Times Square Alliance Presents
TIMES SQUARE CENTENNIAL FILM FESTIVAL
FROM THE STREETS & STAGE TO THE SCREEN
Curated by Museum of the Moving Image
WHERE: Loews State Theater at 1540 Broadway, between 45th & 46th Streets
WHEN: Monday evenings, February 14 through April 4, 2005
ADMISSION: $9 General, $7 Senior/Student. See below for discounts for dates, double features and drag queens.
HOW TO PURCHASE: In person at the box office or online (check back for details).
DETAILS:
Times Square Alliance is set to light up the screen at its first-ever film festival celebrating Times Square. A colorful and enduring character in its own right, Times Square has been immortalized in landmark films that have defined the national mood and consciousness throughout the past 100 years. The “Times Square Centennial Film Festival: From the Streets & Stage to the Screen” will offer the public a rare opportunity to see these classic films on the big screen.
In recognition of the Valentine’s Day opening, and in keeping with the spirit of 100 years of Times Square, film goers can take advantage of some special offers. Two-for-one tickets will be available at the box office only for a total of $14. One person can use this offer to see two films, or two people can use it to see one film. Further, as the films are of full of Times Square characters, up to fifty free tickets will be given away each night to anybody who comes in costume. And, if someone attends in drag, they get two free tickets.
From the early days of motion pictures with 42nd Street, to contemporary independent films like Vanya on 42nd Street, to classic films like Cabaret and Midnight Cowboy, the Crossroads of the World has left its mark on the silver screen. And, of course, so many of the hit dramas and musicals which dominated the screen in the last century originated on Broadway stages. This film festival will explore Times Square’s cinematic legacy and the ways its streets and its stages have been brought to the screen, as interpreted by some of the film industry's finest actors and directors, past and present. Special guests involved in the making of these films will be appearing at select showings.
This series is curated by the Museum of the Moving Image.
FILM FESTIVAL SCHEDULE
February 14
Valentine’s Day: West Side Love Affair
42ND STREET 4;15pm, 9:45pm
1933, 89 mins. Directed by Lloyd Bacon. With Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, Ruby Keeler. The definitive Broadway backstage musical features great production numbers by Busby Berkeley, a sassy, hardboiled look at the New York theater world, gritty Depression-era optimism, and the famous line “You’re going out a youngster but you’ve got to come back a star.” The movie inspired David Merrick’s 1980 stage production, which became one of the longest running musicals in Broadway history.
WEST SIDE STORY 1:15pm, 6:30pm
1961, 151 mins. Directed by Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise. With Natalie Wood. The film version of the breathtakingly modern Broadway musical that transplanted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to present-day New York City, won ten Academy Awards, including a special Oscar for legendary choreographer Jerome Robbins, and awards for Broadway mainstays Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, and Rita Moreno.
February 21
Presidents’ Day: First Ladies of Broadway
CARMEN JONES 3:30pm
1954, 120 mins. Directed by Otto Preminger. With Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte. Dandridge was the first black actress to receive an Oscar nomination for her electrifying portrayal of the seductress in this adaptation of Oscar Hammerstein Jr.’s Broadway opera.
MY FAIR LADY 12:00pm, 9:15pm
1964, 170 mins. Directed by George Cukor. With Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison. As Professor Henry Higgins, Rex Harrison transforms Eliza Doolittle, the “deliciously low” street urchin immortalized by Audrey Hepburn, in this film adaptation of Lerner and Loewe’s hit Broadway musical.
FUNNY GIRL 6:00pm
1968, 151 mins. Directed by William Wyler. With Barbra Streisand, Omar Sharif. Barbra Streisand seems like she was born to play comedienne Fannie Brice in this musical biography about Brice’s rise from the Jewish slums of the Lower East Side to stardom with the Ziegfeld Follies.
February 28
1970s Crime and Punishment
TAXI DRIVER 1:30pm, 7:00pm
1976, 113 mins. Directed by Martin Scorsese. With Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepherd, Jodie Foster. Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle yearns for an apocalyptic rain that will “wash away” all the evil in Manhattan in this riveting Times Square fever-dream from Martin Scorsese.
SHAFT 4:10pm, 9:45pm
1971, 98 mins. Directed by Gordon Parks. With Richard Roundtree. African-American detective John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) cleans up the mean streets of 1970s Times Square. Gordon Parks’ groundbreaking drama launched the “blaxploitation” genre and spawned countless imitators hoping to cash in on its portrayal of urban, black, street-smart heroes.
March 7
Pimps and Prostitutes
MIDNIGHT COWBOY 2:00pm, 7:00pm
1969, 113 mins. Directed by John Schlesinger. With Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight. As Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck, Hoffman and Voight explore Times Square’s seedy underbelly, From Hubert’s Flea Museum to pinball emporiums and porn theaters, in the only X-rated film ever to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.
FORTY DEUCE 4:30pm, 9:45pm
1982, 89 mins. Directed by Paul Morrissey. With Orson Bean, Kevin Bacon. This hard-hitting portrayal of the lives of the inhabitants of Times Square pulls no punches: Kevin Bacon plays a heroin-addicted hustler trying to get drug money by selling a young runaway to a homosexual. The seamy underworld of Times Square is the real star of this dark film.
March 14
Backstage on Broadway
VANYA ON 42ND STREET 3:20pm, 9:40pm
1994, 119 mins. Directed by Louis Malle. With Wallace Shawn, Julianne Moore, Andre Gregory. Louis Malle films Andre Gregory and friends (among them Wallace Shawn and Julianne Moore) rehearsing a stage adaption of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya in a run-down Broadway theatre. The line between theater and life is blurred as the conversations between the actors evolves into a superb performance of the play.
ALL ABOUT EVE 12:15pm, 6:30pm
1950, 138 mins. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. With Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders, Marilyn Monroe. In this skewering satire of the Broadway theater world, aspiring actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) manipulates mega-star Margo Channing (Bette Davis) and everyone around her in order to get the fame and success she’s after.
March 21
Fosse’s Finest
CABARET 1:00pm, 6:30pm
1972, 124 mins. Directed by Bob Fosse. With Liza Minnelli, Michael York. Brilliantly adapted from the acclaimed Broadway production, this remarkable musical about a seedy cabaret in 1930s Berlin won eight Academy Awards, including Best Director (Bob Fosse), Best Actress (Liza Minnelli), and Best Supporting Actor (Joel Grey).
CHICAGO 3:45pm, 9:30pm
2002, 113 mins. Directed by Rob Marshall. With Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellwegger. Director Rob Marshall’s inventive film adaptation of Fosse’s pioneering 1975 Broadway musical features dazzling performances by Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Richard Gere.
March 28
50s Classics: For Love or Money
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS 1:45pm, 7:00pm
1957, 96 mins. Directed by Alexander MacKendrick. With Burt Lancaster, Tony Curtis. A fast-paced, hardboiled 1950s film noir classic, Sweet Smell of Success captures the crackling nighttime energy of Times Square through its black-and-white location photography, and its electrifying performances by Tony Curtis as desperate press agent Sidney Falco and Burt Lancaster as powerful gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker.
GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES 4:30pm, 9:30pm
1953, 91 mins. Directed by Howard Hawks. With Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell. “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” says (and sings) Marilyn Monroe in this delightfully frothy film adaptation of the popular Broadway show, with Monroe as golddigger Lorelei Lee and Russell as her sly sidekick. April 4
Broadway to the Big Screen
A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE 1:15pm, 6:45pm
1951, 122 mins. Directed by Elia Kazan. With Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando. The raw sexuality that made Brando a star in the 1947 Broadway version of Tennessee Williams’s play is brought powerfully to the screen in Kazan’s atmospheric screen adaptation of his own stage production.
THE MIRACLE WORKER 4:00pm, 9:30pm
1962, 106 mins. Directed by Arthur Penn. With Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke. Based on William Gibson’s popular Broadway play, also directed by Arthur Penn, this dynamic film adaptation of the true story of Helen Keller retains the original cast and showcases two of the most powerful performances of the 1960s, Patty Duke as Helen Keller and Anne Bancroft as her partially-blind tutor Annie Sullivan. Films are subject to change.
The Film Festival is an extension of At the Crossroads of Desire: A Times Square Centennial, which the Alliance opened in December in partnership with the AXA Gallery at 51st and 7th Avenue. The exhibition celebrates the one hundred year history of Times Square as a laboratory for new forms of entertainment, communication, advertising, and, of course, desire. It is open through March 26.
Museum of the Moving Image is the only museum of its kind in the United States. Its exhibitions are noted for the integration of material objects in conjunction with computer-based interactive experiences and audio-visual presentations. It houses the nation’s largest collection of moving image artifacts, screens hundreds of films annually, and offers education programs to thousands of New York City students and teachers.
|
