Classic film screenings at the Magnolia in August

by John P. Meyer

Once again during the month of August, the Magnolia will host free showings of classic films projected digitally onto their big screen, courtesy of Turner Classic Movies (which will be telecasting the shows to the small screens of less fortunate mortals simultaneously with their screenings at the theater).

On Wed., Aug. 6 at 9 p.m. you can hear a young and goofy-looking Dustin Hoffman receive the advice that he go into plastics as a career path. That's right, it's The Graduate, and Anne Bancroft's legs have never looked so good.

On Thurs., Aug. 14 at 5 p.m., say goodbye to Peter O'Toole - who reprised the role of aging boys school teacher Arthur Chipping - and concentrate instead on Robert Donat, who played Charles Chipping in the original 1939 production of Goodbye, Mr. Chips. (No idea why they changed Chips' first name from one production to the next... or why they thought Petula Clark could fill the shoes and etc. of Greer Garson, who played Chips' love interest Katherine in this movie.)

Get ready for some vintage hard-boiled Edward G. (Robinson, that is) when Little Caesar comes to uptown on Wed., Aug. 20 at 7 p.m. and tells the cops, "You want me, you're going to have to come and get me!" (By picking up a free ticket from the Magnolia box office on the day of the show.)

Saving the best for last: on Tues., Aug. 26 at 7 p.m., one of Orson Welles least-seen and most under-appreciated movies - Touch of Evil - finds Charlton Heston portraying a dark-skinned, moustachioed Mexican narc (with Janet Leigh as his somewhat abashed and blushing bride) pitted against Mr. Welles himself as a cigar-chomping, porcine, on-the-take border town police chief with the lowest morals this side of the The Mariana Trench. File under "not afraid to portray himself in the worst possible light."