Cinematheque Film Schedule

United States | 1939 | George Marshall, Edward F. Cline

W.C. Fields plays a debt-ridden carnival proprietor who tries to break up his daughter’s romance with one of his employees, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. If Bergen became his son-in-law, Bergen’s wooden dummy Charlie McCarthy (Fields’ arch nemesis) would also enter the family. DCP. 79 min.

Sweden | 1964 | Mai Zetterling

Ingmar Bergman regulars Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Gunnar Björnstrand, and Eva Dahlbeck star in the first feature directed by Swedish actress turned moviemaker Mai Zetterling. Set in 1914 Stockholm, the work centers on three women—a housemaid, a farm wife, and a young aristocrat—who, while waiting to give birth at a maternity hospital, think back on the circumstances and relationships that landed them there. Shot by Sven Nykvist, the movie caused an uproar for its frank...

United States | 2020 | Phil Wall

Carol Wall's debut memoir—about cancer, friendship, and cultivating an open heart—was a breakout success. But joy turned to tragedy when the breast cancer she wrote about returned, and she died months after the book’s publication. Carol's husband Dick, determined to help his wife’s life-affirming message find its audience, becomes the work's unlikely spokesperson when he embarks on a nationwide book tour. He is accompanied by his and Carol’s filmmaker son Phil. The result is an...

Sweden | 1964 | Mai Zetterling

Ingmar Bergman regulars Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Gunnar Björnstrand, and Eva Dahlbeck star in the first feature directed by Swedish actress turned moviemaker Mai Zetterling. Set in 1914 Stockholm, the work centers on three women—a housemaid, a farm wife, and a young aristocrat—who, while waiting to give birth at a maternity hospital, think back on the circumstances and relationships that landed them there. Shot by Sven Nykvist, the movie caused an uproar for its frank...

United States | 2022 | Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham’s first theatrical feature since 2010’s Tiny Furniture is another warts-and-all chronicle of a young woman’s fumbling into adulthood. Here the main character is Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth), a 26-year-old childcare worker who lives in L.A. with her oft-divorced mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her stylish sister (Taylour Paige), an aspiring Instagram influencer. In comparison to her sexy, stylish sibling, Sarah Jo is mousy, frumpy, and sexually inexperienced—so sets about rectifying that situation with...

United States | 1939 | George Marshall, Edward F. Cline

W.C. Fields plays a debt-ridden carnival proprietor who tries to break up his daughter’s romance with one of his employees, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen. If Bergen became his son-in-law, Bergen’s wooden dummy Charlie McCarthy (Fields’ arch nemesis) would also enter the family. DCP. 79 min.

United States | 1959 | Michael Gordon

An unmarried interior decorator (Doris Day) and a handsome, bachelor composer and playboy (Rock Hudson) share a telephone party line, resulting in romantic complications. This clever comedy classic, a huge moneymaker in its day, won an Oscar for its screenplay and used split screen years before Woodstock and Gaspar Noé. Doris Day, a singer and actress who became one of the biggest movie stars of the 1950s, was born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff in Cincinnati...

United States | 2022 | Lena Dunham

Lena Dunham’s first theatrical feature since 2010’s Tiny Furniture is another warts-and-all chronicle of a young woman’s fumbling into adulthood. Here the main character is Sarah Jo (Kristine Froseth), a 26-year-old childcare worker who lives in L.A. with her oft-divorced mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her stylish sister (Taylour Paige), an aspiring Instagram influencer. In comparison to her sexy, stylish sibling, Sarah Jo is mousy, frumpy, and sexually inexperienced—so sets about rectifying that situation with...

United States | 1959 | Michael Gordon

An unmarried interior decorator (Doris Day) and a handsome, bachelor composer and playboy (Rock Hudson) share a telephone party line, resulting in romantic complications. This clever comedy classic, a huge moneymaker in its day, won an Oscar for its screenplay and used split screen years before Woodstock and Gaspar Noé. Doris Day, a singer and actress who became one of the biggest movie stars of the 1950s, was born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff in Cincinnati...

France, Poland, United States | 2006 | David Lynch

David Lynch’s last completed theatrical feature is a movie industry thriller that veers off Mulholland Drive to take an even twistier and more treacherous path into the dark unknown. Laura Dern plays an actress who lands a dream part in a prestigious new movie that also happens to be cursed. As she prepares for the role, she goes down a rabbit hole that’s suffused with dread and full of dangerous visions. Her identity splinters and...

United States | 2022 | John Patton Ford

Aubrey Plaza is sensational in this 2022 Sundance hit about an unemployed former art student saddled with debt who resorts to illegal activities to make some desperately-needed money. She soon finds herself enmeshed in L.A.’s criminal underworld. This tense and blackly comic thriller, an auspicious feature debut for filmmaker John Patton Ford, was produced by Chagrin Falls’ Tyler Davidson. Both men will do a Q&A after the screening. “A cool, confident debut…A nail-biter.” –Hollywood Reporter....

United States | 2020 | Juliana Piccillo

Sex workers have served as muses to moviemakers since the dawn of cinema. From white slavery pictures (1900’s The Girl Who Went Astray) to iconic rom-coms (Pretty Woman) and indie hits (Tangerine), hookers, hustlers, call girls, streetwalkers and strippers have been staples of the silver screen. Cinematic sex workers are punchlines, moral lessons, or fantasy figures who are often brutalized or killed off, though sometimes rescued. Aligned with trauma, violence, and pathos, they are rarely...

United States | 1940 | Edward F. Cline

Mae West plays a singer from Chicago and W.C. Fields the con man she marries in this spoof of westerns that was the only screen collaboration between these two comedy giants. DCP. 83 min.

United States | 2020 | Lloyd Kaufman

To the ranks of the screen’s most illustrious adaptors of Shakespeare—Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles, Kenneth Branagh—we can add Troma Entertainment’s Lloyd Kaufman, director of Tromeo and Juliet (1996) and now this new gross-out version of The Tempest. Kaufman also stars in the movie; his Prospero is a brilliant scientist whose cure for opioid addition is thwarted by evil pharmaceutical executives. So with the help of a large supply of whale laxative (not in the Bard’s...

United States | 1940 | Edward F. Cline

Mae West plays a singer from Chicago and W.C. Fields the con man she marries in this spoof of westerns that was the only screen collaboration between these two comedy giants. DCP. 83 min.

United States | 1973 | George Lucas

George Lucas’ final film before Star Wars is set on the last day of summer vacation 1962 in Modesto, CA. It’s a rollicking, rueful coming-of-age comedy in which soon-to-scatter high school friends spend the night flirting with members of the opposite sex and engaging in mischief as they cruise the strip in souped-up cars. Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, and Harrison Ford head the now-legendary cast. 35mm scope print! 112 min.

France, Italy, Spain | 1972 | Luis Buñuel

Winner of the 1973 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Luis Buñuel’s famous late masterpiece is a surrealistic comic nightmare in which upper middle class friends who have gathered for a dinner party find their meal delayed repeatedly by bizarre happenstances. (Let’s call it “co-eat-us” interruptus.) The chic cast includes Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Stéphane Audran, Bulle Ogier, and Jean-Pierre Cassel. “A blistering but witty assault on the director’s constant targets—the church, the state...

France, Italy, Spain | 1972 | Luis Buñuel

Winner of the 1973 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Luis Buñuel’s famous late masterpiece is a surrealistic comic nightmare in which upper middle class friends who have gathered for a dinner party find their meal delayed repeatedly by bizarre happenstances. (Let’s call it “co-eat-us” interruptus.) The chic cast includes Fernando Rey, Delphine Seyrig, Stéphane Audran, Bulle Ogier, and Jean-Pierre Cassel. “A blistering but witty assault on the director’s constant targets—the church, the state...

Sweden | 1966 | Mai Zetterling

One of John Waters’ all-time favorite films, Mai Zetterling’s scandalous sophomore directorial outing was denied a public screening at the 1966 Venice Film Festival. (The jury viewed it privately.) This lightning rod of a movie also prompted former child star Shirley Temple to resign from the board of the San Francisco Film Festival when they refused to pull it from their program. It tells of an unstable man who brings his fiancée to his palatial...

United States | 1973 | George Lucas

George Lucas’ final film before Star Wars is set on the last day of summer vacation 1962 in Modesto, CA. It’s a rollicking, rueful coming-of-age comedy in which soon-to-scatter high school friends spend the night flirting with members of the opposite sex and engaging in mischief as they cruise the strip in souped-up cars. Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, and Harrison Ford head the now-legendary cast. 35mm scope print! 112 min.

Netherlands | 2006 | Heddy Honigmann

The late Peruvian-born Dutch documentarian Heddy Honigmann made fascinating films about interesting and unusual subjects. One of her best works is this profile of Paris’ Père-Lachaise Cemetery, the final resting place of artists ranging from Chopin and Proust to Édith Piaf, Maria Callas, and Jim Morrison. But the movie doesn’t just document gravesites; it also captures living fans who visit these shrines and continue to find inspiration in the work of long-gone greats. “A film...

United States | 1940 | Edward F. Cline

One of the all-time great screen comedies stars W.C. Fields as Egbert Sousé, an unhappily married family man (with a drinking problem) who becomes a bank security guard. The terrific supporting cast includes Shemp Howard, Franklin Pangborn, and Grady Sutton. “By far the best of Fields’ last comedies.” –Time Out Film Guide. DCP. 74 min.

Italy | 2021 | Mauro Russo Rouge

This new documentary presents an honest, sensual, sex-positive look at the swinger lifestyle—profiling a happily-married, middle-aged Italian couple who run a pet store by day and organize elaborate sex parties at night. “More emotionally than sexually voyeuristic.” –Screen Daily. Adults only! Cleveland premiere. Subtitles. DCP. 88 min. NOTE: This film also shows theatrically on Sun., 9/11 at 6:30 pm. Bloom Up, a Cinematheque streaming exclusive, can be viewed online from 8/19 thru at least 9/8...

United States | 1940 | Edward F. Cline

One of the all-time great screen comedies stars W.C. Fields as Egbert Sousé, an unhappily married family man (with a drinking problem) who becomes a bank security guard. The terrific supporting cast includes Shemp Howard, Franklin Pangborn, and Grady Sutton. “By far the best of Fields’ last comedies.” –Time Out Film Guide. DCP. 74 min.

France | 2021 | Bertrand Mandico

Winner of Best Film at the 2021 Fantastic Fest, Bertrand Mandico’s first feature since his florid debut The Wild Boys (which Cahiers du Cinéma called the best film of 2018) is a trippy, El Topo-esque lesbian-sci-fi-western-adventure-romance. Set in the distant future on a planet inhabited only by women, the film follows a teenage girl and her mother (Elina Löwensohn) as they pursue an escaped killer named Kate Bush across this supernatural world. “A bedazzled, audacious...

United States | 2022 | Christina Thomas, Samantha Wishman

Tens of thousands of unwanted dogs from the rural South have been transported to new homes in other parts of the country thanks to the tireless efforts of a grassroots network of volunteer dog rescuers, mostly women, some of whom are profiled in this uplifting film. Will get your tail wagging! Cleveland premiere. DCP. 70 min.

United States | 2021 | Phil Tippett

This stop-motion animated feature—in which an assassin ventures through a dark, dystopian world of monsters and warriors—is the longtime personal project of Oscar-winning visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett (Jurassic Park, RoboCop, Starship Troopers, et al.). Begun in 1987, work on the movie was suspended when Tippett’s Hollywood career took off and computer-generated animation seemed to render model work and hand-manipulated puppets passé. But fellow animators and KickStarter funders eventually convinced Tippett to finish his magnum...

United States | 1997 | David Lynch

David Lynch’s strange, surrealistic nightmare is a neo-noir mystery about an L.A. jazz saxophonist (Bill Pullman) who goes to jail for murdering his wife (Patricia Arquette). He doesn’t remember doing this, but a mysterious videotape seems to implicate him. In jail he is suddenly a different person—literally: a mechanic (Balthazar Getty) with connections to a gangster (Robert Loggia) whose mistress (Arquette again) is the spitting image of the murdered wife! This sinister warm-up for the...

United States | 1999 | Martin Scorsese

Nicolas Cage plays a paramedic on the verge of a nervous breakdown, working an ambulance in one of New York City’s toughest neighborhoods, in this underappreciated Martin Scorsese nocturne. Written by Paul Schrader and shot in color and scope by Tarantino’s longtime cameraman Robert Richardson, the movie co-stars Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, and Ving Rhames. 35mm. 121 min.

Sweden | 1968 | Mai Zetterling

Ingmar Bergman stalwarts Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Gunnar Björnstrand, and Erland Josephson star in Mai Zetterling’s feminist classic. In it, three actresses starring in a production of Aristophenes’ Lysistrata find the play’s message of female empowerment and liberation seeping into their own offstage lives and relationships. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. Restored DCP. 100 min.

Sweden | 1968 | Mai Zetterling

Ingmar Bergman stalwarts Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Gunnel Lindblom, Gunnar Björnstrand, and Erland Josephson star in Mai Zetterling’s feminist classic. In it, three actresses starring in a production of Aristophenes’ Lysistrata find the play’s message of female empowerment and liberation seeping into their own offstage lives and relationships. Cleveland revival premiere. Subtitles. Restored DCP. 100 min.

United States | 1999 | Martin Scorsese

Nicolas Cage plays a paramedic on the verge of a nervous breakdown, working an ambulance in one of New York City’s toughest neighborhoods, in this underappreciated Martin Scorsese nocturne. Written by Paul Schrader and shot in color and scope by Tarantino’s longtime cameraman Robert Richardson, the movie co-stars Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, and Ving Rhames. 35mm. 121 min.

United States | 1941 | Edward F. Cline

For his last starring role, W.C. Fields plays himself—a movie star pitching his latest script to a producer at Hollywood’s Esoteric Pictures. Coming to life as Fields tells it, the story is a surreal (but hilarious) piece of nonsense that takes place in a mythical country where the Marx Bros.’ favorite foil, Margaret Dumont, lives as “Mrs. Hemoglobin” in a nest atop a mountain. The movie is also Fields’ critique of the studio interference and...

United States | 1984 | Michael Roemer

A major rediscovery: a third narrative feature written and directed by a maverick American filmmaker whose other two movies—the low-key Black love story Nothing but a Man (1964) and the Jewish gangster comedy The Plot Against Harry (1971)—are widely regarded as masterpieces. Brooke Adams (Days of Heaven) and Trish Van Devere (The Changeling) star in this rapturously-reviewed, multifaceted melodrama that was originally shown under the title Haunted on PBS’ American Playhouse in 1984. The film...

United States | 1960 | Alfred Hitchcock

It was recently discovered that, for six decades since its original release, Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal chiller about strange doings at the Bates Motel had been seen in theaters, on TV, and on home video in a version slightly edited for content. This newly remastered edition restores all the cuts (so to speak). The result is Hitchcock’s original version of his slasher masterpiece. Janet Leigh, Tony Perkins, Vera Miles, and Martin Balsam star. Adults only! Cleveland...

United States | 1984 | Michael Roemer

A major rediscovery: a third narrative feature written and directed by a maverick American filmmaker whose other two movies—the low-key Black love story Nothing but a Man (1964) and the Jewish gangster comedy The Plot Against Harry (1971)—are widely regarded as masterpieces. Brooke Adams (Days of Heaven) and Trish Van Devere (The Changeling) star in this rapturously-reviewed, multifaceted melodrama that was originally shown under the title Haunted on PBS’ American Playhouse in 1984. The film...

United States | 1941 | Edward F. Cline

For his last starring role, W.C. Fields plays himself—a movie star pitching his latest script to a producer at Hollywood’s Esoteric Pictures. Coming to life as Fields tells it, the story is a surreal (but hilarious) piece of nonsense that takes place in a mythical country where the Marx Bros.’ favorite foil, Margaret Dumont, lives as “Mrs. Hemoglobin” in a nest atop a mountain. The movie is also Fields’ critique of the studio interference and...

United States | 1960 | Alfred Hitchcock

It was recently discovered that, for six decades since its original release, Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal chiller about strange doings at the Bates Motel had been seen in theaters, on TV, and on home video in a version slightly edited for content. This newly remastered edition restores all the cuts (so to speak). The result is Hitchcock’s original version of his slasher masterpiece. Janet Leigh, Tony Perkins, Vera Miles, and Martin Balsam star. Adults only! Cleveland...