See LE CERCLE ROUGE for FREE today at World's End Comics!

Tonight at World’s End Comics, we’re very pleased to present director Jean-Pierre Melville’s legendary heist film Le Cercle Rouge. For the uninitiated, the paragraph below comes from a recent screening of the film at FIlm Forum:

“Impassive faces, snap-brim hats, dangling cigarettes, sunglasses after dark, raincoats without rain, nightclub floor shows, and a prologue quote from an ersatz Indian mystic: ‘When men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever their diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the Red Circle.’ We’re unmistakably in the milieu of Jean-Pierre Melville, doyen of the New Wave and prince of the fate-haunted French gangster picture (Le Doulos, Bob Le Flambeur, Le Samouraï), here, for his final work in the genre (‘a digest of all the thriller-type films I have made’), bringing together four archetypal hommes durs for their appointment with destiny: prisoner-in-transit Gian Maria Volonté (Carlo Levi in Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli), crashing (literally) out of the train that’s taking him from Marseilles to Paris, to the dismay of his police escort, the relentless Inspector Mattei (played by French comedy legend Bourvil, cast against type for his final role); ex-cop Yves Montand, moving from hopeless DT-plagued drunk to dapper, rock-steady sharpshooter; and Alain Delon – both art film super-star (for Antonioni and Visconti, among others) and anti-hero (Purple Noon, Le Samouraï, La Piscine, etc.) – on his first day out of the joint reclaiming gun and money, and shrugging off two murder attempts. All join forces for a meticulously orchestrated heist of a Place Vendôme bijouterie (‘choreographed like a bullfight with Delon the matador in white gloves and full-face mask’ – J. Hoberman), a silent tour-de-force in the grand movie tradition of Rififi, Topkapi, and The Asphalt Jungle. A smash hit in France (it was the biggest success of Melville's career), Le Cercle Rouge was released in this country (barely) in a dubbed version shorn of 40 minutes. Here is the complete, uncut version – in French (with subtitles by Lenny Borger) – with its noirishly muted color cinematography by Melville/New Wave lenser Henri Decaë (Le Samouraï, The 400 Blows, Elevator to the Gallows, Purple Noon, etc. etc.)”

Here’s some more info about tonight’s event:

ENTRY

Doors open at 4:30pm and the film starts promptly at 5:00pm. This is a free screening, no tickets or RSVP necessary. Just show up!

CONCESSIONS

We will have popcorn and candy available for purchase, we accept cash or Venmo. Beer and cider will also be available for purchase from Kingston Standard, Westkill Brewing, and Cidermafia, as well as sodas and seltzers.

PARKING

There is limited street parking on Wall Street, and a couple of municipal lots along Front Street that are within a block of World’s End. Municipal parking is free on Sundays.

If you have any other questions, feel free to reply to this email and we’ll get back to you ASAP. See you there!

-KFF