The sixth annual Robert Osborne’s Classic Film Festival will be held March 25-28 at the Classic Center. Nine classic films from the 1920s to the 1980s will be shown on a 60-foot motion picture screen with commentary from visiting Hollywood veterans. This year, the festival introduces a midnight movie.
Osborne, the prime-time host of Turner Classic Movies and columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, picked the films and will host the festival.
“It’s an exciting adventure to see these films the way they were meant to be seen,” said Osborne. “The big screen gives a different dimension and vitality to them.”
The festival will kick off March 25 with an 8 p.m. showing of the 1955 film To Catch a Thief. Tom Brown, vice president of original productions for Turner Classic Movies, will introduce and discuss the film with UGA professor Richard Neupert.
On March 26 Double Indemnity (1944) will be shown at 1 p.m. Eddie Muller, founder and president of the Film Noir Foundation, will share his knowledge of the film style at the screening.
At 4 p.m. Stand By Me (1986) will be shown. Two of the film’s actors, Marshall Bell and Corey Feldman will be on hand to discuss the film.
Academy-Award winning actress Cloris Leachman will be the special guest for the 8 p.m. showing of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Leachman played Agnes in the western.
At 11:30 p.m. the rap group Def Judges will perform, followed by a midnight presentation of 1980’s The Shining. Athens musician Patterson Hood hosts the showing. Hollywood veteran Leon Vitali, who worked with the horror film’s director Stanley Kubrick in a variety of roles on four of his films, will be the special guest.
The festival begins March 27 with a 10 a.m. panel discussion on “Social Change: How Film Reflects and Inspires a Shift in the Collective Cultural Climate—Propaganda or Art?” Held in the Classic Center Theater, the panel discussion is free and open to the public.
All About Eve (1950) will screened at 1 p.m.
The festival’s first silent movie, Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928), will be shown at 4 p.m. with live musical accompaniment by local band Kenosha Kid. John Bengtson, author of the critically acclaimed series of books Silent Traces: Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie Chaplin, and its Buster Keaton counterpart, Silent Echoes, will share his expertise on silent films.
At 8 p.m. Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather II (1974) will be screened with special guests and Academy Award winners Gray Frederickson and Fred Roos, who worked with Coppola on the crime drama.
The festival concludes March 28 at 2 p.m. with The Wizard of Oz (1939). Professional dancer and actress Caren Marsh-Doll, who served as Judy Garland’s stand-in, will discuss the film.
Tickets for each film are $10 ($8 students or alumni association members) or $8 for the midnight showing of The Shining.
In addition, children 12 and younger can receive a special $5 ticket for The Wizard of Oz the day of the show. A variety of passes ranging from a student-only half pass to a full pass with brunch are available and range in price from $25 to $100. Tickets can be purchased at the Classic Center box office, online at www.classiccenter.com or by calling 1-(800) 918-6393. There is a $1 service charge per purchase and $2 per day charge for parking during the festival.
Robert Osborne’s Classic Film Festival is an annual nonprofit event of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
