Movie Magic Returns To Blowing Rock
Hayes Center Starts Classic Film Series

You can see all your favorite classic movies by renting the DVDs or waiting for them to pop up on the Turner Movie Classics channel on television. Or you can see them as God intended…on a large screen in a theater packed with other movie lovers.

Humphrey Bogart, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid and Ingrid Bergman star in the classic film Casablanca.

The new Mariam and Robert Hayes Performing Arts Center has received plenty of press for it being the new home of stage shows. Less attention has been made of the fact that it will also be the home a Hayes Center Classic Film Series.

As a home for an eclectic film series, the Hayes Center is perfect. It is new, it is comfortable, and at $5 per person, it is sure to attract movie lovers who crave something other than the latest teen comedy at the local multiplex. The Hayes Center’s Film Series will kick off this month with some classic movies and an Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival (Sept. 22-25). Other themes on the horizon include a pair of classic horror movies for Halloween, and a Marx Brothers Film Festival between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

I attended the first film shown at the Hayes Center Monday evening with about 60 other movie lovers. They were having a showing of Casablanca, maybe the most beloved film in history, and I had never seen it on the big screen. My wife and I settled into the comfortable seats at the Hayes Center and prepared to watch the film. Imagine my surprise when the movie started right on schedule. It started without the fifteen minutes of advertisements for cell phones, Coca-Cola and the requisite call for me to join the Army or Marines followed by twenty minutes of trailers for films that I might have no interest in. The lights went down and Casablanca started. What a novel idea!

If you’re one of those unfortunate few who have never seen Casablanca, let me sum it up for you. It was made in 1942 and concerns the German occupation of France in the middle of World War II. A number of expatriate Europeans trying to make their way to America have found themselves in Casablanca, a part of Morocco that is still under French control. People are desperate for papers of transit and the thriving black market drives a corrupt police system. Many of the shady deals take place at Rick’s Café Americain, a nightclub run by the casually aloof Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart). When Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman), the woman who broke Rick’s heart in Paris, comes into the café in Casablanca one evening, Rick’s world is turned upside down.

It’s something of a miracle that this 64-year-old film holds up so well. Made less than a year after the United States’ involvement in WWII, it has some prescient things to say about events about to unfold, even if it depicts the Nazis more kindly than history does. I always forget how many laugh-out-loud moments there are in Casablanca’s tightly woven script, especially courtesy of Claude Rains who plays Capt. Louie Renault, the scheming Casablanca police chief who delicately balances his allegiance between the Germans and the French. And if you don’t get at least a little misty-eyed when the French expatriates sing “La Marseillaise” to drown out the Germans in Rick’s Café, you need to have a doctor check your pulse.

Casablanca was a great way to kick off the Hayes Center Film Series. Of course, with any opening night there are bound to be some technical difficulties. The Surround Sound wasn’t quite where it needed to be volume-wise, and there was an unplanned 10-minute intermission due to problems in the projection booth. These were minor problems, however, and the overall feeling of going to the Hayes Center for a movie was one of stepping back in time when films aimed for your heart and head instead of your adrenalin gland.

The schedule for this fall’s Hayes Center Classic Film Series includes Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Sept. 18), North By Northwest (Sept. 22), Rear Window (Sept. 23), Vertigo (Sept. 24), Psycho (Sept. 25), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Oct. 2), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Oct. 16), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Oct. 30), Frankenstein (Oct. 31), The Maltese Falcon (Nov. 6), Duck Soup (Nov. 13), Adam’s Rib (Nov. 20), Meet Me in St. Louis (Dec.4), Christmas in Connecticut (Dec. 11), White Christmas (Dec. 18), A Night at the Opera (Dec. 27), Monkey Business (Dec. 28), A Day at the Races (Dec. 29), Duck Soup (Dec. 30), and Animal Crackers (Dec. 31).

Each film starts at 7:30 p.m. and admission is $5 per person. Tickets can be purchased at the Hayes Center Box Office the day of the showing.

When you go to see one of the films at the Hayes Center, don’t be surprised if they ask you if you would like to join the Film Series member mailing list. Members will receive a newsletter with details about upcoming films and other information. The Hayes Center even wants its patrons’ input on what films to schedule in the future. Now that’s what I call a movie theater!

As a postscript, if you are looking for a way to impress that special someone, consider dinner and a movie on September 18th when the Hayes Center shows Breakfast At Tiffany’s.

An Inconvenient Truth at ASU

It’s the documentary film that everyone has been talking about this summer. An Inconvenient Truth, starring former Vice President Al Gore, is a scientific exploration of climate change on planet earth including the causes and ultimate results of manmade greenhouse gases.

An Inconvenient Truth will be presented by Appalachian State University’s Appalachian Popular Program Society at I.G. Greer SuperCinema in Boone Thursday, September 7th through Saturday, September 9th with two showings a night, at 7 and 9:30 p.m.

Without delving into partisan politics, An Inconvenient Truth describes the causes and effects of global warming and explains how we can still do something to fix the problem if we act soon.

Admission is $1 and the movie is rated PG for mild thematic elements. A special panel discussion will take place after the 7 p.m. show on Thursday.

For more information, call ASU Student Programs at (828) 262-3032.