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A HARD DAY’S NIGHT

Fiftieth anniversary restoration of A HARD DAY’S NIGHT is playing July 4-17 at Film Forum

A HARD DAY’S NIGHT (Richard Lester, 1964)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Opens July 4, 12:45, 3:00, 5:10, 7:30, 9:45
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.thebeatles.com

The Beatles are invading America again with the fiftieth anniversary restoration of their debut film, the deliriously funny anarchic comedy A Hard Day’s Night. Initially released on July 6, 1964, in the UK, AHDN turned out to be much more than just a promotional piece advertising the Fab Four and their music. Instead, it quickly became a huge critical and popular success, a highly influential work that presaged Monty Python and MTV while also honoring the Marx Brothers, Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati, and the French New Wave. Directed by Richard Lester, who had previously made the eleven-minute The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film with Peter Sellers and would go on to make A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Petulia, and The Three Musketeers, the madcap romp opens with the first chord of the title track as John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr are running down a narrow street, being chased by rabid fans, but they’re coming toward the camera, welcoming viewers into their crazy world. (George’s fall was unscripted but left in the scene.) As the song blasts over the soundtrack, Lester introduces the major characters: the four moptops, who are clearly having a ball, led by John’s infectious smile, in addition to Paul’s “very clean” grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell, who played a dirty old man in the British series Steptoe and Son, the inspiration for Sanford and Son) and the band’s much-put-upon manager, Norm (Norman Rossington). Lester and cinematographer Gilbert Taylor (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Repulsion, Star Wars) also establish the pace and look of the film, a frantic black-and-white frolic shot in a cinema-vérité style that is like a mockumentary taking off from where François Truffaut’s 400 Blows ends.

The boys eventually make it onto a train, which is taking them back to their hometown of Liverpool, where they are scheduled to appear on a television show helmed by a hapless director (Victor Spinetti, who would star in Help as well) who essentially represents all those people who are dubious about the Beatles and the sea change going on in the music industry. Norm and road manager Shake (John Junkin) have the virtually impossible task of ensuring that John, Paul, George, and Ringo make it to the show on time, but there is no containing the energetic enthusiasm and contagious curiosity the quartet has for experiencing everything their success has to offer — while also sticking their tongues out at class structure, societal trends, and the culture of celebrity itself. Lester and Oscar-nominated screenwriter Alun Owen develop each individual Beatle’s unique character through press interviews, solo sojourns (the underappreciated Ringo goes off on a kind of vision quest; George is mistaken by a fashion fop for a model), and an endless stream of spoken and visual one-liners. (John sniffs a Coke bottle; a reporter asks George, “What do you call your hairstyle?” to which the Quiet One replies, “Arthur.”) Oh, the music is rather good too, featuring such songs as “I Should Have Known Better,” “All My Loving,” “If I Fell,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “I’m Happy Just to Dance with You,” “This Boy,” and “She Loves You.” The working name for the film was Beatlemania, but it was eventually changed to A Hard Day’s Night, based on a Ringo malapropism, forcing John and Paul to quickly write the title track. No mere exploitation flick, A Hard Day’s Night is one of the funniest, most influential films ever made, capturing a critical moment in pop-culture history and unleashing four extraordinary gentlemen on an unsuspecting world. The fiftieth-anniversary restoration, courtesy of Janus Films, is screening July 4-17 at Film Forum; don’t you dare miss this glorious eighty-five-minute explosion of sheer, unadulterated joy.

ALEC GUINNESS 100: THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT

Goofy chemist Sid Stratton (Alec Guinness) is looking to revolutionize the textile industry in the Ealing classic THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT

THE MAN IN THE WHITE SUIT (Alexander Mackendrick, 1951)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Friday, June 20, and Saturday, June 21, 2:20, 6:00, 9:45
Series continues through July 3
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

Alexander Mackendrick’s splendid 1951 Ealing comedy The Man in the White Suit is a hysterical Marxist fantasy about corporations, unions, and the working man that doesn’t feel dated in the least. Alec Guinness stars as Sidney Stratton, a brilliant scientist relegated to lower-class jobs at textile mills while he works feverishly on a secret product that he believes will revolutionize the industry — and the world. After being fired by Michael Corland (Michael Gough) at one factory, Sid goes over to Birnley’s, run by Alan Birnley (Cecil Parker, whose voiceover narration begins and ends the film). As Sid develops his groundbreaking product, he also develops a liking for Birnley’s daughter, Daphne (Joan Greenwood), who is preparing to marry Corland. Meanwhile, tough-talking union leader Bertha (Vida Hope) also takes a shine to the absentminded chemist, who soon finds himself on the run, chased by just about everyone he’s ever met, not understanding why they all are so against him. Guinness is at his goofy best as Sid, a loner obsessed with the challenge he has set for himself; his makeshift, Rube Goldberg-like chemistry sets are a riot, bubbling over with silly noises like they’re in a cartoon. But at the heart of the film lies some fascinating insight on the nature of big business that is still relevant today. Nominated for an Oscar for Best Screenplay, The Man in the White Suit is an extremely witty film, expertly directed (and cowritten) by Mackendrick, who would go on to make such other great pictures as The Ladykillers and Sweet Smell of Success. It’s easy to imagine that if someone in a textile mill today came up with a similar invention as Stratton’s, the same arguments against it would arise, suppressing progress in favor of personal interest and preservation. The Man in the White Suit is being shown June 20-21 at Film Forum in a double feature with Charles Crichton’s delightful heist comedy The Lavender Hill Mob — both in 35mm restorations — as part of “Alec Guinness 100,” celebrating Sir Alec’s centennial with screenings of more than two dozen of his films, including The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Ladykillers, Our Man in Havana, Lawrence of Arabia, The Scapegoat, The Prisoner, and the 1997 Special Edition of Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

Homer (Harold Russell), Fred (Dana Andrews), and Al (Fredric March) wonder what awaits them back home in THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES

THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES (William Wyler, 1946)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
June 6-12
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

It is more than fitting that a new restoration of William Wyler’s American classic, The Best Years of Our Lives, opened on the seventieth anniversary of D-Day, just as serious questions about the Veterans Administration’s care of military personnel have been dominating the news. The 1946 film, which won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, tells the story of three men returning to their suburban homes in the close-knit town of Boone City. The well-off Sergeant First Class Al Stephenson (Best Actor winner Fredric March) is welcomed with open arms by his wife, Milly (Myrna Loy), his adult daughter, Peggy (Teresa Wright), and his boss at the bank, Mr. Milton (Ray Collins). Hero bombardier Captain Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) has trouble finding a decent job as well as locating his good-time-girl wife, Marie (Virginia Mayo), while developing an interest in young Peggy. And Petty Officer Second Class Homer Parrish (Harold Russell) can’t believe that his longtime sweetheart, Wilma (Cathy O’Donnell), will still want him now that he has two hooks for hands. The three very different men all find that getting back to a normal, civilian life is much more painful than they imagined in a changing midcentury America.

Al looks on as Homer (Harold Russell) and Butch (Hoagy Carmichael) duet in American classic

Wyler (Dodsworth, Ben-Hur), himself a WWII veteran, directs the film with a realistic feel, building slowly on such emotions as fear, love, compassion, and understanding. Andrews’s familiar stiffness adds an inner strength to Derry while March again shows off his superb skills as a banker with a new take on the meaning of success. And Russell, who lost his hands while making a military training film, is subtly powerful as Homer, representing all men and women who return home from war incomplete, both physically and psychologically. (Russell won two Oscars for the role, one as Best Supporting Actor, the other an honorary award “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans.”) The Best Years of Our Lives also features splendid deep-focus photography by master cinematographer Gregg Toland, a wonderfully taut script by Oscar winner Robert E. Sherwood based on war correspondent MacKinlay Kantor’s Samuel Goldwyn-commissioned novella Glory for Me, and an aching score by Oscar winner Hugo Friedhofer. Despite its age, The Best Years of Our Lives still feels relevant and prescient, tackling a number of difficult topics with grace and elegance as three families reconsider just what the American dream means.

FILM FORUM JR.: THE RED SHOES

Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) contemplate their future in Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s THE RED SHOES

CLASSICS FOR KIDS AND THEIR FAMILIES: THE RED SHOES (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1948)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Sunday, June 8, $7.50, 11:00 am
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.com

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes is a lush, gorgeous examination of the creative process and living — and dying — for one’s art. Sadler’s Wells dancer Moira Shearer stars as Victoria Page, a young socialite who dreams of becoming a successful ballerina. She is brought to the attention of ballet master Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) and soon is a member of his famed company. Meanwhile, composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring), whose music was stolen by his professor and used in a Lermontov ballet, also joins the company, as chorus master. As Vicky and Julian’s roles grow, so does their affection for each other, with a jealous Lermontov seething in between. Inspired by Sergei Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, The Red Shoes is a masterful behind-the-scenes depiction of the world of dance, highlighted by the dazzlingly surreal title ballet, which mimics the narrative of the central plot. Based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, the fifteen-minute ballet takes viewers into a completely different fantasy realm, using such cinematic devices as jump cuts and superimposition as the drama unfolds well beyond the limits of the stage. To increase the believability of the story and make sure the dance scenes were effective, Powell and Pressburger enlisted players from the international dance community; the film’s cast includes Russian choreographer and dancer Léonide Massine as Lermontov choreographer Grischa Ljubov, French prima ballerina Ludmilla Tchérina as Lermontov star Irina Boronskaja, and Australian dancer Robert Helpmann as Ivan Boleslawsky; Helpmann also served as the film’s choreographer.

Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) gets immersed in a surreal ballet in classic dance drama THE RED SHOES

Brian Easdale won an Oscar for his score, which ranges from sweet and lovely to dark and ominous, with an Academy Award also going to Hein Heckroth’s stunning art direction and Arthur Lawson’s fabulous set design. The film was photographed in glorious Technicolor by Jack Cardiff. Upon meeting Vicky, Lermontov asks, “Why do you want to dance?” to which she instantly responds, “Why do you want to live?” No mere ballet film, The Red Shoes is about so much more. The Red Shoes is screening June 8 at 11:00 am as part of the Film Forum Jr. series for kids and families, which continues June 15 with To Kill a Mockingbird and June 22 with Oklahoma!

SORCERER

Roy Scheider goes on an existential voyage of the soul in William Friedkin’s SORCERER

SORCERER (William Friedkin, 1977)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
May 30 – June 5
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

In the mid-1970s, Chicago-born director William Friedkin was riding high, earning an Oscar for The French Connection and another nomination for The Exorcist, two huge critical and box-office successes. For his next film, he decided to reimagine a seminal work that had had a profound influence on him, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s haunting 1953 suspense thriller, The Wages of Fear. “It turned out to be the most difficult, frustrating, and dangerous film I’ve ever made, and it took a toll on my health as well as my reputation,” Friedkin wrote in his 2013 memoir, The Friedkin Connection. Friedkin’s adaptation of Clouzut’s classic, itself based on a novel by Georges Arnaud, follows four unlikable men — a thief (Roy Scheider), a hit man (Francisco Rabal), an embezzler (Bruno Cremer), and a terrorist (Amidou) — hiding out under fake identities in a depressed, nowhere village in South America. When a nearby oil well catches fire, the company needs four men to drive two rickety trucks more than two hundred miles over treacherous terrain to deliver cases of rotting, highly unstable dynamite that will be used to blow the whole thing up and put out the fire. Oil man Corlette (Ramon Bieri) is sending two trucks — dubbed “Lazaro” and “Sorcerer” — because he thinks only one, if any, will make it through. The journey includes a harrowing twelve-minute scene as the men try to navigate a dilapidated rope bridge in a rainstorm as well as a psychedelic trip through a fantastical landscape (shot in the Bisti Badlands in New Mexico).

Harrowing bridge crossing is one of the most suspenseful scenes ever caught on film

What began as a dream project — Friedkin was pretty much given carte blanche by the studio, and he initially had his ideal cast lined up, consisting of Steve McQueen, Marcello Mastroianni, Lino Ventura, and Amidou — quickly turned into a nightmare as the cast changed, location problems flared up, a cinematographer had to be fired because of improper lighting, a narc forced Friedkin to get rid of some drug-using crew members, “Marvin the Torch” had to be called in to help with an explosion, and malaria ran rampant, as did the budget. When the film was finally released in June 1977, it got lost in all the Star Wars hoopla, resulting in a critical and box-office failure that shattered Friedkin, whose next three films were The Brink’s Job, Cruising, and Deal of the Century. But Friedkin has always stood behind Sorcerer: “I had persevered to make a film that I would want to see,” he wrote in his memoir, “a relentless existential voyage that would become my legacy.” After fighting for the rights to the film, he supervised a digital restoration that confirms the film as a towering achievement, a gripping, intense work of suspense that digs deep into the soul. Scheider, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The French Connection and then was extremely upset when Friedkin refused to cast him as Father Damien in The Exorcist, gives an extraordinary performance as Jackie Scanlon, a New Jersey Irish gang member now going by the name Juan Dominguez, ready to do whatever it takes to get out of the hell he is in. Friedkin and editor Bud Smith cut the film to match Tangerine Dream’s electronic score — the German group wrote the music to the script, without seeing a single frame of the finished product — creating an intense pace that never lets up. The digital restoration, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, was just released on Blu-ray and DVD, and is currently playing at Film Forum, restores Friedkin’s Sorcerer legacy, as critics and audiences reevaluate it as a remarkable triumph after all these years. The title is still terrible and the final scene highly questionable, but Sorcerer is an unforgettable, powerfully realistic work of magic.

THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO: THE MOOR OF VENICE

A new restoration of Orson Welles’s OTHELLO is running at Film Forum through May 8 (courtesy Carlotta Films)

OTHELLO (Orson Welles, 1952)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Daily through May 8
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org
www.carlottafilms-us.com

Filmed in black-and-white over three years in multiple locations and ultimately employing five cinematographers, four editors, three Desdemonas, and two scores, it’s rather amazing that Orson Welles’s 1952 independent production of William Shakespeare’s Othello was ever completed — of course, many Welles projects were not. That the final work turned out to be a masterpiece that won the Palme d’Or at Cannes speaks yet more to Welles’s genius. A newly restored version of Othello is in the midst of a two week-run at Film Forum, in conjunction with “Celebrate Shakespeare 2014!,” a worldwide festival honoring the Bard’s 450th birthday. Welles, who directed the picture and plays the title character, streamlined the story into ninety-five minutes, getting to the heart of the most intense tale of jealousy and betrayal ever told. The film opens with shadowy shots of the dead Othello and his deceased wife, Desdemona (Suzanne Cloutier), carried aloft on biers at their dual funeral, to the sounds of an ominous piano and a mournful vocal chorus. The credits soon follow, after which Welles returns to the beginning, as the villainous ensign Iago (Micheál MacLiammóir) plots with Roderigo (Robert Coote) to convince Othello that his loyal and devoted wife is actually in love with the heroic soldier Michael Cassio (Michael Laurence).

At first Othello brushes away Iago’s concerns, but soon he is caught in Iago’s trap and starts to question the fairy-tale love he shares with his beautiful and trusting bride. As the story proceeds, characters are shown in extreme close-up, in narrow passages and doorways, amid medieval rooms with large columns and intricately designed windows, shadows looming everywhere; the stunning architecture, shot at disorienting angles, is a character unto itself. Welles did whatever it took to finish the film, including using his own funds from acting jobs and filming a scene in a bathhouse when costumes were unavailable, lending the proceedings a fragmented feel that evokes the mirrors in the finale of The Lady from Shanghai. Unfortunately, the syncing of the dialogue track is still often off and numerous cuts are too shaky, but they detract only a bit from the overall power and majesty of the film, a bold and brave take on a familiar Shakespeare tale given a dark new life by a master auteur.

TOUT TRUFFAUT: BED AND BOARD

Antoine (Jean-Pierre Léaud) and Christine (Claude Jade) dine on baby food in BED AND BOARD

BED AND BOARD (DOMICILE CONJUGAL) (François Truffaut, 1970)
Film Forum
209 West Houston St.
Wednesday, April 9, 1:15, 3:15, 5:15, 7:40, 9:45
Festival continues through April 17
212-727-8110
www.filmforum.org

When we first encounter Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) in Bed and Board, he is running down stairs to dye flowers, complaining that one flower always remains unchanged. Of course, that unchanging flower is Antoine himself, who we’ve watched grow up in François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, Antoine and Colette, and Stolen Kisses. (Bed and Board was supposed to be the final chapter, but Truffaut and Léaud teamed up again in 1979 for Love on the Run.) The upstart adolescent is far from being mature, even though he has now married Christine (Claude Jade) and is preparing to have a baby. Antoine is still very much a child, unable to face any serious responsibilities. When he gets a new job, it’s steering motorized boats on a pond at a hydraulics company, in a miniature version of a port; it’s like a doll’s house for men, a rehearsal for real, full-size life. He is still desexualized; when he’s in bed with his wife, he wants to nickname each of her breasts, which he claims are different sizes, instead of seeing them as beautiful erogenous zones. When they don’t have anything to eat in the apartment, he decides to dine on baby food with Christine. And when Christine’s parents (Claire Duhamel and Daniel Ceccaldi) come to see the baby, his father-in-law wants to make sure that Antoine doesn’t keep their present of a toy duck for himself. Antoine hasn’t grown out of his own fantasy world, and he still doesn’t understand that there are consequences to his actions, especially when he becomes interested in a beguiling Japanese woman named Kyoko (Hiroko Berghauer). He is surrounded by characters who live in the building and gather in the courtyard — a man (Jacques Rispal) who hasn’t stepped outside in decades, a waitress (Danièle Girard) who has the hots for Antoine, a gregarious bar owner (Jacques Jouanneau), and a new stranger (Claude Véga) everyone calls the Strangler — but he’s yet to really decide on his own character. Despite their monetary woes — Christine gives violin lessons in their home to make money — Antoine keeps lending more and more cash to a sponging friend (Jacques Robiolles) as if he’s made of francs. But Antoine clearly doesn’t know what he’s made of, at least not yet.

Antoine Doinel still has plenty of growing up to do in BED AND BOARD

Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) still has plenty of growing up to do as Truffaut’s Nouvelle Vague cycle continues

Bed and Board (or, perhaps, Bed and Bored?) is a charming yet bittersweet romantic comedy that is at times extremely frustrating. Having followed Antoine’s life for so long, we ache to see him make the right decisions, yet hate ourselves for giving him the benefit of the doubt when he makes such wrongheaded, selfish choices. “You are my sister, my daughter, my mother,” he tells Christine, who answers, “I’d hoped to be your wife.” Shot on location by Nestor Almendros in an actual apartment complex, the film has a welcoming, natural feel, as if we’re part of Antoine’s extended family. Truffaut, who cowrote the script with Bernard Revon, has lighthearted fun with the details, adding unique flourishes while paying tribute to such cinema greats as Jacques Tati, Alain Resnais, John Ford, and Orson Welles. Bed and Board is screening April 9 as part of Film Forum’s “Tout Truffaut” series, which continues through April 17 with such other Truffaut treasures as Two English Girls, Day for Night, Small Change, Mississippi Mermaid, and The Last Metro.