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Around Town: Legendary films and Herb Ritts photos

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In conjunction with its current photography exhibition, ‘Herb Ritts: L.A. Style,’ the Getty presents a new film series, ‘What Becomes a Legend,’ which opens Saturday afternoon with the famed 1921 romance ‘The Sheik,’ starring silent screen heartthrob Rudolph Valentino in one of his seminal roles.

Another iconic figure from the silent era, Louise Brooks, headlines the evening’s feature, G.W. Pabst’s 1929 classic, ‘Pandora’s Box,’ in which Brooks plays the sexual gadfly Lulu.

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Sunday afternoon’s offering is 1930’s romantic melodrama ‘Morocco,’ Josef von Sternberg’s first film in the U.S. with his muse, Marlene Dietrich. She received her first and only best actress Oscar nomination for the film, which also stars Gary Cooper.

The evening screening is the 1946 film noir ‘Gilda,’ starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford. The series continues May 5-6. http://www.gettyedu.

The American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre celebrates ‘Midnight in Paris: A Tribute to Jacques Prevert and Marcel Carne.’ Screenwriter Prevert and director Carne introduced ‘poetic realism’ to French cinema in the 1930s. The three-film festival opens Friday with the 1960 short film ‘Paris la belle,’ co-written by Prevert and directed by his brother Pierre, and one of Prevert and Carne’s memorable collaborations, 1938’s ‘Le Jour Se Leve,’ starring Jean Gabin as a foundry employee who ends up committing murder.

Saturday evening the Aero presents the L.A. premiere of the newly restored 1945 ‘Children of Paradise,’ which is Prevert and Carne’s best-known work. ‘Paradise’ is a three-hour plus epic set in 19th century France about a theater troupe. Jean-Louis Barrault stars as an ill-fated mime named Baptiste. http://www.americancinematheque.com

The New Beverly Cinema celebrates the comedic genius of Peter Sellers on Sunday and Monday with two comedies he made in 1968: Blake Edwards’ ‘The Party’ and ‘I Love You, Alice B. Toklas,’ which was written by Paul Mazursky & Larry Tucker.

http://www.newbevcinema.com

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It’s animation domination this weekend at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Film Independent at LACMA at the Leo S. Bing Theater continues its ‘100 Years of Paramount Pictures’ retrospective with a look at the studio’s animation division. First up is the Oscar-nominated 1999 comedy ‘South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut,’ followed by several shorts, from the Fleischer Studios’ ‘Betty Boop’ cartoons to George Pal’s Puppetoons.

In conjunction with LACMA’s ‘California Design 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way’ exhibition, LACMA and the Center for Visual Music present two avant-garde programs Friday evening: ‘Optical Poetry: An Oskar Fischinger Retrospective’ and ‘Color and Form: Modernist Animation in California.’ http://www.lacma.org

The Alex Film Society’s latest presentation, Alfred Hitchcock’s birds-run-amok 1963 thriller ‘The Birds,’ screens Saturday afternoon and evening at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. The film’s star, Tippi Hedren, will be on hand for the evening presentation. http://www.alexfilmsociety.org

UCLA’s Film & Television Archive’s Wednesday programming at the Million Dollar Theater in downtown L.A. features two early Brian DePalma films -- 1973’s ‘Sisters,’ a thriller starring Margot Kidder as Siamese twins separated at birth, and ‘Phantom of Paradise,’ his 1974 rock twist on ‘The Phantom of the Opera,’ starring Paul Williams. http://www.cinema.ucla.edu

Continuing:

‘Noir City: Hollywood, 14th Annual Festival of Film Noir,’ American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre. http://www.americancinematheque.com

‘UCLA Celebration of Iranian Cinema,’ Billy Wilder Theater. http://www.cinema.ucla.edu

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-- Susan King

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‘Classic Hollywood: Getty Research Institute honors Fred Zinnemann’

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