Movies @ Excelsior, Monday, April 7, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for April is The Lost Weekend (1945, 101 mins) starring Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, and Phillip Terry; directed by Billy Wilder.

A would-be writer's dissatisfaction with his life leads him on a three day bender, giving an uncompromising look at the devastating effects of alcoholism.

The Lost Weekend won in the categories Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the 1946 Academy Awards. The movie is based on an autobiographical book of the same name by Charles Jackson.

Movies @ Excelsior, Monday, March 3, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for March is The Defiant Ones (1958, 96 mins) with Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier, Theodore Bikel, Charles McGraw; directed by Stanley Kramer.

Two convicts, shackled together, escape a chain gang and flee an armed posse.

The film won Oscars for best writing, story and screenplay in 1959. Both Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier were nominated for best actor but lost out to David Niven.
According to imdb.com, Elvis Presley wanted the role of Joker Jackson, hoping to co-star with Sammy Davis Jr. but was persuaded by his manager not to do the film.

Movies at Excelsior, Wednesday, February 5, 6:30-8:30 pm

The movie for February is Marty (1955, 90 mins) with Ernest Borgnine, Betsy Blair, Esther Minciotti and Augusta Ciolli; directed by Delbert Mann.

A 34-year-old Bronx butcher fears that he will never find love but at a Saturday night dance he meets a lonely schoolteacher with similar fears.

According to imdb.com Marty was the shortest movie to ever win the Oscar for Best Picture (it also won 3 other Oscars) and the first American movie to win a Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, January 6, 6:30-8:30pm

We start off the year with Singin' in the Rain (1952, 103 mins) with Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds; directed by Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly.

This musical comedy satirizes the early days of talking motion pictures. The famous dancing in the rain scene took all day to set up but was filmed in only on take.

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, December 2, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for December is 42nd Street (1933, 90 mins) with Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Guy Kibbee, Una Merkel, Ginger Rodgers, Ned Sparks, Dick Powell; directed by Lloyd Bacon.

An ailing Broadway musical producer produces a new show. When a flinty leading lady twists her ankle on opening night, one spunky chorus girl tries to take over her place.

This movie is credited with single-handedly rescuing the movie musical and was so financially successful that it saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy.

First Monday Movie @ Excelsior, November 4, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for November is Flying Down to Rio (1933, 89 mins) with Fred Astair, Ginger Rogers, Dolores Del Rio, Gene Raymond, Paul Roulien, directed by Thornton Freeland.

This film, containing the first of many Fred Astair - Ginger Rogers partnerships, concerns a troupe of entertainers stranded in Rio. The role of Honey Hale was to be played by Dorothy Jordan, but she dropped out to marry the film's producer, Merian C. Cooper; the role was then given to Ginger Rogers.

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, October 7, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for October is Animal Crackers (1930, 97 mins) with the Marx Brothers, directed by Victor Heerman.

In typical Marx Brothers fashion, mayhem and zaniness ensue when a valuable work of art goes missing during a welcome-home party for a famous African explorer.

The movie's line "One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas, I don't know." was voted as the #53 movie quote by the American Film Institute
(out of 100). 

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, September 9, 6:30-8:30pm (2nd Monday due to Labor Day holiday)

The movie for September is Night Flight (1933, 85 mins) with Hellen Hayes, John Barrymore, Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore; directed by Clarence Brown.

As a worried mother comforts her desparately ill son in Rio de Janeiro, the child's physician, Dr. Decosta, assures her that, thanks to the new night flying schedule of the Trans-Andean European Air Mail, which is being inaugurated that evening, they will receive a life-saving serum the next day.

It is based on the 1931 novel of the same name by French writer and pioneering-aviator Antoine de Saint Exupéry, author the The Little Prince, and based on his personal experiences while flying on South American mail routes.

A Place at the Table - Film Screening and Discussion, Saturday, August 10, 12:30pm

Please join us for a film screening and post-film discussion with staff from the SF Food Bank. 50 million people in the U.S. - one in four children - don't know where their next meal is coming from despite our having the means to provide nutritious, affordable food for all Americans.

Following three people who are struggling with food insecurity, A Place at the Table shows us how hunger poses serious economic, social and cultural implications for our nation, and that it could be solved once and for all, if the American public decides - as they have in the past - that making healthy food available and affordable is in the best interest of us all.

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, August 5, 6:30-8:30pm

Our movie for August is Monkey Business (1931, 77 mins) with the Marx Brothers, directed by Norman McLeod.

Be prepared for a barrel of laughs as four comically-inept brothers stowaway on a cruise ship and are hired as bodyguards for rival sets of gangsters

This was the first Marx Brothers movie to be produced in Hollywood and the first one to be written exclusively for the screen.

SF Library Film Festival @ Excelsior Branch, Wednesday, July 10, 6:30-8pm

Once again Excelsior Branch is participating in our system-wide SF Library Film Festival. The movie we will be showing on Wednesday, July 10, is The Lady from Shanghai (1947, 88 mins) with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth.

Michael O’Hara (Orson Welles), an Irish seaman falls for Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth), a seductive bombshell married to wealthy lawyer Arthur Bannister (Everett Sloane), Elsa and Arthur frame Michael for a murder Elsa committed. Orson Welles wrote, produced, directed, and starred in this film noir thriller with a bizarre twist. Welles’ final scene is a brilliantly photographed shoot-out in a hall of mirrors.

Click here for a complete list of SF Library Film Festival movie times and locations.

Michael O’Hara (Orson Welles), an Irish seaman falls for Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth), a seductive bombshell married to wealthy lawyer Aurthur Bannister (Everett Sloane), Elsa and Aurthur frame Michael for a murder Elsa committed. Orson Welles wrote, produced, directed, and starred in this film noir thriller with a bizarre twist. Welles’ final scene is a brilliantly photographed shoot-out in a hall of mirrors. - See more at: http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1013937801#sthash.mDvDJ4BD.dpuf

Michael O’Hara (Orson Welles), an Irish seaman falls for Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth), a seductive bombshell married to wealthy lawyer Aurthur Bannister (Everett Sloane), Elsa and Aurthur frame Michael for a murder Elsa committed. Orson Welles wrote, produced, directed, and starred in this film noir thriller with a bizarre twist. Welles’ final scene is a brilliantly photographed shoot-out in a hall of mirrors. - See more at: http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1013937801#sthash.mDvDJ4BD.dpuf

Michael O’Hara (Orson Welles), an Irish seaman falls for Elsa Bannister (Rita Hayworth), a seductive bombshell married to wealthy lawyer Aurthur Bannister (Everett Sloane), Elsa and Aurthur frame Michael for a murder Elsa committed. Orson Welles wrote, produced, directed, and starred in this film noir thriller with a bizarre twist. Welles’ final scene is a brilliantly photographed shoot-out in a hall of mirrors. - See more at: http://sfpl.org/index.php?pg=1013937801#sthash.mDvDJ4BD.dpuf

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, July 1, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for July is The Divorcee (1930, 82 mins) with Norma Shearer, Chester Morris Conrad Nagel, Robert Montgomery; directed by Robert Z. Leonard

When a woman discovers that her husband has been unfaithful to her, she decides to respond to his infidelities in kind.

Norma Shearer won an Academy Award for Actress in a Leading Role in 1930. The movie was also nominated for the academy award for best director (Robert Z. Leonard), 1930. Purportedly Norma Shearer landing the lead role did not sit well with Joan Crawford

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, June 3, 6:30-8:30pm

Our movie for June is A Night at the Opera (935, 91 mins) with the Marx Brothers, Kitty Carlisle, and Allan Jones; directed by Sam Wood.

A sly business manager and two wacky friends of two opera singers help them achieve success while humiliating their stuffy and snobby friends.

The movie was selected for preseration in the National Film Registry in 1993 and in 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it

as the #85 Greatest American Movie of All Time. Groucho Marx said that this was his favorite among his movies.

First Monday Movie @ Excelsior, May 6, 6:30-8:30 pm

The movie for May is Trouble in Paradise (1932, 82 mins) with Miriam Hopkins, Kay Francis, Herbert Marshall, Charlie Ruggles, Edward Everett Horton; directed by Ernst Lubitsch

A debonair con artist falls for an equally duplicious pickpocket,and the happy couple set their sights on a rich heiress.

The movie, which was one of Ernst Lubitsch's favorites, was not approved for re-issue in 1935 when the Production Code was being enforced. In 1991 Trouble in Paradise was selected to the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress.

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, April 1, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for April is Night Nurse (1931, 72 mins) with Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Blondell, Clark Gable, Ben Lyon and Vera Lewis; directed by William A. Wellman

Barbara Stanwyck plays a night nurse who enlists the help of a petty criminal (Ben Lyon) to foil a sinister plot to murder two children.

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, March 4, 6:30-8:30pm

Cocoanuts (1929, 96 mins) is our March movie is the first of four Marx Brother's movies in this year's lineup. It stars Zeppo, Groucho, Harpo and Chico Marx as well as Oscar Shaw and Mary Eaton and was directed by Joeph Santley and Robert Florey.

During the Florida land boom, the Marx brothers run a hotel, auction off some land, thwart a jewel robbery, and generally act like themselves.

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior, February 4, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for February is Love Me Tonight (1932, 89 mins) with Maurice Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald; directed by Rouben Manoulian.

In this musical a Parisian tailor begins a whirlwind romance with a princess after pretending to be a member of the nobility himself.

Love Me Tonight was elected to the National Film Preservation Board's National Film Registry in 1990.

First Monday Movie at Excelsior, January 7, 6:30-8:30pm

First Monday Movies @ Excelsior continues in the new year! We have selected 12 classic movies from the last 1920s and 1930s including musicals, Marx Brothers favorites and film noir for the 2013 lineup.

Join us on January 7 for The Broadway Melody with Charles King, Anita Page, and Bessie Love; directed by Harry Beaumont (1929, 100 mins)! It was the first musical to win a Best Picture Oscar and stars Anita Page and Bessie Love as two sisters in love with the same man.

First Monday Movie at Excelsior, December 3, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for December is The Thin Man (1934, 91 mins) with William Powell and Myrna Loy; directed by W.S. Van Dyke

Nick and Nora Charles, a charming, sophisticated couple, go to New York to enjoy the Christmas holidays and find themselves investigating a murder.

The movie is based on a story by Dashiell Hammett and was filmed in just 12 days for the paltry budget of $231,000. The film became a major box office hit, raking in $1.4 million and getting nominations for both Best Actor and Best Director in the 1934 Academy Awards.

Stay tuned for the 2013 selections of First Monday Movies at Excelsior!

First Monday Movie at Excelsior, November 5, 6:30-8:30pm

The movie for November is The Great Lie (1941, 107 mins) with Bette Davis, George Brent and Mary Astor; directed by Edmund Goulding.

Two women love the same man, but the child of one is loved and raise by the other in this twist on the love triangle theme.

Mary Astor won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her role as concert pianist Sandra Kovak.