LADYBUG, LADYBUG  1963 * Directed by Frank and Eleanor Perry * 82 minutes * In English

Eleanor Perry's fabulous script follows a group of children who live in the countryside and whose lives are thrown into panic when a nuclear warning alarm goes off.

The name of Frank Perry is earmarked as one of the more unusual directors in American cinema. He made some startling flicks, with a piercing insight into the emotional and psychological depths of the modern world. He has been mostly marginalized precisely because his work was so unusual. But there is something else to this story. When you look at the history of some crucial directors, like Perry or Peter Bogdanovich, you notice something suspicious. They made their best movies when they were working with their wives, and when they divorced, their work plummeted in quality... the movies suddenly lacked originality and intelligence. As it turns out, these women played a huge part in the production of their movies, but were mostly left uncredited because the system didn't want women working in the industry.

Behind Frank Perry was his wife Eleanor Perry, who wrote the script of this film but who obviously contributed much much more... arguably even the artistic vision. This is true of their other collaborations such as The Swimmer, David and Lisa, Diary of a Mad Housewife. This one plunges us back to the early 1960s when the world was in a state of fear about the cold war and the possibility of nuclear annihilation. It centers on a group of children who live in the countryside, whose lives are thrown into panic the second the nuclear warning alarm goes off, and threatened with oblivion they run for safety. Today we find ourselves in a similar crisis—as Nato and Russia both have nuclear weapons and tensions are so high even the slightest mistake can trigger a disaster. Things could explode at any moment, you can feel it in the air.

Totally forgotten today, despite the message being more relevant than ever. So let's throw this little gem from the past on the screen again... and I'm sure many in the audience will recognize this movie is more connected to their real lives right now than all the commercial spectacles being stuffed down our throats in cinemas downtown. Maybe it's time to start getting real again...

This will be a high-definition screening.