his campaign of crime? Terror.
This summer at the Alamo Drafthouse Ritz we’re undertaking the most ambitious and expansive series we’ve ever put together. SUPER KRIME: THE WORLD OF PULP SUPER VILLAINS is a seven-week immersion into a thrilling world of mystery, adventure, and chaos. Stretching from the dawn of cinema with Louis Feuillade’s epochal silent crime serials to the pinnacles of the modern blockbuster with Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, this series is an invitation to obsessive viewing.
Take the plunge and immerse yourself in the delirious world of super crime by seeing all thirty films; or keep your sanity and valuables safe by only taking a short visit through this nefarious cinematic terrain. SUPER KRIME features the work of such sinister luminaries as Fritz Lang and Alfred Hitchcock, Mario Bava and Jess Franco, and the incomparable master of animation Hayao Miyazaki. We’ll be menaced by a range of criminal types from ignoble gentleman thieves to genuinely horrifying power-mad idealogues and sadistic agents of chaos.
Legendary bogeymen like Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski will all make appearances. You’ll be bowled over by the intoxicating allure of Musidora, the mysterious vamp of the silent French screen. You’ll have your heart broken by the beauty and radical power of Japanese drag queen Akihiro Miwa.
There’s something in the raw material of the pulp imagination that has always inspired bravura displays of cinematic style. Narrative invention, technical innovation and a fantastical sense of design are hallmarks of this iniquitous milieu. We pay tribute to the brilliant filmmaker/production designer/effects artist William Cameron Menzies with a double feature of his films CHANDU THE MAGICIAN and THE SPIDER, and the late production designer Ken Adam is honored with screenings of two of his most majestic and flamboyant James Bond pictures, YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE and MOONRAKER.
Other highlights of the series include an unfathomably rare double feature of THE INN ON THE RIVER and THE HEXER, two West German “Krimi” films based on the work of prolific British mystery author Edgar Wallace; a 100th anniversary screening of the labyrinthine serial LES VAMPIRES, a work that inspired a generation of surrealists including Luis Bunuel and Man Ray while delivering crowd-pleasing thrills that still enthrall today; and a screening of UCLA’s exquisite restoration of the 65mm Magnifilm version of THE BAT WHISPERS, an electrifying early experiment in widescreen filmmaking. The series kicks off on Thursday, July 21st with a free screening of a reworked version of Louis Feuillade’s series of FANTOMAS films accompanied by a new live electronic score DJ’d by programmer Tommy Swenson.
Each show in the series will be proceeded by a 16mm screening of a classic Republic cliffhanger serial chapter as we make our way through two complete “chapter-plays”, THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MARVEL and ZORRO’S FIGHTING LEGION, both directed by the untouchable masters of the form William Witney and John English.
Join us, and dare to dream something fierce and terrible.
THE FULL LINEUP:
7/21/16 – FANTOMAS! (Dir. Louis Feuillade, 1913, digital, 110 min)
7/23/16 – LES VAMPIRES: Chapters 1-6 (Dir. Louis Feuillade, digital, 205 min)
7/24/16 – LES VAMPIRES: Chapters 7-10 (Dir. Louis Feuillade, digital, 210 min)
7/25/16 – DR. MABUSE DOUBLE FEATURE: THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE (Dir. Fritz Lang, digital, 122 min)/THE INVISIBLE DR. MABUSE (Dir. Harald Reinl, 35mm, 89 min)
7/27/16 – THE BAT WHISPERS (Dir. Roland West, 35mm, 83 min)
7/30/16 – WILLIAM CAMERON MENZIES DOUBLE FEATURE: CHANDU THE MAGICIAN (Dir. William Cameron Menzies & Marcel Varnel, 16mm, 71 min)/THE SPIDER(Dir. William Cameron Menzies & Kenneth MacKenna, 35mm, 59 min)
8/1/16 – SHERLOCK HOLMES DOUBLE FEATURE: THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (Dir. Alfred L. Werker, digital, 85 min)/THE SPIDER WOMAN (Dir. Roy William Neill, 35mm, 63 min)
8/3/16 – TO CATCH A THIEF (Dir. Alfred Hitchcock, digital, 106 min)
8/7/16 – EDGAR WALLACE “KRIMI” DOUBLE FEATURE: THE INN ON THE RIVER (Dir. Alfred Vohrer, 35mm, 92 min)/THE HEXER (Dir. Alfred Vohrer, 35mm, 82 min)
8/10/16 – THE PINK PANTHER (Dir. Blake Edwards, 35mm, 115 min)
8/13/16 – BELPHEGOR: THE PHANTOM OF THE LOUVRE (Dir. Claude Barma, video, 290 min)
8/15/16 – GEORGES FRANJU DOUBLE FEATURE: JUDEX (Dir. Georges Franju, digital, 98 min)/NUITS ROUGES (Dir. Georges Franju, video, 105 min)
8/18/16 – DANGER: DIABOLIK (Dir. Mario Bava, HDCam, 105 min)
8/20/16 & 8/22/16 – YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (Dir. Lewis Gilbert, 35mm, 117 min)
8/20/16 & 8/22/16 – MOONRAKER (Dir. Lewis Gilbert, 35mm, 126 min)
8/24/16 – FU MANCHU DOUBLE FEATURE: THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (Dir. Charles Brabin, 16mm, 68 min)/THE CASTLE OF FU MANCHU (Dir. Jess Franco, 35mm, 92 min)
8/28/16 – ARSENE LUPIN (Dir. Jack Conway, 16mm, 84 min)
8/28/16 – LUPIN III: CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO (Dir. Hayao Miyazaki, digital, 100 min)
8/29/16 – SUPER KRIME BOOTLEG BLAST DOUBLE FEATURE (Dir. ???, video, 169 min)
8/31/16 – FLASH GORDON (Dir. Mike Hodges, 35mm, 111 min)
9/4/16 – THE DARK KNIGHT SAGA (Dir. Christopher Nolan, digital, 456 min)
Tickets and additional info available at: drafthouse.com/event/super-krime