The Cobweb

Dir. Vincente Minnelli. 1955, 134 mins. U.S. 35mm. With Lauren Bacall, Richard Widmark, Gloria Grahame, Lillian Gish, Charles Boyer, John Kerr, Susan Strasberg, Oscar Levant. An essential Minnelli, featuring maybe his most wildly stacked cast, The Cobweb confidently offers up a nearly undefinable mix of the restrained and the truly eccentric. Set in a psychiatric hospital, where the staff is likely more unsettled than the patients, this Cinemascope, Eastmancolor contraption details the fallout after the head doctor’s wife does the unthinkable: she changes the color of the library’s drapes! Long read as a perfect auteur text for Minnelli (who got his start as a window dresser), The Cobweb is a gorgeously shot, low-boil soap opera that’s a must for any 1950s melodrama completist. Tickets: $17.50 / $12 senior and students / $10 youth / $7 MoMI members. There is a $1.50 transaction fee per ticket for all online purchases. The cost of admission may be applied toward a same-day purchase of a membership. Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission.