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Q&A with DIE HARD Co-Stars Bonnie Bedelia and Reginald VelJohnson and Screenwriter Steven E. de Souza

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 30th anniversary screening of one of the most popular modern action movies, DIE HARD, which made a movie star of Bruce Willis and set the template for many subsequent thrillers set in a confined space on a single day or night. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards, and in 2007, Entertainment Weekly named it the best action film of all time. In 2017 it was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry.

Details:

Tuesday, March 6, at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre
Q&A with Co-Stars Bonnie Bedelia and Reginald VelJohnson
Plus, Screenwriter Steven E. de Souza
Format: DCP
Click here for tickets

Willis plays New York policeman John McClane, who travels to Los Angeles on Christmas Eve to try to reconcile with his estranged wife, who has taken a top job with the Nakatomi Corporation in a sleek new office building (actually the brand new Fox Plaza building in Century City). But he walks into a terrorist attack and has to use both brains and brawn to foil a gang of European thugs. John McTiernan directed the script by Steven E. de Souza and Jeb Stuart.

Acclaimed British theater actor Alan Rickman made his feature film debut as the leader of the terrorists, Hans Gruber, ranked as one of the greatest villains of all time by the American Film Institute. The excellent, eclectic supporting cast includes Bonnie Bedelia, Reginald VelJohnson, DeVoreaux White, James Shigeta, Alexander Godunov, Hart Bochner, and William Atherton. Leonard Maltin called the picture a “dynamite action yarn.” The movie was a box office smash and spawned four sequels.

Oscar-winning director Brad Bird recently paid tribute to the film: “Hands down, the original DIE HARD is one of the greatest action movies ever made—it’s relentlessly inventive, engaging and funny at the same time.”

Bonnie Bedelia, who plays Holly McClane, started her film career with memorable roles in They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? and Lovers and Other Strangers. She also co-starred in The Big Fix, Violets Are Blue, Presumed Innocent, DIE HARD 2, Sordid Lives, and earned rave reviews for her starring role in Heart Like a Wheel. She has appeared in many acclaimed TV movies and in the popular series The Division and Parenthood.

Reginald VelJohnson, who plays Sgt. Al Powell, the policeman who comes to McClane’s aid, also reprised his role in DIE HARD 2. He appeared in many other films and TV series but is probably best remembered for his starring role in the long-running TV sitcom, Family Matters.

Screenwriter Steven E. de Souza also wrote 48 Hrs, The Running Man with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ricochet with Denzel Washington, Beverly Hills Cop III, and Judge Dredd.

Almodovar’s WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN February 21st in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series continue our Anniversary Classics Abroad program with Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar’s international breakthrough film, WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. This delightful farce was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1988, and was named best foreign film that year by both the National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle.

Carmen Maura, who has been a frequent Almodovar collaborator and is Spain’s most honored contemporary actress, stars as a soap opera actress sent into a spiral of comic misfortune when her longtime lover dumps her.

Almodovar had been delving into the liberating sexual politics of post-Franco Spain from his debut in 1980 in a series of scandalous black comedies (Matador, Law of Desire, What Have I Done to Deserve This?). He employs a lighter touch with Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and the film’s commercial success launched his most productive years on the international stage, culminating with his Oscar winners All About My Mother and Talk to Her.

Critics of the day welcomed Almodovar’s delirious comedy of manners. The Washington Post noted, “In this glossy delight, it’s as if Doris Day had been brought forward in time and confronted with the consequences of living in sin.”

The New York Times’ Vincent Canby pointed out “Mr. Almodovar sets out to charm rather than shock. That he succeeds should not come as a surprise. The common denominator of all Almodovar films, even one that winds up in an ecstatic murder-suicide pact, is their great good humor.”

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, written and directed by Pedro Almodovar, features Antonio Banderas in one of his early roles. Also starring Julietta Serrano, Maria Barranco, Rossy De Palma, and Fernando Guillen.

The 30th anniversary presentation screens on Wednesday, February 21 at 7PM at three Laemmle locations: Royal, Town Center 5, and Pasadena Playhouse 7.

Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

Double Feature: THE WAY WE WERE and SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE on February 13th in NoHo, Pasadena, and West LA

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Twofer Tuesdays return just in time for Valentine’s Day. Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a double feature of two all-time romantic favorites, THE WAY WE WERE and SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE.

Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford demonstrate matchless chemistry in THE WAY WE WERE, which received six Oscar nominations in 1973, including a nod for Streisand as Best Actress. The picture won two Oscars, for Marvin Hamlisch’s memorable score and Best Song, written by Hamlisch, Marilyn and Alan Bergman.

Streisand plays a college radical who falls in love with the apolitical campus jock, who also happens to be a gifted writer. The film follows their tumultuous romance over two decades from the 1930s to the 1950s and reaches its climax in the era of the Hollywood blacklist, which destroyed families and careers. Arthur Laurents (West Side Story, Gypsy, The Turning Point) provided the screenplay, and Sydney Pollack, a master of movie romance, directed. The supporting cast includes Bradford Dillman, Viveca Lindfors, Patrick O’Neal, and Lois Chiles.

Pauline Kael wrote of the film, “It’s hit entertainment, and maybe even memorable entertainment…The movie is about two people who are wrong for each other, and Streisand and Redford are an ideal match to play this mismatch.” The finale, in which the lovers meet several years after their divorce and contemplate what might have been, has had audiences weeping for decades.

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE from 1993 also boasts a tearjerking finale that packs a wallop. In the Oscar-nominated screenplay by director Nora Ephron, David S. Ward, and Jeff Arch, geography is the main obstacle keeping the star-crossed lovers apart. Tom Hanks plays an architect from Seattle who is still grieving over his dead wife. His son (Ross Malinger) decides that he needs to find a new mate and helps to orchestrate a radio confessional that attracts the attention of Meg Ryan, a journalist living in Baltimore.

Ephron, a celebrated journalist, novelist, and screenwriter, came into her own as a director when this rom-com became a surprise summertime smash. Ryan, who had starred in Ephron’s screenplay for When Harry Met Sally, demonstrated perfect rapport with Hanks, and they reteamed in Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail five years later. Rosie O’Donnell, Bill Pullman, Rob Reiner (the director of When Harry Met Sally), Rita Wilson, and Gaby Hoffmann as Malinger’s pint-sized co-conspirator contribute delicious cameos. Despite all the prodding and plotting, the potential lovers keep missing each other until a meeting atop the Empire State Building offers them a last chance at connection.

The New York Times’ Vincent Canby wrote, “Not since Love Story has there been a movie that so shrewdly and predictably manipulated the emotions for such entertaining effect.” The rousing soundtrack, which included a series of romantic standards performed by unexpected singers (including two numbers by Jimmy Durante), rose to the top of the pop charts and contributed to the movie’s success.

The double feature screens Tuesday, February 13th at our North Hollywood, Pasadena, and West LA venues.

Click here to purchase tickets for the 5pm screening of SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE with admission the the 7:10pm THE WAY WERE included.

Click here to purchase tickets for the 7:10pm THE WAY WE WERE with admission to 9:30pm SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE included.

Format: Both films on DCP

THE GREAT ESCAPE 55th Anniversary Screening Saturday, February 10 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 55th anniversary screening of one of the best loved adventure movies of all time, John Sturges’ all-star production of THE GREAT ESCAPE.

Adapted from a nonfiction book by Paul Brickhill, the film told the mainly true story of the successful escape from one of the Nazis’ top-security POW camps during World War II. The screenplay was written by James Clavell (King Rat, To Sir, With Love, Shogun) and W. R. Burnett (High Sierra, This Gun For Hire, The Asphalt Jungle).

In reality the prisoners were almost all British, but the producers decided to add some American characters to beef up the film’s box-office potential. This decision was shrewd since it allowed for the casting of up-and-coming American actors Steve McQueen (who became a superstar largely as a result of this film), James Garner, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson. They were joined by British actors Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasence, James Donald, and David McCallum. Because of his love of motorcycles, McQueen asked that a spectacular motorcycle jump be added to the escape sequence, and it became one of the iconic scenes in the film, even though it never really happened.

Released in the summer of 1963, the film emerged as one of the year’s biggest box-office hits, and most reviews were ecstatic. Time magazine wrote, “Producer-director John Sturges has created classic cinema of action… The Great Escape is simply great escapism.” Leonard Maltin called it “Rip-roaring excitement with marvelous international cast.” Sturges was known for his direction of other action classics, including Bad Day at Black Rock and The Magnificent Seven, the latter of which also featured McQueen. Oscar winning cinematographer Daniel Fapp shot on location in Germany, and Elmer Bernstein provided the memorable score. Ferris Webster was nominated for an Academy Award for his taut editing.

The film’s reputation has not dimmed over the years. In 2001 Esquire magazine called The Great Escape “the greatest boys’ movie of all time.” Writing in the Los Angeles Times to celebrate the film’s 40th anniversary in 2003, Michael Sragow declared, “It is an escape, and it is great: It renders vividly and fully an experience that encompasses a panorama of emotions—fear, audacity, loyalty, panic, giddiness, intransigence, and fortitude.”

THE GREAT ESCAPE screens Saturday, February 10th at 7:30pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

55th Anniversary Screening of Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ on January 17th in Pasadena, Encino, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series launch our Anniversary Classics Abroad program for 2018 with one of the most influential and highly acclaimed of all foreign films: Federico Fellini’s autobiographical masterpiece, 8 ½.

8 ½ screens Wednesday, January 17 at 7pm in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA. Click here for tickets.

Fellini had already won two Oscars in the 1950s, and in 1963, 8 ½ scored the most Oscar nominations of any foreign film up to that time, with a total of five, including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay (by Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli and Brunello Rondi). It won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and Piero Gherardi won for his stunning black-and-white costume design.

Marcello Mastroianni, who had starred in Fellini’s international smash, La Dolce Vita, three years earlier, plays Guido Anselmi, a film director struggling to complete his newest film while also juggling a wife, a mistress, and several other women as he meditates on sexuality, religion, and mortality.

The film is set primarily at a lavish spa, where Guido’s personal and professional turmoil is continually interrupted by poignant childhood memories and wickedly witty fantasies. Esteemed Italian novelist Alberto Moravia compared the film to James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness novel, Ulysses, and the film’s visual flourishes changed the entire language of cinema.

The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann wrote, “In terms of execution I cannot remember a more brilliant film… We see a wizard at the height of his wizardry.”

Writing in Esquire, Dwight Macdonald called 8 ½ “the most brilliant, varied, and entertaining movie since Citizen Kane.”

In addition to Mastroianni, the cast includes Anouk Aimee, Sandra Milo, Claudia Cardinale, Rossella Falk, and Barbara Steele. Other important collaborators include cinematographer Gianni di Venanzo and composer Nino Rota, whose jaunty circus melodies help to propel the movie.

8 ½ had a major influence on directors all over the world, including Mike Nichols, Paul Mazursky, Woody Allen, Francois Truffaut, and recent Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino.

Presented digitally.

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS 50th Anniversary Screening on Thursday, December 28 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 50th anniversary of the cult classic VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967). The misbegotten adaptation of Jacqueline Susann’s sensational 1966 best-selling novel hit the silver screen for the Christmas movie season in 1967.

We close out the year with a special screening of this vintage “so-bad-its-good” milestone virtually 50 years to the day of the original opening, on December 28 at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts theatre.

Click here for tickets.

Susann’s novel explored the cutthroat side of show business from the viewpoint of three young women aspiring for success. Barbara Parkins, Sharon Tate and Oscar winner Patty Duke (The Miracle Worker) play the female protagonists, with Oscar winner Susan Hayward (I Want to Live) as a grand dame Broadway actress battling to stay on top.

Hollywood veterans, director Mark Robson (Champion, Peyton Place), and writers Helen Deutsch (Lili, I’ll Cry Tomorrow) and Dorothy Kingsley (Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Kiss Me Kate), actually toned down the seamier aspects of Susann’s book. However, they left enough lurid scenes about the early days of sexual liberation to titillate audiences in this slick and glossy film version.

The film is often cited as one of the worst movies ever made; unlike amateur “camp masterpieces” like Plan 9 from Outer Space or the more recent The Room, Valley of the Dolls has the distinction of being the product of a major Hollywood studio.

Among the contributing filmmakers were Oscar winners cinematographer William Daniels (The Naked City, How the West Was Won), costume designer Travilla (How to Marry a Millionaire) and legendary composer John Williams, who garnered his first Academy nomination for adapting Andre Previn’s music score. The theme song became a major pop hit for Dionne Warwick in 1968.

Critics of the day roasted the movie, but 20th Century Fox had the last laugh as audiences made the maligned movie a box office behemoth, the highest grossing film in that studio’s history up to that time. The film developed a cult following through the years. Susan Hayward, who replaced Judy Garland after a few days into the shoot, partially escaped the critical brickbats, but the rest of the cast and the film could not hide.

Over this holiday season, see what Roger Ebert described in 1967 as a “dirty soap opera,” and posed, “I don’t understand how Patty Duke and Barbara Parkins got themselves into this movie.” Similarly, Newsweek called it “one of the most stupefyingly clumsy films ever made by alleged professionals.”

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS also features Lee Grant, Martin Milner, Tony Scotti, Paul Burke, Charles Drake, and Alexander Davion. Our 50th anniversary presentation will have a Special Introduction and a few surprises. Returns to the big screen for one show only Thursday, December 28 at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills.

Presented on DCP.

SILENT RUNNING 45th Anniversary Screening plus Q&A with Director Douglas Trumbull and Producer Michael Gruskoff

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 45th anniversary screening of the groundbreaking sci-fi movie, SILENT RUNNING, which marked the directorial debut of special effects wizard Douglas Trumbull. Trumbull and Producer Michael Gruskoff will participate in Q&A after the screening.

SILENT RUNNING screens Wednesday, December 13, at 7:30pm at the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

Set 100 years in the future, the prophetic script written by Deric Washburn, Michael Cimino, and Steven Bochco stars two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern as an astronaut sent into space to preserve the last samples of plant life that are endangered on a dying Earth. His only companions are three drones named Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

The film’s ecological message was a daring one for the time, and its relevance has only grown over the subsequent decades.

Trumbull had made special effects films for NASA while he was still in his early twenties, and he was hired by Stanley Kubrick to execute many of the most challenging and innovative visual effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Reviewing Silent Running, Time’s Jay Cocks compared it to Kubrick’s masterpiece: “Silent Running displays the same kind of technical virtuosity, the same sense of the still, vast symmetry of the galaxies.” He added that the movie was “a quite captivating essay on futuristic ecology.” Life’s Richard Schickel declared that the film “provides a great, near-solo role for Bruce Dern.”

In addition to his work on 2001, Trumbull played a major role in creating the special effects for The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: the Motion Picture, Blade Runner, and Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.

Trumbull directed Natalie Wood’s last film, Brainstorm. He is also known as an inventor and technical innovator in many other fields. He has received numerous awards over the years, including three Oscar nominations for his visual effects and The Gordon E. Sawyer Award for scientific and technical achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2012.

After working as a highly successful agent during the 1960s, Michael Gruskoff produced his first film, Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie, in 1971. His other films include Mel Brooks’ comedy smash, Young Frankenstein, Quest for Fire, and My Favorite Year, which we featured in a highly successful Anniversary screening earlier this year.

Presented digitally.

Angie Dickinson In-person for 50th Anniversary Screening of POINT BLANK, December 5th in Beverly Hills

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a screening of the influential and imaginative 1967 thriller, John Boorman’s POINT BLANK. Co-star Angie Dickinson will participate in a Q&A after the screen film.

POINT BLANK screens at 7:30pm on Tuesday, December 5th at the Ahrya Fine Arts theater in Beverly Hills. Presented digitally. Click here to purchase tickets.

Later critics described POINT BLANK as a blend of the style of classic film noir and the technical innovations of the French New Wave. Oscar winner Lee Marvin stars as a man seeking revenge against a former business partner, who double crossed him, stole his wife and left him for dead during a robbery at the deserted prison of Alcatraz.

Marvin’s Walker (no first name) tracks them both to Los Angeles, which has been brilliantly photographed by Boorman and cinematographer Philip H. Lathrop. The screenplay was written by Alexander Jacobs, David and Rafe Newhouse, from a novel by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake).

Jacobs and Boorman were both British filmmakers who were stimulated by Los Angeles in the 1960s, and they made the most of archetypal settings like a hilltop house, a sprawling car lot, a frenetic disco, and the eerie storm drains along the Los Angeles River. The film crew was also the first ever to be allowed to film at Alcatraz, which had closed in 1963.

Although the film scored at the box office, it was critically underrated at the time. As Leonard Maltin wrote years later, Point Blank is a “taut thriller, ignored in 1967, but now regarded as a top film of the decade.”

Indeed it was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 2016 and had a strong influence on later filmmakers, including Steven Soderbergh and Michael Mann. Philip French, writing in the London Observer, called it “a landmark in the history of the crime movie.”

Angie Dickinson, John Vernon, Carroll O’Connor, and Keenan Wynn co-star. The haunting music was composed by Johnny Mandel.

Angie Dickinson was our very first guest when we launched our Anniversary Classics series four years ago. She appeared at a screening of her 1963 hit, Captain Newman, M.D., in which she starred with Gregory Peck and Tony Curtis.

Her many other memorable films include Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo; the original Ocean’s Eleven with the Rat Pack; Don Siegel’s The Killers, in which she also co-starred with Marvin, along with John Cassavetes and future President Ronald Reagan in his last feature film; Arthur Penn’s The Chase, in which she played opposite Marlon Brando; and Brian De Palma’s Dressed to Kill.

Dickinson also starred in the immensely popular TV series, Police Woman, during the 1970s, and was one of Johnny Carson’s favorite guests on his nightly talk show.

Click here for tickets.