The Official Blog of Laemmle Theatres.

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The official blog of Laemmle Theatres

I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS! 50th Anniversary Screening with Actress Leigh Taylor-Young In Person

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of the hit Peter Sellers comedy from 1968, I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS! The Establishment meets the counterculture in this topical and often uproarious satire that poked fun at many of the conflicts dividing the country during the tumultuous 1960s.

Sellers plays an uptight Los Angeles lawyer whose life unravels when he meets a young hippie, played by Leigh Taylor-Young in her feature film debut.

Hy Averback directed the first screenplay written by Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker, and the picture’s success allowed Mazursky to make his directorial debut one year later on another swinging sixties comedy, ‘Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice.’

The supporting cast includes Oscar winner Jo Van Fleet as Sellers’ intrusive mother, Joyce Van Patten as his befuddled fiancée, along with Herb Edelman, Grady Sutton, Salem Ludwig, and David Arkin.

One of the film’s memorable set pieces revolves around a supply of marijuana brownies that come from a recipe in cultural icon Alice B. Toklas’s famous cookbook. With marijuana now legal in California and in several other states, the film takes on renewed timeliness and may well give happy viewers a contact high. Of course, if viewers wanted to replicate the experience they could also find some of the best edibles in Canada and indulge. This would certainly give them the same feeling as the main characters.

Back in 1968, Variety declared, “Film blasts off into orbit via top-notch acting and direction.” Pauline Kael, who had recently begun her regular stint reviewing for The New Yorker, called the picture “A giddy, slapdash, entertainingly inconsequential comedy…the picture makes you laugh surprisingly often.” And Leonard Maltin praised this “excellent comedy about the freaking out of mild-mannered L.A. lawyer. Sellers has never been better.” Indeed the film represents one of the highlights of Sellers’ vibrant and diverse list of achievements during the 60s.

Actress Leigh Taylor-Young first came to prominence on the popular ‘Peyton Place’ TV series of the 1960s. Her other films include ‘The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight,’ which marked one of the first screen roles for Robert De Niro; John Frankenheimer’s ‘The Horsemen,’ co-starring Omar Sharif; the prophetic sci-fi movie, ‘Soylent Green;’ and the suspense thriller ‘Jagged Edge.’ She has worked in the theater and costarred in several popular TV series, including ‘Picket Fences,’ for which she won an Emmy, ‘Dallas,’ and ‘Passions.’ In recent years she has also been active in humanitarian and spiritual activities for the United Nations and other organizations.

I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS! followed by Q&A with Actress Leigh Taylor-Young screens Wednesday, April 25, at 7:30 PM at the Royal Theatre in West L.A. Click here for tickets.

Format: DVD

KRYSTAL Actor-Director William H. Macy in Person this Weekend at the Music Hall.

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KRYSTAL actor-director William H. Macy will participate in a Q&A after the 7:30 PM screening at the Music Hall on Saturday, April 14.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCc25I_y7oA

SHELTER Q&A at the Fine Arts on Sunday, April 8.

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National Public Radio film critic Ella Taylor will lead a Q&A after the 1:30 PM screening of SHELTER at the Ahrya Fine Arts on Sunday, April 8.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHHQ89_ldqI&feature=youtu.be

ROGERS PARK Q&A at the Playhouse Opening Weekend.

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ROGERS PARK actors Christine Horn (‘American Crime Story’) and Jonny Mars (‘A Ghost Story’) and director Kyle Henry will participate in Q&A’s at the Playhouse after 7:40 PM screenings Friday-Sunday, April 6-8.

https://vimeo.com/232376978

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS 50th Anniversary Screening on Wednesday, April 18 in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA

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Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present the latest in our Anniversary Classics Abroad program, a 50th anniversary screening of Gillo Pontecorvo’s memorable and still timely political drama, THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS.

The film was an Oscar nominee for best foreign language film of 1966, but it was not released in the United States until 1968, when it received additional nominations for best director and for best original screenplay by Pontecorvo and Franco Solinas. The film was considered so inflammatory that it was not shown in France until 1971.

The picture, filmed in black-and-white to approximate the look of a newsreel, dramatizes Algeria’s war of independence against France. It focuses on the years from 1954 to 1957, when the National Liberation Front began to organize in the Casbah of Algiers to carry out terrorist attacks on civilians as well as the French army. This led to a fierce and brutal counter-insurgency by the French, which meant the battles dragged on for years.

To insure authenticity, Pontecorvo cast the film mainly with non-professional actors recruited in Algeria. The film’s one professional actor, Jean Martin, gave a vivid performance as the complex, intelligent French officer who understands the grievances of the Algerians even as he fights ruthlessly to defeat them. The film’s urgency was heightened by the score of Ennio Morricone.

The film’s influence extended well beyond the cinema. It became a sort of handbook of revolutionary techniques that was studied by many radical groups over the years. Yet in 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon also screened the movie in order to better understand the civil war unleashed in that country.

Many prominent filmmakers–including Spike Lee, Mira Nair, Steven Soderbergh, and Oliver Stone–all testified to influence of Pontecorvo’s movie on their own work. Critic David Elliott of the San Diego Union Tribune called The Battle of Algiers “perhaps the finest political film of the 1960s.” The LA Weekly’s Ella Taylor agreed that it was “a classic of politically engaged filmmaking.”

Our 50th anniversary screening of THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1968) screens Wednesday, April 18 at 7pm in Encino, Pasadena, and West LA. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

Friday the 13th Screening of ROSEMARY’S BABY at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills

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To provide shivers and thrills on Friday the 13th, Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a 50th anniversary screening of one of the most terrifying movies of all time, ROSEMARY’S BABY.

Ira Levin’s ingenious best-selling novel imagined a witches’ coven hiding in plain sight in contemporary Manhattan and hatching a plot to bring the Devil’s son to earth. Producer William Castle, the mastermind behind many successful B-horror movies, graduated to the A ranks with this classy production. Paramount’s head of production, Robert Evans, hired acclaimed European director Roman Polanski to make his Hollywood debut with the film.

The casting of the film was inspired. As the innocent woman at the center of the diabolical conspiracy, the filmmakers chose a relatively new face to movies, Mia Farrow, and she played the role with endearing vulnerability. The film’s success catapulted her to full-fledged stardom.

John Cassavetes took a break from his own independent productions to play Farrow’s conniving husband. The brilliance of the casting extended to the supporting players, a veritable Who’s Who of vintage Hollywood and Broadway actors, including Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, and Elisha Cook Jr. Gordon won the Oscar for best supporting actress for her spot-on portrayal of a nosy neighbor with a sinister agenda. Polanski earned an Oscar nomination for his adapted screenplay.

Behind-the-scenes credits were just as impressive. Six-time Oscar nominee William Fraker (Bullitt, Heaven Can Wait) was the cinematographer, while two-time Oscar winner Richard Sylbert (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Chinatown, Dick Tracy) was the production designer. The eerie score was composed by a gifted friend of Polanski, Christopher Komeda, who died tragically at the age of 37, soon after the release of the film.

Among the stellar reviews for the film, Leonard Maltin hailed a “Classic modern-day thriller by Ira Levin, perfectly realized by writer-director Polanski.” Stephen Witty of the Newark Star-Ledger called it “one of the finest horror films ever made.” In 2014 Rosemary’s Baby was added to the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.

ROSEMARY’S BABY screens Friday, April 13 at 7:30 PM at the Ahrya Fine Arts in Beverly Hills. Click here for tickets.

Format: DCP

Filmmaker Russ Harbaugh and Star Chris O’Dowd Q&A’s for Their Acclaimed LOVE AFTER LOVE Opening Weekend at the Royal.

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LOVE AFTER LOVE filmmaker Russ Harbaugh and actor Chris O’Dowd will participate in Q&A’s after the 7:45 PM screenings at the Royal on Friday and Saturday, April 6 and 7.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDSyhfI8C-w

Santa Monica Q&A’s with Erika Cohn, Director of the Captivating New Documentary THE JUDGE.

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THE JUDGE filmmaker Erika Cohn will participate in Q&A’s at the Monica Film Center after the 7:30 PM screenings on Friday and Saturday, April 20 and 21. West Hollywood City Council member Lindsey Horvath will lead the Q&A on Friday night. Dr. Laila A. Al-Marayati of KinderUSA will join Ms. Cohn for the Saturday Q&A.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5VNYkwjG30