Each September since 2008, the Arlington Heights Memorial Library has ushered in a brand-new season of Dann and Raymond’s Movie Club, our popular monthly cinema history program featuring Daily Herald film critic Dann Gire and film historian and author Raymond Benson. This month, we do it again with one notable exception. The dynamic duo has decided to call it a wrap, and Thursday, September 14 marks the first of the final four installments of Dann & Raymond’s Movie Club in the library's Hendrickson Room.
We recently sat down with Dann and Raymond to talk about movie club and what has made it so successful for 17 years. They credit their mutual respect and a friendship that began in 1994 and later segued into a professional partnership when a friend suggested they team up for a Siskel and Ebert-type program, formatted for public libraries and focused on cinema history.
Could you ever have imagined that movie club would run for all these years?
Raymond: We were surprised it went two shows! We did the first show, and it was a success…people laughed, people applauded, people said, “Oh wow.” And so we said, “Let’s keep going.”
Dann: I think part of the appeal and the longevity of the program is that we choose significant films, and we don’t just do one thing. Like we did horror films, and we did romances, historical epics and westerns and so there are genres. And we also do the films of Alfred Hitchcock and directors and the films of actors like John Wayne and Meryl Streep. So, it’s a combination of things where people show up and they don’t get the same thing twice.
Raymond: And we never talk about what we are going to talk about. We decide what clips we are doing but I never say “I’m going to say this about this clip."
Dann: There’s no rehearsals.
Raymond: It’s off the cuff; it really is off the cuff.
And so it is with this same enthusiasm and element of fun that Dann and Raymond approach their final four-program season titled appropriately enough the Best of the Best highlighting their favorite films of certain genres for September, October and November and concluding with movies they’d take on a desert island on December 14! What will those be? Join Dann & Raymond to find out!
Dann & Raymond’s Final Four
Thursdays, 6:30–8:30 p.m. / Hendrickson Room
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September 14: Best of the Best: Comedy Movies / REGISTER
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October 12: Best of the Best: Science Fiction Films / REGISTER
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November 9: Best of the Best: Human Drama Movies / REGISTER
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December 14: Dann & Raymond’s Desert Island Films / REGISTER
Thank you to the Friends of the Library for their continued support of Dann & Raymond's Movie Club.