Hooray for Hollywood: Sunday Mornings with David Schwartz
Jan. 19–June 21, 2020
A NEW FILM CLUB!
At its height, Hollywood produced much of the great American popular art of the 20th century. The best movies are much more than escapist entertainment; they offer rich, rewarding experiences and the artistry of great directors, actors, writers, and craftspeople. This new monthly club brings the classics back to life on the big screen—all in 35mm prints—accompanied by introductions and discussions with leading critics, film historians, and programmers. Programmed and hosted by David Schwartz, former chief curator, Museum of the Moving Image.
Hooray for Hollywood meets once a month for six months beginning January 2020. All films begin at 9:30 am. Club dates: Jan. 19, Feb. 16, Mar. 29, Apr. 26, May 10, Jun. 21.
NEW! Choose the subscription package that works best for you: 3, 4, 5 or 6 sessions at $20 (members) and $25 (nonmembers) per screening: HERE
SERIES TRAILER
His Girl Friday
Jan. 19, 2020
Series Programmer and Host David Schwartz with Molly Haskell
Director Howard Hawks reinvented the Ben Hecht–Charles Macarthur play The Front Page, about tabloid newspaper wars in Chicago, as a rapid-fire screwball romance for the ages by turning one of the main characters into a woman. Reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosalind Russell) spars with Cary Grant, who plays her ex-husband and editor.
Molly Haskell is a critic and author whose books include From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies and Steven Spielberg: A Life in Films. She won the 2017 career achievement award from the New York Film Critics Circle.
Top Hat
Feb. 16, 2020
Series Programmer and Host David Schwartz with Stephanie Zacharek
“Cheek to Cheek” is among the many highlights in this essential Fred Astaire–Ginger Rogers musical—one of the very best of their 10 films together. Set in an Art Deco soundstage London and Venice, Top Hat is a perfect concoction of comedy, romance, and great dancing. “There are few movies as joyful as Top Hat,” writes Stephanie Zacharek, who will present the film. “It’s pure bliss.”
Stephanie Zacharek is the chief film critic for Time Magazine. Previously the chief film critic for The Village Voice and Salon, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism in 2015.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
Mar. 29, 2020
Series Programmer and Host David Schwartz with Bruce Goldstein
In the original 1974 version of this action-packed thriller, a flu-plagued Koch-lookalike mayor is on the spot when he receives an ultimatum: Cough up the dough—$1 million—in an hour or 17 passengers on the downtown 6 train get wasted. Wisecracks and bullets fly as quick-witted Transit Authority cop Walter Matthau negotiates with Robert Shaw’s all-business “Mr. Blue.” — Bruce Goldstein
Bruce Goldstein is one of the country’s most beloved programmers and distributors of classic movies. He has run the repertory program at Film Forum since 1986. He is also the founder and co-president of Rialto Pictures, which restores and distributes a wide range of American and international films.
Double Indemnity
Apr. 26, 2020
Series Programmer and Host David Schwartz with Imogen Sara Smith
One of the first essential noir films, Double Indemnity is about a femme fatale who lures a straight-arrow insurance salesman into killing her husband. Despite the sizzling undercurrent in the repartee between Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck (“I wonder if I know what you mean.” “I wonder if you wonder.”), the real love story here is between the insurance salesman and his boss, played by Edward G. Robinson.
Imogen Sara Smith is a film critic and historian based in New York City. She is the author of two books: In Lonely Places: Film Noir Beyond the City and Buster Keaton: The Persistence of Comedy and is a regular contributor to Film Comment, Sight & Sound, the Criterion Collection, and other publications.
Love Affair
May 10, 2020
Series Programmer and Host David Schwartz with Dave Kehr
This achingly beautiful romantic drama is among the most memorable films Hollywood produced in what is widely regarded as its greatest year, 1939. Charles Boyer is a just-engaged French playboy who meets a singer (Irene Dunne) on a transatlantic cruise. After a whirlwind romance, they go back to their significant others when they land in New York, but they agree to meet six months later at the Empire State Building.
Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with support from The Film Foundation.
Dave Kehr is a curator in the Department of Film at the Museum of Modern Art. He was a longtime film critic for The New York Times and The Chicago Reader, and a selection of his writing can be found in the book When Movies Mattered.
Mildred Pierce
June 21, 2020
Series Programmer and Host David Schwartz with Farran Smith Nehme
A perfect blend of woman’s picture, melodrama, and film noir, this adaptation of the James Cain novel by Casablanca director Michael Curtiz features Joan Crawford’s definitive Oscar-winning performance as a housewife-turned-waitress who finds business success while trying to keep strict control over her vindictive daughter.
Farran Smith Nehme reviews films for the New York Post. She’s been writing about classic film at her blog, Self-Style Siren, since 2005. She has written frequently for the Criterion Collection and can be seen introducing films on the Criterion Channel. She is also the author of Missing Reels, a novel set in the silent-film word.
