Secret Policeman’s Film Festival lands in Hollywood

When Irish rocker Bob Geldof, the driving force behind some of the biggest all-star benefit concerts in history, including 1985’s Live Aid for African famine relief efforts, was invited to participate in one of the shows that helped lay a foundation for those future landmark events, he was not instantly receptive.

“He was torrentially abusive towards me,” recalled Martin Lewis, who asked Geldof to take part in the 1981 edition of the Secret Policeman’s Ball on behalf of Amnesty International. “He said . . . ‘It’s a waste of time, they never do any . . . good, you . . . hippies are so self-righteous and pompous.’ ”

A skeptical Geldof showed up and sang the Boomtown Rats’ then-recent hit “I Don’t Like Mondays,” then sportingly joined in the finale, a Sting-led reggae version of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be Released.”

“I believe that he caught the bug then,” Lewis said last week. “He saw how the power of music could be harnessed, and then he ran with it, dwarfing anything any of the rest of us ever did.”

That’s the kind of transformation Lewis aims to highlight with the Secret Policeman’s Film Festival, which opens today at American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood.

After a week of screenings of films documenting the 1970s and ‘80s Secret Policeman events, the festival shifts to the Paley Center for Media for more screenings of all 25 concert films, documentaries and spinoff events shot over the last 30 years.

The same program will run in New York starting June 26. About three years before the original Secret Policeman’s Ball in 1979, Amnesty International had begun stepping up efforts to heighten its profile. The deputy director of Amnesty’s U.K. operation, Peter Luff, spotted a donation check signed “J. Cleese,” from Monty Python member John Cleese. Luff asked if he might help spread the word.

Cleese suggested something similar, only with comedians, to what George Harrison had done with 1971’s Concert for Bangladesh, which brought together many of rock’s biggest stars to raise money for the war-ravaged region near India and Pakistan. (Recently, Eddie Izzard has taken up the torch from Cleese in keeping the Secret Policeman shows going.)

“When we did those first shows in ‘76, Amnesty had been going for 15 years, but nobody knew what it was,” Lewis said. “It was just known to foreign policy wonks. . . . By 1982, in Britain this put Amnesty on the map in public consciousness; it built an awareness among young people, among regular folks.”

The film festival will cover musical performances from Bruce Springsteen, Radiohead, the Police, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, Joni Mitchell, Carlos Santana, Sinead O’Connor, Miles Davis and Alanis Morissette.

Comedy aficionados can catch routines featuring a very young Hugh Laurie with his then-partner Stephen Fry and two versions of Monty Python’s Dead Parrot sketch, in addition to Russell Brand, Alan Rickman and Jennifer Saunders.

Among other highlights of the film festival, which Lewis curated and produced with American Cinematheque, the Paley Center for Media, Lincoln Center and the Mods & Rockers Film Festival:

* The U.S. version of 1982’s “The Secret Policeman’s Other Ball” film -- with Sting and Geldof -- that was directed by Julian Temple and which gave Miramax Films its first hit.

* An 11-hour marathon screening of “A Conspiracy of Hope.” The 1986 all-star concert at Giants Stadium in New Jersey hasn’t been seen since it aired live on MTV.

* Uncut versions of films of the first six shows that Cleese and Lewis put together, which until now had only been seen in the U.K. (they were recently issued on DVD).

Lewis hopes the festival will put across a certain spirit.

“Very famously, Bono gave a quote . . . ‘I saw The Secret Policeman’s Ball and it became a part of me. It planted a seed.’ The question had been asked of him, ‘What’s the point: Aren’t the audiences just coming for the entertainment? They don’t really care about the cause.’ He said, ‘I got captivated.’ This is what happens.”

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randy.lewis@latimes.com

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The Secret Policeman’s Film Festival

Where: The Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Paley Center for Media, 465 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills.

When: Today-June 21 (at the Egyptian); June 24-July 19 (Paley Center).

Price: $10 general; $20 for Sunday’s all-day screening of “A Conspiracy of Hope.”

Contact: (323) 466-3456; www.secretpolicemansball.com