70mm Spectacular
June 29–September 16

There's nothing like large-format films on the big screen, and this summer, AFI Silver delves deep into the history of 70mm filmmaking. Movies shot in this format used film stock with double the standard film gauge — the high-definition of its day — yielding unparalleled results and stunning clarity and vibrancy. Surviving 70mm prints are extremely rare; theaters equipped to project 70mm films are even rarer. Enjoy these 70mm spectaculars on the big screen in AFI Silver's historic theater — as they were meant to be seen.

 AFI Member passes will be accepted at all films in the 70mm series.

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY
45th Anniversary!
#22 on AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies

Beginning with the dawn of civilization and chronicling the rise from ape to man, the film evolves to the story of astronauts Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, who find themselves at the mercy of supercomputer HAL 9000. Powerful imagery, ground-breaking special effects, the bold classical music score and repeated juxtapositions of man and machinery have made 2001 one of the most significant and relevant films of the 20th century. Nominated for four Academy Awards.

DIR/SCR/PROD Stanley Kubrick; SCR Arthur C. Clarke, from his short story. UK/US, 1967, color, 141 min.
RATED G

VERTIGO
#9 on AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies
#18 on AFI's 100 Years…100 Thrills
#18 on AFI's 100 Years…100 Passions
#12 on AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores

Perennially cited as one of the greatest films ever made, this is Hitchcock's supreme achievement. On a leave of absence after his spell of acrophobia led to the death of a beat cop, James Stewart's San Francisco detective accepts an unusual assignment from old college classmate Tom Helmore: follow wife Kim Novak, not because she's cheating, but because she's possessed! The truth is much more mundane, duplicitous and deadly, with Stewart spiraling first into devastation, then revenge-fueled obsession. Presented on a Super VistaVision 70 print, from the 1996 restoration by Robert Harris.

DIR/PROD Alfred Hitchcock; SCR Alec Coppel, Samuel Taylor, from the novel "D'Entre les Morts" by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. US, 1958, color, 126 min. NOT RATED

CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG

Wacky widower Caractacus Potts (Dick Van Dyke) is a master inventor, and when his children beg him to fix up an old racecar, he creates his greatest invention yet. Roald Dahl adapted pal Ian Fleming's children's novel for the screen, and between the tricked-out flying car and the punning names (Sally Ann Howes as "Truly Scrumptious"), there's more than a bit of a Bond-for-kids feel. Famed for its wonderful songs, as well as its frightening villain, the Child Catcher (unsurprisingly, a Dahl contribution). Look for Bond vets Gert Fröbe and Desmond Llewelyn in supporting roles and future Genesis frontman Phil Collins as a "Vulgarian Child."

DIR/SCR Ken Hughes; SCR Roald Dahl, based on the novel by Ian Fleming; PROD Albert R. Broccoli. US, 1968, color, 144 min. RATED G

WEST SIDE STORY

Sharks! Jets! Ten Oscar wins, including Best Picture, for the dazzling screen adaptation of Broadway's "Romeo and Juliet"-inspired musical smash, a tale of forbidden love starring Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. Unforgettable for the brilliant Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim score (with songs including "Maria," "Tonight," "When You're a Jet" and "America") and Jerome Robbins' vibrant choreography, featuring the Oscar-winning footwork of George Chakiris and Rita Moreno.

DIR/PROD Robert Wise; DIR Jerome Robbins; SCR Ernest Lehman, from the musical by Arthur Laurents and Jerome Robbins, music and lyrics by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. US, 1961, color, 151 min. NOT RATED

SPARTACUS

Nominated for six Academy Awards, winning Best Cinematography and Best Supporting Actor for Peter Ustinov. This epic drama follows the legend of Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), who leads his fellow slaves in an uprising against the corrupt Roman empire. Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Tony Curtis and Jean Simmons round out the all-star cast.

DIR Stanley Kubrick; SCR Dalton Trumbo; PROD Edward Lewis. US, 1960, color, 198 min. NOT RATED

BARAKA
20th Anniversary!

"Visionary, shimmeringly beautiful... sheer gorgeousness in 70mm!" — Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times

Ron Fricke's custom-built camera moved across 24 countries on six continents over a stretch of 14 months in "guided meditation," examining "man's relationship to the eternal." This wordless documentary by the photographer of KOYAANISQATSI is a festival of visual delights, shot in 70mm "so deep and clear that I could actually make out the branches of trees on the furthest mountain." — Jeffrey M. Anderson, San Francisco Examiner. "Smashingly edited, superbly scored…speaks volumes about the planet without uttering a single word." — Suzan Ayscough, Variety. FIPRESCI Prize, 1992 Montréal World Film Festival.

DIR/SCR Ron Fricke; SCR/PROD Mark Magidson. US, 1992, color, 96 min. NOT RATED

THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES or: HOW I FLEW FROM LONDON TO PARIS IN 25 HOURS 11 MINUTES

"The trouble with these international affairs is they attract a lot of foreigners." In 1910, an intrepid bunch of pioneer pilots enters a London-to-Paris air race, an international field led by barnstorming American Stuart Whitman, Englishman James Fox, Italian ace Alberto Sordi, Red Baron-esque Prussian Gert Fröbe, amorous Frenchman Jean-Pierre Cassel and Japanese naval officer Yujiro Ishihara. Notable for its madcap humor and painstakingly recreated vintage aircraft: monoplanes, biplanes, triplanes, even the Horatio Phillips 20-winged multiplane! — plus intricate aerial stuntwork and aerial photography by the innovative Christopher Challis.

DIR/SCR Ken Annakin; SCR Jack Davies; PROD Stan Margulies. UK, 1965, color, 138 min. NOT RATED

IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD

When you announce that your cast includes comedians Jonathan Winters, Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Buddy Hackett, Ethel Merman, Jack Benny, Buster Keaton, Don Knotts, Carl Reiner, Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Terry-Thomas, Jimmy Durante, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, Dick Shawn, Stan Freberg, Phil Silvers, Jerry Lewis, The Three Stooges and Edie Adams, you had better deliver something funny. And Stanley Kramer does deliver — and deliver and deliver — scene after scene of inspired lunacy. Nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Sound, Color Cinematography, Editing, Original Score and Song, and winning for Best Sound Effects.

DIR/PROD Stanley Kramer; SCR Tani and William Rose. US, 1963, color, 197 min includes 15 min intermission. RATED G

KHARTOUM

1883: After British and Egyptian troops are massacred in the Sudanese desert by an insurgent army led by Muslim holy warrior "the Mahdi," (Lawrence Olivier), Prime Minister Gladstone (Ralph Richardson) dispatches maverick war hero General Charles Gordon (Charlton Heston) to Khartoum to salvage what remains of British authority there, while secretly preparing the evacuation of the city's thousands of occupants. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, Gordon disobeys orders and opts to dig in, beginning a battle with his own government and a race against time, holding out for relief forces while a rebel army gathers at the city's gates.

DIR Basil Dearden, Eliot Elisofon; SCR Robert Ardrey; PROD Julian Blaustein. US, 1966, color, 134 min. NOT RATED

LORD JIM

Disgraced merchant seaman Peter O'Toole drifts aimlessly around southeast Asia, until an offer of a dangerous mission rouses him to redemption. Shot on location in Cambodia, Hong Kong and Malaysia, Oscar-winning cinematographer Freddie Young (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, RYAN'S DAUGHTER) displays his mastery of big-screen spectacle. O'Toole gives a customarily nuanced, allusive performance, with Eli Wallach, James Mason, Curt Jurgens, Jack Hawkins, Paul Lukas, Akim Tamiroff, Jack MacGowran, Dahlia Lavi and Jûzô Itami rounding out the cast.

DIR/SCR/PROD Richard Brooks, from the novel by Joseph Conrad. UK/US, 1965, color, 154 min. NOT RATED

TRON
30th Anniversary!

This visionary, CGI-pioneering fantasy is an '80s time capsule and a cornerstone of the cyberpunk/virtual reality concept. When his video game program is stolen by his evil ENCOM boss, computer whiz Jeff Bridges hacks the company's Master Control Program (MCP) to find the evidence. But the MCP is no mere program — assimilating other programs, it has evolved into an intelligent cyber-world, which Bridges discovers when it encodes and beams him into itself. Trapped inside the mainframe, Bridges must duke it out in gladiatorial video game combat with other anthropomorphized programs or risk getting de-rezzed — aka game over.

DIR/SCR Steven Lisberger; PROD Donald Kushner. US, 1982, color, 96 min. RATED PG

PORGY AND BESS

Chosen in 2011 for inclusion in the National Film Registry, this controversial film has been little seen since its release in 1959. Set in the early 1900s, it stars Sidney Poitier as crippled beggar Porgy, whole-heartedly devoted to local beauty Bess (Dorothy Dandridge), despite her tough-guy boyfriend Crown (Brock Peters) and checkered past. After Crown commits a murder while high on cocaine and skips town, local drug dealer Sportin' Life (Sammy Davis, Jr.) moves in on Bess. She resolves to make a new start with the good-hearted Porgy, but her past won't let go. Expertly directed by Otto Preminger and boasting a Grammy-winning soundtrack of Gershwin songs, this film demands to be experienced on the big screen!

DIR Otto Preminger; SCR N. Richard Nash, from the opera by George and Ira Gershwin, libretto by DuBose Heyward, from his play and novel "Porgy;" PROD Samuel Goldwyn. US, 1959, color, 138 min. NOT RATED

SOUTH PACIFIC

Rodgers and Hammerstein's celebrated musical, brought to the big screen by original stage director Joshua Logan, follows budding romances between Navy nurse Mitzi Gaynor and French plantation owner Rossano Brazzi, and officer John Kerr and Polynesian native France Nuyen, on a remote tropical island during WWII. Featuring gorgeous location shooting on Kauai and some of the most memorable songs Broadway has produced: "Some Enchanted Evening," "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair," "Younger than Springtime" and "Bali Ha'i."

DIR Joshua Logan; SCR Paul Osborn, from the musical by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and "Tales of the South Pacific" by James Michener; PROD Buddy Adler. US, 1958, color, 157 min. NOT RATED