We open this year’s TOP DOWN with a visit from the Alloy Orchestra of Cambridge, who will play their original score for Alfred Hitchcock’s silent classic BLACKMAIL. A young woman kills a man in self-defense. When a witness tries to blackmail her and her boyfriend, who happens to be a Scotland Yard detective, their lives start to spiral out of control. Hitchcock masterfully shows the story rather than tells it, and the Alloy ensemble—Roger C. Miller on synthesizer; Terry Donahue on junk percussion, accordion, saw, and banjo; and Ken Winokur on junk percussion and clarinet—heightens and propels the tension in fitting fashion. The Alloy has been performing its original scores for restored silent films since the early ’90s and is counted among the top silent film accompanists in the world. They’re even better with the top down!

Tonight is Silver Screen Club Members Night!

Sponsored by The Oregon Symphony. Additional support from The Young Patrons Society of the Portland Art Museum.

BAND: BOY AND BEAN

Kris Kristofferson, upon meeting young Johnny Cash in Nashville in the early sixties, reverently described him as “walking electricity.” The electricity is apparent in Cash’s shocking performance as a small-time hood in DOOR-TO-DOOR MANIAC. In a ruthless bank robbery scheme, Johnny Cabot (Cash), posing as a door-to-door salesman, must kidnap the bank president’s sexy firecracker of a wife. The cast includes a hirsute Vic Tayback long before he opened Mel’s Diner, and a bravura performance by little Ronny Howard.

BAND: AUSTIN LUCAS

“Don’t let the title fool you.” In this coming-of-age summer camp film full of wisdom for the ages, two 15-year-old girls from different sides of the tracks (Kristy McNichol and Tatum O’Neal) compete to see who will be the first to lose her virginity. Matt Dillon is conveniently on hand to help out.

With support from Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette.

BAND: KELLI SCHAEFER

A journalist (Dana Andrews) sets himself up to take a murder rap to show how the fallibility of circumstantial evidence can lead to the execution of the innocent. With theatrical flair, he allows himself to be convicted and awaits the moment when his friend will reveal purposely withheld evidence that will set him free. What could go wrong? (Cue screeching tires and thump.)

BAND: LEAVES RUSSELL

The bedtime stories told to young Johnathan by his deceased grandfather, of evil goblins who turn people into living vegetables, are about to come true on a terrifying family trip to the small town of Nilbog. TROLL 2 is at the lofty end of lists of the worst movies ever made, and its cult status has exploded as new audiences gasp at the horrible acting, incredible story (even by fantasy standards), and sequence after sequence of mind-boggling, hilarious ineptitude.

BAND: DEER OR THE DOE

With a crackling, darkly comic Buck Henry script and a standout performance from Ileana Douglas, TO DIE FOR stars Nicole Kidman as a vacuously ambitious reporter (“You’re nobody unless you’re on TV”) who finally lands a gig as a cable weather girl cum documentary filmmaker. But when husband Matt Dillon threatens to thwart her budding career, she decides to persuade some infatuated high school students (Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck) to bump him off.

School of Film Reunion Night!

BAND: THE LOVE LOUNGERS