Charlie Chaplin’s silent comic masterwork, The Gold Rush, is the next film up in our Art House for Families series!

Set during the Klondike Gold Rush, the film follows Chaplin’s iconic Little Tramp as he searches for fortune in a frozen wilderness filled with comic catastrophe. Along the way come some of the most legendary moments in film history, from the famous “dance of the rolls” to a cabin teetering dangerously over the edge of a cliff.

Shot partly on location in the Sierra Nevadas and featuring such timeless gags as the dance of the dinner rolls and the meal of boiled shoe leather, The Gold Rush is an indelible work of heartwarming hilarity. Our friends at Janus Films have granted us the rights to Chaplin’s definitive 1942 version, for which the director added new music and narration.

Our Art House for Families series celebrates the magic of moviegoing across generations all summer long. From silent comedy and international classics to science fiction and fantasy adventures, the series invites longtime cinephiles and first-time art house audiences of all ages to discover some of cinema’s most enduring films together on the big screen. This event is sponsored in part by the City of Santa Ana. 

Our Classic Movie Nights series is headed out West as we present the trailblazing Gary Cooper film High Noon!

Will Kane, the sheriff of a small town in New Mexico, learns a notorious outlaw he put in jail has been freed, and will be arriving on the noon train. Knowing the outlaw and his gang are coming to kill him, Kane is determined to stand his ground, so he attempts to gather a posse from among the local townspeople.

High Noon holds a massive legacy as an Oscar-winning revisionist Western that redefined the genre by emphasizing tension over shoot-em-up tropes. It is famously interpreted as an allegory for McCarthy-era blacklisting, symbolizing moral courage against cowardice. The film also introduced the now-iconic cinematic trope of a real-time, high-noon showdown, which has been oft-imitated but never replicated.