Barbra Streisand’s movie-star-making musical Funny Girl is the Academy’s next ‘Great to Be Nominated’ presentation
Starring Best Actress Academy Award co-winner Barbra Streisand and Omar Sharif, William Wyler’s 1968 Best Picture nominee Funny Girl is the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ next presentation in its “Great To Be Nominated” series. The screening – from an IB Technicolor Stereo print – will take place on Monday, June 26, at 7:30 p.m. in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Anne Francis, who has a supporting role in Funny Girl (and who’s best remembered as the mini-skirt-wearing female lead in Forbidden Planet), and Oscar-nominated editor Maury Winetrobe will take part in a panel discussion following the screening.
The romanticized story of stage comedienne Fanny Brice – the narrative traces her ascendancy from New York’s Lower East Side to the Ziegfeld Follies, inevitably finding love and heartbreak along the way – Funny Girl received eight Oscar nominations, co-topping the Best Actress category (see further below).
Besides Best Picture (Ray Stark, producer) and Best Actress, Wyler’s musical – his only foray in the genre – was shortlisted for Best Supporting Actress (Kay Medford as Rose Brice), Best Cinematography (Harry Stradling), Best Film Editing (Robert Swink, Maury Winetrobe, William Sands), Best Score of a Musical Picture – Original or Adaptation (adaptation score by Walter Scharf), Best Original Song (“Funny Girl,” music by Jule Styne; lyrics by Bob Merrill) and Best Sound (Columbia Studio Sound Department).
In her big-screen debut, Barbra Streisand, shared her Best Actress Oscar with veteran Katharine Hepburn for her performance as Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine in Anthony Harvey’s The Lion in Winter.
Funny Girl will be preceded by the Oscar-nominated cartoon short The House that Jack Built (Wolf Koenig and Jim MacKay, producers) and the Oscar-nominated live action short The Dove (George Coe, Sidney Davis, and Anthony Lover, producers).
Passes for Part Three of the “Great to Be Nominated” series are still available for $30. Inclusive of Funny Girl there are nine screening dates remaining. The Academy is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills.
Labyrinth at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater
Press Release: An evil goblin king, a talking door knocker, fairies and a colony of goblins will join producer/director Brian Henson and members of the Jim Henson Creature Shop at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ 20th anniversary screening and onstage discussion of Labyrinth (1986) on Thursday, July 20, at 8 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
A post-screening conversation featuring the creative team behind Labyrinth, including Henson, who is the voice of Hoggle and co-CEO of the Jim Henson Company, will offer the public a rare opportunity to hear from animatronics specialists both behind and in front of the camera.
Starring David Bowie and Oscar®-winner Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind), Labyrinth follows the fantastical adventures of Sarah (Connelly) as she attempts to rescue her baby brother Toby (Toby Froud) from being transformed into a goblin by Jareth, the goblin king (Bowie).
Labyrinth, a milestone in the development of animatronic technology, utilized a very early version of what would ultimately become the Henson Performance Control System, which in 1991 received a Scientific and Engineering Award from the Academy for allowing a single puppeteer to remotely control up to 32 isolated facial movements in an animatronic character. The technology made it possible to express complex emotions through the character and simulate a live performance in real time.
The Academy’s current exhibition “It’s Alive!: Bringing Animatronic Characters to Life on Film,” which contains original animatronic puppets from the film, will be open for viewing immediately following the screening.
Tickets to Labyrinth are $5 for the general public and $3 for Academy members. Doors open at 7 p.m. Seating is unreserved.
The Samuel Goldwyn Theater is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Free parking is provided in the garages located at 8920 and 9025 Wilshire Boulevard. For additional information, call (310) 247-3600.
Photo: © A.M.P.A.S.
The Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills will present a “retrospective of the early films of the first ‘film town,’ Fort Lee, New Jersey.” Additionally, a series of films will pay tribute to New Jersey-born comedian Lou Costello’s centennial.
Presented by the Fort Lee Film Commission, “Greetings From New Jersey” will be held from June 23–26. Scheduled titles – via Studio Screenings – include:
Friday, June 23
Robin Hood (Eclair, 1912)
Cast: Robert Frazer, Barbara Tennant.
Restoration Premiere
27m
The earliest existing Robin Hood film. First screening of the Fort Lee Film Commission’s 35mm color restoration.
Introduction by film historian Richard Koszarski.
The Vampire (Kalem, 1913)
Cast: Bert French, Alice Eis.
43m
Bert French and Alice Eis perform their notorious “Vampire Dance” in the prototypical “vamp” film.
He Did and He Didn’t (Triangle-Keystone, 1916)
Cast: Roscoe Arbuckle (a.k.a. ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle), Mabel Normand.
21m
A nightmarish romantic slapstick comedy.
Musical Accompaniment by Fort Lee’s Jeff Baker.
Saturday, June 24
AUTEURS FROM FT. LEE
For His Son (Biograph, 1912)
Director: D.W. Griffith.
15m
In the most bizarre of D.W. Griffith’s hundred Fort Lee productions, Dopokoke sweeps the nation.
White Fawn’s Devotion (Pathé, 1910)
Director: James Young Deer.
15m
This Palisades western was one of Pathé’s first American productions.
A Girl’s Folly (Paragon-World, 1917)
Director: Maurice Tourneur.
65m
While suffering from nitrate damage, this complete print of Maurice Tourneur’s vision of Ft. Lee filmmaking is a revelation.
FORGOTTEN CLASSICS
His Wife’s Mistake (Triangle-Keystone, 1916)
Cast: Roscoe Arbuckle.
21m
Speed, slapstick and satire in one of Roscoe Arbuckle’s most politically incorrect comedies.
Phil-for-Short (World, 1919)
76m
A startling screwball comedy featuring a cross-dressing farmerette and a woman-hating classics professor who share a love for Sappho in the original.
Musical accompaniment by Jeff Baker.
Centennial Tribute to New Jersey Born Film Comic Lou Costello – Program I featuring:
-Appearances by Lou Costello’s daughters Chris and Paddy, celebrity guests and the teens of the Lou Costello Jr. Recreation Center
Lou Costello – Happy 100th Birthday Tribute Short
Sirk Productions, NYC, 7-min
This tribute reel shows highlights from the professional and personal life of comic legend Lou Costello.
10,000 Kids and a Cop
1948, 20-min
Premiere of restored 35mm print of this Lou Costello produced short film. This was shot on location at the Lou Costello Jr. Youth Center in East Los Angeles. Bud Abbott & Lou Costello appear along with actors William Bendix and Jimmy Stewart as well as the kids of the center.
The Lou Costello Project
Mary Pickford Institute, Fort Lee Film Commission, 20m
This centennial tribute film was shot by the teen group of the present day Lou Costello Jr. Recreation Center in East Los Angeles.
-All proceeds go towards the Lou Costello Jr. Recreation Center in East Los Angeles
Sunday, June 25
In the Navy (1941)
85m
Originally titled “Abbott & Costello and Dick Powell in the Navy” this follow-up to the Abbott & Costello blockbuster Buck Privates teams Bud and Lou with film crooner Dick Powell, Dick Foran and their singing sidekicks from Buck Privates the Andrews Sisters. Lou wreaks havoc on the seven seas in one of Bud & Lou’s early Universal releases.
Hold that Ghost (1941)
85m
Hold that Ghost was actually filmed prior to In the Navy but based on the blockbuster status of Buck Privates Universal decided to send Bud and Lou into Uncle Sam’s service as sailors. Hold that Ghost (originally titled “Oh Charlie!”) was released in August of 1941 following the My release of In the Navy. This was Bud and Lou’s first haunted house comedy and teamed them with comidienne Joan Davis. The Andrews Sisters are featured in two numbers.
A Centennial Tribute to New Jersey Born Film Comic Lou Costello – Program III featuring:
Ride ’em Cowboy (1942)
86m
At the time of the release of Ride ’em Cowboy in February, 1942, Abbott & Costello were voted the number three box-office attractions of 1941 by exhibitors. Universal sends the boys out west to a dude ranch where they perform the classic “crazy house” routine. The boys also assist Ella Fitzgerald (in her screen debut) with her hit tune “A Tisket A Tasket.”
Hit the Ice
Universal Studios, 1943, 82-min
Bud & Lou portray newspaper photographers Flash Fulton and Tubby McCoy. The fun starts when gangster Sheldon Leonard mistakes them for two hit men from Detroit. Shot at Sode Springs, California, in January 1943, the film features big band singer Ginny Simms as Lou’s love interest. “Hit the Ice” contains two classic Abbott & Costello routines. “Pack and Unpack” and “All Right – the Piano scene.”
Monday, June 26
In Society (1944)
75m
Plumbers Bud & Lou are plumbers who masquerade as society types. Singer Marion Hutton portrays Lou’s love interest Elsie Hammerdingle who warbles the tune “My Dreams Are Getting Better All the Time.” Arthur Treacher and Thomas Gomez add to the antics. This film features the classic burlesque routine “Floogle Street” where Bud & Lou search in vain for the Susquehanna Hat Company.
Here Comes the Coeds (1945)
88m
Bud & Lou join basketball player “Miramar Molly” at Bixby College where their boss is Lon Chaney Jr. This film allows Lou to show how he bacame the basketball foul shoot champ of the state of New Jersey. Another sidelight is that Bixby College is on the same Universal Studio “Courthouse Square” back lot set as was the 1962 film To Kill A Mockingbird, the 1985 film Back to the Future, and Jim Carrey’s 2003 hit Bruce Almighty.