If you’ve got a few bucks to donate to a good cause, this coming Saturday, February 8 at 6:30p.m., the Novato Theater Film Club is showing the 1941 version of The Maltese Falcon — the classic version. The good cause: saving and renovating the Novato Theater.
The fundraiser asks $15 from members of the film club, $20 for non-members, with the event to be held in the Key Room of Homeward Bound of Marin, 1385 North Hamilton Parkway in Novato.
In addition to the film (though you don’t really need a lot on top of Bogie, little Pete Lorre and the best Fat Man ever) I’ll be there for a Q&A session on Hammett, the hard-boiled and noir genres — especially if you didn’t get enough chatter about movies during the recent Noir City run in the Castro Theatre, hey, there’s lots more to be said.
And if the Q&A doesn’t cover what you want to know, I’m hanging around for a general mix and mingle follow-up. I, of course, like to talk with film buffs who like to talk.
(Novato might seem a trifle out-of-the-way for me, but you must remember that it was while stationed at Hamilton Field in that city with the Army Air Corps that no less than Charles Willeford finally sat down and began his career as a novelist — if I can assist that burg as a nod to the ghost of Willeford, I’m happy to do it. And I truly regret the passing of the old theatres of yesteryear — the theatres and the bookstores. Yeah, smart phones and tablets are more compact, but not half as much fun.)
