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GOLDFINGER Starring Sean Connery: 55th Anniversary Screening on December 30th in West L.A.

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As a special moviegoing treat for the holiday season, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the movie that is generally regarded as the best in the spectacularly successful 007 franchise, GOLDFINGER (1964).

When it opened in December 1964, the third James Bond film scored an instant success that insured the durability of the series. It is now the longest-running franchise in cinema history, with a new entry coming in the spring of 2020, almost 60 years after Bond made his first screen appearance. Even with a lot of spectacular followup films, GOLDFINGER remains—shall we say—the gold standard.

Roger Ebert called it his favorite Bond film, and in 2006 Entertainment Weekly also named it as the best of the Bonds. It remains the highest rated Bond movie on Rotten Tomatoes, with a score of 97 per cent positive.

This film includes all the elements that Bond fans adore—thrilling action sequences, drily witty dialogue, nefarious and memorable villains, a bevy of Bond girls headed by Honor Blackman’s Pussy Galore, and a title song that may be the best loved of all Bond theme songs, written by John Barry, Anthony Newley, and Leslie Bricusse and sizzlingly performed by the inimitable Shirley Bassey.

Sean Connery exudes charisma, and the cast includes Gert Frobe as the greedy Goldfinger, Harold Sakata as his sadistic henchman Oddjob, Shirley Eaton as one of Bond’s paramours who meets a dire fate, and series regulars Bernard Lee as M, Desmond Llewelyn as Q, and Lois Maxwell as Moneypenny. Guy Hamilton (who went on to direct three more Bond films) directed the screenplay by Richard Maibaum and Paul Dehn, from the Ian Fleming novel.

The story centers around Goldfinger’s plot to rob Fort Knox, and since U.S. authorities would not allow anyone inside the national mint, even for research purposes, the brilliant production designer Ken Adam (who designed several of the Bond pictures and won two Oscars, including one for Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon) used pure imagination to build the set at Pinewood Studios outside London.

The film was also the first Bond movie to introduce a series of elaborate gadgets, including an Aston Martin DB5, that helped Bond to foil his adversaries. Stunt coordinator Bob Simmons played a crucial role in orchestrating the spectacular fight scenes, and the movie was the first Bond film to win an Oscar—for sound effects editing.

The film’s budget was $3 million, which was the cost of the first two Bond movies (Dr. No and From Russia With Love) combined, and it made back its cost after just two weeks in release. Interest was so high in December 1964 that the DeMille Cinema in New York stayed open for 24 hours straight to accommodate the crowds.

Reviews were also enthusiastic. In London Derek Prouse of the Sunday Times called it “superbly engineered…most entertainingly preposterous,” and the Guardian hailed “the most exciting, the most extravagant of the Bond films.”

Donald Zec of the Daily Mirror added, “Ken Adam’s set designs are brilliant.”

In the United States, Boxoffice Magazine praised the film as “so cleverly directed at breakneck speed by Guy Hamilton that patrons scarcely have time to catch their breath.”

For this special screening, enjoy a Bond trivia contest and other fun extras. And you might want to have a martini before the show. “Shaken, not stirred,” of course.

Our 55th anniversary screening of GOLDFINGER begins at 7pm on Monday, December 30th at the Laemmle Royal in West L.A. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

Laemmle’s Anniversary Classics presents THE TINGLER and THEM, a Halloween Eve Double Feature on October 30 in North Hollywood.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present our annual scary October program of classic fright films with a double bill of 1950s black-and-white hits: the 65th anniversary of THEM! (1954), paired with the 60th anniversary of THE TINGLER (1959). The vintage horror entries will show in a retro double feature (two movies for the price of one) on Halloween Eve, Wednesday, October 30 at the Laemmle NoHo.

THEM!, considered one of the very best of the 1950s monster movies, tapped into the era’s nuclear paranoia with its tale of giant mutated ants terrorizing the American Southwest.

Unlike many of the low-budget films that capitalized on atomic era fears, THEM! was a major production for Warner Bros., hoping to repeat the commercial success of their 1952 release, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. They assigned studio contract director Gordon Douglas to helm a script written by Ted Sherdeman, Russell Hughes, and George Worthing Yates with a strong cast headed by James Whitmore, Oscar winner Edmund Gwenn (Miracle on 34th Street), James Arness, Joan Weldon and newcomer Fess Parker.

Accomplished cinematographer Sidney Hickox (The Big Sleep, White Heat) and venerable composer Bronislau Kaper (San Francisco, Lili, Mutiny on the Bounty) contributed first-rate work, along with special effects that garnered an Academy Award nomination that year.

Variety capsulized the favorable reviews: “top-notch science fiction shocker. It has a well-plotted story, expertly directed and acted in matter-of-fact style to rate a chiller payoff and thoroughly satisfy fans of hackle-raising melodrama.”

THE TINGLER is a classic of another sort – cultish camp – with its outlandish story of a doctor who discovers a fear-bred organism in the base of the spine. If released, the centipede creature’s grip can kill, only alleviated by a scream.

Producer-director William Castle, one of the period’s rival “king of the Bs,” enlisted writer Robb White to concoct the story, cited by Time Out as “ingeniously ludicrous.” Castle and White had collaborated twice before and hit box office pay dirt with the low-budget hit House on Haunted Hill in 1958. But shlockmeister Castle’s real talents were as a huckstering showman, and he provided a marketing gimmick doozy in “Percepto,” with vibrating buzzers wired to theater seats to jolt the audience when the creature is unleashed.

The good doctor, played by Vincent Price, would then instruct the theater audience to “scream for your lives” to keep the marauding tingler at bay. Price had been the star of House on Haunted Hill and then went on to become the “the master of menace” for a dueling “king of the Bs,” Roger Corman, with his adaptations of the works of Edgar Allan Poe in the early 1960s.

At the time of its release, the New York Times’ Howard Thompson dismissed THE TINGLER as a prime example of Castle “serving some of the worst, dullest little horror entries ever to snake into movie houses.”

Today audiences are mightily amused by the brand of scary mayhem Castle specialized in, endorsing Leonard Maltin’s assessment of THE TINGLER as a ”preposterous but original shocker.”

One night only, enjoy an early Halloween treat (no tricks here) – two vintage horror movies back on the big screen in a classic double feature on Wednesday, October 30 at the Laemmle NoHo. Click here for tickets.

Formats: THE TINGLER, DCP; THEM!, Blu-ray.

THE NATURAL 35th Anniversary Screening and Q&A with Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel & Screenwriter Roger Towne.

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At the climax of baseball season, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a screening of the film regarded as one of the greatest of all baseball movies, Barry Levinson’s THE NATURAL.

Adapted from the acclaimed 1952 novel by Bernard Malamud, the film earned four Academy Award nominations in 1984: Best Supporting Actress Glenn Close, Best Cinematography Caleb Deschanel, Best Musical Score Randy Newman and Best Art Direction.

The beautiful, impeccably designed recreation of an earlier era in American sports history also scored at the box office. Robert Redford plays the title character, and the all-star cast also includes Robert Duvall, Kim Basinger, Wilford Brimley, Barbara Hershey, Richard Farnsworth, and Joe Don Baker.

Malamud’s story, adapted for the screen by Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry, tells the story of a young baseball prodigy named Roy Hobbs (Redford) who travels from his bucolic Midwestern home to try out for the Chicago Cubs. On his journey he is assaulted by a mysterious woman, and disappears for some 15 years. When he reappears and tries out for a New York team, the owners and manager are skeptical that a middle-aged man can ever succeed in the majors. But Roy’s skills as a slugger silence the skeptics and encourage the owners to give him a shot. His rise to the top is complicated by his romance with a rather shady woman (Basinger) and by the reappearance of his childhood sweetheart (Close), who has a surprise revelation that disorients Roy.

In addition to the rousing baseball scenes and the poignant personal story, the film captivates as a lush evocation of a more innocent American past. Cinematographer Deschanel, who had made his mark with his work on Carroll Ballard’s ‘The Black Stallion’ and Philip Kaufman’s ‘The Right Stuff,’ made a major contribution in bringing the era to life. Levinson also made an unconventional choice in selecting new composer Randy Newman to create the rousing symphonic score.

Although the filmmakers altered the dark ending of Malamud’s novel, they retained his piercing insights into some of the contradictions of the American character. The film earned mixed reviews at the time, but its reputation has grown. James Berardinelli of ReelViews called THE NATURAL “arguably the best baseball movie ever made,” and ESPN also called it one of the best sports movies of all time. On its original release Gene Siskel declared, “Redford scores in an uplifting celebration of the individual.”

Deschanel has earned six Oscar nominations over the course of his career. In addition to nominations for THE NATURAL and ‘The Right Stuff,’ he was cited for his work on Mel Gibson’s blockbuster, ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ and for ‘The Patriot,’ ‘Fly Away Home,’ and last year’s Oscar nominee for best foreign language film, ‘Never Look Away.’ This year Deschanel shot Disney’s smash-hit live-action version of ‘The Lion King.’

Our 35th anniversary presentation of THE NATURAL (1984) and Q&A with cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and screenwriter Roger Towne screens Thursday, October 24, at 7PM at the Royal in West LA. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

Forty-Fifth Anniversary Screenings of Louis Malle’s LACOMBE LUCIEN on October 16th

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present our Anniversary Classics Abroad program for October: Louis Malle’s LACOMBE LUCIEN, nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1974.

The film was one of the movies, following Marcel Ophuls’ monumental documentary ‘The Sorrow and the Pity,’ that scrutinized French collaboration with the Nazis during World War II.

Malle’s movie tells a fictional but provocative story, written by the director and novelist Patrick Modiano, about a teenage boy who savors the power he accrues when he joins the Gestapo during the final months of the war.

LACOMBE LUCIEN takes place in 1944, after the Allies have landed in Normandy but the Nazis are still fighting to retain their hold on the country. Lucien Lacombe is an uneducated peasant boy who first tries to escape his humdrum life by volunteering for the Resistance.

When they reject him for being too young, he stumbles into an opportunity working for the Gestapo in his town and discovers a taste and talent for brutality. His loyalties are complicated, however, when he falls in love with a beautiful Jewish girl who is in hiding with her father and grandmother.

Malle found a brand new actor, Pierre Blaise, to play the part of Lucien. He was working as a woodcutter when Malle discovered him. Although his debut performance was highly acclaimed, Blaise’s career was cut tragically short when he died in a car crash just a year after the release of the film. But Aurore Clement, cast as the young Jewish girl, went on to have a long and rewarding career in French cinema, even appearing in some American movies like ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Paris, Texas.’

Distinguished European actors Therese Giehse and Holger Lowenadler filled out the cast. Lowenadler, who played Clement’s cultivated father, was voted best supporting actor of the year by both the National Society of Film Critics and the National Board of Review.

Critics praised the film for its dispassionate insight into how perfectly ordinary people could be seduced by a taste of power and violence. Pauline Kael wrote, “Malle’s film is a long, close look at the banality of evil; it is—not incidentally—one of the least banal movies ever made.”

The New York Times’ Vincent Canby wrote, “’Lacombe Lucien’ is easily Mr. Malle’s most ambitious, most provocative film.” Leonard Maltin called it a “subtle, complex tale of guilt, innocence, and the amorality of power; masterfully directed.”

Although it is a vivid historical recreation, the film remains startlingly timely in its examination of the deadly lure of fascism.

LACOMBE LUCIEN screens Wednesday, October 16, at 7PM in Glendale, Pasadena, and West LA. Click here for tickets.

Celebrate 40 years of George Harrison’s HandMade Films at THE OTHER HANDMADE’S TALE FILM FESTIVAL

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HandMade Films was the boutique movie company created by George Harrison to finance MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN. Started by a Beatle to help some Pythons, the company went on to revitalize the British film industry with movies such as TIME BANDITS, WITHNAIL & I, MONA LISA, and many others.

Celebrate 40 years of HandMade Films with the first-ever U.S. retrospective of the films made by the studio. THE OTHER HANDMADE’S TALE runs Thursday, October 10th through Sunday, October 20th at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. presented by The Mods & Rockers Film Festival in association with Laemmle Theatres.

Opening night on Thursday, October 10th will feature the U.S. Premiere of the brand-new documentary about HandMade Films, AN ACCIDENTAL STUDIO, with unreleased archive interviews and footage with Harrison, new and exclusive interviews with Michael Palin, Terry Gilliam, Richard E. Grant and Neil Jordan plus previously-unseen interview footage with Bob Hoskins.

A few additional highlights from the festival include:

  • A Bob Hoskins double feature of MONA LISA (1986) and THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (1981).
  • MONTY PYTHON’S LIFE OF BRIAN (1979) with producer John Goldstone and musical director John Altman in person!
  • A Richard E. Grant double feature of HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING (1989) and WITHNAIL AND I (1987).
  • TIME BANDITS (1981).
  • NUNS ON THE RUN (1990) in 35mm.
  • And much, much more!

Click here for full details and schedule of films!

New Restoration of Joseph Losey’s MR. KLEIN Starring Alain Delon and Jeanne Moreau Opens October 11 at the Playhouse, Royal & Town Center.

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Joseph Losey’s MR. KLEIN (1976), a long-unseen masterwork from the director of The Servant and Accident and writer Franco Solinas (The Battle of Algiers), starring Alain Delon, with a special appearance by Jeanne Moreau, opens Friday, October 11 at Laemmle’s Playhouse/Pasadena, Royal/West L.A. and Town Center/Encino.

MR. KLEIN was blacklisted American director Losey’s first film in French, with a screenplay by Solinas and assistant director Fernando Morandi, and an uncredited Costa-Gavras (Z), who was originally to direct. In a full-length article in a recent issue of the New Yorker, critic Anthony Lane calls Rialto Picture’s reissue of MR. KLEIN “an event” and adds that “all good films come to those who wait.” Lane compares MR. KLEIN to another film about the Occupation, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows, which Rialto released in the U.S. for the first time in 2006.

Alain Delon in Joseph Losey’s MR. KLEIN (1976). Courtesy: Rialto Pictures/Studiocanal

An indictment of French complicity on the eve of the infamous Vélodrome d’Hiver roundup, with Claude Levy (one of the chief interviewees in Marcel Ophüls’ The Sorrow and the Pity) as historical consultant, MR. KLEIN was received coldly by French audiences, who objected to its depiction of wartime collaboration. Yet it still went on to represent France for the Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or and would win three Césars (French Oscars) for Best Film, Director, and Production Design by the legendary Alexandre Trauner, whose remarkable credits include everything from Marcel Carné’s Children of Paradise and Jules Dassin’s Rififi to Orson Welles’ Othello and Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.

Occupied Paris, 1942. Alain Delon’s Catholic Robert Klein seems to be sitting pretty, with attractive mistress Juliet Berto (Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating), and an apartment crammed full of expensive paintings, sculpture, tapestries — and mirrors — most of which he’s bought at fire sale prices from Jews eager to emigrate/flee. But then he finds a Jewish newspaper delivered to his doorstep, and the protests and desperate search for his Aryan heritage begins, so desperate that his attempts to establish his identity start to come second to a frenzied search for his doppelgänger, a search that comes to an unforeseen, but perhaps inevitable end.

“For hunters of rarities and students of wartime oppression, the emergence of MR. KLEIN will be an event to match that of another fierce appraisal of Occupied France, Jean-Pierre Melville’s Army of Shadows, which finally arrived on American screens in 2006, thirty-seven years after it was made. All good films come to those who wait.”
— Anthony Lane, The New Yorker

“MR. KLEIN remains as strong and thought-provoking a film as it was over 40 years ago.” — Mitchell Abidor, Jewish Currents

“Long unseen and worth revisiting…a historical reconstruction with a modernist tone, evoking both Kafka and Borges.” — J. Hoberman

“Played off Losey’s acquired paranoia from the McCarthy days…it has insidious things to say about the bonhomie of collaboration…Delon’s KLEIN, numb but deeply intelligent, cut off from society by some masquerade but then through the discovery of alienation itself, is extraordinary…It is a film of frozen, listless faces, the perfect currency of occupation.” — David Thomson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkvEzNeiQLI&feature=youtu.be

FIlm Noir Double Feature: 75th Anniversary Screenings of DOUBLE INDEMNITY and LAURA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a double dose of classic film noir in the popular Twofer program (two features for the price of one) with 75th anniversary screenings of DOUBLE INDEMNITY and LAURA, two of the most lauded films of 1944 and the entire noir canon.

The double feature will screen at two Laemmle locations: Pasadena Playhouse on September 26 and Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills on September 28.

DOUBLE INDEMNITY is writer – director Billy Wilder’s film adaptation (with co-scripter Raymond Chandler) of a crime novella by James M. Cain, a tawdry tale of an insurance salesman (Fred MacMurray) and duplicitous dame (Barbara Stanwyck), who scheme to murder Stanwyck’s businessman husband for the insurance proceeds. After pulling off the seeming “perfect crime,” the lethal lovers come under the scrutiny of MacMurray’s claims adjuster colleague (Edward G. Robinson), who smells something rotten in the film’s setting, the Hollywood hills.

LAURA is producer-director Otto Preminger’s film version of Vera Caspary’s novel (adapted for the screen Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, Betty Reinhardt, Ring Lardner Jr. and Jerry Cady, the latter two uncredited) about the murder of a beautiful socialite (Gene Tierney) and the spell she cast over three suitors: cynical columnist (Clifton Webb), playboy gigolo (Vincent Price), and necrophiliac detective (Dana Andrews).

The title character’s wealthy aunt (Judith Anderson), who yearns for Price, is also among the suspects. When Tierney, who is more a fascinating female than an archetypical femme fatale, turns up very much alive, the mystery deepens. Set among the sophisticates of Manhattan, Laura is a cosmopolitan counterpart to the middle class denizens and atmosphere of Double Indemnity.

Both films share key film noir elements, including sharp edged black-and-white cinematography (John Seitz, Double Indemnity; Joseph LaShelle, Laura), taut structure, well-crafted dialogue (Raymond Chandler’s main contribution to Double Indemnity), and low motives matched with high style. The two films also showcase masterful music (Miklos Rosza’s Oscar-nominated Double Indemnity score and David Raskin’s memorably haunting Laura).

Among the acting highlights, Clifton Webb’s acid-tongued turn in Laura was described wryly as “sophistry personified” by the New York Times, which also praised Dana Andrews as closely matching Webb’s incisive performance. Double Indemnity features Barbara Stanwyck’s expert take on the noir wicked woman, described by Pauline Kael as “the best acted and the most fixating of all the slutty, cold-blooded femme fatales of the film noir genre.” Kael also singled out Edward G. Robinson’s “easy mastery” in his sympathetic role.

Double Indemnity reaped seven Academy Award nominations, including best picture, director, actress, and screenplay. Laura scored five nods, including director, supporting actor (Webb), and screenplay, winning for LaShelle’s black-and white cinematography. Both films were added to the National Film Registry in the Library of Congress.

Laemmle’s Anniversary Classics twofer program of Double Indemnity and Laura will screen on separate dates and venues: Thursday, September 26 at the Pasadena Playhouse, and Saturday, September 28 at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills.

On Thursday, September 26th in Pasadena, LAURA screens at 5:15pm and 9:15pm. DOUBLE INDEMNITY screens at 7pm. Click here for tickets to the 5:15pm LAURA with the 7pm DOUBLE INDEMNITY included. Or, click here for tickets to the 7pm DOUBLE INDEMNITY with the 9:15pm LAURA included.

On Saturday, September 28th in Beverly Hills, DOUBLE INDEMNITY screens at 7:15pm with the 9:15pm LAURA with included. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP.

25th Anniversary Screenings of BELLE EPOQUE September 18 in Glendale, Pasadena, and West LA.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the latest offering in their monthly Abroad program with 25th anniversary screenings of the American release (and Oscar winner) of the delightful Spanish comedy BELLE EPOQUE. The Academy Award winner for foreign-language film will play at three Laemmle locations: West Los Angeles, Glendale, and Pasadena on September 18.

Starring Penelope Cruz (Oscar winner for Vicky Christina Barcelona) in only her second film, the period pastorale is set in 1931 with the beginning of the disruptive Spanish Civil War, chronicling the amorous adventures of a young Army deserter, Fernando (Jorge Sanz), who seeks refuge in the country house of a reclusive old anarchist painter, Manolo (Fernando Fernan Gomez). After finding employment as the household cook, Sanz also finds his carnal appetites stimulated by Gomez’ four daughters, played by Maribel Verdu, Ariadna Gil, Miriam Diaz-Aroca, and Cruz. As the youngest of the siblings, Cruz impatiently awaits her turn as the amorous partner of Sanz. As the sexual games seemingly reach a climax, the return of the opera singer family matriarch from a world tour with her manager-lover brings the plot to a boil.

Writer-director Fernando Trueba (co-scripting with Rafael Azcona and Jose Luis Garcia Sanchez) concocts the right recipe of food and sex, with a soupçon of political commentary, and the result charmed the Academy, audiences, and critics of the day.

Roger Ebert noted how the film celebrated sensuality and the human body: “Here is a film so inviting you would love to sit in the sun with old Manolo and his friend the priest and talk about the great matters of life.”

Leonard Maltin found the film a “delightfully earthy, cheery comedy.”

The Washington Post enjoyed the “sun-soaked lyricism” and found the performances ingratiating, extolling the film as a “recipe for sensual self-expression.”

Upon receiving the Oscar, Trueba paid tribute to his inspiration in his acceptance speech, “I would like to believe in God in order to thank him, but I just believe in Billy Wilder, so …thank you, Mr. Wilder.”

Our 25th anniversary presentation of BELLE EPOQUE screens on Wednesday, September 18th at 7pm in Glendale, Pasadena, and West LA. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP