The Annual Celebration of Mechanical Cinema: Grand Illusion’s Secret Matinees

I first went to the Grand Illusion Cinema two years ago to see a 1937 screwball comedy called The Awful Truth. I was just getting into film, and Grand Illusion was simply perfect: a volunteer-run arthouse theater that harbored a strong community while displaying unique films year-round. Since then, I have attended their events frequently, seeing everything from Fugazi documentaries to their annual showing of It’s a Wonderful Life (1946). The Grand Illusion is moving at the end of January, but I was lucky enough to catch the last of their annual Saturday Secret Matinees at the organization’s current location.

The Saturday Secret Matinees are a long-running program presented by the Sprocket Society, a film appreciation group that curates and screens various eccentric programs, all on 16mm film, a historically popular and accessible form of analog film. The Sprocket Society frequently makes historical callbacks in their programs. For instance, in the first half of the 20th century, the moviegoing experience was inseparable from serial films. These serials were continuous narratives split into short chapters, played at a theater weekly until completion. A typical Saturday matinee at the time would include a serial episode, often shown among other short items, along with a feature-length film. The Sprocket Society recreates this experience yearly, showing an entire serial on film over a few months, along with mystery classic movies to accompany them. I was fortunate enough to speak with Spencer Sundell, the lead projectionist at Grand Illusion, founder of the Sprocket Society, and creator of the Saturday Secret Matinees.

Sundell: “My initial goal was just wanting to show movie serials the way they were intended to be seen, which was an episode a week, in a theater, with an audience. I was a fan of serials, and in the early 2000s you could find them on VHS, maybe on DVD, and occasionally you’d see stuff on television but it was pretty random. In film festivals or anything like that, forget it. In a major real movie theater you would pretty much never see that stuff. 

“I’m a film collector, so I collect 16mm film, and I had a couple movie serials. I would like to show these to people in this original way, and I really wanted the attention to be on serials. [...] I decided that having a feature film and kind of replicating the Saturday matinee experience would be fun, and it would also be a truly ideal way to recreate that original moviegoing experience. Serials were normal moviegoing fare for 30 or 40 years, starting in the ‘20s and going to the end of the ‘50s. And [they have] just vanished.”

Because of the limitations due to the moving of locations, this year's matinees were slightly different. Over the four screenings in January, four episodes from different serials were shown, each with a different theme. The first three weeks of the month were themed around superheroes, adventures, and westerns. I attended the final week, entitled “Sci-Fi Invasions with The Purple Monster Strikes (1945).” The serial episode was a hokey combination of dramatic fight scenes, practical effects, and Martians taking over unsuspecting humans. Apart from the serial, a space-themed episode of Felix the Cat played, as well as Mars and Beyond (1957), an entrancing, psychedelic Disney animation full of peculiar creatures. A feature-length film followed, similar in theme to the fantastical, imaginative science fiction from this era. 

I love the era of ‘40s and ‘50s science fiction, and although it can be comically inaccurate and a bit shoddy, it is still fascinating to observe. Science was less accessible and developed, resulting in science fiction resembling fantasy, full of imaginative, albeit scientifically inaccurate ideas. Films with sound had only been around for 20 years or so, with feature-length films themselves having only been around for about 40 years. This meant filmmakers didn’t have the same frame of reference we now use for inspiration and solutions. The science fiction genre had only begun to rapidly rise in popularity in the few decades before this serial, aligning with the fast-moving scientific progress of the time. Modern science fiction is noticeably less corny; sci-fi has grown from stop-motion UFOs and manual rotoscoping to magnificent CGI spaceship epics. The change isn’t bad, but it is certainly different. The contents of ‘40s and ‘50s science fiction are pure representations of hopes and fears we felt for the future. 

The use of film created many limitations that we simply don’t have to deal with now. A retake was costly. A Martian fading into view was not done with a simple premade transition but physically overlaying film reels. As a filmmaker, the practical effects of old science fiction are incredibly inspiring. Sundell agrees:

Sundell: “Necessity is the mother of creation. So, I don’t have a million bucks, I’ve got ten bucks. How am I going to achieve this effect? How will I achieve that and still be convincing, or change the idea but still get there?

“That craftsmanship aspect of it is something that really appeals to me, especially in tandem with using it in service of complete flights of fancy. [...] The early stuff, it really is going for broke. Flash Gordon is in this crazy rocketship and has a belt he can just slap on and then fly around. There's been a lot less of that in recent decades.

“It’s almost like punk rock. You know, ‘This is so simple, even I could do it. I can literally put a bucket on my head and paint my bucket, and then I got a space helmet, and I’m Captain Starlight of Planet Zargon.’ In these old ‘50s sci-fi TV shows, they’re literally sitting in office chairs in the cockpit of their spaceships, and there’s Christmas lights blinking on the walls. There’s something really inspiring [about] imaginative and creative play. It was certainly true for me and I think it was true for a lot of kids.”

Of course, these makeshift solutions come at the cost of some believability. However, accessibility in art is invaluable. The knowledge that a budget and crew are optional result in an unimaginable amount of creativity. Although physical film has obvious limitations, it also has distinct benefits in preservation, as Sundell describes:

Sundell: “Part of it is my own personal bias, I just love it. But beyond personal preferences and aesthetic choice, [...] film is far more long lived than anything digital. You can hold it in your hand and actually project some of the very first motion picture film ever shot, even today, after 130 years. Digital media that's even a decade old may not be playable due to the complexities with that technology and the constant obsolescence of codex or file formats or entire platforms. [...] And then you have resolution problems; Star Trek: The Next Generation is springing to mind. For years they couldn’t release it on Blu-Ray because the special effects footage had been done on standard-definition 1980s effects programs, and they were looking at having to redo all of that effects footage. Physical film, if it is taken care of, lasts a very long time, whereas digital media dies very rapidly. [...] Digital has come a long way in even the last half decade, and I’ve seen some truly gorgeous restorations of old technicolor stuff from the ‘50s, really lush stuff. But even then [...] it still doesn't quite have that same look. I’ve had the great fortune to see technicolor nitrate films projected and black-and-white nitrate projected and I have yet to see digital come close to that.”

Sundell has created a variety of unique film programs under the Sprocket Society. A few weeks ago, he did a show called Living Pictures: The Birth of Cinema. The program compiled several pieces of early cinema dating from 1894 through 1900, combined with a presentation explaining the history, walking the audience sequentially through the examples with live narration of the films. 

Sundell: “The films were almost all ‘actualities,’ so 30 seconds long of just a street corner in New York, or a parade going by, or ocean waves lapping up on the shore, because just the mere fact of pictures that move was just beautiful and astounding at the time. And it is still beautiful and astounding now.”

Sundell described other favorite programs of his, such as a George Méliès program from early on in the Sprocket Society’s creation, and a program of experimental short films by Bruce Conner, who was one of the first to reassemble found 16mm footage into completely new pieces. Often sourced from Sundell’s personal collection, his programs are truly an unparalleled local resource of film history.

Although the Grand Illusion is moving after over 50 years at their cozy, 68-seat, converted dental office theater, they will undoubtedly remain a community staple. During the transition period, there will be a series of pop-up screenings at Capitol Hill’s Northwest Film Forum, and the Sprocket Society will continue programs and collaborations with local artists. The Grand Illusion represents decades of artistic history, entertainment, and community, all while inspiring generations of filmmakers and viewers, myself included.

Lead photo: The Purple Monster Strikes (1945)

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