The Tucson
Secular Home Theater

Pick a film
Pick a time
Come on by

Meetings are informal gatherings in private homes to view and discuss films of interest to skeptical/free inquirers.
Date and time is determined by the host. Guests determine next month's film schedule (click here for a listing of films to choose from).

Meeting Schedule:

Sunday, September 21, from 1 PM to 7 PM

Location and Host:

Central: 2941 E. Toledo Pl (see below or click to see location.)

Host: Richard Johnson, call to RSVP ph. 881-6460, or email Richard; email film requests to Eric or Sue
Come and go as you please. RSVP in case too many wish to come. If needed, a second showing by another host will be arranged.

1:00-2:30 On Core of Marjoe, for those who couldn't make it last time. A 1972 Documentary: Marjoe, a former evangelical minister, first gained a certain fame in the late 1940s and early to mid 1950s when he became the youngest ordained preacher at the age of four, and then outright notoriety in the 1970s when he starred in an Oscar-winning, behind-the-scenes documentary about the lucrative business of Pentecostal preaching.

When Marjoe was three, his father, a second generation evangelical minister, noticed his son's talent for mimicry and overall fearlessness of strangers and public settings. His parents claimed Marjoe had received a vision from God during a bath and began training him to deliver sermons, complete with dramatic gestures and emphatic lunges. By the time Marjoe was four, his parents arranged for him to perform a marriage ceremony for a film crew from Paramount studios, referring to him as "the youngest ordained minister in history."

Until the time he was a teenager, Marjoe and his parents traveled the rural United States, holding revival meetings. As well as teaching him scriptural passages, Marjoe's parents also taught him several money-making tactics, involving the sale of supposedly "holy" articles at revivals which promised to heal the sick and dying. By the time Marjoe was sixteen, he later estimated, his family had amassed maybe three million dollars; shortly after his sixteenth birthday, Marjoe's father absconded with the money, and a disillusioned Marjoe left his mother for San Francisco, where he was taken in by and became the lover of an older woman. Marjoe spent the remainder of his teenage years as an itinerant hippie until his early twenties, when, hard pressed for money, he decided to put his old skills to work and re-emerged on the evangelical circuit with a charismatic stage-show modeled after those of contemporary rockers, most notably Mick Jagger. Marjoe made enough to take six months off every year, during which he returned to California, surviving on the previous six months' earnings.

In the late 1960s, Marjoe suffered a crisis of conscience — in particular about the threats of damnation he felt compelled to weave into his sermons — and resolved to make one final tour, this time on film. Under the pretense of making a documentary on the evangelical and non-denominational faiths, Marjoe assembled a documentary film crew to follow him around revival meetings in California, Texas, and Michigan during 1971. Unbeknownst to everyone else involved — including, at one point, his father — Marjoe gave "backstage" interviews to the filmmakers in between sermons and revivals, explaining intimate details of how he and other ministers operated. After sermons, the filmmakers were invited back to Marjoe's hotel room to tape him counting the money he collected during the day. The resulting film, Marjoe, won the 1972 Academy Award for best documentary.

Marjoe, as precocious child preacher, was immensely popular in the American South. The film documents his last revivals before coming out publicly as a non-believer. At the time of the film's release he generated considerable press, but the movie was never shown in theaters in the Southern United States, based on the fears of the distributor over the outrage it would cause in the Bible Belt.

Although released on VHS, the film had long been out of print and had deteriorated. In 2002 the negative and other elements were found in a vault in New York City. Once the rights were secured, the film was restored with funds provided by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. On November 15, 2005, in New York City, the IFC Center showed Marjoe as the closing film in a series of documentaries called "Stranger Than Fiction". In their program they called it "a lost gem." The restored film has since been released on DVD.

3:00-5:00 Leap of Faith, the Steve Martin comedy: "Jonas is a fraudulent faith healer, who uses all the tricks in the book to con the people attending his shows. Jonas and his team of helpers, including Jane who is in need of some romance, travel the country stopping at big towns and cities to put on their show. When one of the trucks breaks down in a small town, Jonas is quick to accept the challenge of making money in this town. His other goal is to seduce Marva, a waitress in the town, but she's a hard nut to crack, as is Will, the local sheriff who's determined to expose Jonas as a fraud." -IMDb.

5:00-5:30 Potluck! or if attendees prefer, we can order out--RSVP and we'll decide on potluck vs. order out.

5:30-7:00 Viewer choice: To be determined.