Film for Lunch Series Returns!

The James River Film Society revives its Film for Lunch series at the library this winter in the basement auditorium, with Great Adaptations of the Silver Screen on Thursdays at noon on November 3, 10, 17 and December 1. It's free, but donations are accepted. You are encouraged to bring your lunch. All films will be projected in 16mm.

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November 3, Noon
The Magnificent Ambersons: Welles’ version of Booth Tarkington’s novel chronicles the demise of a prominent family at the dawn of the 20th century. Welles would later disown the film; he’d been in South America shooting It’s All True for the State Department and had no control during the editing, but it still packs a narrative and visual punch.

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November 10, Noon
Great Expectations: Lean’s adaptation of Charles Dickens is the second of three screen versions. The lighting, set design, acting and directing would set the standard for many noteworthy adaptations to later emerge from the British cinema. The tale of an orphan whose rise to social prominence through the manipulations of a mysterious benefactor is a timeless classic.

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November 17, Noon
The Big Sleep: Raymond Chandler’s hardboiled novel isn’t nearly as upbeat as Hawks’ movie—a convoluted, campy noir romance between Humphrey Bogart as a private detective and Lauren Bacall as the good/bad elder Sternwood daughter. Their love interest sizzles just beneath the surface as the body count grows.

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December 1, Noon
A Place in the Sun: Director Stevens, in his version of Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy, manages to capture the human element in the machinations of America’s social disparities and its myth of the “classless society.” As the social climber who falls for his socialite cousin, Montgomery Clift did perhaps his best acting and one can sense the talent beneath Elizabeth Taylor’s knockout beauty.