Secret Movie Club Podcast

SMC Pod #176: Adaptation Pt 2-The Haunted House movie

It's fascinating to see how the adaptation of a single novel, here Shirley Jackson's 1958 haunted house masterpiece The Haunting of Hill House, can have such a profound impact on sixty years of moviemaking. First adapted by master Hollywood director Robert Wise in 1963 as The Haunting, Shirley Jackson's novel would then inspire Stephen King to write The Shining and Stanley Kubrick to adapt The Shining in 1980. The Shining movie would influence the styles of everyone from Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg to French moviemaker Coralie Faraget. And when Faraget made 2024's body horror The Substance starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, she would use The Shining's film grammar. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes a deep dive look at how movie adaptations can have long lasting effects on moviemaking itself.

SMC Pod #175: Adaptation Part 1: Frankenstein (novel) to movie (1931, James Whale, Universal)

Adaptation from one storytelling medium to another is key to cinema. Be it a novel, a play, a TV show, an opera, or beloved legend, the work adapted MUST be molded and changed to suit the strengths of cinema.  Ironically, faithful adaptations are often the least successful. Today, Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at the classic 1818 romantic Gothic horror novel Frankenstein and how subversive clever film director James Whale adapted it in 1931 for Universal Studios. Whale even injects an LGBTQ+ subtext not present in the novel. And yet the key spark, soul of the original is in the film. Check out the pod and let us know what you think (in comments on our socials or by writing us at: community@secretmovieclub.com).

SMC Pod #174: Dialogue-less Movies (Pure Cinema)

Today, we look at some of the great "pure cinema" movies with little to no dialogue. Now listen-dialogue is great. Dialogue is cinematic. But to scale the heights, a moviemaker needs to know how to communicate cinematically (image + sound) without using dialogue as a crutch to convey information. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill looks at F.W. Murnau's 1924 masterpiece The Last Laugh (with only two intertitles for the entire movie), avant garde master Stan Brakhage's The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes, Ron Fricke's 70mm essay movie Baraka, the incredible Ukranian movie all in sign language The Tribe, and Phil Tippet's stop motion mind blower Mad God as examples of movies whose power comes from their commitment to what Alfred Hitchcock called "pure cinema". 

SMC Pod #173: The state of cinema, 2025 (it's rough)

Movies have always had their ups and downs. Every time it looks like cinema is gonna give up the ghost, it somehow roars back and a new era is born.  But is that true in 2025? Or has cinema finally come to the end of the line? Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill takes stock of the state of cinema. He tries not to pull punches or manufacture a conclusion. Where are we? Do we have a future? Take a listen and let us know what you think. 

SMC Pod #172: Is this Cinema? I: Pasolini's Salo or 120 Days of Sodom

Today, we inaugurate an occasional series "Is this Cinema?" in our podcasts. We'll look at a controversial, shocking, and/or divisive movie that divides cinephiles. There may be no better place to start than famed Italian moviemaker Pier Paolo Pasolini's final film, 1975's SALO or 120 DAYS OF SODOM adapted from shocking source material written by the Marquis De Sade. Pasolini adapted the movie to World War II fascist Italy. Four fascist libertines imprison 18 youths in a villa for the fascists' violent perversions and depravity. SALO is shocking, even by today's standards. And yet the movie is also a rigorous exploration of exploitation, abuses of power, corrupt governments, the hypocrisy of the wealthy, etc. There are also scenes of near unbearable coercion, perversion, and violence. Secret Movie Club founder, programmer Craig Hammill looks at it all to ask....is this cinema? 

SMC Pod #171: Watershed movies

Today, we look at watershed movies: movies that changed the culture. That became juggernauts. Where cinema was clearly changed/different AFTER the movies. These movies aren't always enjoyable still to watch. OR. . .they were so big, it's hard to enjoy them as movies. They have become markers on the road of cinema. Yet some still offer up endless joys. While others have not aged well at all. We look at everything from 1915's Birth of a Nation to Citizen Kane, Rashomon, Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, Barbie,and many in between. Founder.programmer Craig Hammill riffs across these movies trying to figure out what it means to be a watershed movie. And if such movies can ever be made again in today's fractured, niche, scattered entertainment landscape. 

SMC Pod #170: Bill Murray, the Agony & The Ecstasy

Of all the Saturday Night Live TV actors who have gone on to the movies, Bill Murray has had possibly the most fascinating, long lasting, unpredictable run.  Murray is complex, known equally for great performances, hilarious in-real life stunts, endless restlessness, and difficult personal behavior. Yet, very few actors have built up the reservoir of good will Murray has with his fans and the movie community due to his clear love of cinema. From early comedy hits like Caddyshack and Stripes to mid-period masterpieces like Groundhog Day to career reinvention with Rushmore, Lost in Translation, Broken Flowers, Bill Murray has always been pulled by a spiritually seeking restless voice to always keep it fresh and unpredictable. In this podcast, Secret Movie Club programmer Craig Hammill takes a look at  Bill Murray's career from his Second City & SNL start through his near 50 year career. 

SMC Pod #169: David Lynch, an appreciation

On January 16, 2025, cinema lost one of its greatest lights. David Lynch passed away in Los Angeles at 78 years old. Like all master moviemakers, Lynch contained multitudes. The writer/director behind Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, and many other films crafted a dreamlike, surreal, spiritual, emotional tone with intense lights and darks that was impossible to imitate. Only David Lynch could make a David Lynch movie. And David Lynch LOVED movies. He understood that cinema is a language that can go beyond words and many other art forms. Secret Movie Club founder.programmer Craig Hammill offers an appreciation on this podcast of Lynch the moviemaker and of Lynch movies. 

SMC Pod #168: The Lubitsch Touch, a prologue

First and foremost, Secret Movie Club sends everyone affected by the Los Angeles fires (this podcast is posted January 2025) the best. We're here as a community to help rebuild. If it can bring a smile to your face in a helpful way, we offer this podcast on "The Lubitsch Touch".  Master classic Hollywood filmmaker Ernest Lubitsch developed a cinematic shorthand storytelling style full of visual, verbal, and cinematic grace/flair.  If he could convey character or information cinematically rather than through clunky dialogue, he did it. This style, the essence of what cinema can do, inspired countless moviemakers most notably master moviemaker Billy Wilder. Today we look just at Lubitsch's 1932 pre-code sophisticated sex comedy masterpiece Trouble In Paradise and the examples of his subtle touch therein.  

SMC Pod #167: Akira Kurosawa, Master Filmmaker, 2025 Edition

Realizing we've all ready done several podcasts on Akira Kurosawa, we're treating this like an addendum to a revised edition. Today, we work to fill in some of the gaps by focusing on some of Kurosawa's amazing but lesser seen works like his 1943 debut feature Sanshiro Sugata, his incredible I Live in Fear (1954)where actor Toshiro Mifune plays an aging industrialist who loses his mind thinking about nuclear war, and Kurosawa's 1993 final feature Madadayo which features some of Kurosawa's best ever editing. We also look at Kurosawa's 1930's apprenticeship as assistant director to Kajiro Yamamoto (Yamamoto-san) and some of the best books to read if you're a Kurosawa-phile.