From director Todd Douglas Miller (Dinosaur 13) comes a cinematic event fifty years in the making. Crafted from a newly discovered trove of 65mm footage, and more than 11,000 hours of uncatalogued audio recordings, Apollo 11 takes us straight to the heart of NASA's most celebrated mission - the one that first put men on the moon, and forever made Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into household names. Immersed in the perspectives of the astronauts, the team in Mission Control, and the millions of spectators on the ground, we vividly experience those momentous days and hours in 1969 when humankind took a giant leap into the future.
A FLASK OF FIELDS: W.C. FIELDS' GREATEST COMEDIES
35MM PRESENTATION
Poor Sam Bisbee: this good-hearted inventor/optometrist just wants to live his life in peace and be himself. But his wife is embarrassed by him, and his loving daughter is engaged to a man whose family loathes the uncouth Busbees, and when his business fails, it takes a surprise princess to set things right. As in every Fields' film, the sarcastic but lovable everyman endures despite life throwing monkey wrenches into his works.
35mm print courtesy Universal Pictures.
A FLASK OF FIELDS: W.C. FIELDS' GREATEST COMEDIES
35MM PRESENTATION
Fields' Ambrose Wolfinger has the job of a lifetime: as a "memory expert" tasked with remembering details about everyone his boss meets with and help keep the business afloat. Freeloading onto Wolfinger are his henpecking wife, mother-and brother-in-law, though he lives to support his loving daughter. Simply trying to take an afternoon off to see a wrestling match, he spins an outrageous web of deception, setting off a chain of events that almost kill Ambrose, end his marriage and destroy the company, until his daughter prevails in this gut-busting comedy. One of Field's greatest films!
35mm print courtesy Universal Pictures.
A FLASK OF FIELDS: W.C. FIELDS' GREATEST COMEDIES
35MM PRESENTATION
Larsen E. Whipsnade is the owner of a failing circus, struggling week-after-week to pay the bills. His daughter is in love Edgar Bergen, on hand with his smart aleck dummy Charlie McCarthy, but sets aside her feelings to woo a dopey millionaire to keep her father solvent. Fields' Whipsnade is a growling, grumbling drunk whose whose run ins with poison tongued Charlie McCarthy are the highlight of this uproarious film filled with jokes, gags, and slapstick.
35mm print courtesy Universal Pictures.
70MM PRESENTATION
You have not seen VERTIGO until you have seen it in 70mm!
Soon after his early retirement, Scottie Ferguson (Stewart) is hired by a former college acquaintance to investigate the strange behavior of his wife, Madeleine (Novak). Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, this masterpiece of identity and obsession is even more engrossing in a lush 70mm presentation.
Presented by the Trylon Cinema and The Heights Theater.
70mm print courtesy Universal Pictures.
35MM PRESENTATION
This mad suspense thriller, with its famed dream sequence designed by Salvador Dali, pairs an amnesia patient (Peck) wrongly accused of killing a doctor with a psychiatrist (Bergman), who falls for him and tries to clear his name.
Presented by The Trylon Cinema and The Heights Theater
35mm print courtesy Swank Motion Pictures
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Now a Heights yearly tradition, Hal Ashby's poignant black comedy about anti social Harold and his geriatric girlfriend Maude has to be one of the classic misfit love stories of all time. Harold and Maude was a true cult film phenomena in it's day running a record 2 years at the (now closed) Westgate Theater in Minneapolis, and it is not to be missed on the big screen.
DCP courtesy Paramount Pictures.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
35MM PRESENTATION
Bradley Cooper's blockbuster remake of A STAR IS BORN showed the world the timelessness of the story of an up-and-coming female star and her mentor, a declining male star whose alcoholism becomes unendurable. Now see where it all started with this super rare 35mm screening of WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD?. This 1932 pre-code gem directed by George Cukor stars Lowell Sherman as a big time - but hard drinking - Hollywood director who happens upon waitress Constance Bennett at the Brown Derby restaurant, and realizing that she has the talent to make it as a star. Her star rises while his falls, leading to tragedy. Loosely based on the life of silent star Colleen Moore and producer John McCormick, WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? is clearly the inspiration for the four versions of A STAR IS BORN that have enthralled audiences for over eight decades. Don't the miss the very first, often unacknowledged version!
35mm print courtesy Warner Bros.
THE MEN WHO WEREN'T THERE: COEN BROTHERS' CLASSICS
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Fargo's outrageous story of a kidnapping gone very wrong is grounded by Frances McDormand's Oscar-winning role as Marge Gunderson, the very pregnant police chief of Brainerd, whose persistence and wisdom wins the day. Fargo is at once an intensely violent and painful look at loneliness and greed, and a hilarious send up of hot dish Minnesota nice.
Presented by The Heights Theater and The Trylon Cinema
DCP courtesy Park Circus.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Just a few years after George Lucas and Steven Spielberg changed Hollywood forever with their blockbusters JAWS, STAR WARS and CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, these two friends teamed up to create an homage to the serial films they loved as children, and launched one of the most popular franchises in history. But none of the Indiana Jones films are anywhere near as perfect as the original RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, with its evil Nazis, rolling boulders, slimy snakes, and overall sense of adventure, all buoyed by amazing stunts, real planes, and very little CGI.
DCP courtesy Paramount Pictures.
THE MEN WHO WEREN'T THERE: COEN BROTHERS' CLASSICS
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Nicholas Cage is ex-con H.I., and Holly Hunter is police officer Edwina (or Ed), who fall in love, marry, and then fail to conceive a child. Enter the "Arizona Quints", five babies born to furniture salesman Nathan Arizona. A kidnapped baby, prison breaks, bank robberies, chases on foot and in broken down vehicles and... yodeling make this perhaps their best, and most emotional, film.
Presented by The Heights Theater and The Trylon Cinema
DCP courtesy Twentieth Century Fox.
THE MEN WHO WEREN'T THERE: COEN BROTHERS' CLASSICS
35MM PRESENTATION
Three convicts escape the chain gang into rural, Depression-era Mississippi in this vibrant comedy whose period score is now regarded as a classic. Loosely based on Homer's Odyssey (which the Coens claim never to have read), O Brother Where Art Thou? is a hilarious romp in the Preston Sturges tradition.
Presented by The Heights Theater and The Trylon Cinema
35mm print courtesy Swank Motion Pictures.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
In honor of its 70th Anniversary, the Heights is proud to present the newly restored THE THIRD MAN, one of the greatest films ever made. Written by Graham Greene, and starring Joseph Cotten, Aida Valli, and of course Orson Welles as Harry Lime, The Third Man is a classic espionage film that also undermines the trope of the American sleuth solving the crime and winning the love of the femme fatale. A gorgeous, thrilling and melancholy film, The Third Man has influenced countless other films through the decades.
DCP courtesy Rialto Pictures
THE MEN WHO WEREN'T THERE: COEN BROTHERS' CLASSICS
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Jeff Bridges is "The Dude", or the Little Lebowski, who discovers that an assault on him was intended for the Big Lebowksi, a wealthy man whose wife has been kidnapped... or not. A cult classic, The Big Lebowski is a crazy take on Raymond Chandler noir, Busby Berkeley, 60s counterculture, nihilists and bowling.
Presented by The Heights Theater and The Trylon Cinema
DCP courtesy Universal Pictures.
THE MEN WHO WEREN'T THERE: COEN BROTHERS' CLASSICS
35MM PRESENTATION
While out hunting, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) discovers two million dollars and a pile of bodies. He goes on the run, but the forces of evil have been unleashed in the form of Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), whose single-minded pursuit of Moss results in collateral damage that can only be described as apocalyptic. Brooding and violent, No Country for Old Men walked away with Oscars for Best Picture, Director, and Supporting Actor for Bardem.
Presented by The Heights Theater and The Trylon Cinema
35mm print courtesy Park Circus.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
ALL NEW DIGITAL RESTORATIONS!
The enormously popular LAUREL & HARDY FESTIVAL returns with one of their greatest features and a long lost silent short, both looking better than ever!
This year, we open with the restored 1927 silent short THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY, with live accompaniment by Karl Eilers on the Heights' Mighty Wurlitzer, followed by the classic feature, SONS OF THE DESERT. Desperate to get to Chicago for a convention of their fraternal lodge, but knowing that their wives won't approve, Laurel & Hardy work every conceivable angle to sneak away, with hilariously disastrous results. Don't miss this day of silent and sound comedy from the greatest comedy duo in cinema history!
DCP courtesy Jeff Joesph
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Film producer Otto Kruse brags that he will produce a successful, new kind of revue film, but with escapist musical films being a political hot potato in East Germany, he can not get anyone to agree to work on it. With the project close to collapse, he orders his stage manager Claudia Gluck to "do what it takes" to get it done. Soon she finds herself holding a dramaturg, composer and set designer hostage in a villa-with orders to keep them there until they create a cheerful musical film. But will they be able to pull it off?
Easily the greatest of all Soviet bloc musicals - and politically the most daring, this 1962 East German DEFA musical spares no expense and is a colorful spectacle of midcentury modernism, and a tour de force of music and dance genres. Like Billy Wilder and Preston Sturges - who discovered that through comedy you could skirt the Hayes Code - Director Gottfried Kolditz uses humor to go places that no other East German filmmaker dared.
Now restored to its original AGFACOLOR - Wide-screen TOTALVISION - 4 channel Stereophonic sound glory, this film is not to be missed on the big screen!
In German with English subtitles
DCP courtesy The DEFA Film Library UMASS AMHERST
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
35MM PRESENTATION
Call her a square, but Doris Day was perhaps the most underrated comedienne in Hollywood history. And she was never more hilarious, nor charming, as she was in Pillow Talk, an enormous hit in its day. Sparks fly in this story of an arrogant Broadway composer and playboy (Rock Hudson) whose telephone party line keeps getting tangled with a proud interior decorator (Day). Pillow Talk was an enormous hit, was nominated for four Oscars (including one for Day and the great Thelma Ritter) and won an Academy Award for Best Screenplay.
35mm print courtesy Universal Pictures.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Accompanied by KARL EILERS at the keyboard of the Heights Mighty Wurlitzer!
If you're a classic film fan you're probably familiar with Gloria Swanson in her brilliant turn in Sunset Blvd., as the off-her-rocker silent film star well past her prime. But few have seen the films that made her the perfect choice for that classic noir. Swanson captured audience imaginations like few before or since, and an even better secret is that she was a brilliant comic actress as well.
And Sunset Blvd. wasn't the only film to poke some fun at her career: behold STAGE STRUCK, which opens with a magnificent Technicolor sequence with Swanson in her most outrageously theatrical performances, as a diva actress pulling out all the stops. Suddenly we're back in black-and-white, to a small river town in West Virginia where Swanson's a weary waitress whose boyfriend can't help but fall in love with every riverboat actress who makes a stop. Hoping to get even, our waitress decides that she's good and ready for the stage... or not.
Rights clearance Paramount Pictures.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
35MM PRESENTATION
When small time con men Luther (Robert Earl Jones), Kelly Hooker (Robert Redford) and the Erie Kid (Jack Kehoe) unknowingly spoil a money drop of noted Chicago numbers-runner Doyle Lonnegan, the boys are in trouble. And when Luther is murdered, a whole underground team of cons seeks revenge, turning to Shaw Gondorff to pull the wool over the gangster's eyes and fleece him for millions.
With an army of the best character actors in the business, set designs that captured the Depression perfectly, intertitles that harkened back to the silent era (and the Saturday Evening Post of days gone by) and a score of Scott Joplin rags that was was number one on the charts, THE STING took America by surprise... and by storm.
35mm print courtesy Universal Pictures
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
35MM PRESENTATION
Chauncey Gardiner tends to the greenhouses of a beloved and wealthy man in Washington, D.C. Never given any sort of education, and learning all he knows from TV, Chauncey lives a life free from chaos... until his benefactor dies, and he is on the street. Out for just a short while, he is injured by the limousine of Ben and Eve Rand, a Washington fixer and his trophy wife. Taking him in, both are struck by Chance the Gardner (as he is now named) and his pearls of wisdom, which are merely Chance's gardening tips and tidbits he learned from the boob tube. Soon, Chance is considered to be a rising star, and perhaps... the next president? You could do worse.
35mm print courtesy Warner Bros.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
70MM PRESENTATION
One of the greatest motion picture epics of all time returns to The Heights in the glory and magnificence of 70MM making this a must see film event!
Due to his knowledge of the native Bedouin tribes, brilliant and flamboyant British Lieutenant T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole) is sent to Arabia to find Prince Faisal (Alec Guinness) and serve as a liaison between the Arabs and the British in their fight against the Turks.
70mm print courtesy Sony Pictures.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Charming ad man Roger O. Thornhill (or ROT, to his friends) must run for his life when he's mistaken for an American spy by a dastardly criminal organization. Avoiding death by drunk driving; by gun and knife and gravity; and, most famously, by a crop-dusting, gun-toting plane in the middle of Illinois, poor Thornhill must eventually not only save himself, but the beautiful Eve.
Hitchcock urged screenwriter Ernest Lehman to pull out all the stops, resulting in a breathtaking adventure whose insane plot twists somehow work in spite of themselves. Cary Grant was never more charming, Eve Marie Saint never more alluring, and Hitchcock never more assured. The only way to witness such suspenseful majesty is on the Heights' silver screen.
DCP courtesy Warner Bros.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
35MM TECHNICOLOR DYE-TRANSFER PRINT!!
Like Singin' In The Rain, The Wizard of Oz is one of our most popular events and sells out year after year, which is no surprise because you may never see OZ look so amazing on the big screen than in this rare 35mm TECHNICOLOR DYE TRANSFER presentation!! Has there ever been a more essential piece of movie magic than the journey of Dorothy and Toto? Probably not.
Want to know more about the Technicolor Dye-Transfer process Click here.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
35MM PRESENTATION
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.
35mm print courtesy Park Circus.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
When television anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch) is told he is going to be replaced in two weeks, he gets drunk and announces, on air, that he will commit suicide live in two weeks, for which he's fired. Max Schumacher (William Holden), a downbeaten drunk himself, intervenes and allows Beale to have a final farewell with dignity. But Beale gets angry, and during his show proclaims "I'm mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!" When this proves to be a ratings bonanza, the station keeps him around... until he's no longer useful. Don't miss this rare screening!
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Who would have thought that Roger Corman's ultra-low budget shlock horror film from the 60s would turn into an off-Broadway musical, itself turned into one of the most underrated musicals in cinema history! Believe it! When timid Seymour (Rick Moranis) tries to help his bullying flower-shop boss Mr. Mushnik (Vincent Gardenia) by displaying Audrey II, a strange flower Seymour bought in Chinatown, little did they know they were unleashing a creature from outer space that just loves to devour flesh.
DCP courtesy Warner Bros.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Like Murder by Death before it, Clue (loosely based on the board game) is a spot-on parody of classic murder mysteries, with a star-studded cast of the 80s best comic actors, and featuring not one but three endings (each included at our screening!) Six strangers appear at an old mansion, are given pseudonyms (Col. Mustard, Mrs. White, etc., from the game), and soon, chaos and hilarity ensue! Tim Curry cements the whole thing as the crazed butler, while Martin Mull, Madeline Kahn, Leslie Ann Warren, Christopher Lloyd and even the Go-Go's Jane Wiedlin make appearances. A flop in its day, Clue has since gone on to be a hilarious cult classic!
DCP courtesy Paramount Pictures.
HEIGHTS 2019 CELEBRATION OF CINEMA
DIGITAL CINEMA PRESENTATION
Singin' In the Rain is one of our most popular events and sells out year after year! Considered by many to be one of the greatest screen musicals of all time, Singin' in the Rain is also a hilarious look at the chaos and turmoil that the switch from silents to talkies cast upon Hollywood in the late 1920's. Plus all that glorious TECHNICOLOR!
DCP courtesy Warner Bros.
