Due to a technical glitch, last night’s Vincentennial double feature was cancelled. One of the films–Champagne For Caesar–will be shown tonight at 9:15 p.m. at Washington University‘s Brown Hall Auditorium prior to Witchfinder General. The event is free.

This from the  Cinema St. Louis website:

Vexingly – but perhaps appropriately for a celebration of horror icon Vincent Price – malicious spirits created mischief at last night’s Vincentennial program at Washington University’s Brown Hall. A technical malfunction deprived the auditorium of sound, and we were forced to cancel the screenings of “Champagne for Caesar” and “The Baron of Arizona.”

The good news is that sound has now been restored, so there should be no further issues for the remaining programs.

And all is not lost for those who were excited to see last night’s double bill. We’ve rescheduled “Champagne for Caesar” for a 9:15 p.m. screening on Thursday, May 26, at Washington U. The program remains free. Regrettably, we don’t have an available slot for “The Baron of Arizona” during the remaining days of Vincentennial, but we promise to offer a free screening – as part of a continuing homage to Price’s 100th birthday – during the Stella Artois St. Louis International Film Festival, held Nov. 10-20.

Witchfinder General, the first of the double bill, will be shown at 7 p.m.

Here’s what the website says about that film:

The fact-based story of infamous witch hunter Matthew Hopkins (Vincent Price) and the barbaric acts he practiced in mid-17th-century England, “Witchfinder General” is as strikingly intelligent as it is cruelly violent. Price is relatively restrained in a complex role as a man of deep religious commitment whose sadistic streak helps him extract confessions from and take the lives of those marked as Satan’s helpers. Price regarded his performance as Hopkins as the finest of his horror-movie career. Now regarded as a classic of the genre – a new book on the film was just released by Columbia University Press – “Witchfinder General” was savaged on its release by playwright Alan Bennett, who called it “the most persistently sadistic and rotten film I’ve ever seen.” The film was the third and last in the short career of writer-director Michael Reeves, who died at 25 of a drug overdose soon after it was completed. When American International released “Witchfinder General” in the U.S., the distributor changed the title to “Conqueror Worm” and attempted to pass it off as part of its Edgar Allan Poe series by adding a few lines from the writer’s poem of that title.

Joe Williams, film critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, will introduce the film and lead  a post-film discussion of Witchfinder General.

For more information on Vincentennial click here.