Chelsea Classics

May 20 – August 23, 2023

The Chelsea Theater is pleased to announce Chelsea Classics, a new repertory series of essential arthouse films. The initial 28-film selection includes vital American independents, underseen Hollywood classics, international favorites, and even a couple of brand-new restorations that will remain unavailable on home video or streaming. Only at the Chelsea Theater, all summer long!

Programmed by Jason Sudak, with assistance from Meghan Bowman/Balcony Booking

SWEATY CINEMA

Body Heat

(Lawrence Kasdan, 1981, 113 min)
Sat July 29, 4:00 pm
Tue Aug 1, 7:00 pm

White-clad Kathleen Turner inveigles sweatily lustful lawyer William Hurt into a definitely R-rated reworking of Double Indemnity.

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS: THE FILMS OF DOUGLAS SIRK

All I Desire

(Douglas Sirk, 1953, 79 min)
Sat Aug 5, 4:00 pm
Tue Aug 8, 7:00 pm

A failed actress and mother of three (Barbara Stanwyck) returns to the husband (Richard Carlson) and family she deserted years before in this superior 1953 drama by Douglas Sirk, a very personal reworking of a standard soap-opera plot.

All That Heaven Allows

(Douglas Sirk, 1955, 89 min)
Sun Aug 6, 4:00 pm
Wed Aug 9, 7:00 pm

The story (which Rainer Werner Fassbinder remade as Ali: Fear Eats the Soul) concerns a romance between a middle-aged, middle-class widow (Jane Wyman) and a brawny young gardener (Rock Hudson)—the stuff of a standard weepie, you might think, until Sirk’s camera begins to draw a deeply disturbing, deeply compassionate portrait of a woman trapped by stifling moral and social codes.

There’s Always Tomorrow

(Douglas Sirk, 1955, 85 min)
Sat Aug 12, 4:00 pm
Tue Aug 15, 7:00 pm

There’s Always Tomorrow  is a virtuoso study in tones, ranging from the blinding sunlight of a desert resort to the expressionist shadows of the suburban home where Fred MacMurray lives in unhappy union with Joan Bennett. Barbara Stanwyck is the old flame who turns up by accident, rekindling for MacMurray the dangerous illusion that happiness is still possible.

Written on the Wind

(Douglas Sirk, 1956, 99 min)
Sun Aug 13, 4:00 pm
Wed Aug 16, 7:00 pm

One of the most remarkable and unaccountable films ever made in Hollywood, Douglas Sirk’s 1957 masterpiece turns a lurid, melodramatic script into a screaming Brechtian essay on the shared impotence of American family and business life. With Dorothy Malone (in the performance of her career), Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Rock Hudson.

The Tarnished Angels

(Douglas Sirk, 1958, 91 min)
Sat Aug 19, 4:00 pm
Tue Aug 22, 7:00 pm

Rock Hudson turns in an astonishingly good performance as a journalist fascinated by the sordid lives of a trio of professional stunt fliers (Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, and Jack Carson).

Imitation of Life

 (Douglas Sirk, 1959, 125 min)

Sun Aug 20, 4:00 pm
Wed Aug 23, 7:00 pm

 Lana Turner stars as a young widow and mother who will do anything to realize her dreams of Broadway stardom; her story is intertwined with that of Susan Kohner, the light-skinned daughter of Turner’s black maid, who is tempted to pass for white.