The Film Society of Lincoln Center will present a special 25th anniversary celebration of the Walter Reade Theater, which remains one of the city’s premier cinema venues, on Thursday, December 8.

Though the Film Society was founded in 1969, it would take 22 more years before the organization had its own theater for showing movies all year round. In December 1991, the Walter Reade Theater finally opened in a former school building on the Lincoln Center campus already occupied by the Juilliard School and the School of American Ballet, among other organizations. The first screenings included Pedro Almodóvar’s High Heels; Orson Welles’s 1952 Othello; A Brief History of Time, Errol Morris’s portrait of Stephen Hawking; and the 1949 musical On the Town, directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly. The diversity of these initial selections anticipated the programming philosophy that persists today: films new and old, foreign and Hollywood, provocative and purely enjoyable.

The Film Society is thrilled to celebrate this 25th anniversary with a special evening of events on Thursday, December 8 that includes two free 35mm screenings of essential films that speak to the mission of the theater and of the Film Society of Lincoln Center: On the Town, the first film ever screened publicly in the venue, and John Cassavetes’s Shadows, both originally presented as part of the Walter Reade’s inaugural series “Great Beginnings: First Films by Great Directors.” Prior to the double feature, there will be a prosecco toast for all attendees and an extended introduction by the two people leading the organization in 1991, who were instrumental in the theater’s opening: former Executive Director Joanne Koch and Program Director Richard Peña.

Additionally, in the spirit of the celebration, the opening days of Film Society’s two December repertory series—Life Is a Dream: The Films of Raúl Ruiz on December 2, and Going Steadi: 40 Years of Steadicam on December 16—will revert back to the Walter Reade Theater’s original ticket pricing: $5 for members, and $7 for students/seniors/public. More surprises will be added in the coming weeks.

Free tickets for the December 8 screenings will be distributed at the Walter Reade Theater box office on a first-come, first-served basis starting 30 minutes prior to showtime. Discounted tickets for the Ruiz and Steadicam opening day screenings, featuring the 1991 pricing, will be available online and at Film Society box offices.

On the Town
Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, USA, 1949, 35mm, 98m
Twenty-five years ago, the Film Society celebrated the opening of the Walter Reade Theater with a screening of On the Town, which was part of the series “Great Beginnings: First Films by Great Directors.” A directorial collaboration of musical star Kelly and choreographer Donen (who would re-team on Singin’ in the Rain), On the Town was the first Hollywood musical to feature extensive location shooting—and in Technicolor! “The Bronx is up and the Battery’s down,” and Kelly-Donen managed to include both—and a dozen New York landmarks breathlessly in between—in this rollicking comedy about three lookin’-for-a-good-time sailors (Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Jules Munshin) on 24 hours’ leave in a Big Apple that has rarely looked so gorgeous and exciting. The effervescent music is by Leonard Bernstein and Roger Edens; costars include Betty Garrett, Ann Miller, and Vera-Ellen.
Thursday, December 8, 7pm (with prosecco toast and extended introduction by Joanne Koch & Richard Peña)

Shadows
John Cassavetes, USA, 1959, 35mm, 82m
Characterized by a heady, un-Hollywood blend of improvisation and neorealism, this stunningly innovative film was a harbinger of the coming New American Cinema. Shadows charts in intense close-up the existential crises of three African-American siblings in Manhattan during the late 1950s, with Charles Mingus riffs to jazz up their long nights of the soul. Cassavetes and his acting workshop colleagues developed the script as they went along, positioning the Method actor as auteur and avoiding artificial narrative closure in favor of ambiguity and immediacy of actual experience. Shadows was one of the 35 outstanding directorial debuts showcased 25 years ago in the Walter Reade Theater’s inaugural series, “Great Beginnings: First Films by Great Directors.”
Thursday, December 8, 9:30pm