It’s a rare type of cinephile who wasn’t introduced to the idea of film as more than just idle entertainment by the ritual of the Academy Awards. And it’s an even rarer type of cinephile who didn’t soon thereafter vehemently reject the Oscar as the ultimate barometer of a film’s artistic worth. Those of us who started off with The Godfather, Schindler’s List, All About Eve, or Casablanca all eventually got around to Out of Africa, Around the World in 80 Days, The Greatest Show on Earth, Cimarron, and Cavalcade. First loves being first loves, we still find ourselves regressing if for only one night a year, succumbing to the allure of instant canonization even as it comes in the form of repeated slap-in-the-face reminders of Oscar’s bracing wrongness: Gladiator, Braveheart, Chicago, Crash. In that sense, consider this project part cathartic exorcism and part...
- 3/17/2024
- by Slant Staff
- Slant Magazine
The Best Picture win at the Oscars is the highest prize in the film industry. However, some films manage to take home the top award, yet they still don’t manage to stand the test of time. There are some Best Picture winners that no one talks about, even though they’ll always be a part of Academy Award history.
‘The Broadway Melody’ (1929) L-r: Charles King as Eddie Kearns, Bessie Love as Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney, Mary Doran as Flo, Anita Page as Queen Mahoney, and Nacio Herb Brown as Pianist | John Springer Collection/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney (Bessie Love) and Queenie Mahoney (Anita Page) are vaudeville sister performers looking to break into the Broadway scene. However, romantic melodrama quickly overshadows their attempt to pursue fame as a duo.
The Broadway Melody is the second film to win the Best Picture Oscar, with only Wings coming before it.
‘The Broadway Melody’ (1929) L-r: Charles King as Eddie Kearns, Bessie Love as Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney, Mary Doran as Flo, Anita Page as Queen Mahoney, and Nacio Herb Brown as Pianist | John Springer Collection/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
Harriet ‘Hank’ Mahoney (Bessie Love) and Queenie Mahoney (Anita Page) are vaudeville sister performers looking to break into the Broadway scene. However, romantic melodrama quickly overshadows their attempt to pursue fame as a duo.
The Broadway Melody is the second film to win the Best Picture Oscar, with only Wings coming before it.
- 2/28/2023
- by Jeff Nelson
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
New remastered restorations of Val Lewton pictures? We’re there. This terrific double bill gives us two Lewton shockers that are in no way ‘lesser’. The progressive psycho killer picture The Ghost Ship suffered a legal setback and disappeared for almost fifty years; it’s a masterpiece of taste and tone. Bedlam is a costume picture with an ideal role for Boris Karloff, and multiple eerie moments worthy of Edgar Allan Poe. Both movies exhibit interesting storytelling techniques, too. Rko should have promoted Lewton to A pictures, as they did his collaborators Jacques Tourneur, Robert Wise and Mark Robson.
The Ghost Ship + Bedlam
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1943 + 1946 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date October 12, 2021 / 24.99
Starring: Richard Dix, Edith Barrett; Boris Karloff, Anna Lee.
Cinematography: Nicholas Musuraca
Art Directors: Albert S. D’Agostino, Walter E. Keller
Original Music: Roy Webb
Written by Donald Henderson Clarke; Carlos Keith & Mark Robson...
The Ghost Ship + Bedlam
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1943 + 1946 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date October 12, 2021 / 24.99
Starring: Richard Dix, Edith Barrett; Boris Karloff, Anna Lee.
Cinematography: Nicholas Musuraca
Art Directors: Albert S. D’Agostino, Walter E. Keller
Original Music: Roy Webb
Written by Donald Henderson Clarke; Carlos Keith & Mark Robson...
- 10/30/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“If you ask me, M’Lord, he’s a stench in the nostrils, a sewer of ugliness, and a gutter brimming with slop.”
The Val Lewton Double Feature The Ghost Ship (1943) and Bedlam (1946) are now available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive
This double-feature disc brings together two of producer Val Lewton’s classic Rko horror films, newly restored and remastered. In 1943’s The Ghost Ship, Tom Merriam (Russell Wade), the young third mate on a freighter bound for Patagonia, witnesses the murder of a crewman by the ship’s captain, Will Stone (Richard Dix). Merriam realizes Stone is going insane, but the rest of the crew won’t believe him…or that he may be the mad captain’s next victim!
Boris Karloff reunites with Lewton for a third and final time in 1946’s Bedlam, set in 1971 at a London asylum. Karloff gives an unforgettable performance as the doomed overseer...
The Val Lewton Double Feature The Ghost Ship (1943) and Bedlam (1946) are now available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive
This double-feature disc brings together two of producer Val Lewton’s classic Rko horror films, newly restored and remastered. In 1943’s The Ghost Ship, Tom Merriam (Russell Wade), the young third mate on a freighter bound for Patagonia, witnesses the murder of a crewman by the ship’s captain, Will Stone (Richard Dix). Merriam realizes Stone is going insane, but the rest of the crew won’t believe him…or that he may be the mad captain’s next victim!
Boris Karloff reunites with Lewton for a third and final time in 1946’s Bedlam, set in 1971 at a London asylum. Karloff gives an unforgettable performance as the doomed overseer...
- 10/15/2021
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
“Es ist eine schwimmende Plattform!” Here’s something for committed Sci-fi followers, a lavish German production with big drama, big emotions, and impressive, ambitious special effects. Hans Albers makes sure his pal Paul Hartmann’s artificial mid-Atlantic airport becomes reality, only to lose his new girlfriend Sybille Schmitz to him. The Murnau Foundation’s superb restoration makes the giant Flugplatform seem real. UfA produced the show in three languages with three different casts; Kino’s handsome disc gives us excellent renderings of two of them. Plus glorious German songs about the joy of flying!
F.P. 1 Doesn’t Answer
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:19 Ar / 112 min. / Street Date August 10, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Hans Albers, Sybille Schmitz, Paul Hartmann, Peter Lorre, Georg John, Hermann Speelmans, Erik Ode, Werner Schott.
Cinematography: Otto Baecker, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, Günther Rittau
Production Designer: Erich Kettlehut
Film Editor: Willy Zeyn
Special Effects: Konstantin Irmen-Tschet,...
F.P. 1 Doesn’t Answer
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:19 Ar / 112 min. / Street Date August 10, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Hans Albers, Sybille Schmitz, Paul Hartmann, Peter Lorre, Georg John, Hermann Speelmans, Erik Ode, Werner Schott.
Cinematography: Otto Baecker, Konstantin Irmen-Tschet, Günther Rittau
Production Designer: Erich Kettlehut
Film Editor: Willy Zeyn
Special Effects: Konstantin Irmen-Tschet,...
- 8/7/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Above: The Rivoli Theater on Broadway between 49th and 50th Streets in 1940, playing John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath which had opened on 24 January of that year. The billboard on 49th Street is advertising the engagement of Pinocchio, which had opened 7 February, a block away at the Center Theatre on 6th Avenue and 49th Street, next door to Radio City Music Hall.One of my favorite internet rabbit holes of the past couple of years has been the New York City Municipal Archives Online Gallery which gives you the miraculous ability to roam around the New York of 1940. In 2018 the archive published 720,000 images from the City’s 1940 tax photo project. Between 1939 and 1941, the City’s Tax Department had collaborated with the Works Progress Administration (Wpa) to take photographs of every single house and building in the five boroughs of New York City, providing an unprecedented record of the city at a moment in time.
- 9/10/2020
- MUBI
Cimarron (1960) starring Glenn Ford is available on Blu-ray From Warner Archives. Order info can be found Here
Edna Ferber’s epic Western, famously lensed in 1931 with Irene Dunne and Richard Dix, gets the widescreen full color treatment in this remake starring Glenn Ford, Maria Schell and Ann Baxter. As thousands of would-be settlers race across a barren desert to be the first to stake their claim to a plot of land during the Oklahoma Land Rush, Yancey Cravat (Ford) is outwitted by dance hall girl Dixie Lee (Baxter). Without the farm they had hoped to start, Yancey and his wife, Sabra (Schell), take over the local newspaper after the editor is assassinated. But as the newspaper helps bring order to a lawless land, Yancey feels the wanderlust to find new frontiers and new adventures, while Sabra stays to build a publishing empire. Western master Anthony Mann directs while the legendary...
Edna Ferber’s epic Western, famously lensed in 1931 with Irene Dunne and Richard Dix, gets the widescreen full color treatment in this remake starring Glenn Ford, Maria Schell and Ann Baxter. As thousands of would-be settlers race across a barren desert to be the first to stake their claim to a plot of land during the Oklahoma Land Rush, Yancey Cravat (Ford) is outwitted by dance hall girl Dixie Lee (Baxter). Without the farm they had hoped to start, Yancey and his wife, Sabra (Schell), take over the local newspaper after the editor is assassinated. But as the newspaper helps bring order to a lawless land, Yancey feels the wanderlust to find new frontiers and new adventures, while Sabra stays to build a publishing empire. Western master Anthony Mann directs while the legendary...
- 1/29/2020
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
By now we all know that the film the Academy selects as the “Best Picture” of any given year is rarely the actual Best Picture, but some years it’s hard to explain why they picked what they picked. Never mind “Shakespeare in Love” beating “Saving Private Ryan,” because at least “Shakespeare in Love” is a handsome production with a witty script. Never mind “Dances with Wolves” beating “Goodfellas,” because at least “Dances with Wolves” is a respectable western. We’re taking a look at the films that we can’t watch, even in a vacuum, without cringing nowadays. And when you compare them with the nominees that didn’t earn the Oscar, it’s just plain hard to justify why the Academy voted the way it did.
“The Broadway Melody” (1929)
The second Best Picture winner, and the first synch sound movie to win the top prize, was innovative for the time.
“The Broadway Melody” (1929)
The second Best Picture winner, and the first synch sound movie to win the top prize, was innovative for the time.
- 1/7/2020
- by William Bibbiani
- The Wrap
This article marks Part 3 of the Gold Derby series reflecting on films that contended for the Big Five Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted). With “A Star Is Born” this year on the cusp of joining this exclusive group of Oscar favorites, join us as we look back at the 43 extraordinary pictures that earned Academy Awards nominations in each of the Big Five categories, including the following 11 films that scored a pair of prizes among the top races.
At the 4th Academy Awards ceremony, “Cimarron” (1931) made Oscar history as the first motion picture to ever score nominations in the Big Five categories. On the big night, the western took home the top prize in Best Picture, as well as the Oscar in Best Adapted Screenplay (Howard Estabrook). Not as successful were the picture’s director, Wesley Ruggles, topped by Norman Taurog (“Skippy”), and the leads,...
At the 4th Academy Awards ceremony, “Cimarron” (1931) made Oscar history as the first motion picture to ever score nominations in the Big Five categories. On the big night, the western took home the top prize in Best Picture, as well as the Oscar in Best Adapted Screenplay (Howard Estabrook). Not as successful were the picture’s director, Wesley Ruggles, topped by Norman Taurog (“Skippy”), and the leads,...
- 10/11/2018
- by Andrew Carden
- Gold Derby
Robert Dix, the son of a big-screen icon who made his own mark in Hollywood with appearances in dozens of films, including Forbidden Planet, Forty Guns and a succession of B-grade horror movies, has died. He was 83.
Dix died Monday of respiratory failure at a hospital in Tucson, Arizona, his wife, Lynette, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Dix was the youngest son (by 10 minutes) of Richard Dix, who made the transition from the silent era to talkies, received a best actor nomination in the best picture Oscar winner Cimarron (1931) and starred in the series of Whistler film noirs at Columbia ...
Dix died Monday of respiratory failure at a hospital in Tucson, Arizona, his wife, Lynette, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Dix was the youngest son (by 10 minutes) of Richard Dix, who made the transition from the silent era to talkies, received a best actor nomination in the best picture Oscar winner Cimarron (1931) and starred in the series of Whistler film noirs at Columbia ...
Robert Dix, the son of a big-screen icon who made his own mark in Hollywood with appearances in dozens of films, including Forbidden Planet, Forty Guns and a succession of B-grade horror movies, has died. He was 83.
Dix died Monday of respiratory failure at a hospital in Tucson, Arizona, his wife, Lynette, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Dix was the youngest son (by 10 minutes) of Richard Dix, who made the transition from the silent era to talkies, received a best actor nomination in the best picture Oscar winner Cimarron (1931) and starred in the series of Whistler film noirs at Columbia ...
Dix died Monday of respiratory failure at a hospital in Tucson, Arizona, his wife, Lynette, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Dix was the youngest son (by 10 minutes) of Richard Dix, who made the transition from the silent era to talkies, received a best actor nomination in the best picture Oscar winner Cimarron (1931) and starred in the series of Whistler film noirs at Columbia ...
“The Shape of Water” numbers three acting bids among its leading 13 Academy Awards nominations for lead Sally Hawkins and supporting players Richard Jenkins and Octavia Spencer. According to our exclusive Oscar odds none of them is predicted to win on March 4. Should that scenario play out, does that mean that their film won’t win Best Picture?
Not so fast.
While 53 of the 89 Best Picture champs to date include an Oscar-winning performance, 36 of them (40%) did not win any acting awards. And among those three dozen winners are four of the eight films — “The Hurt Locker” (2009), “Argo” (2012), “Birdman” (2015) and “Spotlight” (2016) — decided by preferential ballot under the newly expanded slate of Best Picture nominees.
Surprisingly, an even dozen of the Best Picture winners did not even reap any acting nominations. That is welcome news for “Arrival,” which does not number an acting bid among its eight nominations. However, four of those films...
Not so fast.
While 53 of the 89 Best Picture champs to date include an Oscar-winning performance, 36 of them (40%) did not win any acting awards. And among those three dozen winners are four of the eight films — “The Hurt Locker” (2009), “Argo” (2012), “Birdman” (2015) and “Spotlight” (2016) — decided by preferential ballot under the newly expanded slate of Best Picture nominees.
Surprisingly, an even dozen of the Best Picture winners did not even reap any acting nominations. That is welcome news for “Arrival,” which does not number an acting bid among its eight nominations. However, four of those films...
- 2/13/2018
- by Paul Sheehan
- Gold Derby
No, it’s not a the-day-after sequel to The Lost Weekend, but a class-act mystery-horror from 20th-Fox, at a time when the studio wasn’t keen on scare shows. John Brahm directs the ill-fated Laird Cregar as a mad musician . . . or, at least a musician driven mad by a perfidious femme fatale, Darryl Zanuck’s top glamour girl Linda Darnell.
Hangover Square
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1945 /B&W / 1:37 Academy / 77 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Faye Marlowe, Glenn Langan, Alan Napier.
Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle
Film Editor: Harry Reynolds
Original Music: Bernard Herrmann
Written by Barré Lyndon
Produced by Robert Bassler
Directed by John Brahm
Here’s a serious quality upgrade for horror fans. Although technically a period murder thriller, as a horror film John Brahm’s tense Hangover Square betters its precursor The Lodger in almost every department. We don...
Hangover Square
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1945 /B&W / 1:37 Academy / 77 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Laird Cregar, Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Faye Marlowe, Glenn Langan, Alan Napier.
Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle
Film Editor: Harry Reynolds
Original Music: Bernard Herrmann
Written by Barré Lyndon
Produced by Robert Bassler
Directed by John Brahm
Here’s a serious quality upgrade for horror fans. Although technically a period murder thriller, as a horror film John Brahm’s tense Hangover Square betters its precursor The Lodger in almost every department. We don...
- 11/28/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
John Monk Saunders is a good example of the screenwriter-as-auteur in the sense that he had a tone (mordant, tragic) and a set of concerns (Wwi aerial combat and its effects) that were consistent throughout his work, almost to the point of claustrophobia. Saunders was an airman himself, and like his characters, he just couldn't leave it behind. A recurring theme of his work is that war is not only traumatic, but addictive. Ace of Aces is a typical work: Saunders would achieve greater glory with William A. Wellman (Wings, 1927), Howard Hawks (The Dawn Patrol, 1930) and, best of all, with William Dieterle and The Last Flight in 1931. Ace of Aces is a relatively minor-league outing. Though director J. Walter Ruben delivers a few elaborate tracking shots, the film belongs mainly to the writer and the Rko effects team—Vernon L. Walker, who worked on Citizen Kane and King Kong, stitches...
- 6/14/2017
- MUBI
Depraved convicts ! Crazy Manhattan gin parties! Society dames poaching other women's husbands! A flimflam artist scamming the uptown sophisticates! All these forbidden attractions are here and more -- including Bette Davis's epochal seduction line about impulsive kissing versus good hair care. It's a 9th collection of racy pre-Code wonders. Forbidden Hollywood Volume 9 Big City Blues, Hell's Highway, The Cabin in the Cotton, When Ladies Meet, I Sell Anything DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1932-1934 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 63, 62, 78, 85, 70 min. / Street Date October 27, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 40.99 Starring Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, Humphrey Bogart; Richard Dix, Tom Brown; Richard Barthelmess, Bette Davis, Dorothy Jordan, Berton Churchill; Ann Harding, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy, Alice Brady, Frank Morgan; Pat O' Brien, Ann Dvorak, Claire Dodd, Roscoe Karns. Cinematography James Van Trees; Edward Cronjager; Barney McGill; Ray June Written by Lillie Hayward, Ward Morehouse, from his play; Samuel Ornitz, Robert Tasker, Rowland Brown...
- 11/24/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Constance Cummings in 'Night After Night.' Constance Cummings: Working with Frank Capra and Mae West (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Actress Went from Harold Lloyd to Eugene O'Neill.”) Back at Columbia, Harry Cohn didn't do a very good job at making Constance Cummings feel important. By the end of 1932, Columbia and its sweet ingenue found themselves in court, fighting bitterly over stipulations in her contract. According to the actress and lawyer's daughter, Columbia had failed to notify her that they were picking up her option. Therefore, she was a free agent, able to offer her services wherever she pleased. Harry Cohn felt otherwise, claiming that his contract player had waived such a notice. The battle would spill over into 1933. On the positive side, in addition to Movie Crazy 1932 provided Cummings with three other notable Hollywood movies: Washington Merry-Go-Round, American Madness, and Night After Night. 'Washington Merry-Go-Round...
- 11/5/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.
- 11/4/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
After The Seventh Victim‘s disappointing returns, Val Lewton and Rko clashed over their next project. Lewton wanted a comedy, provisionally titled The Amorous Ghost, as a change of pace; studio boss Sid Rogell, Lewton’s bete noir, insisted on a sequel to Cat People, which Lewton resisted. Then Rko suggested a Universal-style monster rally, They Creep By Night, reuniting villains from past Lewton pictures. Charles Koerner rescued Lewton from this absurd prospect by pitching a maritime thriller. “Call it The Ghost Ship,” Koerner ordered. Lewton also scored a big, though past-his-prime star in Richard Dix, an Oscar nominee for Cimarron (1931).
The result is equal parts The Sea Wolf and M, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe. Tom Miriam signs on as third officer on the ill-starred freighter Altair, ruled by Captain Stone (Richard Dix). At first Stone merely seems strict, but his homilies about authority take on a...
The result is equal parts The Sea Wolf and M, with a dash of Edgar Allan Poe. Tom Miriam signs on as third officer on the ill-starred freighter Altair, ruled by Captain Stone (Richard Dix). At first Stone merely seems strict, but his homilies about authority take on a...
- 10/29/2015
- by Christopher Saunders
- SoundOnSight
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
"Film historian Bruce Crawford has announced the film to be presented at his 37th Tribute to Classic Films will be the science fiction masterpiece, "Forbidden Planet”. The film will be screened on Friday, October 23th. 2015 at the beautiful Joslyn Art Museum 2200 Dodge St. Omaha, Nebraska. Often considered one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, it inspired several films and television series such as Star Trek. “Forbidden Planet” stars Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis. But the character that became one of the most successful in the film was Robby the Robot who is still today one of the most recognizable robot creations in film history. The evening's special guest will be actor, author and producer Robert Dix who portrayed crewman Grey in the film. Dix is also the son of legendary silent era star Richard Dix. Also, as with other Classic Film Tributes,...
"Film historian Bruce Crawford has announced the film to be presented at his 37th Tribute to Classic Films will be the science fiction masterpiece, "Forbidden Planet”. The film will be screened on Friday, October 23th. 2015 at the beautiful Joslyn Art Museum 2200 Dodge St. Omaha, Nebraska. Often considered one of the greatest science fiction films of all time, it inspired several films and television series such as Star Trek. “Forbidden Planet” stars Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielsen and Anne Francis. But the character that became one of the most successful in the film was Robby the Robot who is still today one of the most recognizable robot creations in film history. The evening's special guest will be actor, author and producer Robert Dix who portrayed crewman Grey in the film. Dix is also the son of legendary silent era star Richard Dix. Also, as with other Classic Film Tributes,...
- 9/30/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...
- 8/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
A long time ago, sometime around 1912, a director by the name of D.W. Griffith packed up his filmmaking wares and took his crew, including favored cinematographer Billy Bitzer and star Mae Marsh, across the water to a relatively mysterious island off the Southern California coast to shoot a short film. The project, Man’s Genesis, subtitled A Psychological Comedy Founded upon the Darwinian Theory of the Evolution of Man (Is that Woody Allen I hear whimpering with envy?), isn’t one for which Griffith is well remembered, in the hearts of either academics or those given to silent-era nostalgia. (One comment on IMDb suggests that no one would ever mistake Griffith’s simple tale of a landmark of human development—man discovers his ability to craft and use tools in order to achieve a specific goal-- for “a serious work of speculative anthropology” and wonders “what the director and his...
- 7/30/2015
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
I’m a sucker for any vintage movie I know little about. That’s why I perked up when I noticed that Olive Films is releasing Republic Pictures’ 1939 movie Man of Conquest on DVD and Blu-ray today. Richard Dix stars as Sam Houston in this ambitious production from the quintessential B-movie factory, which was on in its fourth year of existence. It was Republic’s most expensive production to date and even warranted sending its stars to Houston, Texas for a gala premiere. But the production was fraught with problems. The script was in development for several years and filming went over-budget, almost unheard-of for this most efficient of movie studios. The finished film doesn’t...
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- 7/14/2015
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the release of "Crash" (on May 6, 2005), an all-star movie whose controversy came not from its provocative treatment of racial issues but from its Best Picture Oscar victory a few months later, against what many critics felt was a much more deserving movie, "Brokeback Mountain."
The "Crash" vs. "Brokeback" battle is one of those lingering disputes that makes the Academy Awards so fascinating, year after year. Moviegoers and critics who revisit older movies are constantly judging the Academy's judgment. Even decades of hindsight may not always be enough to tell whether the Oscar voters of a particular year got it right or wrong. Whether it's "Birdman" vs. "Boyhood," "The King's Speech" vs. "The Social Network," "Saving Private Ryan" vs. "Shakespeare in Love" or even "An American in Paris" vs. "A Streetcar Named Desire," we're still confirming the Academy's taste or dismissing it as hopelessly off-base years later.
The "Crash" vs. "Brokeback" battle is one of those lingering disputes that makes the Academy Awards so fascinating, year after year. Moviegoers and critics who revisit older movies are constantly judging the Academy's judgment. Even decades of hindsight may not always be enough to tell whether the Oscar voters of a particular year got it right or wrong. Whether it's "Birdman" vs. "Boyhood," "The King's Speech" vs. "The Social Network," "Saving Private Ryan" vs. "Shakespeare in Love" or even "An American in Paris" vs. "A Streetcar Named Desire," we're still confirming the Academy's taste or dismissing it as hopelessly off-base years later.
- 5/6/2015
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
Elisabeth Bergner, who started in German silents went on to a Best Actress Oscar nomination for Escape Me Never (1935)Schweigen a fine collection of 1920s and 1930s postcards of film actors. I loved looking at it despite my Richard Dix aversion. And this postcard left makes me desperate to see Escape Me Never, one of the 30s Best Actress nominations I still haven't seen
Cinema Blend profiles the 5 pilots from Amazon Studios including Hand of God with Dana Delany and Ron Perlman
E! Online Neil Patrick Harris responds to rumors that he and David Burtka are breaking up. It ain't so.
Pret-a-Reporter Inside Madonna's 56th birthday bash
THR Cinematography Gordon Willis who died earlier this summer, was memorialized in Hollywood this weekend
List Mania
Rope of Silicon every death in a Quentin Tarantino movie thus far
Cinema Enthusiast has been investigating 1992 cinema. Loves Howards End, The Player, Batman Returns...
Cinema Blend profiles the 5 pilots from Amazon Studios including Hand of God with Dana Delany and Ron Perlman
E! Online Neil Patrick Harris responds to rumors that he and David Burtka are breaking up. It ain't so.
Pret-a-Reporter Inside Madonna's 56th birthday bash
THR Cinematography Gordon Willis who died earlier this summer, was memorialized in Hollywood this weekend
List Mania
Rope of Silicon every death in a Quentin Tarantino movie thus far
Cinema Enthusiast has been investigating 1992 cinema. Loves Howards End, The Player, Batman Returns...
- 8/18/2014
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Irene Dunne movies: Five-time Best Actress Academy Award nominee starred in now-forgotten originals of well-remembered remakes In his August 2007 Bright Lights article "The Elusive Pleasures of Irene Dunne," Dan Callahan explained that "the reasons for Irene Dunne’s continuing, undeserved obscurity are fairly well known. Nearly all of her best films from the thirties and forties were remade and the originals were suppressed and didn’t play on television. She did some of her most distinctive work for John Stahl at Universal, and non-horror Universal films are rarely shown now. Practically all of her movies need to be restored; even her most popular effort, The Awful Truth (1937), looks grainy and blotchy on its DVD transfer, to say nothing of things like Stahl’s When Tomorrow Comes (1939), or Rouben Mamoulian’s High, Wide, and Handsome (1937), two key Dunne films that have languished and deteriorated in a sort of television/video purgatory.
- 9/12/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Mary Boland movies: Scene-stealing actress has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day on TCM Turner Classic Movies will dedicate the next 24 hours, Sunday, August 4, 2013, not to Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Esther Williams, or Bette Davis — TCM’s frequent Warner Bros., MGM, and/or Rko stars — but to the marvelous scene-stealer Mary Boland. A stage actress who was featured in a handful of movies in the 1910s, Boland came into her own as a stellar film supporting player in the early ’30s, initially at Paramount and later at most other Hollywood studios. First, the bad news: TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" Mary Boland Day will feature only two movies from Boland’s Paramount period: the 1935 Best Picture Academy Award nominee Ruggles of Red Gap, which TCM has shown before, and one TCM premiere. So, no rarities like Secrets of a Secretary, Mama Loves Papa, Melody in Spring,...
- 8/4/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ann Rutherford, best remembered as Scarlett O’Hara’s younger sister Carreen in Gone with the Wind, died earlier this evening at her home in Beverly Hills according to Rutherford’s friend, actress Anne Jeffreys. Rutherford, who had been suffering from heart problems, was 94 as per the Los Angeles Times obit (as per most other sources, she was 91). [Recent Ann Rutherford photos, Ann Rutherford and Marsha Hunt.]
In 2010, Rutherford told the Times that MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer was unwilling to loan her out for "a nothing part" such as Carreen in son-in-law David O. Selznick’s mammoth adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel. Mayer changed his mind when Rutherford burst into tears.
Gone with the Wind ultimately became the biggest blockbuster ever. To this day, the Civil War romantic drama has sold more tickets than any other movie in North America. (Possibly, around the world, relative to population.) Gwtw also won eight Oscars, in addition to two special awards.
In 2010, Rutherford told the Times that MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer was unwilling to loan her out for "a nothing part" such as Carreen in son-in-law David O. Selznick’s mammoth adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s novel. Mayer changed his mind when Rutherford burst into tears.
Gone with the Wind ultimately became the biggest blockbuster ever. To this day, the Civil War romantic drama has sold more tickets than any other movie in North America. (Possibly, around the world, relative to population.) Gwtw also won eight Oscars, in addition to two special awards.
- 6/12/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Five of the original actors from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, including the elusive Charlie himself, Peter Ostrum are appearing this weekend at the Chiller Theatre convention at the Parsippany Hilton in New Jersey. Also appearing during the weekend event: Ernest Borgnine, Hal Holbrook, Loni Anderson and Gary Busey. For James Bond fans, there is Britt Ekland and Maud Adams from Man With the Golden Gun and from Live and Let Die, Richard Dix, who played the CIA agent murdered at a New Orleans funeral procession. For more info click here...
- 4/30/2011
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Miriam Seegar, one of the last surviving adult performers to have been featured in silent films, died of "age-related causes" on Sunday, Jan. 2, at her home in Pasadena. She was 103. Born on Sept. 1, 1907, in Greentown, Ind., Seegar began her film career in England. After replacing Sylvia Sidney in the play Crime in the West End, she landed roles in three British silent films, most notably the female lead in When Knights Were Bold (1929), directed by her future husband, Tim Whelan. In Hollywood, Seegar played in two movies opposite Richard Dix, then a highly popular leading man: the silent The Love Doctor (1929) and in Reginald Barker's early talkie Seven Keys to Baldpate (1929), a humorous mystery-thriller that is perhaps her best-known film. Among Seegar's other film credits were Victor Schertzinger's Fashions in Love with Adolphe Menjou (1929); the Fox Movietone Follies of 1930; What a Man (1930), [...]...
- 1/5/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Above: Richard Dix in Hell's Highway.
Rowland Brown (born with the appealing first name of Chauncey), was an interesting, almost unique filmmaker of the early thirties, who made three films. In those days, when it was a matter of principle that directors should not write, nor writers direct, and that writers, in Preston Sturges' words, "should work in teams, like piano movers," Brown was an honest-to-God hyphenate, writing and directing three two-fisted pre-code thrillers, Quick Millions, Hell's Highwayand Blood Money.
There was Chaplin, of course, a living exception to nearly every industrial practice of the age, but Brown's entire directing career occurred during the lull between City Lights and Modern Times. Brown wrote (albeit sometimes with collaborators) and directed, and his films have a strong sense of their maker's personality: tough, even brutish, with a hard-bitten and cynical sense of humor, and a frankness about human nature and sexual foibles,...
Rowland Brown (born with the appealing first name of Chauncey), was an interesting, almost unique filmmaker of the early thirties, who made three films. In those days, when it was a matter of principle that directors should not write, nor writers direct, and that writers, in Preston Sturges' words, "should work in teams, like piano movers," Brown was an honest-to-God hyphenate, writing and directing three two-fisted pre-code thrillers, Quick Millions, Hell's Highwayand Blood Money.
There was Chaplin, of course, a living exception to nearly every industrial practice of the age, but Brown's entire directing career occurred during the lull between City Lights and Modern Times. Brown wrote (albeit sometimes with collaborators) and directed, and his films have a strong sense of their maker's personality: tough, even brutish, with a hard-bitten and cynical sense of humor, and a frankness about human nature and sexual foibles,...
- 10/14/2010
- MUBI
If someone were to ask us to name our top ten directors of all time, the name William Castle would sit firmly somewhere within the top five. The man was not only a true showman but also an absolute genius. If we have one regret in our tenure here at Dread Central, it is that we weren't around during Castle's heyday of insane gimmicks. The man was without question the godfather of viral marketing, and it's taken the rest of the industry decades to catch up. If you live somewhere within the Tri-State Region, we have the info on an event that you do Not want to miss!
From the Press Release
The Return Of William Castle, a 15-film festival of horror and exploitation classics by the director and master showman, complete with their original gimmicks (Emergo!, Percepto!, Illusion-o!, and others – including one created exclusively for Film Forum), will run...
From the Press Release
The Return Of William Castle, a 15-film festival of horror and exploitation classics by the director and master showman, complete with their original gimmicks (Emergo!, Percepto!, Illusion-o!, and others – including one created exclusively for Film Forum), will run...
- 8/26/2010
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
The Norma Shearer-Robert Montgomery-Herbert Marshall melodrama Riptide (1934); a remastered version of None But the Lonely Heart (1944), which earned Cary Grant his second and last Best Actor Academy Award nomination and veteran stage player Ethel Barrymore her only Oscar; and the biopic Song of Love (1947), starring Katharine Hepburn (as Clara Wieck), Paul Henreid (as Robert Schumann), and Robert Walker (as Johannes Brahms) are among the seven latest additions to the Warner Archives’ DVDs. The other four movies are: Between Two Worlds (1944), the worlds being those of the living and the dead, with John Garfield, Paul Henreid, and Eleanor Parker; John Ford‘s Flesh (1932), starring Wallace Beery, Ricardo Cortez, and Karen Morley; the film noir Crack-Up (1946), with Pat O’Brien and Claire Trevor; and The Conquerors (1932), Rko’s attempt to repeat the success of its Oscar-winning Cimarron, starring the earlier film’s leading man, Richard Dix, and Ann Harding.
- 8/24/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
For this edition Shadows of Film Noir, we take a look at William Castle's The Mark of the Whistler (1944), produced by the "B" unit at Columbia Pictures in 1944. It's a terrific, compact, intense little knuckle-biter about greed and its terrible consequences. It has never been available on video or DVD, though it recently screened at San Francisco's Roxie Cinema as part of an extraordinary new film noir series, "I Still Wake Up Dreaming." Here's hoping that someday Sony will be able to release a "Whistler" box set.
Behind the Scenes
"The Whistler" series comprised eight films, released between 1944 and 1948. They were more or less like "The Twilight Zone," with different stories and different characters each time, although actor Richard Dix played the lead character in seven of them. (Each movie ran about 60 minutes.) The "Whistler" character (played, without credit, by Otto Forrest) is more or less a narrator, a...
Behind the Scenes
"The Whistler" series comprised eight films, released between 1944 and 1948. They were more or less like "The Twilight Zone," with different stories and different characters each time, although actor Richard Dix played the lead character in seven of them. (Each movie ran about 60 minutes.) The "Whistler" character (played, without credit, by Otto Forrest) is more or less a narrator, a...
- 6/5/2010
- by Jeffrey M. Anderson
- Cinematical
The rest of this month has some exciting genre output on display at the wonderful Egyptian and Aero Theatres, hosted by the American Cinematheque.
Currently running, the Egyptian’s Lust and Larceny: Noir City, the 12th Annual Festival of Film Noir will wrap up on April 18. Friday, April 16 beginning at 7:30pm will be a double feature of 1955’s thriller Crashout, followed by 1954’s brutal revenge melodrama Cry Vengeance. Neither of these films are currently available on DVD. Saturday will see a double feature of horror director Lew Landers’ The Power of the Whistler from 1945 and starring Richard Dix (Val Lewton’s The Ghost Ship), as well as its follow up of the same year, Voice of the Whistler, directed by horror legend William Castle! In attendence will be Robert Dix, son of star Richard Dix.
Running from April 29 through May 2, the Egyptian presents A Wrinkle in Time: The Best of Time Travel Films.
Currently running, the Egyptian’s Lust and Larceny: Noir City, the 12th Annual Festival of Film Noir will wrap up on April 18. Friday, April 16 beginning at 7:30pm will be a double feature of 1955’s thriller Crashout, followed by 1954’s brutal revenge melodrama Cry Vengeance. Neither of these films are currently available on DVD. Saturday will see a double feature of horror director Lew Landers’ The Power of the Whistler from 1945 and starring Richard Dix (Val Lewton’s The Ghost Ship), as well as its follow up of the same year, Voice of the Whistler, directed by horror legend William Castle! In attendence will be Robert Dix, son of star Richard Dix.
Running from April 29 through May 2, the Egyptian presents A Wrinkle in Time: The Best of Time Travel Films.
- 4/16/2010
- by Jesse
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
By Scott Essman
In the history of the modern American cinema, there are but few legacies of makeup artists. While the legendary Burman and Dawn names each include three generations of makeup artists, there is but one lasting family that features four working generations: the Westmores of Hollywood. With ties to virtually every studio in the annals cinema, the Westmores have created classic makeups in top contemporary film and TV shows back to the earliest years of silent film.
George Westmore, the patriarch of the Westmore clan at the turn of the century, worked as a wigmaker in his native England — where he was born in 1879 — and gave birth to sons Mont (born in 1902), twins Perc and Ern (born in 1904), Wally (born in 1906), and a daughter, Dorothy (born in 1907). The young family traveled to the U.S. to seek better opportunities and maintained a wig-making and beauty salon business which floated amongst various cities,...
In the history of the modern American cinema, there are but few legacies of makeup artists. While the legendary Burman and Dawn names each include three generations of makeup artists, there is but one lasting family that features four working generations: the Westmores of Hollywood. With ties to virtually every studio in the annals cinema, the Westmores have created classic makeups in top contemporary film and TV shows back to the earliest years of silent film.
George Westmore, the patriarch of the Westmore clan at the turn of the century, worked as a wigmaker in his native England — where he was born in 1879 — and gave birth to sons Mont (born in 1902), twins Perc and Ern (born in 1904), Wally (born in 1906), and a daughter, Dorothy (born in 1907). The young family traveled to the U.S. to seek better opportunities and maintained a wig-making and beauty salon business which floated amongst various cities,...
- 1/12/2010
- by Jesse
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
Samuel Fuller had one of the most fascinating of Hollywood careers -- a 50-plus-year self-mythologizing rampage that began with scriptsmith work in the mid 1930s at the age of 24, evolving into one of the most distinctive auteurs America has ever produced, writing/directing some 25 movies and having a hand in writing 25 more, helplessly manufacturing himself into a crusty man's-man Hollywood gadfly in the process, readily available for manic interviews and iconic appearances in young auteurs' self-conscious films.
There are always corners in his career that you, whomever you are, haven't yet explored (honestly, any single Fuller film remains half-experienced if you've only seen it once), and so the new Sony set of Fulleriania is a prize, beginning as it does with "It Happened in Hollywood" (1937), Fuller's first screenplay credit, and an utterly freakish, Charlie Kaufman-esque launch of meta-ness that centers on Hollywood's discomfiting transition from silents to talkies, barely...
There are always corners in his career that you, whomever you are, haven't yet explored (honestly, any single Fuller film remains half-experienced if you've only seen it once), and so the new Sony set of Fulleriania is a prize, beginning as it does with "It Happened in Hollywood" (1937), Fuller's first screenplay credit, and an utterly freakish, Charlie Kaufman-esque launch of meta-ness that centers on Hollywood's discomfiting transition from silents to talkies, barely...
- 11/3/2009
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
More good news for my favorite film genre! Back in May, I attended and wrote about the great “I Wake Up Dreaming” noir film festival at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater, hosted by Elliot Lavine. Showcasing old and rare B-movies from the 30s to the 50s, the festival was so successful that it was extended for another week.
Consider this a further extension two changing seasons later, as starting this Thursday Mr. Lavine will once again bring 22 rare noir gems to the Roxie for two weeks of betrayals, knife-sharp suspense and treacherous women.
This time around, the films are newly restored 35mm archive prints from Columbia Pictures—directed by acclaimed directors like Nicholas Ray, Fritz Lang, Samuel Fuller, Don Siegel, and king of gimmicks William Castle. As with “I Wake Up Dreaming,” the films are shown as double features: two films for $11.
This collection offers a couple of noir-horror hybrid,...
Consider this a further extension two changing seasons later, as starting this Thursday Mr. Lavine will once again bring 22 rare noir gems to the Roxie for two weeks of betrayals, knife-sharp suspense and treacherous women.
This time around, the films are newly restored 35mm archive prints from Columbia Pictures—directed by acclaimed directors like Nicholas Ray, Fritz Lang, Samuel Fuller, Don Siegel, and king of gimmicks William Castle. As with “I Wake Up Dreaming,” the films are shown as double features: two films for $11.
This collection offers a couple of noir-horror hybrid,...
- 9/17/2009
- by Arya Ponto
- JustPressPlay.net
Hollywood's first family of movie make-up is to be honoured with a star on the Walk of Fame.
Marvin and Michael Westmore will unveil the 2,370th star near the corner of Los Angeles' Hollywood and Vine on behalf of the Westmore Family on Friday.
The Westmores are make-up artists who have defined beauty and glamour, setting trends over the decades.
George Westmore and his six sons, Monte, Ern, Perc, Wally, Bud, and Frank "changed the face of Hollywood, literally", according to a Walk of Fame spokeswoman.
The representative adds, "The Westmores not only created, but they defined the role of make-up artists in Motion Pictures. George Westmore opened the very first make-up department at Selig Studios in 1917... and the brothers were responsible for creating the signature looks for stars like Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn and even the teenage fashion doll, Barbie."
Ern Westmore became the first make-up artist recipient of the Academy Cup in 1931 for his work on Cimarron starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne, while Monte wowed Hollywood with his styling skills on movie epic Gone with the Wind - he made Vivien Leigh's hazel eyes appear green at the request of director David O. Selznick.
And when Paul Muni won the Best Actor Oscar for The Story of Louis Pasteur in 1936, he thanked only one person, Perc Westmore, in his acceptance speech.
Other family claims to fame include Bud Westmore's molded foam rubber suit in The Creature from the Black Lagoon and his make-up expertise on TV show The Munsters and youngest brother Frank's work on cult show Kung Fu, for which he became the first Westmore to receive an Emmy Award.
The family continues to pursue excellence on the big and small screen - Monte's son, Michael, received an Oscar and a British Academy Award nomination in 1986 for his artistry on Mask. He has also picked up nine Emmy statuettes and an impressive 42 Emmy nominations over the course of his career. He holds the record for more Emmy nominations than any other make-up artist.
Marvin and Michael Westmore will unveil the 2,370th star near the corner of Los Angeles' Hollywood and Vine on behalf of the Westmore Family on Friday.
The Westmores are make-up artists who have defined beauty and glamour, setting trends over the decades.
George Westmore and his six sons, Monte, Ern, Perc, Wally, Bud, and Frank "changed the face of Hollywood, literally", according to a Walk of Fame spokeswoman.
The representative adds, "The Westmores not only created, but they defined the role of make-up artists in Motion Pictures. George Westmore opened the very first make-up department at Selig Studios in 1917... and the brothers were responsible for creating the signature looks for stars like Rudolph Valentino, Clara Bow, Elizabeth Taylor, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn and even the teenage fashion doll, Barbie."
Ern Westmore became the first make-up artist recipient of the Academy Cup in 1931 for his work on Cimarron starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne, while Monte wowed Hollywood with his styling skills on movie epic Gone with the Wind - he made Vivien Leigh's hazel eyes appear green at the request of director David O. Selznick.
And when Paul Muni won the Best Actor Oscar for The Story of Louis Pasteur in 1936, he thanked only one person, Perc Westmore, in his acceptance speech.
Other family claims to fame include Bud Westmore's molded foam rubber suit in The Creature from the Black Lagoon and his make-up expertise on TV show The Munsters and youngest brother Frank's work on cult show Kung Fu, for which he became the first Westmore to receive an Emmy Award.
The family continues to pursue excellence on the big and small screen - Monte's son, Michael, received an Oscar and a British Academy Award nomination in 1986 for his artistry on Mask. He has also picked up nine Emmy statuettes and an impressive 42 Emmy nominations over the course of his career. He holds the record for more Emmy nominations than any other make-up artist.
- 9/29/2008
- WENN
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