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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

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

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