Our summer calendar is a collection of popular, fun movies that should help take your mind off the problems of the world. We have shown these before and will show them again. We never apologize for bringing you the the best. If the public ever gets tired of Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn and Ingrid Bergman, we'll convert the theatre into a bookstore.
A patron once wrote to complain that we play Gigi too often. Apparently she had already seen it. Now it is true that Gigi has appeared in twelve of our calendars over the past 20 years, playing a total of 53 days. But it is also true that an average of 503 people came on each of those 53 days. Yes, we have sold 26,642 tickets for Gigi. Some of us enjoy watching a great picture two or three times (or even more). And some people may not yet have seen it for the first time.
Tickets for the double feature are $7.00 for adults, $5.00 for seniors (65 and over) and young people (18 and under). Gift Certificates worth four general admissions can be purchased for $24. You can always enjoy the Mighty Wurlitzer theatre organ before and after the 7:30 show. Our Gallery offers exhibits of original posters and other items. Please note that cell phones and food (other than candy, popcorn, and drinks) are not allowed in the theatre.
The Stanford Theatre is dedicated to bringing back the movie-going experience of Hollywood's Golden Age. Great classic films were not made to be watched on a video screen in your living room. They depend on a larger-than-life image, and the shared reactions of a real audience.
The Stanford Theatre first opened in June of 1925. For decades nearly every important Hollywood picture played there on its first release. The people of Palo Alto saw them all for the very first time in this theatre.
In 1987 the Packard Foundation bought the theatre and restored it to its original condition. It quickly became America's most popular classic movie house. More people saw Casablanca there on its 50th anniverary in 1992 than at any other theatre in America.
The non-profit Stanford Theatre Foundation is dedicated to the preservation and public exhibition of films from the golden age of Hollywood.
Note: This is an unofficial posting of the Stanford Theatre schedules, from published information. This site is in no way connected with the Stanford Theatre nor the Stanford Theatre Foundation. Please check out the official site at http://www.stanfordtheatre.org in case this schedule isn't quite up-to-date! Programs are subject to change. For information, call (650) 324-3700.
(Showtimes in parentheses are for the Saturday and Sunday screenings.)
Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Konrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, S. Z. Sakall, Madeline Le Beau, Dooley Wilson, Joy Page, John Qualen, Leonid Kinsky, Helmut Dantine, Curt Bois, Marcel Dalio, Corinna Mura, Ludwig Stossel, Ilka Gruning, Charles La Torre, Frank Puglia, Dan Seymour.
As time goes by, it becomes increasingly unlikely that anyone will ever make a movie better than Casablanca. On its 50th anniversary in 1992, more people saw Casablanca at the Stanford Theatre than anywhere else in the world.
"Of all the movie theatres in all the towns in all the world, they walk into ours."
first played at the Stanford Theatre Feb 24, 1943; last played Nov 2008
Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Everett Sloane, Ray Collins, George Coulouris, Agnes Moorehead, Paul Stewart, Ruth Warrick, Erskine Sanford, Harry Shannon, William Alland, Fortunio Bonanova.
Though not voted Best Picture of 1941 (it was nominated), Citizen Kane consistently appears at the top of lists of the best films of all time.
Bernard Herrmann's very first film score contributes more than its share to the success of this revolutionary film. Welles allowed Herrmann ample time for composition, and he sometimes cut the film to match the music.
first played in Palo Alto at the Mayfield Theatre Dec 7, 1941; dare we speculate that that Citizen Kane was denied entry to Palo Alto's premier movie theatre through the influence of William Randolph Hearst?
last played Aug 2007
Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor, Debbie Reynolds, Millard Mitchell, Jean Hagen, Rita Moreno, Cyd Charisse, Douglas Fowley.
Perhaps the most popular film musical of all time is set in Hollywood at the dawn of talking pictures. Silent stars Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly) and Lena Lamont (Jean Hagen) are making their first sound picture. When Lena's voice doesn't quite match her glamorous image, up-and-comer Debbie Reynolds steps in.
last played July 2008
Walter Huston, Pat O'Brien, Kay Johnson, Constance Cummings, Gavin Gordon.
Bank president Tom Dickson (Huston) believes that lending money to those in need will help end the depression. The board of directors nearly fires him, but in a crisis the loyalty of his small clients saves the day. This film presages many of the themes of It's a Wonderful Life.
last played Dec 2007
Walter Huston, Simone Simon, Edward Arnold, Jane Darwell, Gene Lockhart, John Qualen, H. B. Warner, Frank Conlan, James Craig, Anne Shirley.
Superb fantasy inspired by the Faust legend. A New England farmer casually swears that he would sell his soul for better times, and suddenly the charming Mr Scratch (played brilliantly by Walter Huston) appears and agrees to accept the deal. Daniel Webster uses all his eloquence to win back the farmer's soul.
Bernard Herrmann won the Oscar for his bold and fascinating musical score.
last played Apr 2007
Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett, Barry Fitzgerald, May Robson, Fritz Feld, Jonathan Hale, Asta.
Classic screwball comedy, with dizzy socialite Hepburn and perplexed paleontologist Grant in pursuit of his dinosaur bone and her escaped pet leopard.
first played at the Stanford Theatre Mar 10, 1938; last played Jun 2007
Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres, Edward Everett Horton, Henry Kolker, Binnie Barnes, Jean Dixon, Ruth Donnelly, Henry Daniell.
A conventional New York socialite (Doris Nolan) brings her unconventional fiancé (Cary Grant) home to meet her wealthy New York family, only to have him fall for her free-spirited sister, played by Katharine Hepburn, in what Pauline Kael calls "her archetypal role." Hepburn was understudy for this role on Broadway in 1928, and she chose it for her initial Hollywood screen test.
"Katherine Hepburn's wit and nonconformity made ordinary heroines seem mushy." Pauline Kael
This classic comedy was recently restored by the UCLA Film Archive.
first played at the Stanford Theatre Jul 10, 1938; last played May 2007
Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, Elizabeth Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen.
Greta Garbo had her most radiant role as the 17th Century Swedish queen, under the inspired direction of Rouben Mamoulian. This film includes several of Garbo's most unforgettable scenes, including her night at the country inn with the Spanish ambassador, and her final sailing from Sweden. Indeed, it could be said that this film contains the greatest performance by the greatest star of the greatest art form of the 20th century. Do not miss it!
last played Sep 2004
Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Alice Brady, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore, Lillian Miles, Betty Grable.
The first film made specially for Fred and Ginger (it was their second film together) was a tremendous box office success. It was based on Cole Porter's 1932 Broadway musical, but kept only one original song, Night and Day. A new song, The Continental, won the first Oscar ever given for Best Song.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers perform their first true romantic dance to Night and Day. To call it a dance of seduction could give entirely the wrong impression, but that is nonetheless what it is. Although Ginger had begun as a Charleston dancer in Texas, she had an innate understanding of the dramatic and emotional richness of the new style Astaire was creating.
The script is bright and fast-paced, and several supporting actors (Eric Blore, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes) would return in future films as a kind of Astaire-Rogers stock company.
Songs: Night and Day, music and lyrics by Cole Porter; Let's K-nock K-nees and Don't Let It Bother You, music and lyrics by Mack Gordon and Harry Revel; A Needle in a Haystack and The Continental, music and lyrics by Con Conrad and Herb Magidson.
All in all, The Gay Divorcee remains after more than 70 years one of the very best musical pictures ever made.
first played at the Stanford Theatre Nov 11, 1934; last played Jul 2007
Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Jessie Royce Landis, John Williams, Charles Vanel, Brigitte Auber, Jean Martinelli, Georgette Anys, Roland Lessaffre, René Blancard.
Cary Grant plays a retired cat-burglar who is suspected of a series of jewel thefts committed by a copy-cat.
More romantic comedy than suspense thriller, the film was made on location on the French Riviera, where Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier.
"Grace Kelly actually looks alive, and she's sexier than she is in anything else." Pauline Kael
"Sex on the screen should be suspenseful, I feel. If sex is too blatant or obvious, there's no suspense." Hitchcock
Hitchcock's cameo appearance is on a bus, next to Cary Grant.
last played Mar 2008
Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains, Louis Calhern, Leopoldine Konstantin, Reinhold Schunzel, Moroni Olsen, Ivan Triesault, Alexis Minotis.
U.S. agent Cary Grant enlists the help of notorious party girl Ingrid Bergman to infiltrate a ring of Nazis in South America.
Notorious is without doubt one of the supreme creations of Hollywood's golden age. Many persons (including Truffaut) regard it as Hitchcock's greatest film, and it is a leading candidate for top rank among the films of Ingrid Bergman and of Cary Grant. In any case, it is the third most popular film at the Stanford Theatre (topped only by Casablanca and Gone With the Wind).
first played at the Stanford Theatre Jan 5, 1947; last played Jan 2008
Rita Hayworth, Deborah Kerr, David Niven, Burt Lancaster, Wendy Hiller, Gladys Cooper, Cathleen Nesbitt, Felix Aylmer.
In an English seaside hotel, various characters reveal their life stories.
The film was nominated for seven Oscars (David Niven and Wendy Hiller won).
"One watches Hayworth with genuine surprise, as the poignant divorcée watching her beauty slip away... It's the only strong mature role she ever got to play." Baseline Movie Guide
last played Apr 2009 12/95
Deborah Kerr, Michael Redgrave, Peter Wyngarde, Megs Jenkins, Martin Stephens, Pamela Franklin.
In this elegant and suspenseful Gothic chiller (based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James) Deborah Kerr is hired as a governess by Michael Redgrave to look after his niece and nephew, since he is frequently absent. The house is dark and spooky, the children's behavior becomes increasingly unsettling, and then there are the rumors about the now-deceased groundskeeper and the previous governess.
"The best ghost movie I've ever seen..." Pauline Kael
last played Nov 2005
James Cagney, Joan Leslie, Walter Huston, Rosemary de Camp, Richard Whorf, George Tobias, Jeanne Cagney, Irene Manning, S. Z. Sakall, George Barbier, Frances Langford, Walter Catlett, Eddie Foy, Jr.
The life and music of George M. Cohan, portrayed by Jimmy Cagney in his greatest role. Upon seeing Cagney's performance in this film, Cohan himself exclaimed: "My God, what an act to follow!"
This was Jimmy Cagney's favorite of all his films. He was often typecast as a gangster, but his rare appearances as a dancer reveal him as second only to Astaire in the 1930s.
"He is so cocky and sure a dancer that you feel yourself grinning with pleasure at his movements. It's quite possible that he has more electricity than Cohan himself had." Pauline Kael
last played Apr 2007
James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Frank McHugh, Guy Kibbee, Ruth Donnelly, Hugh Herbert, Claire Dodd, Herman Bing, Gordon Wescott.
Jimmy Cagney's rare film appearances as a dancer (rather than as a gangster) reveal him as second only to Astaire in the 1930's. In this story he produces live musical prologues to be shown in movie theatres before the picture. Joan Blondell is his wisecracking (loving) secretary.
Busby Berkeley's sensational aquatic choreography of By a Waterfall provides several of the most gloriously extravagant moments in the history of the Hollywood musical.
last played Apr 2007
Rita Hayworth, Gene Kelly, Lee Bowman, Phil Silvers, Jinx Falkenburg, Leslie Brooks, Eve Arden, Otto Kruger.
A Brooklyn chorus girl becomes a top fashion model (with a wealthy suitor), but she can't forget where she really belongs.
"Big time from the word go, Cover Girl deserves to stand among the best film musicals of all times... The dancing of Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly is superb... All of these statements of facts leave a reviewer slightly breathless. But that's the way Cover Girl leaves an audience." Hollywood Reporter
last played Dec 2005
Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, Adolphe Menjou, Leslie Brooks, Adele Mara, Isobel Alsom, Gus Shilling, Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra, Larry Parks.
The old-fashioned plot (only possible with music) involves a father trying to marry off his three daughters in the proper sequence. Astaire plays a dancer trying to find work in a nightclub owned by Rita Hayworth's father.
With Rita fulfilling the promise of the title and with an especially lovely musical score by Jerome Kern and Johnny Mercer, this is one of Astaire's most attractive (and relatively unknown) films.
Songs include Dearly Beloved, You Were Never Lovelier and I'm Old Fashioned.
last played Jul 2007
Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, James Stewart, Ruth Hussey, John Howard, Roland Young, John Halliday, Mary Nash, Virginia Weidler, John Howard, Henry Daniell.
The society marriage of Tracy Samantha Lord and C. K. Dexter Haven ended in divorce. Tracy is about to marry "man of the people" George Kittredge, when Spy Magazine sends a couple of reporters to cover the wedding.
Philip Barry wrote the play specially for Katharine Hepburn. After its successful Broadway run she sold the play to MGM, retaining the right to select the director and cast.
Jimmy Stewart won the Oscar as Best Actor of 1940 for his performance as reporter Macauley Connor.
This wonderful picture ranks as one of the supreme treasures of Hollywood's golden age. The Stanford Theatre brings it back at least once a year – always to enthusiastic crowds. It never grows old!
first played at the Stanford Theatre Feb 9, 1941; last played Jan 2008
Marie Dressler, John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore, Billie Burke, Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, Lee Tracy, Edmund Lowe, Madge Evans, Jean Hersholt, Karen Morley, Louise Closser Hale, Phillips Holmes, May Robson, Grant Mitchell, Elizabeth Patterson.
Archetypal all-star entertainment, with the Edna Ferber-George Kaufman play translated by expert and very funny screenwriters. Cukor runs the film like a host at a good party. The Barrymores are at their best, and the pace never flags (the film was shot in four weeks); but nothing surpasses the final droll encounter of Jean Harlow and Marie Dressler with their estimate of timeless professionalism.
last played Mar 2007
Warren Williams, Loretta Young, Wallace Ford, Alice White, Hale Hamilton, Albert Gran, Marjorie Gateson, Ruith Donnelly, Frank Reicher, Allen Jenkins.
In this virtual handbook on the fine art of sexual harassment, the general manager of a department store (Warren Williams) has his way with a beautiful shop girl (Loretta Young) before and after his marriage.
This film is an example of many made at Warners before the Production Code with similar vitality, a realistic edge, and (often) a concern with serious social issues. Leonard Maltin calls it "gripping, funny, outrageous and racy."
last played Aug 2005
James Cagney, Loretta Young, George E. Stone, Guy Kibbee, David Landau, Leila Bennett, Matt McHugh.
Cagney plays a hot-headed cabby in a union turf war. His wife (Loretta Young) disapproves of his tactics. It takes a good woman to civilize some men!
last played Feb 2003
Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, Charles Coburn, Eugene Pallette, William Demarest, Eric Blore, Melville Cooper, Martha O'Driscoll, Janet Beecher, Robert Greig, Luis Alberni, Jimmy Conlin.
Sturges' masterpiece, in which herpetologist Fonda is pursued by snake-in-the-grass Stanwyck, with the help of her father Coburn ("we must be crooked but never common"). The New York Times rated this the best film of 1941 (Citizen Kane was second).
last played Feb 2005
Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Tom Powers, Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova, John Philliber.
A suburban housewife (Stanwyck) ensnares an insurance salesman (MacMurray) into helping murder her husband for the insurance money.
This seminal masterpiece of the film noir genre was perfectly supported by a revolutionary Rózsa score that pulsates with bitter harmonic clashes. Edward G. Robinson's performance as the sympathetic insurance fraud investigator is especially memorable. Wilder defied studio conventions by shooting much of the film in locations around L.A., and the exteriors of the Glendale train station, a Melrose Avenue supermarket, and a Spanish stucco house in the Los Feliz Hills provide a fascinating glimpse of the city as it looked in the 40's.
"Every turn and twist is exactly calculated and achieves its effect with the simplest of means; this shrewd, smoothly tawdry thriller is one of the high points of 40s films." Pauline Kael
Print from the UCLA Film Archive, preserved from a nitrate fine grain master positive, with funding by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
last played Feb 2007
James Ellison, Frances Dee, Tom Conway, Edith Barrett, James Bell, Christine Gordon, Theresa Harris, Sir Lancelot, Darby Jones, Jeni LeGon.
A rich American planter brings a nurse to Haiti to care for his mysteriously ill wife.
"An unqualified horror masterpiece. Essential viewing." Baseline Movie Guide
"Exceptional Val Lewton chiller with rich atmosphere, mesmerizing story." Leonard Maltin
last played Feb 2007
Boris Karloff, Ellen Drew, Marc Cramer, Katherine Emery, Helene Thimig, Alan Napier, Jason Robards, Ernest Dorian.
A group of travelers is stranded on a Greek island, quarantined by a plague — or perhaps something more sinister. Borsi Karloff gives a fascinating performance as the Greek general in charge.
last played Mar 2007
Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan, Hermione Gingold, Eva Gabor, Isabel Jeans.
Colette's original story (about the education of a courtesan) was softened somewhat to stress the emotional development of a charming but mischievous girl on the verge of womanhood. Three of the principal creators of My Fair Lady (Lerner, Loewe, and Beaton) helped Minnelli make Gigi one of the most successful musicals in history. It won nine Oscars (including Best Picture and Best Director), which was at the time the largest number ever awarded to a single film.
In the past five years 15,000 people have watched Gigi here at the Stanford Theatre. It is a film that benefits enormously from being seen on the big screen and with the original magnetic stereophonic sound track.
last played Jun 2006
Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer, Tom Drake, June Lockhart, Marjorie Main, Leon Ames, Harry Davenport, Joan Carroll, Chill Wills.
A year in the life of of the Smith family at 5135 Kensington Avenue in St. Louis, leading up to the 1904 World's Fair; based on a series of New Yorker stories by Sally Benson.
One of the very greatest films Hollywood ever made, Meet Me in St. Louis established Minnelli as the undisputed master of of the film musical. He directed the film with a warm nostalgic glow that is never saccharine. The film also made Judy Garland, who had her best role since Dorothy, a major adult star. It was the biggest box office success of MGM's first 20 years, and it remains one of the most universally loved films ever made.
Minnelli often identified the "Halloween" episode as his favorite sequence among all his films, and the performance of seven-year-old Margaret O'Brien as the troubled younger sister "Tootie" stands out as one of the true miracles in the history of the cinema.
Songs include: The Boy Next Door, The Trolley Song, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
first played at the Stanford Theatre Mar 11, 1945; last played Sep 2007
Audrey Hepburn, Peter Finch, Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, Dean Jagger, Mildred Dunnock, Patricia Collings, Beatrice Straight.
In one of her very best roles, Audrey Hepburn plays a Belgian girl who joins a convent, works as a nurse in Africa (filmed on location), and eventually faces a crisis in her spiritual life. This beautiful film captures the mystery and dignity of the monastic life without losing sight of the ambiguity it can cause in the soul of a person who cannot help living in the world.
last played Dec 1999
Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, Eddie Albert, Hartley Power, Harcourt Williams.
A young princess on a European goodwill tour escapes her guardians for 24 hours of freedom in Rome with an American reporter (Gregory Peck).
The whole world fell in love with Audrey Hepburn in her first Hollywood role. The film received a total of ten Oscar nominations and Audrey was voted Best Actress.
first played at the Stanford Theatre Sep 20, 1953; last played Jul 2008
Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, John Barrymore, Francis Lederer, Mary Astor, Elaine Barrie, Hedda Hopper, Rex O'Malley, Monty Woolley, Armand Kaliz.
A chorus girl (Claudette Colbert) arrives in Paris with nothing but the evening gown she is wearing. She meets an idealistic cab driver (Don Ameche) who disapproves of her gold-digging ways. A rich Parisian (John Barrymore) hires her to pose as a countess to lure away his wife's lover.
This picture, written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, is one of the supreme gems of the Hollywood romantic comedy. John Barrymore said that it was the most fascinating screenplay he had ever read.
last played Jul 2007
Margaret Lockwood, James Mason, Patricia Roc, Griffith Jones, Michael Rennie, Felix Aylmer, Enid Stamp Taylor, Jean Kent, Martita Hunt, Frances Lister.
A bride makes the mistake of inviting her cousin (Margaret Lockwood) up from London before the wedding. Stealing the groom is only the beginning of her deliciously wicked career, which includes masquerading as a highwayman and meeting the genuine article in James Mason.
We discovered this picture last fall during our British Festival. This one deserves to be much better known. Author David Thomsen suggests that Margaret Lockwood could have been Scarlett O'Hara. In this film she's twice as wicked.
last played Sep 2008
Phyllis Calvert, Stewart Granger, Patricia Roc, Peter Glenville, John Stuart, Jean Kent, Nancy Price, Peter Murray Hill, Reginald Tate.
A respectable wife has a secret life as a gypsy dancer. Her mysterious split personality is somehow related to a childhood trauma.
Many consider this the very best of the wild Gainsborough melodramas.
last played Oct 2008
Rex Harrison, Audrey Hepburn, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde White, Gladys Cooper, Jeremy Britt, Theodore Bikel, Isobel Elson, Mona Washbourne, Walter Burke.
The film version of My Fair Lady (Best Picture of 1964) came nearly a decade after the Broadway musical. In the meantime, Lerner and Loewe created the music for Gigi. Although Audrey Hepburn had played Gigi on Broadway in 1952, she turned down the role in the 1958 film. Many people in 1964 thought that Julie Andrews should have played Eliza (as she did on Broadway). It may be a little hard to accept Audrey as a guttersnipe in the early scenes, but future generations will surely be grateful to rediscover in this film the most authentic fair lady of our age. The world will be grateful that Cukor's film preserves Rex Harrison in one of the great performances of the twentieth century.
last played Jan 2007
Groucho, Harpo, and Chico Marx, Margaret Dumont, Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Siegfried Rumann, Walter Woolf King, Edward Keane, Robert Emmet O'Connor, Lorraine Bridges.
Wealthy Mrs. Claypool (Margaret Dumont) hires Otis B. Driftwood (Groucho) in Milan to help her enter high society. Through Driftwood she becomes involved in a New York production of Il Trovatore. Chico (Fiorello) and Harpo (Tomasso) stow away in Driftwood's cabin when the opera company sails for America.
The Brothers' first film with MGM and Irving Thalberg.
last played Mar 2005
Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton, Una Merkel, George Barbier, Donald Meek, Sterling Holloway, Shirley Ross.
In the mythical kingdom of Marshovia, Count Danilo (Maurice Chevalier) must marry the country's wealthiest widow (Jeanette Macdonald, in perhaps her most delightful role) in order to keep her money in the country.
The celebrated Franz Lehár operetta is given new lyrics (by Lorenz Hart and Gus Kahn) and the famous Lubitsch touch.
last played Sep 2005
Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Victor Moore, Helen Broderick, Eric Blore, Betty Furness, George Metaxa.
The slim plot, with Fred as a professional dancer (and gambler) and Ginger as a dance instructor, provides a vehicle for the most sublime dancing ever recorded on film. If you could spend just three minutes of your life in a movie theatre, a good choice might be to watch Fred and Ginger dancing Pick Yourself Up in Swing Time.
Because of the dances, and Ginger's fine performance, some regard this as the greatest of the ten Astaire-Rogers pictures; it was Ginger's favorite.
The classic songs by Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields include The Way You Look Tonight (which won an Oscar for Best Song), A Fine Romance, Pick Yourself Up, Never Gonna Dance, and Bojangles of Harlem.
first played at the Stanford Theatre Oct 18, 1936; last played Jul 2007
Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson, E. E. Clive, Ernest Truex, Ferike Boros.
After losing her job at the department store, Ginger finds a baby abandoned at the doorstep of the orphanage. Everybody assumes that she must be the unwed mother, including her former boss.
This comedy, RKO's biggest hit of 1939, demonstrated that Ginger Rogers could be sensational without singing or dancing.
last played Nov 2004
Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Mary Boland, Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Lucile Watson, Phyllis Povah, Virginia Weidler, Ruth Hussey, Margaret Dumont, Marjorie Main, Hedda Hopper.
Adapted from the hit Broadway play, the film boasts a cast of 130 stylish, gossippy, wisecracking women and no men. MGM publicists described The Women as "135 women with men on their minds!" The cast is exclusively women, but it's really about their relationships with one another. While Shearer's sweet socialite and Crawford's aggressive gold-digger battle it out over Shearer's husband, Russell nearly steals the picture as the wonderfully horrible Sylvia.
last played Mar 1999
Joan Crawford, John Garfield, Oscar Levant, J. Carrol Naish, Craig Stevens, Tom D'Andrea, Peggy Knudsen, Paul Cavanagh..
Wealthy patroness of the arts Joan Crawford becomes tragically involved with an ambitious young violinist (John Garfield). The violin solos are dubbed by Isaac Stern.
last played Aug. 1990
Tyrone Power, Basil Rathbone, Gail Sondergaard, J. Edward Bromberg, Linda Darnell, Eugene Pallette, Montagu Love, Janet Beecher, Robert Lowery.
In this very successful sound version of the Fairbanks silent film, Tyrone Power, the consummate romantic swashbuckler, is a perfect Diego de Vega, cowardly fop by day, but dashing sword-fighting avenger by night.
Director Rouben Mamoulian showed that it is possible to create a remake of a great classic worthy of the original. This feat is remarkably rare.
first played at the Stanford Theatre Nov 27, 1940; last played Nov 2006
Tyrone Power, Maureen O'Hara, Laird Cregar, Thomas Mitchell, George Sanders, Anthony Quinn, George Zucco.
Tyrone Power was one of Hollywood's premier swashbucklers. Here he plays a dashing reformed pirate, assigned by the governor of Jamaica to capture a notorious rival.
last played Nov 2006
Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino, George Zucco, Alan Marshal, Terry Kilburn, Henry Stephenson, Arthur Hohl.
Holmes must stop his arch nemesis Professor Moriarty from stealing the Crown Jewels.
first showing by the Stanford Theatre Foundation
Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Richard Greene, Wendy Barrie, Lionel Atwill, Morton Lowry, John Carradine, Barlowe Borland, Beryl Mercer, Ralph Forbes.
On the moors a legendary hound is said to stalk the descendants of the Baskervilles. The latest heir engages Sherlock Holmes to investigate the mystery.
This picture first introduced Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Dr. Watson. It was a tremendous box office success, and Fox rushed out a sequel within six months. Between 1939 and 1946, Rathbone and Bruce played Holmes and Watson on the radio for 275 episodes, and they made a total of fourteen films in these roles.
Sherlock Holmes has been a familiar figure on the screen for nearly 100 years (he first appeared in a silent short around 1900). Many regard The Hound of the Baskervilles as the single best Holmes picture.
last played Oct 2001
Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim, Fred Clark, Nancy Olson, Jack Webb, Lloyd Gough, Franklyn Farnum, Larry Blake, Charles Dayton, Cecil B. DeMille, H. B. Warner, Anna Q. Nilsson, Buster Keaton, Hedda Hopper, Ray Evans, Jay Livingston.
A young Hollywood writer reluctantly allows himself to be kept by a demented silent movie queen in her decaying mansion.
The picture is saturated with ironic authenticity. A genuine silent film idol, Gloria Swanson, gives the uncanny impression that she might almost be playing herself in the role of the pathetically grandiose Norma Desmond. The great silent director Erich von Stroheim plays her butler and former director; they even watch part of a silent film, Queen Kelly, they made together in real life. Buster Keaton and other personalities from the silent era are gusets at her mansion. Cecil B. DeMille, the director of real Swanson silent films, still inhabits the sound stage at Paramount, the studio where Swanson (and Norma Desmond) made their biggest pictures. DeMille's scenes were filmed on location at the soundstage where he was directing his latest epic, Samson and Delilah. And, of course, this story of a struggling Hollywood screenwriter is directed by a great Hollywood screenwriter.
This complex film required music that was an equal partner in its bitter and ironic portrayal of Hollywood. Waxman responded with his greatest masterpiece, which won the Academy Award.
In 1989 Sunset Boulevard was selected by the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in its first group of 25 landmark American films.
last played Oct 2007
Kim Novak, William Holden, Rosalind Russell, Betty Field, Susan Strasberg, Cliff Robertson, Arthur O'Connell, Verna Felton, Reta Shaw.
William Holden drifts into a sleepy Kansas town over the Labor Day weekend and steals his old friend's girl (Kim Novak).
Famous at the time for its frankness, Picnic now seems most remarkable for its cinematic grace and authentic rural atmosphere. The wonderfully nostalgic Labor Day picnic, and above all the slumberous Moonglow dancing sequence, make it one of the true cinematic treasures of the 1950s.
last played Sep 2006