Pantheon filmmaker John Ford made over fifty films at 20^th Century Fox, starting there circa 1920 in the Silent Era when it was still simply known as Fox Studios. From Will Rogers, Harry Carey and Shirley Temple to Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara, Ford worked with some of the best Hollywood had to offer in his Fox films (although curiously enough, probably due to contractual bonds, John Wayne was never amongst them). Fox head honcho Darryl F. Zanuck was a trailblazing, adventuresome producer and proved a fruitful collaborator. Although Ford personally pitched the silent masterpiece THE IRON HORSE to original studio founder William Fox, Ford and newcomer tyro Zanuck set off sparks that ignited a wealth of creativity, amongst them Ford’s first color film (DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK), moving and insightful historical pieces (YOUNG MR. LINCOLN and PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND), the touchstone western masterwork MY DARLING CLEMENTINE and Oscar winners HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY and THE GRAPES OF WRATH. Some of the most productive film preservationists still active in the studio system, Fox’s Schawn Belston and his crew have been seriously busy the last several years, burnishing and polishing these cinematic jewels, breathing renewed life into a cinematic legacy that deserves to be seen on the big screen. We’ll be showing some new 35mm prints as well as the rare, pre-release version of CLEMENTINE, so join us for this brief look at a few of the most popular and beloved of Ford’s best. "…Ford was no company man. He reserved his greatest scorn for producers and usually found ways to keep them off his sets. Despite that reputation, he worked well in the studio system. When he encountered a producer with brains, such as Darryl F. Zanuck he often took advice, and the movies the two made together are among Ford's best." – Malcolm Jones, Newsweek

Thursday, February 7 – 7:30 PM

An Egyptian Theatre 85^th Anniversary Screening: Restored Version:

THE IRON HORSE, 1924, 20th Century Fox, 133 min. Director John Ford, already no stranger to silent film westerns, helms his biggest to date. The picture made George O’Brien, a former stuntman, into a silent movie idol, and he went on to become a Ford stock player (with prominent supporting roles in such films as FORT APACHE). Perfectly cast as Davey Brandon, a surveyor who dreams of constructing a transcontinental railroad, O’Brien joins a gigantic cast of both real (Abraham Lincoln, Buffalo Bill) and fictional characters, all co-mingling in this epic saga of western expansion. Fox Studios commenced the production more than willingly, hoping to out-gun Paramount’s huge western box-office hit, THE COVERED WAGON from the previous year. And like that sprawling frontier behemoth, THE IRON HORSE took on a life of its own, mushrooming into the biggest film the studio had yet produced. Ford and his crew traveled all over, shooting on authentic locations in Mexico, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. "John Ford's first American epic is not a birth of a nation, but its physical and symbolic unification in the wake of the Civil War. It is, in many ways, the birth of Ford's essential themes: the meeting of cultures (the Irish, the Italian, and in a rather token way, the Chinese laborers of the West Coast), the sprouting of civilization (at least as defined by the American settlers) in the wilderness, and the building of a community in a shared purpose." – Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies Presented on our new d-cinema projector system, courtesy of DMX, Inc. Introduction by historian/author Robert Birchard who did the commentary for THE IRON HORSE DVD and music score composer, Christopher Caliendo

Friday, February 8 – 7:30 PM

New 35mm Print! YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, 1939, 20th Century Fox, 100 min. Director John Ford and actor Henry Fonda’s first collaboration produced this poignant, fascinating chronicle of Abraham Lincoln’s early life. The emphasis is on the simple joys and hardships that shaped the president-to-be’s youthful years, events that molded a shy, country lawyer into one of the most distinguished of American leaders. We follow Lincoln as he clerks in a general store, studies law from second-hand books and endures heartbreak as his first love, Ann Rutledge (Pauline Moore), dies a tragic, premature death. Ford culminates his story as savvy Lincoln skillfully defends two brothers (Richard Cromwell, Eddie Quillan) wrongfully accused of murder. Marjorie Weaver plays future first lady, Mary Todd. With Alice Brady, Donald Meek and Ward Bond. "…one of John Ford's most perfectly realized works, an effortless jelling of his bawdy sense of humor, his patriotism, his mythical sense of history and his gorgeous, cinematic poetry…this Lincoln helped bring humanity to a wild, unruly nation, and Ford has done him justice in this beautiful, funny, entertaining film." – Jeffrey M. Anderson, CombustibleCelluoid.com

New 35mm Print! PRISONER OF SHARK ISLAND, 1936, 20th Century Fox, 96 min. On the dark and stormy night of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Dr. Samuel Mudd (Warner Baxter) set the broken leg of a man passing through his rural Maryland neighborhood. Unbeknownst to Mudd, his patient was the assassin, John Wilkes Booth. After Booth’s capture, innocent Dr. Mudd was tried and convicted with seven others as co-conspirators. Three went to the gallows, and the other five – Mudd amongst them – was sentenced to life in the infamous Shark Island prison colony in the Gulf of Mexico. Gloria Stuart (TITANIC) is Mudd’s longsuffering, courageous wife who goes to great lengths to reverse the trend of negative public opinion. John Carradine assays perhaps his most unforgettable early role as Mudd’s cruel jailer, and Harry Carey is the warden who finds he must put his trust in Mudd. One of John Ford’s least-known films is also one of his finest. The director elicits an excellent performance from the underrated Baxter, putting him through his paces – Mudd’s attempted escape in shark-infested waters and his ministering to abused prisoners and cruel guards alike during a yellow fever epidemic are especially memorable. "Warner Baxter as Dr Samuel A. Mudd, 'America's Jean Valjean' of the post-Civil War hysteria, turns in a capital performance as the titular prisoner of 'America's Devil's Island'." -- Variety

Saturday, February 9 – 7:30 PM

Double Feature:

THE GRAPES OF WRATH, 1940, 20th Century Fox, 128 min. Tom Joad (Henry Fonda) returns from prison to find his family evicted from their dust-blown, Midwestern farm and packing to head for the deceptively golden promise of California prosperity. Director John Ford brings John Steinbeck’s classic novel about Depression-era poverty and the resultant migration and labor unrest to vivid life. With an incredible supporting cast that includes Jane Darwell, John Carradine, Charley Grapewin. Nominated for seven Oscars and winner of two (Ford got Best Director and Best Supporting Actress went to Darwell). "…shows half a nation with the economic rug pulled out from under it…To those…who had gone hungry or been homeless, it would never become dated. And its sense of injustice, I believe, is still relevant. The banks and land agents of the 1930s have been replaced by financial pyramids…" – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

New 35mm Print! TOBACCO ROAD, 1941, 20th Century Fox, 84 min. John Ford’s rarely-screened adaptation of the Erskine Caldwell novel and subsequent Broadway play by Jack Kirkland follows the family adventures of Jeeter Lester (Charley Grapewin), a poor farmer who is about to lose his land. The bawdy, sometimes tragic nature of the novel has been toned down, but Ford manages to faithfully capture the rural milieu of life in the Southern boondocks. In some ways the flipside of THE GRAPES OF WRATH, Ford takes a more humorous look at the travails of fate – once prosperous, Lester’s ancestors had fallen on hard times, a circumstance owing as much to his relatives’ foolhardiness as the fallowness of the land. Co-starring Dana Andrews and a very young, gorgeous Gene Tierney (three years before the pair would team up in Otto Preminger’s LAURA).

Sunday, February 10 – 7:30 PM

Restored Version: DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, 1939, 20th Century Fox, 103 min. Director John Ford’s first film in color focuses on a newly married pioneer couple (Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert) as they struggle to hold onto their farm in the Mohawk Valley during the Revolutionary War. Beset by Indian raids and British and Tory pillagers, the settlers and their compatriots weather a bitter struggle to survive against daunting, sometimes overwhelming odds. With John Carradine, Edna May Oliver, Ward Bond. "…a first-rate historical film, as rich atmospherically as it is in action…a fascinating picture of the days when a young couple could set out from Albany in a covered wagon…and cross the wilderness…when a settlement preacher might exhort God and pass the local gossip along in the same prayer…when painted Indians swept down the Mohawk Valley over trails that now are concrete highways and burned farms that since have become Cozy Cookee Shoppes." – Frank S. Nugent, The New York Times

Thursday, February 14 – 7:30 PM

Special Valentine’s Day Screening: