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Vintage Hitchcock is a 13" x 18" poster designed by Jean Fogle for a month-long Hitchcock series held in 1973 at the Orson Welles Cinema in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Orson Welles Cinema was a movie theater at 1001 Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge, Massachusetts of the United States of America that operated from 1969 to 1986. Showcasing independent films, foreign films and revivals, it became a focal point of the Boston-Cambridge film community.

The Orson Welles Cinema opened April 8, 1969 with Luis Buñuel's Simon of the Desert, Orson Welles' The Immortal Story and a midnight movie, Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers.^[1]

Originally the Esquire Theater in the early 1960s,^[2] it became the Orson Welles Cinema under its next owner, folk musician Dean Gitter.^[3] When Gitter departed, Ralph Hoagland and wife Molly Hoagland stepped in as the new owners. From 1971 to 1978 the theater was managed and programmed by Larry Jackson, who later held positions with Miramax, Orion Pictures and the Samuel Goldwyn Company.

In 1972-73, the Orson Welles Cinema expanded with two smaller screening rooms in addition to the main large auditorium. Larry Jackson eventually succeeded, in 1977, in getting Orson Welles to visit the cinema named in his honor. Welles and associate Gary Graver used the occasion to shoot footage inside the Orson Welles Cinema for their documentary Filming Othello (1978).

The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980) was one of the films at the Orson Welles Cinema

In March 2006, Jackson staged a showing of rare footage by Orson Welles in Northampton, Massachusetts.^[4]

Ancillary operations included the Orson Welles Film School, a record store, a bookstore, and a bar and restaurant, The Restaurant at the Orson Welles, under chef Odette J. Bery, where entertainer Jay Leno once performed comedy during his early days.^[5] After The Restaurant closed, the two-level space became Chi-Chi's, part of the Mexican restaurant chain.

The Orson Welles Cinema came to an end with an electrical fire at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 24, 1986. The last three films shown were Henry Jaglom's Always, Water and Dennis Potter's Dreamchild.

The Orson Welles Cinema's advertising and promotion were under the direction of John Fogle,^[6] with ad and poster copy written by Fogle and Larry Jackson. The Welles Cinema's posters were designed by Jean Fogle. Extra runs of these posters were sold in the lobby.

Film notes for each showing were prepared by staffer John Rossi, who for each film gathered lengthy cast and crew credits, a partial synopsis and selected film reviews. These were prepared in the upstairs offices of the complex, as was the black-and-white digest-sized Orson Welles Cinema Magazine.^[7]

In February 1976, the Welles launched its 24-hour Science Fiction Film Marathon with The Day of the Triffids, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers, Fantastic Voyage, Five Million Years to Earth, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), It Came From Outer Space, Them!, The Thing (1951), The Shape of Things to Come, This Island Earth, The War of the Worlds, and Zardoz.^[8]

Ad as it appeared in The Real Paper in June 1973

The Marathon became an annual event that it continued even after the Orson Welles Cinema closed. Following the 11 Marathons held at the Orson Welles, the film series moved on to other Boston theaters, and under the name Boston Science Fiction Film Festival has continued through at least 2006, when it was held at the West Newton Cinema in 2006.^[9]

Less successful was the Welles' Boston Film Festival (1976), which included such films as Monty Python's Flying Circus' And Now for Something Completely Different and Jacques Rivette's Out One: Spectre. However, according to Welles Cinema staffers, many of the announced films arrived late or never appeared.

Film personalities associated with the Orson Welles Cinema include the first house manager, future actor Tommy Lee Jones, during the spring of his senior year at nearby Harvard University. Producer-screenwriter John Semper was an employee, as was the Brazilian musician and film composer Pancho Sáenz, and future script supervisor Martha Pinson and future sound editor David E. Stone.

Filmmakers who made personal appearances at the Welles Cinema include Peter Bogdanovich, Edward Dmytryk, Ed Emshwiller, Jean Eustache, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jim McBride, Vincente Minnelli, Nicholas Ray, George Romero, Harold Russell, and François Truffaut. After Steven Lisberger premiered his Cosmic Cartoon (1973) at the Welles, the animated short received a Student Academy Award nomination.

• The Harvard Crimson: "H for Hype" (January 13, 1977) by Mark T. Whitaker

• Andy Lee's 1980s photos of the Orson Welles Cinema and surrounding storefronts
• Peter Southwick photo of the Orson Welles Cinema exterior
• Robert Fourer review of Pierrot le fou and the Orson Welles Cinema in The Tech (April 29, 1969)