The Dryden’s fourth annual summer series of films never made available on US home video in any format begins on July 17 with a new 35mm print of Jacques Demy’s 1972 take on the Brothers Grimm tale, The Pied Piper, starring pop superstar Donovan. This screening is part of a North American tour of The Pied Piper arranged by George Eastman House in collaboration with Paramount Pictures. In conjunction with the Dryden’s Ennio Morricone retrospective (see related article in this issue), we’ll present two crime thrillers with a score by the maestro: The Burglars (July 24), a European heist picture with Jean-Paul Belmondo; and the controversial directorial debut of celebrated cinematographer Gordon Willis, Windows (August 21). Speaking of great film music, there’s an absolutely lovely score by Hungarian émigré Miklos Rosza in Vincente Minnelli and Gottfried Reinhardt’s romantic MGM triptych The Story of Three Loves (August 7). We’ll also offer two critical views of American suburban domesticity in the 1950s with Martin Ritt’s No Down Payment (July 31) and Douglas Sirk’s There’s Always Tomorrow (August 14), the latter featuring the fourth and final big-screen pairing of Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. The last not-on-video offering is Agnès Varda’s Kung-fu Master (August 28). Not a martial arts movie, this provocative feature stars English actress Jane Birkin as a 40-year-old divorcee who has a fleeting affair with a 14-year-old boy (Mathieu Demy, son of Varda and Jacques Demy).

It is difficult to describe precisely the impact Audrey Hepburn has on a movie audience; it’s just something you immediately feel when she appears before your eyes. She was the epitome of big-screen class and feminine charm, yet she maintained a childlike vulnerability that served her well as an ingénue but somehow never clashed with her more adult roles. Hepburn also had generally good taste when choosing her projects, and most of her movies are still fun to watch today. This is why the Dryden will be presenting excellent 35mm prints of her best-loved vehicles over seven consecutive Wednesdays, beginning July 18 with Billy Wilder’s contemporary fairy tale, Sabrina. Hepburn teamed with Wilder one more time for the delightful Love in the Afternoon (July 25), but it was her only collaboration with director Blake Edwards, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (August 1), that provided Hepburn with the role she’s still most identified with today, hipster Holly Golightly. Cast opposite equally charismatic leading men like Cary Grant in Charade (August 8 ) and Peter O’Toole in How to Steal a Million (August 15), Hepburn used her familiar persona to make smashing entertainments out of two light European-set capers. However, in the decidedly more sinister Wait Until Dark (August 22), she revealed another side of her talent as a blind woman terrorized in her New York apartment by a sadistic hood (Alan Arkin). The series concludes on August 29 with Stanley Donen’s Two for the Road, a romantic comedy co-starring Albert Finney that provided Hepburn with the definitive transitional role as it follows a married couple over ten years. Like all the other selections in this lineup, it’s the perfect date movie.

Community partners for Audrey Hepburn Wednesdays film series

Experience fabulous “Audrey” specials and discounts at area businesses

Simply mention the Audrey Hepburn series — running at 8 p.m. every Wednesday from July 18 through Aug. 29 at the Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House — and receive fabulous specials and discounts. In addition to our community partners, we wish to thank our media sponsor, WHAM 1180AM.

Sabrina (July 18)
Community Partner: Waterlily Spa and Cosmetics Boutique, 2383 Monroe Ave., Brighton (442-5140)
Offer: A “Sabrina Moment.” A 1-hour mini-makeover and make-up lesson ($60 value). Please call spa to reserve sitting. Offer through Aug. 31, 2007.

Love in the Afternoon (July 25)
Community Partner: Wine Sense, 749 Park Ave., Rochester (271-0590)
Offer: 10% off all French wine and cheeses through Aug. 31, 2007

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Aug. 1)
Community Partner: Jine’s Restaurant, 658 Park Ave., Rochester (461-1280)
Offer: “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” Coffee and Croissant Special for $3.95, offered every weekday (Monday through Friday) July 18 through Aug. 31.

Community Partner: L’Avant Garbe, 19 State St., Pittsford (248-0440)
Offer: 20% off any garment through Aug. 31, 2007 (including “little black dresses”) and free makeup tips on how-to create the “Audrey eye.”

Charade (Aug. 8 )
Community Partner: Fred Astaire Studios, 3450 Winton Place, Rochester (292-1240)
Offer: One complimentary dance lesson; offer valid through Aug. 31, 2007

How to Steal a Million (Aug. 15)
Community Partner: Artisan Works, 565 Blossom Road, Rochester (288-7170)
Offer: $2 discount on regular admission (Admission with discount is $10 for adults and $6 for students/seniors) through Aug. 31, 2007

Wait Until Dark (Aug. 22)
Community Partner: Parkleigh, 215 Park Ave., Rochester (244-4842)
Offer: 20% off any Dark Chocolate Truffles from Godiva, Joseph Schmidt of San Francisco, or Neuhaus from Belgium. Offer Aug. 22 through Sept. 22, 2007.

Two for the Road (Aug. 29)
Community Partner: Eastman House Café (George Eastman House), 900 East. Ave., Rochester
Offer: Two-fer cookie deal (buy one cookie, get one free every Wednesday during the run of the film series, July 19 through Aug. 29). Café is open on Wednesdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Film aficionados immediately tend to think of Woody Allen or Mel Brooks when considering the funniest and most significant artists to emerge in the last 40 years of comedic movie history. But a few of us, myself included, consider the other Brooks, Albert, to be in the same company as these multifaceted kings of cinematic comedy. As evidence, the Dryden will offer screenings of this writer-director-actor’s first two features, the ingenious 1979 pseudo-documentary, Real Life (July 28), and a love story even more neurotic than Annie Hall, 1981’s Modern Romance (August 4).

Unlike native New Yorkers Woody and Mel, former stage comic Albert Brooks is a lifetime resident of Los Angeles, and his comedy has a distinctively California flavor. Born Albert Einstein, he was named by a man who obviously had a sense of humor: the comedian Harry Einstein, better known by his stage name, Parkyakarkus. Show business runs in Albert Brooks’s family (his brother, Bob Einstein, has his own comedy alter ego: Super Dave Osborne), and it’s frequently the direct subject of his work as it is in Real Life, or it figures in somewhere, like in the subplot of Modern Romance.

Like the cringe-inducing comedy of Curb Your Enthusiasm or the original BBC version of The Office, many of the laughs in these two Brooks movies come from his sometimes frustrating but always funny on-screen persona, which is materially obsessed and deeply self-involved. If this is a brave form of self-criticism, it takes on an even bolder dimension in Real Life where he plays an overly ambitious and neurotic comic-turned-filmmaker named (what else?) Albert Brooks. Inspired by the PBS American Family series, Brooks decides to film the daily family life of a Phoenix, Arizona, veterinarian (played by the hilariously deadpan Charles Grodin). Pressured to deliver “entertainment,” the obnoxious and painfully funny Brooks unintentionally does all he can to bring about the destruction of his own project, which doesn’t stop at trying to seduce one of his subjects or bribe the family with presents. Ahead of its time, Real Life’s truths are more evident now in the age of so-called Reality TV and our increasingly media-savvy society.

In the opening scene of Modern Romance, Brooks’s character Robert, an obsessive-compulsive film editor, breaks up with his long-suffering girlfriend, Mary (Kathryn Harrold), by telling her they’re in a “no-win situation…like Vietnam.” Robert, immediately remorseful, spends much of the remainder of the film trying to win Mary back again! While it surprises us with its honest and very funny take on a particular type of contemporary relationship, Modern Romance also offers special insight on the way movies get made, as it follows the attempts of Robert and his assistant (a very funny performance by the late Bruno Kirby) to complete work on an awful, low-budget science-fiction epic.

Why isn’t Albert Brooks better known as a filmmaker? Maybe it’s because his comic targets are never as broadly satirical or as audience-friendly as Mel Brooks’s and, as a director, he’s only worked seven times in 28 years, a record that pales in comparison to the always-working Woody Allen. While his most recent feature, the underrated Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, was released in 2006, he’s still probably best known today for his brilliant short films made for the first season of Saturday Night Live and for his appearances in other directors’ movies, like Taxi Driver and Broadcast News. Now you have an opportunity to discover or better appreciate his multifaceted talents.

Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department

A veteran of seven decades of film history, stage and screen star Farley Granger will appear in person in the Dryden on July 13 at 7 p.m. to present what is perhaps his best-known movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s magnificent thriller, Strangers on a Train.

In Strangers, Granger plays tennis pro Guy Haines, who, traveling by train, meets the charming but psychopathic Bruno Anthony (Robert Walker). Before you can say “Criss Cross,” Guy’s made a Faustian deal with Bruno that leads to murder. Filled with witty, dark humor and two marvelous lead performances, Strangers on a Train builds to one of the most suspenseful conclusions in all of Hitchcock.

In addition to Hitchcock, with whom he made one more film (Rope), Mr. Granger has also worked with other legendary directors, like Nicholas Ray (They Live By Night), Lewis Milestone (The Purple Heart), Anthony Mann (Side Street), Richard Fleischer (The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing), and, perhaps most notably, Luchino Visconti (Senso). On August 7, you’ll also be able to see him in Vincente Minnelli’s The Story of Three Loves, opposite Leslie Caron.

Farley Granger will introduce Strangers on a Train and answer questions following the screening in a session moderated by film historian Foster Hirsch. After the discussion, he will sign copies of his new memoir, Include Me Out: My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway, written with Robert Calhoun. Books will be available for purchase in the Eastman House Store. Tickets $10; $8 members and students. Advance tickets are available at http://dryden.eastmanhouse.org, (585) 271-3361 ext. 295, the admissions desk, or Dryden Theatre box office (before June 28 and day of event only). No Take-10 tickets or passes.

The Maestro and His Movies

Winner of a recent Honorary Oscar® for his career achievements, Ennio Morricone has provided some of the most audacious and beautiful sounds to accompany some of the most memorable images of international cinema’s last 50 years. This is why I couldn’t think of a more fun and appropriate way to demonstrate the Dryden Theatre’s new projection and sound equipment than a film series tribute to this celebrated and enormously prolific composer.

Famous for his versatility, Morricone has written the music to more than 400 features. It’s a staggering figure, and while there are some bummers among those films that have been touched by his unique musical imprimatur, there’s rarely a Morricone score that’s not worth listening to. For the purposes of this series, however, I’ve compiled a varied selection of both supreme masterpieces and excellent movies that deserve to be better known. The only common factor among all of the films being shown is the eminently listenable music of Maestro Morricone. You’ll see a heist thriller and a farcical sex comedy; period love stories and politically explosive docudramas; heart-stopping horrors, and, of course, spaghetti Westerns.

These European-made Westerns, a sub-genre with a heyday that lasted from the early 1960s through the mid-1970s, allowed Morricone to make his reputation through a unique mixture of pounding surf guitar sounds and militaristic, yet somehow plaintive trumpet solos (Morricone studied trumpet at Rome’s Santa Cecilia Conservatory). During this period, he forged long-lasting working relationships with directors like Sergio Sollima (The Big Gundown) and Sergio Corbucci, whose Navajo Joe features a hair-raising, shrieking chorus that repeatedly chants the film’s title.

But it was for a third Western auteur named Sergio (Leone, to be precise) that Morricone wrote some of his most enduring themes, music that provides the soul to beautifully composed and strikingly edited action-adventure epics like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. This music often plays an important on-screen role, and musical instruments are figured into the plots, such as Charles Bronson’s wheezy, discordant harmonica in the latter film. For Leone, a childhood schoolmate of Morricone’s, the composer took the unusual approach of composing his themes before any film was shot, and the director often played back the music on set. Through their grandiose treatment of simple and familiar genre tropes, the two artists achieved the equivalent of opera in cinema.

Like Leone, a significant number of acclaimed directors have chosen to work frequently, if not exclusively, with Morricone: Bernardo Bertolucci, Roland Joffé, Giuseppe Tornatore, Gillo Pontecorvo, Pier Paolo Pasolini, and horror maestro Dario Argento, all of whom are represented in this series. Morricone found a different and appropriate sound for each of these filmmakers, creating mellow moods with light rock and lounge beats, evoking bygone eras via sentimental melodies, jangling nerves with dissonant chords, or, in the case of the magisterial score for Joffé’s The Mission, inspiring awe through the power of music.

Jim Healy, Assistant Curator, Exhibitions, Motion Picture Department

Sunday, July 15,

7 p.m. Once Upon a Time in the West (C’ERA UNA VOLTA IL WEST, US/Italy 1968, 165 min.)

Thursday, July 19

7 p.m. Ennio Morricone (UK 1995, 45 min.) and 8 p.m. Before the Revolution (PRIMA DELLA RIVOLUZIONE, Italy 1964, 115 min., Italian with subtitles)

Tuesday, July 24

The Burglars (LE CASSE, France/Italy 1971, 120 min.)

Thursday, July 26

7 p.m. The Big Gundown (LA RESA DEI CONTI, Spain/Italy 1966, 80 min.) and 8:30 p.m. Navajo Joe (Italy/Spain 1966, 93 min.)

Sunday, July 29

2 p.m. & 7 p.m. Cinema Paradiso—The Director’s Cut (Italy 1998, 170 min., Italian with subtitles)

Thursday, August 2

The Battle of Algiers (LA BATTAGLIA DI ALGERI, Italy/Algeria 1966, 123 min., French and Arabic with subtitles, 35mm)

Friday, August 3

Days of Heaven (US 1978, 95 min.)

Thursday, August 9

7 p.m. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (L’UCCELLO DALLE PIUME DI CRISTALLO, Italy/West Germany 1969, 98 min.) and 8:45 p.m. The Cat O’Nine Tails (IL GATTO A NOVE CODE, Italy/France/ West Germany 1971, 112 min.)

Friday, August 10

Sacco and Vanzetti (Italy/France 1971, 120 min., English and Italian with subtitles, 35mm) Co-presented by the Rochester Labor Council.

Saturday, August 11

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—The Uncut Version (IL BUONO, IL BRUTTO, IL CATTIVO, Italy/Spain, 1967, 180 min.)

Thursday, August 16

The Mercenary (IL MERCENARIO/ REVENGE OF A GUNFIGHTER/A PROFESSIONAL GUN, Italy/Spain 1968, 110 min.)

Thursday, August 23

La Cage aux Folles (BIRDS OF A FEATHER, France/Italy 1978, 91 min., French with subtitles)

Friday, August 24, 8 p.m. &
Sunday, August 26, 4 p.m.

The Mission (Roland Joffé, UK 1986, 123 min.)

Thursday, August 30

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom—The Uncut Version (SALÒ O LE 120 GIORNATE DI SODOMA, Italy 1975, 116 min., Italian with subtitles) No one under 18 admitted.

All films will be screened in the Dryden Theatre at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Admission is $6, $5 students, and $4 members.