High Contrast Cinema

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema conclude their 'Made in Britain' season with the acclaimed 1951 adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Scrooge. Starring the incomparable Alistair Sim as miserly curmudgeon Ebenezer Scrooge, it is widely considered to be the most faithful and cherished version of the much-filmed Christmas classic.

Featuring a veritable who's who of famous British actors of the 20th century (including Michael Horden, Hattie Jacques, Jack Warner and George Cole) a big screen outing of the film will be a welcome kickstart to the festive season. Altogether now: "HUMBUG!"

Scrooge is rated U for very mild horror.

Additional Info

Location

High Contrast Cinema, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Booking Link

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Tickets

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema begins its second year at the Allendale Centre with a classic from the Master of Suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock. An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel, Strangers On A Train turns a chance meeting on a locomotive into a one-sided plan to 'swap' murders that swiftly spirals out of control. Starring Farley Granger and Robert Walker, it's not one of the more recognisable titles in Hitchcock's filmography but it eminently displays his finely-honed skills in the thriller genre and offers an abundant supply of reasons why he is still considered to be one the greatest film directors ever.

Strangers On A Train is rated PG for mild bad language and violence.

Additional Info

Location

Strangers On A Train, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema bring a rare screening of Suddenly (1954) to the Allendale Centre. Frank Sinatra, fresh from his Oscar win for From Here To Eternity, flips his public persona on its head with the most overtly villainous role of his career as a would-be presidential assassin. With reliable support from Sterling Hayden, this taut thriller, directed by British-born Lewis Allen, is elevated by Sinatra's tremendous performance. Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Sinatra requested that the film be removed from circulation which helped lead to its status as an underrated classic; an opportunity to see it on the big screen should not be missed!

Suddenly is rated PG for general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children.

Additional Info

Location

Suddenly, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

As the nights draw in, High Contrast Cinema bring a fatalistic film noir classic from 1946 back to the big screen. The Killers, featuring the film debut of Burt Lancaster opposite a smouldering Ava Gardener, is based on a short story by Ernest Hemingway, and one of the rare adaptations of the legendary writer's work that he approved of. Featuring plenty of noir staples - a femme fatale, a flashback structure, atmospheric visuals evoking a shady underworld - it's arguably director Robert Siodmak's finest entry into the genre, and with reliable support from Edmond O'Brien it remains as thrilling as it was 78 years ago.

The Killers is rated PG for general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children.

Additional Info

Location

The Killers, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema welcomes the festive season with a screening of the perennial Christmas classic from 1947, Miracle on 34th Street. When bewhiskered gent Kris Kringle, working as a department store Santa Claus at Macy’s in New York, claims to be the real Santa, his sanity is called into question, leading to a court case to determine his authenticity. Co-starring Maureen O'Hara, John Payne and a very young Natalie Wood, the film has entertained for generations with its seasonably sentimental reminder of the importance of kindness, joy, love and "all the other intangibles".

Additional Info

Location

Miracle on 34th Street, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema launch their 'Femme Fatale' season with the thrilling lovers-on-the-run Gun Crazy from 1950. John Dall plays Bart Tare, an ex-soldier with a firearm fixation who finds himself bewitched by Peggy Cummins’ Annie Laurie Starr, a carnival sharpshooter who lures him into a violent crime spree that can only ever end in tragedy.

Directed by Joseph L. Lewis, Gun Crazy is a wildly entertaining B-movie that influenced the French New Wave to the New Hollywood movement and much more besides. Annie Starr is widely considered to be one of the most dangerous and iconic femmes fatales from the classic film noir period - so who better to start the season off with?

Additional Info

Location

Gun Crazy, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema's 'Femme Fatale' season continues with an enduring classic from 1944, directed by Otto Preminger.

In Laura, a police detective is drawn into Manhattan high society to investigate the murder of a stunning ad exec, and the more he learns about her, the more obsessed he becomes; his focus dwelling on the portrait that hangs in her apartment. As his obsession grows, it becomes clear that there may be more to the case than it first seemed.

Starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, with support from Clifton Webb and Vincent Price, Laura features one of film noir's greatest femmes fatales, proving they don't always need to be present to cast their spell.

Additional Info

Location

Laura, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema ends its Femme Fatale season with Orson Welles' fourth film as a Hollywood director, The Lady From Shanghai (1947). Welles plays a sailor who becomes entangled in a web of murder and deceit after a rich couple employs him to work on their yacht.

Although the director bemoaned studio interference (a common complaint with everything that followed his debut, Citizen Kane), it remains one the highlights of his filmography, featuring a bleach-blonde Rita Hayworth as the dangerously seductive femme fatale and an iconic hall-of-mirrors sequence that has been imitated repeatedly across the decades

Additional Info

Location

The Lady From Shanghai, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema conclude their first season of 2025 with the timeless classic comedy, Some Like It Hot (1959).

Directed by the incomparable Billy Wilder, the film stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as two musicians who disguise themselves as women in an attempt to elude the mob after witnessing a massacre in Prohibition-era Chicago. Also starring Marilyn Monroe in one of her signature roles as the deliciously named Sugar Kane, Some Like it Hot was voted Greatest Comedy of All Time in a poll conducted by the BBC of over 250 film critics from 52 countries.

Additional Info

Location

Some Like It Hot, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

High Contrast begins its third year of screenings on 5th September, launching its 'Made in Britain' season with film noir classic Night and The City.

The film was directed by Jules Dassin, who was on his way into exile in Europe after being blacklisted in Hollywood as part of the anti-communist witch-hunts of the era. Dassin transplanted his noir expertise (as seen in the likes of Brute Force and The Naked City) to the streets of postwar London, bringing Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney with him to star alongside homegrown talent including Googie Withers and Francis L. Sullivan.

Widmark leads a set of strong performances as the two-bit hustler who sees London's wrestling scene, with its ties to the underworld, as his next sure-fire money-making venture. Night and the City is a brilliant example of how shadowy characters in dimly lit streets, while rooted in American iconography, can translate anywhere across the globe in the right hands.

Night and the City is rated PG for mild violence.

Additional Info

Location

Night And The City, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema are proud to bring this little-seen UK crime drama to the big screen as part of their 'Made in Britain' season. Released in 1951, when London still served as a major shipping port, Pool Of London stars Bonar Colleano and Earl Cameron as merchant seamen on shore leave in the capital. When their dabbling in petty smuggling leads them into the path of a gang of thieves, events quickly spiral out of control. Notable for being one of the first British films to feature an interracial romance, it has an evocative sense of time and place and features some tremendous performances from actors less well known to modern audiences. High Contrast had to seek special permission to screen this film so please don't miss out on this opportunity to see it as it was meant to be seen.

Pool of London is rated PG for mild violence.

Additional Info

Location

Pool Of London, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS

Synopsis

High Contrast Cinema are pleased to bring this powerful British prison drama to the Allendale in November. It features an extraordinary turn by Diana Dors as a woman on Death Row awaiting her date with the noose. Often marketed as Britain's 'blonde bombshell' answer to Marilyn Monroe, the film and its subject matter provided Dors with an opportunity to deliver what many see as her finest performance.

Yield To The Night was released in 1956, and many noted a superficial resemblance to the Ruth Ellis trial (the last woman to be executed in the UK) the previous year, although the book it was based on pre-dated Ellis' controversial case. It remains a powerful indictment of capital punishment that still resonates today. It was widely acclaimed upon release and was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival.

Yield To The Night is rated 15 and contains psychological horror.

Additional Info

Location

Yield to the Night, Hanham Road, Wimborne, BH21 1AS