This summer, multiplexes are sure to be overflowing with sequels, spin-offs and comic book-derived extravaganzas.
If your taste in cinema runs more toward the classics, however, don’t despair − the CAPA Summer Movie Series is back for its 55th summer.
Each summer since 1969, the Ohio Theatre has switched on its projector, turned down its lights and screened some of the best films to ever come out of Hollywood.
This summer’s series − running July 12 through Aug. 25 − is to be no exception.
Over the years, the series − which, in the past, tended to focus on showing films from the 1930s through the 1960s − has expanded to include films from the 1980s and later. After all, those films are themselves now decades old.
For example, the opening-night presentation, on July 12, is to be the beloved 1989 baseball drama “Field of Dreams,” starring Kevin Costner.
Other semirecent films to be included this year are 1983’s “Star Wars: Episode VI − Return of the Jedi” (showing Aug. 10-11), 1985’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (July 21) and 1991’s “Thelma & Louise” (July 24).
“It’s walking a fine line − it’s a classic summer-movie series,” said CAPA vice president of programming Rich Corsi. “You’re just trying to incorporate some newer films in there − ‘newer’ in that they are only 40 or 50 years old!”
“Field of Dreams,” like many of the movies to be shown this summer, is to be screened using a 35mm print − an element that differentiates the series from the digital presentations shown today at most movie theaters.
“If we can get (a film) on 35mm, it’s worth it,” Corsi said.
(Films for which 35mm prints could not be secured are to be shown digitally.)
For traditionalists, though, there are plenty of films in the lineup that date from Hollywood’s golden age.
Highlights include Carol Reed’s thriller “The Third Man,” starring Joseph Cotten and Orson Welles (July 19), George Cukor’s romantic comedy “Adam’s Rib,” starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (July 25), Billy Wilder’s film noir “Double Indemnity,” starring Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray (Aug. 1) and the musical “The Wizard of Oz” (Aug. 17-18).
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“We try to balance it out,” Corsi said. “There’s just something about a classic film where people just want to come in, detach, eat some popcorn and watch a movie − with 500 people that you know who want to be there and enjoy it.”
No movie series would be complete without multiple cameo appearances by the Master of Suspense: Alfred Hitchcock’s “Dial M for Murder” to be shown July 13-14, and “The Lady Vanishes” on Aug. 23.
“We usually try to get two (Hitchcock films) in,” Corsi said. “One year, we did one (film), and we heard from folks.”
Special presentations during the series include a “Fright Nite Friday with Fritz” presentation of “RoboCop,” with former Channel 10 personality Fritz the Nite Owl making prerecorded interjections throughout the playing of the flick (July 26); and a pair of programs of family-friendly cartoon capers (July 20, Aug. 25).
A pair of double features are also planned: a comedy double bill, with the Marx Brothers’ “Duck Soup” and “She Done Him Wrong,” the latter starring Mae West (Aug. 2); and a sci-fi double bill, with the faintly preposterous “I Married the Monster from Outer Space” and the equally campy “Little Shop of Horrors” (Aug. 16).
The series wraps up Aug. 24-25 with the Oscar-winning caper comedy “The Sting,” starring Robert Redford and Paul Newman.
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At a glance
The CAPA Summer Movie Series takes place from July 12 through Aug. 25 in the Ohio Theatre, 39 E. State St.
Individual tickets cost $6, or $5 for senior citizens and go on sale July 1. Strips of 10 tickets can be purchased for $40 and go on sale May 17. For more information, visit capa.com.
Below is the full schedule, noting films which are scheduled to be shown using 35mm prints:
- July 12: “Field of Dreams” (35mm)
- July 13-14: “Dial M for Murder” (35mm)
- July 17: “Viva Las Vegas” (35mm)
- July 18: “Mutiny on the Bounty”
- July 19: “The Third Man” (35mm)
- July 20: Cartoon capers
- July 20: “Meet Me in St. Louis”
- July 21: “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” (35mm)
- July 24: “Thelma & Louise”
- July 25: “Adam’s Rib” (35mm)
- July 26: Fright Nite Friday With Fritz!: “RoboCop”
- July 31: “The Color Purple” (35mm)
- Aug. 1: “Double Indemnity” (35mm)
- Aug. 2: Comedy double feature: “Duck Soup” and “She Done Him Wrong” (35mm)
- Aug. 3: “Bye Bye Birdie”
- Aug. 4: “The Towering Inferno”
- Aug. 7: “The Big Lebowski” (35mm)
- Aug. 8-9: Silent film: “The Mark of Zorro”
- Aug. 10-11: “Star Wars: Episode VI − Return of the Jedi”
- Aug. 14: “Chinatown”
- Aug. 15: “Mildred Pierce” (35mm)
- Aug. 16: Sci-fi double feature: “I Married a Monster from Outer Space” and “Little Shop of Horrors”
- Aug. 17-18: “The Wizard of Oz” (35mm)
- Aug. 21: “Mrs. Doubtfire”
- Aug. 22: “Niagara”
- Aug. 23: “The Lady Vanishes” (35mm)
- Aug. 24: Cartoon capers
- Aug. 24-25: “The Sting” (35mm)
