On Wednesday, May 30, The Los Angeles Conservancy launched the twenty-sixth season of Last Remaining Seats, its signature series of classic films and live entertainment in historic movie palaces. This year, the closing night film ‘The Wizard Of Oz” unreels at the historic Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills
Last Remaining Seats presents classic films as they were meant to be seen: on the big screen, in a beautiful theatre, surrounded by fellow fans. What began in 1987 as a way to draw attention to Los Angeles’ historic theatres is now a summer tradition, drawing thousands of people from the region, the nation, and outside the U.S.
The 2012 season takes place Wednesday evenings from May 30 through June 27, plus a matinee and evening screening on Saturday, June 30. This season offers some exciting twists including more recent classics, special guests, vintage costume shows, a display of costumes from The Artist, vintage stage curtains, and the series’ first-ever visit to Beverly Hills.
2012 Last Remaining Seats Schedule
Subject to change; details and updates will appear on our website at laconservancy.org (http://www.laconservancy.org/remaining/2012.php)
Wednesday, June 13 – The Big Sleep (1946) [SOLD OUT]
Los Angeles Theatre
Introduced by Alan Rode, director of the Film Noir Foundation
It doesn’t get better than Bogey and Bacall, directed here by the great Howard Hawks with a screenplay co-written by William Faulkner. As private detective Philip Marlowe, Humphrey Bogart encounters a heap of trouble and a stunningly beautiful Lauren Bacall.
Wednesday, June 20 – Cantinflas in Los tres mosqueteros (The Three Musketeers) (Mexico, 1942)
Million Dollar Theatre (1918), 307 S. Broadway, Downtown L.A.
co-presented with the Latin American Cinemateca of Los Angeles
Pre-show panel discussion moderated by Laura Isabel Serna, USC Professor of Film and Critical Studies. Mexican icon Cantinflas stars in this parody of Alexander Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers.” In Spanish with English subtitles. At the beautiful Million Dollar Theatre, built as Sid Grauman’s first Los Angeles venue.
When it was released in Mexico, “La Nation” (Mexico’s conservative paper described “Los tres mosqueteros” as Moreno’s finest work. Cannes critics were frosty, but the French Audiences embraced Cantinflas (a.k.a.Fortino Mario Alfonso Moreno Reye) as the Mexican equivalent to their beloved Fernandel.
Directed by Miguel M. Delgado with sets and costumes by master designer Manolo Fontanals (“El gallo de oro”, “Las abandonadas”,”Bugambili”) who created a replica of the court of King Louis XIII and imported costumes from Hollywood. The film begins with a Walter-Mitty conceit. Physical comic Cantinflas, in his signature slip shod costume, wanders into a nightclub dance floor. When he and his friends save the star performer “The Queen”‘ from a gang of robbers, she invites them to the set of her movie “The Three Musketeers”. Mistaken as an extra, the endearing troublemaker is exiled to a dressing room, where he dreams of playing swashbuckling D’Artagnan in the film. Musical numbers abound, some serious (as in the French Court sequence) some comic as in his dance at the nightclub.
Wednesday, June 27 – Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood (1922)
Orpheum Theatre
Introduced by film critic Leonard Maltin; accompanied live by Robert Israel on the Mighty Wurlitzer organ. This silent version of the timeless classic stars Douglas Fairbanks at his acrobatic best. On display in the Orpheum will be costumes from the 2012 Best Picture Oscar winner “The Artist”, which was filmed at the Orpheum and whose Oscar-winning Best Actor performance by Jean Dujardin was based on Fairbanks.
Composer Robert Israel, Hollywood’s pre-eminent Silent Film accompanist, follows the tradition of the studio musical directors who, during the silent period, compiled a score based on appropriate period music and his own compositions.
Saturday, June 30 – The Wizard of Oz (1939)
Saban Theatre (1930), 8440 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills
Matinee and evening screenings
Vintage costume show and vintage theatre stage curtains
Matinee screening special guest Aljean Harmetz, author of “The Making of The Wizard of Oz”. Evening host -Michael Feinstein, multi-platinum-selling, five-time Grammy-nominated entertainer dubbed “The Ambassador of the Great American Songbook”
L.A. Conservancy members voted this gem as their Fan Favorite film. Judy Garland leads an impeccable cast through an unforgettable journey down the Yellow Brick Road. With these two weekend screenings, Last Remaining Seats makes its first-ever visit to the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, which opened as the Fox Wilshire in 1930 and has been beautifully renovated.
The Los Angeles Conservancy is a nonprofit membership organization that works through education and advocacy to recognize, preserve, and revitalize the historic architectural and cultural resources of Los Angeles County. What began as a volunteer group in 1978 now has nearly 7,000 members, making the Conservancy the largest local organization of its kind in the U.S.
Advance tickets cost $20 ($16 for Conservancy members). For details, visit laconservancy.org or call the Conservancy’s event hotline at (213) 430-4219. For more info about the 2012 Last Remaining Seats theatres, visit http://laconservancy.org/remaining/remaining_theatres.php