Top to bottom: Lawrence Of Arabia (Columbia Pictures), Avatar (20th Century Fox), Blade Runner 2049 (Warner Bros.)Graphic: The A.V. Club
There are artists who work on such a large scale that seeing their art in person for the first time can completely change your impression of a piece, no...
There are artists who work on such a large scale that seeing their art in person for the first time can completely change your impression of a piece, no...
- 3/21/2024
- by Cindy White
- avclub.com
Film historians, critics and cineastes have heralded 1939 as the greatest year for Hollywood films. It was the year that saw the release of such classics as “Gone with the Wind,” “Stagecoach,” “Love Affair,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Young Mr. Lincoln” and “Wuthering Heights.” That’s just the tip of the iceberg
But what about Broadway? A case can be made for 1964, which saw the debuts of three musicals that became classics: “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Funny Girl” and “Hello, Dolly!”
Broadway was changing in the 1960s. Oscar Hammerstein II died in 1960; Irving Berlin’s last show was the disappointing 1962 “Mr. President”; and Cole Porter, who died in 1964, hadn’t had a musical on Broadway since the 1950s. Sixty years ago, a group of young talented composers and lyricists were the toast of the Great White Way.
Like Jerry Herman. He was all of 30 when “Milk...
But what about Broadway? A case can be made for 1964, which saw the debuts of three musicals that became classics: “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Funny Girl” and “Hello, Dolly!”
Broadway was changing in the 1960s. Oscar Hammerstein II died in 1960; Irving Berlin’s last show was the disappointing 1962 “Mr. President”; and Cole Porter, who died in 1964, hadn’t had a musical on Broadway since the 1950s. Sixty years ago, a group of young talented composers and lyricists were the toast of the Great White Way.
Like Jerry Herman. He was all of 30 when “Milk...
- 2/1/2024
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
She was the first American actress to marry a prince, the first actress to dance with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, one of the first pin-up girls of the 1940s and the first celebrity to bring awareness to Alzheimer’s Disease. She was the “Love Goddess,” Rita Hayworth.
Hayworth was born on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn as Margarita Carmen Cansino, into a family of Spanish dancers. Although she later claimed she didn’t care for it, Hayworth started dancing at a young age to please her father. They performed together as the Dancing Cansinos from the time she was 12-years-old. She began landing small film roles in her teens under the name Rita Cansino, eventually earning a contract with Columbia Pictures. There she was “Americanized” by changing her last name to her Irish mother’s maiden name of Hayworth, dying her dark hair red and having electrolysis to raise her hairline.
Hayworth was born on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn as Margarita Carmen Cansino, into a family of Spanish dancers. Although she later claimed she didn’t care for it, Hayworth started dancing at a young age to please her father. They performed together as the Dancing Cansinos from the time she was 12-years-old. She began landing small film roles in her teens under the name Rita Cansino, eventually earning a contract with Columbia Pictures. There she was “Americanized” by changing her last name to her Irish mother’s maiden name of Hayworth, dying her dark hair red and having electrolysis to raise her hairline.
- 10/13/2023
- by Susan Pennington, Misty Holland and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
William Holden may have won his only Academy Award for Billy Wilder’s “Stalag 17,” but he wasn’t the first choice to play Sefton, the cynical sergeant who is a one-man black market at a German Pow camp. Originally, Charlton Heston was going to headline the film. Heston was red-hot at the time coming off his flashy starring role in Cecil B. DeMille’s Oscar winning 1952 circus epic “The Great Show on Earth.” But as Wilder and co-writer Edwin Blum were working on the script for the film, which premiered on July 1, 1953 in New York and two weeks later in Los Angeles, the character became darker and more disparaging; They realized Heston wasn’t right for the part
The AFI catalog noted that supposedly Wilder went to Kirk Douglas who had starred in Wilder’s 1951 “Ace in the Hole,” a masterpiece that flopped badly when released. After he turned...
The AFI catalog noted that supposedly Wilder went to Kirk Douglas who had starred in Wilder’s 1951 “Ace in the Hole,” a masterpiece that flopped badly when released. After he turned...
- 7/3/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
So, did you ever wonder why Carol Burnett always tugs her ear? It was a way she could say “hi” to her beloved grandmother. The first time she did it was when she made her TV debut at 22 on the Dec. 17, 1955 episode of the popular “The Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney Show.” She played the girlfriend of the woody dummy. “The first song I sang on TV was ‘Over the Rainbow’ to Jerry Mahoney,” she noted in a 2016 L.A. Times interview with me. “I remember I called my grandmother to tell her I was going to be on television. Nanny said say hello to me. That’s when we came up with pulling my ear.”
Nearly seven decades later, Burnett is still tugging at her ear, singing and making people laugh And on April 26th, which is her 90th birthday, NBC is throwing her a celebration “Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love.
Nearly seven decades later, Burnett is still tugging at her ear, singing and making people laugh And on April 26th, which is her 90th birthday, NBC is throwing her a celebration “Carol Burnett: 90 Years of Laughter + Love.
- 4/24/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Just under three decades ago, the stop-motion animated classic "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was released. Directed by Henry Selick, the film introduced us to Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town in charge of the holiday. He's starting to get bored with being spooky, though. One day he discovers the door to Christmas Town and sees a different sort of celebration. Jack formulates a plan to kidnap Santa Claws — who he thinks is named Sandy Claws — and take over the winter festivities himself. Chris Sarandon voiced the role of Jack Skellington, with score composer Danny Elfman singing the songs for the character.
Santa Claus was voiced by Ed Ivory in the film, but the role originally went to someone who is very familiar with scary things. That man was horror legend Vincent Price, according to a Daily Beast interview with Selick from 2013. He wasn't the only person they saw for the role,...
Santa Claus was voiced by Ed Ivory in the film, but the role originally went to someone who is very familiar with scary things. That man was horror legend Vincent Price, according to a Daily Beast interview with Selick from 2013. He wasn't the only person they saw for the role,...
- 12/3/2022
- by Jenna Busch
- Slash Film
Love movies and cinemas? If you live in the St. Louis area, have we got some great geek news for you.
Ron Elz, a.k.a. Johnny Rabbitt (along with a special guest cast), will present prominent St. Louis people and places related to the stage and screen on Nov. 15 at ‘The Front Row‘.
Movie and theater enthusiasts can take a tour of yesterday’s theaters—including Loew’s State, the Orpheum, the Shubert, the Ozark, drive-ins, and more—as well as modern gems, such as the Fox, the Muny, the Stifel Theatre, and the Loretto-Hilton Center. St. Louis itself has taken a starring role in movies such as Meet Me in St. Louis and The Hoodlum Priest. Of course, movies have been filmed here too, including White Palace and Escape from New York.
The city has also been home to celebrities like Tennessee Williams, Betty Grable, Vincent Price, Kevin Kline,...
Ron Elz, a.k.a. Johnny Rabbitt (along with a special guest cast), will present prominent St. Louis people and places related to the stage and screen on Nov. 15 at ‘The Front Row‘.
Movie and theater enthusiasts can take a tour of yesterday’s theaters—including Loew’s State, the Orpheum, the Shubert, the Ozark, drive-ins, and more—as well as modern gems, such as the Fox, the Muny, the Stifel Theatre, and the Loretto-Hilton Center. St. Louis itself has taken a starring role in movies such as Meet Me in St. Louis and The Hoodlum Priest. Of course, movies have been filmed here too, including White Palace and Escape from New York.
The city has also been home to celebrities like Tennessee Williams, Betty Grable, Vincent Price, Kevin Kline,...
- 10/31/2022
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Billie Hayes, whose portrayal of the flamboyantly and comically wicked witch Witchiepoo on the 1969-70 Saturday morning live-action children’s classic H.R. Pufnstuf, died of natural causes April 29 at Cedar’s Hospital in Los Angeles. She was 96.
Her death was announced by her family.
A Broadway veteran by the time she reached national fame as the flute-stealing nemesis to a psychedelic dragon, Hayes had starred as Mammy Yokum in both the Broadway and film versions of the popular late-1950s musical Lil’ Abner. She’d made her Broadway debut in New Faces of 1956 along with an ensemble that included actress Maggie Smith.
Following a couple of guest appearances on episodic TV in 1967 – including a Mammy Yokum-type matriarch in the “Hillbilly Honeymoon” episode of The Monkees – Hayes endeared herself to a generation of glued-to-the-tube Saturday morning viewers in 1969 as the eccentrically costumed, ever-cackling and always bumbling Witchiepoo (full name: Wilhelmina W.
Her death was announced by her family.
A Broadway veteran by the time she reached national fame as the flute-stealing nemesis to a psychedelic dragon, Hayes had starred as Mammy Yokum in both the Broadway and film versions of the popular late-1950s musical Lil’ Abner. She’d made her Broadway debut in New Faces of 1956 along with an ensemble that included actress Maggie Smith.
Following a couple of guest appearances on episodic TV in 1967 – including a Mammy Yokum-type matriarch in the “Hillbilly Honeymoon” episode of The Monkees – Hayes endeared herself to a generation of glued-to-the-tube Saturday morning viewers in 1969 as the eccentrically costumed, ever-cackling and always bumbling Witchiepoo (full name: Wilhelmina W.
- 5/3/2021
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Storied stuntman Ernie F. Orsatti, who is best known for falling 30 feet through a glass skylight in the 1972 film “The Poseidon Adventure,” has died. He was 80.
The Stunt Players Directory Facebook page confirmed his death, writing: “We are saddened to hear of the passing of legendary stuntman Ernie Orsatti. His impeccable work and contributions to the stunt community will live forever.” His son, Noon Orsatti, told The Hollywood Reporter that his father died on Sep. 12 in La Quinta, Calif., after experiencing a hemorrhagic stroke.
Orsatti got his start as a stuntman while acting in the disaster film “The Poseidon Adventure” in 1972 as Terry, the date of Pamela Sue Martin’s character. The film’s producer, Irwin Allen, informed Orsatti the day before the stunt was scheduled that he was to perform it, even though he had no experience in the field. However, after consulting with the film’s stunt coordinator,...
The Stunt Players Directory Facebook page confirmed his death, writing: “We are saddened to hear of the passing of legendary stuntman Ernie Orsatti. His impeccable work and contributions to the stunt community will live forever.” His son, Noon Orsatti, told The Hollywood Reporter that his father died on Sep. 12 in La Quinta, Calif., after experiencing a hemorrhagic stroke.
Orsatti got his start as a stuntman while acting in the disaster film “The Poseidon Adventure” in 1972 as Terry, the date of Pamela Sue Martin’s character. The film’s producer, Irwin Allen, informed Orsatti the day before the stunt was scheduled that he was to perform it, even though he had no experience in the field. However, after consulting with the film’s stunt coordinator,...
- 9/19/2020
- by Ellise Shafer
- Variety Film + TV
by Nathaniel R
Let's look at some cultural background on the year 1947 before we reach the new Smackdown event in exactly one week (have you voted yet?). Light entertainments were very popular but Post-War America and by extension Hollywood was feeling a dark undertow and anxiety. Cinema went deep into noir territory (men really didn't know who to trust or what to make of women after they'd becoming working girls during the War and the anxiety definitely showed onscreen) and offscreen things were treacherous. The infamous witchhunt for Communists began in Hollywood, cutting off the careers of many talented actors and filmmakers who wouldn't 'name names', beginning with "The Hollywood Ten".
Great Big Box Office Hits:
A now long-forgotten picture, Welcome Stranger (reteaming the Oscar-winning stars of Going My Way) was one of the year's very biggest attractions. The best-seller turned rom-com The Egg and I was also a huge success.
Let's look at some cultural background on the year 1947 before we reach the new Smackdown event in exactly one week (have you voted yet?). Light entertainments were very popular but Post-War America and by extension Hollywood was feeling a dark undertow and anxiety. Cinema went deep into noir territory (men really didn't know who to trust or what to make of women after they'd becoming working girls during the War and the anxiety definitely showed onscreen) and offscreen things were treacherous. The infamous witchhunt for Communists began in Hollywood, cutting off the careers of many talented actors and filmmakers who wouldn't 'name names', beginning with "The Hollywood Ten".
Great Big Box Office Hits:
A now long-forgotten picture, Welcome Stranger (reteaming the Oscar-winning stars of Going My Way) was one of the year's very biggest attractions. The best-seller turned rom-com The Egg and I was also a huge success.
- 5/21/2020
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
This article contains Hollywood spoilers. You can find the easter egg guide for the previous episode here.
In what might be the most glamorous episode of Hollywood yet, George Hurrell’s decadent photo sessions get name checked, and (probably) Mickey Cohen’s mob gets involved. Let’s get cracking at those eggs!
Hollywood Episode 5
-The episode begins with Avis and company lamenting how terrible Walt Disney’s Song of the South is. And they’re not wrong, although one of its stars, Hattie McDaniel, is about to get a pretty glamorous treatment beginning in this episode…
-As production of Meg gets underway, we hear Ethel Merman’s iconic “There’s No Business Like Show Business” playing.
-We are also introduced to Queen Latifah as Hattie McDaniel… and she’s in a three way with a man and woman?! This is based on speculation and rumors that she was part of...
In what might be the most glamorous episode of Hollywood yet, George Hurrell’s decadent photo sessions get name checked, and (probably) Mickey Cohen’s mob gets involved. Let’s get cracking at those eggs!
Hollywood Episode 5
-The episode begins with Avis and company lamenting how terrible Walt Disney’s Song of the South is. And they’re not wrong, although one of its stars, Hattie McDaniel, is about to get a pretty glamorous treatment beginning in this episode…
-As production of Meg gets underway, we hear Ethel Merman’s iconic “There’s No Business Like Show Business” playing.
-We are also introduced to Queen Latifah as Hattie McDaniel… and she’s in a three way with a man and woman?! This is based on speculation and rumors that she was part of...
- 5/2/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
As you might expect, Netflix’s new “Hollywood,” which debuts on the streamer May 1, didn’t have to travel far for production. However, the eight-episode series, from Ryan Murphy and his “Glee” collaborator Ian Brennan, doesn’t take place in contemporary Hollywood but rather in Los Angeles, just after World War II.
Production designer Matthew Flood Ferguson captures the 1940s beautifully. Not only did filming take place at many Los Angeles landmarks, but Ferguson also re-created long-gone institutions like Schwab’s Pharmacy.
David Corenswet stars in the ensemble as Jack Costello, a G.I. from the Midwest who comes to Hollywood to be a movie star but finds himself turning tricks with well-to-do Beverly Hills housewives in order to make ends meet for him and his wife (Maude Apatow).
Darren Criss plays an aspiring director in a secret relationship with a black actor (Laura Harrier). Archie Coleman (two-time Tony nominee...
Production designer Matthew Flood Ferguson captures the 1940s beautifully. Not only did filming take place at many Los Angeles landmarks, but Ferguson also re-created long-gone institutions like Schwab’s Pharmacy.
David Corenswet stars in the ensemble as Jack Costello, a G.I. from the Midwest who comes to Hollywood to be a movie star but finds himself turning tricks with well-to-do Beverly Hills housewives in order to make ends meet for him and his wife (Maude Apatow).
Darren Criss plays an aspiring director in a secret relationship with a black actor (Laura Harrier). Archie Coleman (two-time Tony nominee...
- 4/30/2020
- by Marc Malkin
- Variety Film + TV
A happy-go-lucky dragon with a yellow head who talks with a magic flute. Diminutive sea monsters frolicking with a pair of young boys. A world where lifesize hats run things. And presidents in a bar, laughing it up with Saddam Hussein and Barbara Walters. These are the worlds which have been the mainstay of Sid and Marty Krofft for over 50 years, and for which they are being honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Feb.13.
The Kroffts’ craft developed out of several decades of marionette work, including their hugely successful “Les Poupées de Paris,” the first “adults only” puppet show, featuring naked marionettes, which opened in 1962. Its success drew the attention of Six Flags, who brought the brothers onboard as creative heads to install shows at all of their amusement parks.
To produce the many costumes, puppets and props used at the Six Flags parks, the...
The Kroffts’ craft developed out of several decades of marionette work, including their hugely successful “Les Poupées de Paris,” the first “adults only” puppet show, featuring naked marionettes, which opened in 1962. Its success drew the attention of Six Flags, who brought the brothers onboard as creative heads to install shows at all of their amusement parks.
To produce the many costumes, puppets and props used at the Six Flags parks, the...
- 2/13/2020
- by Matt Hurwitz
- Variety Film + TV
There’s so much to love about Thanksgiving: the piles of food, the expressions of gratitude, that uncle that still tries to get you to pull his finger, the four-day weekend, etc. And yet, this late November feast of gluttony is easily the most underserved among the major U.S. holidays when it comes to one important factor: its songs.
Christmas, of course, has more carols and novelty numbers than you can shake a giant candy cane at. Easter comes complete with “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and a basket-load of hymns.
Christmas, of course, has more carols and novelty numbers than you can shake a giant candy cane at. Easter comes complete with “Here Comes Peter Cottontail” and a basket-load of hymns.
- 11/23/2019
- by Dan Epstein
- Rollingstone.com
She was the first American actress to marry a prince, the first actress to dance with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, one of the first pin-up girls of the 1940s and the first celebrity to bring awareness to Alzheimer’s Disease. She was the “Love Goddess,” Rita Hayworth.
Hayworth was born on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn as Margarita Carmen Cansino, into a family of Spanish dancers. Although she later claimed she didn’t care for it, Hayworth started dancing at a young age to please her father. They performed together as the Dancing Cansinos from the time she was 12-years-old. She began landing small film roles in her teens under the name Rita Cansino, eventually earning a contract with Columbia Pictures. There she was “Americanized” by changing her last name to her Irish mother’s maiden name of Hayworth, dying her dark hair red and having electrolysis to raise her hairline.
Hayworth was born on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn as Margarita Carmen Cansino, into a family of Spanish dancers. Although she later claimed she didn’t care for it, Hayworth started dancing at a young age to please her father. They performed together as the Dancing Cansinos from the time she was 12-years-old. She began landing small film roles in her teens under the name Rita Cansino, eventually earning a contract with Columbia Pictures. There she was “Americanized” by changing her last name to her Irish mother’s maiden name of Hayworth, dying her dark hair red and having electrolysis to raise her hairline.
- 10/17/2019
- by Susan Pennington and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Most of us know Betty Grable from the famous pin-up copied by the cover artwork for this release; by 1944 Ms. Grable was Fox’s biggest earner, and the Armed Force’s most popular daydream babe both back home and at the front. This movie pulled in the multitudes, even though Betty doesn’t even play a model suitable for pin-up duty! But just imagine: in almost any town during wartime with a war industry somewhere nearby, movie theaters played around the clock, with sold-out audiences, to accommodate swing shift defense workers.
Pin Up Girl
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1944 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 84 min. / Street Date June 18, 2019 / Available from Twilight Time Movies / 29.95
Starring: Betty Grable, John Harvey, Martha Raye, Joe E. Brown, Eugene Pallette, Dorothea Kent, Dave Willock.
Cinematography: Ernest Palmer
Choreography: Hermes Pan
Original Music: Song Score Ð James V. Monaco (Music)/Mack Gordon (Lyrics); Charles Henderson, Emil Newman (Musical Directors)
Written by Robert Ellis,...
Pin Up Girl
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1944 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 84 min. / Street Date June 18, 2019 / Available from Twilight Time Movies / 29.95
Starring: Betty Grable, John Harvey, Martha Raye, Joe E. Brown, Eugene Pallette, Dorothea Kent, Dave Willock.
Cinematography: Ernest Palmer
Choreography: Hermes Pan
Original Music: Song Score Ð James V. Monaco (Music)/Mack Gordon (Lyrics); Charles Henderson, Emil Newman (Musical Directors)
Written by Robert Ellis,...
- 7/23/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
1968: Dark Shadows' Victoria arrived in the year 1795.
1986: Days of our Lives' Bo had a Britta flashback.
1993: General Hospital's Dominique fainted before her wedding.
1998: Port Charles' Serena bit Rex."History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into d ifferent and unexpected images."
― Anselm Kiefer
"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.
On this date in...
1965: On Another World, Pat Matthews (Susan Trustman) was found not guilty of murdering Tom Baxter (Nicholas Pryor) by reason of temporary insanity.
1968: On Dark Shadows, in the wake of a seance gone awry, Victoria Winters awoke in the year 1795, a time where each of the Collins...
1986: Days of our Lives' Bo had a Britta flashback.
1993: General Hospital's Dominique fainted before her wedding.
1998: Port Charles' Serena bit Rex."History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into d ifferent and unexpected images."
― Anselm Kiefer
"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.
On this date in...
1965: On Another World, Pat Matthews (Susan Trustman) was found not guilty of murdering Tom Baxter (Nicholas Pryor) by reason of temporary insanity.
1968: On Dark Shadows, in the wake of a seance gone awry, Victoria Winters awoke in the year 1795, a time where each of the Collins...
- 2/13/2019
- by Roger Newcomb
- We Love Soaps
Carol Channing, a Broadway legend who was known for her signature lead role in Hello, Dolly! and continued performing well into her 90s, has died of natural causes at her home in Rancho Mirage, CA. She was 97.
B Harlan Boll, Channing’s publicist, confirmed the news to multiple news outlets. “It is with extreme heartache that I have to announce the passing of an original Industry Pioneer, Legend and Icon – Miss Carol Channing,” Boll said in a statement to Broadway World. “I admired her before I met her, and have loved her since the day she stepped … or fell, rather … into my life.”
A native of Seattle, Channing’s distinctively gravelly enunciation, lanky, energetic frame and carefree laugh marked her many decades in show business. Along with her remarkable 4,500 performances in the title role of Hello, Dolly!, she appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Vamp and Lorelei. On movie screens,...
B Harlan Boll, Channing’s publicist, confirmed the news to multiple news outlets. “It is with extreme heartache that I have to announce the passing of an original Industry Pioneer, Legend and Icon – Miss Carol Channing,” Boll said in a statement to Broadway World. “I admired her before I met her, and have loved her since the day she stepped … or fell, rather … into my life.”
A native of Seattle, Channing’s distinctively gravelly enunciation, lanky, energetic frame and carefree laugh marked her many decades in show business. Along with her remarkable 4,500 performances in the title role of Hello, Dolly!, she appeared in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Vamp and Lorelei. On movie screens,...
- 1/15/2019
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
'The Love Goddess' herself, Rita Hayworth, was born on this day 100 years ago in Brooklyn. Audiences first noticed her in a small role in Only Angels Have Wings (1939) and she seguewayed into profile boosters like Blood and Sand (1941) and Strawberry Blonde (1941). A natural dancer she made two pictures she obviously cherished with Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942) -- Astaire went so far as calling her his favorite dancer partner -- and was one of the two ubiquitous pinups of World War II for American soldiers (the other being Betty Grable)...
- 10/17/2018
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
This article marks Part 5 of the Gold Derby series analyzing 84 years of Best Original Song at the Oscars. Join us as we look back at the timeless tunes recognized in this category, the results of each race and the overall rankings of the Academy Awards winners.
The 1950 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:
“Mona Lisa” from “Captain Carey, U.S.A.”
“Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” from “Cinderella”
“Mule Train” from “Singing Guns”
“Be My Love” from “The Toast of New Orleans”
“Wilhelmina” from “Wabash Avenue”
Won and should’ve won: “Mona Lisa” from “Captain Carey, U.S.A. ”
Best Original Song in 1950 underwhelms a bit, with really only two particularly memorable nominees – one, the winning “Mona Lisa,” and second, the catchy-as-can-be “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.”
“Mona Lisa,” featured in the forgettable Alan Ladd war picture “Captain Carey, U.S.A.,” is performed sumptuously here by the always-marvelous Nat King Cole. His performance, coupled with the rich orchestrations,...
The 1950 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:
“Mona Lisa” from “Captain Carey, U.S.A.”
“Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” from “Cinderella”
“Mule Train” from “Singing Guns”
“Be My Love” from “The Toast of New Orleans”
“Wilhelmina” from “Wabash Avenue”
Won and should’ve won: “Mona Lisa” from “Captain Carey, U.S.A. ”
Best Original Song in 1950 underwhelms a bit, with really only two particularly memorable nominees – one, the winning “Mona Lisa,” and second, the catchy-as-can-be “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.”
“Mona Lisa,” featured in the forgettable Alan Ladd war picture “Captain Carey, U.S.A.,” is performed sumptuously here by the always-marvelous Nat King Cole. His performance, coupled with the rich orchestrations,...
- 8/20/2018
- by Andrew Carden
- Gold Derby
This article marks Part 4 of the Gold Derby series analyzing 84 years of Best Original Song at the Oscars. Join us as we look back at the timeless tunes recognized in this category, the results of each race and the overall rankings of the Academy Awards winners.
The 1946 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:
“You Keep Coming Back Like a Song” from “Blue Skies”
“Ole Buttermilk Sky” from “Canyon Passage”
“All Through the Day” from “Centennial Summer”
“I Can’t Begin to Tell You” from “The Dolly Sisters”
“On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” from “The Harvey Girls”
Won and should’ve won: “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” from “The Harvey Girls”
1946 marks a very obscure and awfully modest year in Best Original Song. There’s not really a rotten apple in the bunch, but there’s also nothing to get terribly head over heels about.
The 1946 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:
“You Keep Coming Back Like a Song” from “Blue Skies”
“Ole Buttermilk Sky” from “Canyon Passage”
“All Through the Day” from “Centennial Summer”
“I Can’t Begin to Tell You” from “The Dolly Sisters”
“On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” from “The Harvey Girls”
Won and should’ve won: “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe” from “The Harvey Girls”
1946 marks a very obscure and awfully modest year in Best Original Song. There’s not really a rotten apple in the bunch, but there’s also nothing to get terribly head over heels about.
- 8/6/2018
- by Andrew Carden
- Gold Derby
This article marks Part 2 of the Gold Derby series analyzing 84 years of Best Original Song at the Oscars. Join us as we look back at the timeless tunes recognized in this category, the results of each race and the overall rankings of the Academy Awards winners.
The 1940 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:
“Down Argentine Way” from “Down Argentine Way”
“Who Am I” from “Hit Parade of 1941”
“It’s a Blue World” from Music in My Heart”
“When You Wish Upon a Star” from “Pinocchio”
“Only Forever” from “Rhythm on the River”
“Love of My Life” from “Second Chorus”
“Waltzing in the Clouds” from “Spring Parade”
“Our Love Affair” from “Strike Up the Band”
“I’d Know You Anywhere” from “You’ll Find Out”
Won and should’ve won: “When You Wish Upon a Star” from “Pinocchio”
Let’s take a moment to stare in wonder at the star-studded nature of this line-up.
The 1940 Oscar nominees in Best Original Song were:
“Down Argentine Way” from “Down Argentine Way”
“Who Am I” from “Hit Parade of 1941”
“It’s a Blue World” from Music in My Heart”
“When You Wish Upon a Star” from “Pinocchio”
“Only Forever” from “Rhythm on the River”
“Love of My Life” from “Second Chorus”
“Waltzing in the Clouds” from “Spring Parade”
“Our Love Affair” from “Strike Up the Band”
“I’d Know You Anywhere” from “You’ll Find Out”
Won and should’ve won: “When You Wish Upon a Star” from “Pinocchio”
Let’s take a moment to stare in wonder at the star-studded nature of this line-up.
- 7/16/2018
- by Andrew Carden
- Gold Derby
On this day in 1946, the bikini made its debut. To celebrate #NationalBikiniDay, let’s take a look back at some of the most iconic swimsuits–both one- and two-piece–in film and television, from the 1930s to the present.
1930s: Jean Harlow
In the 1930s, before her death at age 26, film actress Jean Harlow was a Hollywood sex symbol. According to Redbook, she was also one of the earliest stars to be photographed in a swimsuit.
1940s: Betty Grable
Betty Grable was celebrated in the 1930s and 40s for her “million dollar legs.” Though this yellow bikini is not as famous as Grable’s famous one-piece and high heels attire, it’s iconic in its own right.
1950s: Esther Williams
1960s: Ursula Andress (first Bond girl)
This Swiss actress catapulted to fame as the first “Bond girl” in the 1962 film, “Dr. No.” The scene where Andress rises out of the...
1930s: Jean Harlow
In the 1930s, before her death at age 26, film actress Jean Harlow was a Hollywood sex symbol. According to Redbook, she was also one of the earliest stars to be photographed in a swimsuit.
1940s: Betty Grable
Betty Grable was celebrated in the 1930s and 40s for her “million dollar legs.” Though this yellow bikini is not as famous as Grable’s famous one-piece and high heels attire, it’s iconic in its own right.
1950s: Esther Williams
1960s: Ursula Andress (first Bond girl)
This Swiss actress catapulted to fame as the first “Bond girl” in the 1962 film, “Dr. No.” The scene where Andress rises out of the...
- 6/5/2018
- by Ashley Eady
- The Wrap
“Wash your face, brush your teeth, and say your Prayers.” Marilyn Monroe’s first plunge into a dramatic starring role casts her as a dangerously unstable babysitter in a hotel-set suspense thriller co-starring Richard Widmark and Anne Bancroft. Ms. Monroe may not be Ethel Barrymore (thankfully) but the role suits her well — to play a woman unhinged by low self-esteem and melancholy romantic reveries, she may have tapped personal experience.
Don’t Bother to Knock
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1952 / B&W / 1.37 Academy / 76 min. / Street Date March 20, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Richard Widmark, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Bancroft, Donna Corcoran, Jeanne Cagney, Lurene Tuttle, Elisha Cook Jr., Jim Backus, Verna Felton, Willis Bouchey.
Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
Film Editor: George A. Gittens
Written by Daniel Taradash from a novel by Charlotte Armstrong
Produced by Julian Blaustein
Directed by Roy (Ward) Baker
Although she rates second billing below Richard Widmark,...
Don’t Bother to Knock
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1952 / B&W / 1.37 Academy / 76 min. / Street Date March 20, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Richard Widmark, Marilyn Monroe, Anne Bancroft, Donna Corcoran, Jeanne Cagney, Lurene Tuttle, Elisha Cook Jr., Jim Backus, Verna Felton, Willis Bouchey.
Cinematography: Lucien Ballard
Film Editor: George A. Gittens
Written by Daniel Taradash from a novel by Charlotte Armstrong
Produced by Julian Blaustein
Directed by Roy (Ward) Baker
Although she rates second billing below Richard Widmark,...
- 4/7/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
1968: Dark Shadows' Victoria arrived in the year 1795.
1986: Days of our Lives' Bo had a Britta flashback.
1993: General Hospital's Dominique fainted before her wedding.
1998: Port Charles' Serena bit Rex."Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results."
― Machiavelli
"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.
On this date in...
1965: On Another World, Pat Matthews (Susan Trustman) was found not guilty of murdering Tom Baxter (Nicholas Pryor...
1986: Days of our Lives' Bo had a Britta flashback.
1993: General Hospital's Dominique fainted before her wedding.
1998: Port Charles' Serena bit Rex."Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results."
― Machiavelli
"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.
On this date in...
1965: On Another World, Pat Matthews (Susan Trustman) was found not guilty of murdering Tom Baxter (Nicholas Pryor...
- 2/13/2018
- by Roger Newcomb
- We Love Soaps
On this day in 1946, the bikini made its debut. To celebrate #NationalBikiniDay, let’s take a look back at some of the most iconic swimsuits–both one- and two-piece–in film and television, from the 1930s to the present. 1930s: Jean Harlow In the 1930s, before her death at age 26, film actress Jean Harlow was a Hollywood sex symbol. According to Redbook, she was also one of the earliest stars to be photographed in a swimsuit. 1940s: Betty Grable Betty Grable was celebrated in the 1930s and 40s for her “million dollar legs.” Though this yellow bikini is not as famous as Grable’s famous...
- 2/7/2018
- by Ashley Eady
- The Wrap
Stars: Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer | Written by Guillermo Del Toro, Vanessa Taylor | Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
After A Cure for Wellness, here’s another heavily production-designed sci-fi with horror elements to give us the BioShock feels, from the austere early-‘60s setting right down to individual sound effects. I wish Gore Verbinski or Guillermo Del Toro (the latter directing and co-writing here) would go the whole hog and transport us to Rapture, because once again we have a talented filmmaker delivering a beautiful, disjointed disappointment.
The talented Sally Hawkins plays Elisa, a lonely, orphaned mute. She sleeps on an immaculate sofa in a grand apartment above a cinema with the sounds of classical Hollywood echoing through the floor. Just to hammer home the escapist point, Elisa spends her spare time with her gentle neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins), watching Shirley Temple, Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda.
After A Cure for Wellness, here’s another heavily production-designed sci-fi with horror elements to give us the BioShock feels, from the austere early-‘60s setting right down to individual sound effects. I wish Gore Verbinski or Guillermo Del Toro (the latter directing and co-writing here) would go the whole hog and transport us to Rapture, because once again we have a talented filmmaker delivering a beautiful, disjointed disappointment.
The talented Sally Hawkins plays Elisa, a lonely, orphaned mute. She sleeps on an immaculate sofa in a grand apartment above a cinema with the sounds of classical Hollywood echoing through the floor. Just to hammer home the escapist point, Elisa spends her spare time with her gentle neighbour Giles (Richard Jenkins), watching Shirley Temple, Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda.
- 2/6/2018
- by Rupert Harvey
- Nerdly
Doug Nichol's California Typewriter brilliantly captures the percussion of the keys at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Antiquarian typewriter collector Martin Howard over brunch in the garden of Narcissa, next door to the Standard Hotel, joined me for a conversation on California Typewriter, Doug Nichol's documentary featuring Tom Hanks, John Mayer, Jeremy Mayer, Pulitzer Prize winners David McCullough and Sam Shepard, and a reenactment of Ed Ruscha and Mason Williams' Royal Road Test execution. Martin is the glue of the film as we are taken on an historical journey for his search to purchase a Sholes & Glidden typewriter.
Martin Howard on typewriter Betty Grable: "She uses a Sholes & Glidden in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Wrong Box (John Mills, Michael Caine, Ralph Richardson, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore), Royal Flash (Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates, Florinda Bolkan, Oliver Reed), Waterloo (Rod Steiger,...
Antiquarian typewriter collector Martin Howard over brunch in the garden of Narcissa, next door to the Standard Hotel, joined me for a conversation on California Typewriter, Doug Nichol's documentary featuring Tom Hanks, John Mayer, Jeremy Mayer, Pulitzer Prize winners David McCullough and Sam Shepard, and a reenactment of Ed Ruscha and Mason Williams' Royal Road Test execution. Martin is the glue of the film as we are taken on an historical journey for his search to purchase a Sholes & Glidden typewriter.
Martin Howard on typewriter Betty Grable: "She uses a Sholes & Glidden in The Shocking Miss Pilgrim." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Wrong Box (John Mills, Michael Caine, Ralph Richardson, Peter Sellers, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore), Royal Flash (Malcolm McDowell, Alan Bates, Florinda Bolkan, Oliver Reed), Waterloo (Rod Steiger,...
- 8/27/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
On this day in 1946, the bikini made its debut. To celebrate #NationalBikiniDay, let’s take a look back at some of the most iconic swimsuits–both one- and two-piece–in film and television, from the 1930s to the present. 1930s: Jean Harlow In the 1930s, before her death at age 26, film actress Jean Harlow was a Hollywood sex symbol. According to Redbook, she was also one of the earliest stars to be photographed in a swimsuit. 1940s: Betty Grable Betty Grable was celebrated in the 1930s and 40s for her “million dollar legs.” Though this yellow bikini is not as famous as Grable’s famous.
- 7/6/2017
- by Ashley Eady
- The Wrap
I’ve listened to many podcasts during the long upstate winter and one of my favorites has been Karina Longworth’s You Must Remember This. It’s billed as a storytelling podcast exploring the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century. I enjoy it because Longworth spins great yarns, with vivid insights, about Hollywood stars and their careers.
But I think there’s more to why it’s popular and why I enjoy it so much. I’m starting to realize that the inevitable ups and downs of yesteryear’s Hollywood Stars are analogous to the rollercoaster rides that categorize so many of today’s careers.
It’s astounding to hear about how a legendary star’s career might have floundered at one point, only to do a complete 360 as he or she gets cast in a successful blockbuster movie. Thundering successes and crushing failures become the...
But I think there’s more to why it’s popular and why I enjoy it so much. I’m starting to realize that the inevitable ups and downs of yesteryear’s Hollywood Stars are analogous to the rollercoaster rides that categorize so many of today’s careers.
It’s astounding to hear about how a legendary star’s career might have floundered at one point, only to do a complete 360 as he or she gets cast in a successful blockbuster movie. Thundering successes and crushing failures become the...
- 4/24/2017
- by Ed Catto
- Comicmix.com
I’ve listened to many podcasts during the long upstate winter and one of my favorites has been Karina Longworth’s You Must Remember This. It’s billed as a storytelling podcast exploring the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century. I enjoy it because Longworth spins great yarns, with vivid insights, about Hollywood stars and their careers.
But I think there’s more to why it’s popular and why I enjoy it so much. I’m starting to realize that the inevitable ups and downs of yesteryear’s Hollywood Stars are analogous to the rollercoaster rides that categorize so many of today’s careers.
It’s astounding to hear about how a legendary star’s career might have floundered at one point, only to do a complete 360 as he or she gets cast in a successful blockbuster movie. Thundering successes and crushing failures become the...
But I think there’s more to why it’s popular and why I enjoy it so much. I’m starting to realize that the inevitable ups and downs of yesteryear’s Hollywood Stars are analogous to the rollercoaster rides that categorize so many of today’s careers.
It’s astounding to hear about how a legendary star’s career might have floundered at one point, only to do a complete 360 as he or she gets cast in a successful blockbuster movie. Thundering successes and crushing failures become the...
- 4/24/2017
- by Ed Catto
- Comicmix.com
Bette Midler is the lady in red!
The legendary actress is starring in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! as she steps into the titular role of Dolly Gallagher Levi. The musical starts preview performances on March 15, with opening night set for April 20 at the Shubert Theatre.
The musical follows Dolly as a widow in her middle years who has decided to begin her life again.
Midler last hit Broadway for the hit one-woman play I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers in 2013. She made her Broadway debut in Fiddler on the Roof in 1966 and went on...
The legendary actress is starring in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! as she steps into the titular role of Dolly Gallagher Levi. The musical starts preview performances on March 15, with opening night set for April 20 at the Shubert Theatre.
The musical follows Dolly as a widow in her middle years who has decided to begin her life again.
Midler last hit Broadway for the hit one-woman play I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers in 2013. She made her Broadway debut in Fiddler on the Roof in 1966 and went on...
- 3/14/2017
- by Ale Russian
- PEOPLE.com
Veteran’s Day is November 11. While we all try to escape from the most exasperating Presidential Campaign in our history let me pay tribute to the Men and Women who have served in the military to insure we keep our electoral process and our freedoms.
Having served in the Navy four years (there he goes again!) I have a keen interest in any movie about the military, especially the sea service. I did serve during peace time so had no experience with combat but still spent most of my tour of duty at sea on an aircraft carrier, the USS Amerca CV66. Among other jobs I ran the ship’s television station for almost two years. Movies have always been important to me and so providing a few hours of entertainment every day when we were at sea was just about the best job I could have had.
The author...
Having served in the Navy four years (there he goes again!) I have a keen interest in any movie about the military, especially the sea service. I did serve during peace time so had no experience with combat but still spent most of my tour of duty at sea on an aircraft carrier, the USS Amerca CV66. Among other jobs I ran the ship’s television station for almost two years. Movies have always been important to me and so providing a few hours of entertainment every day when we were at sea was just about the best job I could have had.
The author...
- 11/11/2016
- by Sam Moffitt
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Have you ever heard of "The Glasses Come Off" trope? What about "The Glasses Gotta Go" or "Beautiful All Along?" They've been around a while in fiction but as it turns out sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov recognized it narrative shorthand immediately for what it was - crap. Those specific tropes spin off the more general one of "Smart People Wear Glasses," wherein a character is immediately smart (this usually also translates to nerd) if they wear glasses. Like most historical figures (and all humans) Asimov isn't without faults but this page unearthed by Twitter user @DoktorAndy from an Asimov essay titled "The Cult of Ignorance" (collected in "Is Anyone There?" in 1967) is a real revelation. Isaac Asimov's critique of the "ugly girl with glasses becoming popular" from 1956 is spectacular. pic.twitter.com/toxMCVRLgA — Doktor Andy (@DoktorAndy) October 30, 2016 I transcribed just in case that's unreadable: The cliche to which I...
- 11/1/2016
- by Jill Pantozzi
- Hitfix
Yes, it is a perfect title for a horror picture, but it belongs to an early film noir -- or as we discover, a murder thriller that previews the classic '40s noir visual look. Victor Mature is the man on the spot for a killing, Betty Grable and Carole Landis are a pair of sisters in danger, and Laird Cregar is the creepiest police detective in the history of the force. I Wake Up Screaming Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 82 min. / Street Date November 1, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Betty Grable, Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Laird Cregar, William Gargan, Alan Mowbray, Allyn Joslyn, Elisha Cook Jr. Cinematography Edward Cronjager Art Direction Richard Day, Nathan Juran Film Editor Robert L. Simpson Original Music Cyril J. Mockridge, Harold Barlow Written by Dwight Taylor from the novel by Steve Fisher Directed by H. Bruce Humberstone
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
My,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
My,...
- 10/29/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The King Baggot Tribute will take place Wednesday September 28th at 7pm at Lee Auditorium inside the Missouri History Museum (Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri). The 1913 silent film Ivanhoe will be accompanied by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra and there will be a 40-minute illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot by We Are Movie Geeks’ Tom Stockman. A Facebook invite for the event can be found Here
Here’s a comprehensive look at the life and career of King Baggot
Article by Tom Stockman
They gathered to see the stars at St. Louis Union Station on Saturday March 25th 1910. President Taft had made a stop near the Twentieth Street entrance ten days earlier, but the crowd this day was much larger. Thousands, mostly excited women wearing ankle-length dresses and waving felt pennants lined up hoping for a glimpse, or perhaps...
Here’s a comprehensive look at the life and career of King Baggot
Article by Tom Stockman
They gathered to see the stars at St. Louis Union Station on Saturday March 25th 1910. President Taft had made a stop near the Twentieth Street entrance ten days earlier, but the crowd this day was much larger. Thousands, mostly excited women wearing ankle-length dresses and waving felt pennants lined up hoping for a glimpse, or perhaps...
- 9/28/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Leave it to director William Wellman to direct the most compelling social justice movie of the 1940s. Taken from a bestselling novel, it's a wrenching examination of the workings of a natural American phenomenon, the Lynch Mob. The Ox-Bow Incident Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1942 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 75 min. / Street Date July 12, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Mary Beth Hughes, Anthony Quinn, William Eythe, Harry Morgan, Jane Darwell, Matt Briggs, Harry Davenport, Frank Conroy, Marc Lawrence Cinematography Arthur Miller Art Direction James Basevi, Richard Day Film Editor Allen McNeil Original Music Cyril J. Mockridge Written and Produced by Lamar Trotti from a novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark Directed by William A. Wellman
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
In the first scene of this grim feature, Henry Fonda stumbles out of a saloon street and throws up in the street. Apparently that was the reaction shared...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
In the first scene of this grim feature, Henry Fonda stumbles out of a saloon street and throws up in the street. Apparently that was the reaction shared...
- 8/22/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The recent box office success of The Boss firmly establishes Melissa McCarthy as the current queen of movie comedies (Amy Schumer could be a new contender after an impressive debut last Summer with Trainwreck), but let us think back about those other funny ladies of filmdom. So while we’re enjoying the female reboot/re-imagining of Ghostbusters and those Bad Moms, here’s a top ten list that will hopefully inspire lots of laughter and cause you to search out some classic comedies. It’s tough to narrow them down to ten, but we’ll do our best, beginning with… 10. Eve Arden The droll Ms. Arden represents the comic sidekicks who will attempt to puncture the pomposity of the leading ladies with a well-placed wisecrack (see also the great Thelma Ritter in Rear Window). Her career began in the early 1930’s with great bit roles in Stage Door and Dancing Lady.
- 8/8/2016
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Actress Noel Neill, noted for playing DC Comics' 'Lois Lane' in the film serials "Superman" (1948) and "Atom Man vs. Superman" (1950), plus the 1950's television series "Adventures of Superman" has passed away:
In her teens, Neill was a popular photographic model, ranking number two with Us servicemen in WWII, behind pin-up Betty Grable.
Signing a contract with Paramount Pictures led to appearances in many of the studio's feature films and short subjects. In the mid-1940's, Noel had a leading role in one of Monogram Pictures' wayward-youth melodramas, and she became a familiar face in Monogram features for the next several years, especially in the recurring role of 'Betty Rogers'.
Neill then played DC Comics' 'Lois Lane' in the film serials "Superman" (1948) and "Atom Man vs. Superman" (1950).
But actress Phyllis Coates was cast as 'Lois Lane' in the TV series "Adventures Of Superman".
When Coates committed to another production,...
In her teens, Neill was a popular photographic model, ranking number two with Us servicemen in WWII, behind pin-up Betty Grable.
Signing a contract with Paramount Pictures led to appearances in many of the studio's feature films and short subjects. In the mid-1940's, Noel had a leading role in one of Monogram Pictures' wayward-youth melodramas, and she became a familiar face in Monogram features for the next several years, especially in the recurring role of 'Betty Rogers'.
Neill then played DC Comics' 'Lois Lane' in the film serials "Superman" (1948) and "Atom Man vs. Superman" (1950).
But actress Phyllis Coates was cast as 'Lois Lane' in the TV series "Adventures Of Superman".
When Coates committed to another production,...
- 7/5/2016
- by Michael Stevens
- SneakPeek
“We used to go to the movies. Now we want the movies to come to us, on our televisions, tablets and phones, as streams running into an increasingly unnavigable ocean of media. The dispersal of movie watching across technologies and contexts follows the multiplexing of movie theaters, itself a fragmenting of the single screen theater where movie love was first concentrated and consecrated. (But even in the “good old days,” movies were often only part of an evening’s entertainment that came complete with vaudeville acts and bank nights). For all this, moviegoing still means what it always meant, joining a community, forming an audience and participating in a collective dream.” –
From the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s programming notes for its current series, “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing”
Currently under way at the Billy Wilder Theater inside the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood, the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s far-reaching and fascinating series “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing” takes sharp aim at an overview of how the movies themselves have portrayed the act of going out to see movies during these years of seismic change in the way we see them. What’s best about the collection of films curated for the series is its scope, which sweeps along from the anything-goes exhibition of the silent era, on through an examination of the opulent era of grandiose movie palaces and post-war audience predilection for exploitation pictures, and straight into an era—ours—of a certain nostalgia for the ways we used to exclusively gather in dark places to watch visions jump out at us from the big screen. (That nostalgia, as it turns out, is often colored by a rear-view perspective on the times which contextualizes it and sometimes gives it a bitter tinge.) As the program notes for the Marquee Movies series puts it, whether you’re an American moviegoer or one from France, Italy, Argentina or Taiwan, “the current sense of loss at the passing of an exhibition era takes its place in the ongoing history of cultural and industrial transformation reflected in these films.”
The series took its inaugural bow last Friday night with a rare 35mm screening of Matinee (1993), director Joe Dante and screenwriter Charlie Haas’s vividly imagined tribute to movie love during a time in Us history which lazy writers frequently like to describe as “the point when America lost its innocence” or some other such silliness. For Americans, and for a whole lot of other people the world over, those days in 1962 during what would come to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis felt more like days when something a whole lot more tangible than “innocence” was about to be lost, what with the Us and Russia being on the brink of nuclear confrontation and all. The movie lays down this undercurrent of fear and uncertainty as the foundation which tints its main action, that of the arrival of exploitation movie impresario Laurence Woolsey (John Goodman, channeling producer and gimmick maestro William Castle) to Key West, Florida, to promote his latest shock show, Mant!, on the very weekend that American troops set to sea, ready to fire on Russian missile installments a mere 90 miles away in Cuba.
Woolsey’s hardly worried that his potential audience will be distracted the specter of annihilation; in fact, he’s energized by it, convinced that the free-floating anxiety will translate into box office dollars contributed by nervous kids and adults looking for a safe and scary good time, a disposal cinematic depository for all their worst fears. And it certainly doesn’t matter that Woolsey’s movie is a corny sci-fi absurdity-- all the better for his particular brand of enhancements. Mant!, a lovingly sculpted mash-up of 1950s hits like The Fly and Them!, benefits from “Atomo-vision,” which incorporates variants of Castle innovations like Emergo and Percepto, as well as “Rumble-rama,” a very crude precursor to Universal’s Oscar-winning Sensurround system. The movie’s Saturday afternoon screening is where Dante and Haas really let loose their tickled and twisted imaginations, with the help of Woolsey’s theatrical enhancements.
Leading up to the fearful and farcical unleashing of Mant!, Dante stages a beautifully understated sequence that moved me to tears when I saw it with my daughters last Friday night at the Billy Wilder Theater. Matinee is seen primarily through the eyes of young Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton), a military kid whose dad is among those waiting it out on nuclear-armed boats pointed in the direction of Cuba. Gene is a monster-movie nerd (and a clear stand-in for Dante, Haas and just about anybody—like me—whose primary biblical text was provided not by that fella in the burning bush but instead by Forrest J. Ackerman within the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland), and he manages to worm his way into Woolsey’s good graces as the producer prepares the local theater to show his picture. At one point he walks down the street in the company of the larger-than-life producer, who starts talking about his inspirations and why he makes the sort of movies he does:
“A zillion years ago, a guy’s living in a cave,” Woolsey expounds. “He goes out one day—Bam! He gets chased by a mammoth. Now, he’s scared to death, but he gets away. And when it’s all over with, he feels great.”
Gene, eager to believe but also to understand, responds quizzically-- “Well, yeah, ‘cause he’s still living.”
“Yeah, but he knows he is, and he feels it,” Woolsey counters. “So he goes home, back to the cave. First thing he does, he does a drawing of a mammoth.” (At this point the brick wall which the two of them are passing becomes a blank screen onto which Woolsey conjures an animated behemoth that entrances Gene and us.) Woolsey continues:
“He thinks, ‘People are coming to see this. Let’s make it good. Let’s make the teeth real long and the eyes real mean.’ Boom! The first monster movie. That’s probably why I still do it. You make the teeth as big as you want, then you kill it off, everything’s okay, the lights come up,” Woolsey concludes, ending his illustrative fantasy with a sigh.
But that’s not all, folks. At this point, Dante cuts to a Steadicam shot as it moves into the lobby hall of that Key West theater, past posters of Hatari!, Lonely are the Brave, Six Black Horses and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. The tracking shot continues up the stairs, letting us get a really close look at the worn, perhaps pungent carpet, most likely the same rug that was laid down when the theater opened 30 or so years earlier, into the snack bar area, then glides over to the closed swinging doors leading into the auditorium, while Woolsey continues:
“You see, the people come into your cave with the 200-year-old carpet, the guy tears your ticket in half—it’s too late to turn back now. The water fountain’s all booby-trapped and ready, the stuff laid out on the candy counter. Then you come over here to where it’s dark-- there could be anything in there—and you say, ‘Here I am. What have you got for me?’”
Forget nostalgia for a style of moviegoing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more compact, evocative and heartfelt tribute to the space in which we used to see movies than those couple of minutes in Matinee. The shot and the narration work so vividly together that I swear I could whiff the must underlying that carpet, papered over lovingly with the smell of popcorn wafting through the confined space of that tiny snack bar, just as if I was a kid again myself, wandering into the friendly confines of the Alger Theater in Lakeview, Oregon (More on that place next week.)
Dante’s movie is a romp, no doubt, but its nostalgia is a heartier variety than what we usually get, and it leaves us with an undercurrent of uneasiness that is unusual for a genre most enough content to look back through amber. Woolsey’s words resonate for every youngster who has searched for reasons to explain their attraction to the scary side of cinema and memories of the places where those images were first encountered, but in Matinee there’s another terror with which to contend, one not so easily held at bay.
Of course the real world monster of the movie— the bomb— was also, during that weekend in 1962 and in Matinee’s representation of the missile crisis, “killed off,” making “everything okay.” But Dante makes us understand that while calm has been momentarily restored, something deeper has been forever disturbed. The movie acknowledges the societal disarray which was already under way in Vietnam, and the American South, and only months away from spilling out from Dallas and onto the greater American landscape in a way so much less containable than even the radiative effects of a single cataclysmic event. That awareness leaves Matinee with a sorrowful aftertaste that is hard to shake. The movie’s last image, of our two main characters gathered on the beach, greeting helicopters that are flying home from having hovered at the precipice of nuclear destruction, is one of relief for familial unity restored—Gene is, after all, getting his dad back. But it’s also one of foreboding. Dante leaves us with an extreme close-up of a copter looming into frame, absent even the context of the sky, bearing down on us like a real-life mutant creature, an eerie bellwether of political and societal chaos yet to come as a stout companion to the movie’s general air of celebratory remembrance.
***************************************
The “Marquee Movies” series has already seen Matinee (last Friday night), Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) paired with Polish director Wojciech Marczewski’s 1990 Escape from Liberty Island (last Saturday night), and Ettore Scola’s masterful Splendor (1989), which screened last Sunday night.
But there’s plenty more to come. Sunday, June 12, the archive series unveils a double bill of Lloyd Bacon’s Footlight Parade (1933) with the less well-known This Way, Please (1937), a terrific tale of a star-struck movie theater usherette with dreams of singing and dancing just like the stars she idolizes, starring Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Betty Grable, Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan and the brilliantly grizzled Ned Sparks.
Wednesday, June 15, you can see Uruguay’s A Useful Life (2010), in which a movie theater manager in Montevideo faces up the fact that the days of his beloved movie theater are numbered, paired up with Luc Moullet’s droll account of the feud between the French film journals Cahiers du Cinema and Positif, entitled The Seats of the Alcazar (1989).
One of my favorites, Tsai Ming-liang’s haunting Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) gets a rare projection at the Wilder on Sunday, June 19, along with Lisandsro Alonzo’s Fantasma (2006), described by the archive as “a hypnotic commentary on cinematic rituals and presence.”
Friday, June 24, you can see, if you dare, Lamberto Bava’s gory meta-horror film Demons (1985) and then stay for Bigas Luna’s similarly twisted treatise on the movies and voyeurism, 1987’s Anguish.
Saturday afternoon, June 25, “Marquee Movies” presents a rare screening of Gregory La Cava’s hilarious slapstick spoof of rural moviegoing, His Nibs (1921), paired up with what I consider, alongside Matinee and Goodbye, Dragon Inn, one of the real jewels of the series, Basil Dearden’s marvelously funny The Smallest Show on Earth (1957), all about what happens when a newlywed couple inherits a rundown cinema populated by a staff of eccentrics that include Margaret Rutherford and Peter Sellers. (More on that one next week.)
And the series concludes on Sunday, June 26, with a screening of the original 174-minute director’s cut of Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988).
(Each program also features a variety of moviegoing-oriented shorts, trailers and other surprises. Click the individual links for details and show times.)
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(Next week: My review of The Smallest Show on Earth and a remembrance of my own hometown movie theater, which closed in 2015.)
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Later this year Matinee will be released by Universal in the U.S. (details to come) and by Arrow Films in the UK (with a nifty assortment of extras).
From the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s programming notes for its current series, “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing”
Currently under way at the Billy Wilder Theater inside the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood, the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s far-reaching and fascinating series “Marquee Movies: Movies on Moviegoing” takes sharp aim at an overview of how the movies themselves have portrayed the act of going out to see movies during these years of seismic change in the way we see them. What’s best about the collection of films curated for the series is its scope, which sweeps along from the anything-goes exhibition of the silent era, on through an examination of the opulent era of grandiose movie palaces and post-war audience predilection for exploitation pictures, and straight into an era—ours—of a certain nostalgia for the ways we used to exclusively gather in dark places to watch visions jump out at us from the big screen. (That nostalgia, as it turns out, is often colored by a rear-view perspective on the times which contextualizes it and sometimes gives it a bitter tinge.) As the program notes for the Marquee Movies series puts it, whether you’re an American moviegoer or one from France, Italy, Argentina or Taiwan, “the current sense of loss at the passing of an exhibition era takes its place in the ongoing history of cultural and industrial transformation reflected in these films.”
The series took its inaugural bow last Friday night with a rare 35mm screening of Matinee (1993), director Joe Dante and screenwriter Charlie Haas’s vividly imagined tribute to movie love during a time in Us history which lazy writers frequently like to describe as “the point when America lost its innocence” or some other such silliness. For Americans, and for a whole lot of other people the world over, those days in 1962 during what would come to be known as the Cuban Missile Crisis felt more like days when something a whole lot more tangible than “innocence” was about to be lost, what with the Us and Russia being on the brink of nuclear confrontation and all. The movie lays down this undercurrent of fear and uncertainty as the foundation which tints its main action, that of the arrival of exploitation movie impresario Laurence Woolsey (John Goodman, channeling producer and gimmick maestro William Castle) to Key West, Florida, to promote his latest shock show, Mant!, on the very weekend that American troops set to sea, ready to fire on Russian missile installments a mere 90 miles away in Cuba.
Woolsey’s hardly worried that his potential audience will be distracted the specter of annihilation; in fact, he’s energized by it, convinced that the free-floating anxiety will translate into box office dollars contributed by nervous kids and adults looking for a safe and scary good time, a disposal cinematic depository for all their worst fears. And it certainly doesn’t matter that Woolsey’s movie is a corny sci-fi absurdity-- all the better for his particular brand of enhancements. Mant!, a lovingly sculpted mash-up of 1950s hits like The Fly and Them!, benefits from “Atomo-vision,” which incorporates variants of Castle innovations like Emergo and Percepto, as well as “Rumble-rama,” a very crude precursor to Universal’s Oscar-winning Sensurround system. The movie’s Saturday afternoon screening is where Dante and Haas really let loose their tickled and twisted imaginations, with the help of Woolsey’s theatrical enhancements.
Leading up to the fearful and farcical unleashing of Mant!, Dante stages a beautifully understated sequence that moved me to tears when I saw it with my daughters last Friday night at the Billy Wilder Theater. Matinee is seen primarily through the eyes of young Gene Loomis (Simon Fenton), a military kid whose dad is among those waiting it out on nuclear-armed boats pointed in the direction of Cuba. Gene is a monster-movie nerd (and a clear stand-in for Dante, Haas and just about anybody—like me—whose primary biblical text was provided not by that fella in the burning bush but instead by Forrest J. Ackerman within the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland), and he manages to worm his way into Woolsey’s good graces as the producer prepares the local theater to show his picture. At one point he walks down the street in the company of the larger-than-life producer, who starts talking about his inspirations and why he makes the sort of movies he does:
“A zillion years ago, a guy’s living in a cave,” Woolsey expounds. “He goes out one day—Bam! He gets chased by a mammoth. Now, he’s scared to death, but he gets away. And when it’s all over with, he feels great.”
Gene, eager to believe but also to understand, responds quizzically-- “Well, yeah, ‘cause he’s still living.”
“Yeah, but he knows he is, and he feels it,” Woolsey counters. “So he goes home, back to the cave. First thing he does, he does a drawing of a mammoth.” (At this point the brick wall which the two of them are passing becomes a blank screen onto which Woolsey conjures an animated behemoth that entrances Gene and us.) Woolsey continues:
“He thinks, ‘People are coming to see this. Let’s make it good. Let’s make the teeth real long and the eyes real mean.’ Boom! The first monster movie. That’s probably why I still do it. You make the teeth as big as you want, then you kill it off, everything’s okay, the lights come up,” Woolsey concludes, ending his illustrative fantasy with a sigh.
But that’s not all, folks. At this point, Dante cuts to a Steadicam shot as it moves into the lobby hall of that Key West theater, past posters of Hatari!, Lonely are the Brave, Six Black Horses and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?. The tracking shot continues up the stairs, letting us get a really close look at the worn, perhaps pungent carpet, most likely the same rug that was laid down when the theater opened 30 or so years earlier, into the snack bar area, then glides over to the closed swinging doors leading into the auditorium, while Woolsey continues:
“You see, the people come into your cave with the 200-year-old carpet, the guy tears your ticket in half—it’s too late to turn back now. The water fountain’s all booby-trapped and ready, the stuff laid out on the candy counter. Then you come over here to where it’s dark-- there could be anything in there—and you say, ‘Here I am. What have you got for me?’”
Forget nostalgia for a style of moviegoing. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more compact, evocative and heartfelt tribute to the space in which we used to see movies than those couple of minutes in Matinee. The shot and the narration work so vividly together that I swear I could whiff the must underlying that carpet, papered over lovingly with the smell of popcorn wafting through the confined space of that tiny snack bar, just as if I was a kid again myself, wandering into the friendly confines of the Alger Theater in Lakeview, Oregon (More on that place next week.)
Dante’s movie is a romp, no doubt, but its nostalgia is a heartier variety than what we usually get, and it leaves us with an undercurrent of uneasiness that is unusual for a genre most enough content to look back through amber. Woolsey’s words resonate for every youngster who has searched for reasons to explain their attraction to the scary side of cinema and memories of the places where those images were first encountered, but in Matinee there’s another terror with which to contend, one not so easily held at bay.
Of course the real world monster of the movie— the bomb— was also, during that weekend in 1962 and in Matinee’s representation of the missile crisis, “killed off,” making “everything okay.” But Dante makes us understand that while calm has been momentarily restored, something deeper has been forever disturbed. The movie acknowledges the societal disarray which was already under way in Vietnam, and the American South, and only months away from spilling out from Dallas and onto the greater American landscape in a way so much less containable than even the radiative effects of a single cataclysmic event. That awareness leaves Matinee with a sorrowful aftertaste that is hard to shake. The movie’s last image, of our two main characters gathered on the beach, greeting helicopters that are flying home from having hovered at the precipice of nuclear destruction, is one of relief for familial unity restored—Gene is, after all, getting his dad back. But it’s also one of foreboding. Dante leaves us with an extreme close-up of a copter looming into frame, absent even the context of the sky, bearing down on us like a real-life mutant creature, an eerie bellwether of political and societal chaos yet to come as a stout companion to the movie’s general air of celebratory remembrance.
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The “Marquee Movies” series has already seen Matinee (last Friday night), Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) paired with Polish director Wojciech Marczewski’s 1990 Escape from Liberty Island (last Saturday night), and Ettore Scola’s masterful Splendor (1989), which screened last Sunday night.
But there’s plenty more to come. Sunday, June 12, the archive series unveils a double bill of Lloyd Bacon’s Footlight Parade (1933) with the less well-known This Way, Please (1937), a terrific tale of a star-struck movie theater usherette with dreams of singing and dancing just like the stars she idolizes, starring Charles ‘Buddy’ Rogers, Betty Grable, Jim Jordan, Marian Jordan and the brilliantly grizzled Ned Sparks.
Wednesday, June 15, you can see Uruguay’s A Useful Life (2010), in which a movie theater manager in Montevideo faces up the fact that the days of his beloved movie theater are numbered, paired up with Luc Moullet’s droll account of the feud between the French film journals Cahiers du Cinema and Positif, entitled The Seats of the Alcazar (1989).
One of my favorites, Tsai Ming-liang’s haunting Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003) gets a rare projection at the Wilder on Sunday, June 19, along with Lisandsro Alonzo’s Fantasma (2006), described by the archive as “a hypnotic commentary on cinematic rituals and presence.”
Friday, June 24, you can see, if you dare, Lamberto Bava’s gory meta-horror film Demons (1985) and then stay for Bigas Luna’s similarly twisted treatise on the movies and voyeurism, 1987’s Anguish.
Saturday afternoon, June 25, “Marquee Movies” presents a rare screening of Gregory La Cava’s hilarious slapstick spoof of rural moviegoing, His Nibs (1921), paired up with what I consider, alongside Matinee and Goodbye, Dragon Inn, one of the real jewels of the series, Basil Dearden’s marvelously funny The Smallest Show on Earth (1957), all about what happens when a newlywed couple inherits a rundown cinema populated by a staff of eccentrics that include Margaret Rutherford and Peter Sellers. (More on that one next week.)
And the series concludes on Sunday, June 26, with a screening of the original 174-minute director’s cut of Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso (1988).
(Each program also features a variety of moviegoing-oriented shorts, trailers and other surprises. Click the individual links for details and show times.)
******************************************
(Next week: My review of The Smallest Show on Earth and a remembrance of my own hometown movie theater, which closed in 2015.)
*******************************************
Later this year Matinee will be released by Universal in the U.S. (details to come) and by Arrow Films in the UK (with a nifty assortment of extras).
- 6/11/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Anne Marie back with the next installment in our new Judy Garland series. Before she was a legend, Frances Gumm was a contract player. This meant that MGM could loan her out to other studios. It was common practice for both large stars and minor players. But what makes you Frances unique is how rare it was for her. Today's musical marks the only time MGM loaned out Judy Garland; the rest of her contract with the studio would be spent snugly - if not comfortably - within the white walls of Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Judy's next short would kick off the Garland legend, and jumpstart the young teen's career. The Movie: Pigskin Parade (20th Century Fox, 1936) The Songwriters: Lew Pollack (Music), Sidney D. Mitchell (Lyrics) The Players: Stuart Erwin, Patsy Kelly, Betty Grable, Jack Haley, Judy Garland, directed by David Butler The Story: Already under contract to MGM...
- 1/13/2016
- by Anne Marie
- FilmExperience
Kitty Gordon: Actress in silent movies and on the musical comedy stage. Rediscovering a long-forgotten silent film star: Kitty Gordon It seems almost unthinkable that there are still silent stars who have not been resurrected, their lives and films subject to detailed, if not always reliable, examination. Yet I am reminded by Michael Levenston, a Canadian who has compiled what is best described as a “scrapbook” of her life and career, that there is one such individual – and not just a “name” in silent films, but also from 1901 onwards famed as a singer/actress in musical comedy and on the vaudeville stage in both her native England and the United States. And she is Kitty Gordon (1878-1974). 'The Enchantress' and her $50,000 backside Kitty Gordon was a talented lady, so much so that Victor Herbert wrote the 1911 operetta The Enchantress for her; one who also had a “gimmick,” in that...
- 12/12/2015
- by Anthony Slide
- Alt Film Guide
“Wealthy men are never old!”
How To Marry A Millionaire screens Saturday morning, November 21st, at 10:30am at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave, St. Louis). This is a fundraiser for The Cottey College Scholarship Fund and admission is $10.
How To Marry A Millionaire is a 1953 romantic comedy based on the plays The Greeks Had a Word for It by Zoe Akins and Loco by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. The film stars Marilyn Monroe, St. Louis’ own Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall as three gold diggers along with William Powell, David Wayne, Rory Calhoun, Cameron Mitchell, Alex D’Arcy, and Fred Clark.It was directed by Jean Negulesco and produced and written by Nunnally Johnson.
In order to meet wealthy husbands, three beautiful women take an apartment in one of Manhattan’s most affluent areas, on the corner of East 55th St. and Sutton Place. Naive moocher Betty Grable...
How To Marry A Millionaire screens Saturday morning, November 21st, at 10:30am at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave, St. Louis). This is a fundraiser for The Cottey College Scholarship Fund and admission is $10.
How To Marry A Millionaire is a 1953 romantic comedy based on the plays The Greeks Had a Word for It by Zoe Akins and Loco by Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert. The film stars Marilyn Monroe, St. Louis’ own Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall as three gold diggers along with William Powell, David Wayne, Rory Calhoun, Cameron Mitchell, Alex D’Arcy, and Fred Clark.It was directed by Jean Negulesco and produced and written by Nunnally Johnson.
In order to meet wealthy husbands, three beautiful women take an apartment in one of Manhattan’s most affluent areas, on the corner of East 55th St. and Sutton Place. Naive moocher Betty Grable...
- 11/18/2015
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published November 1, 2012.
Fifty years ago this month, Marilyn Monroe passed away from a suspected accidental drug overdose (although conspiracy geeks love to contemplate more nefarious scenarios). The commemoratives are already showing up on magazine and newspaper entertainment pages, cable channels have announced their Marilyn film fests and documentary tributes. There’s little of worth I can add either in academic consideration or aesthetic appreciation to all the testimonials as well as the previous fifty years of ruminating in print and on film re: the lasting appeal of La Monroe. I can only wonder, with a sort of melancholy amazement, over the fact we’re still talking about her all these years later.
That persistent hold she has on popular culture is a fascinating study in itself. Her career had already been faltering when she died, she’s been gone a half-century, yet there...
Fifty years ago this month, Marilyn Monroe passed away from a suspected accidental drug overdose (although conspiracy geeks love to contemplate more nefarious scenarios). The commemoratives are already showing up on magazine and newspaper entertainment pages, cable channels have announced their Marilyn film fests and documentary tributes. There’s little of worth I can add either in academic consideration or aesthetic appreciation to all the testimonials as well as the previous fifty years of ruminating in print and on film re: the lasting appeal of La Monroe. I can only wonder, with a sort of melancholy amazement, over the fact we’re still talking about her all these years later.
That persistent hold she has on popular culture is a fascinating study in itself. Her career had already been faltering when she died, she’s been gone a half-century, yet there...
- 11/1/2015
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
Maureen O'Hara: Queen of Technicolor. Maureen O'Hara movies: TCM tribute Veteran actress and Honorary Oscar recipient Maureen O'Hara, who died at age 95 on Oct. 24, '15, in Boise, Idaho, will be remembered by Turner Classic Movies with a 24-hour film tribute on Friday, Nov. 20. At one point known as “The Queen of Technicolor” – alongside “Eastern” star Maria Montez – the red-headed O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons on Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, County Dublin) was featured in more than 50 movies from 1938 to 1971 – in addition to one brief 1991 comeback (Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely). Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne Setting any hint of modesty aside, Maureen O'Hara wrote in her 2004 autobiography (with John Nicoletti), 'Tis Herself, that “I was the only leading lady big enough and tough enough for John Wayne.” Wayne, for his part, once said (as quoted in 'Tis Herself): There's only one woman who has been my friend over the...
- 10/29/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Coleen Gray in 'The Sleeping City' with Richard Conte. Coleen Gray after Fox: B Westerns and films noirs (See previous post: “Coleen Gray Actress: From Red River to Film Noir 'Good Girls'.”) Regarding the demise of her Fox career (the year after her divorce from Rod Amateau), Coleen Gray would recall for Confessions of a Scream Queen author Matt Beckoff: I thought that was the end of the world and that I was a total failure. I was a mass of insecurity and depended on agents. … Whether it was an 'A' picture or a 'B' picture didn't bother me. It could be a Western movie, a sci-fi film. A job was a job. You did the best with the script that you had. Fox had dropped Gray at a time of dramatic upheavals in the American film industry: fast-dwindling box office receipts as a result of competition from television,...
- 10/15/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Coleen Gray actress ca. 1950. Coleen Gray: Actress in early Stanley Kubrick film noir, destroyer of men in cult horror 'classic' Actress Coleen Gray, best known as the leading lady in Stanley Kubrick's film noir The Killing and – as far as B horror movie aficionados are concerned – for playing the title role in The Leech Woman, died at age 92 in Aug. 2015. This two-part article, which focuses on Gray's film career, is a revised and expanded version of the original post published at the time of her death. Born Doris Bernice Jensen on Oct. 23, 1922, in Staplehurst, Nebraska, at a young age she moved with her parents, strict Lutheran Danish farmers, to Minnesota. After getting a degree from St. Paul's Hamline University, she relocated to Southern California to be with her then fiancé, an army private. At first, she eked out a living as a waitress at a La Jolla hotel...
- 10/14/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Coleen Gray actress ca. 1950. Coleen Gray: Actress in early Stanley Kubrick film noir, destroyer of men in cult horror 'classic' Actress Coleen Gray, best known as the leading lady in Stanley Kubrick's film noir The Killing and – as far as B horror movie aficionados are concerned – for playing the title role in The Leech Woman, died at age 92 in Aug. 2015. This two-part article, which focuses on Gray's film career, is a revised and expanded version of the original post published at the time of her death. Born Doris Bernice Jensen on Oct. 23, 1922, in Staplehurst, Nebraska, at a young age she moved with her parents, strict Lutheran Danish farmers, to Minnesota. After getting a degree from St. Paul's Hamline University, she relocated to Southern California to be with her then fiancé, an army private. At first, she eked out a living as a waitress at a La Jolla hotel...
- 10/14/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Los Angeles, Calif. (October 2, 2015) – In 1915 William Fox founded Fox Film Corporation and forever changed the course of cinema. Over the next century the studio would develop some of the most innovative and ground-breaking advancements in the history of cinema; the introduction of Movietone, the implementation of color in partnership with Eastman Kodak, the development of the wide format in 70mm and many more. Now in honor of the 100th anniversary of the studio, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will celebrate by releasing some of their most iconic films that represent a decade of innovation.
Starting today, five classic films from the studio will be made available digitally for the first time ever – Sunrise (1927), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Man Hunt (1941), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965). Throughout the rest of the year a total of 100 digital releases will follow from Fox’s extensive catalog, including 10 films...
Starting today, five classic films from the studio will be made available digitally for the first time ever – Sunrise (1927), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939), Man Hunt (1941), How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1965). Throughout the rest of the year a total of 100 digital releases will follow from Fox’s extensive catalog, including 10 films...
- 10/3/2015
- by ComicMix Staff
- Comicmix.com
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