This Romance with music has long been out of circulation and remains one of the top movies requested by TCM viewers. Dating from 1943, the Charles Boyer and Joan Fontaine vehicle flirts dangerously (for the time) with a Lolita type plot! It plays to the Chinese Multiplex 1 on Friday at 10 AM PDT.
This aviation drama from 1933 was pulled from projection circulation in 1942 (though it is out on DVD). Loaded with movie stars (some even with considerable talent), it boasts Clark Gable, Myrna Loy, Robert Montgomery, and two Barrymores (John & Lionel), to name just a few. It will screened at the Chinese Mutliplex 1 on Sunday May 1 at 10 AM PDT
One of the best early suspense thrillers, it stars Ingrid Bergman in one of her best known roles. This has never been out of circulation, but chances of actually seeing a screening of it have become increasingly rare. So if you have the chance to see this in Hollywood, jump at it! It will be introduced by the grand dame of 40's cinema Angela Landsbury and there will be a discussion afterwards. Also it is being presented at the historic Grauman's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd. If you have the time and are in the area, you can catch it on Sat. at 9:30 PM PDT.
Like Gaslight, Niagara has never been out of circulation and has been available on all forms of home video, but it is a historic film for the fact that it contains Marilyn Monroe best performance (arguably) in a dramatic role (as opposed to a comedic one). Additionally it contains a very memorable performance by Joseph Cotton (of Citizen Kane fame). Also it is effective as a Film Noir, despite that it is shot in brilliant techincolor (in fact, I often forget that it is actually in color). As of right now, it's show time is still TBA.
I seriously wouldn't miss this if there was any way that I could afford to get a on plane and high tail it to LA!! I have never seen any Marx Brothers film in a cinema and would kill for the chance. A Night At the Opera is for many Marx Bros fans the very best (it is one of my personal favorites!). It will be screended at the Chinese Multiplex 3 tomorrow night at 7:15PM and will feature What's Opera, Doc and Robert Bader. It will be hosted by Andy Marx, the grandson of Groucho.
In honor of the late Elizabeth Taylor who the world lost just two months ago, here is one of my personal favorite romance films (and I'm seriously a horror whore!). It features the chiseled Montgomory Chift as the love interest of the lady with violet eyes and a wickedly delicious performance by Shelley Winters (Lolita 1962). Despite that it will tribute Taylor, it was included in the festival before she passed, because it is the 60th anniversary of the film's premiere. Catch it on Sunday at 3:15 PM PDT with actress Rose McGowan in attendance.
OK, this is a Stanley Kubrick film (although, if you are a serious Kubrick fan, you know that this production was marred a bit by interference from various sectors--but oh well!). The important thing is a that, as an epic, it would look great on the big screen....AND it is being hosted by Kurt Douglas!! Despite the special guest, it's screening time is still TBA.
'STELLA!!' Of course this film is most closely associated with the very animated and loud performance given by Marlon Brando, it should also be celebrated for a powerful performance by Vivien Leigh, who, gets out-shined in by Gone With The Wind when people reference her career. Catch for her sake! It is also the 60th anniversary of the film's premiere AND the world premiere of the new digital restoration of the print.
From novelist Graham Greene comes this Carol Reed directed Film Noir starring Orson Welles and the above mentioned Joseph Cotton. It is a post-war intrigue set in Vienna with a very well penned mystery of what the hell happened to Harry Lime. With the screen time still at TBA, the presentation has been locked down. It will be introduced by script supervisor Angela Allen and film director Guy Hamilton. Just watch out for that soundtrack!
The movie that Gregory Peck is most remembered for; it was released in 1962--so I've gone over my stated film time frame for this blog...but only by two years, and for a great reason. The film is a griping court drama of a white lawyer defending a poor and helpless African American man who is accused of rape in the depression era south. It is an important film on many levels, not least which that it was important to the civil rights movement. It will be screened at Grauman's on Friday at 4:15PM PDT. In attendance will be Mary Badham and members of the Peck family (including Gregory Peck himself). Settle in: it's 129 minutes long.
This needs no introduction and no exaplanation. For many this is simply the best movie ever made. At Grauman's on Sat. at 3:30 PM PDT.
Nothing like it's 2008 remake, this classic Sci-Fi has been pointed to (along with
Dr. Strangelove) has having a good deal to do with reshaping the public mind here in the US about the ravages of nuclear war: and this came as the cold war was seriously heating up and so was USA propaganda about Communists and so-called "Communist activity" that didn't really exist here. It was a brave release and is now a classic for being just a really good sci-fi flick! It will be screened at the Chinese Mulitplex 1 tomorrow night at 10PM PDT, with the film's composer Bernard Herrmann's daughter Dorothy in attendance.
Disclaimer: I am a serious Hitchcock fan! He's basically my favorite director. So I am partial to most of his projects. We have Friday Frights every Freytag in my house (which is what my main blog
Scare Me On Fridays is about), we usually have at least one Hitchcock "Fright Night" a year, I have been known to include some of his quirkier works including this comedy thriller (even some of, OK a lot, of his early silent work as well). So many people who love Hitchcock as a brillant director of thrillers (and subsequently horror) really hate this movie. I love it, so I'm including it. Give it have a chance at least on Sunday at the Chinese Mulitplex 4 at 12:15 PM PDT with actor Jerry Mathers in attendance. Oh, and the trouble with Harry is that he's dead....and that is not a spoiler either!
Erich von Strohiem's 1925 silent classic starring Mae Murray and John Gilbert, features a royal romance; so I guess that's fitting considering it's being screened on Friday, the day of the royal wedding in London. Catch it at 8:15 PM PDT at The Egyptian Theater.
The 1928 Buster Keaton classic (shadow directed by him), this is one of the first films to self-reflexly make fun of the film industry in general and a particular studio, MGM, in particular. It is billed as a romance, but it is as much about film making as it is about budding love and what people will due to get noticed by the object of their desire. I love that the girl that he is interested in works in the "newsreel" editing room. At the time of this film, newsreels were becoming a changed medium, as was film itself, talkies were just a breath away and so were news films that were narrated; marking the expressive silent reels for serious extinction.
First, let me state that I am well aware of the racist sub-text of parts of this film--it' the only film on the list so far, that I have actually seen in the theater, and more than once at that. The last time I saw it, I was really struck me how offended I was with parts; it was a totally different experience than what I remembered from seeing it as a re-screen for little kids on a Saturday afternoon when I was like 6 or 7. Still there is also no denying that this was also a serious breakthrough in the animated feature film. Films we enjoy now (and by "we" I'm including my 7 year old) like The Incredibles, Up, Finding Nemo and the Shrek films (etc.) owe everything to this movie. So, torn on the content--but blown away by the technique. It has real historical significance. See it at Grauman's on Sunday at 7:15 PM PDT.
Yes, that's a really cute Hayley Mills and she will be on hand for the screening of a version of this film. What will be screened is brand new. A bunch of newly discovered shorts that pertain to this live action musical have been fully restored and will be shown as a tribute to the original film. These are exciting precisely because they are from a relatively recent era (the early 1960's). A lot of stuff that gets the spot light for recent discovery is so much older. It's good to see attention being paid to shorts that are so much more modern. Screening is at the Chinese Mulitplex 1 on Sat. at 9AM PDT.
The reason I'm including this here is because this is a super special event. The main explanation of my admiration of this film is explained on Scare Me On Fridays. What is special here is that the TCM people are going to wire the Egyptian Theater with the original gimmicks used by the films creator William Castle to scare audiences with things like real shocks or vibrating seats. I would kill to attend. Alas, I'm on the wrong coast! And talk about a Friday Fright(!) this is being screened at midnight Friday night (technically Sat. morning) PDT.
