[Culture] I LOVE YOU ALICE B TOKLAS

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The Secret Cinema presents benefit screening for AIDS Law Project with I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS Friday, August 20 Light food and drink at 6:00 pm Movie at 7:30 pm Admission; $20.00 MBC 229 S.18th Street, Philadelphia (between Devon and Bleu on Rittenhouse Square) Telephone info: AIDS Law Project, (215) 587-9377 On Friday, August 20, the Secret Cinema will team up with the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania to present their 5th Annual Summer Movie Party, featuring food, film and fun. The centerpiece will be a screening of the 1968 counter-culture satire I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS (starring Peter Sellers), followed by a discussion and book-signing with WIP radio's "Movie Irv" Slifkin. This one-time special event will take place in the lovely and eccentric café in the hipster headquarters of our co-sponsors, the Medical Broadcasting Company (MBC) ad agency, overlooking beautiful Rittenhouse Square. Best of all, all funds raised will go to the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania, a non-profit, public interest law firm that provides FREE legal services to people with HIV/AIDS and others affected by the epidemic. The timetable of events is as follows: 6 to 7:15 pm: Light food and drink 7:30 pm: screening of Peter Sellers in I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS, projected in 16mm film on a giant screen (using an original dye-transfer, Technicolor print!). Directly after film: Discussion and book signing by Irv Slifkin (aka, "Movie Irv" on WIP radio), author of the just-published VIDEOHOUND'S GROOVY MOVIES: FAR-OUT FILMS OF THE PSYCHEDELIC ERA (and a longtime friend of the Secret Cinema). Minimum donation is $20 per person. I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS (1968, Dir: Hy Averback) Peter Sellers shines as a middle-aged, Jewish attorney who, on his planned wedding day, leaves his mundane, predictable life behind and takes up with a band of free-loving hippies. He converts his luxurious home into a full-fledged counter-culture crash pad, his spirits loosened by some marijuana-laced brownies. The film's title refers to the famed real-life companion of Gertrude Stein, whose published cookbook included an actual pot brownie recipe. Veteran comic character actor Grady Sutton, who enhanced many 1930s W.C. Fields classics, appears as a funeral director (his final appearance would be in the Ramones vehicle ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL!). Co-writers Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker had helped create the pilot for television's THE MONKEES and later gained fame with other late-60s timepieces like BOB & CAROL & TED & ALICE. Mazursky would go on to direct NEXT STOP, GREENWICH VILLAGE, MOSCOW ON THE HUDSON, and many other notable films. Mazursky and Tucker also co-wrote, with Elmer Bernstein, this film's catchy pop theme song, performed on the soundtrack by Harper's Bizarre (and on a superior cover recording by North Jersey soft-rock band The Blades of Grass). SECRET CINEMA WEBSITE: www.thesecretcinema.com AIDS LAW PROJECT WEBSITE:  www.aidslawpa.org