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Tickets & Full Schedule at
AFI
.com/
Silver
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Daily Listings: 301.495.6700
Part 2 of AFI Silver’s Burt
Lancaster retrospective
includes the actor’s
Oscar-winning turn in
1960’s ELMER GANTRY,
his iconic work in Luchino
Visconti’s masterpiece
THE LEOPARD and the
John Cheever adaptation
THE SWIMMER, and
culminates with his late-
career triumph in Louis
Malle’s ATLANTIC CITY.
AFI Member Passes will be accepted at all
screenings.
April 18–July 2
May 5–June 23
ELMER GANTRY
Fri, Apr 18, 2:30; Sun, Apr 20, 1:00
Burt Lancaster
won the Best
Actor Oscar for
his portrayal
of charismatic,
conniving hellfire-
and-brimstone
preacher Elmer
Gantry, in Richard
Brooks’ incendiary
screen adaptation
of Nobel Prize-
winning author Sinclair Lewis’ scathing satirical novel. Jean
Simmons plays Gantry’s employer, Sister Sharon Falconer,
Arthur Kennedy is an H. L. Mencken-esque journalist and
Shirley Jones is preacher’s daughter-turned-prostitute Lulu Bains,
out to nail Gantry for his misdeeds. Five Oscar nominations
and three wins: Lancaster, Jones for Best Supporting Actress
and Brooks for Best Adapted Screenplay.
DIR/SCR Richard Brooks; PROD
Bernard Smith. US, 1960, color, 146 min. NOT RATED
BIRDMAN OF ALCATRAZ
Sun, Apr 27, 1:00
Based on the
real-life story of
Robert Stroud,
a convicted
felon serving
a life sentence
who becomes
a self-taught
ornithologist,
recognized and
respected in his
field, despite
the rigors of
prison. It was
a passion
project for
Lancaster, who
was Oscar-
nominated for his performance, as were costars Telly Savalas
as a fellow inmate and Thelma Ritter as Stroud’s mother; also
starring Karl Malden as an abusive warden and Edmond
O’Brien as the crusading journalist who gets Stroud’s story
out to the public.
DIR John Frankenheimer; SCR/PROD Guy Trosper, from the book by
Thomas E. Gaddis; PROD Stuart Millar. US, 1962, b&w, 147 min. NOT RATED
50th Anniversary!
SEVEN DAYS IN MAY
Sun, May 4, 11:00 a.m.; Tue, May 6, 7:00
A Cold War paranoia classic, from a screenplay by
TWILIGHT ZONE creator Rod Serling. Set in the near-future
1970s, liberal U.S. president Jordan Lyman (Fredric March)
signs a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union, in
the wake of a Korean War-like stalemate in Iran. Amid loud
public outcry, Marine Corps Colonel Martin “Jiggs” Casey
(Kirk Douglas) uncovers a plot within the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
led by charismatic Air Force General James Mattoon Scott
(Lancaster), to stage a coup and seize control of the country’s
media. The impressive cast includes Ava Gardner, Edmond
O’Brien, Martin Balsam, John Houseman and George
Macready.
DIR John Frankenheimer; SCR Rod Serling; PROD Edward Lewis. US, 1964,
b&w, 120 min. NOT RATED
The Restored Version
THE LEOPARD [Il Gattopardo]
Sat, May 10, 1:10; Sun, May 11, 1:10
Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1963. Burt
Lancaster, the patriarch of a noble family in proud decline,
realizes the truth in his nephew Alain Delon’s observation,
“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to
change.” He sends Delon to join Garibaldi’s Risorgimento
forces, releases him from an engagement to his cousin—
Lancaster’s daughter—and orchestrates an advantageous
marriage to the daughter of a nouveau riche town mayor,
the ravishing Claudia Cardinale. Giuseppe Rotunno’s
painterly, widescreen photography is a must-see on the big
screen.
DIR/SCR Luchino Visconti; SCR Suso Cecchi d’Amico, Pasquale Festa Campanile,
Enrico Medioli, Massimo Franciosa, from the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa; PROD
Goffredo Lombardo. Italy/France, 1963, color, 202 min including a 15-min intermission. In
Italian with English subtitles. RATED PG
50th Anniversary!
THE TRAIN
Sun, May 11, 5:00; Wed, May 14, 7:10
A down-and-dirty tale of WWII art looting, more gritty and
action-oriented than George Clooney’s recent misfire THE
MONUMENTS MEN. With the Allies on the march to Paris
in August 1944, German Colonel Franz von Waldheim
(Paul Scofield) orders France’s priceless art treasures, looted
from museums, to be loaded on to a train and spirited off
to Germany. At first reluctant to divert resources to a mission
without a clear military objective, things become personal
for French Resistance figure Labiche (Burt Lancaster) after the
noble self-sacrifice of engineer Papa Boule (Michel Simon)
and the inspiring words of innkeeper Christine (Jeanne
Moreau).
DIR John Frankenheimer; SCR Franklin Coen, Frank Davis; PROD Jules Bricken.
US/France/Italy, 1964, b&w, 133 min. NOT RATED
THE PROFESSIONALS
Sun, May 18, 1:30; Mon, May 19, 2:30; Wed, May 21, 9:20;
Thu, May 22, 6:45
“We’ve been had, amigo.” A rich Texas rancher (Ralph
Bellamy) hires four mercenaries to retrieve his wife Maria
(Claudia Cardinale), kidnapped by a notorious Mexican
bandit, Jesus Raza (Jack Palance) in Richard Brooks’ cult
classic Western adventure. Hired for $10,000 each are
demolitions expert Bill Dolworth (Lancaster), gunfighter Rico
Fardan (Lee Marvin), horse wrangler Hans Ehrengard (Robert
Ryan) and scout Jake Sharp (Woody Strode). As if traveling
100 miles south of the border with the Mexican Revolution in
full swing and taking on Raza and his men weren’t challenge
enough, it turns out that Maria doesn’t want to be rescued
in the first place.
DIR/SCR/PROD Richard Brooks, from the novel “A Mule for the
Marquesa” by Frank O'Rourke. US, 1966, color, 117 min. NOT RATED
THE SCALPHUNTERS
Tue, May 20, 2:30; Thu, May 22, 9:10
Sydney Pollack’s 1968 comedic Western will never be
confused for IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT or THE DEFIANT
ONES, but in its own amiable way this period piece made
an ameliorative statement about contemporary race relations
in America. At gunpoint, fur trapper Burt Lancaster is forced
into a trade with a band of Kiowa: his packhorse, laden with
pelts, for their hostage Ossie Davis, an escaped Louisiana
slave and Comanche convert. The two men would prefer to
be rid of each other, but not before Lancaster gets his furs
back. However, Telly Savalas and his band of scalphunters
descend upon the drunken Indians first, slaughtering them and
stealing the furs.
DIR Sydney Pollack; SCR William W. Norton; PROD Jules V. Levy,
Arthur Gardner, Arnold Laven. US, 1968, color, 102 min. NOT RATED
ULZANA’S RAID
Mon, May 26, 1:45; Tue, May 27, 9:10; Wed, May 28, 9:20
The shadow of the Vietnam conflict hangs heavily over
this revisionist Western from pulp auteur Robert Aldrich, set
in 1880s Arizona. Fed up with the U.S. Indian Agency’s
mistreatment, Apache Ulzana (Joaquín Martínez) goes off
the reservation and on the warpath, leading a small band of
braves on a brutal, murderous campaign of terror. Grizzled
army scout McIntosh (Burt Lancaster) is given the thankless task
of tracking down the marauders, alongside Apache scout
Ke-Ni-Tay (Jorge Luke)—Ulzana’s brother-in-law—and idealistic,
inexperienced Lieutenant Garnett DeBuin (Bruce Davison).
DIR
Robert Aldrich; SCR Alan Sharp; PROD Carter DeHaven. US, 1972, color, 103 min. RATED R
VALDEZ IS COMING
Sun, Jun 1, 1:30; Wed, Jun 4, 9:05; Thu, Jun 5, 2:45
They tore his body. They buried his pride. But they forgot
his old uniform, his Sharps rifle and his Buffalo gun. Find
Tanner, El Segundo and the 16 others. And tell them Valdez is
coming. Lancaster stars as the indomitable sheriff Bob Valdez,
intent on righting a wrong perpetrated by lying rancher Frank
Tanner (John Cypher) that resulted in the wrongful death of an
innocent man. Susan Clark, Frank Silvera, Richard Jordan and
Hector Elizondo star in this adaptation of the Elmore Leonard
novel.
DIR Edwin Sherin; SCR Roland Kibbee, David Rayfiel, from the novel by Elmore
Leonard; PROD Ira Steiner. US, 1971, color, 90 min. RATED PG-13
LAWMAN
Tue, Jun 3, 2:45; Wed, Jun 4, 7:00; Thu, Jun 5, 9:15
After a band of rowdy ranch hands shoots up the town of
Bannock and accidentally kills an old man, Marshal Jared
Maddox (Lancaster) tracks the perpetrators to the neighboring
town of Sabbath. Local sheriff Cotton Ryan (Robert Ryan), his
heroic days behind him, counsels Maddox to stand down
rather than tangle with powerful land boss Vincent Bronson
(Lee J. Cobb), the wanted men’s employer. But the implacable
Maddox adheres to a rigid, punishing code of justice for all.
Michael Winner directs a dynamite cast, including Robert
Duvall, Sheree North, Albert Salmi, Richard Jordan and John
McGiver.
DIR/PROD Michael Winner; SCR Gerald Wilson. US, 1971, color, 99 min. RATED R
GO TELL THE SPARTANS
Mon, Jun 9, 3:00; Tue, Jun 10, 3:00; Wed, Jun 11, 7:00;
Thu, Jun 12, 3:00
“Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient
to their laws, we lie.”—Simonides’ epitaph to the 300 Greek
soldiers who died fighting Persian invaders at Thermopylae
in 480 BC. In 1964 Vietnam, U.S. military advisor Major
Asa Barker (Lancaster) and a pitifully small number of newly
deployed U.S. soldiers and South Vietnamese militiamen are
tasked with holding a remote outpost—the earlier site of a
massacre of French soldiers during the First Indochina War—
against superior numbers of Viet Cong. Director Ted Post and
star Lancaster had served together some 30 years earlier in
the U.S. Army in Italy during WWII.
DIR Ted Post; SCR Wendell Mayes, from
the novel “Incident at Muc Wa” by Daniel Ford; PROD Allan F. Bodoh, Mitchell Cannold. US,
1978, color, 114 min. RATED R
New DCP!
THE SWIMMER
*In person: daughter Joanna Lancaster on Jun 7
Sat, Jun 7, 5:00
*
; Thu, Jun 12, 7:15
Middle-aged ad man Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster) gets the
notion that he can pool hop across his wealthy suburban
Connecticut neighbors’ expansive yards and swim all the
way home to his own split-level. But Ned’s concept of home,
his own self-image and the whereabouts of his loving wife
and daughters turn out to be dreadfully elusive. In one of the
key Hollywood films of the 1960s, Lancaster gives a bravura
performance—in swimming trunks—with Ned’s physical
nakedness and vulnerability chiming with his emotional and
mental unraveling and mysterious loss.
DIR/PROD Frank Perry; SCR Eleanor
Perry, from the story by John Cheever; PROD Roger Lewis. US, 1968, color, 95 min. RATED PG
CASTLE KEEP
Fri, Jun 6, 3:00; Sun, Jun 8, 3:45; Wed, Jun 11, 9:15
This surreal war movie laced with black humor has long
enjoyed cult status, many seeing it as a precursor of 1970’s
M*A*S*H. During a quiet interlude during the buildup to the
Battle of the Bulge, one-eyed Maj. Falconer (Lancaster) and
his squad take shelter in a 10th century castle in Belgium.
Nice digs for this ragtag squad of men, including horndog
Sgt. Rossi (Peter Falk), art expert Capt. Beckman (Patrick
O'Neal), conscientious objector Lt. Bix (Bruce Dern) and Pvt.
Allistair Piersall Benjamin (Al Freeman, Jr.), the story’s narrator.
The men enjoy their downtime and the village’s brothel, but
even with one eye, Falconer hasn’t lost sight of the advancing
Germans.
DIR Sydney Pollack; SCR Daniel Taradash, David Rayfiel, from the novel by
William Eastlake; PROD Martin Ransohoff, John Calley. US, 1969, color, 105 min. RATED R
LOCAL HERO
Fri, Jun 13, 2:45; Tue, Jun 17, 3:00; Wed, Jun 18, 3:00
Texas billionaire oilman Felix Happer (Lancaster, giving
a delightfully quirky late-career performance) dispatches
underlings “Mac” MacIntyre (Peter Riegert) and Danny Oldsen
(Peter Capaldi) to the remote Scottish village of Ferness,
tasked with buying up the whole town in order to build a
North Sea drilling operation. The locals are only too happy
to sell, save one: beach-shack dweller Ben Knox (Fulton
Mackay), who simply asks, Lorax-like, “Who'd look after the
beach then? It would go to pieces in a short manner of time.”
While the deal stalls, Mac and Danny find themselves falling
for the charms of village life and the Scottish landscape.
DIR/
SCR Bill Forsyth; PROD David Puttnam. UK, 1983, color, 111 min. RATED PG
ATLANTIC CITY
Sun, Jun 15, 1:00
What began as a
Canadian tax-shelter
quickie became one of
director Louis Malle's
best-loved pictures.
For aging gangster
Burt Lancaster, Atlantic
City never lost its glory,
despite its current seedy state. He takes a shine to his pretty
neighbor Susan Sarandon and, after her no-good estranged
husband resurfaces, in over his head with the mob, Lancaster
becomes drawn in to a new racket. Golden Lion, 1980 Venice
Film Festival, and five Oscar nominations. (How could Lancaster
lose? To Henry Fonda, for ON GOLDEN POND.)
DIR Louis Malle; SCR
John Guare; PROD Denis Héroux, John Kemeny. Canada/France, 1980, color, 104 min. In English and
French with English subtitles. RATED R
Burt Lancaster, Part 2
DC Labor FilmFest
Organized and presented by the Metropolitan
Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, the Debs-Jones-
Douglass Institute and the American Film Institute, this
year the DC Labor FilmFest transitions to its new home
as a weekly, springtime event. The 2014 schedule
features encore presentations of popular films from past
editions of the festival, a wide-ranging selection of films
about work, workers and workers’ issues. For more
information, visit dclaborfilmfest.org.
AFI Member Passes will be accepted at all screenings.
CATTLE ANNIE AND LITTLE BRITCHES
Mon, Jun 30, 7:20; Wed, Jul 2, 7:20
Captivated by legends
of the Old West, 19th
century Oklahoma
teens Jenny (Diane
Lane) and Annie
(Amanda Plummer)
leave home to seek out
the gang led by Bill
Doolin (Burt Lancaster)
and Bill Dalton (Scott
Glenn). Past their prime
and far-removed from
the exploits of their
youth, the old outlaws
get a second wind from
the girls’ enthusiasm.
But after pulling a new
round of jobs, the now
co-ed gang draws the
attention of lawman Bill Tilghman (Rod Steiger). Given a half-
hearted release, the film was nonetheless championed by critics
like Pauline Kael, and was recently voted “Best Rediscovery” by
the Boston Society of Film Critics.
DIR Lamont Johnson; SCR David Eyre, Robert
Ward, from his novel; PROD Rupert Hitzig, Alan King. US, 1981, color, 98 min. RATED PG
THE PROFESSIONALS
THE LEOPARD
THE SWIMMER
Courtesy of MGM
Courtesy of MGM
Courtesy of MGM
Courtesy of Sony Pictures
Courtesy of MGM
Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Courtesy of Sony Pictures
SALT OF THE EARTH
Mon, May 5, 7:30
NOTE BY NOTE: THE MAKING OF STEINWAY
L1037
Mon, May 12, 7:30
Presented in cooperation with the Alliance for American Manufacturing and
American Federation of Musicians Local 161-710
DIRTY PRETTY THINGS
Mon, May 19, 7:30
TRASH DANCE—All Tix $5!
Tue, May 27, 7:30
KINKY BOOTS
Mon, Jun 2, 7:30
OFFICE SPACE
Mon, Jun 9, 7:30
Presented in cooperation with Union Plus and the International Federation of
Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE)
BILLY ELLIOT
Mon, Jun 16, 7:30
BURN
Mon, Jun 23, 7:30
Presented in cooperation with DC Fire Fighters Association Local 36, International
Association of Fire Fighters
