Film History at Naas Library & Cultural Centre Screening – 42nd Street
Join us at Naas Library & Cultural Centre as we celebrate the history of cinema with a season of monthly film screenings. This programme is curated by our own (also author/film historian) Wayne Byrne in honour of our premises’ past as the Naas Town Hall Cinema, with a series of films programmed from the era in which the building operated as a popular picture house from 1902 to 1940. One Friday per month we will screen feature films released across those four decades, from silent epics to early talkies, from musicals to comedies, crime to horror, adventures to westerns.
Screening on Friday 11th October at 2.30pm is the 1933 pre-code Warner Bros. musical 42nd Street starring Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, Una Merkel and many more musical starlets of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Warren Baxter plays ill Broadway director Julian Marsh whose dire financial affairs following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 mean he must risk his life to put on a hit show to recover his wealth and retire comfortably. Thus ensues a rigorous casting call in search of top talent and a gruelling rehearsal period as tough taskmaster Marsh endeavours to stage a most elaborate and entertaining spectacle.
42nd Street became a financial, industrial, and cultural sensation upon release in 1933. A rousing cross between Broadway backstage melodrama and musical fantasy, director Lloyd Bacon set the gold standard for early song-and-dance pictures, one which afforded choreographer Busby Berkeley the screen and the stage to design his intricate and visually dazzling dance work.
So, come along and celebrate the history of Cinema and the legacy of the Town Hall with this exciting retrospective programme, a rare opportunity to see these films on the big screen.