CLASSIC FILM SERIES
It’s time for you to add the Harbor Theater Classic Film Series to your winter calendars. This year we present a special film series, “Movies That Were Worthy of the Best Film Oscar,” featuring six classic films that didn’t win the Oscar but have stood the test of time.
Join us for these classic films on the second Thursday and Saturday of each month at 2:00 p.m., from October through March! Tickets are available at the door, with doors opening at 1:30 p.m. for each show. Don’t miss this opportunity to experience these timeless cinematic masterpieces!
All shows are at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $12 Adults; $8 Members.
OCTOBER 10 & 12, 2024
THE MALTESE FALCON
(1941)
1 hour 40 minutes
In this noir classic, detective Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) gets more than he bargained for when he takes a case brought to him by a beautiful but secretive woman (Mary Astor). As soon as Miss Wonderly shows up, trouble follows as Sam's partner is murdered and Sam is accosted by a man (Peter Lorre) demanding he locate a valuable statuette. Sam, entangled in a dangerous web of crime and intrigue, soon realizes he must find the one thing they all seem to want: the bejeweled Maltese falcon.
Director: John Huston
Screenwriters: Dashiell Hammett, John Huston
Warner Bros. Pictures
“It is (and this is rare in American films) a work of entertainment that is yet so skillfully constructed that after many years and many viewings it has the same brittle explosiveness – and even some of the same surprise – that it had in its first run.”
Pauline Kael
New Yorker
“The stuff that dreams are made of,” comments Spade about the elusive black bird of the title, a sentiment easily applied to this indisputable masterpiece.”
Matt Brunson
Film Frenzy
“The best crook film that's ever been made. Certainly it's the best I've ever seen. Because of brilliant casting, acting and direction it does what every thriller should do: thrills you genuinely and tremendously from start to finish.”
Patricia Ward
London Evening Standard
NOVEMBER 14 & 16, 2024
DOUBLE IDEMNITY
(1944)
1 hour 46 minutes
In this classic film noir, insurance salesman Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) gets roped into a murderous scheme when he falls for the sensual Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), who is intent on killing her husband (Tom Powers) and living off the fraudulent accidental death claim. Prompted by the late Mr. Dietrichson's daughter, Lola (Jean Heather), insurance investigator Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) looks into the case, and gradually begins to uncover the sinister truth.
Director: Billy Wilder
Producer: Joseph Sistrom
Screenwriters: James M. Cain, Billy Wilder, Raymond Chandler
Paramount Pictures
“It’s not just writing and direction that ultimately cement the film’s status as a classic text, though; it’s the performance by Stanwyck as the sexy, manipulative, cold-blooded femme fatale.”
Joe Lipsett
Bloody Disgusting
“Double Indemnity is positively the best murder film I’ve ever, ever seen. And it’s good old straight old, villainous murder without any psychological alleyways to get lost in."
Roy Stuart
Daily Record (UK)
“Billy Wilder's first great movie. It's quite unlike anything else the director ever made, a hard, smooth, crime film full of cynicism and lust and constantly alive and tingling.”
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
DECEMBER 12 & 14, 2024
SUNSET BOULEVARD
(1950)
1 hour 50 minutes
An aging silent film queen refuses to accept that her stardom has ended. She hires a young screenwriter to help set up her movie comeback. The screenwriter believes he can manipulate her, but he soon finds out he is wrong. The screenwriters’ ambivalence about their relationship and her unwillingness to let go leads to a situation of violence, madness, and death.
Director: Billy Wilder
Producer: Charles Brackett
Screenwriters: Charles Brackett, D.M. Marshman Jr., Billy Wilder
Paramount Pictures
“Its performances, music, cinematography and direction continue to awe-inspire even seventy-three years after its release.”
Calum Cooper
In Their Own League
“Billy Wilder’s chillingly cold-blooded satire of Hollywood is one of his finest films — and indeed arguably one of the greatest movies of the period.”
Wendy Ide
Times (UK)
“Smashing drama of the old-fashioned kind, plus elegant perceptive characterization of the modern school, combined to make Sunset Boulevard one of the greatest films of the decade.”
Marjory Adams
Boston Globe
JANUARY 9 & 11, 2025
HIGH NOON
(1952)
1 hour 25 minutes
Former marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) is preparing to leave the small town of Hadleyville, New Mexico, with his new bride, Amy (Grace Kelly), when he learns that local criminal Frank Miller has been set free and is coming to seek revenge on the marshal who turned him in. When he starts recruiting deputies to fight Miller, Kane is discouraged to find that the people of Hadleyville turn cowardly when the time comes for a showdown, and he must face Miller and his cronies alone.
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Producer: Stanley Kramer
Screenwriters: John W. Cunningham, Carl Foreman
United Artists, Criterion Collection, Republic Pictures
“This gives us some time-tested staples: Gary Cooper, a pioneer Western town, lawlessness, gun-shootin' and a haunting theme song you've probably heard already. To these add a movie rarity -- a mature point of view.”
Richard L. Coe
Washington Post
“This is a film of integrity and purpose, a revelation of human character and a masterpiece of the story telling art.”
John W. Riley
Boston Globe
“Its insights are primer sociology, and the demonstration of the town's cowardice is Q.E.D. It's a tight piece of work, though -- well directed by Fred Zinnemann.”
Pauline Kael
New Yorker
FEBRUARY 13 & 15, 2025
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
(1962)
2 hours 9 minutes
Scout Finch (Mary Badham), 6, and her older brother, Jem (Phillip Alford), live in sleepy Maycomb, Ala., spending much of their time with their friend Dill (John Megna) and spying on their reclusive and mysterious neighbor, Boo Radley (Robert Duvall). When Atticus (Gregory Peck), their widowed father and a respected lawyer, defends a black man named Tom Robinson (Brock Peters) against fabricated rape charges, the trial and tangent events expose the children to evils of racism and stereotyping.
Director: Robert Mulligan
Producer: Alan J. Pakula
Screenwriters: Harper Lee, Horton Foote
Universal Pictures
“A moving, mature and socially responsible production which emphatically reveals the power and promise latent in Hollywood and made visible only when its unique resources are properly used.”
Allan Morrison
Jet Magazine
“Atticus Finch is a film hero in a way we don't often think about - resilient, caring, empathetic, loving, dignified, and keen to make a better world.”
Matt Neal
ABC Radio (Australia)
“Peck's performance, in tortoiseshell glasses and a cream linen suit, is mesmerizing and serious.”
Kate Muir
Times (UK)
“I got so much more from this story as an adult, and it's a shame that my adolescent stubbornness kept me from the movie for so many years.”
Kevin Carr
7M Pictures
MARCH 13 & 15, 2025
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
(1971)
R | 1 hour 58 minutes
High school seniors and best friends, Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges), live in a dying Texas town. The handsome Duane is dating local beauty, Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), while Sonny is having an affair with the coach's wife, Ruth (Cloris Leachman). As graduation nears, both boys contemplate their futures. While Duane eyes the army and Sonny takes over a local business, each boy struggles to figure out if he can escape this dead-end town and build a better life somewhere else.
Director: Peter Bogdanovich
Producer: Stephen Friedman
Screenwriters: Peter Bogdanovich, Larry McMurtry, Larry McMurtry
Columbia Pictures
“An American classic in every sense.”
Matt Brunson
Film Frenzy
“The Last Picture Show is a masterpiece. It is not merely the best American movie of a rather dreary year; it is the most impressive work by a young American director since Citizen Kane.”
Paul D. Zimmerman
Newsweek
“The Last Picture Show is an exceptional and original work, not so much a movie-movie as a film buff's film, an exercise in regret and a reminder of various losses.”
Charles Champlin
Los Angeles Times