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A Tribute to Mal Vincent – A Summer Festival of Classic Films (2026)
In Memoriam
A series of classic films in July & August hosted by friends of Mal Vincent on Monday evenings (Also Tuesday matinees without hosts)
As you know, Mal was irreplaceable, whether as the Virginian-Pilot’s film critic for more than half a century (his annual Oscar picks were always an event), as a guest on countless local radio broadcasts, or just as a friend sharing one of his latest Hollywood exploits over the phone. It was Mal’s wish that his yearly festival of classic films at the Naro would continue. So, we have assembled a group of local celebrities and cinephiles to step in as hosts for some of Mal’s favorite films from past festivals, some he had planned to share in the future, as well as other Hollywood classics. No one can fill his shoes, but we’ll do our best to do justice to his memory and to the movies he adored.
2026 Summer Classics Film Calendar, July 6th – August 25th
All films in the series, except for the final silent classic, show Monday evenings at 7:00 pm (when hosts start their introductions) and a Tuesday matinee at 1:00 pm. Guest hosts will only be present at the Monday night presentations. We’ve also added series finale screenings of classic Buster Keaton silent films with live musical accompaniment on August 30th and 31st. Day of show tickets at the box office go on sale about 45 mins before scheduled time, but online tickets are available for purchase now.
SEATING: All tickets are for general admission, specific seats are not reserved. Naro Ticket Book coupons are valid for all films.
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
Monday, July 6th at 7pm (hosted) & Tuesday, July 7th at 1pm
Defying her conventional in-laws, young widow Lucy Muir (Gene Tierney) leaves London with her young daughter and moves away for a quieter life in a secluded seaside cottage. Lucy discovers the ghost of the deceased former owner, sea captain Daniel Gregg (Rex Harrison), is haunting the house, but gathers the courage to stand up to him, and woman and ghost become friends. Faced with dwindling means of support, Lucy agrees to the Captain’s challenge to write his colorful life story. (1947, 1Hr 44Min)
MONDAY NIGHT PRESENTER: Danny Epperson is an Emmy award-winning producer, director, writer, editor, actor, and television host. His most recent hosting duties were with WHRO Public Media’s “Cinema 15” classic film series. At WHRO, Danny also produced “This Week in Mal’s World,” an award-winning podcast featuring legendary film critic, Mal Vincent. Danny also produced the daily talk radio program, “HearSay with Cathy Lewis” on WHRV-FM.
Goldfinger
Monday, July 13th at 7pm (hosted) & Tuesday, July 14th at 1pm
Special agent 007 (Sean Connery) comes face to face with one of the most notorious villains of all time, and now he must outwit and outgun the powerful tycoon to prevent him from cashing in on a devious scheme to raid Fort Knox — and obliterate the world’s economy. The third installment of the original Bond films featuring Connery, Goldfinger remains one of the most successful, influential movies in the entire franchise. An added bonus is the memorable and iconic theme song sung by Shirely Bassey, a #1 hit in 1965 that went on to receive an honorary Grammy in 2008. (1964, 1h 52m)
MONDAY NIGHT PRESENTER: Joe Flanagan started out as co-host of PM Magazine in 1980, but he is best remembered for his 31 years at WVEC-TV13 reporting, anchoring, and doing his ever popular Joe’s Job series.
The Pride of the Yankees
Monday, July 20th at 7pm (hosted) & Tuesday, July 21st at 1pm
This moving biographical drama follows the life of revered baseball player Lou Gehrig (Gary Cooper). Championed by sportswriter Sam Blake (Walter Brennan), Gehrig eventually gets recruited by the New York Yankees, joining a team of heavy hitters that includes the legendary Babe Ruth. When Gehrig marries his spirited sweetheart, Eleanor (Teresa Wright), things look up for him, but he is soon sidelined by a terrible illness that he bravely tries to battle. 1943, (2Hr 7Min)
MONDAY NIGHT PRESENTER: Joel Rubin had a long career in local news in Hampton Roads, starting at WNOR Radio in 1975, then at WAVY TV from 1976-1991 where he was principally a reporter, covering local and state government and hosted a popular feature beat called Joel Rubin’s Virginia. He shifted to public relations in 1991 and today continues as president of Rubin Communications Group, serving a diverse client list including Dominion Energy for whom he publishes a weekly e-newsletter called It’s WINDSday. From 1992-2008, Joel was on the air in a part time capacity as producer and host of On the Record, a weekly political and public affairs show on WVEC TV. At RCG, Joel, a Richmond native and 1975 graduate of the University of Virginia, works with his wife Sara Jo. They have two children and five grandchildren.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Monday, July 27th at 7pm (hosted) & Tuesday, July 28th at 1pm
When Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton), a free-thinking white woman, and black doctor John Prentice (Sidney Poitier) become engaged, they travel to San Francisco to meet her parents. Matt Drayton (Spencer Tracy) and his wife Christina (Katharine Hepburn) are wealthy liberals who must confront the latent racism the coming marriage arouses. Also attending the Draytons’ dinner are Prentice’s parents (Roy E. Glenn Sr., Beah Richards), who vehemently disapprove of the relationship. The film was one of the first of the time to depict an interracial marriage in a positive light, as such marriages historically had been illegal in many states of the United States. Six months before the film was released, interracial marriage was still illegal in 17 states, and filming ended shortly before anti-miscegenation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia on June 12, 1967. (1967, 1Hr 48Min)
MONDAY NIGHT PRESENTER: Since 1985, Mike Gooding has worked at WVEC 13 News Now, where he serves as senior military & political reporter. He has covered wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo. He attended Old Dominion University.
SAVE TIME – BUY YOUR TICKETS ONLINE!
All the President’s Men
Monday, August 3rd at 7pm (hosted) & Tuesday, August 4th at 1pm
Two green reporters and rivals working for the Washington Post, Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman), research the botched 1972 burglary of the Democratic Party Headquarters at the Watergate apartment complex. With the help of a mysterious source, code-named Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook), the two reporters make a connection between the burglars and a White House staffer. Despite dire warnings about their safety, the duo follows the money all the way to the top. (1976, 2Hr 18Min)
MONDAY NIGHT PRESENTER: Jim Newsom is a musician and songwriter, retired bank executive, and was known locally as “the guy on WHRO for 40 years.”
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The Searchers
Monday, August 10th at 7pm (hosted) & Tuesday, August 11th at 1pm
In this revered Western, Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns home to Texas after the Civil War. When members of his brother’s family are killed or abducted by Comanches, he vows to track down his surviving relatives and bring them home. Eventually, Edwards gets word that his niece Debbie (Natalie Wood) is alive, and, along with her adopted brother, Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter), he embarks on a dangerous mission to find her, journeying deep into Comanche territory. (1956, 1Hr 59Min)
MONDAY NIGHT PRESENTER: Page Laws was a close companion of Mal’s. She is Emerita Professor of English and was founding Dean of the Robert C Nusbaum Honors College at Norfolk State University. She currently serves as Corresponding Theater and Opera Critic for The Virginian-Pilot newspaper and Freelance Film Critic for Cineaste magazine.
The Uninvited
Monday, August 17th at 7pm (hosted) & Tuesday, August 18th at 1pm
While vacationing on the English coast, composer Rick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland) and his sister Pamela (Ruth Hussey) find an an abandoned 18th-century house and decide to buy it. The owner, Commander Beech (Donald Crisp), associates it with the tragic death of his daughter and is willing to part with it despite his granddaughter Stella’s (Gail Russell) objection. The Fitzgeralds move in and soon find themselves, with the help of Stella, battling it out with two very prickly ghosts. (1944, 1Hr 38Min)
MONDAY NIGHT PRESENTER: Katherine Byrd has worked in theatres in one form or another her whole adult life. From the box office of the old Janaf Cinema,( selling tickets to Jim & Tammy Faye Baker ) to being part of the Naro during the Actor’s Theatre days,(showing Tench & Tom around when they rented it for their Ingmar Bergman festival) to Stage Manager at the ODU Riverview Theatre to Operations and Marketing Manager for AMC Theatres and finally Media Sales in local Radio and for the Virginian Pilot. Now happily retired, she can spend more time watching Pre-Code movies and reading biographies of Old Hollywood stars. Fun Fact – she has met Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Ann Miller, Janet Leigh, Robert Osborne, Vincent Price and John Carriadine.
Charade
Monday, August 24th at 7pm (hosted) & Tuesday, August 25th at 1pm
After Regina Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) falls for the dashing Peter Joshua (Cary Grant) on a skiing holiday in the French Alps, she discovers upon her return to Paris that her husband has been murdered. Soon, she and Peter are giving chase to three of her late husband’s World War II cronies, Tex (James Coburn), Scobie (George Kennedy) and Gideon (Ned Glass), who are after a quarter of a million dollars the quartet stole while behind enemy lines. But why does Peter keep changing his name? The 1963 romantic mystery film was directed by Stanley Donen, not Alfred Hitchcock. However, it is widely celebrated by fans and critics as “the best Hitchcock film that Hitchcock never made” because of its signature blend of suspense, witty banter, and deceptive twists. (1963, 1Hr 54Min)
MONDAY NIGHT PRESENTER: Dr. Christopher Palestrant is Professor of Music at Elizabeth City State University, a composer and lecturer. He has given popular multimedia presentations on film music for audiences from the mid-Atlantic to Beijing, China.
Sherlock Jr. + One Week
Sunday, August 30th at 1pm & Monday, August 31st at 7pm
Two silent film classics with original live musical score!
A kindly movie projectionist (Buster Keaton) longs to be a detective. When his fiancée (Kathryn McGuire) is robbed by a local thief (Ward Crane), the poor projectionist is framed for the crime. Using his amateur detective skills, the projectionist follows the thief to the train station — only to find himself locked in a train car. Disheartened, he returns to his movie theater, where he falls asleep and dreams that he is the great Sherlock Holmes. In 2005, Time named Sherlock Jr. as one of the All-Time 100 Movies, writing “The impeccable comedian directs himself in an impeccable silent comedy … Is this, as some critics have argued, an example of primitive American surrealism? Sure. But let’s not get fancy about it. It is more significantly, a great example of American minimalism—simple objects and movement manipulated in casually complex ways to generate a steadily rising gale of laughter. The whole thing is only 45 minutes long, not a second of which is wasted. In an age when most comedies are all windup and no punch, this is the most treasurable of virtues.” (1924, 48m)
Sherlock Jr. will be preceded by a Buster Keaton short: One Week. Film critic Walter Kerr, in his landmark book The Silent Clowns, said of this film,“To sit through dozens and dozens of short comedies of the period and then to come upon One Week is to see the one thing no man ever sees: a garden at the moment of blooming.” It was the first time in one of his own films that he used the iconic falling house front gag, using a full-size house, not a model. (1920, app. 22m)
Featuring live original accompaniment by virtuoso pianist and composer Christopher Kypros.
Live Original Score: Christopher Kypros received his graduate degree (M.M.) in 1973 from The Juilliard School in New York City, where he studied with Sascha Gorodnitzki. Kypros completed his undergraduate studies at Old Dominion University. He has appeared as guest soloist with the Virginia Symphony and the Jacksonville Symphony, with Skitch Henderson conducting, as well as with the Virginia Beach Symphony Orchestra and regional college orchestras. As a chamber musician, he has performed with the Feldman String Quartet, the LeHigh String Quartet, and the Norfolk Chamber Consort. His solo appearances include a concert at The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Learn more about Chris at his website: https://www.chriskypros.com/
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