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“Now, there’s nothing to be nervous about. I’ve flown thousands of miles and I can tell you it’s a lot safer than crossing the street!” ~ 50th anniversary screening of the mother of all disaster movies, AIRPORT.

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On Wednesday, December 15, at 7 PM at the Royal Theatre, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a (slightly belated) 50th anniversary screening of the melodrama that launched the all-star disaster movie craze, Ross Hunter’s production of Airport. Set during a fierce winter snowstorm at and around a Chicago airport, and with the added complication of a mad suicide bomber aboard a jet headed for Rome, the film was full of spectacle and a heady mix of tempestuous subplots. It earned 10 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay, and won the award for Best Supporting Actress Helen Hayes as a feisty stowaway aboard the plane headed for disaster.

David Newman, son of Airport composer Alfred Newman, will be in attendance.

"Now, there's nothing to be nervous about. I've flown thousands of miles and I can tell you it's a lot safer than crossing the street!" ~ 50th anniversary screening of the mother of all disaster movies, AIRPORT.

Multiple past and future Oscar winners were also in the cast, including Burt Lancaster, George Kennedy, Van Heflin, and Maureen Stapleton, along with “king of cool” Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean Seberg, Barbara Hale, Dana Wynter, Lloyd Nolan, and Barry Nelson. The film was written and directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker George Seaton (Miracle on 34th Street, The Country Girl, The Counterfeit Traitor). It was adapted from the best-selling novel by Arthur Hailey and also earned nominations for Best Cinematography, Art Direction, Film Editing, and Sound. It also marked the final Oscar nomination for composer Alfred Newman, who died shortly before the film opened. It was Newman’s 45th nomination in a remarkable career that included nine previous Oscar wins (for such diverse films as The King and I, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, and The Song of Bernadette).

"Now, there's nothing to be nervous about. I've flown thousands of miles and I can tell you it's a lot safer than crossing the street!" ~ 50th anniversary screening of the mother of all disaster movies, AIRPORT.

Although in essence an old-fashioned melodrama, the film broke new ground in several areas. The idea of a suicide bomber, a desperate and disgruntled construction worker, was a novel plot point in 1970. Although the movie was G rated, it dealt with extramarital romances in a nonjudgmental way that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier. And its formula of an all-star cast of characters in jeopardy set the model for other disaster movies of the 70s, including The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and Earthquake, not to mention three sequels and the hugely successful parody Airplane!

"Now, there's nothing to be nervous about. I've flown thousands of miles and I can tell you it's a lot safer than crossing the street!" ~ 50th anniversary screening of the mother of all disaster movies, AIRPORT.
AIRPORT, Dean Martin, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean Seberg, Burt Lancaster, Lloyd Nolan, Maureen Stapleton, Helen Hayes, Van Heflin, Dana Wynter, Barry Nelson, Barbara Hale, George Kennedy, George Seaton and Ross Hunter, 1970

The movie grossed a phenomenal $100 million (equivalent to more than $650 million today), making it the highest grossing picture in Universal’s history up to that time. When it had its TV network premiere three years later, it also broke records. Although reviews at the time were mixed, Variety declared good-naturedly, “Based on the novel by Arthur Hailey… with a cast of stars as long as a jet runway, and adapted by George Seaton in a glossy, slick style, Airport is a handsome, often dramatically involving” film. Or as Leonard Maltin put it, “Grand Hotel plot formula reaches latter-day zenith in ultra-slick, old-fashioned movie that entertains in spite of itself.”

Special guests and other surprises will enhance this fun-filled holiday screening.

‘Y Tu Mamá También’ 20th Anniversary Screenings Wednesday, December 8, 7 PM at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale & Newhall.

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On December 8 we’ll screen our final Anniversary Classics Abroad film of the year — the modern classic Y Tu Mamá También — and stay tuned. We hope to have dates soon for both Airport and Mommie Dearest screening before year’s end.  We are also planning more Abroad titles for 2022.

Alfonso Cuarón’s sexy and provocative road movie, Y Tu Mamá También marked a homecoming as well as a breakthrough for Cuarón in 2001. After making his directorial debut a decade earlier in his native Mexico, Cuarón was drawn to Hollywood, where he earned strong reviews for A Little Princess and a modern-day reworking of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Then, however, Cuarón decided to return to Mexico to make a more personal film and he wowed the cinematic world with this coming-of-age drama. Y Tu Mamá También broke box office records in Mexico when it opened in the summer of 2001. It went on to win the Best Screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival and was also nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay the following year. Cuarón wrote the film with his brother Carlos Cuarón.

'Y Tu Mamá También' 20th Anniversary Screenings Wednesday, December 8, 7 PM at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale & Newhall.

Cuarón cast two up-and-coming young actors, Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, as teenage friends from different social classes. The working class Julio (Bernal) and the upper class Tenoch (Luna) are friends and rivals. They both become infatuated with an older woman (Spanish actress Maribel Verdú) and invite her to join them on a road trip to a spectacular, secluded beach. She accepts and they embark on an adventure that turns out to be a funny, sexy and revelatory experience for all three of them. Much of the film was improvised by the actors, with Cuarón’s encouragement.

'Y Tu Mamá También' 20th Anniversary Screenings Wednesday, December 8, 7 PM at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale & Newhall.

In addition to the luscious cinematography and the sexual candor (it was released unrated in the U.S.), the film features narration in the style of some of the European films that inspired Cuarón, particularly Truffaut’s Jules and Jim, another landmark movie about a ménage à trois. Reviews were almost universally glowing. In Newsweek David Ansen wrote, “The movie has an emotional kick that lingers like a primal memory.” Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum called the movie “sad, funny, sexy, and altogether marvelous.” The New York Times’ Elvis Mitchell concurred, describing Y Tu Mamá También as “fast, funny, unafraid of sexuality and finally devastating.”

'Y Tu Mamá También' 20th Anniversary Screenings Wednesday, December 8, 7 PM at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale & Newhall.

The film’s success propelled Cuarón to the front ranks of contemporary directors. He went on to helm the best Harry Potter movie (The Prisoner of Azkaban), the dystopian Children of Men, and earned an Oscar for his direction of the sci-fi adventure Gravity. When he returned to Mexico to make the autobiographical Roma, he earned a second Oscar as Best Director.

Y Tu Mamá También will play for one night only at the Royal in West L.A., the Playhouse in Pasadena, Glendale, and Newhall December 8.

“The three great escapes — smoking, drinking, bed.” LA DOLCE VITA 60th Anniversary Screenings November 17.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Abroad Series present Federico Fellini’s masterpiece, LA DOLCE VITA, as part of the monthly revival series of great international classics. LA DOLCE VITA earned four Academy Award nominations in 1961, including Best Director Federico Fellini (the first time in Oscar history for a director of a foreign language film) and Best Original Screenplay. It won the Oscar for Piero Gherardi’s elegant costumes.

"The three great escapes -- smoking, drinking, bed." LA DOLCE VITA 60th Anniversary Screenings November 17.
Marcello Mastroianni & Anita Ekberg.

Fellini’s sardonic epic about the decadence of modern Rome is one of the most influential of foreign films, and its influence can still be seen today in films like the recent international Oscar winner, The Great Beauty. Fellini even added a new word to our vocabulary when he introduced the character of the celebrity-chasing photographer, Paparazzo. Cruise along the Via Veneto with Marcello Mastroianni, then take a dip in the Trevi Fountain with the voluptuous Anita Ekberg. Writing in The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther praised the film as a “brilliantly graphic estimation of a whole swath of society in sad decay.” Roger Ebert called it “an allegory, a cautionary tale of a man without a center…a handsome, weary, desperate man, who dreams of someday doing something good, but is trapped in a life of empty nights and lonely dawns.”

"The three great escapes -- smoking, drinking, bed." LA DOLCE VITA 60th Anniversary Screenings November 17.
Anouk Aimée & Marcello Mastroianni.

Also starring Anouk Aimee, Nadia Gray, Walter Santesso, and Yvonne Furneaux, the 60th anniversary of LA DOLCE VITA will play for one night only on November 17 at 7:00 PM at the Royal, Playhouse 7, Glendale and Newhall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyC_mJ7QjRc

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S 60th Anniversary Screening With Guest Author Sam Wasson.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present one of the screen’s most iconic romances, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961), with a 60th anniversary screening on November 10 at the Royal Theatre in West LA. Audrey Hepburn stars as Holly Golightly, and besides the image of Hepburn in that famous black Givenchy dress, the most enduring legacy of the movie is the song “Moon River,” composed by Henry Mancini for Hepburn, and a “melody of a lifetime.”

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S 60th Anniversary Screening With Guest Author Sam Wasson.

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S was adapted from a popular Truman Capote novella and brought to the screen by director Blake Edwards and writer George Axelrod, with considerable alterations to the story about a flighty call girl from the country aspiring to the high life in New York City. Capote had envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the role, but it was Audrey Hepburn who immortalized Holly Golightly for the screen. Henry Mancini provided the Oscar and Grammy-winning soundtrack that accompanied her amorous adventures. TIFFANY’S was a box office hit and nominated for five Academy Awards, including Hepburn for Best Actress and Axelrod for Best Screenplay. Mancini and lyricist Johnny Mercer wrote one of the most popular songs of the twentieth century, “Moon River,” and the pair won an Oscar (double winner Mancini also won for his score).

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S 60th Anniversary Screening With Guest Author Sam Wasson.

New York magazine epitomized the praise for the movie, which helped launch the Fabulous Sixties in American culture, by stating, “a film that not only captures the sedate elegance of a New York long gone, but that continues to entrance as a love story, a style manifesto, and a way to live.” Our guest, author Sam Wasson, reinforces that notion by titling his book about the making of the movie, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman. He will discuss the film in a Q&A before the screening, and the newly revised edition of his critically lauded book will be available for purchase and signing. The New York Times cited it as “a bonbon of a book…as well tailored as the little black dress the movie made famous.” Wasson is also the author of the acclaimed best seller The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood.

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S 60th Anniversary Screening With Guest Author Sam Wasson.

The 60th anniversary of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, also starring George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Mickey Rooney, and Buddy Ebsen, will screen on Wednesday, November 10, at 7:30 PM at the Royal Theater in West Los Angeles. Tickets on sale now at Laemmle.com/ac

Jean Renoir’s FRENCH CANCAN ~ 65th Anniversary Screenings October 13 at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale, Newhall.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present FRENCH CANCAN, one of the best late films created by master director Jean Renoir: a rousing tribute to the 19th century world that his celebrated father, Pierre Auguste Renoir, and other Impressionists created in their paintings. Set mainly in Montmartre and the original Moulin Rouge nightclub in the 1890s, the film chronicles the revival of the cancan that electrified Paris. This film marked Renoir’s return to filmmaking in France after a lengthy exile caused by World War II.

Jean Renoir's FRENCH CANCAN ~ 65th Anniversary Screenings October 13 at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale, Newhall.

Renoir’s main character, a theatrical impresario named Henri Danglard, is portrayed by legendary French actor Jean Gabin, who had worked with Renoir in the 1930s in The Lower Depths, La Bete Humaine, and the director’s antiwar masterpiece, La Grande Illusion. Gabin, for decades the face of French cinema, creates a vivid character in FRENCH CANCAN, a producer who has the restlessness of an artist, always seeking new challenges—and new romances in his personal life. The principal women in his life are portrayed by Francoise Arnoul and Maria Felix, with the legendary singer, Edith Piaf, in a tasty supporting role.

Jean Renoir's FRENCH CANCAN ~ 65th Anniversary Screenings October 13 at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale, Newhall.

One of the critics who endorsed the film in the 1950s was Francois Truffaut, who was writing criticism before he embarked on his directing career. Truffaut considered FRENCH CANCAN a milestone in the history of color cinema. He observed that one scene of a dance class “reminds us of a Degas sketch,” and he added that Renoir’s direction was “as vigorous and youthful as ever.”

Jean Renoir's FRENCH CANCAN ~ 65th Anniversary Screenings October 13 at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale, Newhall.

Later reviews also endorsed the film, especially after footage cut from the initial release was restored. Leonard Maltin paid tribute to the “brilliantly beautiful restored version” and called the film “an impressive, enjoyable fiction about beginnings of the Moulin Rouge and impresario Gabin’s revival of the cancan.” Roger Ebert called the film “a delicious musical comedy that deserves comparison with the golden age Hollywood musicals of the same period.” In The Guardian Peter Bradshaw wrote, “The glorious final sequence, in which the cancan is finally unveiled to the rowdy audience, is some kind of masterpiece, perhaps the equal of anything Renoir ever achieved: wild, free, turbulent, exhilarating.”

Jean Renoir's FRENCH CANCAN ~ 65th Anniversary Screenings October 13 at the Royal, Playhouse, Glendale, Newhall.

This musical delight will play at 7 PM on Wednesday, October 13, at four Laemmle theatres: the Royal in West L.A., the Playhouse in Pasadena, the Laemmle Glendale, and the Laemmle Newhall.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLivSvCNe84

Bernardo Bertolucci’s THE CONFORMIST ~ 50th Anniversary Screenings.

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We continue our Anniversary Classics series with Bertolucci’s stunner at 7 o’clock on Wednesday, September 29 at our Glendale, Newhall, Pasadena and West L.A. theaters. The film follows Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a member of the secret police in Mussolini’s fascist Italy. He and his new bride, Giulia (Stefania Sandrelli), travel to Paris for their honeymoon, where Marcello also plans to assassinate his former college professor Luca Quadri (Enzo Tarascio), an outspoken anti-fascist living in exile. But when Marcello meets the professor’s young wife, Anna (Dominique Sanda), both his romantic and his political loyalties are tested.

Bernardo Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST ~ 50th Anniversary Screenings.

“It’s easy to overlook how stark THE CONFORMIST‘s political and allegorical message is because it’s just so damn beautiful.” (Aja Romano, Vox)

Bernardo Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST ~ 50th Anniversary Screenings.

“Bertolucci’s masterpiece—made when he was all of 29—will be the most revelatory experience a fortunate pilgrim will have in a theater this year.” (Michael Atkinson, Village Voice)

Bernardo Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST ~ 50th Anniversary Screenings.

“THE CONFORMIST is celebrated for cinematographer Vittorio Storaro’s tumbling autumn leaves, but its emotional impact involves a tumbling soul.” (Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out New York)

Bernardo Bertolucci's THE CONFORMIST ~ 50th Anniversary Screenings.

“THE CONFORMIST is a beautiful and provocative film, and its theme could not be more timely.” (John Hofsess, Maclean’s Magazine)

Bogie & Bacall: THE BIG SLEEP 75th Anniversary Screenings at the Royal, Playhouse & Newhall.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the classic 1946 detective mystery THE BIG SLEEP starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in a series of three screenings at different locations: August 31 (Royal in West Los Angeles), September 1 (Playhouse in Pasadena), and September 2 (Newhall in Santa Clarita).

THE BIG SLEEP is an engrossing mystery thriller that has defied classification since its premiere in 1946. Although it is now considered a cornerstone of film noir, critics and journalists through the years have also described it as a black comedy and even a “screwball love story.” Deftly directed by Howard Hawks and written by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman adapting Raymond Chandler’s first novel, it is the second teaming of Bogart with his wife Lauren Bacall, after the two created a screen sensation in Hawk’s To Have and Have Not in 1944. The film is noted for its convoluted plot (just try to follow it), partially because several scenes were re-written and re-shot for the second, final release in 1946. (A 1945 version was shown to U.S. troops overseas at the end of WWII.) The 1946 official release was added to the National Film Registry in 1997, and it is this version that we will present.

Bogie & Bacall: THE BIG SLEEP 75th Anniversary Screenings at the Royal, Playhouse & Newhall.

Bogart’s turn as shrewd shamus Philip Marlowe solidified his reputation, and Chandler praised him as “so much better than any other tough-guy actor.” His verbal interplay with Bacall flirted with contemporary screen censorship, as the duo wove the mystique of “Bogie and Bacall.” Critics of the day were as baffled by the plot as audiences, but as Leonard Maltin has pointed out, the movie is “so incredibly entertaining that no one has ever cared.” That high entertainment quotient stems from Hawk’s sharp direction, the biting and witty script, actors at the top of their game (Dorothy Malone, Martha Vickers, and Elisha Cook Jr. among them), atmospheric black-and-white cinematography by Sid Hickox, and a noteworthy music score by Steiner.

Bogie & Bacall: THE BIG SLEEP 75th Anniversary Screenings at the Royal, Playhouse & Newhall.

Fifty-Fifth Anniversary Screenings of Agnès Varda’s LE BONHEUR (HAPPINESS) August 25 in Glendale, Newhall, Pasadena & West L.A.

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Our Anniversary Classics Abroad Series continues with LE BONHEUR, a provocative and controversial film from one of the pioneering female filmmakers of international cinema, Agnès Varda. Varda was the only woman director who was part of the French New Wave that tantalized and excited audiences during the 1960s. Her breakthrough film, Cleo from 5 to 7, was released in 1962, and she followed that with a very different but equally bracing domestic drama centering on a romantic triangle. LE BONHEUR won two awards at the Berlin Film Festival in 1965 before its American release in 1966.
Fifty-Fifth Anniversary Screenings of Agnès Varda’s LE BONHEUR (HAPPINESS) August 25 in Glendale, Newhall, Pasadena & West L.A.
Unlike the black-and-white Cleo, LE BONHEUR is filmed in warm, bright colors that enhance the film’s themes, an apparently sunny romantic drama with dark undertones. Shot in the suburbs of Paris, the film opens with an idyllic scene showing the main character, Francois (Jean-Claude Drouot), a carpenter, celebrating a summer outing with his wife (Claire Drouot) and their two children. Sunflowers deck the screen while Mozart on the soundtrack adds to the celebratory mood. Francois seems blissfully happy with his family, but when he later meets an attractive postal worker (Marie-France Boyer), he begins a lusty affair with her, convinced that it will not jeopardize his marriage. When he finally confesses to his wife that he is in love with two women, however, everything in his placid world changes.
Fifty-Fifth Anniversary Screenings of Agnès Varda’s LE BONHEUR (HAPPINESS) August 25 in Glendale, Newhall, Pasadena & West L.A.
Varda had worked in documentaries as well as narrative features, and that background shows in her decision to cast Drouot’s real wife and children as his wife and children in the film. Those three people never acted in another film, but Varda felt that the fact Drouot was working with his real family members would add to the naturalism of the movie and the comfort of the players, particularly during the tender love scenes.
Fifty-Fifth Anniversary Screenings of Agnès Varda’s LE BONHEUR (HAPPINESS) August 25 in Glendale, Newhall, Pasadena & West L.A.
Critics praised the striking cinematography, reminiscent of French Impressionist paintings, along with the performances. The New Yorker’s Richard Brody wrote, “Varda fills her frames with riots of nature and color, like Bonnard paintings come to life and with an erotic intimacy to match.” Given the sumptuous visuals and the joyous intimacy of the love scenes, the climax of the story was startling to viewers at the time and remains deeply disturbing. In a discussion of the film sponsored by the Criterion Channel many years after the movie’s release, British film professor Jenny Chamarette called LE BONHEUR “a horror movie wrapped up in sunflowers” and added that it was “one of the most terrifying films I’ve ever seen.” To join the debate about this stimulating film, catch one of our screenings a 7 o’clock on Wednesday, August 25, at your favorite Laemmle theater.
Fifty-Fifth Anniversary Screenings of Agnès Varda’s LE BONHEUR (HAPPINESS) August 25 in Glendale, Newhall, Pasadena & West L.A.
Agnès Varda went on to have a wonderful career for the next 50 years. Her later films include Lions Love, One Sings the Other Doesn’t, Vagabond, The Gleaners and I, The Beaches of Agnes, and Faces Places. She was given an honorary Academy Award for her diverse and brilliant body of work in 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQpJ-2GWnOA