Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
BURT LANCASTER, a four-week, 37-film festival
spotlighting one of the 20th century’s brightest stars, will run at Film Forum
from Friday, July 19 to Thursday, August 15 – kicking off
with a one-week run of Robert Siodmak’s The Killers, starring
Ava Gardner and Lancaster, playing in a new 4K restoration, July 19 – 25.
Burt Lancaster (1913-1994), a street kid from East Harlem, got a late start in
pictures in his mid-30s – after a brief stint in the circus, serving in World
War II, and appearing on Broadway (where he was discovered by agent and future
producing partner Harold Hecht) – but his star personality, among the most
powerful in film history, was there from the beginning: from the doom-laden
twisted hunk in films noir (The Killers, Brute Force, I Walk Alone, Sorry,
Wrong Number, Criss Cross, Desert Fury); to the grinning hot dog in spoof
adventure films (The Flame and the Arrow, Trapeze, The Crimson Pirate, Apache);
to the sleaziest of con men (The Rainmaker), Nazi collaborator (Judgement at
Nuremberg), and tabloid columnist (Sweet Smell of Success); to a stalwart
leader of men (Twilight’s Last Gleaming); to an idealistic fanatic (Elmer
Gantry); to a supremely dignified icon of another age.
Ranked among the top box office stars of the 1950s and 60s, Lancaster was also
a pioneering independent producer. Forming Hecht-Hill-Lancaster
Productions in 1948 gave him the ability to choose his own projects
(including Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, The Flame and the Arrow, The Crimson
Pirate, Apache, Trapeze, Sweet Smell of Success, Run Silent, Run Deep, The
Young Savages, Birdman of Alcatraz, and more). Nominated for four Academy
Awards, winning one for Elmer Gantry, Lancaster’s successful five-decade career
placed him at #19 on AFI’s list of the 50 Greatest Male Screen Legends.
“His vitality was more than cheerfulness or strength;
he seemed charged with power.â€
– David Thomson
BURT LANCASTER has been programmed by Bruce Goldstein,
Film Forum’s Director of Repertory Programming.
Click here for programming information.