KAZAN at Film Forum in New York City

(1954) “I coulda been a contender,” agonizes Marlon Brando’s pigeon-raising ex-pug Terry Malloy, as he gets mixed up in corruption and murder in a Hoboken longshoremen’s union, thanks to brother/mob mouthpiece Rod Steiger, then must face victim’s sister Eva Marie Saint. Winner of 8 Oscars, including Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actress, Screenplay (Budd Schulberg) and Cinematography (Boris Kaufman).
1:10, 3:20, 5:30, 7:40*, 9:50

Click here to read George Kimball's article on the memorial to the late Budd Schulberg on thesweetscience.com

“Indisputably one of the great American films, its power undiminished.” – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“Brando's softheaded utterances and darkening stare still demolish an audience 50 years (and counting) later.
DON'T MISS THIS ON THE BIG SCREEN!”
– Time Out New York

“A breakthrough, emotionally and psychologically, into a new, stylized vision of reality.” – Martin Scorsese

“Launched the most influential modern actor. Kazan and Brando brought a rawness, urgency
and emotional intensity to acting that in many ways has touched all American movie acting ever since.”
– Roger Ebert

“One of the most powerful movies of the 50s.” – Pauline Kael

“A heart-clutcher from beginning to end.” – J. Hoberman, Village Voice

(1955) In California’s Salinas Valley, as World War I looms, two sons, one good and one bad, battle each other for the love of father Raymond Massey — of course the bad one’s James Dean, in his electrifying debut. Adapted from the last 80 pages of John Steinbeck’s lengthy novel, this was Kazan’s first film in color and Scope. With Julie Harris, and, in Oscar-winning role as Dean’s wayward mother, Jo Van Fleet. Winner, Best Dramatic Film, Cannes.
Sun 1:00, 3:15, 5:30, 7:45, 10:00
Mon 1:00, 3:15, 5:30

“CRITICS' PICK! Film Forum's retro is an ideal setting to visit – or revisit – the director's gorgeous 'Scope palimpsest of Steinbeck's
sprawling family epic, which he transformed into an intimate drama about a wayward son.”
– New York magazine

“RECOMMENDED! A masterful adaptation.” – Time Out New York

“One of Kazan's masterpieces.” – Stephen Holden, The New York Times (October 4, 2009)

“Not only one of Kazan's richest films and Dean's first significant role, it is also arguably the actor's best performance.”
– Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

“Feverishly poetic… Dean seems to go just about as far as anybody can in acting misunderstood.” – Pauline Kael

(1963) “People waiting, people waiting.” On the run from Turkish oppression, a Greek boy (Kazan's discovery, the minimally English-speaking, then non-pro Stathis Giallelis) ruthlessly struggles to a new life in America — the true story of Kazan’s uncle and naturally one of the director’s most personal works. Superb acting by an unknown cast (including Linda Marsha as the vulnerable fiancée and Paul Mann as her rug dealer dad); the sense of period, of place and face and atmosphere; and the epic sense of what immigration cost and what it meant make this an unsung classic.
8:00 ONLY*

“May be Kazan’s most accomplished work. The film shrewdly looks like a documentary. The cast of unknowns helps the illusion of veracity.”
– Time Out New York

“One of the peaks of Kazan's career. Certainly one of the finest movies to deal
with the plight of immigrants who traveled through Ellis Island at the turn of the century.”
– Geoff Andrew, Time Out (London)

“A perfect occasion to catch up with these early lesser-known works.” – Stephen Holden, The New York Times (October 4, 2009)

(1950) From its opening shot — riding atop a siren-blasting cop car, as it hurtles through the French Quarter — Kazan keeps the pace rocking, as public health officer Richard Widmark and cop Paul Douglas track infested-with-plague hood Jack Palance and slimy pal Zero Mostel through the all-location-shot streets of New Orleans.
2:45, 6:20, 10:10

“Kazan's lone action flick, this tightly directed tale of callous gangsters
is rich with B-movie virtues, including flavorsome New Orleans locations.”
– J. Hoberman, Village Voice

“Kazan took a fairly conventional thriller script and made a tense,
high-powered movie out of it. Everything is kept moving, in a feverish,
seething way, yet the performances are never sacrificed to the action.”
– Pauline Kael

“This best and most neglected of Elia Kazan's early features
is an expert and taut thriller.”
– Jonathan Rosenbaum

“Kazan added to the city’s chiaroscuro harsh natural sound and furious editing,
suggesting a corner of life as experiences by someone with raw, and ragged nerves.”
– David Shipman

“A road seldom traveled; a dynamic looking and sounding genre film more concerned with atmosphere than social importance...
this kind of subtlety, range of tones, and control of locations that make this an important Kazan film.”
– Adrian Danks, Senses of Cinema

(1947) Cops nail a priest’s murderer, but D.A. Dana Andrews decides to reinvestigate in the teeth of community hysteria. Based on a true story, with Kazan’s first use of all-location filming (in Stamford, Conn.) and, except for the five major parts, non-pro actors (including Kazan’s uncle Joe, the original of America, America.)
1:00, 4:35, 8:15

“A work of journalistic art. A triumph notable for Dana Andrews’ best performance to date; a large cast mainly of Broadway actors turns in the most immaculate set of naturalistic performances I have seen in one movie.”
– James Agee

“The unemphatic presentation of details, the use of locations, and strong performances lend the film authenticity and power.”
– Geoff Andrew, Time Out (London)

“Without the basic training of this engrossing picture, the director might not have been able to manage the docks of On the Waterfront.”
– Elliott Stein, Village Voice

“A study of integrity, beautifully developed by Dana Andrews against a background of political corruption
and chicanery that is doubly shocking because of its documentary understatement...
This is not the Lullaby of Democracy we normally receive from Hollywood; but a much prouder work, ruthless and mature.”
– Richard Winnington

“Was closer to documentary technique than any film to come from Hollywood since sound… seemed to grow out of the life of the
suburban community in which it was set down... Kazan's eye for the dramatic beauty of plain people, their faces, homes, daily tasks, and
amusements evidenced a strict understanding of the camera's affinity for actuality. [It] stands out as one of Hollywood's more honest pictures.”
– Paul Rotha

(1956) “Possibly the dirtiest American-made motion picture that has been legally exhibited,” tsked TIME Magazine. Sicilian interloper Eli Wallach, steamed when his new cotton gin goes up in smoke, decides to revenge himself on suspect Karl Malden by seducing his thumb-sucking child bride Carroll Baker — who’s “not ready for marriage.” Expanded from two of his own one-act plays by Tennessee Williams.
Wed 1:00, 3:15, 5:30, 7:45, 10:00
Thu 1:00, 3:15

“This must be the only movie ever made in which the heroine invites a man
into her crib. A droll and engrossing carnal comedy. Wonderfully entertaining.
A delight—the look of the film is amazing, the images seem free and natural yet stylized, like a cartoon. Kazan does some of his finest work here—
his choices seem miraculously right.”
– Pauline Kael

“Flirtation, seduction and jealousy! The grotesquely caricatured performances and the evocation of the baking,
dusty, indolent homestead make for witty and compelling viewing.”
– Geoff Andrew, Time Out (London)

“One of Elia Kazan's most underrated movies. Sustains a peculiar brand of black comedy.
Kazan's authentic feeling for the locale, aided by Boris Kaufman's superb black-and-white cinematography, makes this movie special,
combined with first-rate ensemble (Baker and Wallach in their debuts), none of the three leads ever gave a better performance."
– Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader

“Whether a work of genius or mere talent, whether decadent or generous, profound or brilliant, Baby Doll is fascinating.” – François Truffaut

(1949) Back from the north, passing-for-white nurse Jeanne Crain must choose between a free life with white beau William Lundigan or, as granny Ethel Waters argues, the truth. Kazan took over Hollywood’s first anti-racism film from John Ford, the tumultuous courtroom scene bearing Kazan’s personal stamp.
8:00 ONLY*

“Kazan directs this material with a fine eye for the vicious undercurrents of Southern decay.
The film hasn’t been given its due for the tense dramatic sequences
and the pressure we’re made to feel.”
– Pauline Kael

“Still remarkable for its sincerity and directness.” – James Monaco, The Movie Guide

“Vivid, revealing and emotionally intense.
A vivid expose of certain cruelties and injustices is all it gives...
with moving and disturbing force. And for this we can be... grateful.”
– The New York Times

“An extremely moving piece of work; moving in its acting, its direction and its writing.”
– Dilys Powell

(1947) “Dark hair, dark eyes... it’s a cinch!” exclaims gentile reporter Gregory Peck as he plans his “I Was Jewish for Six Months” article, in Hollywood’s first exposé of anti-Semitism. Oscar-winner for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress Celeste Holm. With Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield. Screenplay by Moss Hart. Print courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.
5:45, 10:00

“On the level of journalism it is a triumph, a perfect job.” – James Agee

“Brilliant and powerful. One of the most vital and stirring and impressive films in Hollywood history... an almost overwhelming emotional experience and thus is not only highly topical, but truly universal.”
– Variety

“Here is Hollywood at its courageous best, entering bravely into the arena of religious intolerance and emerging from it with a motion picture of which the entire industry may be proud... Kazan's direction is expert, firm and true... He has drawn from his principals superlative performances.”
– Motion Picture Herald

(1961) “No nice girl feels like that.” Sexual repression in 1920s Kansas (but filmed on Staten Island), as star-crossed teens Natalie Wood (“there is poetry in her performance” – New York Times) and Warren Beatty (in his debut) heed those parental admonitions. A paradigm of teenage angst from angstmeister William (Picnic) Inge, whose screenplay won an Oscar.
2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30

“Lush, almost operatic, this is one of Kazan's greatest features – a sensitive and powerful romantic tragedy that marks one final blast of old-school moviemaking before the New Hollywood.”
– New York magazine

“Kazan's torrid tale of teen sexuality still seems shocking 48 years later.”
– Time Out New York

“There is poetry in Natalie Wood’s performance, and her eyes in the final scene bespeak the moral significance and emotional fulfillment of this film.”
– NY Times

“One of the most beautiful love stories I've ever seen in cinema.”
– Catherine Deneuve

“Baroque primer-Freud. Hysterically on the side of young love,
and this hysteria seems integral to the film’s moments of emotional power, its humor, and its beauty.”
– Pauline Kael

“The most satisfying movie to draw from writer William Inge, and I think that has to do with the authority and candor of Elia Kazan.” – David Thomson

(1951) Faded Southern belle Vivien Leigh’s Blanche DuBois is destroyed by her brutish brother-in-law, Marlon Brando’s Stanley Kowalski — “two of the greatest performances ever put on film” (Pauline Kael). Kazan retained the claustrophobic setting and the principals of his own Broadway smash, plus Leigh from Olivier’s London production of Tennessee Williams’ classic. Winner of five Oscars, including Best Actress and Supporting Actress (Kim Hunter) & Actor (Karl Malden).

“MARK IT DOWN ON YOUR CALENDAR RIGHT NOW!” – Time Out New York

“Reconstructs what was arguably the most important Broadway event
of the post World War II American theater.”
– J. Hoberman, The Village Voice

“A masterwork in some indefinable middle ground which is neither stage nor screen.” – David Shipman

“Two of the greatest performances ever put on film and some of the finest dialogue ever written by an American.” – Pauline Kael

“One of the great ensemble pieces in the movies. The film itself, hailed as realistic in 1951, now seems claustrophobic and mannered -
and all the more effective for that. Watching the film is like watching a Shakespearean tragedy.”
– Roger Ebert

“Even over 50 years after its initial release, this sultry melodrama about aging Southern belle Blanche DuBois still packs a wallop.”
– Susan King, Los Angeles Times

(1952) Brando’s Mexican peasant revolutionary Emiliano Zapata finds that, once in power, he too —along with Oscar-winning brother Anthony Quinn — can be corrupted. Using Eisenstein-inspired visuals, Kazan considered this his first really personal film,co-conceived from the very beginning with scripter John Steinbeck. Winner, Grand Prix, Cannes.
7:00 ONLY

“The virtues are in Kazan’s slam-bang direction.
Has startling immediacy.”
– Pauline Kael

“Zapata may have been killed, Kazan may have named names, but the horse, the image, Brando as a star, live beyond the film.”
– Leo Braudy

“The most exciting of all Kazan’s films; the two assassination scenes - first President Madero, then Zapata himself - are beautifully handled and the long, build-up sequence in which hundreds of peasants appear silently from the hills to rescue their leader is a tour de force.”
– R.A.E. Pikard

“The [film's] strength is in Kazan's direction backed by [the] magnificent unromantic photography...
And Marlon Brando... Brando conveys power, which, in the cinema, can transcend acting.”
– Richard Winnington

“A fascinating study of a man, a savagely beautiful evocation of a background, a superb piece of all-round film-making...
Brando gives a performance of slow-combustion power ranging from sullen peasant cunning to tigerish ferocity.”
– Daily Mail

(1945) Peggy Ann Garner grows up in a turn-of-the-century Brooklyn tenement, caught between uptight Mom Dorothy McGuire and boozing Dad James Dunn (Oscar, Best Supporting Actor). Kazan’s first film and one of his most atmospheric works, eschewing a score in favor of carefully orchestrated source music. With Joan Blondell (“little short of wonderful.” – Daily News).
1:00, 3:30, 6:00

“A nostalgic treat.” – Time Out New York

“Splendid, sensitive film – an impressive Hollywood debut.
Perfect in every detail.”
– Leonard Maltin

“A superbly detailed studio production of the type they don't make anymore.”
– Leslie Halliwell

(1953) Suspense ensues when circus boss/clown Fredric March plots escape across the Iron Curtain, while trying to keep tabs on sluttish wife Gloria Grahame, and fending off nosy, seedy commie functionary Adolphe Menjou (in real life, a key HUAC witness). Based on a true story and location-shot in Europe.
8:30 ONLY

“Kazan understood that the circus represents the show person’s last, best connection to the deepest historic roots of their profession, and then connected that tradition to the current political situation.”
– Richard Schickel

“The whole point of the circus is that these are the least uniform, the most individualistic, the oddest, the most eccentric, the most widely ‘deviationist’ of any people. This is an ode to individualism!”
– Kazan

(1957) Guitar-plucking hobo Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith in “an astonishing, sinister performance” – Dave Kehr) rockets from an Arkansas jail to TV stardom, thanks to Patricia Neal’s coaching, but then...Biting satire on advertising, the boob tube, and the packaging of politicians from the Waterfront team of Kazan & Schulberg. With a pre-grumpy Walter Matthau and a baton-twirling Lee Remick, in her debut.
2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30

“Andy Griffith delivers an astonishing, sinister performance
in Elia Kazan's 1957 essay on media demagoguery.
The picture has a sharp, dirty appeal.”
– Dave Kehr

“Retains its status as one of the most provocative, unplaceable vagrants –
or is it mongrels? – of American moviemaking .”
– James Wolcott, Vanity Fair

“It's been half a century since A Face in the Crowd had its premiere, but there's a sense in which this 1957 Elia Kazan flick remains the founding movie of postmodern times. Essentially a political horror film, and as political rhetoric, it has never ceased to be relevant.”
– J. Hoberman

“One of the few genuinely political assaults the cinema has made... It savages. It explodes: it is the guided missile.” – Dilys Powell

“Sensational… A great and beautiful work whose importance transcends the dimensions of a cinema review.
Passionate, exalted, fierce, as inexorable as a ‘Mythology’ of Roland Barthes – and, like it, a pleasure for the mind.”
– François Truffaut

“One of the greatest films of the 1950s, a prophetic film about the dangerous power of modern media.” – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

“Brilliantly cinematic melodrama…paints a luridly entertaining picture of modern show business.” – Leslie Halliwell

(1976) Thirties studio head Robert De Niro contends with temperamental stars Tony Curtis and Jeanne Moreau; chairman-of-the-board Robert Mitchum; commie activist Jack Nicholson; and prospective lovers Theresa Russell and Ingrid Boulting. Harold Pinter’s adaptation of Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel — based on boy genius Irving Thalberg — was Kazan’s farewell to moviemaking.
2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30

“Muted and thoughtful, sad but unsentimental. More than any other screen adaptation of a Fitzgerald work, preserves original feeling and intelligence. The movie is full of echoes. We watch it as if at a far remove from what's happening, but that too is appropriate: Fitzgerald was writing history as it happened.”
– Vincent Canby, The New York Times

“Inspired casting helps this wonderful adaptation.”
– Time Out New York

“KAZAN'S FINEST AND DEEPEST FILM!” – Dave Kehr

“A NEGLECTED MASTERPIECE!” – David Thomson

“KAZAN'S BEST FILM!” – Geoff Andrews, Time Out (London)