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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. As this character is so popular amongst comic book fans, it was only right that a budget was found to bring fans closer to their favorite superhero. Recently, it was actually found that Superman is the favorite of the most amount of states still. This means that people are still enjoying this character’s journey to the big screen. Whether in comic books or on TV, Superman has a special place in a lot of people’s hearts. This is why 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

ROSEMARY’S BABY plus Q&A, book sale and signing with ‘This Is No Dream: Making Rosemary’s Baby’ author James Munn September 26th in Pasadena

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In conjunction with the publication of This is No Dream: Making Rosemary’s Baby by James Munn, Laemmle Theatres, the Anniversary Classics Series and Vroman’s Bookstore present a 50th anniversary screening of one of the most terrifying movies of all time, ROSEMARY’S BABY.

Ira Levin’s ingenious best-selling novel imagined a witches’ coven hiding in plain sight in contemporary Manhattan and hatching a plot to bring the Devil’s son to earth. Producer William Castle, the mastermind behind many successful B-horror movies, graduated to the A ranks with this classy production. Paramount’s head of production, Robert Evans, hired acclaimed European director Roman Polanski to make his Hollywood debut with the film.

The casting of the film was inspired. As the innocent woman at the center of the diabolical conspiracy, the filmmakers chose a relatively new face to movies, Mia Farrow, and she played the role with endearing vulnerability.

The film’s success catapulted her to full-fledged stardom. John Cassavetes took a break from his own independent productions to play Farrow’s conniving husband. The brilliance of the casting extended to the supporting players, a veritable Who’s Who of vintage Hollywood and Broadway actors, including Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, and Elisha Cook Jr. Gordon won the Oscar for best supporting actress for her spot-on portrayal of a nosy neighbor with a sinister agenda. Polanski earned an Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay.

Behind-the-scenes credits were just as impressive. Six-time Oscar nominee William Fraker (‘Bullitt,’ ‘Heaven Can Wait’) was the cinematographer, while two-time Oscar winner Richard Sylbert (‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,’ ‘Chinatown,’ ‘Dick Tracy’) was the production designer. The eerie score was composed by a gifted friend of Polanski, Christopher Komeda, who died tragically at the age of 37 soon after the release of the film.

Among the stellar reviews for the film, Leonard Maltin hailed a “classic modern-day thriller by Ira Levin, perfectly realized by writer-director Polanski.” Stephen Witty of the Newark Star-Ledger called it “one of the finest horror films ever made.” In 2014 ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

Q&A, book sale and signing with author James Munn after the screening. Munn is a freelance writer, film historian and former editor at Architectural Digest; he grew up in rural Nebraska and currently resides in Hollywood, California.

ROSEMARY’S BABY screens Wednesday, September 26 at 7pm at the Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

PETULIA (1968) 50th Anniversary Screening with Actors Shirley Knight and Richard Chamberlain In Person on September 20th in West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a screening of one of the groundbreaking movies from the tumultuous year of 1968, Richard Lester’s PETULIA. Set in 1960’s San Francisco, the story of a troubled love affair between a divorced surgeon and a free-spirited socialite captures some of the disruptions of a society in transition.

The extraordinary cast includes Oscar winners George C. Scott and Julie Christie, Oscar nominee and Emmy winner Shirley Knight, Golden Globe winner Richard Chamberlain, Pippa Scott, Kathleen Widdoes, and veteran actor Joseph Cotten, one of the stars of ‘Citizen Kane.’

Lester, the winner of the Career Achievement Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association in 2014, first came to attention as the director of comedies like ‘The Mouse on the Moon’ and the brilliantly innovative Beatles musicals, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help!’

PETULIA marked his first foray into dramatic filmmaking, though it retained the comic and satiric touches of his early movies. Lester’s daring approach to non-linear storytelling had a tremendous influence on a later generation of filmmakers, including director Steven Soderbergh, who published a series of interviews with Lester.

PETULIA, produced by Raymond Wagner, was adapted from a novel by John Haase. Lawrence B. Marcus, who later earned an Oscar nomination for his script of ‘The Stunt Man,’ wrote the screenplay. The technical team behind the movie was also first-rate.

Master cinematographer Nicolas Roeg went on to become the acclaimed director of such films as ‘Don’t Look Now’ and ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth.’ Film editor Antony Gibbs worked on such films as ‘A Taste of Honey’ and Lester’s ‘The Knack,’ as well as Oscar winners ‘Tom Jones’ and ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’

Five-time Oscar winner John Barry composed the score, with some help from on-screen performances by Big Brother and the Holding Company, the Grateful Dead, and other San Francisco bands of the ’60s.

Roger Ebert reviewed the film at the time and wrote, “I am unable to find a single thing wrong with it.” Life Magazine’s Richard Schickel declared, “PETULIA is a terrific movie, at once a sad and savage comment on the ways we waste our time, our money and ourselves in upper-middle-class America.” Leonard Maltin praised the film’s “terrific acting, especially by Scott and Knight, in one of the decade’s best films.”

Shirley Knight earned two Oscar nominations early in her career, for ‘The Dark at the Top of the Stairs’ and ‘Sweet Bird of Youth.’

She went on to star in the film version of Leroi Jones’ controversial play ‘Dutchman,’ in Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Rain People,’ Sidney Lumet’s film version of Mary McCarthy’s best-selling novel ‘The Group,’ and in James L. Brooks’ Oscar winner ‘As Good As It Gets.’

For television she starred in Ingmar Bergman’s script ‘The Lie’ and won an Emmy for her performance in ‘Indictment: The McMartin Trial.’

Richard Chamberlain, star of stage, screen, and television, will join the Q&A of PETULIA with actress Shirley Knight. Chamberlain was best known for the Dr. Kildare TV series when director Richard Lester decided to cast the actor against type as the abusive husband of Julie Christie in PETULIA. The role helped to alter Chamberlain’s image and enhance his reputation and his visibility.

He went on to co-star in Lester’s enormously popular ‘Three Musketeer’ movies. He played Tchaikovsky in Ken Russell’s film ‘The Music Lovers’, also co-starred in such films as ‘The Towering Inferno’ and Peter Weir’s ‘The Last Wave.’

Chamberlain became best known for his starring roles in several popular TV movies and miniseries, including ‘Centennial,’ ‘Shogun,’ ‘The Thorn Birds,’ and ‘Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story.’

PETULIA screens on Thursday, September 20th at 7pm at the Laemmle Royal in West LA. Q&A with Shirley Knight and Richard Chamberlain. Click here for tickets.

Format: DVD

Tribute to Neil Simon: THE ODD COUPLE (1968) on Thursday, September 13 at the Royal in West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series pay tribute to the late, great prolific playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon with a 50th anniversary screening of one of his most influential works, THE ODD COUPLE.

This film version of his hit Broadway play about the friction between two divorced men who decide to live together in a Manhattan apartment despite a difference in their personalities was a box office bonanza in 1968, the fourth highest grossing movie that year.

As noted by playwright Harvey Fierstein, “Simon could write a joke that would make you laugh, define the character, the situation, even the world’s problems.” Another successful television producer calls The Odd Couple, “a Master class in character creation.”

Seems like everyone wanted to see the comic complications between the neurotic neat freak Felix, played by Jack Lemmon, and the fun-loving slob Oscar (Walter Matthau). Simon had created those characters in 1965 for the stage, and he earned the first of four Oscar nominations for his screen adaptation. His other nominations were for adapting his plays The Sunshine Boys and California Suite, and for his original screenplay for The Goodbye Girl (a best picture nominee and best actor winner for Richard Dreyfuss in 1977).

Both Lemmon and Matthau would go on to star in several more movies written by Simon, including The Out-of-Towners and The Prisoner of Second Avenue (Lemmon), and Plaza Suite, The Sunshine Boys and California Suite (Matthau).

Gene Saks, a frequent Simon collaborator on Broadway, directed the film version with a spirited cast including Herb Edelman, John Fiedler, Monica Evans and Carole Shelley. Lemmon replaced Art Carney who had originated the role of Felix on the stage, with Matthau reprising his Tony-winning role. Both Lemmon and Matthau garnered acclaim for their performances, and the success of the play and film took Matthau to full-fledged star status after years as primarily a supporting player.

The film’s rousing reception at the box office spawned a hit television series in 1970 with Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, and other incarnations in gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation diversity through the ensuing decades. The 1968 film stands out as a definitive version of Simon’s creation.

Simon drew from his personal life for inspiration, and his works explored the ethos of mid-to-late twentieth century America, often centered in New York. The Odd Couple in particular looks at old-school masculinity on the edge of profound change in American society. There is pathos (as played by Lemmon) underlining the comedy, and the movie touches on those dramatic elements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A58OtN9h918

 
In Simon’s obituary, The New York Times noted that he “helped redefine popular American humor with an emphasis on the friction of urban living and the agonizing conflicts of family intimacy.” Among the tributes after his death, actor Treat Williams neatly summarized Simon’s contribution to American culture, “Neil Simon is the Norman Rockwell of comedy. His artistry will only gain ground as the years pass.”

THE ODD COUPLE screens at the Royal theatre in West LA on Thursday, September 13 at 7:00 PM. Discussion on Simon’s career and cultural impact with film critic Stephen Farber and guests TBA. Click here for tickets.

Format: Blu-ray

65th Anniversary Screening of SHANE with David Ladd In Person on Sunday, August 26 at the Ahrya Fine Arts

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 65th anniversary screening of one of the most beloved Westerns of all time, George Stevens’ production of SHANE.

The 1950s happened to be a golden age for cowboy sagas, and as the Hollywood Reporter observed, “George Stevens’ SHANE earns a place along with ‘High Noon’ and ‘The Gunfighter’ as one of the great tumbleweed sagas of the decade.” Or as Leonard Maltin declared decades later, “Classic Western is splendid in every way.”

Alan Ladd, Paramount’s biggest star of the era, plays a mysterious gunfighter who arrives in a small Western town and finds a turf war between the farmers and cattle ranchers who want to drive them off the land.

Shane decides to become a protector of these homesteaders and strikes up a friendship with one family; Van Heflin plays the father, Jean Arthur (in her final screen performance) plays the mother, and young actor Brandon De Wilde plays their son, Joey.

Jack Palance was cast as the villain of the piece, a black-clad gunslinger hired by the cattle ranchers to eliminate Shane, along with the rest of the farmers.

The supporting cast includes gifted character actors Ben Johnson, Edgar Buchanan, Emile Meyer, and Elisha Cook Jr. Ladd received the best reviews of his career for the picture. The Saturday Review wrote, “As Shane, Alan Ladd has one of his best roles and gives what is surely his most rewarding performance.”

Stevens had won the Academy Award for best director of 1951 for ‘A Place in the Sun.’ SHANE gave him his third nomination in the directing category (he would win a second Oscar for ‘Giant’ in 1956).

SHANE earned six nominations in all, including Best Picture and two nods in the supporting actor category, for both Palance and De Wilde. The Oscar-nominated screenplay was written by A.B. Guthrie Jr., who adapted the novel by Jack Schaefer. The picture won the Oscar for the magnificent color cinematography of Loyal Griggs.

In tune with the fashions of the era, Stevens chose to shoot on location in the magnificent Grand Tetons outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Because of the care he took with the production, the film went over budget, and the studio was nervous. But the film turned out to be a box office smash and proved enticing to adult and family audiences alike. Kids who saw the move in 1953 are not likely to forget the emotional ending and young De Wilde’s cry, “Come back, Shane!”

Joining us for a Q&A will be David Ladd, the son of Alan Ladd. David went on to be a popular child actor in the 1950s. He appeared with his father in two films, ‘The Big Land’ and ‘The Proud Rebel;’ he then starred on his own in two family hits, ‘Misty’ and ‘A Dog of Flanders.’ He went on to act in a few films as an adult but then segued into a career as producer and studio executive.

SHANE screens on Sunday, August 26, at 3pm at Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

35th Anniversary Screenings of THE MAKIOKA SISTERS on Wednesday, August 22 in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the latest offering in our Anniversary Classics Abroad program, Kon Ichikawa’s poignant family drama, THE MAKIOKA SISTERS.

One of the great Japanese masters, Ichikawa is perhaps less widely celebrated than his countrymen Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and Ozu. He began directing features in the 1940s, and his films The Burmese Harp, Fires on the Plain, Tokyo Olympiad, and others found passionate critical defenders.

One of his later films, THE MAKIOKA SISTERS, is adapted from a popular Japanese novel by Junichiro Tanizaki and follows the fortunes of four sisters from a wealthy family in Osaka. Set in the 1930s on the eve of World War II, the film stars Keiko Kishi, Yoshiko Sakuma, Sayuri Yoshinaga, and Yuko Kotegawa as the orphaned sisters, heirs in a wealthy manufacturing family. Their marriages and romantic relationships are a source of tension and jealousy.

The sumptuous art direction and costume design help to create the lush atmosphere of the film. Reviewing the film at the time of its American release, the Los Angeles Times’s Kevin Thomas called it “exquisitely, subtly sensual.”

John Powers of the L.A. Weekly agreed that “this is an uncommonly vibrant and beautiful film.”

And the New Yorker’s Pauline Kael called it “the most pleasurable movie I’ve seen in several months…the rich colors, the darkness, the low-key lighting—they’re intoxicating.”

THE MAKIOKA SISTERS (1983) screens on Wednesday, August 22, at 7pm in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA. Click here for tickets.

Format: Blu-ray

Cary Grant Double Feature on August 14th in NoHo, Pasadena, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a tribute to one of most popular stars in Hollywood history, Cary Grant, in two of his most entertaining movies.

The program, part of the Twofer Tuesday series of double bills (two-for-the-price-of one) features a 55th anniversary screening of CHARADE (1963) paired with a 70th anniversary screening of MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE (1948) at three Laemmle locations: the Royal, NoHo 7 and Playhouse 7.

Cary Grant is remembered for his elegance, casualness and charm As writer Tom Wolfe once put it, he is “consummately romantic and consummately genteel.” These two movies showcase all the facets of his timeless appeal.

MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE is a genial comedy adapted from a novel by Eric Hodges (screenplay by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama) about a married advertising executive (Grant) with two daughters in post-WWII Manhattan who decides to leave the crowded city for the country life.

Myrna Loy, one of the popular female stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age, plays his disarming wife and, according to Leonard Maltin, “no one ever described room colors better than Loy!” Melvyn Douglas plays a “friend of the family” who causes comic complications for Grant.

Directed by H.C. Potter (‘The Farmer’s Daughter’) with black-and-white cinematography by the great James Wong Howe, the film was the inspiration for the Tom Hanks’s 1986 comedy ‘The Money Pit.’

CHARADE is a tongue-in-cheek thriller set in Paris with Audrey Hepburn as a recent widow being pursued by villainous thugs for a cache of stolen money involving her murdered husband.

Grant plays an American stranger allegedly “helping” Hepburn. Stylishly directed by Stanley Donen (‘Singin’ in the Rain,’ ‘Two for the Road’) and written by Peter Stone (‘1776,’ ‘The Taking of Pelham One Two Three’) and Marc Behm, the film is a cross between screwball black comedy and Hitchcockian suspense.

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called it “a fast-moving urbane entertainment,” with Variety citing Grant as the “suave master of romantic banter.” Grant and Hepburn make for a delightful team, and a terrific supporting cast features turns by three future Oscar winners, all in the supporting actor category: Walter Matthau, James Coburn and George Kennedy.

The Oscar-nominated music (Best Song) is by Henry Mancini. The film was a smash hit in 1963, and kept Grant in the top ten box office stars poll that year.

We present the Twofer Tuesday Cary Grant double bill as a refreshing movie tonic to help beat the summer heat. MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE plays at 5:00 pm and 9:30 pm; CHARADE at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, August 14 at the Royal, NoHo 7 and Playhouse 7.

Click here to buy tickets for the 5:00pm MR. BLANDINGS with the 7:00pm, CHARADE included. Click here to buy tickets for the 7:00pm CHARADE with the 9:30pm MR. BLANDINGS included.

CHARADE Format: DCP
MR. BLANDINGS Format: DVD

AUNTIE MAME 60th Anniversary with Co-Star Pippa Scott In Person August 4th in Beverly Hills

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 60th anniversary of AUNTIE MAME (1958), the hilarious film version of the best-selling novel by Patrick Dennis (Edward Everett Tanner III) based on his madcap, eccentric aunt, and starring Rosalind Russell in her signature role.

The book became a hit Broadway play in 1956, adapted by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee. For the film version, acclaimed screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green (Singin’ in the Rain, The Bandwagon) fashioned a witty script from the same source material. The film was a box office bonanza, the second highest grossing movie released that year.

The story focuses on Mame Dennis, a wealthy Manhattan sybarite with a social conscience, who takes charge of her orphaned ten-year-old nephew Patrick in 1928. Their adventures through the next two decades exposes Patrick to bohemian characters and lifestyles that clash with the upper class conventions, prejudices and pretensions of the era.

Mame’s financial wipeout in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 only adds to the merriment as she resourcefully pursues her life’s philosophy, “Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!” Directed by Morton Da Costa (The Music Man), who brought the same touches he used for the stage version (blackouts, fadeouts) to the film for a tone of heightened theatricality.

The movie version garnered six Academy Award nominations, including best picture, best actress (Russell) and best supporting actress (Peggy Cass), both of whom had originated their parts on Broadway. Other nominations went to Harry Stradling’s bright color cinematography, Malcolm Bert’s and George James Hopkin’s lavish art direction-set decoration, and William Ziegler’s film editing.

Rosalind Russell, the celebrated comedienne and dramatic actress (The Women, His Girl Friday, My Sister Eileen, Picnic, Gypsy), had the role of a lifetime with Auntie Mame, and she made the most of it, resulting in her greatest career triumph. She is ably supported by a game and skilled cast, including Broadway holdovers (Peggy Cass, Jan Handzlik, Yuki Shimoda) and Hollywood players (Roger Smith, Coral Browne, Fred Clark, Joanna Barnes, Pippa Scott, Patric Knowles, Lee Patrick).

Critical consensus felt that the character could have easily been overbearing in the wrong hands, but Russell and company overcame any reservations. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times offered high praise for Russell, “Lets herself go with even more gushiness and grandeur of gesture than she did on the stage,” he said, also noting the warmth and heart she brought to the part. Variety cheered the “handsome and slick production… hilarious and human in equal measure.”

Crowther’s opening line of his highly favorable review in 1958 indicates the appeal of the film, which has never dated. As he stated, “Hurricanes may be out of season, but one blew into the (Radio City) Music Hall yesterday…this full movie version of the stage play with Rosalind Russell again at the center of it, does sure enough generate gales of laughter as it sweeps across the screen.”

Come see AUNTIE MAME once again on the big screen, showing at the Ahrya Fine Arts theatre on Saturday, August 4 at 7:30pm. Before the screening there will be a Q&A with co-star Pippa Scott (The Searchers, Petulia), one of the last remaining survivors of the cast. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP