Member Event: Secret Cinema Film Screening

Member Event: Secret Cinema Film Screening

Date: Tuesday, September 17

Time: 7 - 8:30pm

Location: Independence Seaport Museum

ISM members only. Not a member? Join here!

Join us for a special film screening in the Museum! Secret Cinema will bring its traveling projectors to our first-floor gallery for a screening of the rare 1939 nautical sci-fi-horror movie TORTURE SHIP. Included with the short feature will be surprise maritime-themed short films, selected from the Secret Cinema archive.

All Secret Cinema programs are projected using 16mm film.

Registration required, RSVP here. ISM members only.

TORTURE SHIP (1939, Dir: Victor Halperin) Victor Halperin, best known for the cult classic WHITE ZOMBIE, directed this bizarre b-movie, which was the first film made for what would become PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation), known to film buffs as the lowest as the low of Hollywood's many "poverty row" studios. It arrived with a bit of prestige as it was based on an old short story by internationally famed novelist Jack London -- a fact that was trumpeted loudly in TORTURE SHIP's advertising. The film tells the story of a well-meaning doctor (prolific actor/director Irving Pichel) who wants to test his theory that criminal minds can be reformed with endocrine gland-altering serums. To that end he equips a ship with a laboratory and hospital, then engineers the escape of several violent miscreants from death row, promising freedom if they submit to his experiments. What could go wrong? His innocent, normal nephew (Lyle Talbot) also gets treated, and turns into a violent zombie, while the criminals (including the unforgettable Skelton Knaggs) plan a murderous mutiny.