'Dante on Film' Harry Lachman's Dante's Inferno (1935)
This event is part of the Dante in Oxford 2021 project as part of the Humanities Cultural Programme.
This event is brought to you in collaboration with the Oxford Dante Society.
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The event is free but maximum capacity of Magdalen Auditorium is 120.
Face-coverings and use of hand-sanitizer requested.
We encourage all audience members to take a lateral flow test before attending this event.
The entrance to the Auditorium at Magdalen College is accessible via the Longwall Gate which can be found close to the junction with High Street.
Please follow the map:
The 1935 Dante's Inferno traces the rise and fall of a contemporary entrepreneur. Spectacular admonition and concern about the ruthless pursuit of wealth are the main features linking this Inferno of the Thirties with the original. The movie includes a vision of hell that has been described as 'one of the most imaginative and striking pieces of cinema in Hollywood's history". Directed by Harry Lachman (who also worked with Shirley Temple and Laurel & Hardy), it stars Spencer Tracy and features Rita Hayworth's screen début (as Rita Cansino) in a dance routine on a doomed cruise-ship, the SS Paradise.
The screening will be introduced by Prof. Nick Havely, Emeritus Professor of English & Related Literature, University of York.
Author of Dante's British Public: Readers & Texts, from the Fourteenth Century to the Present (Oxford University Press).
