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BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S 60th Anniversary Screening With Guest Author Sam Wasson.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present one of the screen’s most iconic romances, BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (1961), with a 60th anniversary screening on November 10 at the Royal Theatre in West LA. Audrey Hepburn stars as Holly Golightly, and besides the image of Hepburn in that famous black Givenchy dress, the most enduring legacy of the movie is the song “Moon River,” composed by Henry Mancini for Hepburn, and a “melody of a lifetime.”

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S was adapted from a popular Truman Capote novella and brought to the screen by director Blake Edwards and writer George Axelrod, with considerable alterations to the story about a flighty call girl from the country aspiring to the high life in New York City. Capote had envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the role, but it was Audrey Hepburn who immortalized Holly Golightly for the screen. Henry Mancini provided the Oscar and Grammy-winning soundtrack that accompanied her amorous adventures. TIFFANY’S was a box office hit and nominated for five Academy Awards, including Hepburn for Best Actress and Axelrod for Best Screenplay. Mancini and lyricist Johnny Mercer wrote one of the most popular songs of the twentieth century, “Moon River,” and the pair won an Oscar (double winner Mancini also won for his score).

New York magazine epitomized the praise for the movie, which helped launch the Fabulous Sixties in American culture, by stating, “a film that not only captures the sedate elegance of a New York long gone, but that continues to entrance as a love story, a style manifesto, and a way to live.” Our guest, author Sam Wasson, reinforces that notion by titling his book about the making of the movie, Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman. He will discuss the film in a Q&A before the screening, and the newly revised edition of his critically lauded book will be available for purchase and signing. The New York Times cited it as “a bonbon of a book…as well tailored as the little black dress the movie made famous.” Wasson is also the author of the acclaimed best seller The Big Goodbye: Chinatown and the Last Years of Hollywood.

The 60th anniversary of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, also starring George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Mickey Rooney, and Buddy Ebsen, will screen on Wednesday, November 10, at 7:30 PM at the Royal Theater in West Los Angeles. Tickets on sale now at Laemmle.com/ac

‘The Doors: Live At The Bowl ’68 Special Edition’ Screenings November 4th Only at the Claremont, Newhall, NoHo, Playhouse and Royal.

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On July 5th, 1968, The Doors lit up the storied stage of the Hollywood Bowl with a legendary performance that is widely considered to be the band’s finest captured on film. Performing on the back of their 3rd album release “Waiting For The Sun” and the US #1 single “Hello, I Love You,” the quartet had been honing their live performances over the previous two years and were in absolute peak form.

Now, on November 4th, 2021, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Doors final studio album L.A. WOMAN (1971), The Doors: Live At The Bowl ’68 Special Edition will transform movie theaters into concert venues, giving Doors fans around the world the closest experience to being there live alongside Jim Morrison, John Densmore, Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger, who stated, “the magic that has been done to enhance the picture and sound quality of this show will make everyone feel as though they have a front row seat at the Hollywood Bowl.”

In celebration of L.A. WOMAN, this special event includes a brand-new musical performance and a conversation with John Densmore, Robby Krieger and Doors Manager, Jeff Jampol, filmed exclusively for the big screen. Here’s  a clip:

 

This theatrical “Special Edition” release creates an in-cinema experience for fans like no other. The film has now been remastered in stunning Dolby ATMOS® (where available) and 5.1 surround sound by Bruce Botnick, the original engineer & mixer for The Doors who recorded the live performance at the Hollywood Bowl in 1968 and co-produced L.A. WOMAN. Here’s another clip:

 

Meticulously restored from original camera negatives and remixed and mastered using original multi-track tapes, The Doors: Live At The Bowl ’68 Special Edition features the concert in its entirety, including “Hello, I Love You”, “The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)”, “Light My Fire” and “The End.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYxbYt8Tp48

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Screenings June 7-10.

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series invite you to celebrate the publication of Stephen Farber and Michael McClellan’s new book, Cinema ’62: The Greatest Year at the Movies, with a return to the big screen of one of the cinematic crown jewels from 1962, To Kill a Mockingbird. The film will be shown as a series of one night-only screenings at 7 PM the week of June 7-10 at four Laemmle locations, the Royal, Playhouse, NoHo and Newhall. The authors will introduce all screenings and sign their book, which will be on sale at the events. Acclaimed filmmaker Cecilia Peck, daughter of Gregory Peck, will join the discussion at the Royal screening on June 7.

A box-office smash in its day, To Kill a Mockingbird remains one of the most memorable films in Hollywood history. In 1995 it was selected for the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, reserved for films of “historical, cultural, or aesthetic significance.” The film was faithfully adapted by playwright Horton Foote from Harper Lee’s beloved, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about childhood memories in the segregated South of the 1930s. The film version has become so intertwined with the book in the national consciousness that they have blended as “an inescapable part of our cultural DNA.”

Directed by Robert Mulligan and produced by Alan Pakula, the film gave Gregory Peck the iconic role of a lifetime, that of Atticus Finch, the small-town lawyer who heroically defends a black man (Brock Peters as Tom Robinson) accused of raping a white woman, invoking the ire of the bigoted white community. Peck’s performance resonated so strongly that when the American Film Institute conducted a poll of all-time screen heroes, his portrayal of Finch was voted number one, ahead of such screen favorites as Han Solo and James Bond. Peck closely identified with the themes of parenting two young children, and those of social and racial justice at the height of the Civil Rights era. He was awarded a very popular Best Actor Oscar in one of the most competitive Oscar races of the twentieth century.

Among the film’s eight total nominations (including Best Picture and Director) is one for Supporting Actress, which went to screen newcomer Mary Badham as Scout, the impressionable six-year-old daughter of Atticus, and it is through her eyes the story unfolds. Her remarkable performance conveys all the wonderment and innocence of childhood imagination, and she is ably joined by Philip Alford as her brother Jem and John Megna as Dill (a surrogate for Lee’s friend Truman Capote). The rest of the stellar cast includes Colin Wilcox, Frank Overton, Rosemary Harris, Estelle Evans, James Anderson, and in the pivotal role of the mentally damaged “Boo” Radley, Robert Duvall in his screen debut.

The transformation of childhood memory into black-and-white screen reality was achieved by the superb craftsmanship of cinematographer Russell Harlan and Oscar winning production design of Alexander Golitzen, Henry Bumstead, and set decoration by Oliver Emert. Elmer Bernstein’s exquisite score also enhances the film’s rich atmosphere and mood. Harper Lee was involved in the film’s preparation and was “very proud and very grateful” for the fidelity of the finished film.

The film received widespread praise, ranging from such varied sources as the mainstream press, presidential adviser and journalist Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Walt Disney, and numerous pop culture publications. Often considered a role model, Atticus Finch is understandably not always seen as an uncomplicated hero. But such reassessments have not diminished the popularity and appeal of To Kill a Mockingbird, which has been elevated to the level of American folklore. Witness the recent PBS poll of millions of viewers who voted it America’s most beloved novel, and Aaron Sorkin’s revisionist stage version that was sold out for the entirety of its two-year, pandemic-shortened Broadway run.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QA86h4mdJ-A

GREMLINS 35th Anniversary with Director Joe Dante on Sunday, July 14 in Beverly Hills

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“Don’t expose him to bright light. Don’t ever get him wet. And don’t ever, ever feed him after midnight.”

Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the delicious horror comedy, GREMLINS, which demonstrated the dire consequences of ignoring those three simple rules. Chris Columbus (the writer or director of such hit films as ‘The Goonies,’ ‘Mrs. Doubtfire,’ ‘Home Alone,’ and the first two Harry Potter movies) conceived the story, and Steven Spielberg acted as executive producer, but it was director Joe Dante who set the distinctive tone of “malicious madcap mischief,” in the words of Newsweek’s David Ansen.

Dante had already brought wit to the underwater monster movie (‘Piranha’) and the werewolf movie (‘The Howling’), but ‘Gremlins’ took his talents to a new level. Kenneth Turan, then writing for California Magazine, declared, “’Gremlins’ is Dante’s most accomplished film, a paradigm of zesty, ghoulish fun.” Dante loved to pepper his movies with sly references to other films, and ‘Gremlins’ is set in the idyllic small town of Kingston Falls, meant to recall Bedford Falls from Frank Capra’s classic, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ (glimpsed on TV in a scene in Dante’s movie). ‘Gremlins’ is also set at Christmas, but the holidays are anything but festive in this vision of Norman Rockwell’s America turned upside down.

The story begins when a father (Hoyt Axton) purchases a lovable furry creature called a mogwai for his son Billy (Zach Galligan). The shopkeeper offers a few admonitions but neglects to say that if the mogwai is drenched or fed after midnight, it will turn into a spiteful, malevolent gremlin. Soon the entire town is overwhelmed with these miniature monsters determined to destroy. The other characters in the story are played by an engaging ensemble, including Phoebe Cates, Frances Lee McCain, Keye Luke, Glynn Turman, Dick Miller, Corey Feldman, Judge Reinhold, and Polly Holliday, with cameo appearances by Chuck Jones, composer Jerry Goldsmith, and Spielberg himself. But perhaps the biggest star was designer Chris Walas, who created the puppets who perform their own delirious dance of death.

The film incorporates several classic sequences, including one in which a small-town mom (played by McCain) battles the gremlins with her trusty kitchen appliances and the climactic nightmare in which the gremlins take over a movie theater presenting a holiday screening of Walt Disney’s ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’ The movie was one of the biggest hits of 1984 and also earned many excellent reviews. Gene Siskel called ‘Gremlins’ “a wickedly funny and slightly sick ride…playfulness abounds.” Screen International added, “The sight gags are deliriously inventive and frequently devilishly sick.”

Dante went on to direct such films as ‘The Burbs’ with Tom Hanks, ‘Explorers’ with Ethan Hawke, ‘Innerspace’ with Dennis Quaid and Martin Short, ‘Matinee’ with John Goodman, and of course ‘Gremlins 2: The New Batch.’ For this special matinee screening, feel free to bring the kids—at least the older kids with a taste for macabre thrills.

Our 35th anniversary screening of GREMLINS (1984) followed by a Q&A with Director Joe Dante and film critic Stephen Farber plays on Sunday, July 14, at 3 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: The Pasadena Art Show 2019 June 30

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Laemmle’s Art in the Arthouse proudly presents THE PASADENA ART SHOW 2019.  Please join us as we celebrate our local artists in an intimate theatre setting. Our special event features a slideshow on the big screen, artist talks, and of course refreshments. Meet the artists and stay for the bagels, mimosas and conversation Art in the Arthouse is known for. Sales benefit the Laemmle Foundation and its support of humanitarian and environmental causes in the Los Angeles region.

About the Exhibit
Our annual community exhibit is a powerful collective voice emerging from individual expression  – celebrating art-making through a communal creative vibration. This show encourages an engaged visual conversation between artists and moviegoers. In photography, painting and digital imagery, we discover surreal gardens, humans embracing, light and water, the human condition and the nature of space and bloom. These atmospheric elements act as a coalescing force. Many of the nineteen works presented explore themes in a nuanced fashion, creating shadows, tones and an array of dramatic environments. A large scale of song and fury prevails. Art that one creates, must move. While two-dimensional images stand still, stillness moves its viewers. Technical rigor is important, but passion and sensitivity is sought and found. Art patrons often search for messages articulated in specific languages. All of our creatives successfully hit this mark. Thanks to our artists and to producer Lynn Chang for once again transforming our halls into a magnificent gallery.
       -Joshua Elias, Curator

Artist Reception:
Laemmle Playhouse 7
Sunday June 30, 11-1pm
Refreshments will be provided

RSVP here
This is a Free Event

 

ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: THE LOCAL SEEN in Santa Monica June 5

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Laemmle’s Art in the Arthouse presents The Local Seen, featuring the compelling works of three Santa Monica artists, Paula Goldman, Gwen Samuels, and Michal Story. Please join us for our opening reception Wednesday, June 5 at the Monica Film Center. Check out our bonus show, Paula Goldman’s Monuments, upstairs in our Mezzanine. Meet Paula, Gwen and Michal and enjoy the wine, cheese, and conversation Art in the Arthouse is known for. A portion of the sales benefits the Laemmle Foundation and its support of humanitarian and environmental causes in Los Angeles.

About the Exhibit
Artists often see things differently than others, and have a way of revealing new vistas of places that we think we know well. In The Local Seen, three artists—each of whom employs photography in distinctive ways—share their singular visions of Santa Monica’s local landscape.

Paula Goldman collected trash on Santa Monica State Beach between lifeguard towers 1 and 2 and composed the detritus into still lifes. Her intriguing photographs hint at the diverse lives and activities of beachgoers, and also evoke concerns for the environment. Gwen Samuels takes pictures of iconic Santa Monica landmarks and common flora and transforms them into patterns for sculptural dresses and panels, while Michal Story reworks her images of nearby buildings into portrayals of fantastical structures that are at once familiar and surprising. Together, these works offer an unusual, insiders’ take on our local scene—a far cry from stereotypical postcard-perfect shots of the coast or the pier—insights that come from living and working here everyday.

Paula Goldman’s Monuments is a separate show featured on our Mezzanine. Photographer Paula has long been interested in collecting and the role of photography in memorializing artifacts. In Monuments she plays with scale, juxtaposition, and modes of presentation to challenge commonly held ideas about the things she photographs, and to create new interpretations. Small porcelain figurines fill the frame taking on seemingly grand proportions, a “portrait” of a plucked head of lettuce brings new meaning to the term “headshot,” and everyday objects like plastic cups are photographed reverentially. The size of these images—20” x 24”—is a reference to the Polaroid 20×24 camera, Goldman’s personal monument to the vanished medium.

–Stacey Ravel Abarbanel, Curator

Artist Reception
RSVP HERE
Wednesday, June 5, 2019
7:00-8:30 PM
Monica Film Center
1332 Second Street
Santa Monica
Refreshments Served

ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: DANCING WITH COLORS in Pasadena

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Swing, samba or shimmy on over to Art in the Arthouse’s newest exhibit in Pasadena, DANCING WITH COLORS. This bold festival of color from artists Nancy R. Wise and Raymond Logan runs till June, 2019.  Sales benefit the Laemmle Foundation and its support of humanitarian and environmental causes in the Los Angeles region.

About the Exhibit
NANCY R. WISE: Oil painter Nancy R. Wise is enchanted by color. She views her art as daily reality transformed by color and texture, woven on the loom of light. She states, “I love the vibrancy of bright colors, thick impasto-like textures against thin washes and strong forms to communicate an experience of a subject’s essence. It is my way to abstract and transform our ordinary experiences and reawaken life’s vibrant aesthetic.”

RAYMOND LOGAN: Don’t call Raymond Logan a “realistic artist.” While his work depicts real-life subject matter, it is grounded in abstraction and intuition. His true goal is to create a dialogue with you, the viewer, where a mutual discovery and re-imagining of “the self” can take place. Logan uses deft strokes of thick paint in surprising colors extrapolated from what he sees in the object – enhanced by how he wants those colors expressed. Get close up and you’ll find that his representational art becomes fully abstract.

Logan and Wise are connected through their mutual love of color and the ways they apply that color to their artwork. Logan spares nothing as he lavishly slaps thick globs of paint onto the canvas, while Wise contrasts impasto with thinner areas to create dynamic separation. From the first moment I saw their vibrant artwork, I knew their pieces would dance well together.

– Tish Laemmle, curator

 

ART IN THE ARTHOUSE presents: Francisco Alvarado: Underpinnings of a Digital Landscape

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Check out our brand spanking new art show in Santa Monica! Laemmle’s Art in the Arthouse proudly presents Francisco Alvarado: Underpinnings of a Digital Landscape. The show will run at the Monica Film Center till May, 2019. Sales benefit the Laemmle Foundation and its support of humanitarian and environmental causes in Los Angeles.

About the Exhibit
Ecuadorian artist FRANCISCO ALVARADO creates landscapes, foliage and gardens of flat color cut-outs. Raised near fields of beautiful South American farmland, butted against cooled lava pits, the artist recalls his childhood with paint and renders them with joy and animated vision. Alvarado alchemizes both his achievements and his losses through imagery, setting them in a visual forest of filled with intrigue and mystery. His works were painted, photographed, digitized, and reworked, creating fluid landscapes that alternate between internal and external compositions.

Alvarado moved to California in 1969 and began to follow the artwork of PETER MAX. The artist was also greatly influenced by his Ecuadorian roots, his service in the military, the artistry of Chilean painter ROBERTO MATTA and the intricate articulations of Viennese artist FRIEDENSREICH HUNDERTWASSER. Inspired by the emergence of Apple Computers, Alvarado enrolled at Long Beach State to study engineering. He threw himself into a brave new world of coding and digital imaging, ultimately leading to artistic experimentation with mixed media and a process aided by technology. The artist currently lives and works in Monrovia, California.

   – Joshua Elias, CURATOR