Philadelphia Weekly

Ambler Theater
$4.50-$8. 108 E. Butler Ave. 215.345.7855. www.amblertheater.com

La Strada
(1954) (Shown on film): Not quite Italian neorealism and not quite the phantasmagoric clusterfucks of his later work, Federico Fellini 's tearjerker stars Giulietta Masina, his Chaplinesque wife, as a mousy woman sold into the service of soulless muscle man Anthony Quinn. B Thurs., Nov. 1, 7pm.

La Strada
(1954) (Shown on film): See Ambler Theater. B Wed., Oct. 31, 7pm.

Viridiana
(1961) (Shown on film): Not the first and certainly not the least of Luis Bu�uel's attacks on organized religion, this giddy provocation brought him briefly back to his native Spain and permanently back to international recognition. Silvia Pianal plays a naive young woman on the verge of nunship. A trip out to her horny, incestuous uncle's (Fernando Rey) lets loose a hilarious series of blasphemes, the most famous being a parody of the Last Supper using beggars. Franco's regime suppressed it for years, and the Vatican wasn't too pleased either. Not coincidentally, it's one of Bu�uel's strongest, tightest efforts. A- Wed., Nov. 7, 7pm.

Colonial Theatre
$4-$7. 227 Bridge St., Phoenixville. 610.917.0223. www.thecolonialtheatre.com

Arsenic and Old Lace
(1944) (Shown on film): Shot in a rush before he entered the service but not released for two years afterward, Frank Capra 's version of Joseph Kesselring's play is either an unsightly mess or a pretty amazing one, depending on whom you ask. Cary Grant has rarely been as manic as this frequently appalled straight man to a cast of nuts, chief among them a pair of kindly old ladies who poison gentlemen callers, and Raymond Massey as an imperious escaped convict who "killed a man because he said I resembled Boris Karloff" (played by Boris Karloff onstage). With Peter Lorre and Edward Everett Horton. B Sun., Nov. 4, 2pm.

County Theater
$4.50-$8.50. 20 E. State St., Doylestown. 215.345.6789. www.countytheater.com

Viridiana
(1961) (Shown on film): See Ambler Theater. A- Mon., Nov. 5, 7pm.

International House
$5-$7. 3701 Chestnut St. 215.387.5125. www.ihousephilly.org

Views of a Changing World, 3rd Edition
Now in its third year, I-House's program of timely docs once again summons a potent sampling of what's going on in the world, even if one of them hails from all the way back in 1967 and another looks back to an even older age. But when some of the most interesting docs to never make it to Philly finally arrive, why complain?

Rocky Road to Dublin
(1968) (Shown on Beta SP): The last film shown at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival, which was abruptly aborted out of solidarity for the famed student and labor protests of that May, Peter Lennon's doc frequently asks, "What do you do with your revolution once you've got it?" No, Lennon wasn't referring to the revolt around him, but rather Ireland some decades after the English occupation. Virtually unseen since its debut, Rocky Road to Dublin takes a satiric snapshot of a country on the cusp of social change. Having already written a series of exposes about the Irish church for The Guardian, expat Lennon returned from Paris with French New Wave tactics (and their legendary cinematographer Raoul Coutard) to put images to his take on Ireland as a nation mired in the dominance of the church, masculine identity and a censorship board that went so far as to ban foreign games in addition to Faulkner, Hemingway and Steinbeck. Seeing it as an insult, its native land banned it, but 40 years later it looks more lively and bemused than vicious, tempering its hard-hitting nature with a genuine compassion for its subjects, most notably a "swinging modern priest" who comes off as both silly and bottomlessly endearing. The accompanying making of, filmed during its post-restoration debut in 2004, shows true progress; after a clip of a schoolboy being quizzed on original sin, Lennon cuts to a contemporary boy who can't even say what original sin is. Nouvelle vague heads: You haven't lived till you've seen footage of Lennon standing up to Godard and Truffaut after its Cannes debut. B+ Thurs., Nov. 1, 7pm.

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