When movie directors film a scene in a museum, it is usually not because the characters want to look at art. Clips of museums in movies will be shown on Sunday, Jan. 10 (snow date Jan. 24) at 2 p.m. at the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts in the program Museums in the Movies: A Film Clip Festival.

In the movies, museums are places where monsters lurk, where robbers scheme, and where collections come to life at night. Dr. Mary Malloy will show some of the dozens of film clips of museums in movies that she has collected for her course on the history of museums at Harvard.

Dr. Malloy teaches in the Museum Studies Program at Harvard University and in the semester at sea program in Woods Hole. She is the author of four books of maritime history and the recently published novel The Wandering Heart.

The program is free with museum admission. Coffee and cookies will be served.