DO NOT PARK IN THE CHURCH PARKING LOT BEHIND THE THEATER, YOU WILL BE TOWED!
ALL OF THESE SCREENINGS ARE SOLD OUT!
A Heights Theater tradition! One of our most popular events! An event that sells out year after year. You will not want to miss the perennial TECHNICOLOR favorite, WHITE CHRISTMAS, on the big screen!
Plus.....ON OUR STAGE! The big show starts with a special 20 minute concert by the wonderful MAUD HIXSON, singing a stocking full of your favorite holiday classics! Accompanied by Rick Carlson on the piano.
Also... A fantastic pre show concert by ED COPELAND and LOU HURVITZ at the Heights Mighty Wurlitzer!
WHITE CHRISTMAS FAQS
Q: I have an MPR 2 for 1 coupon, can I use these for White Christmas?
A: No, since this is a special event we do not accept any 2 for 1 coupons or other discounts.
Q: When does the singer start and when does the movie start and when do I need to be there?
A: The show, which starts with Maud Hixson performing at either 2:00pm or 7:00pm with the movie following immediately after her performance. So you need to be here at the ABSOLUTE LATEST by 2:00pm or 7:00pm because that is when the show officially starts and we do not seat after that.
Q: When does the organist start?
A: The organist will start playing 30 minutes before the start of the show.
Q: When do your doors open?
A: Our doors open an hour before the start of the shows and we encourage you to arrive early so you can get seated and have plenty of time to get refreshments and relax before the show. We have a pianist playing the lobby piano at 1:00pm and 6:00pm and the Organist starts to perform at 1:30pm and 6:30pm, so there is plenty to keep your and your guests entertained before the show starts.
Q: Is the seating reserved seating?
A: All the seating for these performances is not assigned and is general seating, so the earlier you arrive the better selection of seats you will have, ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE A LARGE GROUP. Your advance ticket purchase guarantees you a seat at the performance, but with a sold out show there may be a chance, especially if you arrive late, that you may not be able to sit with your guests, so arrive early as refunds are not given if you cannot sit together.
Q: Something has come up and now we are unable to attend, can we get a refund.
A: Refunds are not given on advance ticket sales.
COAL OR CANDY? A 2023 CHRISTMAS!
A flop in its day, and one that destroyed Capra's production company, It's a Wonderful Life began to interest audiences again in the 1980s, and has since become a standard for holiday family viewing. George Bailey considers himself a failure: his Savings and Loan has lost a tremendous amount of money, and he has never achieved any "measurable" success, and so killing himself seems to be the only remaining option. From this grim premise comes one of the most evocative pictures about small town life, friendship and humility ever to grace the screen. Jimmy Stewart put in an outstanding performance that ranges from happy-go-lucky to serious to outright fury, a tour-de-force that would portend his work with Alfred Hitchock. If you haven't seen this on the big screen, be prepared: It's A Wonderful Life will leave you a grateful, tearful mess.
DCP - Paramount Pictures.
From acclaimed director Alexander Payne, THE HOLDOVERS follows a curmudgeonly instructor (Paul Giamatti) at a New England prep school who is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them -- a damaged, brainy troublemaker (newcomer Dominic Sessa) -- and with the school's head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam (Da'Vine Joy Randolph).
COAL OR CANDY? A 2023 CHRISTMAS!
C.C. "Bud" Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a good-hearted schmuck, a lonely insurance man who hopes to climb the corporate ladder. To hasten this, he lends his apartment to his adulterous superiors, so they have a place to bring their mistresses. But Bud's plans begin to unravel when his immediate boss brings Fran (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator girl Bud's in love with, up to the apartment for his own shady means. Billy Wilder's acidic Xmas card is one of the most heartbreaking comedies ever made, and a classic in any season.
DCP - Park Circus.
COAL OR CANDY? A 2023 CHRISTMAS!
Dawn Davenport (Divine) wants it all: fame, fortune, adoration and, of course, cha-cha heels. After destroying her parents' home on Christmas morning, Dawn gets pregnant while hitchhiking, and then raises her kid while going on a lengthy crime spree in order to prove that "crime and beauty are the same." Some Xmas message, huh, kids? FEMALE TROUBLE needs to be seen to be believed, boasts a star-making turn by Divine, and is John Waters' flat-out masterpiece.
DCP - Warner Bros.
BONUS SCREENING ADDED AT 4:00pm, our 7:00pm screening is sold out!
One of our most popular events returns! Joe Pickett (The Onion) and Nick Prueher (Late Show) have over 11,000 VHS tapes in their collection and will take viewers on a guided tour through their latest and greatest finds, including rare footage from a short-lived video dating service featuring 1987's most eligible bachelorettes, a questionably sexy striptease video called "Males In Motion," and a mysterious New Age seminar called "Elimination: The First Step."
COAL OR CANDY? A 2023 CHRISTMAS!
Billy's father gives his son a strange gift this holiday: a mogwai called Gizmo, a cute, cuddly little furball whose antics amuse everyone. But dad forgot to give his son the proper instructions: never get the thing wet, never feed it after midnight, and don't expose it to the sun. Soon, a terrifying army of creepy mogwai have descended on Kingston Falls, and the results are both bloody and hilarious. Director Joe Dante's hit film is a brilliant mix of "It's a Wonderful Life" meets 50s horror film, with loads of slapstick and satire to boot.
DCP - Warner Bros.
COAL OR CANDY? A 2023 CHRISTMAS!
A single mom, a depressed child, a drunken Santa and a city full of cynical souls, this should be the stuff of one bleak motion picture. But Miracle on 34th Street is as sweet a holiday confection as Hollywood ever produced, as a group of harried but good-hearted New Yorkers run headlong into a very real Santa Claus, who offers them hope and affection. Touching on themes of divorce, faith and even capitalism, Miracle is both candy and coal in abundance. Winner of 3 Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for Edmund Gwenn's Kris Kringle.
DCP - Walt Disney Pictures.
HOLIDAY INN has become a Heights New Year's Day tradition, and sells out every year! IRVING BERLIN wrote the evergreen score, which includes Easter Parade, Lets Start the New Year Right, Lazy and of course, White Christmas.
We will be screening the original "unedited" 1942 theatrical release version of HOLIDAY INN.
This special screening will also feature EDWARD COPELAND at the Heights Mighty Wurlitzer!
35mm print - Universal Pictures
THE 15TH FILM NOIR FESTIVAL: NEO NOIR
Arguably the greatest neo-noir, Polanski's CHINATOWN is a masterpiece of complex plotting, boasting what might be the greatest screenplay ever. Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) is hired to find the daughter of Evelyn Mulwray (Faye Dunaway), herself trying desperately to escape the clutches of her venomous father, Noah Cross (John Huston). "Chinatown's" stirring critique of power was so profound that Los Angeles has never looked the same since.
DCP - Paramount
THE 15TH FILM NOIR FESTIVAL: NEO NOIR
Before they became the legendary, Oscar-winning directors, the Coens were quirky independents who adored noir. A loose adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's novels "The Glass Key" and "Red Harvest", MILLER'S CROSSING is the story of mobster Tom Regan (Gabriel Byrne), who plays both sides of rival gangs in a desperate attempt at redemption. Visually stunning, at once unbelievably violent and then hilariously funny, "Miller's Crossing" is a thoroughly entertaining movie.
DCP- Walt Disney Pictures
When desperate musicians Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) witness the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, they've got to get out of town, and fast. But without any money, what can they do except, well, dress like women and join an all-girls band bound for sunny Florida? The cross-dressing duo find themselves in the same resort as the gangster who order the murders, but that's not the least of their troubles: Joe/Josephine is in love with Marilyn Monroe's "Sugar" and Jerry/Daphne's got a suitor in Osgood Fielding III, a man who won't take no for an answer. This groundbreaking comedy feels ahead of its time even in the 21st Century.
DCP - Park Circus.
THE 15TH FILM NOIR FESTIVAL: NEO NOIR
"They're young... they're in love... and they kill people." When Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) tries to steal Bonnie Parker's (Faye Dunaway) car, she's instantly smitten. What's a bored waitress to do but join her newfound love and his motley gang on a violent crime spree through Texas? At first a failure until it was embraced by countercultural critics like Pauline Kael, BONNIE AND CLYDE became a box office smash which launched the New Hollywood. Setting aside its startling violence (even by today's standards), the film is a brilliant look at how the Depression turned good people into common criminals and common criminals into heroes. Beatty and Dunaway have never been better, aided by a superb supporting cast that includes a very young Gene Hackman and Estelle Parsons, who won Best Supporting Actress.
DCP - Warner Bros.
Live musical accompaniment by THE POOR NOBODYS
Ernst Lubitsch's unfaithful adaptation of Oscar Wilde's 1892 stage play fuses maternal melodrama with lighthearted irony. Mrs. Erlynne, notorious for her romantic scandals, returns to England to confide in Lord Windermere that she is the true mother of his young wife, Lady Windermere, who then mistakes Mrs. Erlynne for her own husband's mistress. Lubitsch parlays the wit of Wilde's words into visual textures: fleeting glances, searching binoculars, swift curtains, untrustworthy perceptions, and boxwood fences, all accurately fitted to conceal or reveal.
Presented by The Heights Theater along with Archives on Screen and Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour
THE 15TH FILM NOIR FESTIVAL: NEO NOIR
Jean-Paul (Alain Delon) and Marianne (Romy Schneider) have borrowed a friend's villa on the French Riviera. There, under a blistering sun, they abandon themselves to their twin passions of love and hate. When the friend returns with his fetching teenage daughter in tow, jealousy and obsession rip their shallow world apart. A modest hit in its day, Jacques Deray's LA PISCINE is the very model of cool neo-noir, and was an arthouse blockbuster in the summer of 2020.
DCP - Janus Films.
THE 15TH FILM NOIR FESTIVAL: NEO NOIR
One of the bleakest and most fascinating neo-noirs is... a musical? And a wonderfully strange one at that, with actors lip-synching and dancing along to tunes from the depths of the Great Depression. Steve Martin is Arthur, a sheet music salesman who wants the world to be like the songs he sells; Bernadette Peters is Lulu, a schoolteacher seduced by Arthur. Murder and sex are contrasted with some of the most astonishing dance numbers ever committed to film (especially Christopher Walken's!) Based on Dennis Potter's intense BBC drama, PENNIES FROM HEAVEN was a box office bomb, and one of the most overlooked masterpieces in cinema history. Don't miss this extremely rare 35mm screening.
35mm print - Park Circus