Currently On Sale On Sale: 2008 Archive MET Live: Salome Avant-Garde Oshima YFF: Sonetaula MET Live: Gala FCS: The Other Gr. Scr.: Scarred Lands Latinbeat 08 Charlton Heston FCS: Captain Ahab Robert Gavaldón Never Apologize Revolutionary Romantic YFF: L.I.E. IN: Judge & General FCS: The Deal Kawakita Gr. Scr.: Fields of Fuel Dominique Delouche SE: Four Hands GS: The Cat and... YFF: American Teen Slovenian Cinema SE: Magic Lantern William Holden SE: Jazz on a... Satoshi Kon IN: Critical Condition HRW Collection Human Rights Watch Gr. Scr.: Biùtiful... New Italian Cinema YFF: Judy Berlin Israel @ 60 Charles Boyer Program Overview Le Bonheur Cluny Brown Conquest The Earrings of.... The First Legion Gaslight History Is Made... Hold Back the Dawn Love Affair A Woman’s Vengeance Gr. Scr.: Nausicaä Jennifer Jones SE: Robert Frank SE: Jerry Schatzberg SE: Joachim Trier 1968: Intl. Perspective Romanian Cinema Met: La Fille du Régiment SE: Ned Rorem GS: The Kid Brother YFF: Le Boucher Gr. Scr.: Mountaintop... IN: Phyllis and Harold NYAFF 2008 SE: Dreams... SE: On the Street Met: La Bohème ND/NF Classics 2008 Gr. Scr.: Garbage... Met: Tristan und Isolde Thorold Dickinson Met: Peter Grimes Infernal Machines Rendez-Vous 2008 Green Screens: Flow:... Met: Manon Lescaut YFF: Harold and Maude Film Comment Selects IN: From the Ground Up SE: Two Laws GS: Chang: A Story... Envisioning Russia YFF: The Ice Storm NYJFF 2008 Celebrate Alex Corti NYJFF JM Screens Met: Macbeth SE: City of Men DOC 2008 Met: Hänsel and Gretel On Sale: 2007 Archive On Sale: 2006 Archive On Sale: 2005 Archive Archive 2005 - To April Archive 2004 - WRT Archive 2003 - WRT Archive 2002 - WRT Archive 2001 - WRT Archive 2000 - WRT Archive 1999 - WRT Archive 1998 - WRT Archive 1997 - WRT Archive 1996 - WRT

Charles Boyer and the Art of Seduction May 23 – 27, 2008 Charles Boyer on the Fishko Files on WNYC Few actors can boast an international career as enduring as that of Charles Boyer. Like his British counterpart James Mason, the Gallic star possessed an extraordinary voice, a purring caress that could also dismiss with chilling hauteur. Boyer’s looks were less spectacular than Mason’s: his downcast glance, the amused curl to his lip, the thinning hair and his signature throbbing temple which augured small storms were not the attributes of a successful leading man. Yet that is exactly what he was for several generations, before becoming an in-demand character actor. He attracted most of Hollywood’s top female stars—Garbo, Dietrich, Dunne, de Havilland, Bergman and even the fledgling Jennifer Jones, whose May-December romance with Boyer is the crux of Lubitsch’s Cluny Brown. When cast as gallant, suave, ironic lovers with a dark side, his performances were sometimes filled with a streak of malevolence. With Jean Arthur in History Is Made at Night, he showed his most romantic, fatalistic side. With Bergman and de Havilland he was the quintessential heatless seducer, showing signs of remorse only when it was too late. But in romantic comedies like the matchless Love Affair co-starring Irene Dunne, he was tender and playful, finding a sympathetic partnership that brought out all his contradictory qualities. Like many European artists, he found life in America congenial. He remained a proud Frenchman, founding the French Research Foundation in Los Angeles, which promoted French history and culture, an interest that earned him an honorary award from the Academy in 1943. For over 40 years, this homebody was married to British actress Pat Paterson. After her death in 1978, he took his own life. Like many of his protagonists he was a man of mystery and melancholy. As Dunne said of him, “Charles had genuine warmth, like a fire that starts slowly. He was the kind of log that was difficult to ignite but then would burn so beautifully.” The warmth that he could project as well as the diamond-hard cruelty and above all his consummate skill as an actor make him a legendary star to admire even now, 30 years after his death. For a listing of the films in the series go to Program Overview. Click on Calendar to view the schedule, film descriptions and to purchase tickets online. Grateful thanks to Ian Birnie, director of the Film Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which will present a Boyer program in July. The Jennifer Jones and Charles Boyer series were programmed by Joanna Ney. Back to Top