mmg.com.au

A special meeting of the Heathcote Film Group on Saturday resolved to close at the end of the year.

After 16 years, Gail and Paul Casey have decided to call it a day and devote more of their time to painting and family.

The couple have shown hundreds of old films — classics to moderns, westerns to art house — from the National Film Archives at the film nights every first Saturday of the month.

Film group member Louise Joy said while there was a real sense of sadness about the group ending, the film night was a success.

‘‘This did not stop a rollicking good evening of the classic Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a 1966 American drama directed by Mike Nicholls,’’ she said.

‘‘Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor were at their scratchy best as a married couple in decline, engaging in a relentless vitriolic war of words over the course of one night, using a young innocent couple as their foil.

‘‘Perhaps no one knew before that the title is a pun on the song, Who’s afraid of the big bad wolf? from Walt Disney’s The Three Little Pigs (1933), substituting the name of the celebrated English author, Virginia Woolf.’’

The final showing of the Heathcote Film Group will be next month and will feature the movie Waking Ned Devine.

The film is about three lifelong friends from the tiny village of Tullymore who are all keen to find out who has won the Irish lottery.

Mr Casey spent many years winding film onto reels, but these days most of the movies including Waking Ned Devine, are available on DVD.

‘‘We’ll miss his characteristic jokes and Gail’s calm organisation of the evening,’’ Ms Joy said.

‘‘Well done Gail and Paul to have kept the show on the road for so long, but for them it’s time to show, like another old film classic, The Last Picture Show.’’

The group will hold its final meeting at The Mona Lisa Gallery at 146 High St Heathcote on December 1 at 7pm, with the screening to start at 8pm.

The group wishes to extend an invitation to any former members to join us on the night for the film, supper and a display of Heathcote Film Group memorabilia.