History

old logo Strosacker Auditorium new logo

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away... In the early 1970's, there were several film groups on the Case Western Reserve campus. These groups had formed because of interest in different genres of movies. Along the way, the groups merged and formed the basis of the current CWRU Film Society. History is quite vague on the details. The current Film Society was founded in 1970.
The Film Society is a non-profit, student-run organization dedicated to the promotion of film as an art form. We make available to the University community films of artistic and cultural importance, as well as a number of the more popular films of recent years.
Twice in its history, the CWRU Film Society published a scholarly magazine titled Mise-en-Scène. The first issue was published in 1972 and the second was published in 1980.
Summer of 1999 renovation
Summer of 2000 renovation
2001 trailer closet organization
Summer of 2005 - we upgraded the sound system to play Dolby Digital sound tracks (in addition to all of the mono and stereo analog formats previously used).
The CWRU Film Society has occupied an office in the attic of Guilford Hall since 1981. We vacated it in 2001.
We've been projecting films for quite some time in Strosacker Auditorium. It has 580 seats.
CWRU Film Society has suffered a great loss in tradition this past weekend, Oct. 27, 2000, when our beloved "Wide Screen Stereo" trailer was mangled by the projector. Thanks to Tim Damon and Brian Christian for this audio clip(3.74 MB WAV file). Wide Screen Stereo is back! (Fall 2004) Thanks to Dan Alt, one of our projectionists, we have purchased a brand new copy of the trailer.
Summer of 2013, we retired one of our 35mm projectors in order to ensure a supply of now very hard-to-get spare parts, and replaced it with a much newer machine (and two nearly identical spares in storage).
Spring of 2021, we resurrected our ability to run 70mm six-track stereo film. In celebration, we were going to run the movie "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" at the 2021 Science Fiction Marathon...but the movie studio would not allow public performance rights during the 40th anniversary of the film. So the Marathon 47 audience was treated to "Howard the Duck" on 70mm film instead. Here is a short video clip of E.T. running on projector 1 and projector 2 (30-36MB downloads)
Fall of 2023, we ran "Lawrence of Arabia" on 70mm film. It was supposed to be a 1991-vintage print with six-track magnetic sound, but the studio shipped us the wrong print. We had a crash project to install 70mm DTS digital sound readers in order to run that print correctly.

365 Ways to Meet People in Cleveland book cover

Miriam Carey's book, 365 Ways to Meet People in Cleveland mentions our Science Fiction Marathon as a place to meet people.

Film Society in the Ancient Days

One of our traditions is an end of year party at the Pink Pig at the University-owned Squire Valleevue Farm in Hunting Valley, Ohio.

Party at the Pink Pig 1989

Special Events

The biggest special event held every year is the Science Fiction Marathon in January.

We like to do a little live entertainment now and then so here's what we did before the showing of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

For the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers showing, we had some staff members show up in costume.

On April 23, 2005 for our showing of Dirty Dancing, we had some dancing demonstrations. Check out the pictures and movies.

There are also many other special events held during the semester such as free sneak previews. Some of the free sneak previews we've shown in the past: Bram Stoker's Dracula, American Beauty, U-571, Jerry Maguire, and K-PAX. Free popcorn, drinks and prizes are often given away before showings during our regular season.

Since Fall 1998, we've been showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show for Halloween complete with a live cast[broken link, once again salvaged by archive.org]. Here's some pictures from the 2001 show.

Adult Movie Tradition (Outdated)

The Film Society has had a tradition of showing an adult movie at the end of the semester. These pornographic movies were a way for the students on campus to have a little fun and relaxation before finals week. Until this past semester, Spring 1999, the last porn movie shown on campus was seven years ago. Contrary to popular belief that the movies stopped showing because of moral or political correctness issues, it was actually a supply issue. The pornographic film industry simply switched from producing films to producing videos. As a result, it became difficult to find movies on film.

The Spring 1999 showing of The Devil In Miss Jones prompted concern from the CWRU community about the showing of erotic movies on campus. There was an open forum discussing the issue on campus. The controversy did not stop the showing of the film. Here is the response letter addressing the concerns. (adult-films-response.pdf)

Adult movie night is a tradition at the end of the semester. For the first time in seven years (spring 1999), the tradition has returned. We had a great turnout. Here's some pictures of our staff hard at work and having fun too!

As of at least Fall 2024, we no longer do this.