UCLA Hitchcock Program Includes Lorre

On Saturday, January 20, 2024, the Billy Wilder Theatre in Los Angeles, California, will present a program on director Alfred Hitchcock as part of the ongoing series “Archive Television Treasures”. “’Good Evening’: Alfred Hitchcock on Television” will explore his work as host and director of small screen dramas, including Peter Lorre in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, “Man From the South”.

The event includes ~

• Suspicion, “Four O’Clock” – September 30, 1957
• Alfred Hitchcock Presents, “Man From the South” – January 3, 1960
• The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, “I Saw the Whole Thing” – October 11, 1962

The presentation begins at 7:30 pm.

Admission is free for everyone. Tickets are available at the theater box office, which opens one hour before the event.

The Billy Wilder Theater is located at the Courtyard Level of the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, at the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood boulevards in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles, California.

For more information, please call the theater at 310-206-8013.

Parking is available in the lot under the Hammer Museum. Enter the lot from Westwood Boulevard, just north of Wilshire Boulevard. Parking for the disabled is provided on levels P1 and P3. On Saturdays and Sundays, the fee is a flat rate of $3.

The venue is also well-served by public transportation.

More information about parking and public transportation, as well as directions, may be found on the venue’s website.

In the pages of The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre, Stephen D. Youngkin discusses Peter Lorre’s long association with Alfred Hitchcock, beginning with Peter’s first English-speaking role in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934).

Lorre went on to co-star in a second Hitchcock film Secret Agent (1936), and appeared in two episodes of the Hitchcock TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents – “The Diplomatic Corpse” (December 8, 1957) and “Man From the South” (January 3, 1960).

The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre may be purchased in many brick-and-mortar shops, as well as these online merchants ~

• Amazon U.S.
• Amazon Canada
• Amazon U.K

Casablanca Included in Michael Curtiz Fest at UCLA

On Friday, Jan. 5, 2018, the UCLA Film and Television Archive, in association with the Hugh M. Hefner Classic American Film Program, will kick off a salute to director Michael Curtiz with a showing of one of his most famous movies, Casablanca (1942), on a double-bill with Kid Galahad (1937) in the Billy Wilder Theater.

Film noir expert Alan K. Rode will curate the series and introduce each film. Mr. Rode will also sign copies of his new book Michael Curtiz: A Life in Film (University Press of Kentucky, 2017) before and between each screening, with the exception of Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018.

The program begins at 6:30 pm with the book-signing. Casablanca will be shown at 7:30 pm, with Kid Galahad (1937) to follow.

The festival will run from Friday, Jan. 5 to Saturday, Mar. 17, 2018. The complete schedule is available on the UCLA Film and Television Archive website.

Tickets for the Casablanca / Kid Galahad double-feature are $9 general admission and $8 for non-UCLA students, seniors, and UCLA Alumni Association members. ID is required for students and Alumni Association members. Current UCLA students with ID are eligible for one free ticket to any Archive show.

General admission tickets may also be purchased on-line through the Festival website for $10 each. Tickets may be called for at the Billy Wilder Theater box office, which opens one hour before the first show.

The Billy Wilder Theater is located at the Courtyard Level of the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Boulevard, at the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood boulevards in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles, California.

For more information, please call the theater at 310-206-8013.

Parking is available in the lot under the Billy Wilder Theater. Enter the lot from Westwood Boulevard, just north of Wilshire Boulevard. Parking for the disabled is provided on levels P1 and P3. On Saturdays and Sundays, the fee is a flat rate of $3.

The venue is also well-served by public transportation.

More information about parking and public transportation, as well as directions, may be found on the venue’s website.

Casablanca was the first of two movies in which Peter Lorre worked with Michael Curtiz. In the pages of The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre (University Press of Kentucky, 2005), Stephen Youngkin describes a story Peter told to a Humphrey Bogart biographer about the time Peter and Bogie “blackmailed” Michael Curtiz into a sense of humor.

The film was Passage to Marseille (1944), and the two pranksters began telling long stories – and if Curtiz did not laugh, they deliberate fluffed their lines. Peter reported it took the director a couple days to figure out that if he laughed, he got the scene in one take.

The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre is available in both soft-bound and hard-back, as well as the Kindle and the Nook.

Restored The Chase Included in Preservation Festival

The UCLA Film and Television Archive presents their annual Festival of Preservation this March, and on the schedule will be The Chase (1947), one of a handful of movies Peter Lorre made after leaving behind his lucrative years at Warner Bros.

The Chase will be shown on Sunday, March 10, 2013, on a double bill with High Tide, another noir movie from 1947. The program begins at 7 pm.

More information on the Festival, as well as a complete schedule, may be found on the UCLA Film and Television Archive website. The Festival of Preservation includes documentaries and television programs, as well as silent and sound movies. Silent movies will be accompanied by live music.

Tickets for The Chase / High Tide double feature are $9 general admission and $8 for non-UCLA students, seniors, and UCLA Alumni Association members. ID is required for students and Alumni Association members. Current UCLA students with ID are eligible for one free ticket to any Archive show.

General admission tickets may also be purchased on-line through the Festival website for $10 each. Tickets may be called for at the Billy Wilder Theater box office, which opens one hour before the first show.

The Festival will be held in the Billy Wilder Theater located at the Courtyard Level of the Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd, at the intersection of Wilshire and Westwood boulevards in the Westwood Village area of Los Angeles, CA. For more information, please call (310) 206-8013.

Parking is available in the lot under the Billy Wilder Theater. Enter the lot from Westwood Blvd., just north of Wilshire. Parking for the disabled is provided on levels P1 and P3. On Saturdays and Sundays, the fee is a flat rate of $3. More information about parking may be found on the Festival webpage.

The Hammer Museum is also easily reached by public transportation.

Restoration of The Chase was completed by UCLA Film and Television Archive preservationist Nancy Mysel, who passed away in 2012. The print was preserved from various incomplete 35mm nitrate prints and 16mm acetate picture and track negatives.

Billy Wilder, the Hungarian writer and director for whom the venue is named, was 19 when he knew the equally young Peter Lorre in Berlin, where each began his career in theater and film. For Stephen Youngkin’s book The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre (2005), Wilder reminisced about Peter Lorre, their escape from Germany to Paris after the rise of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, and their journey to America and the film studios of Hollywood.

The popular internet story about Peter and Billy sharing rooms in Hollywood? Just a story with no basis in fact. Peter traveled to California with his wife Celia Lovsky, whom he married in London during a break in filming The Man Who Knew Too Much. The contract Peter held with Columbia Studios enabled the couple to rent a house in Santa Monica soon after their arrival in Los Angeles.