October 2026: A CENTURY OF STORIES
Tampa Theatre turns 100 years old in 2026, and we’re throwing ourselves a party. It’s the sort of year-long birthday party that one deserves after having made it through an entire century. It’s part celebration of the present, part ecstatic calling-forth of the future, and part investigative recollection of the past. And for the next few months, Big Picture will be leading the charge on that last part. Because looking back at the last hundred years of Tampa Theatre also means looking back at the last hundred years of cinema history, which is darn close to the entirety of commercial cinema. So, we’re filling our slate with films that have something to say about the past 100 years, but that also played a part in Tampa Theatre’s story.
We’re filing this era of Big Picture under the name A Century of Stories. That’s also the name of another part of our year-long birthday celebration too, a present we’re giving you (though not for free, sorry about that; it’s available for pre-order here): at last, a book recounting the entire history of Tampa Theatre. The point of Tampa Theatre, our reason for being, has always been stories — the stories in the movies and events our audiences come to see, and the stories that the members of our audience bring to us through their visits. The first dates, the fun nights out, the rainy Sundays killing time, your first field trip, your first indie movie, the performance you saw here that changed your life. If you’re reading this, you are part of Tampa Theatre’s story, and Tampa Theatre is part of yours. Ask any of us who work here about the stories we’ve collected from guests, or the stories we’ve experienced here ourselves. The Theatre is a knot tied together from a million different threads over a hundred years of interlocking, interacting people and experiences.
Each of the films in this program played here in their first run. For October, we start with A Night at the Opera on October 14, the first Marx Brothers film from MGM, which played here on its opening in 1935. That means our screening would have included the now-lost footage of an opening on an Italian canal boat with a brief medley of well-known opera themes and a few other Italian jokes. Next up on October 21 is Notorious, Alfred Hitchcock’s perfection of the romantic noir thriller, which opened here in November 1946. And we conclude October on the 28th with the unforgettable The Third Man, Carol Reed’s postwar classic containing one of the most famous entrances (and one of the most famous scores) in film history, which played here in its first run in May of 1950.
This is your invitation to our party. We hope that you’ll join Tampa Theatre as we walk into our, and your own, unknowable future. But first we hope you’ll join us in a reminiscence of our, and perhaps your own, past.
VIEW the Big Picture Archive to see all previous themes and currently scheduled Big Picture films.
A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935)
1h 36m / Not Rated / Comedy
The Marx Brothers (in their first feature without Zeppo) star in their first MGM picture and one of their biggest hits, a send-up of stodgy society culture and high-brow showbiz. Groucho is Otis B. Driftwood, business manager to a rich dowager who he convinces to make a major donation to the New York Opera Company. Meanwhile, romantic entanglements backstage lead to Driftwood accidentally signing the wrong person to a contract, kicking off a feature-length procession of hijinks, mayhem and comedy at the pace of a barrel rolling downhill.
In hindsight, all decisions fall into one of two categories: bad, or obvious. And the ‘30s were a time of tremendous disruption in the movie business, which meant a lot of decisions were getting made. The brothers adapting their successful Broadway acts to film seems obvious. The studios wanted them. Film moving to sound seems obvious, and the Marx brothers were a perfect all-talking act. But both decisions were precarious, and surrounded by examples of catastrophic failure. Even after it worked, coming off of the success of movies like Animal Crackers, Horse Feathers and Duck Soup, negotiating a new contract with a new studio and pushing for movies that were more plot-driven with clearer character arcs is precisely the kind of decision that destroys careers. But it turned the brothers from a pretty successful comedy act to a pillar of movie comedy for a generation. When a risk pays off, it doesn’t seem risky.
Tampa Theatre played A Night at the Opera on its opening in November 1935, with a supporting program including “Dr. M. Sayle Taylor’s ‘Voice of Experience’”, a Hal Roach comedy short called Twin Triplets, and the Paramount news reel. That means our screening would have included the now-lost footage of an opening on an Italian canal boat with a brief medley of well-known opera themes and a few other Italian jokes.
NOTORIOUS (1946)
1h 42m / NR / Drama, Thriller, Romance
Patriotic American Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), whose father is a convicted Nazi spy, gets recruited by a government agent named Devlin (Cary Grant) to fly to Rio and insinuate herself into the household of a spy ring led by Alex Sebastian (Claude Rains). Sebastian once loved her, and perhaps he still does; Devlin is essentially asking her to share the spy’s bed to discover his secrets. And this she is willing to do, because by the time he asks her, she is in love. But not with Sebastian.
All of these arrangements are of course handled with the sort of subtle dialogue and innuendo that Hollywood used to get around the production code. There is never a moment when improper behavior is actually stated or shown, but the film leaves no doubt. Perhaps the fullest expression of director Alfred Hitchcock’s visual style, and what his biographer called his “first attempt […] to bring his talent to the creation of a serious love story,” Notorious opened at Tampa Theatre in November of 1946.
THE THIRD MAN (1949)
1h 44m / NR / Drama, Mystery, Thriller
What happened to Harry Lime?
Post-WW2 Vienna has been divided into zones controlled by France, Great Britain, Russia and the United States, each managed by a cluster of variously corrupt or corruptible officials. Into this sinkhole of intrigue falls an American innocent: Holly Martins (Joseph Cotton), alcoholic author of pulp Westerns. He has come at the invitation of his college chum Harry Lime. But Lime is being buried when Martins arrives in Vienna. At the gravesite, Holly spots Anna (Alida Valli), Lime’s romantic entanglement, and follows her in the hope that she has some answers. But Holly may not survive long enough to even figure out the questions.
The Third Man was made by people who knew the devastation of Europe at first hand. Director Carol Reed worked for the British Army’s wartime documentary unit, and the screenplay was by Graham Greene, who not only wrote about spies but occasionally acted as one. Reed and his Academy Award-winning cinematographer, Robert Krasker, also devised a reckless, unforgettable visual style, full of oblique angles and expressionist lighting He fought relentlessly with David O. Selznick, his American producer, over every detail of the movie; Selznick wanted to shoot on sets, use an upbeat score and cast Noel Coward as Harry Lime. Film history is grateful that he lost. Reed defied convention by shooting entirely on location in Vienna, where mountains of rubble stood next to gaping bomb craters, and the ruins of empire supported a desperate black market economy. And he insisted on Anton Karas’ zither music (“The Third Man Theme” was one of 1950’s biggest hits).
The Third Man opened at Tampa Theatre in May of 1950.