Free Lecture, Screening to Highlight Hitchcock's THE 39 STEPS, 12/6

The Maltz Jupiter Theatre invites you to look, listen and learn during an evening devoted to the great film director Alfred Hitchcock.

On Dec. 6, the theatre will host a free lecture by film expert Martin Leichter, "Hitchcock: The Mayhem Behind His Movies," about the director's 18th film, The 39 Steps. Leichter will serve as a tour guide to the film, illuminating key points, and telling the audience what to watch for in the 1935 thriller, which will be screened immediately following the lecture.
Nearly 30 years after his death, Hitchcock's name remains synonymous with great film. The silver screen would be decidedly less glittering without such masterpieces as Rebecca, Vertigo, The Birds, Psycho, Rear Window, North by Northwest and The 39 Steps. And who can forget his countless cameos on the big screen, and his droll introductions to his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television series?
In The 39 Steps, Robert Donat plays an innocent man framed in a murder by circumstantial evidence. Madeleine Carroll is the woman who helps him. A memorable scene involves Donat's landlady finding a body in his apartment and screaming at the same time he is seen on a train, with her scream being replaced by the whistle of the train. Based on the John Buchan novel of 1915, it was adapted by Hitchcock, his wife, Alma Reville, and Charles Bennett with additional dialogue by Ian Hay.

Brooklyn native Martin Leichter got his first taste of Hollywood after he was discharged from the Army in the early 1950s. At Columbia Pictures, he was the No. 2 person in charge of foreign distribution of films to the Far East and Australia. In 1958, he was placed in charge of New York's old Biograph Studios, where such films as A Face in the Crowd, with Andy Griffith, The Goddess, with Kim Stanley and Butterfield 8, with ElizaBeth Taylor, Eddie Fisher and Laurence Harvey. As film production in New York slowed, Leichter opted to teach in the New York City high schools, where he developed some of the first film classes taught in the city, and eventually served as an adjunct professor at Mercer Community College. In Florida, he continues to lecture and give presentations on film-related subjects.

The lecture will be at 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 6, at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, 1001 East Indiantown Road, Jupiter. The film will follow. The event is free, but tickets are required. Donations will be accepted at the door. To reserve tickets, please contact the Maltz Jupiter Theatre box office at (561) 575-2223.

 

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