Help us celebrate and honor the memory of one of the greats, a man who helped to revolutionize the concept of a Hollywood leading man, bridging the gap between old-fashioned movie stardom and the incendiary brio of a risk-taking New Hollywood. We’ll be screening six of Paul Newman’s best films: COOL HAND LUKE, HARPER and THE VERDICT, plus three others notoriously hard to see on the big screen, WUSA, SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION and a brand new 35mm print of SLAP SHOT!

Friday, December 26 – 7:30 PM

Double Feature:

COOL HAND LUKE, 1967, Warner Bros., 126 min. Dir. Stuart Rosenberg. "What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate." When cool-cat Luke (Paul Newman) gets drunk and decides to lop off the heads of parking meters, he’s charged with destruction of public property and is sentenced to a chain gang. The proverbial ton of bricks falls on him for a relatively minor offense, and his rebellious free spirit foments a dangerous contest of wills with the warden (Strother Martin) and his sadistic underlings (Morgan Woodward, Luke Askew, Robert Donner). Newman is perfectly cast as a worldly, smart-aleck maverick who doesn’t fit in that well, even with some of his jailhouse brethren, including the hulking Dragline (George Kennedy, who won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar). Nominated for three other Oscars -- Best Picture, Best Music (Lalo Schifrin) and Best Screenplay (Donn Pearce, who wrote the original novel, and Frank Pierson). With a great performance by Jo Van Fleet as Arletta, Luke’s mother. Look for Harry Dean Stanton and Dennis Hopper in supporting roles. Trailer

Ultra-Rare! WUSA, 1970, Paramount, 115 min. LUKE director Stuart Rosenberg reunites with Paul Newman on this overlooked and underrated adaptation of Robert Stone’s Hall of Mirrors (Stone also wrote Dog Soldiers, which was filmed as WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN). Newman is an itinerant, hard-drinking disc jockey who shows up in New Orleans looking for a job. Con man buddy Laurence Harvey, masquerading as a fundamentalist preacher, points Newman to WUSA, a right-wing radio station run by megalomaniac Pat Hingle. Taking a gig reading news, Newman gradually becomes disgusted by the blatant lies spewed by the station. Meanwhile, naïve social worker Anthony Perkins is unaware he’s being used by Hingle to help perpetrate a welfare-fraud smear on ghetto residents. Joanne Woodward is a down-on-her-luck wanderer, trying to find work and occasionally resorting to the generosity of strange men to get along. Newman and Woodward drift into a romance that may be doomed by the events unfolding around them, and Hingle’s manipulative schemes gradually escalate, culminating in a violent, anarchic climax. Great New Orleans location work and Mardi Gras footage, with a storyline more relevant than ever, especially in the criminally negligent aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. WUSA has not been screened on TV since the early 1990s and has never been available on video. NOT ON DVD Trailer

Saturday, December 27 – 7:30 PM

New 35mm Print! SLAP SHOT, 1977, Universal, 122 min. Director George Roy Hill (BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID) and writer Nancy Dowd (Best Screenplay winner for COMING HOME) bring to the screen this incredibly funny and foul-mouthed saga of a has-been hockey team from a dying-on-the-vine Pennsylvania town. Paul Newman is both the team’s coach and a player who strives for a winning strategy. When an atypical fit of violence erupts in the rink, it mushrooms into a surprising spike in the team’s popularity, and Newman suddenly has a guaranteed approach to bring in the fans. Co-starring Michael Ontkean as a fish-out-of-water, Ivy League player disgruntled by the bad sportsmanship, Strother Martin as the team’s manager and Jennifer Warren as Newman’s long-suffering beautician wife. Reportedly Newman’s favorite film."Easily the greatest hockey film ever made…Paul Newman stars as the coach/player for a second-rate team who can't win and can't even get arrested until they hire three brothers with Coke-bottle glasses named the Hansons. These three violent goons begin beating other players to a pulp in every game, not only drawing attention to the team, but beginning a winning streak…irreverent and very funny." – Jeffrey M. Anderson, combustiblecelluloid.com Trailer

HARPER, 1966, Warner Bros., 121 min. Director Jack Smight (NO WAY TO TREAT A LADY) helmed this slambang private eye opus adapted from Ross Macdonald’s The Moving Target. Christened Lew Archer in Macdonald’s successful string of novels, Paul Newman and screenwriter William Goldman renamed the detective Lew Harper to continue the good-luck string of Newman films with titles beginning with the letter ‘H’ (HUD, THE HUSTLER, etc.). Harper is hired by wealthy ice queen Lauren Bacall to find her much-despised, kidnapped husband. The rich man’s precocious daughter Pamela Tiffin, freeloading playboy Robert Wagner, bar-hopping lush Shelley Winters and her homicidal Southern husband Robert Webber, jazz pianist Julie Harris, cult leader Strother Martin, as well as Harper’s soon-to-be ex-wife Janet Leigh and old lawyer pal Arthur Hill, get thrown into the mix. A wonderfully entertaining look at Southern California’s dark underbelly with plenty of red herrings and surprising twists and turns. Followed by a sequel, THE DROWNING POOL, nine years later in 1975. "…Director Jack Smight has inserted countless touches which illuminate each character to the highest degree. In this he complements William Goldman's sharp and often salty lingo. All principals acquit themselves admirably, including Newman, Bacall, Webber, and particularly Winters, who makes every second count…" -- Variety Trailer

Sunday, December 28 – 7:30 PM

Double Feature:

THE VERDICT, 1982, 20th Century Fox, 129 min. Sidney Lumet (PRINCE OF THE CITY; DOG DAY AFTERNOON) directs Paul Newman as Frank Galvin, a washed-up alcoholic Boston lawyer who is tossed a malpractice case by a successful colleague (Jack Warden). Ready to settle out of court until he realizes the full impact of what has happened to his client’s family, he stubbornly digs in, taking on the Catholic archdiocese, which runs the offending hospital, and their condescending shark of a lawyer (James Mason). Behind the scenes, Galvin tries to navigate the rough terrain of his romance with younger Laura (Charlotte Rampling). Nominated for five Oscars: Best Picture, Actor (Newman), Supporting Actor (Mason), Director (Lumet), Screenplay (David Mamet). "The performances, the dialogue and the plot all work together like a rare machine." – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times Trailer