Film Forum

RICHARD III

6:50   Buy Tickets

(1955, Laurence Olivier) “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” Olivier’s limping, humped, memorably-nosed Richard zestfully schemes his way to the top; seducing Claire Bloom over the corpse of the husband he’s killed; drowning John Gielgud in a barrel of wine; barking “Off with his head!” re Ralph Richardson; while giving color commentary in minutes-long, single-taked, lip-smacking soliloquies delivered direct to the camera. DCP. Approx. 161 min.

Restoration funding provided by Hollywood Foreign Press Association and the Film Foundation. Restored by the Film Foundation and Janus Films, in association with BFI National Archive, ITV, MoMA, and Romulus Films. Scanned in 6K at Cineric.

“Laurence Olivier makes Shakespeare’s ‘son of hell’ such a magnetic, chilling, amusing monster that the villainy arouses an almost immortal delight.”
– Pauline Kael

“Richard III is comfortably the most entertaining of the three great Olivier Shakespeare films, and may have done more to popularize Shakespeare than any other single work. When shown on US television that same year, the resulting audience (estimated at between 25 and 40 million) would have outnumbered the sum total of the play's theatrical audiences over the 358 years since its first performance.” ­
– Michael Brooke, BFI

THE TOMB OF LIGEIA

9:50*  Buy Tickets

*Introduced by star Elizabeth Shepherd

(1964, Roger Corman) Dark-glassed Vincent Price has a problem with his wives – the first one’s dead, and she may be haunting the second – and what’s with that cat? The eighth and last of Corman’s Poe adaptations, scripted by Robert Towne. 35mm. Approx. 82 min.

“After his long sequence of Poe movies filmed in various studio interiors, Corman decided that The Tomb of Ligeia demanded a change of style and emphasis. The result is one of the best in the whole series, an ambiguous, open-ended film which features one of Vincent Price's most decisive performances.”
– David Pirie, Time Out (London)