Summer at the Cinematheque

WEDS., 7/1, 7 p.m.
THE PRODUCERS
USA | 1968 | DCP | 88 min.
Director: Mel Brooks
Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Kenneth Mars
From the masterful comic mind of Brooks comes the original film farce that inspired the smash Broadway musical. Wilder plays Leo Bloom, a meek accountant dragged into a scheme by money-hungry producer Max Bialystock (Zero Mostel). In their attempts to find a play guaranteed to flop, they create a musical monument to bad taste: Springtime for Hitler.

THURS., 7/2, 7 p.m.
LIFEGUARD
USA | 1976 | DCP | 96 min.
Director: Daniel Petrie
Cast: Sam Elliott, Anne Archer, Kathleen Quinlan
At 32, Southern California lifeguard Rick (Elliott), is not exactly what you’d call ambitious. Facing pressure from friends and family to “get serious” and make a career change, Rick finds himself torn between his super casual beach-centric lifestyle and the call of adulthood. Complicating matters on either side are Wendy (Quinlan), a 17-year-old with a serious crush, and Cathy (Archer), an old high school flame, now divorced and entertaining dreams of settling down with man-child Rick. Director Petrie’s low-key charmer is, above all, a definitive showcase for Sam Elliott, who, in 1976, arrived at the apex of his leading-man SoCal charisma. (BR)

FRI., 7/3, 7 p.m.
BELLISSIMA
Italy | 1951 | DCP | 115 mins. | Italian with English subtitles
Director: Luchino Visconti
Cast: Anna Magnani, Tina Apicella, Walter Chiari
Screen legend Magnani gives a powerhouse comedic turn as a mother who crashes Cinecittà studios, hell-bent on turning her sweet, but ordinary seven-year-old girl into a child star. One of the few comedies from cinematic maestro Visconti, Bellissima takes a sardonic attitude towards the Italian film industry and the many fans who are caught up in the illusions of the dream factory. A new 4K restoration will be screened!

WEDS., 7/8, 7 p.m.
THE TWELVE CHAIRS
USA | 1970 | DCP | 94 min.
Director: Mel Brooks
Cast: Ron Moody, Frank Langella, Dom DeLuise
Brooks’s second feature is set in Russia shortly after the Bolshevik uprising, where a former aristocrat turned hapless clerk (Moody) and a slick con man (Langella) search the country for a set of 12 heirloom chairs, one of which contains a fortune in hidden jewels. As in The Producers, the protagonists, along with their chief rival (DeLuise), are greedy treasure hunters, forever outwitted by their own inept plans. “The Twelve Chairs is more than merely funny. It brings to a full flowering the Brooks attitude” (Roger Ebert).

THURS., 7/9, 7 p.m.
AMORES PERROS
Mexico | 2000 | DCP | 153 min. | Spanish with English subtitles
Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu
Cast: Emilio Echevarria, Gael Garcia Bernal, Goya Toledo
Before he wowed moviegoers with Hollywood productions like Birdman and The Revenant, Alejandro González Iñárritu made his feature debut with this highly acclaimed triptych of stories all linked by a disastrous car crash. As the tales unfold, cruelty, chaos, and compassion are revealed. A new 4K restoration will be screened, presented with the support of Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies at UW-Madison (UWLACIS).

FRI., 7/10, 7 p.m.
AFTER DARK, MY SWEET
USA | 1990 | 35mm | 114 mins.
Director: James Foley
Cast: Jason Patric, Rachel Ward, Bruce Dern
In this sun-baked neo-noir, a former boxer/escapee from a mental hospital (Patric) hooks up with a lonely widow (Ward) and a ne’er-do-well ex-cop (Dern) to hatch a kidnapping plot that goes wrong from the start. Filled with a cavalcade of noir archetypes that are then subverted, After Dark, My Sweet is, along with Sam Peckinpah’s The Getaway and Stephen Frears’s The Grifters, among the best adaptations of Jim Thompson novels. “One of the purest and most uncompromising of modern film noir. It captures above all the lonely, exhausted lives of its characters” (Roger Ebert). (BR)

WEDS., 7/15, 7 p.m.
THE WILD PARTY
USA | 1929 | DCP | 77 min.
Director: Dorothy Arzner
Cast: Clara Bow, Fredric March, Jack Oakie
The prototypical flapper Bow crackles with rebellious energy as Stella Ames, the ringleader of a clique of hard-partying college women whose carefree antics collide with the strict rules of campus life. When Stella falls for a handsome young professor played by UW-Madison legend and Racine native Fredric March, the story shifts from wild comedy to a romantically-charged thrill ride. The first talkie for Bow, Paramount Pictures, and pioneering director Arzner, The Wild Party captures the daring spirit of the pre-Code era with sharp humor and complex characters. A new 4K restoration will be screened!

THURS., 7/16, 7 p.m.
ALLEGRO NON TROPPO
Italy | 1976 | DCP | 75 min. | Italian with English subtitles
Director: Bruno Bozzeto
Cast: Maurizio Nichetti, Maurizio Micheli, Marialuisa Giovannini
An enterprising movie producer believes he has hit upon a winning concept: a program of original animated shorts set to classical music. Undeterred by warnings that this has already been done, he rallies an orchestra of geriatric women, a hapless conductor, and an animator that he keeps locked in the dungeon. Both a parody of and homage to Disney’s Fantasia, Allegro Non Tropo blends live-action slapstick with sublime animation set to the music of Vivaldi, Debussy, Stravinsky, Dvorak, Ravel, and Sibelius. A new 4K restoration will be screened, preceded by the WB/Merrie Melodies short, A Corny Concerto (1943, 8 min.).

FRI., 7/17, 7 p.m.
CRY-BABY
USA | 1990 | 35mm | 85 mins.
Director: John Waters
Cast: Johnny Depp, Amy Locane, Ricki Lake
1950s Baltimore gets torn apart when preppy Allison (Locane) falls hard for juvenile delinquent Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker (Depp, already subverting his heartthrob image in his first major film role). A tongue-in-cheek musical delivered at the hopped-up pitch of its rockabilly soundtrack, this wildly entertaining romp both satirizes and embraces teen movie tropes. Featuring a supporting cast stacked with enough showbiz weirdos to rival Marty Supreme, Waters’s first movie for a major Hollywood studio is a perfect fusion of his outsider attitude and pure pop cinema. (MK)

WEDS., 7/22, 7 p.m.
THE TASTE OF TEA
Japan | 2004 | DCP | 143 min. | Japanese with English subtitles
Director: Katsuhito Ishii
Cast: Takahiro Sato, Maya Sakano, Tadanobu Asano
In the quiet Japanese countryside, a series of surreal and comic episodes explore a wildly unconventional family: an artist mother obsessed with animation, a hypnotherapist father, a lovestruck teenage son, a daughter haunted by a double, and an uncle troubled by ghosts of the past. Director Katsuhito Ishii, who contributed the anime sequence to Kill Bill, crafts an eccentric portrait of domestic life that blends deadpan humor, musical interludes, animated flourishes, and dreamlike imagery. Both playful and deeply odd, The Taste of Tea is “the most charming comedy in town,” (Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune).

THURS., 7/23, 7 p.m.
LETTY LYNTON
USA | 1932 | DCP | 84 min.
Director: Clarence Brown
Cast: Joan Crawford, Robert Montgomery, Nils Asther
This terrific MGM pre-code melodrama was inspired by the notorious 19th-century Madeleine Smith murder trial. Crawford stars as the title character, a glamorous socialite fleeing a destructive affair in South America and seeking a fresh start with a wealthy suitor (Montgomery). When her former lover (Asther) attempts to blackmail her, Letty is driven to desperate measures. A major critical and box-office success in 1932, the film became equally famous for the lavish gowns designed by Adrian, including Crawford’s iconic white organdy dress that sparked a nationwide fashion craze. Despite its acclaim, copyright litigation forced Letty Lynton out of circulation in 1936, leaving it largely unseen for more than 90 years until its long-awaited 4K DCP restoration and return to the big screen this year!

FRI., 7/24, 7 p.m.
SMORGASBORD (CRACKING UP)
USA | 1983 | 35mm | 83 mins.
Director: Jerry Lewis
Cast: Jerry Lewis, Foster Brooks, Milton Berle
Jerry Lewis’ last vehicle as director and star is a gleefully chaotic collection of sketches packed with inspired physical antics and absurd situations. From a hilariously over-waxed doctor’s office to a restaurant nightmare to a wildly digressive scene depicting surgery without anesthetic, the film delivers one inventive gag after another with the fearless energy of Lewis’ early comedies. Long overlooked because of poor distribution, Smorgasbord is proudly presented by the Cinematheque in honor of the comedy legend’s centennial.