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55th Anniversary Screening of Akira Kurosawa’s YOJIMBO on 4/19 in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA

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Kurosawa’s YOJIMBO (1962) screens Wednesday, April 19, at 7PM in West LA, Encino, and Pasadena. Presented on Blu-ray. Click here for tickets.

Laemmle Theatres and Anniversary Classics Abroad present a 55th anniversary screening of Akira Kurosawa’s YOJIMBO, a vivid tongue-in-cheek samurai Western. Kurosawa’s favorite actor, Toshiro Mifune, plays an amoral samurai in 19th century Japan. In a setup reminiscent of many classic Westerns (Shane in particular), Mifune’s Sanjuro strides into town and tries to reconcile a battle between two warring factions. But in this case both of the gangs are equally corrupt, and our hero is no more upright. He eventually wreaks havoc on all the combatants. The swordfights have visceral force, and the violence is always leavened with humor. As Pauline Kael wrote, “Yojimbo is a glorious comedy-satire of force… explosively comic and exhilarating.”

The film also proved to be enormously influential to a later generation of filmmakers. It inspired another perfectly amoral Western, Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, in which Clint Eastwood’s The Man With No Name became the spaghetti Western equivalent of the cheeky samurai killer. Later directors Walter Hill and Quentin Tarantino also cited Yojimbo as an influence.

YOJIMBO is the second installment in our Anniversary Classics Abroad series, presented on the third Wednesday of each month. The series continues with Pietro Germi’s DIVORCE ITALIAN STYLE on May 17 and Ingmar Bergman’s SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT on June 21.

For more about our Anniversary Classics Series, visit www.laemmle.com/ac and join our Facebook Group.

45th Anniversary Screening of THE RULING CLASS with Director Peter Medak in Person April 25th in West LA.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 45th anniversary screening of THE RULING CLASS starring Peter O’Toole followed by a Q&A with director Peter Medak on Tuesday, April 25th at 7 PM at the Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles. Presented on DVD. Click here for tickets.

This biting black comedy, in the tradition of such British classics as Kind Hearts and Coronets, focuses on a fierce battle for succession within an aristocratic family. Peter O’Toole plays a paranoid schizophrenic nobleman who believes himself to be Jesus Christ. When he is elevated to a top position, his relatives scheme to have him declared insane. O’Toole called the film, adapted from Peter Barnes’ play, “a comedy with tragic relief.” In addition to O’Toole, who earned an Oscar nomination for his vibrant performance, the cast of superb British thespians includes Alastair Sim, Arthur Lowe, Harry Andrews, Coral Browne, and Caroline Seymour.


Leonard Maltin called the film a “hilarious, irreverent black comedy…overflowing with crazy ideas, people bursting into song, boisterously funny characterizations, and one-and-only Sim as befuddled bishop.” Time magazine’s Jay Cocks had high praise for the film’s star: “Funny, disturbing, finally devastating, O’Toole finds his way into the workings of madness.” Over the years since its release, the film has turned into a cult classic.

Peter Medak directed such films as Negatives with Glenda Jackson, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg with Alan Bates and Janet Suzman, The Changeling with George C. Scott, the popular spoof, Zorro: The Gay Blade, and two acclaimed British crime stories, The Krays and Let Him Have It.

For more about our Anniversary Classics Series, visit www.laemmle.com/ac and join our Facebook Group.

Our New Twofer Tuesday Series Begins April 4th with a Double Dose of Bette Davis

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present Twofer Tuesdays, a classic movie double bill that will screen on the first Tuesday of each month as a recurring event at three Laemmle locations.

Our first attraction celebrates Hollywood legend Bette Davis in one of her most beloved roles, NOW, VOYAGER (1942), on its 75 th anniversary. As a bonus feature, we are pairing it with MARKED WOMAN (1937; 80th anniversary) starring Davis and Humphrey Bogart. Both movies will show as a double feature (two movies, one admission price) at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills, NoHo 7 in North Hollywood, and Playhouse 7 in Pasadena.

Click here to buy tickets to the 5PM show of MARKED WOMAN, admission to the 7:15pm NOW, VOYAGER is included. Click here to get tickets to the 7:15PM show of  NOW, VOYAGER, admission to the 9:45pm MARKED WOMAN is included.

NOW, VOYAGER is considered a consummate “woman’s film,” a genre that was Davis’ forte in her heyday in Hollywood’s Golden Age of the 1930s and 40s, an era that she ruled as a top box office star.

The plush melodrama, based on a novel by Olive Higgins Prouty (author of “Stella Dallas,” another classic tale of a self-sacrificing, independent woman), was adapted by Casey Robinson (Dark Victory) and directed by Irving Rapper (Deception).

The film was nominated for 3 Academy Awards, including Davis as Best Actress as a repressed spinster who emerges from her shell in one of the screen’s most dramatic makeovers.

Co-starring Paul Henreid as her suave romantic partner, Oscar nominee Gladys Cooper (Supporting Actress) as her domineering mother and Claude Rains (one of Davis’ favorite actors), as a paternal psychiatrist; the film was a huge commercial hit, the biggest box office success for Davis in that period.

In “The Essentials: 52 Must-See Movies and Why They Matter,” author Jeremy Arnold calls it “a movie that has stood the test of time for its high entertainment value, romanticism, and subversive theme of female empowerment.”

Featuring a lushly romantic Oscar-winning score by Max Steiner, and with one of the most memorable closing lines in movie history, Now, Voyager was added to the National Film Registry in 2007.

Our bonus feature, MARKED WOMAN stars Davis as a nightclub “hostess” who becomes the target of a vengeful mobster (Eduardo Ciannelli), who in turn is prosecuted by a crusading district attorney (Humphrey Bogart). Co-written by Robert Rossen (All the King’s Men, The Hustler) and Abem Finkel (Jezebel, Sergeant York), and directed by Lloyd Bacon (42 nd Street), the movie is notable for its “torn from the headlines” realism that characterized Warner Bros. style in the 1930s.

Because of the censorious Production Code, the brothel employing Davis’ character was disguised as a clip joint. Davis’ assured performance and the film’s success contributed to her rise as queen of the Warner’s lot, a position she held for the next decade.

The Twofer Tuesdays double feature of NOW, VOYAGER and MARKED WOMAN plays April 4 at three locations: Ahrya Fine Arts, NoHo 7, and Pasadena Playhouse 7. Special Introduction by film historian Jeremy Arnold at the Ahrya Fine Arts only.

NOW, VOYAGER plays at 7:15 pm; MARKED WOMAN at 5:00 pm and 9:45 pm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyryB44kq64

Art in the Arthouse presents TRIMBLED at the Royal

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Laemmle’s Art in the Arthouse is proud to announce our newest exhibit, TRIMBLED, showcasing the works of artist SCOTT TRIMBLE. The show appears at the Royal Theatre through May 2017.

Curated by Joshua Elias, the exhibit features gestural oil paintings that tap into the psyche of the artist – and the world at large – in an arresting and provocative manner.  Trimble’s unique application of color is also fascinating to behold.  Don’t miss seeing Trimbled in person!

Join us for the artist reception:
Laemmle Royal
Thursday, March 30, 7-9pm
RSVP HERE 

About the Exhibit:

Based in Hermosa Beach, SSMALL_09 There I saw the three flowers of my futureCOTT TRIMBLE is a graduate of USC’s School of Cinema and Television where he focused on film history and criticism. He now creates psychological portraits in oil.

A Trimble Game: Walk down the aisle and take in each of Trimble’s paintings. Read the titles of each painting aloud to your self and move on. Then double back.

You will not be the same person. Moved through movement, visual richness, and a distinct phraseology you will be lent a hand, a journey, and a lens from the vantage point of the artist.

This is an experiential show – a blur inside a whir. It is a period in time where nothing makes sense. The paintings fragments are held together through poetic phrases, animated beings, cagey, sometimes frightened figures, not so carefully fielding their steps across a landscape within a room.

Rife with contradiction, each work is a navigation in an unnavigable urban setting. This noir mise-en-scene is a political horror house, where an implausible arm of a figure is reaching around the corners searching for the edge. Grappling for significance, in a world of continual motion, Trimble’s paintings offer a soulful rope to the long climb ahead.

– Joshua Elias, Curator

Critical Review for Scott Trimble:

Shana Nys Dambrot writing for the Huffington Post

LAEMMLE LIVE: presents Street Symphony with Vijay Gupta – Sunday, April 30, 2017

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FALL16-Gupta-Box-01 2Please join us for a very special event as LAEMMLE LIVE presents STREET SYMPHONY Sunday, April 30, 2017. Vijay Gupta, LA Philharmonic violinist and founder of STREET SYMPHONY will perform with fellow Street Symphony musicians, Jin Shan Dai, violin; Michael Larco, viola; and Dahae Kim, cello.  Their program will include Dvořák: String Quartet #12 “American” and music by Duke Ellington. KUSC Announcer Rich Capparela will host and join Vijay in conversation to raise awareness of the humanity of people experiencing homelessness.  We are honored Street Symphony, a ground-breaking non-profit that connects professional musicians with these communities is bringing this life-affirming program to Santa Monica.

Today, Skid Row is the epicenter of the homeless capital of the United States. Nearly 20,000 people may sleep on the streets of downtown Los Angeles on any given night. Los Angeles County jails are the largest in America, and are effectively the largest in-patient mental health centers in the world. These communities comprise the audiences of Street Symphony. 

Street SymphonyIn the course of the last 4 years, the distinguished musicians of Street Symphony have presented nearly 200 free, live musical engagements with the Los Angeles community, presenting events in Skid Row, the greater Los Angeles Area and the LA County Jails. They bring jazz. They bring gypsy music. They bring the works of Schumann, Schubert and Mendelssohn. They bring music to lift up the brave stories and voices of people who, although living in an impoverished situation, are in no way impoverished in spirit.

VIJAY GUPTA is a violinist, speaker, and passionate advocate for the dedicated presence of citizen-artists in social and civic discourse. Gupta joined the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2007 at the age of 19, after completing an undergraduate degree in biology and a Master’s degree in violin performance from the Yale School of Music. Gupta made his solo debut with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Zubin Mehta at age 11 and has performed on an international scale since the age of 8. 

A gifted spokesperson for the power of arts to change lives, Gupta believes that musical engagement reconnects us to our shared humanity across vast divides, and ultimately impacts social justice. Gupta is a TED Senior Fellow and currently serves on the board of directors of the DC-based national arts advocacy organization Americans for the Arts. In 2015, at the age of 27, he was presented with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by the University of La Verne.

Vijay Gupta currently plays a 1731 Domenico Montagnana violin on generous loan through the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association.

RSVP using Eventbrite
This is a Free Event

EVENT DETAILS
Sunday, April 30, 2017
11:00 AM
Monica Film Center

Q&A with Scott Wilson Following Our 50th Anniversary Screening of IN COLD BLOOD on March 22th in West LA.

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scott-wilson-enewsLaemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of IN COLD BLOOD (1967), followed by a Q&A with actor Scott Wilson on March 22 at 7:00 PM at the Royal Theater in West Los Angeles. Click here for tickets.

In Cold Blood, the film version of Truman Capote’s immensely popular “nonfiction novel,” was nominated for four top Oscars in 1967. Richard Brooks received two nominations, for Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, and the film was also nominated for Conrad Hall’s striking cinematography and Quincy Jones’ memorable score.

In his best-selling book, Capote chronicled the events leading up to and following the senseless murders of a family of four in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. He drew a pointed contrast between the prosperous, all-American Clutter family and the two social outsiders, Perry Smith and Richard Hickok, who committed the murders.

In adapting the book, Brooks (the Oscar-winning writer-director of such films as The Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elmer Gantry, and Sweet Bird of Youth) resolved to be as faithful as possible to Capote’s chronicle, even filming in many of the actual locations where the events took place. With Capote’s encouragement, Brooks cast unknown actors as the two killers, and the performances of Robert Blake as Smith and Scott Wilson as Hickok earned critical raves. More established actors John Forsythe, Paul Stewart, and Will Geer filled out the supporting cast. Brooks also bucked the industry practice and decided to shoot the film in black-and-white at a time when color cinematography had become virtually mandatory for big-studio films.

Reviews at the time were largely positive. The Saturday Review’s Arthur Knight declared the film to be “one of the finest pictures of the year, and possibly of the decade.” Its reputation has not diminished. In an article in The Wall Street Journal in January of 2017, critic Peter Cowie called the film “a classic of American cinema” and added, “In Cold Blood retains its relevance today, even as random shootings continue to appall.”

Scott Wilson made his film debut earlier in 1967, in the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night. In Cold Blood was only his second movie. He went on to co-star in John Frankenheimer’s The Gypsy Moths, the Robert Redford version of The Great Gatsby, Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff, The New Centurions, The Ninth Configuration, and more recent appearances in Dead Man Walking, The Last Samurai, Monster, and Junebug. He also is known for his roles in the popular TV series CSI and The Walking Dead.

For more about our Anniversary Classics Series, including an upcoming screening of AVANTI, visit www.laemmle.com/ac and join our Facebook Group.

55th anniversary screening of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? on March 11th in Beverly Hills

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 55th anniversary screening of the cult classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, on March 11 at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts theater in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

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The new FX miniseries “Feud,” about the rivalry between Davis and Crawford while shooting the movie, will begin airing on March 5. This special anniversary screening will coincide with all the attention that juicy miniseries will surely receive. And there are undeniable parallels between Hollywood in 1962 and 2017. Feud’s lead actresses, Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange, probably face some of the same prejudice against aging actresses that plagued Davis and Crawford 55 years ago.

Baby Jane, a surprise box office smash, was nominated for 5 Academy Awards, including Bette Davis as Best Actress. It won the Oscar for black-and white costume design, and among its other nominations were newcomer Victor Buono (supporting actor) in his screen debut, and veteran cinematographer Ernest Haller (Oscar winner for Gone With the Wind).

Baby Jane is now regarded notoriously as a “camp classic,” and for teaming Hollywood legends Davis and Crawford who were at low points in their movie careers in 1962. There were very few good roles for aging actresses in that era, and studio disinterest forced the faded movie queens to seek unorthodox parts. The Henry Farrell novel about the psychological rivalry between two reclusive sisters, former actresses holed up in Hollywood obscurity seemed tailor-made.

Producer-Director Robert Aldrich hired Lukas Heller to write the screenplay, and the expert mix of black comedy and suspense, along with powerful acting by the cast, made the film a worldwide success. It revived the careers of both Davis and Crawford, restoring their places in the Hollywood pantheon, and spawned a genre of Grand Dame Guignol that gave other older actresses roles for the next decade.

Part of the appeal of the film was the alleged off-screen rivalry between Davis and Crawford, and that feud sparked great interest by both the stars’ fans and the press.

Show, the 60s magazine of the arts, salivated at the prospect: “For fans who are getting on, there is one certain treat in store. Bette Davis and Joan Crawford will be together in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, a melodrama about the murderous rivalry between two sisters, onetime film stars. Or is it perhaps Joan Crawford and Bette Davis?”

Among divided critical reception at the time, the Chicago Daily News saw “…the outlines of a modern Greek tragedy. Yet it is great fun, too, because this is pure cinema drama set in a real house of horrors.”

Whether seen as a “campy thriller” or a well-crafted domestic film noir, the movie’s appeal has lasted to this day. The FX series “Feud” testifies to its impact.

We will screen What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? with a trivia contest and special introduction on the movie’s backstory and enduring legacy. Shows Saturday March 11 (7:30 PM) at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

For more about our Anniversary Classics Series, including an upcoming screening of IN COLD BLOOD, visit www.laemmle.com/ac and join our Facebook Group.

MOONLIT Laemmle Oscar Contest 2017 Results!

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MOONLIGHTThe results of Sunday’s Oscars were pretty ho-hum right up until somewhere around the 245th minute, when we all witnessed the most embarrassing accounting error of all time. Apparently the gentleman from PricewaterhouseCoopers was more focused on his star-struck tweeting than making sure he gave Warren Beatty the right envelope. However, let’s not let this snafu obscure the fact that the Academy surprised everyone and honored a genuinely marvelous film, Moonlight, only the second Best Picture Winner about LGBTQ people (the first was Midnight Cowboy) and the first with an all-African American cast.

Anyway, in our little Oscar contest, the winner was the only one with 20 correct, so they stood alone at the top. For the 2nd-5th place winners, 24 people correctly guessed 18 categories – and even with the Tie-Break question about the show’s running time there were still multiple ties.

Interestingly, for Best Picture, our winner picked La La Land – which for about two minutes was the correct answer – but they still beat their competition by two answers. Among the winners, the difficult categories were Best Picture (Moonlight or La La Land), Best Actor (Denzel Washington or Casey Affleck), Best Sound Mixing (La La Land or Hacksaw Ridge), and Best Live Action Short.

Congratulations to all. If we’ve heard back from you, your Laemmle Premiere Cards are en route. And Moonlight is back in theaters.

20 correct
1st Place) Mariano A. of Beverly Hills.

18 Correct – 1 minute off official time
Tie 2nd) Jen M. of Pasadena.
Tie 2nd) Marina O. of Los Angeles.

18 Correct – 6 minutes off official time
3rd Place) Martha C. of Valley Village.

18 Correct – 8 minutes off official time
Tie 4th) Tristan K. of West Hollywood.
Tie 4th) Cory G. of Los Angeles.
Tie 4th) Jacob W. of Los Angeles.

18 Correct – 9 minutes off official time
5th Place) Rachel S. of West Hollywood.