A Mary Poppins Sing-a-Long, a Mel Brooks double bill, the baseball-themed Field of Dreams (with the Atlanta Braves’ organist) and Gone With the Wind are among the highlights of the 2014 Coca-Cola Summer Film Festival, which features 14 movies and will commence June 19 at the Fox Theatre. Delta Air Lines is a co-sponsor.
Movie tours (limited to 20 people) will be available before most screenings, taking guests through the projection booth, screening room, celebrity dressing rooms and onstage. Tours are not recommended for age 7 or younger; age 2 and under are not permitted. The tour is not ADA accessible and includes lots of steps. Tours must be purchased with a movie ticket ($35 total; Mary Poppins $40).
Movie and tour tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. May 9 at the Fox ticket office, online HERE or at 1.855.285.8499. Most adult tickets are general admission and cost $8 through May 31. They go up to $10 from June 1 through the date of the movie. Day-of tickets are $12. Processing fees are extra.
Some exceptions: Gone With the Wind tickets are $10, $15 and $20, plus processing fees, and seating is reserved. Mary Poppins Sing-a-Long tickets are $15 ($20 day-of) plus processing fees. These seats also are reserved.
Some $5 parking will be available in nearby Lanier lots. Details on the Fox website.
Now, onto the featured event, the movie lineup (in chronological order):
JUNE
Field of Dreams. 7:30 p.m. June 19. Movie tours at 5 and 5:10 p.m. This 25th anniversary screening features pre-show music by Braves organist Matt Kaminski. The movie was chosen through a Fox Theatre Facebook fan vote. Fun fact: The movie was originally called “Shoeless” Joe, like the W.P. Kinsella novel on which it’s based, but test audiences thought that meant the main character was a bum or hobo.
King Kong. 2 p.m. June 22. Movie tours at 11:30 and 11:40 a.m. This is the original 1933 Fay Wray version of horror classic. Fun fact: King Kong’s roar is a lion’s roar and a tiger’s roar combined, run backward and at a slower speed.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 7:30 p.m. June 26. Movie tours at 5 and 5:10 p.m. The 1989 adventure, the third of the four Indiana Jones feature films, casts Sean Connery as Indiana Jones’ father and River Phoenix as the teenage Indiana. Fun fact: Watching Indiana wrestle with a Nazi, the soldier at the periscope tells his teammates, in German, “The Americans! They fight like girls!”
The Wizard of Oz. 2 p.m. June 29. Movie tours at 11:30 and 11:40 a.m. A 75th anniversary screening. The Wicked Witch will be even meaner and greener on the Fox’s gi-normous screen. Fun fact: The horses in the Emerald City palace were colored with Jell-O crystals. The scenes had to be shot quickly, before the horses licked the crystals off.
JULY
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. 7:30 p.m. July 24. Movie tours at 5 and 5:10 p.m. A 50th anniversary screening of Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 war comedy about an insane general who triggers a path to nuclear holocaust and the politicians and generals trying to stop it. With Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, James Earl Jones and Slim Pickens, as Major “King” Kong. Fun fact: Jones thought Pickens was staying in character off camera, until he was told that Pickens wasn’t putting on the character but talking as he always did.
Gone With the Wind. 2 p.m. July 27. A 75th anniversary screening. No tours. Fun fact: The horse that Thomas Mitchell (Gerald O’Hara) rode later played Silver in the “Lone Ranger” TV series. Bonus fact: Hattie McDaniel was unable to attend the premiere because of Atlanta’s racial segregation; a deeply angry Clark Gable threatened to boycott the event. He relented at her urging.
The Philadelphia Story. 7:30 p.m. July 31. Movie tours at 5 and 5:10 p.m. Cary Grant, Katharine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart define romantic comedy in this 1940 hit. The contrivance: A rich woman is about to marry for the second time when her suavely annoying ex-husband shows up and a tabloid reporter covering the social event catches her eye. Fun fact: In his autobiography, screenwriter Donald Odgen Stewart said that Philip Barry’s Broadway play (written for Hepburn) was so perfect that adapting it was the easiest Hollywood job he ever had.
AUGUST
Saturday Morning Cartoons. 10 a.m. Aug. 2. Kids young and old will laugh at the antics of Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck and Co.
Mamma Mia! 7:30 p.m. Aug. 2. Movie tours at 5 and 5:10 p.m. This screen musical requires Meryl Streep to strut her vocal abilities, but can she really sing? You decide, while you get your ABBA on. Fun fact: Pierce Brosnan signed on without knowing anything about the project except that it was filming in Greece and Streep was starring.
Young Frankenstein | Blazing Saddles. 2 p.m. Aug. 3. No movie tours. A 40th anniversary screening Young Frankenstein, a Mel Brooks classics. Blazing Saddles, by the way, will be his next musical, following the uber-successful The Producers and the not-so-fine Young Frankenstein. Fun fact: Brooks and Gene Wilder, who co-wrote the Frankenstein script, had a doozy of a fight during production. Brooks raged, and then stormed out of Wilder’s apartment. Roughly 10 minutes later, Wilder’s phone rang. It was Brooks, who said: “Who was that madman you had in your house? I could hear the yelling all the way over here. You should never let crazy people into your house. Don’t you know that? They could be dangerous.”
Double Indemnity. 7:30 p.m. Aug. 14. Movie tours at 5 and 5:10 p.m. A 70th anniversary screening of the Barbara Stanwyck-Fred MacMurray thriller about an insurance rep who lets himself be talked into a murder/insurance fraud scheme. Fun fact: In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked Double Indemnity as the 29th Greatest Movie of All Time.
Mary Poppins Sing-a-Long. 2 p.m. Aug. 17. Movie tours at 11:30 and 11:40 a.m. Let’s go fly a kite, jump through chalk drawings and dance among the chimney tops with the nanny who’s practically perfect in every way. What better way to celebrate the landmark film’s 50th anniversary? Winner of five Academy Awards. Fun fact: Many of the nannies in the large queue of applicants at the start of the film were actually men in drag.
The Women. 7:30 p.m. Aug. 21. Movie tours at 5 and 5:10 p.m. A 75th anniversary screening of the dramatic comedy about the lives and romantic entanglements of a group of upper-class New York women. Featuring Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell and many, many others. Fun fact: In addition to its all-female cast, every animal that appears was also female.
