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Desperately Seeking Susan (15)

Part of: The Grime and the Glamour season

Madonna and Rosanna Arquette, Desperately Seeking Susan

A quintessentially New York movie with a screwball plot, era-defining fashion and an I-want-to-be-that-girl performance from the Queen of Pop. 

Madonna had just scored huge hits with Like a Virgin and Material Girl when she starred in this film as Susan, a Lower East Side-dwelling hipster who becomes an object of fascination to a bored New Jersey housewife (Rosanna Arquette). 

A case of amnesia, stolen Egyptian earrings, and mistaken identities: the plot is screwball-farcical but allows for a wild ride through some choice bygone Manhattan locations including legendary four-floor nightclub Danceteria, veteran East Village vintage clothes shop Love Saves the Day, and the Bleecker Street Cinema, where love interest Aidan Quinn works as a projectionist. 

And this before mentioning the film’s ra-ra skirts, bangles, pork-pie hats and side-laced can-can boots – and many cameos from downtown mainstays John Turturro, Richard Hell, John Lurie and others. 

US 1985 Dir Susan Seidelman 103 min, 35mm presentation

Please arrive promptly at the advertised start time

Proof of ID may be requested on entry to films, in compliance with BBFC rating

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