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Twofer Tuesday: Robert Mitchum Centennial on August 1st in Beverly Hills, NoHo, and Pasadena

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series celebrate the centennial of Hollywood icon Robert Mitchum (b. August 6, 1917) with two of his best roles, OUT OF THE PAST (1947, 70th anniversary) and CAPE FEAR (1962, 55th anniversary). The two acclaimed film noirs will be shown as a double feature on August 1 as part of the popular Twofer Tuesday (two for the price of one) program at a choice of three locations: the Ahrya Fine Arts, NoHo 7, and Pasadena Playhouse 7. Presented on blu-ray.

Click here for tickets to the 5:10pm OUT OF THE PAST and 7:15 CAPE FEAR
or
Click here for tickets to the 7:15 CAPE FEAR and 9:30 OUT OF THE PAST

Mitchum was a contract player at RKO when he starred in Out of the Past, directed by Jacques Tourneur with a script by Geoffrey Homes (Daniel Mainwaring), adapting his novel, “Build My Gallows High.” Mitchum plays an ex-private eye entangled in a web of double-dealings by former criminal associates (gangster Kirk Douglas and old flame Jane Greer). Mitchum, described in the New York Times review of the day as “magnificently cheeky and self-assured,” entrenched his cynical, antihero image in this film.

Out of the Past, as author Jeremy Arnold notes in TCM’s The Essentials: 52 Must-See Movies and Why They Matter, “is the quintessential film noir. It has a tough hero, a supremely alluring femme fatale, hard-boiled dialogue, a commingling of sex and violence, expressionistic lighting…all set in an ominous world where death and double-cross are the norm.” The movie has been added to the National Film Registry.

Cape Fear came at the end of the classical black-and-white film noir period (1942-62), and stars Mitchum in his most memorable villainous role, Max Cady. In this adaptation by James R. Webb of James D. MacDonald’s novel, “The Executioners,” an ex-con plots insidious revenge on the lawyer (Gregory Peck) whose testimony sent him to prison. Director J. Lee Thompson was an admirer of Alfred Hitchcock, and paid homage to the Master of Suspense with camera angles and the use of his frequent collaborator, composer Bernard Herrmann, who provided a superbly menacing score. Mitchum was so convincing in the role that co-star Polly Bergen (as Peck’s wife) said she was genuinely frightened in an improvised scene with him. Leonard Maltin calls Mitchum’s performance “believably creepy,” and the American Film Institute cited his portrayal of Cady as one of the top 30 “All-Time Screen Villains.” Martin Balsam, Lori Martin, Telly Savalas, and Barrie Chase co-star.

Barrie Chase had other memorable roles in films of the 1960s, including Stanley Kramer’s It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and Robert Aldrich’s The Flight of the Phoenix. She was a dancer in many hit musical films of the 1950s and co-starred with Fred Astaire in several of his top-rated TV specials.

Actress Barrie Chase will introduce the 7:15 CAPE FEAR at the Ahrya Fine Arts. Film historian Jeremy Arnold will introduce the 9:30 OUT OF THE PAST, only at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills.

Out of the Past screens at 5:15 & 9:30; Cape Fear screens at 7:15, at all three locations.

Fourth Annual Tour de Laemmle is Sunday, July 23rd, 2017!

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Don’t be surprised if you see Greg Laemmle and 100+ other cyclists clip-clopping through a theater lobby this Sunday. They’re just rehydrating and taking a well-deserved break in the middle of their epic 135-mile bicycle tour of all eight Laemmle venues!

Our Fourth Annual Tour de Laemmle starts bright and early this Sunday, July 23rd. Participants leave the Monica Film Center in Santa Monica at 7:00AM before making their way to Beverly Hills, Claremont, Pasadena, Glendale, NoHo, Encino, West LA, and back to Santa Monica.

You can follow along from the comfort of your chair by visiting tourdelaemmle.com/share where riders will share their Instagram photos and tweets.

Our involvement with cycling events such as CicLAvia and Climate Ride stems not just from our love of the sport, but as a way to encourage alternative transportation and inspire creative thinking about our traffic and environmental challenges. In 2014, we stepped up to the plate by creating our own event.

As an avid cyclist and sustainability advocate, Greg Laemmle had always dreamed of traveling to each of his venues by bike in a single day. After researching the route, he soon recognized the cultural and historical import of many of the roads, pathways, and landmarks he discovered along the way. Realizing the potential value extended far beyond his original vision, he opened up the ride and invited the community to join him “on a 2-wheeled tour of L.A.’s richly diverse neighborhoods.” Find out more at tourdelaemmle.com!

Q&A’s with the TYRUS Filmmaker July 17-19 at the Ahrya Fine Arts, NoHo, and Playhouse.

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TYRUS director Pamela Tom will participate in Q&A’s after all three Laemmle screenings: July 17 at the Fine Arts, July 18 at the Playhouse, and July 19 at the NoHo. Click here for tickets.

TYRUS is a tour-de-force documentary about the Guangzhou-born, L.A.-based visual artist Tyrus Wong, his breathtaking scope of work across multiple artistic mediums, and his personal journey navigating racial bigotry in 20th century America.

The film takes the audience on a remarkable journey – from his birthplace of Guangzhou, China in 1910 to the boarding houses of LA’s old Chinatown and the studios of the Golden Age of Hollywood. The film explores his formative years as a young WPA artist and the influence of Sung Dynasty art on his work.

Mr. Wong passed away in December at 106 years old but we see him in the documentary still vibrant, flying his magnificent creations high above the Pacific Ocean – the same waters he crossed as a young boy over 95 years ago.

The film includes original interviews of Tyrus Wong, guest interviews, archival footage & photos, clips and concept art from early Hollywood movies and over 80 years of Tyrus Wong artwork – much of it rare and never before seen. TYRUS captures the richness and texture of Tyrus’s career while also revealing the inner life and character of this rare individual.

Interviewees include Tyrus Wong, best selling writer Lisa See, animation artists and writers Don Hahn, Charles Solomon, Eric Goldberg, John Canemaker, Paul Felix, Milton Quon, art curators Sonia Mak, Bill Stern, Ellen Harrington, Mark Johnson, California watercolor expert Gordon McLelland and Hollywood film historian Joe Musso.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTpq1iy0phM

TYRUS premiered at the 42nd Telluride Film Festival and has garnered awards at the San Diego Asian Film Festival (Audience), Hawaii Int’l Film Festival (Audience), Newport Beach Film Festival (Audience), DisOrient Film Festival (Best Feature Documentary), Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival (Special Jury Prize), Cintopia Film Festival (Best Director), Boston Asian American Film Festival (Audience) and Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival (Best Feature Documentary).

Pamela Tom is a writer, director and producer whose work includes documentary and narrative film and television. Tom served as a production executive at KCET and was the post-production producer on the BBC/PBS national series WW2: Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, The Nazis, and the West and the network producer on Wired Science, a PBS national primetime series produced in partnership with Wired magazine. She was also the field producer on the PBS pilot, Becoming the Buddha in Los Angeles.

Tom’s award-winning narrative short film Two Lies, about a divorced Chinese woman who has plastic surgery to make her eyes rounder, screened at hundreds of film festivals including the Sundance Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, the Smithsonian Institution, and aired on numerous PBS stations, including KCET, WNET and WGBH.

THE PERSIAN CONNECTION Q&A’s Opening Weekend at the Ahrya Fine Arts.

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THE PERSIAN CONNECTION lead actor and producer Reza Sixo Safai, director Daniel Grove, and producer Seth Caplan will participate in Q&A’s after the Friday and Saturday Night 7:20 screenings and the 1:40 matinee on Sunday, July 16.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J0gCyhXkZY

July 4th Twofer Tuesday Double Bill of THE MUSIC MAN and YANKEE DOODLE DANDY in Pasadena, NoHo, and Beverly Hills!

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a star-spangled double feature on the 4th of July in the popular monthly Twofer Tuesdays program – the 75th anniversary of Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), paired with the 55th anniversary of The Music Man (1962). Both films represent unabashed celluloid tributes to the American spirit.

And so you won’t miss fireworks, we screen the double feature (two films, one admission) as a special holiday matinee on July 4 at three locations: Ahrya Fine Arts, NoHo 7 and Pasadena Playhouse 7. Yankee Doodle Dandy at 1:00 pm; The Music Man at 3:30 pm. Presented on blu-ray.

Click here for tickets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrAFAst0Bb4

YANKEE DOODLE DANDY is the musical biopic of Broadway showman George M. Cohan, showcasing the Oscar-winning performance of screen legend James Cagney (Best Actor). The rousing patriotic musical was released during the early months of WWII, and was designed to lift the American psyche, which it accomplished resoundingly.

The film was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Picture, Director (Michael Curtiz), and Supporting Actor (Walter Huston, playing Cohan’s vaudevillian father). Roger Ebert noted, “the greatness of the film rests entirely in Cagney’s performance. While he’s in full sail, as in “Give My Regards to Broadway” or “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” it’s like regarding a force of nature.” And Cohan himself, still alive at the time, is reputed to have said of Cagney’s performance, “My God, what an act to follow.”

THE MUSIC MAN is the colorful screen adaptation of Meredith Willson’s Tony-winning Broadway musical, preserving the triumphant stage performance of Robert Preston in the greatest role of his career. Pauline Kael aptly observed, “the star, Robert Preston, has a few minutes of fast patter—conmanship set to music—that constitute one of the high points in the history of American musicals.”

Critics and public alike at the height of the Cold War embraced the ebullient celebration of early twentieth-century small town Americana, and the film was a box-office smash. Produced and directed by Morton Da Costa (Auntie Mame), with Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett, Paul Ford, Hermione Gingold and a future Oscar-winning director, seven year old Ron Howard. Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Both films feature the craftsmanship of Warner Bros. staff composer and musical arranger Ray Heindorf, who won his first Academy Award for Yankee Doodle Dandy, and his third and final Oscar for The Music Man twenty years later. Additionally, the two musicals were inducted into the National Film Registry for “historical, cultural, and aesthetic significance.” Here is a rare opportunity to see them back on the big screen.

One Night Only! Stephen Fry’s THE HIPPOPOTAMUS, with Pre-recorded Q&A, June 28 at the Playhouse, Town Center, and Ahrya Fine Arts.

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The gifted British actor Stephen Fry first came to the attention of American audiences with his role as the title character in the 1997 bio-pic Wilde. He has enjoyed a brilliant career ever since, and not just in films. One of his novels has just been adapted into a feature film.

The Hippopotamus is the story of a poet who is summoned to his friend’s country manor to investigate a series of unexplained miracles. Three-time Olivier Award-winner Roger Allam (Endeavor, The Queen, V for Vendetta) stars as the disgruntled, cantankerous, semi-famous poet Ted Wallace who is hired to investigate strange doings at Lord and Lady Logan’s country manor, Swafford Hall. Golden Globe Winner Matthew Modine (Stranger Things, Short Cuts, Full Metal Jacket) plays the stupendously rich and gregarious Lord Michael Logan. Fiona Shaw (five Harry Potter movies) co-stars as the doting mother Lady Logan. Tim McInnerny (Notting Hill, Game of Thrones) plays the flamboyant and gullible theater director Oliver Mills. The film is directed by John Jencks and produced by Jay Taylor and Alexa Seligman.

Each The Hippopotamus screening will include an exclusive post-screening Q&A with Stephen Fry, actor Roger Allam, and director John Jencks which was captured live on May 28, 2017. The Hippopotamus screens at 7:30pm on Wednesday, June 28th at the Playhouse, Town Center, and Ahrya Fine Arts. Click here for tickets.

 

http://vimeo.com/220825410

Harry Hamlin, Barry Sandler, A. Scott Berg In Person for a 35th Anniversary, 35mm Screening of MAKING LOVE on June 24th at the Ahrya Fine Arts

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During Gay Pride month, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 35th anniversary screening of MAKING LOVE, the first major studio production to present gay characters and relationships in a positive light.

Join us on Saturday, June 24, at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts followed by Q&A with Screenwriter Barry Sandler, Author A. Scott Berg, and Co-star Harry Hamlin. Presented in 35mm. Click here for tickets.

Michael Ontkean plays a doctor married to a TV executive (Kate Jackson) but struggling with homosexual impulses. When he meets a liberated writer played by Harry Hamlin, he has his first gay romance, which transforms the lives of all three characters.

Oscar winner Wendy Hiller, Oscar nominee Nancy Olson, and Tony winner Arthur Hill co-star. The enormously influential film was written by Barry Sandler, from a story by A. Scott Berg, and directed by Arthur Hiller, the director of Love Story, Silver Streak, The In-Laws, and many other successful movies.

Barry Sandler wrote and produced the cult favorite, Crimes of Passion, starring Kathleen Turner and directed by Ken Russell. His other credits include Kansas City Bomber with Raquel Welch, The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox with George Segal and Goldie Hawn, and The Mirror Crack’d with Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and Kim Novak.

A. Scott Berg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer of Maxwell Perkins, Samuel Goldwyn, Charles Lindbergh, and Woodrow Wilson. He was also executive producer of the 2016 film Genius, which starred Colin Firth and Jude Law and was adapted from his biography of legendary literary editor Maxwell Perkins.

Harry Hamlin starred in the acclaimed TV series of the 1980s and 90s, L.A. Law, for which he earned three Golden Globe nominations. He also earned a Globe nomination for his feature film debut, Stanley Donen’s Movie Movie. He starred in Clash of the Titans with acting legends Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith. He was the star of the TV miniseries, Studs Lonigan, and had recurring roles on popular series Veronica Mars, Shameless, Glee, and Mad Men (for which he earned an Emmy nomination).

Q&A’s with MOSCOW NEVER SLEEPS Filmmaker Johnny O’Reilly and Actress Evgenia Brik.

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MOSCOW NEVER SLEEPS filmmaker Johnny O’Reilly and actress Evgenia Brik will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:10 PM show at the Town Center on Friday, June 16 and at the Ahrya Fine Arts after the 7:15 show on Saturday, June 17 and the 4:40 PM show on Sunday, June 18. Dina Gontar will moderate the Friday Q&A. Shauna Farrell will moderate the Saturday and Sunday Q&A’s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY6K1G4Fq_M