Margaret Pomeranz will front the first Hollywood Retro Film Festival, which will screen 22 Hollywood classic across the country from November 26.
The classic films, many rarely seen on the big screen will be presented in digital format and will screen from November 26 to December 13 at premium cinemas in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Canberra.
Pomeranz, who is patron and co-curator, said she was excited to announce the first Hollywood Retro Film Festival.
"Many of these films haven’t been seen in a cinema in decades and will look terrific in HD digital”, she said.
“There’s no substitute for seeing these wonderful films on the big screen with an audience.
"I’m delighted people will have the opportunity to enjoy these classic films in this first season celebration of Hollywood classics from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Some highlights include digitally remastered icons Gone with the Wind, Casablanca and Citizen Kane.
There will also be Australian premiere Screenings of digitally remastered Sunset Boulevard, the 1950 Billy Wilder classic starring William Holden and Gloria Swanson and On the Waterfront, the 1954 American crime drama film directed by Elia Kazan starring Marlon Brando.
Stanley Kubrick's digitally remastered historical epic Spartacus will also be shown along with The Ghost & Mrs Muir and The Razor’s Edge.
Many of the films will have special pre-show trailers with reflections from Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and critic Leonard Maltin.
The festival also includes Frank Capra's classic romantic comedy It Happened One Night and It’s a Wonderful Life as well as John Ford’s Oscar-winning adaptation of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and five Oscar-winning How Green Was My Valley (1941) starring Walter Pidgeon and the late Maureen O’Hara.
Margaret Pomeranz curated the first Hollywood Retro Film Festival with Paul Dravet, who runs Mike Walsh’s Cremorne Orpheum Cinema in Sydney.
Dravet recently worked with David Stratton on the inaugural Great Britain Retro Film Festival which ran over two weeks in August.
Dravet said Australian audiences had a great appetite for quality retro cinema.
"There is a lot of time and expertise being invested in painstaking digital restorations. We have a solid circuit of quality cinemas around Australia screening this festival," he said.
"To borrow from one of the festival films, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Margaret Pomeranz will present the first Hollywood Retro Film Festival in Sydney at the Hayden Orpheum Cremorne; in Melbourne at Cinema Nova; in Adelaide at Cinema Nova; in Perth at the Windsor Theatre and in Canberra at Dendy Cinemas.
Full list of films in the festival:
12 Angry Men (1957) * All about Eve (1950) * Camille (1936) * Casablanca (1942) * Citizen Kane (1941) * Gone with the Wind (1939) * How Green Was My Valley (1941) * It Happened One Night (1934) * It's A Wonderful Life (1946) * Jane Eyre (1944) * On the Waterfront (1954) * Sabrina (1954) * Singin' in the Rain (1952) * Spartacus (1960) * Sunset Boulevard (1950) * The Apartment (1960) * The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) * The Ghost and Mrs Muir (1947) * The Grapes of Wrath (1940) * The Maltese Falcon (1941) * The Razor's Edge (1946) * The Searchers (1956)