West Orange Film Society presents
WHEN: 2 pm on six Sundays from January 30 through March 13 (no film Super Bowl weekend)
WHERE: AMC Theatre in Essex Green Shopping Center, Prospect Ave., West Orange
TICKETS: $14.00 and must be purchased in advance on Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/o/the-west-orange-classic-film-festival-39820071883
Tickets will not be available at the theatre box office or through Fandango
After pandemic-related events resulted in
a hiatus for 2021, the West Orange Classic Film Festival returns in the town
where Thomas Edison invented movies, once again giving lovers of cinema a
chance to experience their favorite films as they were meant to be seen— on the
big screen.
January 30
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the
Forum (1966)
with screenwriter/playwright/stage
director Joe Gilford, son of Jack Gilford, one of the film’s stars.
In ancient Rome, a slave named Pseudolus (Zero Mostel) attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door. The film also stars Phil Silvers and Buster Keaton (in his last film role).
February 6
The 197-minute
reconstructed version of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)
with
the Cinema Shorthand Society Facebook page curator John Chasse.
An all-star cast made up of film, television, and the stage’s greatest comedians are on the hunt for $350,000 in stolen cash under the watchful eye of police captain Spencer Tracy.
February 20
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
with Edge Media Network film journalist and
playwright/screenwriter Frank Avella.
What many consider to be the definitive screwball comedy features Cary Grant as a paleontologist maneuvering through a number of predicaments involving a scatterbrained heiress (Katharine Hepburn) and a leopard named Baby.
February 27
Young
Frankenstein (1974)
with an appearance by local film critic Stephen
Whitty.
Mel
Brooks presents this parody of the classic horror film genre, with co-writer
Gene Wilder as Frederick Frankenstein, Madeline Kahn as his fiancé, Teri Garr
as his assistant, Marty Feldman as his servant, and Peter Boyle as his
creation.
March 6
Some Like It Hot (1959)
with Stephen Whitty returning.
What better way to
start a comedy film festival than with the movie judged by the American Film
Institute in 2000 to be the funniest film ever made? Two
musicians (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) disguise themselves by dressing as
women in order to escape gangsters whom they witnessed committing a crime.
The film also stars Marilyn Monroe.
March 13
Buck Privates (1941)
with comics writer/film historian Paul Castiglia, who has
contributed commentary to the newly restored Season 1 of The Abbott and
Costello Show DVD and Blu-Ray collections.
Jersey boys Bud
Abbott (Asbury Park) and Lou Costello (Paterson) were launched into the comedy
stratosphere with their roles in their first
service comedy based on the peacetime draft of 1940. The Andrews Sisters and
Nat Pendelton co-star.
The West Orange Classic Film Festival is presented by the West Orange Film Society, part of the West Orange Arts Council, and in 2022 is co-sponsored by the West Orange Recreation Department.
For further information, contact wofilmsociety@aol.com, or join the Facebook page “West Orange Classic Film Festival."
