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GIGI 60th Anniversary Screening on December 8 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series celebrate the 60th anniversary of one of the most beloved and acclaimed musicals of all time, GIGI.

The film won nine Academy Awards in 1958, including Best Picture, Best Director Vincente Minnelli, Best Adapted Screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner, and Best Scoring by Andre Previn of the original songs by Lerner and his frequent collaborator, Frederick Loewe. At the time, that was the most Oscars ever awarded to a single film, and GIGI also has the distinction of being one of only three films in cinema history to win every Oscar for which it was nominated.

GIGI was also perhaps the last great musical created for the screen. Produced by Arthur Freed for MGM, it follows in the tradition of other original musicals sponsored by the Freed unit, including ‘Meet Me in St. Louis,’ ‘Singin’ in the Rain,’ ‘The Band Wagon,’ and an earlier best picture winner, ‘An American in Paris,’ which was also directed by Minnelli and written by Lerner. After GIGI, almost all the memorable Hollywood musicals were adapted from Broadway successes like ‘West Side Story,’ ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘The Sound of Music,’ ‘Oliver!,’ and ‘Cabaret.’

GIGI came about partly as a result of the phenomenal stage success of Lerner and Loewe’s ‘My Fair Lady,’ which conquered Broadway in 1956. The pair was looking for a follow-up, and that is how they happened to strike up a partnership with Freed and Minnelli, masters of the MGM musical. It was Leslie Caron, the star of ‘An American in Paris’ along with Lili (which earned her an Oscar nomination), who suggested the idea of adapting ‘Gigi’ into a musical.

Freed had a few qualms, since the source material was not exactly wholesome family entertainment (the bedrock of most MGM musicals). The 1944 novella by French author Colette told the story of a young woman groomed by her grandmother and great-aunt to be a courtesan in turn-of-the-century Paris. Censorship was just beginning to loosen in Hollywood, and Freed and Lerner felt they could mask the sordid subject sufficiently to get by with it. Adults would understand the racy underpinnings while family audiences could remain happily oblivious and enjoy the scenery and the songs.

Still, the daring subject matter undoubtedly helped to win the movie critical acclaim as well as Academy recognition. The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther wrote, “it is not only a charming comprehension of the spicy confection of Colette, but it is also a lovely and lyrical enlargement upon that story’s favored mood and atmosphere.” Leonard Maltin concurred, calling the film “exquisitely filmed, perfectly cast, with memorable Lerner & Loewe score.” Variety hailed “a very fair lady indeed… Miss Caron is completely captivating and convincing in the title role.”

Co-starring with Caron were Louis Jourdan, Maurice Chevalier (who earned an honorary Oscar that year), Hermione Gingold, Eva Gabor, and Isabel Jeans. The score includes the Oscar-winning title song, the lively “The Night They Invented Champagne,” and a memorable duet by Chevalier and Gingold, “I Remember It Well.” The film also won awards for cinematography, production design, and for the elegant costumes by the brilliant Cecil Beaton.

Our 60th Anniversary Screening of GIGI screens Saturday, December 8, at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

Format: Blu-ray

Dyan Cannon In Person for 45th Anniversary of THE LAST OF SHEILA on November 28 in West LA

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Following our sold-out screening of Death on the Nile, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present another treat for mystery lovers. THE LAST OF SHEILA is a modern-day whodunit, and according to Newsweek, “the story moves through intellectual gymnastics reminiscent of the best of Agatha Christie.” The scintillating screenplay represents the only script ever written by celebrated composer Stephen Sondheim, which he co-authored with actor Anthony Perkins.

Sondheim, Perkins, and director Herbert Ross were all fans of murder mystery games, and they channeled their enthusiasm into this intricate, suspenseful thriller, which also allowed them to poke fun at a whole gallery of Hollywood personalities. As Alan Howard wrote in The Hollywood Reporter, “The ingeniously constructed screenplay by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins is genuinely witty, gossipy and often downright malicious.”

The story begins with the death of Sheila, a gossip columnist who knew all the carefully guarded secrets of the stars and filmmakers in Tinseltown. She is run down in a hit-and-run accident, and the driver speeds away. A year later her husband, a wealthy and sadistic producer, invites their friends to a holiday on his yacht in the south of France. There he intends to have them join him in a series of mystery games, and he also plans to unmask one of them as the killer of his wife. But the games do not go exactly as planned, and soon a few more bodies begin to pile up.

Leonard Maltin called the elegantly photographed film a “super murder-puzzler about jet-set gamester who devises what turns into a deadly game of whodunit.” Ross assembled an all-star cast to play the conniving jet-setters: James Coburn as the producer, James Mason as a director fallen on hard times, Richard Benjamin as a struggling screenwriter, Joan Hackett as his supportive wife, Dyan Cannon as a bitchy Hollywood agent, Raquel Welch as a neurotic star, and Ian McShane as her manager husband.

Co-star Dyan Cannon received Oscar nominations for her performances in Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice and Warren Beatty’s Heaven Can Wait. She also earned a nomination for a short film she directed, Number One. Her other films include Such Good Friends, The Anderson Tapes, Revenge of the Pink Panther, Honeysuckle Rose, Deathtrap, Author! Author!, The End of Innocence (which she also wrote and directed), and Boynton Beach Club.

Writing of her performance in The Last of Sheila, The New York Times’ Vincent Canby declared, “Most colorful is Dyan Cannon, who plays the talent agent for all that the wisecracks are worth… she gives a very good, very comic performance. The others are also good, especially Richard Benjamin and Joan Hackett and James Mason… but the essential bitchery that makes the film work is provided by Miss Cannon and by all of the Sondheim-Perkins inside references.” The Hollywood Reporter agreed: “Dyan Cannon gives the performance of her career as a demonic Hollywood agent.”

THE LAST OF SHEILA with Dyan Cannon in person screens at 7pm on Wednesday, November 28th at the Royal Theater in West Los Angeles. Click here to purchase tickets.

Format: DVD

AMERICAN GRAFFITI 45th Anniversary with Screenwriters and Co-stars In-person on October 23 in Beverly Hills

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 45th anniversary screening of one the most beloved comedies of the era, George Lucas’s AMERICAN GRAFFITI.

The film earned five Oscar nominations in 1973, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actress Candy Clark, and it was a box office smash, despite the studio’s nervousness about the film’s innovative structure and largely unknown cast (all of whom would go on to have extraordinary careers).

“Where were you in ’62?” was the advertising tag line for the movie, and it tapped into the nostalgia that many Americans felt for a more innocent time, before all the violent upheavals of the late 60s and 70s. Set around Lucas’s home town of Modesto, California, the film follows a group of friends on a single night before two of them are scheduled to leave for college. They cruise the main drag and have a series of wild and sometimes dangerous adventures before dawn forces them all to a reckoning with both their past and their future.

As Variety wrote, “Of all the youth-themed nostalgia films in the past couple of years, George Lucas’ American Graffiti is among the very best to date… all the young principals and featured players have a bright and lengthy future.”

Those “young principals” include Ron Howard, a former child star and future Oscar-winning director; Richard Dreyfuss, who would win a Best Actor Oscar four years later; Cindy Williams, who would star in the hit TV series, Laverne and Shirley, later in the decade; Harrison Ford, who would soon become a megastar in Lucas’ Star Wars and other films; Candy Clark, Paul LeMat, Charles Martin Smith, Mackenzie Phillips, and Bo Hopkins.

The behind-the-scenes team was equally impressive. Fresh off his triumph on The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola acted as producer, along with Gary Kurtz. The impressive night-time cinematography was by Oscar winner Haskell Wexler, credited as “visual consultant.” The film’s Oscar-nominated editors were Marcia Lucas and Verna Fields (later an Oscar winner for Steven Spielberg’s Jaws). The musical score—a non-stop medley of 1950s and early 60s hits—provided delightful punctuation to the action, with commentary by real-life deejay Wolfman Jack, who makes a memorable cameo appearance late in the film.

Many later films followed the template created by American Graffiti of having all the action take place over a single day or night. These hit films, which might never have been financed without the success of Lucas’s film, include several John Hughes movies (The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused.

Entertaining as they were, few of these later films had the same emotional depth that American Graffiti plumbed. Newsweek’s Paul D. Zimmerman called it a “brilliant, bittersweet memoir.” Writing in the New York Times, Stephen Farber said, “The stunning screenplay by Lucas, Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck is rich in characterization, full of wit and surprise.” And Time’s Jay Cocks declared, “Few films have shown quite so well the eagerness, the sadness, the ambitions and small defeats of a generation of young Americans. Bitchin’ as they said back then. Superfine.”

Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz also wrote the screenplays for Radioland Murders, French Postcards, and the Lucas-Spielberg production of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Candy Clark, who earned an Oscar nomination for her engaging performance in American Graffiti, co-starred with David Bowie in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth and also appeared in Jonathan Demme’s Citizens Band, Blue Thunder, At Close Range, and David Fincher’s Zodiac. Charles Martin Smith co-starred in The Buddy Holly Story, Never Cry Wolf, Starman, and The Untouchables. More recently, he has written and directed for both film and television.

AMERICAN GRAFFITI screens Tuesday, October 23, at 7:30PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Oscar-nominated screenwriters Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz and co-stars Candy Clark and Charles Martin Smith will participate in a Q&A at the screening. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

65th Anniversary of HOUSE OF WAX in 3-D on October 13 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills

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This Halloween season Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 65th anniversary screening of the 1953 horror thriller HOUSE OF WAX, starring horrormeister Vincent Price, in 3-D.

The film was a remake of Warner Bros.’ Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) with the added sensation of three-dimensional technology. This version is noteworthy for its creative use of 3-D and emphasis on storytelling over gimmicks.

Directed by Andre de Toth from a screenplay by Crane Wilbur (adapted from the earlier film and the play The Wax Works by Charles Belden). Toth, a Hungarian émigré and workman director who remarkably had one eye, which rendered him unable to see the 3-D effects of his most accomplished movie. House of Wax was the first color 3-D feature film from a major studio, and its’ success at the box office fueled the first 3-D craze that swept Hollywood in the early 1950s.

Vincent Price stars as a wax sculptor-artist of an early twentieth-century New York wax museum who is disfigured in a fire set by his greedy business partner. He returns to open a new house of wax figures that create a show business sensation of shock and terror, with a horrifying secret – his wax effigies are now filled with corpses.

After primarily supporting parts, Price relished the leading role that launched him into the front ranks of screen villainy, and he spent the rest of his movie career closely identified with the horror-terror genre in such films as House on Haunted Hill, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, and Theater of Blood.

A strong supporting cast included Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk, and in roles early in their careers, future Oscar-nominee Carolyn Jones (Bachelor Party, TV’s The Addams Family) and action star Charles (Bronson) Buchinsky (Death Wish), who is somewhat pitiable in the role of madman Price’s mute assistant.

The novelty of wearing polaroid glasses to view the 3-D effects (including a paddleball-pitchman and the original museum fire) helped lure audiences away from their television sets in the fifties.

Variety aptly predicted “this film will knock ‘em for a ghoul.” The film was successfully reissued twice, in 1971 and again in the second 3-D fad of the early 1980s. In 2014, the movie was selected for preservation by the Library of Congress in the National Film Registry.

The 65th anniversary screening in 3-D shows at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills on Saturday, October 13 at 7:30 PM. 3-D glasses provided to view the fun.

Click here for tickets.

Format: 3-D DCP

SUPERMAN 40th Anniversary Screening in 4K with Cast Member Q&A on Tuesday, October 9 in Beverly Hills

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 40th anniversary screening of the film that launched the comic book movie craze, the original SUPERMAN, directed by Richard Donner and starring new screen personality Christopher Reeve as the Man of Steel.

Comics had inspired TV series and Saturday afternoon serials, but there had not been a big-budget attempt to capture the spirit of these fan favorites until Donner, working for producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind, gambled a huge budget on a screen version of DC Comics’ favorite superhero. The movie’s success spawned three sequels and also led to the first big-screen incarnation of another DC hero, Batman, a decade later (in the version directed by Tim Burton).

To write the screenplay, the Salkinds hired a bevy of successful writers—best-selling author Mario Puzo, acclaimed screenwriters Robert Benton, David and Leslie Newman, though the final version was reportedly crafted by Tom Mankiewicz, credited as “creative consultant.”

The film takes an epic approach to the tale of Superman, beginning with a prologue on the planet Krypton, then following Clark Kent’s childhood and adolescence in Smallville, Kansas, before he takes on his grown-up identity as the “mild-mannered reporter” at The Daily Planet in the city of Metropolis.

The all-star cast included Oscar winners Marlon Brando as Superman’s father, Jor-El, and Gene Hackman as arch-villain Lex Luthor, along with Susannah York, Glenn Ford, Ned Beatty, Valerie Perrine, Jack O’Halloran, Maria Schell, Terence Stamp, Jeff East, Jackie Cooper as Daily Planet editor Perry White, Marc McClure as cub reporter Jimmy Olsen, and Margot Kidder as Superman’s love interest, Lois Lane.

After many big-name actors turned down the title role, the filmmakers decided to take a chance on a brand new actor, Christopher Reeve, who had only a couple of TV appearances and one other feature film to his credit. Their gamble paid off and turned the brash, witty young actor into a superstar.

The creators of the original comic book, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, praised the casting. As Shuster said, “Chris Reeve has just the right touch of humor.” Oscar-winning cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth (Becket, Cabaret) had one of his last credits on the movie, and multiple Oscar-winning composer John Williams wrote the stirring score. The movie won a special Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

In addition to scoring an enormous box office success, the movie received mainly favorable reviews. Variety called Superman “a wonderful, chuckling, preposterously exciting fantasy.” Making an apt comparison, The New York Daily News’ Kathleen Carroll, declared, “It is this year’s answer to Star Wars, a movie that is pure escape and good, clean, unadulterated fun.” Roger Ebert wrote, “Superman is a pure delight… Reeve is perfectly cast in the role.”

Several of the supporting cast members will participate in our Q&A after the screening, including Jack O’Halloran (the 1976 King Kong, The Flintstones), Marc McClure (Back to the Future, Apollo 13), and Valerie Perrine (Oscar nominee for Lenny).

SUPERMAN screens Tuesday, October 9 at 7:30pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

Format: 4K DCP

TWOFER TUESDAY: 65th Anniversary Screenings of Two Marilyn Monroe Classics June 5th in Pasadena, North Hollywood, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics series present a tribute to one of the greatest stars in film history, Marilyn Monroe, during her birthday month of June. The program, part of our Twofer Tuesday series, features two of Monroe’s most popular movies—GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES and HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE, both from 1953.

‘Blondes’ is an adaptation of the 1949 stage musical by Anita Loos and Joseph Fields, based on a 1925 novel by Loos, one of the first women writers to score a success in Hollywood as well as on Broadway. It tells the story of two showgirls and best friends, played by Monroe and fellow screen siren Jane Russell. Marilyn plays the endearing gold-digger, Lorelei Lee.

Master director Howard Hawks, who excelled in several genres, proved just as adept in his first and only screen musical. Charles Lederer, the writer of such films as Hawks’ ‘His Girl Friday’ and ‘I Was a Male War Bride,’ freely adapted the stage play. Hawks retained some of the songs by Jule Styne and Leo Robin, especially the show’s signature number, “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,” choreographed by Jack Cole and sizzlingly performed by Monroe in a bright pink dress. But he added new songs by Hoagy Carmichael and Harold Adamson, including a classic campy number (also choreographed by Cole) with muscle-bound athletes around a swimming pool. Monroe and Russell are ably supported by Oscar winner Charles Coburn (as a lecherous diamond magnate), Tommy Noonan and Elliott Reid.

According to Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian, “Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell make a fantastic double act in Howard Hawks’ sparkling 1953 comedy.” The New Yorker’s Richard Brody wrote, “Jack Cole’s choreography offers some of the most incisively swinging musical numbers ever filmed.” Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader added, “The opening shot—Russell and Monroe in sequins standing against a screaming red drape—is enough to knock you out of your seat, and the audacity barely lets up from there… a landmark encounter in the battle of the sexes.”

‘How to Marry a Millionaire’ opened later in 1953 and teamed Monroe with two other screen bombshells, Betty Grable (the top pin-up girl of the 1940s), and Lauren Bacall, who seared the screen when she co-starred with her husband-to-be, Humphrey Bogart.

In this picture three working girls set their sights on snaring a rich tycoon, but their plans go awry when true love enters the picture. Jean Negulesco directed the script by Nunnally Johnson, and the men in their lives are portrayed by Cameron Mitchell, Rory Calhoun, David Wayne, Fred Clark, and screen veteran William Powell. Leonard Maltin hailed the “terrific ensemble work in dandy comedy of three man-hunting females pooling resources to trap eligible bachelors.” ‘Millionaire’ was the second movie shot in 20th Century Fox’s new Cinemascope format, following the studio’s Biblical breakthrough, ‘The Robe.’ It incorporated Alfred Newman’s memorable score, presented in stereoscopic sound.

At the Royal Theatre only, Debra Levine, the editor of the popular online arts journal arts•meme and the author of several articles about choreographer Jack Cole, will introduce the 7 o’clock screening of ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.’

Our Marilyn Monroe double feature screens Tuesday, June 5th at the Royal, NoHo 7, and Playhouse 7.

Click here to buy a ticket to the 7:00pm show of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES with admission to the 9:00pm show of HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE included. Or, click here to buy a ticket to the 5:00pm show of HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE with admission to the 7:00pm show of GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES included.

I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS! 50th Anniversary Screening with Actress Leigh Taylor-Young In Person

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of the hit Peter Sellers comedy from 1968, I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS! The Establishment meets the counterculture in this topical and often uproarious satire that poked fun at many of the conflicts dividing the country during the tumultuous 1960s.

Sellers plays an uptight Los Angeles lawyer whose life unravels when he meets a young hippie, played by Leigh Taylor-Young in her feature film debut.

Hy Averback directed the first screenplay written by Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker, and the picture’s success allowed Mazursky to make his directorial debut one year later on another swinging sixties comedy, ‘Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.’

The supporting cast includes Oscar winner Jo Van Fleet as Sellers’ intrusive mother, Joyce Van Patten as his befuddled fiancée, along with Herb Edelman, Grady Sutton, Salem Ludwig, and David Arkin.

One of the film’s memorable set pieces revolves around a supply of marijuana brownies that come from a recipe in cultural icon Alice B. Toklas’s famous cookbook. With marijuana now legal in California and in several other states, the film takes on renewed timeliness and may well give happy viewers a contact high.

Back in 1968, Variety declared, “Film blasts off into orbit via top-notch acting and direction.” Pauline Kael, who had recently begun her regular stint reviewing for The New Yorker, called the picture “A giddy, slapdash, entertainingly inconsequential comedy…the picture makes you laugh surprisingly often.” And Leonard Maltin praised this “excellent comedy about the freaking out of mild-mannered L.A. lawyer. Sellers has never been better.” Indeed the film represents one of the highlights of Sellers’ vibrant and diverse list of achievements during the 60s.

Actress Leigh Taylor-Young first came to prominence on the popular ‘Peyton Place’ TV series of the 1960s. Her other films include ‘The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,’ which marked one of the first screen roles for Robert De Niro; John Frankenheimer’s ‘The Horsemen,’ co-starring Omar Sharif; the prophetic sci-fi movie, ‘Soylent Green;’ and the suspense thriller ‘Jagged Edge.’ She has worked in the theater and costarred in several popular TV series, including ‘Picket Fences,’ for which she won an Emmy, ‘Dallas,’ and ‘Passions.’ In recent years she has also been active in humanitarian and spiritual activities for the United Nations and other organizations.

I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS! followed by Q&A with Actress Leigh Taylor-Young screens Wednesday, April 25, at 7:30 PM at the Royal Theatre in West L.A. Click here for tickets.

Format: DVD

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS 50th Anniversary Screening on Wednesday, April 18 in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the latest in our Anniversary Classics Abroad program, a 50th anniversary screening of Gillo Pontecorvo’s memorable and still timely political drama, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS.

The film was an Oscar nominee for best foreign language film of 1966, but it was not released in the United States until 1968, when it received additional nominations for best director and for best original screenplay by Pontecorvo and Franco Solinas. The film was considered so inflammatory that it was not shown in France until 1971.

The picture, filmed in black-and-white to approximate the look of a newsreel, dramatizes Algeria’s war of independence against France. It focuses on the years from 1954 to 1957, when the National Liberation Front began to organize in the Casbah of Algiers to carry out terrorist attacks on civilians as well as the French army. This led to a fierce and brutal counter-insurgency by the French, which meant the battles dragged on for years.

To insure authenticity, Pontecorvo cast the film mainly with non-professional actors recruited in Algeria. The film’s one professional actor, Jean Martin, gave a vivid performance as the complex, intelligent French officer who understands the grievances of the Algerians even as he fights ruthlessly to defeat them. The film’s urgency was heightened by the score of Ennio Morricone.

The film’s influence extended well beyond the cinema. It became a sort of handbook of revolutionary techniques that was studied by many radical groups over the years. Yet in 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon also screened the movie in order to better understand the civil war unleashed in that country.

Many prominent filmmakers–including Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Steven Soderbergh, and Oliver Stone–all testified to influence of Pontecorvo’s movie on their own work. Critic David Elliott of the San Diego Union Tribune called The Battle of Algiers “perhaps the finest political film of the 1960s.” The LA Weekly’s Ella Taylor agreed that it was “a classic of politically engaged filmmaking.”

Our 50th anniversary screening of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1968) screens Wednesday, April 18 at 7pm in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP