SPECIAL THANKS TO LINDA EVANS-SMITH, MARILEE WOMACK (WARNER BROS.), MICHAEL SCHLESINGER, SUSANNE JACOBSON, GROVER CRISP (SONY PICTURES), PAUL GINSBURG, BOB O’NEIL (UNIVERSAL PICTURES),
ROSS KLEIN (MGM), RICK YANKOWSKI (CRITERION PICTURES), SCHAWN BELSTON (20TH CENTURY FOX), TIM LANZA (ROHAUER COLLECTION), BARRY ALLEN, MELANIE VALERA (PARAMOUNT PICTURES), MIKE MASHON (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS),
MARK MCELHATTEN (SIKELIA PRODUCTIONS), ADRIENNE HALPERN (RIALTO PICTURES), ERIC SPILKER, AND MARTIN SCORSESE.

PROGRAMMED BY BRUCE GOLDSTEIN.

*Steve Sterner will be providing live piano accompaniment at all showtimes marked with an asterisk [*].
Click here for a list of all shows featuring Steve Sterner on piano

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"You can keep your bloated, computerized Hollywood nonsense (sorry, Johnny) —
we'll stick with these palpably dangerous tales of derring-do from days of yore.”
– Time Out New York

Olivia De Havilland remembers Errol Flynn.
Read Harry Haun's feature in The New York Sun.

AUGUST 4/5 FRI/SAT
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

CAPTAIN BLOOD

(1935, MICHAEL CURTIZ) The original pirate of the Caribbean: even buccaneering looks good to Errol Flynn’s Dr. Peter Blood, after being transported to the West Indies as a “rebel,” but there are compensations, including Olivia de Havilland (her first of eight pairings with Flynn) and a duel on the beach with Basil Rathbone — in Flynn’s spectacular Hollywood debut.
1:00, 5:10, 9:30

“Curtiz is to the swashbuckler what John Ford is to the western.” – Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

“Rousing, tremendously entertaining! Launched unknown Errol Flynn as a major star, the prince of swashbucklers.” – Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

“Terrifically exciting!” – Time Out New York

“Curtiz starts Flynn off royally.” – Chicago Reader

THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL

(1935, HAROLD YOUNG) Leslie Howard’s “spineless, brainless and useless” fop Sir Percy is seemingly only good for composing jingles — but even wife Merle Oberon doesn’t know he’s the Pimpernel himself, spiriting aristocrats away from the guillotine under the nose of snarling revolutionary Raymond Massey. Plus Daffy Duck in Chuck Jones’s The Scarlet Pumpernickel (1950)!
3:10, 7:30

“Quintessential!” – The Onion

“One of the most romantic and durable of all swashbucklers.” – Pauline Kael

AUGUST 6 SUN
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE PRISONER OF ZENDA

(1937, JOHN CROMWELL) British tourist Ronald Colman is forced to substitute for his exact double, the King of Ruritania, when the hardliving monarch is slipped a mickey on the eve of his coronation; only trouble is, impostor Colman makes a better king, particularly in the eyes of his intended, Princess Madeleine Carroll — and schemers Raymond Massey and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. are beginning to suspect. Superb how’d-they-do-that trick photography enabled Colman to shake hands with himself, with the endless tracking shot through the throne room reception an anthology highlight.
1:00, 4:40, 8:45

"The definitive screen rendition of Anthony Hope' s novel." – Time Out New York

“One of the most entertaining films to come out of Hollywood.” – Leslie Halliwell

THE MARK OF ZORRO
(DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS VERSION)

(1920, FRED NIBLO) Sword-slashed Z’s keep popping up on the bad guys as the mysterious masked Zorro starts righting wrongs in Olde California. The first of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s legendary swashbucklers — and prototype for all the alter-egoed superheroes of the future. (See the sound remake on Tuesday, August 8.)
3:10*, 7:00*
*LIVE PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT BY STEVE STERNER AT BOTH SHOWS

“Established Fairbanks as the first action hero — lightly self-mocking, casually romantic and breathtakingly athletic —
and created a template for decades of films and film actors to follow.” – Stephen Whitty, The Newark Star-Ledger

“The prototype of future generations' comic-strip heroes.” – Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

“Fairbanks was very likely the best Zorro of all time.” – Time Out New York

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AUGUST 8 TUE
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE MARK OF ZORRO
(TYRONE POWER VERSION)

(1940, ROUBEN MAMOULIAN) “Quiet, you popinjay!” snaps sword-happy Basil Rathbone (“He’s always stabbing at something”) to Tyrone Power’s foppish Don Diego, but of course Ty’s also black-masked Zorro, righter of wrongs in Spanish colonial California, and romancer of lovely Linda Darnell.
1:00, 4:40, 8:20

“Mamoulian adds an overwhelming pictorial sense.” – Leslie Halliwell

THE BLACK SWAN

(1942, HENRY KING) Pirates Tyrone Power and Laird Cregar (as a splendidly bewigged Sir Henry Morgan) decide to go straight, but redbearded George Sanders and one-eyed Anthony Quinn aren’t getting with the program. Oscarwinning cinematography by Leon Shamroy.
2:55, 6:35, 10:15

“Just what action hokum always aimed to be... an entertaining narrative taken at a spanking pace.” – Leslie Halliwell

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AUGUST 9 WED
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE CRIMSON PIRATE

(1952, ROBERT SIODMAK) Burt Lancaster, head of a band of genial cutthroats — including Burt’s ever-mute old circus pal Nick Cravat — makes deals with both the King’s agent and a band of revolutionaries in their struggle over a Caribbean island, with aid from anachronistic balloons, submarines, and nitroglycerine bombs. Lancaster did all his own stunts in what “may well be the best adventure spoof ever made, visually witty and breathtaking” (David Shipman).
3:05, 7:00

“Pretty much summarizes the genre's whole appeal.” – Time Out New York

THE FLAME AND THE ARROW

(1950, JACQUES TOURNEUR) It’s time for a revolt against an evil lord in medieval Italy, with outlaw Burt Lancaster smilingly vaulting to the tops of houses, leaping from balconies, gliding down tapestries, swinging from chandeliers, and battling hordes of spearmen with torches in his hands, with a grand finale free-for-all in the castle’s great hall as a troupe of travelling acrobats leap into the fray.
1:15, 5:10, 9:05

“By rights it should be an action classic.” – Dave Kehr

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AUGUST 10 THU
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE THREE MUSKETEERS
(DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS VERSION)

(1921, FRED NIBLO) “All for one and one for all!” 38-year old Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. effortlessly portrays the innocence and naïveté of the young D’Artagnan, as he and his comrades-in-swords contend with non-stop intrigue and mass duels at the court of Adolphe Menjou’s Louis XIII. (See the 1939 musical comedy version on Tuesday, August 22).
3:10*, 7:40*
*LIVE PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT BY STEVE STERNER AT BOTH SHOWS

"Undiluted delight. The scale is lavish, the story clearly told, and Douglas Fairbanks is the daring-est of D’Artagnans, energizing every scene he’s in not just with his unpredictable agility and swiftness but also with an italicized ardor." – Michael Sragow, The New Yorker

"[Fairbanks is] an incomparable d'Artagnan, the archetypal romantic hero who was the model for Errol Flynn in the '30s
and Tyrone Power in the '40s." – Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

“When Alexandre Dumas sat down at his work table, he no doubt had only one end in mind: to create a story for Douglas Fairbanks.”
– Robert Sherwood

THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK

(1939, JAMES WHALE) D’Artagnan (WB pre- Code titan Warren William) and the Musketeers once again ride to the rescue of 17th century France, with Louis Hayward in double role as the eponymous victim and . . . we’re not telling. Hayward admitted “camping up” the part; the producer accused him of “swishbuckling.” From the director of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein.
1:00, 5:30, 10:00

“Exhilarating . . . with a complex plot, good acting, and the three musketeers in full cry.” – Leslie Halliwell

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AUGUST 11/12 FRI/SAT
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE 7TH VOYAGE OF SINBAD

(1958, NATHAN JURAN) Kerwin Mathews’s Sinbad takes on an evil sorcerer’s monster team, including the high-flying Giant Roc, the visually challenged Cyclops and a sword-wielding skeleton — all courtesy of special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen — to rescue kidnapped (and miniaturized) princess bride Kathryn Grant (Mrs. Bing Crosby). Featuring a rousing Bernard Herrmann score. Plus the Fleischer color spectacular Popeye The Sailor Meets Sinbad The Sailor (1937).
3:05, 7:15

THE THIEF OF BAGDAD

(1940, MICHAEL POWELL, LUDWIG BERGER, TIM WHELAN) A flying horse, a flying carpet, an allseeing eye, evil magician Conrad Veidt’s evil schemes against prince John Justin and even more evil schemes against lovely princess June Duprez, and eponymous thief Sabu shrugging off temporary transformation into a dog to save the day, all in the Oscar-winning (for photography, sets, and special effects), most incredibly lavish Arabian Nights fantasy of them all.
1:00, 5:10, 9:20

“Still casts its fragile spell.” – Dave Kehr.

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AUGUST 13 SUN
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

TREASURE ISLAND

(1934, VICTOR FLEMING) “Awwkk! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!” Shrieking parrots, secret treasure maps, peg-legged sea cooks, unknown islands, sea mutinies, stockade battles, hairy castaways, all seen through the eyes of Jackie Cooper’s young Jim Hawkins, with Wallace Beery’s colorful Long John Silver the very model of a movie pirate. Too-little-known adaptation of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic, from the director of The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind!
1:00, 5:35, 10:05

THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER

(1937, WILLIAM KEIGHLEY) Just for laughs, young lookalikes Edward, son of Henry VIII, and Tom the street urchin exchange clothes — and that’s when the trouble starts, with dastardly Claude Rains playing the mix-up for his own ends and Errol Flynn arriving late to save the day. How did they fake those twin scenes? Well, first you cast the Mauch twins. From the Mark Twain story. Plus Chuck Jones’s Robin Hood Daffy (1958).
3:10, 7:45

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AUGUST 15 TUE
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

ARABIAN NIGHTS

(1942, JOHN RAWLINS) Dancer Maria Montez dreams of life with Caliph Jon Hall (later TV’s Ramar of the Jungle), then has to hide him out after his brother’s coup d’état — Sabu has to ride to the rescue to save her. That acting triumvirate tells it all, but the lavish production actually garnered four Oscar nominations and was a box office smash.
1:00, 4:55, 9:50

ALI BABA AND THE FORTY THIEVES

(1944, ARTHUR LUBIN) After those darn Mongols, thanks to a traitor at the top, take over Bagdad and murder the Caliph, his son finds his best hideout to be — “Open Sesame” — with the dreaded 40 thieves. Ten years later, when he’s become Jon Hall, it’s time to get revenge and win back childhood honey Maria Montez as well. Roughly, Robin Hood meets the Resistance out East. Plus the Fleischer color classic Popeye The Sailor Meets Ali Baba’s 40 Thieves (1937).
2:45, 7:40

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AUGUST 16 WED
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE BUCCANEER

(1938, CECIL B. DEMILLE) Impeccably Frenchaccented Fredric March’s Jean Lafitte and his pirate gang (including a scene-stealing Akim Tamiroff as a former Napoleonic gunner) trade amnesty for aid to Andrew Jackson as a British invasion looms during the War of 1812. Colorful DeMille adventure, topped by a spectacular recreation of the Battle of New Orleans.
3:10, 7:45

DON JUAN

(1926, ALAN CROSLAND) Ostensibly based on the Byron poem, but really a tongue in cheek Fairbanksian romp through torture on the rack, flooding dungeons, and nasty hunchbacks, as John Barrymore’s Don romances Mary Astor and dispatches villain Montagu Love in a spectacular duel on a flight of stairs. First Vitaphone feature: talkless, but with striking music and effects.
1:00, 5:35, 10:10

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AUGUST 17 THU
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

SCARAMOUCHE

(1952, GEORGE SIDNEY) Nobleman’s bastard Stewart Granger lies low with a raffish theatrical troupe while he gets that fencing up to the level of his best friend’s killer, duel-happy Marquis Mel Ferrer, even as he simultaneously romances Janet Leigh and Eleanor Parker. Lavish Rafael Sabatini adaptation, with its epic final duel — over, under, around and through a jammed playhouse — the longest (over 6 minutes!) one-on-one swordfight in film history.
1:30, 5:25, 9:20

THE SWORDSMAN

(1948, JOSEPH H. LEWIS) Swords and Scottish accents fly as Larry Parks (The Jolson Story) proves as adept at fencing as at lip-synching Mammy. Rare B swashbuckler in color, with George Macready (Gilda) at his slimiest as the villain, with “superb Kurosawa-like tracking shots” (Charles Higham) from the low-rent Orson Welles, Joseph H. Lewis (Gun Crazy).
3:45, 7:40

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AUGUST 18/19 FRI/SAT
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD

(1938, MICHAEL CURTIZ & WILLIAM KEIGHLEY) With beloved King Richard the Lionheart away at the Crusades and brother Claude Rains plotting to usurp the throne, it’s time for Errol Flynn’s Sir Robin of Locksley to step in. A swashbuckling apotheosis for the Hollywood adventure movie and for Flynn, going toe-to-toe with Basil Rathbone’s grim-lipped Sir Guy of Gisbourne in a swordfight on enormous castle steps — with time out for romancing Olivia de Havilland. In eyepopping Technicolor. Plus Bugs Bunny in Chuck Jones’s Rabbit Hood (1949).
3:15, 7:40

“Hollywood's definitive example of the genre in the sound era.” – Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

GUNGA DIN

(1939, GEORGE STEVENS) In 19th century British India, sergeants three Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Victor McLaglen, with the aid of faithful native water boy Sam Jaffe, take on Eduardo Cianelli’s nasty high priest of the goddess Kali. The Hecht-MacArthur script proved only a blueprint, as improvisation raged on the desert locations of this “rip-roaring fun show all the way; all the action, spectacle, fights, chases, cavalry charges and last-minute rescues of a dozen westerns, serials and frontier epics” (William K. Everson).
1:00, 5:25, 9:40

“One of the most enjoyable nonsense-adventure movies of all time.” – Pauline Kael

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AUGUST 20 SUN
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE BLACK PIRATE

(1926, ALBERT PARKER) In Hollywood’s first major Technicolor feature (its two-color photography modeled on the Old Masters), Douglas Fairbanks Sr., last survivor of a buccaneer massacre, vows revenge, goes undercover as the title adventurer. With some of Doug’s most spectacular stunts, including his most famous: riding down a sail on his dagger.
3:30*, 7:30*
*LIVE PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT BY STEVE STERNER AT BOTH SHOWS

THE SEA HAWK

(1940, MICHAEL CURTIZ) An English sea dog attacks and plunders Spanish ambassador Claude Rains’s ship, falls in love with his daughter Brenda Marshall, guesses wrong in an assault on Panama, then leads a galley slave revolt ... just another day at the office for Errol Flynn; with massive combats taking place between full-sized ships floating on the specially-built Warner Bros. lake; and with Flora Robson (“a vigorous shrewdie” – Pauline Kael) as Queen Elizabeth.
1:10, 5:10, 9:10

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AUGUST 22 TUE
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE THREE MUSKETEERS
(DON AMECHE/RITZ BROS. VERSION)

(1939, ALLAN DWAN) Rousing, surprisingly faithful musical comedy rendition of the Dumas adventure, with Don Ameche in fine fettle (and voice) as D’Artagnan, Titanic’s Gloria Stuart as Queen Anne, Joseph Schildkraut as Louis XIII, and, as the eponymous threesome, the wacky Ritz Brothers. Plus The Three Stooges in Squareheads of the Round Table (1948).
1:20, 5:10, 9:00

THE COURT JESTER

(1956, NORMAN PANAMA) “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle.” Danny Kaye as a medieval entertainer learns to improvise fast while romancing Glynis Johns amid nonstop scheming by Angela Lansbury and Basil Rathbone, himself maintaining a phenomenal straight face during lightning-fast Kaye tongue-twisters.
2:50, 6:40

“Danny Kaye’s best film finds the comic as nimble with a rapier as with his facial muscles.”
– Time Out New York

“One of the best comedies ever made.” – Leonard Maltin

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AUGUST 23 WED
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE EXILE

(1947, MAX OPHÜLS) After Dad’s beheading by Cromwell, Douglas Fairbanks Jr.’s king-on-therun Charles II lies low in Holland, finding time for tender romance with tulipselling Paule Croset until a windmill showdown with Roundhead Henry Daniell. Ophüls’s famous travelling shots roll through a charming studio-built Netherlands. With Maria Montez — acting for once — in a terrific cameo. 35mm sepia-tinted studio print.
1:00, 5:15, 9:30

“One of the most exhilarating stylistic exercises to come out of Hollywood.” – Dave Kehr

“A poetic and pictorially lovely costume picture.” – Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

DON Q, SON OF ZORRO

(1925, DONALD CRISP) Zorro’s son Don Cesar, off to universidad in Madrid, is accused of a murder actually committed by aristocratic slimeball Donald Crisp (directing himself), then goes undercover to prove his innocence and to rescue a very young Mary Astor; the original “fox,” dad Don Diego, comes back from California to lend a bullwhip. Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.’s tour de force double role-playing helped make this one of his top money-makers.
3:05*, 7:20*
*LIVE PIANO ACCOMPANIMENT BY STEVE STERNER AT BOTH SHOWS

“Doug Fairbanks was 42 when playing Zorro, a man of 50; more remarkable is that he was able to play a youth of 20 convincingly in the same movie. Awesome with a whip, he’s poetically graceful in all his movements.”
– Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

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AUGUST 24 THU
(2 FILMS FOR 1 ADMISSION)

THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO

(1934, ROWLAND V. LEE) Back from a voyage, sailor Robert Donat’s marriage plans with Elissa Landi get derailed when he’s framed into a life sentence at the dreaded Chateau d’If . . . but if only he can escape and find that treasure... Rousing adaptation of the Dumas classic. Print courtesy Library of Congress.
2:55, 7:05

“A near-perfect blend of thrilling action and grand dialogue.” – Variety

THE IRON MASK

(1929, ALLAN DWAN) Valedictory and epitaph to swashbuckling and the silent era, as a now middle-aged and graying — but still agile — D’Artagnan (Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.) returns with his companions to save the eponymous captive from high level scheming in the age of Louis XIV — or does he? Doug’s powerfully delivered spoken prologue and epilogue bridges the transition to talkies.
1:00, 5:10, 9:20

“Dwan’s shadowy film is a sequel to Fairbanks’s 1921 The Three Musketeers…
But it’s a graver movie and a poignant one, in which Fairbanks bids farewell to his swashbuckling career.”
– Elliott Stein, The Village Voice

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