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reViVAlS & repertorYfAll/WiNter 2008-09

My Man godfrey

NOVEMBER 21/22 FRI/SAT (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

MY MAN GODFREY (1936, GreGory La Cava) Dizzy heiress Lombard wins the scavenger hunt by producing bum William Powell as a “forgotten man” — then hires him as her butler. “‘Screwball’ was coined when Lombard did this screwiest society girl ever seen.” – Peter Bogdanovich. 2:45, 6:15, 9:45

TWENTIETH CENTURY (1934, Howard Hawks) Theatrical svengali John Barrymore and rebellious protégée Lombard (in the picture that made her the “Duse of daffy comedy”) slug it out aboard the Chicago-New York run of the Twentieth Century Ltd. — machine gun dialogue courtesy Hecht & MacArthur. 1:00, 4:30, 8:00

NOVEMBER 23 SUN (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

TRUE CONFESSION (1937, wesLey ruGGLes) “You’ll fry!” taunts courtroom hanger-on John Barrrymore, as compulsive liar Carole finds her best bet to beat a murder rap is to mendaciously plead guilty, even as lawyer/hubby Fred MacMurray plans her defense. “Best comedy of 1937.” – Graham Greene. 2:55, 6:30, 10:15

HANDS ACROSS THE TABLE(1935, MitCHeLL Leisen) On the prowl for a wealthy mate, manicurist Lombard gets stuck with formerly rich Fred MacMurray as a roommate, awaiting his own lucrative marriage with the “pineapple king” heiress. Plus Mack Sennett short The Campus Vamp (1928), with live piano accompaniment by Peter Mintun. 1:00, 4:35, 8:20

NOVEMBER 24 MON (3 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

VIRTUE NEW 35mm RESTORATION!(1932, edward BuzzeLL) That’s what Carole, on the run from a 90-day solicitation rap, is looking for with cabbie Pat O’Brien, but slimeball Jack LaRue suckers her into a con game topped with a murder charge. 2:25, 6:35, 10:45

WHITE WOMAN NEW 35mm PRINT!(1933, stuart waLker) “Alone among outcasts who hadn’t seen a white woman in ten years!” … and she turns out to be Carole Lombard! — but Charles Laughton steals scenes wholesale as cockney “King of the River.” 3:45, 7:55

SINNERS IN THE SUN (1932, aLexander HaLL) Model Lombard and mechanic Chester Morris split up, then decide to go for it, Carole finding a wealthy married man and Chester servicing both a limo and its rich owner. With a pre-stardom Cary Grant as a heartless playboy driving his lover to suicide. 1:00, 5:10, 9:20

no Man of Her oWn

NOVEMBER 25 TUE (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

NO MAN OF HER OWN (1932, wesLey ruGGLes) On-the-lam gambler Clark Gable hides out in sleepy Glendale, marrying local librarian Carole on a coin flip. Gable & Lombard’s only screen pairing: love and marriage came 7 years later. 1:20, 4:35, 7:50

NOW AND FOREVER NEW 35mm PRINT!(1934, Henry HatHaway) International jewel thieves Gary Cooper and Carole Lombard mull going straight, but there’s a complication — Cooper’s daughter Shirley Temple. 3:00, 6:15, 9:30

NOVEMBER 26 WEd (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

BOLERO (1934, wesLey ruGGLes) Ex-coal miner George Raft moves from Jersey beer garden to swank Paris boîte, as he and dance partner Lombard heat up the screen tangoing to Ravel’s insistent melody.2:45, 6:00, 9:15

WE’RE NOT DRESSING (1934, norMan tauroG) When spoiled heiress Lombard’s yacht is wrecked on a desert island, previously-fired singing sailor Bing Crosby takes charge. With Ethel Merman, Ray Milland and Burns & Allen, too. 1:10, 4:25, 7:40

NOVEMBER 27 THU (3 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

FROM HELL TO HEAVEN NEW 35mm PRINT!(1933, erLe C. kenton) Grand Hotel at the races, as vamp Lombard and other down-on-their-luck gamblers place long-shots. With Jack Oakie. 3:50, 8:00

LADIES’ MAN (1931, LotHar Mendes) Gotham gigolo William Powell crosses one husband too many, as he both squires socialite Kay Francis and seduces her daughter Lombard. Screenplay by Herman (Citizen Kane) Mankiewicz. 1:00, 5:10, 9:20

MAN OF THE WORLD (1931, riCHard waLLaCe) When Parisian scandal sheet operator William Powell hits up visiting soft coal baron Guy Kibbee for hush money, his niece turns out to be Carole Lombard (the soon-to-be real-life Mrs. Powell). 2:25, 6:35

NOVEMBER 28/29 FRI/SAT (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942, ernst LuBitsCH) “I’d like to present the Polish case in a more suitable dress.” With Lombard (in her last film role) as his Ophelia, Jack Benny — as Joseph Tura, “that great, great Polish actor” — must suffer Gestapo man Sig Rumann’s dramatic criticism. “Lombard at her apex, Lubitsch at his most inspired.” – Andrew Sarris. 2:55, 6:20, 9:50

NOTHING SACRED (1937, wiLLiaM weLLMan) Carole’s Hazel Flagg learns she isn’t dying of radium exposure, but why give up that all-expenses-paid trip to Gotham courtesy Human Interest-mongering reporter Frederic March? Written by Ben Hecht, produced by David O. Selznick — in Technicolor. 1:15, 4:45, 8:15

NOVEMBER 30 SUN (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

MR. & MRS. SMITH (1941, aLfred HitCHCoCk) Even after Carole discovers she likes the idea that her long-battling marriage turns out to be void, ex-spouse Robert Montgomery still keeps running into her. “Underrated…a hint of how well Lombard and Hitch might have worked together.” – David Thomson. 1:00, 4:20, 7:40

THE PRINCESS COMES ACROSS (1936, wiLLiaM k. Howard) Cruising from France to NYC, Carole’s “Princess Olga of Sweden” encounters bandleader Fred MacMurray, as the bodies start dropping amidst a sleuths’-convention-bound gaggle of detectives. 2:50, 6:10, 9:30

dECEMBER 1 MON (3 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

UP POPS THE DEVIL (1931, a. edward sutHerLand) It’s a one-year trial marriage for Carole and writer wannabe Norman Foster, but there are problems on their anniversary: the attentions of local vamp Lilyan Tashman and Carole’s too-familiar friendship with his potential publisher. 1:00, 5:15, 9:30

FAST AND LOOSE (1930, fred newMeyer) With adaptation and dialogue by Preston Sturges, a society melodrama “memorable for the curious tension between Miriam Hopkins’ debut as a rowdy society girl and Lombard’s relatively subdued sass as a poor chorus girl” (Andrew Sarris). 2:30, 6:45

IT PAYS TO ADVERTISE NEW 35mm PRINT!(1931, frank tuttLe) When soap king Eugene Pallette kicks out son Norman Foster for planning to marry secretary Lombard, that’s the last straw — dammit, he’ll get a job! 3:55, 8:10

noW and forever

dECEMBER 2 TUE (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

IN NAME ONLY(1939, JoHn CroMweLL) Wealthy Cary Grant finds love with widowed single mother Carole Lombard — only trouble is, he’s still married to icy Kay Francis. “Grant and Lombard in their most adventurous prime.” – Andrew Sarris. 1:00, 4:40, 8:20

MADE FOR EACH OTHER (1939, JoHn CroMweLL) After marrying Lombard against the wishes of boss Charles Coburn, James Stewart finds himself sidelined at work and browbeaten by meddling mom Lucile Watson. 2:50, 6:30, 10:10

Werner Herzog eats His sHoe

NOVEMBER 14 FRI

(2 PROgRAMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

ALL IN THIS TEA(2007) From plant to package, tea importer David Lee Hoffman scours China, battling mass-production-crazed bureaucracy along the way, in search of the real stuff. “A delicious documentary. Dips effortlessly into a half-dozen modes — travelogue, biography, nature ode, business story, nerd profile — sustaining a flexibility of tone that allows for both keen insights and drunken raptures.” – Nathan Lee, New York Times. 1:00, 4:00, 7:00

GARLIC IS AS GOOD AS TEN MOTHERS & GAP-TOOTHED WOMEN Garlic (’80): Hymn to the Stinking Rose (in AROMAROUND!), complete with guide to cultivation, savory dishes, and massive consumption. “Better than any dry martini as an aperitif.” – Time Out (London). Gap-Toothed… (’87): tribute to les dents du bonheur, including interviews with everyone from Lauren Hutton to Sandra Day O’Connor. 2:25, 5:25, 8:25* *lES BlANk IN PERSON AT 8:25 SHOW

NOVEMBER 15 SAT

(2 PROgRAMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

BURDEN OF DREAMS & WErNEr HErzOG EATs His sHOEDreams (’82): Account of crazed shooting of Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo. “Far stronger than Herzog’s movie, in part because it has Herzog himself as the real life madman.” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice. Herzog’s Shoe (’80): the director consumes footwear after losing a bet to Errol Morris. 3:10, 7:10* *lES BlANk IN PERSON AT 7:10 SHOW

A wELL SpENT LIFE & sPEND iT ALL Well Spent (’71): Legendary blues guitarist/Texas sharecropper Mance Lipscomb. Spend It (’71): lives and music of the Louisiana Cajuns, with a local’s self-tooth extraction a memorable highlight. 1:30, 5:30

dry Wood

NOVEMBER 16 SUN

(2 PROgRAMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

J’AI éTé AU BAL (’89) Try staying in your seat for this celebration of the music of French SW Louisiana, featuring Michael Doucet and BeauSoleil, Clifton Chenier, Marc and Ann Savoy, et al. 1:00, 4:25*, 8:00 *lES BlANk IN PERSON AT 4:25 SHOW

HOT pEppER & DRY wOODPepper (’73): Zydeco King Clifton Chenier belts out those Cajun tunes in juke joints across Louisiana. Wood (’73): the music of Bois Sec Ardoin and Canray Fontenot. 2:40, 6:15

tHe BLUes aCCordin’ to LigHtnin’ HoPKins

NOVEMBER 17 MON

(2 PROgRAMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

THE BLUES ACCORDIN’ TO LIGHTNIN’ HOpKINS & FOur EArLy sHOrTsHopkins (1969): The legendary bluesman performs at a barbecue and a black rodeo and visits his hometown. Plus Running Around like a Chicken With Its Head Off (’60); Dizzy Gillespie (’64); God Respects Us When We Work, But Loves Us When We Dance (’68); and The Sun’s Gonna Shine (’69). 1:15, 4:00, 6:45* *lES BlANk IN PERSON AT 6:45 SHOW

SpROUT wINGS AND FLY & JuLiE: OLD TiME TALEs OF THE BLuE riDGEWings (1983): 82-year-old Appalachian fiddler Tommy Jarrell keeps that bluegrass coming and the good whiskey flowing. Julie (1991): Jarrell’s 80-year old sister spins yarns of a mountain childhood. 3:00, 5:45, 8:50

NOVEMBER 18 TUE

(2 PROgRAMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

CHULAS FRONTERAS(1976) The toe-tapping social protest music of the Mexican community, on both sides of the border, with memorable featured performer Flaco Jiménez. 1:00, 3:35, 6:10, 8:45

DEL MERO CORAZON & sWOrN TO THE DruMCorazon (1979): Chicano culture through the love songs of the Tex-Mex Norteña music. Drum (1995): Latin percussion = Francisco Aguabella, master of the conga. 2:15, 4:50, 7:25

CHULas fronteras

NOVEMBER 19 WEd

(2 PROgRAMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

ALwAYS FOR pLEASURE & yuM, yuM, yuM!Pleasure (1978): New Orleans: first a funeral, then food — the art of crayfish eating — then it’s time for Mardi Gras, with the Wild Tchoupitoulas society suiting up. “Ethnography with rhythm.” – Time Out (London). Yum! (1990): fish stew cooked up in the Louisiana backwoods. 1:30, 4:25, 7:20

THE MAESTRO: King of the Cowboy Artists(1995) Family man Gerry Gaxiola quits his job to become a Singing Cowboy Renaissance man, sticking it to Andy Warhol and Christo along the way. 3:05, 6:00

in Heaven tHere is no Beer?

NOVEMBER 20 THU

(2 PROgRAMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

INNOCENTS ABROAD(1991) Two weeks, ten countries, 40 Americans! It’s the European group tour experience, with national stereotypes battling good-humoredly. Sundance Grand Jury Award. 1:00, 3:55, 6:50

IN HEAVEN THERE IS NO BEER? & CiGArETTE BLuEsNo Beer? (1984): It’s polka time!… from the Polkabration in Connecticut, to a Milwaukee Polka Mass, to the accordion mania of the Int’l Polka convention. Sundance Special Jury Prize. Blues (1985): butts and death, according to Oakland bluesman Sonny Rhodes. 2:40, 5:35, 8:30

(1973) “I remember” in the Romagnese dialect… Fellini’s ultimate work of reminiscence, drawing on memories of his hometown Rimini, unfolds against the spectacles of Fascism in a completely imagined — and Cinecittà-created — world, across four seasons during the 1930s, with vignettes of town life and its inhabitants: the Fascist parade, with an enormous floral arrangement of Mussolini’s face; the central character “Titta” (based on a childhood friend of Fellini’s), still wearing short pants despite the painful onset of adolescence;

the catastrophic family trip to the country with an uncle let out for the day from a mental hospital; bombshell “Gradisca” (Rififi’s Magalí Noël), whose adopted name means “Whatever you desire”; the fat boy who hopelessly longs for an unobtainable young virgin; “Ronald Colman,” the town Lothario; the local tobacconist, sporting the most mountainous breasts in the whole bosom-oriented Fellini oeuvre; the tall-tale-telling peddler, recounting the night he spent in a harem; Titta’s anti-fascist father, forced to “drink” to the party; the sudden appearance of a peacock in the square amidst a freakish snowfall; and the rush to view the magical nighttime passage of the super-liner Rex — all underlined by one of the most haunting of Nino Rota’s Fellini scores. Co-written by frequent Antonioni collaborator Tonino Guerra (L’Avventura, Blowup, etc.) and shot in vibrant color by Giuseppe Rotunno (The Leopard), who supervised this restoration, Amarcord was one of Fellini’s greatest international hits and critical successes, winning the Oscar for Best Foreign Film, the New York Critics’ Best Director and Film awards, and similar honors around the world, including Japan’s Best Foreign Film award. “Fellini was more in love with breasts than Russ Meyer, more wracked with guilt than Ingmar Bergman, more of a flamboyant showman than Busby Berkeley…Amarcord seems almost to flow from the camera, as anecdotes will flow from one who has told them often and knows they work. This was the last of his films made for no better reason than Fellini wanted to make it.” – Roger Ebert. “A film of exhilarating beauty… as full of tales as Scheherazade, some romantic, some slapstick, some elegiacal, some bawdy, some as mysterious as the unexpected sight of a peacock flying through a light snowfall.” – Vincent Canby, The New York Times. “Even more beautiful and detailed than 8½ … Perhaps the most dreamlike film Fellini has ever made.” – Penelope Gilliatt, The New Yorker.

2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30a JanUs fiLMs reLease

DECEMBER 17-23 ONE WEEK! { NEW 35mm PRINT! }

Paul Schrader’S

(1970) 1798, and farmers in the south of France, on the hunt for a predator, find it’s a naked young boy, presumably grown up in the wild without human contact. As the latest sensation, he’s paraded before fee-paying gawkers at the institute for the deaf and dumb, as Dr. Itard (played by director Truffaut) debates with his mentor Dr. Pinel as to his fate — a purely natural human, a tabula rasa, or simply an idiot? Aided by his housekeeper, Truffaut takes the boy into his home in an attempt to educate and civilize him — but, as he notes, babies take eighteen months to learn to talk. Based on an actual case, with its voiceover narration (delivered staccato-style by Truffaut) an adaptation of Itard’s two reports into diary form,

this is the director’s nearest approach to documentary, with Nestor Almendros’ striking b&w photography evoking the earliest days of the cinema and a much-imitated all-Vivaldi score. As l’enfant sauvage, Jean-Pierre Cargol, a French Roma boy picked from over 2,500 hopefuls, is alternately ferocious and docile (although, happy and well-adjusted in real life, he had trouble doing the tantrums). As Itard, cast partly because he realized he’d be directing the boy within the film, Truffaut imposed on himself

a “no smiling” rule — he lapses briefly once — to attain a kind of gravity, but then this only reinforces his ruthlessly unsentimental treatment of potentially treacly material, even as the inevitable question (“Was

it worth it?”) arises. (Alfred Hitchcock wrote Truffaut asking for “the autograph of the actor who plays the doctor, he is so wonderful,” while Steven Spielberg was so impressed by the director’s compassionate performance that he cast Truffaut in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.) Dedicated to Truffaut’s own “wild child,” Jean-Pierre Léaud. “Endlessly fascinating… Truffaut places his personal touch on every frame … It is an intellectually cleansing experience to watch this intelligent and hopeful film.” – Roger Ebert. “Suffused with Truffaut’s radiant love for the movies’ beginnings, when everything was being done for the first time. It has a miraculous kind of balance: between freedom and control, originality and homage, the discovery of new experience and the contemplation of the past…Truffaut gives us an image of himself as both master and student, the image that contains all we need to know of him.” – Terrence Rafferty, The New Yorker.

1:00, 2:45, 4:30, 6:15, 8:00, 9:45 a fiLM desK/HeatHen fiLMs reLease

CAlENdAR PROgRAMMEd By BRUCE gOldSTEIN

NOVEMBER 7-13 ONE WEEK!

NEW 35mm PRINT!

the wild child

François TruFFauT’s

NOVEMBER 14-20 ONE WEEK!

“ONE OF OUR MOST ORIGINAL FILMMAKERS… A master of movies about the American idiom.”

– Vincent Canby, The New York Times

Les Blankfor over 40 years, Les Blank has chronicled music from the blues, to Appalachia, to Louisiana, to the Tex-Mex border, to rock, to polka, as well as exotic foods and eccentric artistes. Warning: watching these films may make you want to dance and/or eat. “I can’t believe that anyone interested in movies or America could watch his work without feeling they’d been granted a casual, soft-spoken revelation.” – Jay Cocks, Time.

sPeCiaL tHanKs to lES BlANk, MIkE MASHON (lIBRARy OF CONgRESS), dAN STREIBlE (NyU), ANd lES BlANk’S COllABORATORS: CECE CONWAy, AlICE gERRARd, SkIP gERSON, MAUREEN gOSlINg, AlAN gOVENAR, VIkRAM JAyANTI, SUSAN kEll, gINA lEIBRECHT, CHRIS SIMON, CHRIS STRACHWITz, MIEl VAN HOOgENBEMT. gaP-tootHed WoMen aLWays for PLeasUre innoCents aBroad

lAte SHoWS!

NOVEMBER 14-20 ONE WEEK!

Charlie Ahearn’s

(1983) Elusive graffitist Zoro (legendary artist Lee Quinones) has the South Bronx and the whole NYC subway system for a canvas, but fame threatens to blow his cover. Indie filmmaker Charlie Ahearn captured the very early days of Hip Hop in near-documentary style, casting real (and now-pioneer) DJs, MCs, graffiti artists, breakdancers, and rappers. With appearances by Fab Five Freddy, Grandmaster Flash, Grand Wizard Theodore, Busy Bee, Cold Crush, and Rock Steady Crew, climaxing in a raucous impromptu East River Park concert (filmed without permits!). “When it comes to Hip Hop and the cinema there’s only ever been one film that really mattered.” – Hip Hop Connection. “A cult classic…a bona fide piece of cultural history, undisputedly the most important Hip Hop movie ever made.” – BBC. “Easily among the best musicals of the past half decade.” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice (1983). Plus Ahearn’s short Bongo Barbershop (2005): a Tanzanian finds authentic Hip Hop in a Bronx tonsorial parlor. 10:00 onLy*

*director Charlie ahearn and surprise guests in person friday & saturday nights

Ahearn’s lavish Wild Style book on sale at Film Forum concession during run;

book signing Friday & Saturday beginning at 9 pm.

25th ANNIVERSARY! NEW 35mm PRINT!

SPECIAl THANkS TO PAUl gINSBURg, BOB O’NEIl (NBC UNIVERSAl); JAREd SAPOlIN, gROVER CRISP, HElENA BRISSENdEN (SONy PICTURES); MARIlEE WOMACk (WARNER BROS.); SCHAWN BElSTON, CAITlIN ROBERTSON (20TH CENTURy FOx); MARy TAllUNgAN, SCOTT kEllEy

(THE WAlT dISNEy COMPANy); MIkE MASHON, ROB STONE (lIBRARy OF CONgRESS); PETER lANgS (IPMA); RICk SCHECkMAN; ANd TOM TOTH.

PrograMMed By BrUCe goLdstein

A SPECIAl NOd TO NBC UNIVERSAl FOR HElPINg TO kEEP REPERTORy CINEMA AlIVE.

NOVEMBER 21-DECEMBER 2 12 DAYS!

centennial 190

8-2008

CaroleLombard

“No American novelist of the past half-century has created a woman character one-tenth as fascinating

as Carole Lombard.” – Andrew Sarris

baby dollCarroll Baker and

eli WallaCh in person!(1956, eLia kazan) “Possibly the dirtiest American-made motion picture that has been legally exhibited,” tsked Time, while the ads bragged, “Condemned by Cardinal Spellman!” Sicilian interloper Eli Wallach, steamed when his new cotton gin goes up in smoke, decides to revenge himself on suspect Karl Malden by seducing his thumb-sucking child bride Carroll Baker—who’s “not ready for marriage.” Incandescently directed and acted black comedy, expanded from two of his own one-act plays by Tennessee Williams. Following the screening, legendary co-stars Baker and Wallach will join author/historian Foster Hirsch for an onstage conversation. Special admission: $12 for Film Forum members; $20 for non-members. 7:00

SpeCiAl eVeNt!

DECEMBER 22 MON AT 7:00

(1985) The life of the controversial Japanese novelist — both for his Nobel-worthy art and for his über-flamboyant life — in four symbolic Acts (Beauty, Art, Action, Harmony of Pen and Sword) and on three planes: b&w flashbacks to his previous life, seeing the lonely, sickly boy before he became the world-famous bodybuilder/writer/actor; highly colored and stylized dramatizations of sequences from his

books The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (previously filmed as Ichikawa’s Conflagration), Kyoko’s House, and Runaway Horses; and a docu-dramatic treatment of the last day of his life, leading up to his own theatrically-staged seppuku. With the late Ken Ogata in the title role; striking design by Eiko Ishioka (Coppola’s Dracula); and an iconic Philip Glass score (later recycled for The Truman Show) that matched each visual style with its own musical motif (“Glass’s score virtually transforms the whole thing into opera. There is nothing quite like it.” – Time Out London), this is one of the most unusual and challenging films ever to have come from a mainstream studio (originally Warner Bros., thanks to exec producers Francis Coppola and George Lucas, though Mishima’s widow prevented it from ever being shown in Japan). From the screenwriter of Taxi Driver and the director of Blue Collar and American

Gigolo, with co-scripting by his brother, Japanese film scholar Leonard Schrader, and sister-in-law Chieko. In English-subtitled Japanese, with English narration (taken directly from Mishima’s writings) spoken by Roy Scheider. “The most unconventional biopic I’ve ever seen, and one of the best... Schrader has throughout his life as a screenwriter and director been fascinated by the starting-point of a ‘man in a room,’ as he describes it: a man dressing and preparing himself to go out and do battle for his goals. Mishima is his ultimate man in a room.” – Roger Ebert. “Mishima might have been [the author’s] own greatest creation, but he’s also the ultimate Paul Schrader character: a wounded visionary, a compromised saint,

a seeker of truth and transcendence… Schrader’s triumph in Mishima, his

most completely satisfying film, lies in creating a seeker who is aware of his own absurdity, and who is willing to embrace the ridiculous on his way to the sublime.” – Dave Kehr, The New York Times.

FRI 2:00, 4:30, 7:00*, 9:50 SAT-THU 2:00, 4:30, 7:00**, 9:30**

*Q&A WITH dIRECTOR PAUl SCHRAdER FOllOWINg 7:00 SHOW ON FRIdAy

**NO 7:00 & 9:30 SCREENINg ON MONdAy, dECEMBER 22

a life in four chapters

“MIRACULOUS!” – TERRENCE RAFFERTY, THE NEW YORKER

“A LOVELY, PURE FILM! A CLASSIC!”

– VINCENT CANBY, THE NEW YORK TIMES

“MARVELOUS!” – ALFRED HITCHCOCK

Mr. & Mrs. sMitH

DECEMBER 3-16 :: TWO WEEKS! :: NEW 35MM RESTORATION!

ACADEMY AWARD® BEST FOREIGN FILM OF 1973

“Fellini’s most marvelous film!” – Vincent Canby, The New York Times

Federico Fellini’s

dECEMBER 24/25 WEd/THU (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

CHRISTMAS IN JULY (1940) Dick Powell thinks he’s won 25 grand in a radio slogan contest (his entry: “If you can’t sleep, it isn’t the coffee, it’s the bunk”) and acts accordingly — until he realizes… “The most underrated of Preston Sturges’ movies — a riotous comedy-satire about capitalism.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum. 2:45, 6:00, 9:15

REMEMBER THE NIGHT (1940, MitCHeLL Leisen) Assistant NYC D.A. Fred MacMurray brings his maiden aunts in Indiana a Christmas present: convicted shoplifter Barbara Stanwyck. Classic Sturges comedy-romance, his last screenplay for another director. “Sturges’ loose, graceful script has a softness and nostalgia that seldom surfaced in his own films.” – Dave Kehr. 4:10, 7:25

reMeMBer tHe nigHt

dECEMBER 26/27 FRI/SAT (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

SULLIVAN’S TRAVELS(1941) Slated to shoot the sequel to his boffo Ants in Your Pants of 1939, director Joel McCrea would rather make socially-significant O Brother, Where Art Thou?, so he sets out to explore Human Misery, with Veronica Lake along for the ride. “A brilliant fantasy in two keys.” – James Agee. 2:40, 6:05, 9:30

THE GREAT McGINTY(1940) Boss Akim Tamiroff helps crooked bum Brian Donlevy become an even more crooked governor, until honesty rears its ugly head. Sturges sold the script for $10 for the chance to direct. Result: his only Oscar (Original Screenplay) and first of seven smash hits. 4:30, 7:55

dECEMBER 28/29 SUN/MON (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK (1944) When Betty Hutton’s Trudy Kockenlocker comes home from a soldier’s farewell dance in the family way, Eddie Bracken’s perennially hapless Norville Jones is dragged to the rescue, in Sturges’ small-town version of the Immaculate Conception. With Diana Lynn as Trudy’s wiser-than-her-years kid sister. 2:40, 6:30*, 10:20 *dOlly HAll, dAUgHTER OF ACTRESS dIANA lyNN, WIll INTROdUCE THE 6:30 SHOW ON SUNdAy

HAIL THE CONQUERING HERO (1944) Eddie Bracken’s 4-F Woodrow Truesmith is railroaded into returning to his small town as a war hero — and unwillingly thrust into a nightmare of cheering throngs, political campaigns and guilt-ridden mother love. 4:35, 8:25

easy Living

dECEMBER 30 TUE (2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

EASY LIVING (1937, MitCHeLL Leisen) In Sturges’ most famed pre-directorial screwball comedy, working girl Jean Arthur is bonked on the head with a mink coat while riding on an open-air Fifth Ave. double-decker, mistaken for Wall St. lion Edward Arnold’s mistress, and finds love in the Automat with Ray Milland. 2:40, 6:20, 10:00

UNFAITHFULLY YOURS (1948) Murder to the tune of Rossini, Wagner and Tchaikovsky, as insanely jealous conductor Rex Harrison fantasizes killing wife Linda Darnell in three different musical modes. 4:20, 8:00

dECEMBER 31/JANUARy 1 WEd/THU

(2 FIlMS FOR 1 AdMISSION)

THE LADY EVE(1941) Con-gal Barbara Stanwyck, aided by “dad” Charles Coburn, preys on owlish herpetologist Henry Fonda. For wedding night entertainment, “Lady Eve” recounts to a slack-jawed husband a seemingly endless list of former lovers. “Still in that New Year’s mood… Exhilaratingly fast-paced.”– Peter Bogdanovich. 2:40, 6:15, 10:00

THE PALM BEACH STORY (1942) Sturges’ “Topic A” (S-E-X): Under the credits, a maid faints thrice, one Claudette Colbert kicks her way out of a closet, while a second, in a bridal gown, hails a cab. Colbert, on the run from husband Joel McCrea, is pursued by amorous zillionaire Rudy Vallee — whose man-crazy sister Mary Astor chases McCrea. Then Sturges picks up the pace. 4:30, 8:10

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(AS APPEARS ON CREdIT CARd)

DAYTIME TEL

(1966) “Walt Disney with blood.” Trench-coated Anna Karina arrives in Atlantic City (apparently a provincial French town) to track down boyfriend Richard P… (phone, plane or car noise constantly blots out the last name), only to find... And then the bodies start dropping, amid encounters with the mysterious, height-challenged M. Typhus, his nephew David Goodis (a character, not the Shoot the Piano Player author), Goodis’s singing Japanese girlfriend Doris Mizoguchi, characters named “Richard Nixon” and “Robert McNamara,” while being shadowed by Jean-Pierre Léaud and László Szabó’s “Paul Widmark,” with a break for a Hegelian bull session in a bar, punctuated with the real Marianne Faithfull warbling “As Tears Go By.” Made as a favor to his cash-strapped producer Georges de Beauregard, and filmed simultaneously with

Two or Three Things I Know About Her, this ostensible adaptation of a story by American crime writer Donald Westlake was Godard’s farewell to his muse/ex-wife Karina, never filmed more glamorously, as she changes from one colorfully Mod ensemble to another, posed against starkly colored backgrounds and shot (by New Wave legend Raoul Coutard) in a succession of giant, haunting close-ups. But it’s simultaneously an extremely metaphorical and narratively disjunctive

treatment of the notorious disappearance/murder — still unsolved — of exiled Moroccan leftist Mehdi Ben Barka and Godard’s own way of suggesting a vast Cold War conspiracy. Dedicated to “Nick [Ray] and Samuel [Fuller], who taught me about image and sound” and virtually unseen in this country due to rights issues, this is Made in U.S.A.’s very first U.S. release in 35mm.

“Godard’s hymn to vulgar modernism.” – J. Hoberman. “The many

shots of Anna Karina, with their wide variety of mood — each a different pose, angle, expression — serve as a catalogue of remembrances. The close-ups are the most expressive ones in color that Godard has made to date.” – Richard Brody. “The chance to see Made in U.S.A. on the big screen again provides an opportunity to rescue movie art and revive film enthusiasm.” – Armond White, New York Press. “Godard continually cuts the ground from under our feet… every narrative element is analyzed into tiny movements, and then recomposed, somewhat in the manner of classical Cubism. There are sequences like mosaics gone mad.” – Richard Roud.

1:00, 2:50, 4:40, 6:30, 8:20, 10:10

a riaLto PiCtUres reLease

Carole

NOVEMBER 21-DECEMBER 2 12 DAYS!

Lombard

HoliDAY mAtiNeeS!

DECEMBER 24–JANUARY 1 NEw 35MM PRiNt!

Max Fleischer’sHOPPITY GOES

TO TOWN (1941) As insect ingénue Honey Bee and the whole Bugville community awaits local grasshopper hero Hoppity’s return, two crises brew: she may have to marry meanie C. Bagley Beetle, while their garden paradise is threatened by… Manhattan development! Classic, colorful animated musical comedy (with songs by Hoagy Carmichael and Frank Loesser, no less, and Fleischer tune-meister Sammy Timberg) — in second (and last) feature-length film from pioneer cartoon producer/onetime Disney equal and rival Max Fleischer (Out of the Inkwell, Popeye, Betty Boop, Superman). 1:00

PLUS BETTY BOOP’S RISE TO FAME

Essential SturgesDECEMBER 24 - JANUARY 1 9 DAYS!

SPECIAl THANkS TO PAUl gINSBURg, BOB O’NEIl, dAVE OAkdEN (NBC UNIVERSAl); SCHAWN BElSTON, CAITlIN ROBERTSON (20TH CENTURy FOx); MElANIE VAlERA (PARAMOUNT PICTURES); JOHN kOCHMAN; ANd TOM STURgES. tHis series is dediCated to tHe MeMory of sandy stUrges (1927-2006).

sULLivan’s traveLs

tHe Lady eve

NEW 35mm SCOPE PRINT!

1:30, 3:30, 5:40, 7:50, 9:50 a Criterion PiCtUres reLease of a tWentietH CentUry foX fiLM

NIChOlaS Ray’S

BIGGER THAN LIFE STaRRINg JamES maSON

(1956) “God was wrong!” proclaims James Mason — but then he’s in the grip of all-out 50s mediocrity: a too-intellectual, bow-tied grade school teacher, his house festooned with travel posters for places he’s never been to; forced to spend odd afternoons as a cab dispatcher to make ends meet; his job, friends, family, and even himself, self-described as dull. But then there’s bad news and good news: he’s got a rare arterial disease that will probably finish him within a year. the good news? there’s this miracle drug (cortisone) that might just save his life. But there could be some little side effects… time capsule of the 50s: the décor, the blocky suits and omnipresent hats for the men, the gowns that wife Barbara rush tries on during the new Mason’s ill-advised splurge fest, the hat she wears on sunday, the conformity (everyone in town seems to attend the same church) — an unexpected setting for Mason’s tour de force performance, as he moves from frumpy nice guy to full-blown, drug-induced megalomaniac. “one of ray’s most frightening and affecting pictures, one of the films that’s meant the most to me over the years. every scope composition becomes an arena for the most primal emotions, leading to a truly shocking climax.” – Martin scorsese. “there is not a director who films or frames interior shots with ray’s dynamic, fraught grace and who thereby explodes the rigid limits of ‘script’ material. no one made Cinemascope so glorious a shape as ray, because it seemed to set an extra challenge to his interior sensibility. ray was a self-conscious poet of american disenchantment… Rebel Without a Cause and Bigger Than Life show how plainly he saw manias building in america.” – david thomson. “ray’s most powerful film, and in some respects his most important. it’s hard to think of another Hollywood picture with more to say about the sheer awfulness of ‘normal’ american family life during the 50s.” – Jonathan rosenbaum. “May be justifiably seen as ray’s masterpiece. With an even more all-embracing sense of disenchantment than before, he dissects the american dream and finds it a nightmare...” - geoff andrew.

“Ray’S maSTERPIECE!

REmaRKaBlE aND SUBVERSIVE!”– geoff andrew

“ONE OF ThE FINEST PICTURES

OF ThE 1950s!” – David Thomson

JANUARY 2-8 ONE WEEK!

fiLM forUM thanks these supporters of our annual operating budget and our endowment campaign:

Jean-Luc Godard’s

JANUARY 9-22 TWO WEEKS!

Made in

u.s.a.

NEW 35MM SCOPE PRINT!

starrinG anna Karina

JANUARY 23-29 ONE WEEK!“SUPREMELY SENSUAL! Jeanne Dielman changed the

face of contemporary European cinema.”– J. HobErman, Village Voice

Chantal AkermAn’s

JEANNE DIELMAN23 QUaI DU COMMERCE, 1080 BRUXEllES

StArrINg Delphine seyrig

NEW 35mm PrINt!

(1975) A simply dressed Delphine Seyrig (Last Year at Marienbad, Stolen Kisses) puts something on the stove in her modest apartment, then answers the doorbell to admit an older man. Wordlessly taking his hat and coat, they go to the bedroom; after a time shift represented by a light change, they reemerge, she gives him his hat and coat, he gives her money and leaves. Then she checks what’s cooking on the stove, airs out the bedroom, takes a bath, puts on her clothes, wipes out the tub. The next day, shopping, lunching out, and caring for a baby are added to the routines, plus the afternoon visitor. But on the third day, the routines are interrupted, things go slightly awry, and the shell of habit starts to crack; and when the ultimate change occurs, mortal consequences ensue. Akerman’s breakthrough feature (made when she was 25, in five weeks, for $125,000) achieves a microscopic examination of one woman’s life, and by its intensity, with mostly head-on, long take, real time visuals, and music-less and mostly dialogue-less track, forces us to see those little things in life, in a totally new way. “It’s not difficult to understand the extraordinary underground reputation of this very beautiful film. It is not quite like any other film you’ve ever seen. Delphine Seyrig is a screen presence comparable, perhaps, only to Garbo.” – Vincent Canby, New York Times. “A Forties story shot by a Seventies camera.” – cinematographer Babette Mangolte. “To put it baldly — a great movie. The operative word in the description is details: Akerman makes a spectacle unique in film history out of Seyrig’s daily chores. Seyrig inhabits her role so absolutely — even to the clumsiness of her potato-peeling — that she more than justifies the deliberate pedantry of the film’s full title... Dielman is a lethal travesty of melodrama — a deadpan resurrection of the ultimate weepie plot — using a situation that was a chestnut when Mizoguchi discovered it. In affect, it resembles late Hitchcock, but what Hitch used to set the table, Akerman turns into virtually the entire film. As in Psycho or The Birds, Akerman reveals the sinister in the commonplace, but does so to a far more astute social purpose.” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice.

1:00, 4:40, 8:20 a JanUs fiLMs reLease

jerry schatzberg’s

the panic in needle park

starring al pacino and kitty winn {best actress, cannes film festival}

(1971) That’s the little triangle at the intersection of Broadway and 72nd St. (aka Sherman Square, adjacent to Verdi Square) and Shootup Central for West Side drug addicts, and where decent Midwesterner Kitty Winn is headed from the moment she spies artist boyfriend Raul Julia making a connection with small-time crook and pusher Al Pacino. Scintillating star debut for Pacino (Paramount execs green-lighted him for The Godfather only after Coppola screened Panic for them) as the Boyfriend from Hell — and an

equally smashing debut for Winn, granddaughter of General George C. Marshall: she won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her performance. Stark, music-less, near-documentary treatment of drug life — and an offbeat love story — with scenes shot (by Polish DP Adam Holender) on Gotham streets (B’way & 69th doubled for the real Needle Park), and with Pacino often improvising from the solid basis of Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne’s screenplay (based on the book by James Mills). Only the second film from photographer Schatzberg (already renowned for his fashion work and Bob Dylan images, including the iconic Blonde on Blonde cover), Panic established him as a distinctive stylist (“One of the most gifted and original filmmakers to emerge during the 70s.” – Dave Kehr, NY Times). With Richard Bright as Pacino’s thief brother, the unsung Alan Vint as the narc (setting new records for low-key delivery) and Paul Sorvino cameoing as a john. Produced by Dominick Dunne. “Schatzberg moves with considerable force over the urban territory of Midnight Cowboy, using hand-held cameras and a sustained editing rhythm to convey the couple’s gradual descent into hell as mercilessly as he shows the needles entering his characters’ veins.” – Time Out (London). “A relatively unsung chronicler of ’70s alienation… Remembered mainly as the neophyte Pacino’s launching pad into Godfather stardom, the modestly scaled, harrowing Needle Park has over the decades proven to be nearly as influential as Coppola’s blockbuster, setting a cinematic template later used by Drugstore Cowboy, Requiem for a Dream, and a good deal of Sundance Channel fodder.” – Fernando F. Croce, Slant.

FRI 1:10, 3:20, 5:30, 7:40*, 10:15 SAT-THU 1:10, 3:20, 5:30, 7:40, 9:50*dIRECTOR JERRy SCHATzBERg ANd CO-SCREENWRITER JOAN dIdION IN PERSON AT 7:40 SHOW ON FRIdAy

a Criterion PiCtUres reLease of a tWentietH CentUry foX fiLM

“A QUINTESSENTIAL 70s MOVIE!”

– Dave Kehr, The New York Times

january 30-february 5 one week! new 35mm print!

“A SPECIAL AND EXTRAORDINARY MOVIE! A CAREFULLY OBSERVED PORTRAIT.”

- Roger Ebert

FAll/wInTEr 2008-09 rEVIVAlS & rEPErTory noveMBer 7-feBrUary 5

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