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What's on at Greenwich Picturehouse - Vintage Sundays
An ailing Broadway director returns to produce one final show, but his leading lady is injured and must be replaced by a novice.
Featuring the dazzling choreography of Busby Berkeley, this classic musical from 1933 has aged to perfection. The final twenty minute sequence will leave you tapping your toes, with a smile on your face and a song in your heart.
Director: John Waters.
Starring: Ricki Lake, Divine, Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono, Pia Zadora. USA
1988. 92 mins.
Baltimore, 1962. The heyday of hair-dos and hair-don’ts, and teen dance crazes like The Bug, The Roach and The Mashed Potato. Overweight teen Tracy Turnblad (Lake) lands a spot on a local TV dance show, using her newfound fame to champion the cause of racial integration. But in doing so she earns the wrath of the show’s former star, Amber Von Tussle, as well as Amber’s manipulative, pro-segregation parents.
Director: Dir. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. USA. 1952. 102 mins.
Hollywood’s troubled transition from silent to talking pictures at the end of the 1920s provided the inspiration for perhaps the greatest of movie musicals.
“The most enduring film musical to have come out of Hollywood. In all these years not a frame of it has dated; it still retains all its freshness and sparkle.”
Clive Hirschhorn, Gene Kelly: A Biography, 1984
To follow the acclaim for An American in Paris, which won him the 1951 Oscar for best picture, songwriter-turned-producer Arthur Freed charged screenwriters Betty Comden and Adolph Green with writing a musical based around some of his own most popular early songs. The result was a nostalgic tribute to the Hollywood of a bygone era starring Gene Kelly as Don Lockwood, the swashbuckling silent star at a film studio grappling with the coming of sound.
From the iconic scene in which Lockwood, smitten with young actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), dances home during a downpour singing the title song, to the extended ballet sequence featuring Cyd Charisse in a parody of the gangster film, Singin’ in the Rain represents the musical genre at its most energetic and ambitious.
The hills are alive with the sound of nuns and lonely goatherds! One of the most successful screen musicals of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beloved tale is presented here in a gorgeous new digital restoration. Julie Andrews stars as the fun-loving Maria, bringing sunshine into the lives of the Von Trapp family amid the beautiful Bavarian Alps.
Director: Vincente Minnelli.
Starring: Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, Oscar Levant. USA 1951. 113 mins.
Gene Kelly plays Jerry Mulligan, a struggling American painter living in Paris
who is discovered by a wealthy heiress on the streets of Montmartre. He soon
meets and falls in love with a beautiful young dancer called Lise (Caron) who
is already engaged to a famous cabaret artist. Jerry’s friend Adam Cook
(Levant), an aspiring pianist/composer, offers a comically cynical take on
matters as complications begin to arise. Winner of six Academy Awards in
1951, including Best Picture, Vincente Minnelli's An American In Paris is
possibly the greatest achievement in movie musicals from the 1950s.
Seymour, a shy young man working for a tyrannical florist, finds a vehicle for private and public success in the form of a maneating plant from outer space. The carniverous shrub helps him to become a celebrity, gets rid of his boss and clears the way for him to woo the girl of his dreams. However, its cannibalistic eating habits become insatiable and it's up to Seymour to cut it down to size. This comedy musical is based on the stage version of the cult movie, and features a memorable cameo performance from Steve Martin as a sadistic dentist.
