MOVIE ROOM

Movie times are approximate, (give or take a minute or two).

All movies scheduled for screening are subject to change.

You are allowed to eat and drink in the movie room but we ask that you please put your garbage into the trashcan before you leave.

Please exercise the same courtesy to your neighbors as you would in a major movie theater (which means switching your smartphone to silence).

WEDNESDAY

6:00 pm, THE DEFENDERS (1962)

Reginald Rose succeeded where few could -- a high quality TV series with dramas that tackled today's taboos. E.G. Marshall stars in this epic courtroom drama series of a father and son lawyer duo who take a variety of cases that often deal with the important issues other television producers feared to tread. In this episode, "The Last Six Months," weekend guest Nicholas Hammond made his acting debut as Bobby Braden. Marshall's son decides to defend a dying man who strangled his business partner after the partner refused to provide for the man's family after his death.

7:00 pm, ALTERNATIVE 3 (1977)

An amusing time capsule of a television documentary that was meant to be an April Fool's Day joke. Originally planned for April 1, the documentary was postponed for June of that year and hundreds -- if not thousands -- of viewers thought it was real. A human colony on Mars, an unmanned Mars probe, and ruthless investigative reporters who think they are uncovering an ominous master plan. It's science-fiction but people forgot it was fiction because it was presented as a documentary. This is that 50-minute telecast which caused world-wide headlines when first broadcast.

8:00 pm, BLADE RUNNER (1982)

A blade runner must pursue and terminate four replicants who stole a ship in space and have returned to Earth to find their creator. Features weekend guest Joanna Cassidy. Cute trivia: Joanna Cassidy was at ease with the giant snake around her neck in the one scene because it was her pet, a Burmese python named "Darling."

10:00 pm, I, THE JURY (1953)

Starring Biff Elliot, Preston Foster and Peggie Castle. It's nearly Christmas, but Mike Hammer is on the vengeance trail when Jack, his wartime buddy, is murdered. Hotheaded Hammer sets out to find the killer, working his way through an increasingly large pile of suspects (and corpses). Along the way, he meets a new love interest, psychologist Charlotte Manning, a treacherous Santa, a gangster named Kalecki, and two weird sisters, the Bellamy twins.

11:30 pm, VINTAGE SPOOKY CARTOONS

A half hour of spooky cartoons from the 1930s with dancing skeletons, black bats, ghosts and other specters as we ring in this year's convention with eight hours of vintage silent horror movies that begin at midnight.

12 Midnight, ALL-NIGHT HORROR MOVIES

Alex presents his usual obscurities of rare horror films starting at midnight, all three nights. Titles to be announced.

THURSDAY

9:00 am, JONNY QUEST (TWO EPISODES)

Dr. Benton Quest is a research scientist who is frequently called upon for missions that require his scientific and technical expertise. He is usually accompanied by his son Jonny, his tutor/bodyguard Race Bannon, their bulldog with the distinctive mask-like eye markings named Bandit, and Hadji, an Indian orphan who has special abilities of his own. Together, they investigate mysteries, perform rescues and battle nefarious villains around the world, most notably Dr. Zin.

10:00 am, THE SILVER THEATER: PAPA ROMANI (1950)

Chico Marx filmed two episodes for The Silver Theater of a proposed situation comedy that never met fruition. The first one, broadcast on January 9, 1950, is not known to exist. The second, featuring William Frawley and Margaret Hamilton in the supporting cast, survives but only in syndicated form from The Hollywood Half Hour series. Here's your chance to see how Chico Marx would have succeeded as a weekly regular on his own situation comedy.

10:30 am, 21 BEACON STREET, "Nothing is Impossible" (1959)

Short-lived detective TV series starring Dennis Morgan. Private investigator Dennis Chase operates with a staff made up of the stunning Lola, new attorney Brian, and talented linguist Jim. Using specific methods they determine the guilty party and leave the rest to the police of an unnamed city. In this episode, when the two owners of a jet engine company are found murdered, the chief suspect is a con artist who was trying to bilk one of the brothers. But Morgan thinks it all looks TOO obvious. Features Donna Douglas among the celebrity guest stars in this episode, years before she became a regular on The Beverly Hillbillies.

11:00 am, PETROCELLI (1976)

Barry Newman played Petrocelli, a Harvard-educated lawyer from Boston sets up shop in a small Arizona town. In this episode, "Blood Money," weekend guest Nicholas Hammond plays a large role. Andy Warburton is kidnapped by two of his friends and Tony is asked to bring the ransom. It was all a joke, but as Tony arrives, he finds out that Andy is kidnapped again - this time for real..

12 noon, DOCTOR KILDARE, "The Heart, an Imperfect Machine" (1963)

A doctor has been working to perfect a heart/lung machine, and plans to use it on his seriously ill wife as soon as he believes the time is right. But her condition is rapidly deteriorating, and she needs surgery now and can't wait for him to perfect his machine. He also believes he's the only one who can use it on her, though Kildare has studied it under him and Gillespie prefers that Kildare be the one to use it during the operation. The wife is played by weekend guest Diane Baker.

1:00 pm, NIGHT GALLERY, "Logoda's Heads" (1971)

Three chilling stories written by such legends as Robert Bloch and August Derleth. A man considers sending his deformed son to another planet where he will hopefully entertainers with similar appearances. After an encounter with a strange clue, a woman thinks she has just seen a glimpse of the future. British authorities in Africa suspect a missing archaeologist was killed by a very powerful witch doctor. The third story features weekend guest Tim Matheson.

2:00 pm, THE INVISIBLE MAN, "Barnard Wants Out"

An episode of the hour-long TV series from 1975, starring David McCallum in the title role. The series lasted half a season and dramatized the adventures of Dr. Daniel Westin, an invisible scientist working as an agent for a private think tank. In this episode, Defector Dr. Leon Barnard, Dan's former mentor, has grown dissatisfied with life behind the Iron Curtain, and it is up to the Klae Resource to bring him back to the US. But his daughter Anna, engaged to Russian officer Alexi Zartov and fully indoctrinated in Communism, ends up working against the Westins. Features weekend guest Inga Neilsen.

3:00 pm, HAVE GUN - WILL TRAVEL MINI MARATHON

Professional gunfighter Paladin was a West Point graduate who, after the Civil War, settled into San Francisco's Hotel Carlton, where he awaited responses to his business card: over the picture of a chess knight is written "Have Gun, Will Travel...Wire Paladin, San Francisco." Ride along with Paladin as he ventures into the wild west with four adventures.

5:00 pm, MR. NOVAK, "A Feeling for Friday" (1963)

James Franciscus plays the title role of John Novak who works at Jefferson High School in Los Angeles under Principal Albert Vane, who doesn't always agree with Novak's approach, but admires his dedication to teaching. Mr. Novak is a fantastic series with superb dramas. Stories are generally centered on Novak's life, student-teacher relationships, and the struggles of other young teachers. In this episode, weekend guest Diane Baker plays a major role. It's a hectic Friday and Novak is very pleased to get an invitation to spend the weekend at his former sweetheart's family estate.

6:00 pm, RIPCORD, "The Final Jump" (1963)

Weekend guest Tim Matheson plays the role of David, a young man who finds out from fellow teen campers that his father was not a hero who died in combat in Korea, but rather a gangster. He angrily runs away to a nearby family cabin, and armed with rifle, threatens to shoot anyone who approaches. Ted (Larry Pennell) and Jim (Ken Curtis) agree to help by skydiving to the cabin, but David's father "Doctor" Partlow (Grant Richards) shows up and wants to go after David by himself, warning that he will shoot anyone who tries to interfere.

6:30 pm, I, THE JURY (1953)

8:00 pm, A HISTORY OF STOP MOTION ANIMATION

An original six-minute documentary produced by Calliope Daoundakis, a student at the Digital Arts and Cinema Technology High School, focusing on the history of stop-motion animation in motion-pictures, introduced by the student! Following the documentary is a collection of film shorts including a rarely-seen unaired TV pilot of The Marx Bros done with stop-motion animation from 1960!

9:00 pm, MIRAGE (1965)

Starring Gregory Peck and weekend guest Diane Baker. An accountant suddenly suffers from amnesia. This appears related to the suicide of his boss. Now some violent thugs are out to get him. They work for a shadowy figure known simply as "The Major."

11 pm, RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER (1980)

A young student wonders about the beautiful gardens and even more beautiful daughter of Rappacini. And is horrified when he discovers the poisonous nature of their beauty. Stars weekend guest Kathleen Beller.

12 Midnight ALL-NIGHT HORROR MOVIES

Alex presents his usual obscurities of rare horror films starting at midnight, all three nights. Titles to be announced.

FRIDAY

9:00 am, JONNY QUEST (TWO EPISODES)

10:00 am, SPIDER-MAN: THE KIRKWOOD HAUNTING (1978)

Jonah asks Peter to prove a ghost sighting at the Kirkwood Estate is a scam to get the widow to change her late husband's will. Julie Masters tries to get the scoop too but forgets about the wild animals roaming the Kirkwood grounds. Stars weekend guests Ellen Bry and Nicholas Hammond.

11:00 am, PUBLIC DEFENDER, "Return of the Dead" (1954)

Starring Reed Hadley as Bart Matthews, who defends the poor and others who cannot afford an attorney. All episodes are based on actual cases from across the country. Public Defender ran two seasons (1953 to 1955) and we decided to play the first episode of the second season because it features a young Natalie Wood. A teenage girl is charged with the attempted murder of a gangland figure. Her mother has also been shot. To further complicate matters, the girl's father, who went missing in action in the War fifteen years ago, has suddenly reappeared.

11:30 am, THE VEIL, "The Return of Madame Vernoy" (1958)

THE VEIL was a weekly television series, hosted by Boris Karloff, featuring spooky supernatural stories. The studio filed bankruptcy, causing production to cease after ten episodes. And, as a result, none of the ten aired on TV for decades. We are screening the ninth episode, "The Return of Madame Vernoy," about Madame Sita Vernoy who dies in a small town in India, leaving a grieving husband and a newborn son. One year and ten days later, Santha Naidu is born in Delhi, a girl-child who slowly begins to remember her previous life as Madame Vernoy. Supernatural? Might be. But watch out for weekend guest George Hamilton who makes his television debut in this episode!

12:00 noon, THE POWER (1968)

One by one members of a special project team are being killed by telekinesis - the ability to move things with the power of the mind alone. The race is to determine which of the remaining team members is the murderer and how to stop them. Features Suzanne Pleshette, Richard Carlson and weekend guest George Hamilton.

2:00 pm, HAVE GUN-WILL TRAVEL MINI-MARATHON

4:00 pm, THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (1946)

Gale Sondergaard played the title role in this vintage horror film that recently received a major restoration from archival elements. A young girl goes to work as a live-in caretaker for a spooky old woman. She doesn't know that every night, the woman drains some blood from her to feed her strange plant. For fans of vintage horror films, this movie featured Rondo Hatton in the cast as "Mario the Monster Man."

5:00 pm, THE CAT CREEPS (1946)

A black cat is suspected of being possessed by the spirit of an elderly murdered woman. By 1946, Universal was just wrapping up production on their horror films and this is considered the last of them... until the studio realized in the 1950s that there was a market for science-fiction and horror. But the Golden Age was coming to a close and this is worth watching just for the fact that it is remnant to the old dark house chillers of the 1940s and this is from a major restoration from archival elements.

6:00 pm, 21 BEACON STREET, "The Hostage" (1959)

Short-lived detective TV series starring Dennis Morgan. Private investigator Dennis Chase operates with a staff made up of the stunning Lola, new attorney Brian, and talented linguist Jim. Using specific methods they determine the guilty party and leave the rest to the police of an unnamed city. In this episode, a gang decides to steal the receipts of a mail order and decide to target the head cashier George Manning. The hoodlums kidnap his wife Lois promising to release her when George hands over the cash. Features DeForest Kelley among the celebrity guests in this episode, years before he was a regular on Star Trek.

6:30 pm, A SOUND OF DIFFERENT DRUMMERS (1957)

Telecast live on the evening of October 3, 1957, this 90-minute telecast caused quite a historic uproar in Hollywood circles. The science-fiction story concerns a young security police officer in a future totalitarian state assigned to suppress illegal intellectual activity, including executing book readers. He catches a librarian hiding a banned book and joins her in reading books. While billed as an original story by Robert Alan Arthur, the concept sounds a lot like an adaptation of Ray Bradbury's FAHRENHEIT 451... prompting Bradbury himself to file a lawsuit that would go back and forth in the courtroom for a decade. This year's program guide will feature an essay about this broadcast and thanks to a private collector of 16mm masters, we will be treated to a viewing. How rare is this? Well, this film has never been rerun on television and not been seen by the public in more than 65 years!

8:00 pm, HAWAII FIVE-O, "Bored, She Hung Herself" (1970)

The "lost" episode of Hawaii Five-O, which has never aired in reruns and never included in the Season Two DVD box set. It seems after the initial telecast, some viewer replicated a particular yoga technique and killed themselves and their family sued the network. As a result, the network decided they had enough episodes from he twelve seasons that there was no need to include this episode in reruns, streaming or the DVD set. Now you can watch that rare episode! In this episode, a woman is found hanged to death and McGarrett and his team investigate. The suspect is a young man who uses a yoga technique where someone hangs themselves (but survives). But all is not what it appears...

9:00 pm, SURPRISE FILM TO BE ANNOUNCED

Starring weekend guest Joanna Cassidy.

11:00 pm, THE GHOST OF SIERRA DE COBRE (1964)

Starring Martin Landau and weekend guest Diane Baker. Terrified of being buried alive by mistake, a woman puts a phone in her crypt to be able to call home if she needs help. She dies and nothing happens. One day, the phone suddenly rings. Paranormal investigator Nelson Orion (Martin Landau) is brought in. This was meant to serve as a pilot for a proposed new series, using the same directors and writers for The Outer Limits. But the pilot never aired and was rarely seen for decades.

12 midnight ALL-NIGHT HORROR MOVIES

Alex presents his usual obscurities of rare horror films starting at midnight, all three nights. Titles to be announced.

SATURDAY

9:00 am, SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS

More than an hour's worth of vintage cartoons that you grew up with on Saturday morning. Many of your favorite characters will be offered including Popeye, Woody Woodpecker, Casper the Friendly Ghost, Betty Boop, Felix the Cat, Little Lulu, Clutch Cargo, The Three Stooges and many, many more! You'll discover gems from the early days of animation and charming fables galore.

10:00 am, THE ADVENTURES OF OZZIE AND HARRIET (1952)

The situation comedy ran a total of fourteen seasons and we decided to look back at the series by reviewing the first two episodes of the series, titled "The Rivals." In this episode, young David has a rival, and his name is Will Thornberry - his next door neighbor. In "The Poet," Harriet finds a poem written to her in high school, and she thinks it was written by Ozzie, which convinces him he has a knack for writing poetry.

11:00 am, QUINCY, M.E., "The Hope of Elkwood"

In the small California town of Elkwood, an assistant track coach turns against head coach Marty O'Banion when it appears his grueling training methods are responsible for the death of their prize runner. O'Banion's defense council turns to family friend Quincy, to hopefully vindicate his client. The story was written by weekend guest Jim Rosin, who also portrays coach Vic Mascino, in this sixth season entry: "The Hope of Elkwood."

12 noon, NIGHT GALLERY, "They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar"

After years of competition in business, lonely widower Randy Lane recalls better times when he and his wife used to visit a local bar. / Crippled Marius Davis uses astral projection to exact revenge on his wife Susan and her lover. Night Gallery was an off-the-wall anthology with bizarre stories of fantasy, horror, science-fiction and witchcraft. This episode in particular is considered one of the best episodes of the series and features weekend guest Diane Baker.

1:00 pm, HE RAN ALL THE WAY (1951)

A film noir classic with John Garfield (in his last screen role) and the beautiful Shelley Winters (pulling off a performance like you've never seen). Petty thief Nick Robey botches a robbery, shooting and killing a policeman, and leaving his partner severely wounded. Nick escapes with over $10,000, meets a beautiful and homely woman who is willing to forgive his past in return for affection… or is it the money she wants? We like to screen a film noir (or two) every year and usually the best one out of the 30 or 40 we manage to watch every year. This is a goody!

2:30 pm, THE VIRGINIAN, "Long Ride Home" (1969)

Weekend guest Tim Matheson was a regular on the weekly TV western, The Virginian, beginning with the eighth season. This is the first episode of that season with the story that introduces his character to the series. Holly finds two cowboys who are looking for work. The younger hand Jim (Matheson) looks up to Ben as the only father he has ever known as the two roam around looking for a place to settle. Ben isn't ready to settle down but Jim may have found a home.

4:00 pm, HAVE GUN-WILL TRAVEL MINI-MARATHON