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April Fools’ Double Feature of THE PINK PANTHER and A SHOT IN THE DARK

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series invite you to celebrate April Fools’ Day with a double feature starring writer-director Blake Edwards’ inspired creation of accidental mayhem, Inspector Clouseau. Peter Sellers plays the inept French detective to comic perfection in the 55th anniversary screenings of THE PINK PANTHER and A SHOT IN THE DARK on April 1 in Pasadena, North Hollywood, and West LA. Showtime information.

THE PINK PANTHER, the first of a series of films with the blundering sleuth, opened in the United States in April 1964 and was an immediate hit.

Audiences thoroughly enjoyed the jewel heist caper, especially the antics of Sellers, who effectively stole the film from an ensemble cast including David Niven as the suave thief Sir Charles Lytton, Robert Wagner as his playboy nephew, Capucine as Clouseau’s philandering wife, and Claudia Cardinale as the exiled Princess Dala, the owner of the fabulous diamond known as “the Pink Panther.”

Variety found the original screenplay by Edwards and Maurice Richlin (Pillow Talk) “intensely funny,” with kudos to the cast and especially Sellers’ “razor-sharp timing.” Location shooting in the Italian Alps by cinematographer Philip Lathrop in lush Technicolor enhanced the comedy.

Of course, the memorable theme music by Henry Mancini is the film’s greatest legacy. Mancini’s original score was Oscar-nominated and won three Grammy awards, as well as inclusion in the Grammy Hall of Fame. The score is ranked #20 in the AFI’s all-time top 100. In addition, the feline character that cavorted across the screen in the merry main title sequence by the DePatie-Freleng animation studio became an Oscar-winning cartoon star. The film was added to the National Film Registry in 2010.

Edwards, Sellers, and Mancini reunited for A SHOT IN THE DARK, the second of their several collaborations that continued into the 1970s.

Director Edwards enlisted William Peter Blatty to co-write a screen version of the French play by Marcel Archard (adapted by Harry Kurnitz for Broadway). Edwards brought along Inspector Clouseau, who was not a character in the original play, and turned Sellers loose in the murder mystery plot.

Commissioner Dreyfus (Herbert Lom), driven to comic psychosis by Clouseau’s ineptitude, and Clouseau’s servant Cato (Burt Kwuok), characters who would become mainstays in the ensuing movie series with Sellers, appear for the first time. Also starring Elke Sommer as the main murder suspect and veteran actor George Sanders as the owner of the chateau where the bodies keep piling up.

The comedy was released in the summer of 1964 and became an even bigger hit than The Pink Panther. The New Yorker praised Edwards and Blatty for “the good sense to toss the foundation stock out the window and let Mr. Sellers run amok…All in all, extremely jolly.” Mancini created a whole new jazzy theme for Clouseau and the main title’s animation sequence was once again crafted by DePatie and Freleng.

So avoid pranks and hoaxes this April Fools’ and see the real comic deal – the Inspector Clouseau Twofer at three Laemmle locations: Royal, NoHo and Pasadena Playhouse. Two delightful comedies for the price-of-one on Monday, April 1.

Buy tickets to the 5pm A SHOT IN THE DARK with admission to the 7:10pm THE PINK PANTHER included here. Or, buy tickets to the 7:10pm THE PINK PANTHER with admission to the 9:30pm A SHOT IN THE DARK included here.

Format: DVD

Francois Truffaut’s THE 400 BLOWS 60th Anniversary Screenings March 20th in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present this month’s installment of our Anniversary Classics Abroad program. In keeping with the start of spring, we commemorate Francois Truffaut’s evergreen feature film debut, THE 400 BLOWS, which earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Original Screenplay of 1959.

Truffaut’s autobiographical picture, drawn from events in his own childhood, helped to introduce American audiences to the French New Wave. Truffaut had started as a critic for Cahiers du Cinema along with fellow aspiring directors Jean-Luc Godard, Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol. When he unveiled his first feature, he dedicated it to pioneering French critic Andre Bazin.

Critics around the world hailed the arrival of a major new talent. The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther declared, “Not since the 1952 arrival of Rene Clement’s Forbidden Games…have we had from France a cinema that so brilliantly and strikingly reveals the explosion of a fresh creative talent in the directorial field.” Indeed Truffaut won the award for Best Director at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959.

Jean-Pierre Leaud starred as the director’s alter ego, Antoine Doinel, and the character re-appeared in four more films over the course of Truffaut’s career. Albert Remy and Claire Maurier co-star. Another of Truffaut’s frequent collaborators, Henri Decae, provided the lustrous black-and-white cinematography.

The screenplay by Truffaut and Marcel Moussy follows the exploits of Antoine as he battles with his parents, teachers, police, and administrators of the reformatory where he is sent. The director employed an arsenal of fresh cinematic techniques to capture the hero’s irreverent spirit and journey toward liberation. The final freeze frame became one of the most imitated shots in cinema history.

Almost all critics endorsed the film. As Roger Ebert wrote, “The 400 Blows, with all its simplicity and feeling, is in a class by itself.” Directors around the world, including Akira Kurosawa, Luis Bunuel, and Jean Cocteau, also praised Truffaut’s audacious vision. Writing many years later, The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane said, “time has fortified this sharp, slender account of a misbegotten boyhood into one of the unassailable monuments of French cinema.”

THE 400 BLOWS (1959) screens Wednesday, March 20 at 7PM at the Royal, Town Center, and Playhouse. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

KRAMER VS. KRAMER 40th Anniversary Screening with Co-stars Justin Henry and JoBeth Williams In Person

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 40th anniversary screening of the Academy Award-winning best picture of 1979, KRAMER VS. KRAMER. The film, produced by Stanley R. Jaffe, won four other major Oscars — Best Actor Dustin Hoffman, Best Supporting Actress Meryl Streep, Best Director Robert Benton, and Best Adapted Screenplay by Benton, working from the poignant, timely novel by Avery Corman. The film was also named Best Picture of the Year by both the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the New York Film Critics Circle.

The picture touched a nerve for audiences because it was one of the first films to dramatize changing gender roles and the bitter aftermath of divorce. In the opening scene Joanna Kramer (Streep) leaves her self-centered, workaholic husband Ted (Hoffman), forcing him to take over the primary parenting role with their six-year-old son, Billy (Justin Henry). Although Ted bungles the job at first, he eventually establishes a deep bond with his son that is threatened several months later when Joanna returns and sues for custody of Billy. The tense courtroom scenes build to a riveting dramatic climax with an unexpected denouement. Award-winning cinematographer Nestor Almendros made the most of interior and exterior Manhattan locations.

Benton’s achievement is in finding sharp, telling details that illuminate character and heighten the drama inherent in everyday life. As Frank Rich wrote in TIME magazine, “Benton gives his film its depth and complexity by challenging the audience’s preconceptions and snap opinions at every turn.” David Denby of New York magazine concurred: “The Robert Benton movie is a major dramatic work—startling and emotionally involving.” Leonard Maltin called it an “intelligent, beautifully crafted, intensely moving film…acted to perfection by entire cast.”

That ensemble included Jane Alexander, Oscar-nominated for her performance as a caring neighbor; veteran actors Howard Duff and George Coe; and two actors making their film debuts, JoBeth Williams and Justin Henry. Williams, who has a couple of vivid scenes as an advertising colleague of Hoffman’s, went on to star in two of the most memorable films of the early 1980s—Steven Spielberg’s production of ‘Poltergeist’ and Lawrence Kasdan’s ‘The Big Chill.’ She also co-starred in ‘American Dreamer,’ ‘Teachers’ with Nick Nolte, and ‘Memories of Me’ with Billy Crystal. She has had a long career in the theater, in several powerful television movies, and has also worked behind the camera as director and producer.

Justin Henry became the youngest actor ever to be nominated for an Oscar for his piercing performance as Billy. The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann declared that Henry “goes through as wide a range of scenes as he could possibly be asked for, and he is true, absolutely true, every moment. He’s enchanting.” Gene Shalit added, “I have never seen such realistic acting from a child so young.” When he grew older, Henry appeared in such films as John Hughes’ ‘Sixteen Candles,’ ‘Sweet Hearts Dance,’ and in John Frankenheimer’s award-winning TV drama, ‘Andersonville.’ Today he works as an entrepreneur in digital media.

KRAMER VS. KRAMER (1979) plus Q&A with co-stars Justin Henry and JoBeth Williams screens Thursday, March 14 at 7pm at the Laemmle Royal in West LA. Click here for tickets.

March Melness: A Mel Brooks Favorite Every Throwback Thursday in North Hollywood

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Some things just go together—like peanut butter and jelly, rum and coke, rama lama lama ka dinga da dinga dong. And, of course, who could forget the classic pairing of college basketball and Mel Brooks? Unlike March Madness, you won’t need to track 68 NCAA teams. In our March Melness Throwback Thursday series we’ve already narrowed it down to our Final Four: The Producers on March 7, Blazing Saddles on March 14, Young Frankenstein on March 21, and Spaceballs on March 28.

Our Throwback Thursday series screens every Thursday evening at our NoHo 7 theater. Doors open at 7pm, trivia starts at 7:30, and movies begin at 7:40pm. More details at www.laemmle.com/tbt!

The Producers, March 7: Failing producer Max Bialystock and his accountant, Leo Bloom, scam a group of elderly women out of their nest eggs by convincing them to invest in a horrendously offensive Third Reich-themed musical secretly intended to bomb the moment it opens. But when high-brow Broadway audiences mistakenly assume “Springtime for Hitler” is a satire, Bialystock finds himself with the critical acclaim that has long eluded him… and the biggest hit of his career. Format: DCP.

Blazing Saddles, March 14: Vulgar, crude, and occasionally scandalous in its racial humor, this hilarious bad-taste spoof of Western features Cleavon Little as the first black sheriff of a stunned town scheduled for demolition by an encroaching railroad. Format: DCP.

Young Frankenstein, March 21: In this spoof of Mary Shelley’s gothic novel, the grandson of Victor Frankenstein, a neurosurgeon, has spent his life living down the legend of his grandfather, even changing the pronunciation of his name. When he discovers his grandfather’s diary, he begins to feel differently, and returns to the family castle to satisfy his curiosity by replicating his ancestor’s experiments. In the process, he creates one very unique monster. Format: DCP.


Spaceballs, March 28: In a distant galaxy, planet Spaceball has depleted its air supply, leaving its citizens reliant on a product called “Perri-Air.” In desperation, Spaceball’s leader President Skroob orders the evil Dark Helmet to kidnap Princess Vespa of oxygen-rich Druidia and hold her hostage in exchange for air. But help arrives for the Princess in the form of renegade space pilot Lone Starr and his half-man, half-dog partner, Barf. Format: DCP.

A Tribute to Albert Finney: 45th Anniversary Screening of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS on March 7 in West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a tribute to Albert Finney with a 45th anniversary screening of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974) starring Finney in his Oscar-nominated role as Agatha Christie’s master detective, Hercule Poirot.

Finney heads a glittering all-star cast in Sidney Lumet’s lustrous film of Christie’s mystery novel, a smash box-office hit and recipient of six Academy Award nominations that year, with Ingrid Bergman taking home the Oscar as Best Supporting Actress.

Set in 1935, the story centers on Poirot’s attempt to solve the murder of a reviled American millionaire (Richard Widmark) while on the fabled train the Orient Express en route from Istanbul to Calais.

The bevy of suspects include Lauren Bacall as an obnoxious American, Ingrid Bergman as an anxious missionary, Michael York and Jacqueline Bisset as Hungarian royalty, Jean-Pierre Cassel as the conductor, Sean Connery as an English officer with Vanessa Redgrave as his companion, John Gielgud as Widmark’s valet, Anthony Perkins as Widmark’s secretary, Wendy Hiller as a Russian aristocrat, Rachel Roberts as her ladies’ maid, and Martin Balsam as the Italian director of the railroad. All of that talent is sumptuously photographed and costumed by Oscar nominees Geoffrey Unsworth and Tony Walton.

Lumet directs the cast and Oscar-nominated screenplay adaptation by Paul Dehn with a light touch, a tone reinforced by Richard Rodney Bennett’s masterful score and Anne V. Coates’ deft editing. The elegant entertainment impressed audiences and critics alike, with Judith Crist extolling in New York magazine, “Done from top to bottom with such affection and good humor that Dame Agatha’s marvelously intricate whodunit becomes a joyous experience even for non-mystery buffs.”

Albert Finney, who died on February 7 at age 82, first came to prominence in 1960’s Saturday Night and Sunday Morning as an “angry young man” rebelling against a stifling working-class existence in industrial England.

In 1963 he achieved international fame as the rowdy, randy title character Tom Jones, the first of four best actor Oscar nominations. Others include his turn as Poirot in MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS, an aging, embittered actor in The Dresser, and an alcoholic British consul in Under the Volcano. A fifth nomination came for his supporting role as a pugnacious lawyer in Erin Brockovich, His last role was in the James Bond thriller, Skyfall, in 2012.

Finney had made his film debut opposite Laurence Olivier in The Entertainer in 1960, and was hailed as Olivier’s acting successor. He spent long periods throughout his career on the stage, returning to movies and later television to fulfill his acting ambitions. He dismissed accolades that were his due, never attending an Oscar ceremony and turning down a knighthood, which he felt “perpetuated snobbery.”

In 1962 he speculated to the media about why he was an actor. “I think I’m always watching and balancing, and sort of tabulating my emotions,” he said. “And the only way I can lose myself is when I’m acting.”

In MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS he is virtually unrecognizable as Poirot, gaining weight for the role, with slicked-down hair, a French moustache, and beady eyes to aid in the transformation.

Roger Ebert found his performance “brilliant, and high comedy,” and offered an approving appraisal in his review. “It ends with a very long scene in which Poirot asks everyone to be silent, please, while he explains his various theories of the case. He does so in great detail, and it’s fun of a rather malicious sort watching a dozen high-priced stars keep their mouths shut and just listen while Finney masterfully dominates the scene.”

The 45th anniversary screening of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS and tribute to Albert Finney take place at the Royal in West Los Angeles on Thursday, March 7 at 7:00 PM. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

Fiftieth Anniversary Screenings of THE WILD BUNCH with Special Guests in Pasadena and Beverly Hills

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March 1, 2019: We regret to report that Bo Hopkins will not be able to attend the Fine Arts THE WILD BUNCH screening. L.Q. Jones’ attendance is tentative.

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of the iconic and groundbreaking movies of the ’60s, Sam Peckinpah’s THE WILD BUNCH.

This graphically violent and poetic film exploded the very concept of the traditional Western by focusing on a brutal group of outlaws trying to survive at the dawn of the 20th century. Featuring four Oscar-winning actors—William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Ben Johnson, and Edmond O’Brien—along with a startling supporting cast, the film clearly established Peckinpah as one of the top directors of the era.

The director’s classic 1962 Western Ride the High Country had demonstrated his talent, but he ran into conflicts with producers on subsequent projects in the ’60s. The Wild Bunch marked his triumphant return to filmmaking. He wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay with Walon Green, from a story by Green and Roy N. Sickner.

It is set in 1913, on the eve of World War I and in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. A botched robbery in the opening sequence leads the outlaws to seek refuge in Mexico, where they continue to be pursued by a group of bounty hunters hired by the railroad company they have robbed. Robert Ryan, cast as a former friend of Holden’s character, leads the pursuers.

The supporting cast includes Warren Oates, L.Q. Jones, Jaime Sanchez, Bo Hopkins, Strother Martin, Albert Decker, Emilio Fernandez, and Alfonso Arau. Lucien Ballard provided the rich cinematography, and Jerry Fielding wrote the Oscar-nominated score.

But perhaps the most crucial creative collaborator was editor Lou Lombardo, who worked closely with the director to perfect an innovative editing style that incorporated quick, almost subliminal cuts masterfully interspersed with slow motion shots.

The film’s violence was shocking to many viewers at the time, and some critics denounced the film. Others, however, saw the violence as reflecting the disruptions in American society, along with the chaos of the Vietnam War. Life magazine’s Richard Schickel called the film “one of the most important records of the mood of our times and one of the most important American films of the era.” The New York Times’ Vincent Canby hailed the film as “very beautiful and the first truly interesting American-made Westerns in years.”

When cuts that had been made shortly after the film’s release were finally restored for a 1995 reissue, critics were even more ecstatic. Writing in The Baltimore Sun, Michael Sragow declared, “What Citizen Kane was to movie lovers in 1941, The Wild Bunch was to cineastes in 1969.” The film was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 1999.

At the screening on February 26 in Pasadena, W.K. Stratton, the author of a new book, The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah, a Revolution in Hollywood, and the Making of a Legendary Film, will participate in a discussion before the screening. He will also sign copies of his book at the theater. Presented by our friends at Vroman’s Bookstore.

On March 2 in Beverly Hills, we will be joined by three of the creative participants in the film, in addition to author W.K. Stratton. Screenwriter Walon Green won an Academy Award in 1971 for directing the documentary, The Hellstrom Chronicle. He went on to write such films as Sorcerer and The Brinks Job for director William Friedkin and The Border for Tony Richardson. Later he became writer and producer on many popular television series, including Law and Order, ER, Hill Street Blues, and NYPD Blue.

Actor L.Q. Jones worked on several other Peckinpah movies, beginning with Ride the High Country, along with Major Dundee, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. He co-starred in Hang ‘Em High, Hell Is For Heroes, and Martin Scorsese’s Casino.

Bo Hopkins co-starred in Peckinpah’s The Getaway and The Killer Elite, and he also appeared in such films as The Day of the Locust, American Graffiti, Midnight Express, and The Newton Boys. Both actors also have extensive credits in television.

Click here for tickets to the screening on Tuesday, February 26, at 7:00 PM at the Playhouse.

Click here for tickets to the screening on Saturday, March 2, at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts.

Format: Blu-ray

Sixtieth Anniversary Screenings of Marcel Camus’ Palme d’Or Winning BLACK ORPHEUS

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In celebration of Black History Month, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Abroad Series present 60th anniversary screenings of BLACK ORPHEUS on February 20. This retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice story in Greek mythology is set in twentieth-century Rio de Janeiro during Carnival. Writer-director Marcel Camus’ film hit the double jackpot for foreign-language films, winning both the Palme d’Or at Cannes and the Academy Award as the year’s best foreign film.

Based on the play “Orfeu da Conceicao” by Vinicius de Moraes with a screenplay by Camus and Jacques Viot, BLACK ORPHEUS takes place in the working class slums (favela) of Rio. Orfeu (Bruno Mello), a streetcar driver by day and musician at night, falls in love with Eurydice (Marpessa Dawn), new to the city, and courts her through the frantic festival. However, a skeleton-costumed character representing Death also pursues her, and the couple’s attempt to flee results in romantic tragedy. The two unknown leads—Mello, a Brazilian soccer player, and Dawn, an American dancer— help convey a sense of naturalism, but the film is most noteworthy for its irresistible score, composed by Luiz Bonfa and Antonio Carlos Jobim, which propels the drama with a captivating samba beat. The success of the film and recordings of its main themes helped ignite the bossa nova phenomenon of the 1960s.

The film was an enormous art-house hit in its day. Frenchman Camus and the two leads remain best known for this movie, as noted by the Village Voice, “the greatest one-hit wonder import we’ve ever seen.” Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post summed up its appeal: “a riotous, rapturous explosion of sound and color. Black Orpheus is less about Orpheus’s doomed love for Eurydice than about Camus’s love for cinema at its most gestural and kinetic.”

No need to take a trip to Rio—come to Carnival via BLACK ORPHEUS at Laemmle’s Playhouse, Royal, and Town Center on Wednesday, February 20 at 7:00 PM. Click here for tickets.

Valentine’s Day Double Feature: SOME LIKE IT HOT and PILLOW TALK

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Instead of the Valentine’s Day massacre depicted in SOME LIKE IT HOT, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present comedy and romance to mark the holiday. Two award-winning comedies from 1959 share the bill and you can enjoy both SOME LIKE IT HOT and PILLOW TALK for one admission price!

When the American Film Institute conducted a poll of critics and filmmakers to rank the greatest American comedies, Billy Wilder’s SOME LIKE IT HOT came in at #1. The hilarious film melds violence, cross-dressing, and music, and benefits from a superb cast headed by Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon (Oscar-nominated for his performance), Tony Curtis, Joe E. Brown, and George Raft. Wilder was nominated for his direction and for the screenplay he wrote with frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond. Orry-Kelly won the Oscar for best black-and-white costume design, especially for the stunning costumes he created for Monroe, including an almost see-through dress that she wears while performing.

The story follows two down-on-their-luck musicians who inadvertently witness the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago and are forced to go on the run. Their only option to escape the gangsters is to disguise themselves as women and join an all-girl band on a tour of Florida.

Reviews for the film were ecstatic. The New Republic’s Stanley Kauffmann wrote, “This new Marilyn Monroe-Jack Lemmon-Tony Curtis film is a lulu… With easy mastery, [Wilder] has captured much of the scuttling, broad, vaguely surrealist feeling of the best silent comedies.” Roger Ebert declared, “Wilder’s 1959 comedy is one of the enduring treasures of the movies.” When the Library of Congress established its National Film Registry to preserve important films, SOME LIKE IT HOT was one of the first 25 movies inducted. Joe E. Brown mused in the movie’s famous final line, “Nobody’s perfect.” Maybe not, but this film comes close.

PILLOW TALK marked the first teaming of superstars Doris Day and Rock Hudson and turned out to be a box office bonanza. Although she was not always appreciated at the time, Day was one of the few actresses to regularly play career women in the conservative 1950s. In PILLOW TALK she was cast as a successful interior decorator who shares a party line with a composer and womanizer played by Hudson. Forced to listen to his unending stream of sexual conquests, Day protests vociferously, and Hudson resolves to make her change her tune by seducing her. Both antagonists score a few pointed jabs before the inevitable final clinch.

The film won the Academy Award for best original screenplay, written by Russell Rouse, Clarence Greene, Stanley Shapiro, and Maurice Richlin. It received four other nominations, including Day’s only nod for best actress. Tony Randall and Thelma Ritter head the delectable supporting cast. Ross Hunter produced, and Michael Gordon directed.

Among the film’s many favorable reviews, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it “one of the most lively and up-to-date comedy romances of the year.” Leonard Maltin hailed an “imaginative sex comedy… fast-moving; plush sets, gorgeous fashions.” The film’s enormous success led to two other Day-Hudson comedies, Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers. The picture was inducted into the National Film Registry in 2009.

Our Valentine’s Day Double Feature screens on Thursday, February 14th in Pasadena, NoHo, and West LA! Click here for tickets to the 5:10pm show of PILLOW TALK with the 7:20pm show of SOME LIKE IT HOT included. Click here for tickets to the 7:20pm SOME LIKE IT HOT, with the 9:45pm PILLOW TALK included.