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Show People
Friday, November 21 | 7:30 pm
William Hearst, Marion Davies and Hollywood
1928/b&w/82 min. | Scr: Agnes Christine Johnston, Laurence Stallings; dir: King Vidor; w/ Marion Davies, William Haines. | Live musical accompaniment by Bob Mitchell.
Considered Davies greatest silent film, Show People is a Hollywood satire in which Georgia-born Polly Pepper transforms herself from slapstick extra in the Keystone Cops into Patricia Pepoire, dramatic actress. Inspired by the career of Gloria Swanson, the film features uncredited appearances by stars of the period among them Mae Murray, John Gilbert, Norma Talmadge and Douglas Fairbanks.
The Patsy
Friday, November 21 | 9:00 pm
William Hearst, Marion Davies and Hollywood
1928/b&w/80 min. | Scr: Agnes Christine Johnston; dir: King Vidor; w/ Marion Davies, Orville Caldwell, Marie Dressler. Live musical accompaniment by Bob Mitchell.
Vidor observed the forthright Davies in action at San Simeon, and cast her in this Cinderella story as the family drudge who tires of playing second fiddle to her flirtatious sister and invents a 'new personality' to attract a man of her own. The film revived the career of Marie Dressler and features wicked impersonations by Davies of rivals Lillian Gish, Mae Murray and Pola Negri.
Hearst Metrotone News - An illustrated lecture
Saturday, November 22 | 7:30 pm
William Hearst, Marion Davies and Hollywood
1920s-1940s/b&w/90 min
Starting in 1914, William Randolph Hearst produced a string of theatrically released newsreel series, the last of which appeared in 1967. Blaine Bartell, Senior Newsreel Preservationist, UCLA Film & Television Archive, will discuss the history of Hearst newsreel production, and screen some typical and not so typical newsreel stories from the Hearst Metrotone News collection at UCLA.
Gabriel Over the White House
Saturday, November 22 | 9:15 pm
William Hearst, Marion Davies and Hollywood
1933/b&w/87 min. | Scr: Carey Wilson; dir: Gregory La Cava; w/ Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone.
Cosmopolitan Productions released numerous non-Davies films but this Depression fantasy about a new President who is miraculously transformed from a laissez-faire party stooge into a populist activist was closely supervised by Hearst. The film, variously described as left-wing propaganda and proto-fascist, reflects Hearst's complex political views–a supporter of the New Deal, he drifted right during the 30s–while suggesting fascinating parallels with American politics today.
Peg O' My Heart
Tuesday, November 25 | 1:00 pm
Tuesday Matinee | William Hearst, Marion Davies and Hollywood
1933/b&w/86 min.| Scr: Frank R. Adams, Frances Marion; dir: Robert Z. Leonard; w/ Marion Davies, Onslow Stevens, J. Farrell MacDonald, Juliette Compton.
A spunky Irish girl inherits a place in a British estate.
Zander the Great
Friday, November 28 | 7:30 pm
William Hearst, Marion Davies and Hollywood
1925/b&w/80 min. | Scr: Frances Marion; dir: George Hill; w/ Marion Davies, Hollbrook Blinn | Live musical accompaniment by Bob Mitchell.
Cari Beauchamp, author of Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood (her new book Joseph P Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years is due early 2009) introduces two of her favorite seldom seen Marion Davies films. In this nominal western, Davies, charming in pigtails, plays an intrepid orphan who rescues a homeless child, and heads off to Arizona in a dilapidated car to find his father, a bootlegger.
Blondie of the Follies
Friday, November 28 | 9:15 pm
William Hearst, Marion Davies and Hollywood
1932/b&w/91 min. | Scr: Frances Marion, Anita Loos; dir: Edmund Goulding; w/ Marion Davies, Robert Montgomery, Billie Dove, Jimmy Durante, ZaSu Pitts.
Produced by Davies and tailor-made for her talents by favorite screenwriter Marion, Blondie is a comedy drama about two friends whose quest for showbiz fame is sidetracked by their feud over a wealthy playboy. With its realistic backstage scenes—director Goulding came from the British theater—and a terrific performance by Dove, a former Ziegfeld Girl, Blondie was Davies' most successful talkie, capped by a delightful scene in which Blondie and Durante 'do' Garbo and Barrymore in Grand Hotel.
The Battle Over Citizen Kane
Saturday, November 29 | 5:00 pm
William Hearst, Marion Davies and Hollywood
1996/color/108 min./Digital projection | Scr: Richard Ben Cramer, Thomas Lennon; dir: Michael Epstein, Thomas Lennon; w/ Peter Bogdanovich, Jimmy Breslin, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Ruth Warrick, Robert Wise.
This excellent, Academy Award nominated documentary produced for WGBH/The American Experience tracks Citizen Kane's passage from script stage, through early previews (Hedda Hopper called it "a vicious and irresponsible attack on a great man") up to its release and devastating aftermath. In the words of director Lennon: "Hearst 76 and Welles 24 were proud, gifted, and destructive–geniuses each in his way. The fight that ruined them both was thoroughly in character with how they'd lived their lives."
Free screening.
Citizen Kane
Saturday, November 29 | 7:30 pm
William Hearst, Marion Davies and Hollywood
1941/b&w/119 min. | Scr: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles; dir: Orson Welles; w/ Orson Welles, Dorothy Comingore, Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead.
Welles' masterpiece is now regarded as the greatest American film of all time, but few today realize that Kane was only rediscovered and reappraised in the mid-sixties. Hearst's campaign to discredit Welles was ruthless, skillful, and much aided by Welles himself, who had never bothered to hide his contempt for Hollywood. When Welles' name and his film were mentioned at the 1942 Academy Awards, they were booed. Nominated for nine awards, Citizen Kane lost in every category except "Best Screenplay"—Welles and Herman Mankiewicz shared the award—and following the Academy's stinging repudiation, RKO quietly retired the film to its vault.
Introduction by Mary Levkoff, curator of Hearst, the Collector.
Meet Me in St. Louis
Tuesday, December 2 | 1:00 pm
Tuesday Matinee
1944/color/113 min. | Scr: Irving Brecher, Fred F. Finklehoffe; dir: Vincente Minnelli; w/ Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer.
Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family.
Doubt
Friday, December 5 | 7:30 pm
Preview Screening
2008/color/100 min. | Scr/dir: John Patrick Shanley; w/ Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams.
John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning play has been transformed into one of this year's most visually striking and emotionally searing films, featuring performances by Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman that will not be overlooked at award season. Set in 1964 in a Catholic grade school in the Bronx run by a teaching order of nuns, the film depicts the escalating battle of wills between Sister Aloysius (Streep) the iron-gloved Principal who believes in the power of fear and discipline, and Father Flynn (Hoffman), the newly arrived and charismatic parish priest whose attempts to undermine the school's strict customs Aloysius fiercely resists. Without a shard of proof besides her moral certainty, Aloysius accuses Flynn of paying too much personal attention to Donald, the school's first black student; and in so doing unleashes a series of devastating consequences. Structured like a thriller, Doubt dramatically presents both sides of a debate that resonates today: in an era of social and political change, what is the price of blind conviction?
Strangers on a Train
Tuesday, December 9 | 1:00 pm
Tuesday Matinee
1951/b&w/101 min. | Scr: Raymond Chandler, Czenzi Ormonde; dir: Alfred Hitchcock; w/ Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker, Leo G. Carroll.
On a train, wealthy, neurotic Bruno Antony recognizes tennis player Guy Haines. They strike up a conversation and Bruno jokingly makes a proposition-that the two strangers, who each want someone in their life killed, swap murders- that turns deadly.
The Wrestler
Friday, December 12 | 7:30 pm
Preview Screening
2008/color/105 min. | Scr: Robert Siegel; dir: Darren Aronofsky; w/ Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei. Evan Rachel Wood.
Mickey Rourke stars as Randy "The Ram" Robinson, a onetime superstar of the mat; now battered and estranged from his daughter (Wood), he ekes out a living performing in high school gyms and community centers around New Jersey. But when a heart attack forces him into retirement, his sense of identity starts to slip away, and he begins to evaluate the state of his life. Winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice film festival. "A triumph from start to finish… Rourke gives the kind of performance that caps, redefines and reinvents careers."—Scott Foundas, LA Weekly.
The Law and Jake Wade
Tuesday, December 16 | 1:00 pm
Tuesday Matinee
1958/color/88 min./CinemaScope | Scr: William Bowers; dir: John Sturges; w/ Robert Taylor, Richard Widmark, Patricia Owens, Robert Middleton.
An outlaw forces his reformed buddy to lead him to buried loot.
Doctor Zhivago
Tuesday, December 23 | 1:00 pm
Tuesday Matinee
1965/color/197 min./Panavision | Scr: Robert Bolt; dir: David Lean; w/ Geraldine Chaplin, Julie Christie, Tom Courtenay, Alec Guinness, Omar Sharif, Rod Steiger, Klaus Kinski.
Illicit lovers fight to stay together during the turbulent years of the Russian Revolution.
Free holiday matinee.
Program Notes
Friday and Saturday screenings begin at 7:30 pm unless otherwise noted. There is a ten-minute intermission between features on a double bill. All programs are subject to change. Films are in 35mm unless otherwise indicated. Foreign-language films are subtitled in English. Many films are unrated and may not be appropriate for younger viewers. If a film is listed as "sold out," a standby line will form one hour before the screening. Any cancellations or seats that become available will go to people waiting in this line. Please note that there is no guarantee that everyone in the standby line will be accommodated.
The Leo S. Bing Theater is equipped with a DTS digital sound system courtesy of Universal Pictures, an SDDS digital sound system courtesy of Sony Cinema Products, and Dolby digital sound.
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Ticket Prices
$10 general admission.
$7 museum members, seniors (62+), students with valid ID.
$5 second film only of a double-feature; no advance purchase.
$2 Tuesday matinees.
$1 Tuesday matinees, seniors (62+).
Where to Buy
Buy tickets at the museum box office (tel. 323 857-6010) or online. Many programs sell out so try to purchase in advance.
Included
Your film ticket covers both films in a double bill, except where noted, and includes entrance to the museum galleries as well.
Film Department
Tel. 323 857-6177
Ian Birnie, Director
Bernardo Rondeau, Program Coordinator
Lee Marcuse, Volunteer
Pauline Posner, Volunteer
If you would like to subscribe to the Film Department’s e-mail newsletter, please send a message to film@lacma.org.
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