LACMA film series looks at L.A. past, present and future
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“Los Angeles Past, Present and Future,” a new film series opening July 19 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, is a companion to its exhibition “The Presence of the Past.”
The series opens at the Bing Theater with a rarity: 1925’s “The Salvation Hunters,” which marked the feature debut of director Josef von Sternberg, who is best known for the melodramas he made with Marlene Dietrich, such as 1930’s “The Blue Angel” and “Morocco.”
The independent production starring Georgia Hale (“The Gold Rush”) was shot in San Pedro, Chinatown and the San Fernando Valley.
Sternberg said of the film, which has recently been restored: “I had in mind a visual poem. Instead of saccharine characters, sober figures moving in rhythm.” Robert Israel will provide live accompaniment.
Following “The Salvation Hunters” that evening is Billy Wilder’s landmark 1944 Los Angeles film noir, “Double Indemnity,” starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson.
On tap for July 26 is Thom Anderson’s “Get Out of the Car” (2010), which he describes as “a city symphony film in 16mm composed from advertising signs, building facades, fragments of music and conversation and unmarked sites of vanished cultural landmarks (including El Monte Legion Stadium and the Barrelhouse in Watts).”
PHOTOS: Behind-the-scenes Classic Hollywood
Rounding out the double bill is Heinz Emigholz’s “Schindler’s Houses” (2006).
Screening July 27 at 5 p.m. is 1988’s end-of-the-world thriller “Miracle Mile,” with Anthony Edwards, which was shot in the mid-Wilshire district when Johnnie’s Coffee Shop was still open and before Orbach’s department store was transformed into the Petersen Automotive Museum.
The series concludes that evening with the director’s cut of Ridley Scott’s 1982 sci-fi classic, “Blade Runner,” which offers a bleak, neon-infested Los Angeles of the future. Harrison Ford stars.
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