The Beatles will return to the El Paso Community Foundation’s Plaza Classic Film Festival — by popular demand.
Their 1965 comedy “Help!” will be part of this year’s PCFF lineup. It stars John, Paul, George and Ringo in a caper that spoofed the popular James Bonds movies and their imitators. It will be shown by special arrangement with the Beatles’ company, Apple Corps. It is one of the Plaza Classic’s most requested movies this year, following last year’s showing of a 50th anniversary restoration of “A Hard Day’s Night.”
The Plaza Classic Film Festival returns for its eighth year Aug. 6-16 in and around the Plaza Theatre.
Also announced:
• “Yankee Doodle Dandy” — The 1942 musical starring James Cagney as singer, songwriter, playwright and producer George M. Cohan, who wrote the title song, among other standards.
• “The Mark of Zorro” — Douglas Fairbanks stars in the 1920 silent classic about the so-called Mexican Robin Hood. PCFF regular Walt Strony will accompany on the Plaza Theatre’s Wyler Mighty Wurlitzer organ.
• “Hondo” — Western icon John Wayne headlines the 1953 classic, shot on location in Chihuahua, one of the first movies made by Wayne’s Batjac Productions. It will be shown by special arrangement with Batjac.
• “Y Tu Mama Tambien” — Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron’s controversial 2001 road/coming-of-age story, which helped launch the careers of Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal.
• “Stop Making Sense” — Jonathan Demme’s absorbing concert documentary of new wave auteurs the Talking Heads’ 1983 American tour.
They join the previously announced “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “The King and I,” “Shall We Dance,” “The Bicycle Thief,” “Ladies & Gentlemen, the Rolling Stones” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
Tickets go on sale in early July. Festival passes are $200 and include admission to all ticketed events, an express lane and more. Film Club passes, for teenagers 14 to 18, are $100. They are available at 915-533-4020 and plazaclassic.com.
