The Blue Dahlia
Noir '46 Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake’s third and final noir for Paramount finds them each dealing with unfaithful spouses. When Johnny Morrison (Ladd) returns from World War II, he is hesitant to see his wife, Helen (Doris Dowling), for the first time after the death of their son.
Trial on the Road
Curator's Choice Made in 1971 and banned for fifteen years, Trial on the Road became a major discovery in the days of Perestroika. By that time, any new film by Aleksey German was considered an event, and not just a cinematic event.
Family Business
Special Guest! A documentary about the “American Dream,” Family Business focuses on a single family in Muncie, Indiana. Cinematographer and director Tom Hurwitz, who will be the commencement speaker for the 25th graduation of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, will provide a special introduction.
Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue
Rochester Premiere From master director Jia Zhangke (Ash Is Purest White, A Touch of Sin) comes a vital documentary of Chinese society since 1949.
Sunset Blvd.
Eastman Entertains Gloria Swanson shines as Norma Desmond in this true-to-life story of a fading silent film star and the struggling Hollywood studio system. Cameos by silent film stars and directors abound, including Buster Keaton and Cecil B. DeMille, to whom Norma directs her final line: “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my closeup.”
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House | Member Movie Night
Member Movie Night | Cary, Cary, Cary (Grant) Jim and Muriel Blandings (Cary Grant and Myrna Loy) and their two daughters are feeling cramped in their New York City apartment. Instead of investing the money in modifications to the apartment, Jim enters into a questionable real estate deal in Connecticut.
The Trespasser
A Preservation Legacy: Ed Stratmann Class difference and moral issues intertwine in this stark social drama starring Gloria Swanson. To bring The Trespasser back to the screen, Ed Stratmann worked from unique material repatriated from New Zealand, including a nitrate print and the original separate nitrate image and track negatives.
Humoresque
Noir '46 Joan Crawford and John Garfield are the two lovers at the center of a story that examines two kinds of passion—one destructive, the other unyielding and pure. Beautifully acted, designed, and directed, Humoresque may be Crawford’s crowning achievement.
Arsenic and Old Lace
Cary, Cary, Cary (Grant) This charmingly morbid screwball comedy teams director Capra and leading man Cary Grant for their only film together. The complex story involves two elderly sisters (Josephine Hull and Jean Adair, who originated the roles on Broadway) who commit “mercy” killings of lonely old men.
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
Cary, Cary, Cary (Grant) Jim and Muriel Blandings (Cary Grant and Myrna Loy) and their two daughters are feeling cramped in their New York City apartment. Instead of investing the money in modifications to the apartment, Jim enters into a questionable real estate deal in Connecticut.
Lonesome
A Preservation Legacy: Ed Stratmann It’s the classic story of boy-meets-girl, both lonely but not alone, cyphers lost among the bustle of the big city until at last fate brings them together. The history of this film is a quintessential George Eastman Museum story. The original nitrate print was repatriated to the US in a trade James Card made with Henri Langlois at the Cinémathèque Française. The title has gone through no fewer than three preservations as technologies became available to restore the film to its original visual and auditory brilliance—and restore the title to its place among the greats of the late silent era.
The Spiral Staircase
Noir '46 Director Robert Siodmak, a master of dark dramas, released this film in the same year as The Killers and The Dark Mirror.
In Solidarity: Spotlighting Black Film Artists
FREE film series
Nine Wednesdays
July 7 to September 1
In solidarity with the Black community—which continues to face pervasive discrimination, bigotry, and violence—the George Eastman Museum spotlights the contributions of Black film artists with this series of nine motion pictures from 1930 to the present.
Black actors have appeared on cinema screens almost since the inception of motion pictures, but in early American cinema, they were usually cast in supporting roles, their characters existing in relation to white society. Yet, Black artists have created motion pictures of great emotion and import all along, both in front of and behind the camera as actors, singers, dancers, writers, and directors. In this special free series, the Dryden Theatre presents some of these works on the big screen. Come and join us in celebrating the long history—from the silent period to today—of the contributions of Black artists to cinema.
Presented in partnership with the PRISM Multicultural Center and Global Education and International Services at Monroe Community College; and the Levine Center to End Hate at the Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester.
This series is sponsored by the William & Sheila Konar Foundation.
The Joy Luck Club
FREE SCREENING | In Solidarity: Celebrating Asian/Pacific American Directors Based on the best-selling novel by Amy Tan (who also adapted the stories for the screen), The Joy Luck Club focuses on four sets of mothers who emigrated from China to San Francisco in the 1940s, and their four daughters who grew up in the United States.
Boy
FREE SCREENING | In Solidarity: Celebrating Asian/Pacific American Directors Boy is an 11-year-old Maori youth growing up with his cousins and his grandmother on Waihau Bay in northern New Zealand in 1984. Boy’s fantasy life is filled with two men: Michael Jackson and Boy’s father, Alamein Sr. Michael Jackson can do no wrong and influences the way Boy wants to dress and dance.
Eat Drink Man Woman
FREE SCREENING | In Solidarity: Celebrating Asian/Pacific American Directors Ang Lee’s touching family drama follows a widower and his three grown daughters as their lives and loves interconnect through Sunday meals.
In the Family
FREE SCREENING | In Solidarity: Celebrating Asian/Pacific American Directors Joey Williams (director Patrick Wang) seemingly lives a perfect life with his husband, Cody, and Cody’s son, Chip.
Picture Bride
FREE SCREENING | In Solidarity: Celebrating Asian/Pacific American Directors The advent of photography allowed marriages to be arranged over thousands of miles, resulting in “picture brides”—women who have only an image of their prospective husbands before they travel to their new home
Columbus
FREE SCREENING | In Solidarity: Celebrating Asian/Pacific American Directors Columbus, Indiana, an unlikely mecca for modernist architecture, is the setting for this thoughtful drama. Jin (John Cho) is estranged from his architect father, but still rushes to his side when the older man falls into a coma.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
FREE SCREENING | In Solidarity: Celebrating Asian/Pacific American Directors A worldwide phenomenon upon its release, Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon takes us to the early nineteenth century and the waning days of the Qing dynasty. Nominated for ten Academy Awards, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon took home trophies for Score, Cinematography, Art Direction, and Best Foreign Language Film.
