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In memory of Maggie Smith – THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE screening November 13.

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THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1969)
55th Anniversary Screening
Tribute to Oscar Winner Maggie Smith
Wednesday, November 13, at 7 PM
Laemmle Royal Theatre

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a tribute to the late, great Maggie Smith with a screening of her first Oscar-winning movie, ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.’ Smith had impressive competition in 1969, including Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Genevieve Bujold, and Jean Simmons, but she prevailed. The film also earned an Oscar nomination for the theme song, “Jean,” written by Rod McKuen.

Jay Presson Allen adapted the highly acclaimed novel by Muriel Spark about an eccentric but popular teacher at a girls’ school in Edinburgh during the 1930s. Ronald Neame (‘The Horse’s Mouth,’ ‘Tunes of Glory,’ ‘The Poseidon Adventure’) directed. The cast includes Robert Stephens (Smith’s husband at the time), Pamela Franklin, Jane Carr, Gordon Jackson, and Celia Johnson, an Oscar nominee two decades earlier for her role in the romantic classic, ‘Brief Encounter.’

Allen had also written the successful play adapted from Spark’s novel; it starred Vanessa Redgrave in London and Zoe Caldwell on Broadway. But most critics agreed that Smith’s portrayal was definitive. She caught the charisma and eccentricity as well as the sometimes dangerous egotism of a revered teacher who steers some of her impressionable students in the wrong direction, even leading one of her charges to volunteer to fight for Franco during the Spanish Civil War.

Variety had high praise for “Maggie Smith’s tour-de-force performance.” Leonard Maltin called the film a “remarkable character study.” In the most detailed review, Pauline Kael wrote, “Maggie Smith, with her gift for mimicry and her talent for mannered comedy, makes Jean Brodie very funny—absurdly haughty, full of affectations, and with a jumble shop of a mind… a bit of an Auntie Mame.” Kael also had praise for the other performances, writing “The casting in general is superb,” and she singled out one supporting performance in particular: “Celia Johnson has a genuine triumph as Miss Mackay, who in the film becomes Miss Brodie’s true adversary.”

Maggie Smith earned a total of six Academy Award nominations over the course of her long career, winning a second Oscar in the supporting actress category for her performance in 1978’s ‘California Suite.’ She won a Tony award for her performance in Peter Shaffer’s ‘Lettice and Lovage’ on Broadway, and she snagged three Emmys for her role in the beloved ‘Downton Abbey.’

 

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH 60th Anniversary October 30 at the Royal.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, the seventh and penultimate picture of Roger Corman’s film adaptations of the works of American literary titan Edgar Allan Poe. The film stars horror icon Vincent Price, Corman’s “muse of the macabre,” who top-lined seven of the eight Poe films. The film is widely regarded as the best installment in the series and Corman’s personal favorite of all his films. We present ‘The Masque of the Red Death‘ on one night only, Halloween Eve, Wednesday, October 30 at 7:00 PM at the historic Royal Theatre (celebrating its centennial year) in West Los Angeles.

Producer-director Roger Corman, who died earlier this year, was one of the most prolific independent filmmakers in movie history. He specialized in low-budget cinema and was the self-appointed “king of the B movie,” producing a steady stream of exploitation titles that spanned six decades and multiple genres. In 1960 he turned to the works of an author he admired, Edgar Allan Poe, the nineteenth-century master of gothic poetry, detective fiction, mystery, and the macabre. He began with a stylish if frugal version of Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” which found critical and commercial success, with Price in the lead, and launched a well-received and popular Poe franchise. In 1964 Corman ventured to the U.K. for the last two films of the series, commencing with ‘The Masque of the Red Death.’ Britain was an appropriate set for Poe’s tale of plague-ravaged 14th century Europe, which was devastated by the Black Death.

Price plays Prince Prospero, a malevolent overlord who terrorizes his peasantry amidst the Red Death. After his domain is depopulated, he retreats behind his castle walls with “light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court” (Poe) to wait out the plague. Trapped with him there are his devil-worshiping mistress (Hazel Court), an abducted young couple from the local village (David Weston and Jane Asher), and a particularly debauched guest (Patrick Magee). Using leftover sets from ‘Becket,’ Corman’s principal production designer for all his Poe films, Daniel Haller, and cinematographer (and future auteur) Nicholas Roeg crafted a sumptuous, “colorful symphony of the macabre.” Citing Roeg’s contribution, Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian called the film “an expressionist horror ballet, extravagantly shot.”

Corman employed frequent screenwriter-collaborator Charles Beaumont (‘The Intruder,’ ‘The Premature Burial,’ ‘The Twilight Zone’) and R. Wayne Campbell to meld two Poe stories, “The Masque of the Red Death” and “Hop Frog” with the final product. It would later b praised by TV Guide as “the most intelligent and literate of the Poe series.” The New York Times called it “astonishingly good,” and The Times U.K. gave this assessment: “High camp meets high art in this cheeky Roger Corman flesh-feast that aspires to lofty ideals. However, monologues about the nature of God and terror, as well as psychedelic dream sequences, give the film an unexpected weight. A marvel.” Indeed, other critics have cited the film as echoing the works of Ingmar Bergman and Luis Buñuel, two directors Corman greatly admired.

Price received his best notices of the Poe series, with Variety citing him as “the best interpreter of the Poe character, and he succeeds in creating an aura of terror.” Poe, the most famous American author of the 19th century, remains renowned in the 21st century for his pioneering detective fiction, horror tales, and haunting verse. As Bradshaw pointed out in his Guardian review, “Corman’s formal artistry and conviction on a limited budget…with his iconic Poe adaptations did more than anyone in academe to establish the author’s position in the literary canon.”

THE LAST SEDUCTION 30th anniversary screening October 8 with Director John Dahl in person.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 30th anniversary screening of John Dahl’s sexy neo-noir thriller, ‘The Last Seduction.’ A fantastic Linda Fiorentino plays a reincarnation of the treacherous femmes fatales of 1940s classics like ‘The Maltese Falcon’ and ‘Double Indemnity.’ Bill Pullman and Peter Berg play the patsies whom she entraps. Bill Nunn and J.T. Walsh co-star. The dark, twisty screenplay was penned by Steve Barancik. We’ll screen the film at the Royal at 7 PM on Tuesday, October 8 and host Mr. Dahl for an in-person post-screening Q&A.

Fiorentino plays Bridget Gregory, who steals a payoff that her crooked lawyer husband has scored in a drug deal and flees to a small town in upstate New York. There she seduces a naïve young man played by Berg and eludes and outsmarts her husband, a detective, and all other men who try to get the better of her. The character’s name may be a kind of homage to the character of the treacherous Brigid O’Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) in ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ the film that helped to launch the film noir cycle in 1941.

In the 1940s the rigid Production Code mandated that femmes fatales be punished for their misdeeds, but Hollywood morality had changed in recent years, and characters played by Kathleen Turner in ‘Body Heat’ and Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct got away with their crimes. Fiorentino’s character took the new amorality even further. According to Roger Ebert, who ranked the film one of the 10 best of 1994, ‘The Last Seduction’ “gives us a diabolical, evil woman and goes the distance with her… We keep waiting for the movie to lose its nerve, and it never does.” Leonard Maltin agreed that the film is a “sizzling, sexy thriller from modern film noir expert Dahl and writer Steve Barancik.”

The New York Times’ Janet Maslin called the film “a devilishly entertaining crime story,” and she added, “Both Mr. Dahl, who directs this film with stunning economy, and Ms. Fiorentino, whose performance is flawlessly hard-boiled, exult in the sheer wickedness of Bridget’s character.” Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle agreed that Fiorentino’s character was “the most full-blown yet utterly believable femme fatale to come along in years.” Fiorentino was named best actress of the year by both the New York Film Critics Circle and the London Film Critics Circle.

Dahl had previously demonstrated a flair for film noir in ‘Kill Me Again’ and ‘Red Rock West.’ He went on to direct ‘Rounders,’ ‘You Kill Me,’ and ‘Joy Ride,’ along with episodes of acclaimed TV series ‘Dexter,’ ‘Ray Donovan,’ ‘Billions,’ and ‘Yellowstone.’

Repertory Central – Upcoming Classics include THE CONVERSATION, ARMY OF SHADOWS, PARIS, TEXAS and BASQUIAT.

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Wasn’t it fabulous getting to see Akira Kurosawa’s SEVEN SAMURAI on the big screen?  Well, there’s more where that came from. Get fired up for Francis Ford Coppola’s THE CONVERSATION, Jean-Pierre Melville’s ARMY OF SHADOWS, Wim Wenders’s PARIS, TEXAS, and Julian Schnabel’s BASQUIAT in the coming weeks, plus our one-night screening of LEGENDS OF THE FALL (with director Ed Zwick in person for a Q&A).  We’re planning even more for the fall. Add to these all the award-season films coming to Laemmle screens, that is a lot of rewarding moviegoing!
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THE CONVERSATION follows lonely wiretapping expert and devout Catholic Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), who is hired to record a seemingly innocuous conversation in San Francisco’s Union Square between two lovers (Frederick Forsythe and Cindy Williams). Upon re-hearing the tapes, however, Caul believes he may put the couple in danger if he turns the material over to his client (Robert Duvall). But what one hears can ultimately turn out to be quite different from what was actually recorded. Opens this Friday at the Laemmle Royal, Town Center, and Glendale.
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ARMY OF SHADOWS opens August 16 at the Royal and Town Center: A gorgeous restoration of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1969 epic of the French Resistance during World War II, starring Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret. Based on the novel by Joseph Kessel (perhaps best known for Belle de Jour), the film draws on the wartime experiences of Kessel and Melville himself, both active members of the Resistance and Free French Forces. This is the first time the film has been released in the U.S.
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PARIS, TEXAS opens August 30 at the Royal. New German Cinema pioneer Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) brings his keen eye for landscape to the American Southwest in Paris, Texas, a profoundly moving character study written by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Sam Shepard. PARIS, TEXAS follows the mysterious, nearly mute drifter Travis (a magnificent Harry Dean Stanton, whose face is a landscape all its own) as he tries to reconnect with his young son, living with his brother (Dean Stockwell) in Los Angeles, and his missing wife (Nastassja Kinski).
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BASQUIAT, opening September 13 at the Laemmle NoHo, depicts the meteoric rise of the brilliant artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, played by Jeffrey Wright in one of his first roles. Starting out as a street artist, living in Thompkins Square Park in a cardboard box, Jean-Michel is “discovered” by Andy Warhol’s art world and becomes a star. But success has a high price, and Basquiat pays with friendship, love, and, eventually, his life.

LEGENDS OF THE FALL 30th Anniversary Screening Director Ed Zwick in person August 15.

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LEGENDS OF THE FALL (1994)
30th Anniversary Screening
Director Ed Zwick in person, signing his book Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions
Thursday, August 15, at 7 PM, Royal Theatre

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 30th anniversary screening of Ed Zwick’s ‘Legends of the Fall,’ his hit Western epic starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Henry Thomas, and Julia Ormond. The screening is presented in conjunction with the recent publication of Zwick’s best-selling memoir, ‘Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood.’ Zwick will participate in a post-screening Q&A along with the film’s award-winning editor Steven Rosenblum (Oscar-nominated for his work on Zwick’s ‘Glory’ and ‘Blood Diamond’), and he will be selling and signing copies of his book.

‘Legends of the Fall‘ was based on a highly praised novella by Jim Harrison and centers on a family in Montana during the early years of the 20th century. Susan Shilliday and William Wittliff wrote the screenplay. Hopkins plays the patriarch of the family, and his three sons are played by Pitt, Quinn, and Thomas. The film deals with the mistreatment of indigenous people during that period in history and also includes vivid scenes set during World War I, when all three brothers enlist to fight Germany. After the war, they become entangled with Irish bootleggers during the Prohibition era. Ormond is the Eastern woman loved by all three brothers. The cast also includes Karina Lombard, Tantoo Cardinal, and Gordon Tootoosis.

The film won an Oscar for John Toll’s stunning cinematography and also received nominations for art direction and sound. The following year, Toll won a second Oscar for shooting Mel Gibson’s ‘Braveheart.’ Steven Rosenblum, who edited many of Zwick’s movies, also worked on ‘Braveheart.’ The score for ‘Legends‘ was composed by another of Zwick’s frequent collaborators, James Horner (an Oscar winner for ‘Titanic’).

Made on a budget of $30 million, the film earned $160 million, making it a major hit and one of the most popular films during the 1994-1995 Oscar season. Although reviews were mixed, many critics praised the film. Variety wrote, “Zwick imbues the story with an easy, poetic quality…the actors, working as an ensemble, are near perfect in their service of the material.” Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers singled out Brad Pitt, declaring that Pitt “proves himself a bona fide movie star, stealing every scene he’s in.” The Chicago Tribune’s Michael Wilmington wrote, “the landscapes, photographed by John Toll, majestically backdrop all the personal and cultural furies.” Steven Rea of the Philadelphia Inquirer concurred: “Check your cynicism at the door, and just revel in its enormity.”

Zwick’s book chronicles his career from his early days writing for television and includes piercingly candid reminiscences of his landmark shows ‘thirtysomething’ and ‘My So-Called Life,’ along with his features ‘About Last Night,’ ‘Glory,’ ‘Courage Under Fire,’ ‘The Last Samurai,’ ‘Blood Diamond,’ ‘Defiance,’ and ‘Shakespeare in Love’ (for which he won an Oscar for Best Picture). The book recounts his conflicts with Matthew Broderick, Julia Roberts, and Pitt, as well as studio executives like the infamous Harvey Weinstein. But Zwick also includes praise for his closest collaborators and many incisive reflections on the essential tenets of moviemaking.

THE TERMINATOR 40th Anniversary Screening with Producer Gale Anne Hurd Thursday at the Laemmle NoHo!

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 40th anniversary screening of one of the most popular sci-fi films of all time, THE TERMINATOR, the movie that spawned one of the screen’s most profitable film franchises. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, in his most iconic role, Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn. We’re screening it as part of Art House Theater Day on Thursday, July 25 at 7 PM at the NoHo and will host producer Gale Anne Hurd for a Q&A. You might ask, is this really an indie film? Spoiler alert…it is!

“Knowing that many people have never seen the film or missed out on seeing it on the silver screen, I couldn’t be more thrilled to celebrate THE TERMINATOR‘s 40th anniversary with its return to cinemas on Art House Theater Day,” said producer Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead, Armageddon). “People may wonder if THE TERMINATOR is truly an indie film. As the film’s producer, I can assure you it is. Jim Cameron and I made the film for $6.4 million, which included a completion bond and a 10% contingency. We had a variety of co-financiers, pre-sold rights and our distribution was through Orion Pictures rather than a major studio – the very definition of an indie film, both then and now. We hope you’ll enjoy the nostalgic experience of seeing it this summer!”

Writer-director Cameron and producer Hurd had both apprenticed at Roger Corman’s low-budget factory, New World Pictures, in the late 1970s and early 1980s when they joined forces to create THE TERMINATOR. Their original screenplay (with co-writer William Wisher, inspired by works of Harlan Ellison) chronicles the battle for the survival of the human race against Skynet, a synthetic intelligent machine network of the future. In 2029, an automaton killer, T-800 (Schwarzenegger) is dispatched through time to assassinate an unsuspecting waitress, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) in 1984, who turns out to be the future mother of the twenty-first–century human resistance leader, John Connor. To protect her, Connor sends guerrilla fighter Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn). The ensuing chase, with the seemingly unstoppable Schwarzenegger, a laconic, leather-clad, and lumbering destruction machine pursuing Connor and Reese through the streets of Los Angeles, is a model of low-budget efficiency and resourcefulness.

Contemporary critics embraced the sci-fi suspense thriller, with Kirk Ellis of the Hollywood Reporter calling it “a genuine steel metal trap of a movie.” Dave Kehr of The Chicago Reader characterized its “almost graceful violence…(has) the air of a demented ballet,” and Janet Maslin in The New York Times cited it as a “B-movie with flair.” The film was a genuine sleeper, and its success led to several sequels, a television series and video games. The latest incarnation of the series, Terminator: Dark Fate, with Cameron returning to a creative role, is set to open theatrically later this year. The film that started it all, THE TERMINATOR, was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2008.

Cameron, of course, became one of the most sought-after filmmakers in Hollywood, staying in the sci-fi world for several landmark films (Aliens, The Abyss, Avatar) and winning Oscars for a venture into the past, Titanic, the biggest box-office hit of the twentieth century. Schwarzenegger went on to movie superstardom and political success. His terse line reading in the film, “I’ll be back,” is ranked 37th of the American Film Institute’s all-time great movie quotes, and his character Terminator is ranked as the 22nd greatest movie villain. Our guest, Gale Anne Hurd emerged as one of the most successful female producers of the era, with Aliens, Alien Nation, and Armageddon among her hits.

Michelangelo Antonioni’s RED DESERT (1964) 60th Anniversary Screenings.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classic Series present this month’s screening in our popular Anniversary Classics Abroad program: Michelangelo Antonioni’s vibrant masterpiece RED DESERT, which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1964 and collected rave reviews around the world on its release over the next several months. We will show the film at five of our theaters at 7 PM on Wednesday, July 31.

Antonioni had earned critical acclaim for the three movies in his “alienation trilogy”—’L’Avventura,’ ‘La Notte,’ and ‘Eclipse’ — made during the early 1960s. RED DESERT explored some of the same themes but introduced a new element to the director’s work. The three earlier movies were all shot in black-and-white, but with RED DESERT Antonioni decided to experiment with color cinematography for the first time, and critics heralded his achievement. The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann declared, “With Michelangelo Antonioni’s RED DESERT, the art of the film advances…quite simply, it is the best use of color I have ever seen in a film, exquisite in itself.” Kauffmann added, “there is a buried history of modern painting in it, from the Impressionists through Mondrian to Hopper and Wyeth.”

Monica Vitti, who had starred in all three of Antonioni’s earlier movies, has the leading role of Giuliana, the wife of an industrialist in Ravenna. She is emotionally troubled and eventually begins an affair with an employee at her husband’s factory. Carlo Chionetti plays the husband, and Richard Harris — fresh from his Oscar-nominated performance in Lindsay Anderson’s ‘This Sporting Life’ — plays her lover. Antonioni wrote the screenplay with frequent collaborator Tonino Guerra.

In addition to its psychological themes, the film offers prescient critique of industrial pollution, with the color cinematography contributing to this political commentary. A key collaborator was director of photography Carlo Di Palma, who worked closely with Antonioni to paint the landscapes when necessary to create the desired mood of malaise. Antonioni and Di Palma collaborated again on the director’s most successful movie, the English-language ‘Blowup,’ an Oscar nominee in 1966. Other directors around the world — including Ettore Scola, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Sidney Lumet — worked with Di Palma. The cinematographer later established a fruitful collaboration with Woody Allen on such films as ‘Hannah and Her Sisters,’ ‘Radio Days,’ and ‘Bullets Over Broadway.’

Time magazine called RED DESERT “at once the most beautiful, the most simple and the most daring film yet made by Italy’s masterful Michelangelo Antonioni.” More recently, Geoff Andrew of Time Out hailed “perhaps the most extraordinary and riveting film of Antonioni’s entire career.” Robbie Collin of London’s Daily Telegraph declared, “Almost half a century on, RED DESERT remains a film of rare beauty and brooding erotic intensity.” The New Yorker’s Richard Brody called the film Antonioni’s “most mysterious and awe-inspiring work.”

Screening one night only at the Royal in West Los Angeles, the Town Center in Encino, and Laemmle Theatres in Glendale, Claremont, and Newhall.

40th Anniversary Screening of SUBURBIA with Writer-Director Penelope Spheeris in Person Celebrating Art House Theater Day.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the 40th anniversary of SUBURBIA (1984), the first narrative feature film of acclaimed writer-director Penelope Spheeris. Co-produced by Roger Corman, with Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers in an ensemble cast of mostly non-actors, the film plays one night only: Wednesday, July 24 at 7:30 pm at the Laemmle NoHo as a preview of Art House Theater Day (AHTD, officially July 25). AHTD is a celebration of the contributions that art house theaters and independent films make to the cultural landscape.

SUBURBIA was a follow up to Spheeris’ debut film, the landmark documentary ‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ (1981), which focused on the emerging punk rock/hardcore scene in Southern California in the early 1980’s. While the documentary (and its two sequels) dealt with the bands, SUBURBIA looks at their audiences, displaced and disaffected children of the Baby Boomer generation who rejected the consumerism and conservatism of their parents. The movie follows a group of kids (ranging from ages 6 to 18) who squat in a condemned tract-housing development, forming a family unit of punks who call themselves The TRs (the rejected). Although the TRs commit petty crimes to survive, the ostensible villains of the movie are a pair of gun-toting working men who view them as responsible for every crime imaginable and eventually hunt them down.

40th Anniversary Screening of SUBURBIA with Writer-Director Penelope Spheeris in Person Celebrating Art House Theater Day.

Spheeris approached Roger Corman to complete financing for the film. He viewed it as a teen exploitation movie that fit into his wheelhouse of low-budget genre pictures, a formula that worked very well for him for decades. Spheeris, however, saw it as a social statement, and chose to use mostly non-actors along with a few musicians (e.g., Flea) for authenticity, pointing out, “It’s easier to teach punks to be actors than actors to be punks.” Flea now cites the film as “the punk rock bible.”

Perceptive critics of the day supported Spheeris’ vision. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it “a clear-eyed compassionate melodrama…far better than Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Outsiders’ and ‘Rumblefish.’” This view was echoed by Time Out, noting the movie “combines intelligent social comment with the conventions of the teen-in-revolt exploiter to gripping effect. A justifiably angry film, fast and full of violent action, though there’s plenty of humour too; and the lack of originality is amply compensated for by its manifest sincerity.” And Clayton Dillard in Slant said, “In the end, SUBURBIA‘s greatest strength lies in its assertion of youth as a political state of mind.”

Penelope Spheeris is a multitalented film director (SUBURBIA, ‘The Boys Next Door,’ ‘Wayne’s World,’ ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’) producer (‘Real Life’), documentarian (‘The Decline of Western Civilization’ trilogy, ‘We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n Roll’), actress, screenwriter, and videographer. She has enjoyed success in both the independent film and Hollywood studio arenas, collecting numerous honors and currently receiving well-earned lifetime achievement awards. She joins us to introduce SUBURBIA and discuss her five-decade career making cinematic art.