The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

blog.laemmle.com

The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

You are here: Home / Benjamin G.

50th Anniversary Screening of OLIVER! with Actress Shani Wallis In Person on July 15 in Beverly Hills

by Leave a Comment

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of the Oscar-winning Best Picture of 1968, OLIVER!, the much-loved film version of Lionel Bart’s hit stage musical.

The movie was nominated for 11 Academy Awards and won six, also including Best Director Carol Reed and a special award for choreographer Onna White. Reed, the acclaimed British director of such classic films as The Third Man and The Fallen Idol, had been working since the 1930s and finally received the Academy’s top honor for this late work.

Charles Dickens’ iconic 19th century novel, Oliver Twist, the heart-rending tale of an orphan who falls in with a band of thieves in London, has been filmed many times over the years; the first version was done in the silent era, and David Lean directed a brilliant rendition in 1948, with Alec Guinness as Fagin.

In 1960 Lionel Bart wrote the book, music, and lyrics for a musical theater version of the novel which scored an enormous success in London and later in New York. Ron Moody, who had played the part of Fagin in London, reprised his role for the film version, and the cast also included Shani Wallis as Nancy, Jack Wild as the Artful Dodger, Oliver Reed (the director’s nephew) as the villainous Bill Sikes, Oscar-winner Hugh Griffith as the Magistrate, and charming newcomer Mark Lester as Oliver.

The 1960s was a great decade for movie musicals, with three earlier films—West Side Story, My Fair Lady, and The Sound of Music—scoring Best Picture wins. OLIVER!, however, turned out to be the last musical film to win the Academy’s top award until Chicago took the prize 34 years later. Reed’s film earned outstanding reviews from most critics. Roger Ebert declared, “Sir Carol Reed’s Oliver! is a treasure of a movie.”

Pauline Kael also admired Reed’s achievement: “Oliver! has been made by people who know how; it’s a civilized motion picture, not only emotionally satisfying but so satisfyingly crafted that we can sit back and enjoy what is going on…there’s something restorative about a movie that is made for a mass audience and that respects that audience.”

Kael also had high praise for the performers. “As Nancy,” Kael wrote, “Shani Wallis is an unexpected pleasure—hearty (as Dickens described her), with a tough vitality that brings poignancy to the role.” Wallis got to perform some of Bart’s best songs, including the rousing “It’s A Fine Life” and the romantic ballad, “As Long As He Needs Me.” Wallis has had an extensive career performing in musical theater and in nightclubs, and she also has many credits in British and American television.

Our 50th anniversary screening OLIVER! (1968) plus Q&A with actress Shani Wallis is Sunday, July 15, at 3pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

Milos Forman’s THE FIREMEN’S BALL Screens Tuesday, June 26 in Encino, Pasadena, and West L.A.! Q&A with Co-Screenwriter Ivan Passer at the Royal.

by Leave a Comment

In conjunction with an American Cinematheque tribute to the late Oscar-winning director Milos Forman, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of Forman’s final Czech film, THE FIREMEN’S BALL. The picture, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film of 1968, is part of our popular Anniversary Classics Abroad series. THE FIREMEN’S BALL co-screenwriter Ivan Passer will participate in a Q&A after the screening at the Royal. Laemmle Theatres president Greg Laemmle will moderate. Passer also worked with Forman on LOVES OF A BLONDE and is perhaps best known for directing the 1965 film INTIMATE LIGHTING and the 1981 film CUTTER’S WAY.

Forman was part the Czech New Wave, a group of talented filmmakers (also including Jan Kadar, Jiri Menzel, and Ivan Passer) who emerged during the 1960s. Forman’s 1966 film, Love of a Blonde, was also an Oscar nominee and put him on the map as a director to watch. His wry sensibility received even fuller expression in The Firemen’s Ball, a dark but raucous satire of the chaos that ensues when a group of local firemen try to mount a celebration for their retiring chief. Forman got the idea for the film when he was in a small Bohemian village working on another script, and he happened to attend a real firemen’s ball. The script was co-written by Forman, Ivan Passer, and Jaroslav Papousek. The cast consisted mainly of nonprofessional actors, including Jan Vostrcil, Josef Sebanek, Josef Valnoha, and Vaclav Stockel.

The film, which was widely interpreted as a sly critique of the Eastern European Communist system, was made during a brief period of artistic freedom that came to be known as the Prague Spring. But when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968, The Firemen’s Ball was banned, and Forman and other leading Czech directors fled the country. As TV Guide later wrote of the film, “This ingratiating farce is perhaps the last noteworthy film of the Czech renaissance before the political crackdown forced most filmmakers into exile.” After arriving in America, Forman went on to achieve many Hollywood successes, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ragtime, and Amadeus.

Among the stellar reviews for THE FIREMEN’S BALL, Time magazine acclaimed “a delicious parody-fable of Slavic bureaucracy,” and Variety paid tribute to “a lively, brimming comedy on human conduct and small-town life.” In his four-star review, Roger Ebert added, “This is a very warm, funny movie.”

This Just In: Co-screenwriter Ivan Passer will participate in a Q&A after the June 26 screening at the Royal. Laemmle Theatres president Greg Laemmle will moderate. Passer also worked with Forman on LOVES OF A BLONDE and is perhaps best known for directing the 1965 film INTIMATE LIGHTING and the 1981 film CUTTER’S WAY.

Milos Forman’s THE FIREMEN’S BALL (1968) screens Tuesday, June 26, at 7:00pm in Encino, Pasadena, and West L.A. Click here for tickets.

Win tickets to see Buster Keaton in STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. at the Orpheum Theatre with Last Remaining Seats

by Leave a Comment

Each year, our friends at the Los Angeles Conservancy screen classic films in L.A.’s historic theatres at their Last Remaining Seats series. Enter our drawing to win a pair of VIP tickets to their screening of Steamboat Bill, Jr. at the Orpheum Theatre! Enter below!

Buster Keaton stars in this 1928 silent as William “Steamboat Bill” Canfield, the owner of a paddle steamer who hopes to teach his son the family trade. The son, however, falls in love with the daughter of Steamboat Bill’s biggest rival, much to Bill’s dismay.

Will this father and son be able to sort out their differences before a hurricane destroys Bill’s steamboat?

This entertaining slapstick comedy features one of Keaton’s most famous stunts: the entire front side of a house falls on top of him, but he is untouched due to standing in the perfect spot to pass through an open upper floor window.

Live accompaniment on the Orpheum’s Mighty Wurlitzer organ.

Before the screening enjoy live entertainment from Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys. On stage before the screening: Keaton Talmadge, great-granddaughter of Buster Keaton will introduce the film. A free Q&A session about the theatre will follow the screening. Stay in your seat to learn more about the history and architecture!


Last Remaining Seats: Buster Keaton in STEAMBOAT BILL, JR. Drawing

55th Anniversary Screening of IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963) on Father’s Day in Beverly Hills

by 1 Comment

Celebrate Father’s Day at the movies as Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 55th anniversary screening of an all-star comic romp, Stanley Kramer’s IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD.

After making several Oscar-winning and nominated dramas like Judgment at Nuremberg, Inherit the Wind, On the Beach, and The Defiant Ones, Kramer (the winner of the Motion Picture Academy’s prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Award) decided to shift gears and make his first slapstick comedy.

The plot revolves around the frantic and desperate search for a cache of money hidden by an ex-convict. Although the film is basically lighthearted and riotous, Kramer does throw a few pointed barbs at all-American avarice. The director recruited a gigantic cast of comedians from television and theater as well as film; these performers span several decades of Hollywood history. The leading roles are played by Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Jonathan Winters, Dick Shawn, Mickey Rooney, Buddy Hackett, Phil Silvers, Edie Adams, and Ethel Merman, with supporting and cameo roles essayed by everyone from Jimmy Durante, Buster Keaton, Jerry Lewis, and Terry-Thomas to Peter Falk, William Demarest, Barrie Chase, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, and the Three Stooges. Spencer Tracy, who had starred in Inherit the Wind and Judgment at Nuremberg for Kramer, relished the opportunity to bring off a change of pace as the detective with his own devious plans for the hidden cash.

William Rose, who later won an Oscar for writing Kramer’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, created the ingenious screenplay. The picture was nominated for six Academy Awards, including nods for cinematographer Ernest Laszlo (Ship of Fools) and composer Ernest Gold (Exodus). It won the Oscar for Sound Effects. Mad World was one of the top grossing films of 1963 and earned mainly positive reviews. Variety observed, “The comic competition is so keen that it is impossible to single out any one participant.” The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther concurred: “So many excellent actors and stunt men do so much in this film.”

Against Kramer’s wishes, the film was edited after its release. The Criterion Collection released a complete, restored version on Blu-ray in 2014, and this is the version that we will be screening.

Before the film, Kramer’s widow Karen and daughter Kat will participate in a Q&A along with actress Barrie Chase. Unfortunately, Chase will not be in attendance.

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD screens at 4pm on Sunday, June 17th at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

THE DEER HUNTER with Actor John Savage In Person on Tuesday, May 29 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills

by Leave a Comment

On the day after Memorial Day, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present one of the greatest of all war films, Oscar’s Best Picture of 1978, THE DEER HUNTER.

Actor John Savage will participate in a Q&A at the 40th anniversary screening on Tuesday, May 29th at 7:15pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts theater in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

The film won four other Oscars, including Best Director for Michael Cimino and Best Supporting Actor for Christopher Walken. Robert De Niro earned a nomination for Best Actor, and Meryl Streep earned her very first nomination for her performance in the film. Deric Washburn wrote the screenplay from a story that he created with Cimino, Louis Garfinkle, and Quinn Redeker. Master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond shot the film, and Peter Zinner was the editor.

This epic vision of working class America follows three steelworkers from Pennsylvania as they journey halfway across the world to fight in Vietnam. De Niro, Walken, and John Savage play the three best friends. The first hour of the film immerses us in the routines of their lives as they prepare for the wedding of Savage’s character.

In the second section the three friends find themselves in a North Vietnamese prison camp, where they endure horrific physical and psychological torture before making a heroic escape.

In the third section, they try to readjust to life back home but find this re-entry just as traumatic as their wartime experiences. George Dzundza and John Cazale (who played Fredo in the first two ‘Godfather’ films and who died before the release of THE DEER HUNTER) round out the cast.

Roger Ebert praised “one of the most emotionally shattering films ever made.” In Newsweek Jack Kroll wrote, “THE DEER HUNTER is a film of great courage and overwhelming emotional power, a fiercely loving embrace of life in a death-ridden time.” The Wall Street Journal’s Joy Gould Boyum declared, “It is one of the boldest and most brilliant American films in recent years.”

Frank Rich, then the critic for Time magazine, added, “De Niro, Walken, John Savage…and Meryl Streep are all top actors in an extraordinary film.” In addition to its Oscars, the film was named best picture of the year by the New York Film Critics Circle.

The film was also greeted by protests by some activists who felt that the movie falsified the complexities of the Vietnam War and demonized the North Vietnamese. But Cimino argued persuasively that the film was intended to belong to an antiwar tradition that went back to one of the very first Oscar-winning films, ‘All Quiet on the Western Front.’ The film was added to the National Film Registry in 1996, an honor reserved for films deemed “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

John Savage had his first important screen role in THE DEER HUNTER, and he went on to star in Milos Forman’s film of the classic counterculture musical, ‘Hair,’ in the film version of Joseph Wambaugh’s best-selling novel, ‘The Onion Field,’ Richard Donner’s ‘Inside Moves,’ Oliver Stone’s ‘Salvador,’ ‘The Godfather Part III,’ Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’ and ‘Summer of Sam.’ He also distinguished himself in the theater, playing in the original production of David Mamet’s ‘American Buffalo,’ among other roles. In addition to many TV appearances, he has worked as a producer and composer as well as an actor.

Format: DCP

Ingmar Bergman’s AUTUMN SONATA on Tuesday, May 15 in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA

by Leave a Comment

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Abroad series presents the 40th anniversary of AUTUMN SONATA (1978), as part of the centennial retrospective of the birth of Ingmar Bergman, the great Swedish auteur who has entered the cinematic pantheon. Autumn Sonata represents the last theatrical film for Bergman, whose subsequent work was made for television, and then re-tailored for theatrical release.

For the occasion, Bergman enticed his namesake, legendary actress Ingrid Bergman, to return to her native language and star as a self-centered concert pianist who had favored her career over her children. In the drama of “fraught interpersonal relationships,” (a trademark of the director, as recently noted by Kenneth Turan), Ingrid Bergman’s character of Charlotte is invited by her daughter, Eva (Liv Ullmann) to visit her and her parson husband in their country home. When Eva also brings her handicapped sister, Helena (Lena Nyman) into the reunion, the past erupts on the present with repressed familial furor.

Bergman’s memorable movies of the 1950s and 1960s had been photographed in luminous black and white. In the 1970s he was working in color, and, as noted by Leonard Maltin, the cinematography by long-time Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist is “peerless,” giving the film visual warmth and intensity.

As to the only collaboration of the two Bergmans, Gary Arnold of the Washington Post said, “Bergman’s casting coup lives up to expectations. Ingrid Bergman and Liv Ullmann invest their roles with undeniable emotional impact.” It was also Ingrid Bergman’s last film role. The three-time Academy Award winner (Gaslight, Anastasia, Murder on the Orient Express) delivers a searing performance that brought her a best actress nomination in 1978, her seventh and final nod overall. Ingmar Bergman’s original screenplay was also nominated, one of his nine career total as writer, producer, and director. Additionally, the movie was named best foreign film by the Hollywood Foreign Press that year.

Autumn Sonata is a story of intense mother-daughter relations, and as part of the Anniversary Abroad series will play two days after Mother’s Day on Tuesday, May 15 at 7:00 PM at three Laemmle locations: Royal, West Los Angeles; Town Center, Encino; Playhouse 7, Pasadena. Format: DCP. Click here for tickets.

Part of the city-wide, two month retrospective, “Ingmar Berman’s Cinema,” at various locations.

For the Anniversary Classics Abroad next attraction, we present another master filmmaker enjoying a retrospective, Milos Forman, with a 50th anniversary screening June 20 of his 1968 Academy Award nominee, The Fireman’s Ball.

Jacqueline Bisset In Person for 45th Anniversary of Truffaut’s DAY FOR NIGHT on May 10th in West LA

by 1 Comment

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 45th anniversary screening of Francois Truffaut’s valentine to moviemaking, DAY FOR NIGHT, which won the Academy Award for best foreign language film of 1973.

The following year, the picture was nominated for three additional Oscars—best director for Truffaut, best original screenplay by Truffaut, Jean-Louis Richard, and Suzanne Schiffman, and best supporting actress Valentina Cortese. The film won awards in those three categories from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics.

David Sterritt of TCM praised the picture as “the most beloved film ever made about filmmaking,” and few would disagree with that assessment. Truffaut himself plays a beleaguered director trying to complete his latest film in the south of France while he wrestles with budget and insurance problems, temperamental star behavior, sexual shenanigans, and even an unexpected accident.

Jacqueline Bisset stars as the British actress hired to play the leading role in “Meet Pamela.” Jean-Pierre Leaud, who had starred in Truffaut’s very first feature, ‘The 400 Blows,’ and in several of his other films, plays the insecure leading man. Jean-Pierre Aumont, Alexandra Stewart, Dani, and Nathalie Baye round out the cast. Acclaimed novelist Graham Greene has a cameo role as an insurance agent.

Cortese has perhaps the most memorable role as an aging actress who has trouble remembering her lines. At the 1974 Oscar ceremony, the best supporting actress winner, Ingrid Bergman, spent most of her acceptance speech praising the performance of Cortese for creating a character that all actors could recognize.

In addition to hailing the performances, Roger Ebert said ‘Day for Night’ was “not only the best movie ever made about the movies but… also a great entertainment.” Truffaut’s favorite composer, Georges Delerue, provided the lushly romantic score.

Our special guest Jacqueline Bisset has brightened movies and television for many years. Her earlier films include ‘Two for the Road,’ ‘Bullitt,’ ‘Airport,’ ‘Murder on the Orient Express,’ ‘The Deep,’ ‘Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?,’ John Huston’s ‘Under the Volcano,’ George Cukor’s ‘Rich and Famous’ (which she also produced), and Claude Chabrol’s ‘La Ceremonie.’ Bisset won a Golden Globe for her performance in the TV miniseries ‘Dancing on the Edge’ in 2014.

DAY FOR NIGHT screens Thursday, May 10, at 7:30 PM at the Royal in West LA. A Q&A session with actress Jacqueline Bisset will follow the screening. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

Five Great War Movies on Throwback Thursdays in May at the NoHo 7

by

Join Laemmle and Eat|See|Hear for Military May at the NoHo 7 in North Hollywood. Every Thursday in May our Throwback Thursday (#TBT) series presents five great war movies from D-Day to Desert Storm. It all starts Thursday, May 3rd with THE DIRTY DOZEN. Check out the full schedule below. For tickets and our full #TBT schedule, visit laemmle.com/tbt.

Special Discount: Tickets are $6 for service members with military ID.

https://youtu.be/0qh17BqZEQE

 

May 3: The Dirty Dozen

Twelve military prisoners serving life sentences are trained to carry out a suicide mission against top Nazi officers. Lee Marvin,  John Cassavetes, Donald Sutherland, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, Trini Lopez,  and Clint Walker star. Format: Blu-ray. Click here for tickets.

 

May 10: MASH

The hit black comedy MASH established Robert Altman as one of the leading figures of Hollywood’s 1970s generation of innovative and irreverent young filmmakers. The war comedy details the exploits of military doctors and nurses at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital in the Korean War. Starring Donald Sutherland, Elliott Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, David Arkin, and more. Format: DCP. Click here for tickets.

 

May 17: Platoon

A young enlistee’s idealism fades when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man. PLATOON was the first Hollywood film to be written and directed by a veteran of the Vietnam War. The film won Best picture at the 1986 Academy Awards where Oliver Stone also earned an Oscar for Best Director. Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe star. Format: Blu-ray. Click here for tickets.

 

May 24: Stripes

Two down on their luck friends decide to join the U.S. Army for a bit of fun. Billy Murray, Harold Ramis, and John Candy star. Roger Ebert said, STRIPES is “a celebration of all that is irreverent, reckless, foolhardy, undisciplined, and occasionally scatological. It’s a lot of fun.” Format: DCP. Click here for tickets.

 

May 31: Three Kings

After the Gulf War ends, three soldiers (George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube) decide to steal the gold Saddam Hussein stole from Kuwait. But on their way to collect their booty, they bear witness to the disturbing results of the war effort. Directed by David O. Russell. Format: Blu-ray. Click here for tickets.