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The Reel McCoy Film Group is a not-for-profit film society that since 1990
has been catering for people interested in cinema, particularly those who
like to see timeless classics and overlooked gems at low cost.
Our membership fees are:
$50 for 12 months
$35 for 6 months
$20 for 3 months
Membership runs from the date of joining.
With very grateful support from
Canberra Museum and Gallery
Members of CMAG are welcome to join the Reel McCoy at a substantial discount:
membership for a year for only
$20.
Screenings are held in the Theatre of Canberra Museum and Gallery
(on the corner of London Circuit and City Square, Canberra City)
at 12:30 pm,
usually on the last Sunday of each month.
Next screening:
Sunday, 29 March 2026 at 12:30 pm
A TOWN LIKE ALICE
UK / Australia · 1956 · 107 min.
Director
Jack Lee
Cast
Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Maureen Swanson, Vincent Ball
A beautifully acted and moving World War 2 film based on the 1950 novel
of the same name by Nevil Shute, who was born in England but based in Australia
after the war.
The film tells the story of Jean Paget, exquisitely played by Virginia McKenna,
a young English woman who becomes a prisoner of war in Malaya.
Along the way, she is helped by an Australian soldier, played by the great actor
Peter Finch.
The book is also known as The Legacy, which refers to the heartfelt dreams
they have for a world of peace following the war.
For more information,
e-mail us
or come along to a screening
The Reel McCoy Film Group is a member of the
Australian Film Societies Federation.
Contact them to learn how to start and run a film society or group of your own.
Programme for the first half of 2026:
Sunday 15 February 2026
FANFARE
Netherlands · 1958 · 94 min.
Director
Bert Haanstra
Cast
Hans Kaart, Ineke Brinkman, Bernard Droog
After a quarrel within the brass band in Brederwiede, Holland, the village finds
itself with two brass bands.
Each is determined to win an upcoming musical tournament;
each is even more determined that the other should not win;
and each approach the same composer to write a piece that will secure victory.
Meanwhile, neither bandleader realises that their offspring have fallen in love
with one another.
Haanstra, the director, was most acclaimed for his short documentaries,
but the mix of irreverence and affection he brought to those hit the right
note in his first, and by far most successful, fictional work.
Sunday 22 February 2026
DAWSON CITY: FROZEN TIME
USA · 2016 · 120 min.
Director
Bill Morrison
Dawson City, in the Yukon Territory, was a remote but flourishing gold
mining town in the early years of the 20th century.
As the entertainment hub for the region it also had several cinemas showing
silent films, delivered there at great cost.
The cost of return was unfeasible so many of the films were simply buried.
During later construction work the films were unearthed, including many that
were thought lost forever.
This documentary explores the history of the town, the dangerously flammable
nature of the nitrate film stock used, and the ultimate restoration of the films.
Sunday 8 March 2026
1945
Hungary · 2017 · 91 min.
Director
Ferenc Török
Cast
Péter Rudolf, Tamás Szabó Kimmel, Dóra Sztarenki
Two Orthodox Jews arrive in a small remote rural Hungarian village which is
getting ready for the wedding of the magistrate's son.
They're accompanied by two coffin-like wooden crates supposedly filled with
perfumes and soaps.
Is this the start of a Jewish influx, reclaiming properties?
Histories resurface, rumours spread wildly, paranoia reigns, and the villagers
behave accordingly.
This subtle and nuanced film is atmospherically shot in black and white
with the mood of the film ably enhanced by Tibor Szemzö's soundtrack.
The filmmaker has sensitively examined the European war's postscript,
a period of history that everyone quickly wanted to forget.
Sunday 29 March 2026
A TOWN LIKE ALICE
UK / Australia · 1956 · 107 min.
Director
Jack Lee
Cast
Virginia McKenna, Peter Finch, Maureen Swanson, Vincent Ball
A beautifully acted and moving World War 2 film based on the 1950 novel
of the same name by Nevil Shute, who was born in England but based in Australia
after the war.
The film tells the story of Jean Paget, exquisitely played by Virginia McKenna,
a young English woman who becomes a prisoner of war in Malaya.
Along the way, she is helped by an Australian soldier, played by the great actor
Peter Finch.
The book is also known as The Legacy, which refers to the heartfelt dreams
they have for a world of peace following the war.
Sunday 12 April 2026
NINE QUEENS
Argentina · 2000 · 114 min.
Director
Fabián Bielinsky
Cast
Ricardo Darín, Gastón Pauls, Leticia Brédice, Tomás Fonzi, Graciela Tenenbaum
Two con artists, one smoothly experienced, the other incompetent, join forces
and become involved in a complex scam involving forged copies of rare stamps.
The story is set over the course of a single day in Buenos Aires.
Nine Queens trusts its audience and rewards attentiveness, and shows
how a modestly budgeted film can create suspense through an intelligent
script and terrific performances.
The film is often cited as one of the defining films of modern Argentinian
cinema and it also revived the con film for a modern audience.
Sunday 26 April 2026
To be announced
Sunday 10 May 2026
THE DEVILS
United Kingdom · 1971 · 101 min.
Director
Ken Russell
Cast
Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave, Dudley Sutton
Father Urbain Grandier (Reed) champions the rights of the people of Loudun
against Cardinal Richelieu who wants to tear down the town’s defences.
Local nuns, led by Sister Jeanne (Redgrave), accuse Grandier of witchcraft.
The trial and the exorcisms of the nuns involved were sensational.
Based on a true story written up as a novel by Aldous Huxley.
Sets by Derek Jarman.
The Devils was banned in several countries, but it remains a visually
striking, distinctive milestone of British historical drama,
with traces of black humour.
Not as shocking today as it was on release, it remains unforgettable.
Sunday 31 May 2026
MON ONCLE
France · 1958 · 116 min.
Director
Jacques Tati
Cast
Jacques Tati, Alain Bécourt, Jean-Pierre Zola, Adrienne Servantie
Jacques Tati was born a little too late for the era of silent films,
but he reinvented a version of them when he created the iconic character
of Monsieur Hulot in the mid-1950s.
There is room for debate as to which of the four Hulot films is the best;
but this, the second, best defines the character:
fully at home in his own world, hopelessly out of place in the chic,
automated modern world which his relatives have taken to.
But with misplaced confidence, they believe they can convert him to their
way of life.
Sunday 14 June 2026
MARJOE
USA · 1972 · 88 min.
Director
Sarah Kernochan, Howard Smith
Cast
Marjoe Gortner, Agnes Benjamin, Vernon Gortner
Marjoe Gortner was preaching as a child evangelist from the age of three,
ordained as a minister at four, and gained renown as a faith healer
in the southern US Bible Belt.
His preaching in Pentecostal tent revivals and as a televangelist proved
very lucrative;
however, in his late twenties he began to have doubts about the ethics
of his ministry.
Despite its Best Documentary Oscar®, the film disappeared from view due to
pressure from religious circles and was long thought to be lost.
In 2002 a copy was found in a New York vault, restored, and released on DVD.
Sunday 28 June 2026
THE BANK
Australia · 2001 · 106 min.
Director
Robert Connolly
Cast
David Wenham, Anthony LaPaglia, Sibylla Budd, Steve Rodgers, Mandy McElhinney
This is an Australian thriller/drama, and is director Robert Connolly’s first film.
The story starts in the 1970s and moves to the late '90s and early 2000s.
Set in Victoria, some scenes were filmed in the headquarters of a major bank
in Melbourne.
Jim Doyle (Wenham) is a brilliant mathematician who has designed a computer
program to predict stock market direction.
He is hired by Simon O’Reilly (LaPaglia), CEO of a large bank.
The themes include:
the loss of compassion in banking, genius, greed, corruption, intrigue,
imagination, bankruptcy, suicide, court cases, and revenge.
Sunday 12 July 2026
THE TIN STAR
USA · 1957 · 93 min.
Director
Anthony Mann
Cast
Henry Fonda, Anthony Perkins, Nona Mayfield, Neville Brand
A former lawman (Fonda) has become a ruthless bounty hunter after the death of
his wife and child.
He rides into a small town where a young deputy (Perkins) is in over his head
trying to maintain law and order.
Perhaps seeing himself in the deputy, the ex-lawman stays in town to teach him
the ropes, and to romance a local widow.
The westerns directed by Anthony Mann redefined the genre by making them more
psychological and adult.
Henry Fonda is a classic Mann hero and delivers a performance that led to him
starring in a TV series called The Deputy, loosely based on the film.
Sunday 26 July 2026
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
USA · 1951 · 115 min.
Director
Vincente Minnelli
Cast
Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant, Georges Guetary, Nina Foch
The story goes that ace MGM producer Alan Freed approached Ira Gershwin seeking
permission to use his late brother’s concert piece An American in Paris
in a movie.
When he came away, he had permission to make a whole movie full of George’s songs.
The result was six Oscar®s:
Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Music, Best Art Direction,
Best Costume Design, and a special citation for Gene Kelly.
A demobbed WW2 American soldier returns to Paris to make his way as a painter.
Of course, he spends more time dancing, singing, and romancing Leslie Caron
and Nina Foch.
A gloriously filmed, joyous musical.
Sunday 9 August 2026
HARAKIRI
Japan · 1962 · 133 min.
Director
Masaki Kobayashi
Cast
Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Ishihama, Shima Iwashita, Tetsuro Tanba
In 17th-century Japan, a destitute samurai arrives at the estate of a powerful
clan requesting permission to commit ritual suicide.
Expecting a bluff, the clan elders recount a recent case intended as a warning.
As the man calmly insists on proceeding, his story unfolds, revealing a far more
disturbing truth.
Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri is a devastating critique of the samurai code
and the cruelty hidden beneath rigid ideas of honour and obedience.
Told through controlled performances, stark black-and-white cinematography, and
an exacting narrative structure, the film strips away romantic myths to deliver
one of the most powerful moral statements in Japanese cinema.
Sunday 30 August 2026
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
USA · 1955 · 92 min.
Director
Charles Laughton
Cast
Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish
The film of Davis Grubb's novel The Night of the Hunter received scathing
critical responses upon its first release.
The film has, however, grown in stature since then and is now considered a
classic with its expressionistic, dark, fairy tale evocation of the struggle
of good against evil.
The film's star, Robert Mitchum, released from a jail sentence for drug
possession, was blacklisted by the studios till Charles Laughton brilliantly
cast him as the murderous preacher.
This film, Laughton's only directorial production, is considered one of the
archetypes of the Southern Gothic genre and its haunting dreamlike imagery is
unequalled.
Sunday 14 September 2026
Australia · 1966 · 112 min.
Director
Cast
Sunday 28 September 2026
USA · 1972 · 124 min.
Director
Cast
Sunday 12 October 2026
Italy · 1969 · 118 min.
Director
Cast
Sunday 16 November 2026
Please note that this screening
has been rescheduled from its original date.
USA · 1950 · 75 min.
Director
Cast
Sunday 30 November 2026
USA · 1982 · 83 min.
Director
Cast
Sunday 14 December 2026
USA · 1943 · 104 min.
Director
Cast
Sunday dd month 202y
Country · year · mm min.
Director
Cast
Please note that programme details are subject to change without notice
List of films screened by Reel McCoy Film Group and
Big House Film Society,
2000 - 2022 (PDF format)
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