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She was an impenetrable figure: shy, reclusive, suspicious of new friends and more at home in the Yorkshire moors than any village or city. She was also brilliant — a gifted poet whose foray into fiction, Wuthering Heights (the only novel she wrote before her death in 1848), spins a tale so eccentric and passionate that it’s gathered a febrile following since its publication.
Emily Brontë, the second youngest of the accomplished Brontë family, was an abstract figure. Details of her life are scant. (Most known testimony was provided by her overbearing older sister, Charlotte.) She was not a fastidious diarist and existing journal entries blur the lines between fact and fiction. In other words, Emily, a virtually unknowable person, is the perfect subject for a film.
The English-Australian actress Frances O’Connor (Mansfield Park) knows this, and that’s why her directorial debut Emily...
She was an impenetrable figure: shy, reclusive, suspicious of new friends and more at home in the Yorkshire moors than any village or city. She was also brilliant — a gifted poet whose foray into fiction, Wuthering Heights (the only novel she wrote before her death in 1848), spins a tale so eccentric and passionate that it’s gathered a febrile following since its publication.
Emily Brontë, the second youngest of the accomplished Brontë family, was an abstract figure. Details of her life are scant. (Most known testimony was provided by her overbearing older sister, Charlotte.) She was not a fastidious diarist and existing journal entries blur the lines between fact and fiction. In other words, Emily, a virtually unknowable person, is the perfect subject for a film.
The English-Australian actress Frances O’Connor (Mansfield Park) knows this, and that’s why her directorial debut Emily...
- 9/10/2022
- by Lovia Gyarkye
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It’s Marlene Dietrich, before Josef von Sternberg and The Blue Angel — and much of her mystique is already present. This sophisticated German silent observes a precarious, dangerous love triangle. Two men are entranced by the same woman: one deserts his bride on their wedding night and the other may have killed to possess her. Neither seems to get what he wants, yet Dietrich’s ‘woman one longs for’ is not a scheming femme fatale … maybe. The fluid, very modern direction of Curtis Bernhardt will be a revelation — this obscure Marlene Dietrich starrer is a superior piece of filmcraft.
The Woman One Longs For
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1929 / B&w / 1:33 Silent Ap. / 78 min. / Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt / Street Date June 8, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Uno Henning, Fritz Kortner, Frida Richard, Oskar Sima, Karl Etlinger, Bruno Ziener, Edith Edwards.
Cinematography: Curt Courant, Hans Scheib
Art direction:...
The Woman One Longs For
Blu-ray
Kino Classics
1929 / B&w / 1:33 Silent Ap. / 78 min. / Die Frau, nach der man sich sehnt / Street Date June 8, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Marlene Dietrich, Uno Henning, Fritz Kortner, Frida Richard, Oskar Sima, Karl Etlinger, Bruno Ziener, Edith Edwards.
Cinematography: Curt Courant, Hans Scheib
Art direction:...
- 5/22/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options—not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves–each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
One has to appreciate Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s winking self-awareness in calling his new feature Creepy. It’s as if the Coen brothers released a film entitled Snarky, or Eli Roth named his next stomach-churner Gory. Kurosawa, who’s still best known for Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001), two rare outstanding examples of the highly variable J-Horror genre, instills a sense of creepiness into virtually anything he does, regardless of subject matter. His latest, which sees him return to the realm of horror after excursions into more arthouse territory, certainly lives up to its name and has a lot of fun doing so. – Giovanni M.C. (full review)
Where...
Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
One has to appreciate Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s winking self-awareness in calling his new feature Creepy. It’s as if the Coen brothers released a film entitled Snarky, or Eli Roth named his next stomach-churner Gory. Kurosawa, who’s still best known for Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001), two rare outstanding examples of the highly variable J-Horror genre, instills a sense of creepiness into virtually anything he does, regardless of subject matter. His latest, which sees him return to the realm of horror after excursions into more arthouse territory, certainly lives up to its name and has a lot of fun doing so. – Giovanni M.C. (full review)
Where...
- 10/16/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The Criterion Channel’s stellar offerings are continuing next month with a selection of new releases, retrospective, series, and more. Leading the pack is, of course, a horror lineup perfectly timed for Halloween, featuring ’70s classics and underseen gems, including Abel Ferrara’s The Driller Killer (pictured above), Tobe Hopper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, early films by David Cronenberg, Wes Craven, and Brian De Palma, Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess, and more.
Also of note is a New Korean Cinema retrospective, featuring a new introduction by critic Grady Hendrix and a conversation between directors Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook, whose Barking Dogs Never Bite, The Host, Mother, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and Lady Vengeance are part of the lineup, as well as Lee Myung-se’s Nowhere to Hide, and more titles to be announced. Bong’s short Influenza will also arrive, paired with Michael Haneke’s Caché.
Also of note is a New Korean Cinema retrospective, featuring a new introduction by critic Grady Hendrix and a conversation between directors Bong Joon Ho and Park Chan-wook, whose Barking Dogs Never Bite, The Host, Mother, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, and Lady Vengeance are part of the lineup, as well as Lee Myung-se’s Nowhere to Hide, and more titles to be announced. Bong’s short Influenza will also arrive, paired with Michael Haneke’s Caché.
- 9/29/2020
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Rita Hayworth in 3-D, in a hot story that was acceptable for 1925 and 1932, but too racy for repressed 1953. On a tropical island, a prostitute cabaret singer battles a fiery preacher missionary inspector for her freedom. Hayworth is dynamite, and it takes all of her talent to keep the show afloat, with so much interference from the equally repressed censors. Miss Sadie Thompson 3-D 3-D Blu-ray Twilight Time 1953 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date July 12, 2016 / Available from Twilight Time Movies Store29.95 Starring Rita Hayworth, José Ferrer, Aldo Ray, Russell Collins, Diosa Costello, Harry Bellaver, Wilton Graff, Peggy Converse, Henry Slate, Rudy Bond, Charles Bronson, Jo Ann Greer. Cinematography Charles Lawton Jr. Original Music George Duning, Morris Stoloff, Ned Washington, Lester Lee Written by Harry Kleiner from a story by W. Somerset Maugham Produced by Jerry Wald Directed by Curtis Bernhardt
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Yes! 3-D on Blu-ray shows no sign of going away,...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Yes! 3-D on Blu-ray shows no sign of going away,...
- 7/26/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
It's a different Bogart -- a character performance in a Nicholas Ray noir about distrust anxiety in romance. Gloria Grahame is the independent woman who must withhold her commitment... until a murder can be sorted out. Which will crack first, the murder case or the relationship? In A Lonely Place Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 810 1950 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 10, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Jeff Donnell, Martha Stewart, Robert Warwick, Morris Ankrum, William Ching, Steven Geray, Hadda Brooks. Cinematography Burnett Guffey Film Editor Viola Lawrence Original Music George Antheil Written by Andrew Solt, Edmund H. North from a story by Dorothy B. Hughes Produced by Robert Lord Directed by Nicholas Ray
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Which Humphrey Bogart do you like best? By 1950 he had his own production company, Santana, with a contract for release through Columbia pictures.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Which Humphrey Bogart do you like best? By 1950 he had his own production company, Santana, with a contract for release through Columbia pictures.
- 4/30/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
'Ben-Hur' 1959 with Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston: TCM's '31 Days of Oscar.' '31 Days of Oscar': 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Ben-Hur' are in, Paramount stars are out Today, Feb. 1, '16, Turner Classic Movies is kicking off the 21st edition of its “31 Days of Oscar.” While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is being vociferously reviled for its “lack of diversity” – more on that appallingly myopic, self-serving, and double-standard-embracing furore in an upcoming post – TCM is celebrating nearly nine decades of the Academy Awards. That's the good news. The disappointing news is that if you're expecting to find rare Paramount, Universal, or Fox/20th Century Fox entries in the mix, you're out of luck. So, missing from the TCM schedule are, among others: Best Actress nominees Ruth Chatterton in Sarah and Son, Nancy Carroll in The Devil's Holiday, Claudette Colbert in Private Worlds. Unofficial Best Actor...
- 2/2/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'The Merry Widow' with Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and Minna Gombell under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch. Ernst Lubitsch movies: 'The Merry Widow,' 'Ninotchka' (See previous post: “Ernst Lubitsch Best Films: Passé Subtle 'Touch' in Age of Sledgehammer Filmmaking.”) Initially a project for Ramon Novarro – who for quite some time aspired to become an opera singer and who had a pleasant singing voice – The Merry Widow ultimately starred Maurice Chevalier, the hammiest film performer this side of Bob Hope, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler – the list goes on and on. Generally speaking, “hammy” isn't my idea of effective film acting. For that reason, I usually find Chevalier a major handicap to his movies, especially during the early talkie era; he upsets their dramatic (or comedic) balance much like Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's The Departed or Jerry Lewis in anything (excepting Scorsese's The King of Comedy...
- 1/31/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Crawford Movie Star Joan Crawford movies on TCM: Underrated actress, top star in several of her greatest roles If there was ever a professional who was utterly, completely, wholeheartedly dedicated to her work, Joan Crawford was it. Ambitious, driven, talented, smart, obsessive, calculating, she had whatever it took – and more – to reach the top and stay there. Nearly four decades after her death, Crawford, the star to end all stars, remains one of the iconic performers of the 20th century. Deservedly so, once you choose to bypass the Mommie Dearest inanity and focus on her film work. From the get-go, she was a capable actress; look for the hard-to-find silents The Understanding Heart (1927) and The Taxi Dancer (1927), and check her out in the more easily accessible The Unknown (1927) and Our Dancing Daughters (1928). By the early '30s, Joan Crawford had become a first-rate film actress, far more naturalistic than...
- 8/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Olivia de Havilland on Turner Classic Movies: Your chance to watch 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' for the 384th time Olivia de Havilland is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 2, '15. The two-time Best Actress Oscar winner (To Each His Own, 1946; The Heiress, 1949) whose steely determination helped to change the way studios handled their contract players turned 99 last July 1. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any de Havilland movie rarities, e.g., Universal's cool thriller The Dark Mirror (1946), the Paramount comedy The Well-Groomed Bride (1947), or Terence Young's British-made That Lady (1955), with de Havilland as eye-patch-wearing Spanish princess Ana de Mendoza. On the other hand, you'll be able to catch for the 384th time a demure Olivia de Havilland being romanced by a dashing Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood, as TCM shows this 1938 period adventure classic just about every month. But who's complaining? One the...
- 8/3/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...
- 7/2/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Editors Adrian Martin and Girish Shambu have begun rolling out the fifth issue of Lola, wherein you'll find essays on European directors in Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s (Michael Curtiz, Anatole Litvak, Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Curtis Bernhardt, William Dieterle, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Robert Siodmak and Fred Zinnemann) and more. Also in today's roundup of news and views: Greil Marcus and Don DeLillo on Bob Dylan, an interview with Manoel de Oliveira, a 1963 essay by Gregory J. Markopoulos, an oral history of Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff, David Lynch's lessons on filmmaking and more. » - David Hudson...
- 11/24/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
Editors Adrian Martin and Girish Shambu have begun rolling out the fifth issue of Lola, wherein you'll find essays on European directors in Hollywood in the 1940s and 50s (Michael Curtiz, Anatole Litvak, Ernst Lubitsch, Billy Wilder, Curtis Bernhardt, William Dieterle, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Robert Siodmak and Fred Zinnemann) and more. Also in today's roundup of news and views: Greil Marcus and Don DeLillo on Bob Dylan, an interview with Manoel de Oliveira, a 1963 essay by Gregory J. Markopoulos, an oral history of Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff, David Lynch's lessons on filmmaking and more. » - David Hudson...
- 11/24/2014
- Keyframe
Polly Bergen dead at 84: ‘First woman president of the U.S.A.,’ former mistress of Tony Soprano’s father Emmy Award-winning actress Polly Bergen — whose roles ranged from the first U.S.A. woman president in Kisses for My President to the former mistress of both Tony Soprano’s father and John F. Kennedy in the television hit series The Sopranos — died from "natural causes" on September 20, 2014, at her home in Southbury, Connecticut. The 84-year-old Bergen, a heavy smoker for five decades, had been suffering from emphysema and other ailments since the 1990s. "Most people think I was born in a rich Long Island family," she told The Washington Post in 1988, but Polly Bergen was actually born Nellie Paulina Burgin on July 14, 1930, to an impoverished family in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her father was an illiterate construction worker while her mother got only as far as the third grade. The family...
- 9/20/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Curtis Bernhardt followed the route of his fellow directors Fritz Lang and Robert Siodmak: Germany, France, America, but unlike them he never went back to film in Germany at the end of his career. I looked at his Marlene Dietrich vehicle here. Now let's consider one from his French period.
Carrefour (Crossroads) is an amnesia thriller. Je t'aime amnesia thrillers. They're particularly interesting since the kind of movie amnesia where you forget who you are appears not to exist in real life: if you lost your identity, you would have lost so many other brain functions it's doubtful you would be abe to talk about it. The device remains popular not just because it's so useful for crazy plots, but because questions of identity fascinate us.
(Speaking of crazy plots: French novelist Sebastien Japrisot, whose name itself was an anagram, wrote one of the best, the twice-filmed A Trap For Cinderella.
Carrefour (Crossroads) is an amnesia thriller. Je t'aime amnesia thrillers. They're particularly interesting since the kind of movie amnesia where you forget who you are appears not to exist in real life: if you lost your identity, you would have lost so many other brain functions it's doubtful you would be abe to talk about it. The device remains popular not just because it's so useful for crazy plots, but because questions of identity fascinate us.
(Speaking of crazy plots: French novelist Sebastien Japrisot, whose name itself was an anagram, wrote one of the best, the twice-filmed A Trap For Cinderella.
- 8/5/2014
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Femme fatale Audrey Totter: Film noir actress and MGM leading lady dead at 95 (photo: Audrey Totter ca. 1947) Audrey Totter, film noir femme fatale and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player best remembered for the mystery crime drama Lady in the Lake and, at Rko, the hard-hitting boxing drama The Set-Up, died after suffering a stroke and congestive heart failure on Thursday, December 12, 2013, at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles County. Reportedly a resident at the Motion Picture and Television Home in Woodland Hills, Audrey Totter would have turned 96 on Dec. 20. Born in Joliet, Illinois, Audrey Totter began her show business career on radio. She landed an MGM contract in the mid-’40s, playing bit roles in several of the studio’s productions, e.g., the Clark Gable-Greer Garson pairing Adventure (1945), the Hedy Lamarr-Robert Walker-June Allyson threesome Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945), and, as an adventurous hitchhiker riding with John Garfield,...
- 12/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Above: Us poster for Forbidden (Frank Capra, USA, 1932)
In honor of the month-long retrospective of the films of the great Barbara Stanwyck starting today at Film Forum in New York, I thought I’d select my favorite Stanwyck posters. Brooklyn-born Ruby Catherine Stevens made 85 films over 37 years in Hollywood so there is an awful lot to choose from. But the remarkable thing about looking back at these posters is how artists seemed to have had a hard time capturing her likeness. The poster for one of her earliest films, Capra’s 1932 Forbidden, above, captures her beautifully, but the poster for Stella Dallas (1937), her first Oscar-nominated role (she never won, shockingly), seems to be of a different actress entirely. As for the sexed-up illustration on the flyer for The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), in that she looks more like Jean Harlow. Some of my favorite posters for her films are the Swedish and Danish designs,...
In honor of the month-long retrospective of the films of the great Barbara Stanwyck starting today at Film Forum in New York, I thought I’d select my favorite Stanwyck posters. Brooklyn-born Ruby Catherine Stevens made 85 films over 37 years in Hollywood so there is an awful lot to choose from. But the remarkable thing about looking back at these posters is how artists seemed to have had a hard time capturing her likeness. The poster for one of her earliest films, Capra’s 1932 Forbidden, above, captures her beautifully, but the poster for Stella Dallas (1937), her first Oscar-nominated role (she never won, shockingly), seems to be of a different actress entirely. As for the sexed-up illustration on the flyer for The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), in that she looks more like Jean Harlow. Some of my favorite posters for her films are the Swedish and Danish designs,...
- 12/6/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Bette Davis movies: TCM schedule on August 14 (photo: Bette Davis in ‘Dangerous,’ with Franchot Tone) See previous post: “Bette Davis Eyes: They’re Watching You Tonight.” 3:00 Am Parachute Jumper (1933). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Harold Huber, Leo Carrillo, Thomas E. Jackson, Lyle Talbot, Leon Ames, Stanley Blystone, Reginald Barlow, George Chandler, Walter Brennan, Pat O’Malley, Paul Panzer, Nat Pendleton, Dewey Robinson, Tom Wilson, Sheila Terry. Bw-72 mins. 4:30 Am The Girl From 10th Avenue (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Ian Hunter, Colin Clive, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Phillip Reed, Katharine Alexander, Helen Jerome Eddy, Bill Elliott, Edward McWade, André Cheron, Wedgwood Nowell, John Quillan, Mary Treen. Bw-69 mins. 6:00 Am Dangerous (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Dick Foran, Walter Walker, Richard Carle, George Irving, Pierre Watkin, Douglas Wood,...
- 8/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Bette Davis’ eyes keep ‘Watch on the Rhine’ Bette Davis’ eyes are watching everything and everyone on Turner Classic Movies this evening, as TCM continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" film series: today, August 14, 2013, belongs to two-time Oscar winner Bette Davis’ eyes, cigarettes, and clipped tones. Right now, TCM is showing the Herman Shumlin-directed Watch on the Rhine (1943), an earnest — too much so, in fact — melodrama featuring Nazis, anti-Nazis, and lofty political speeches. (See “Bette Davis Movies: TCM schedule.”) As a prestigious and timely Warner Bros. release, Watch on the Rhine was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and earned Paul Lukas the year’s Best Actor Oscar. Bette Davis has a subordinate role and — for once during her years as Warners’ Reigning Queen — subordinate billing as well. As so often happens when Davis tried to play a sympathetic character, she’s not very good; Lukas, however,...
- 8/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Fred MacMurray movies: ‘Double Indemnity,’ ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’ Fred MacMurray is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" today, Thursday, August 7, 2013. Although perhaps best remembered as the insufferable All-American Dad on the long-running TV show My Three Sons and in several highly popular Disney movies from 1959 to 1967, e.g., The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, Boy Voyage!, MacMurray was immeasurably more interesting as the All-American Jerk. (Photo: Fred MacMurray ca. 1940.) Someone once wrote that Fred MacMurray would have been an ideal choice to star in a biopic of disgraced Republican president Richard Nixon. Who knows, the (coincidentally Republican) MacMurray might have given Anthony Hopkins a run for his Best Actor Academy Award nomination. After all, MacMurray’s most admired movie performances are those in which he plays a scheming, conniving asshole: Billy Wilder’s classic film noir Double Indemnity (1944), in which he’s seduced by Barbara Stanwyck, and Wilder...
- 8/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Paul Henreid: From lighting two cigarettes and blowing smoke onto Bette Davis’ face to lighting two cigarettes while directing twin Bette Davises Paul Henreid is back as Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013. TCM will be showing four movies featuring Henreid (Now, Voyager; Deception; The Madwoman of Chaillot; The Spanish Main) and one directed by him (Dead Ringer). (Photo: Paul Henreid lights two cigarettes on the set of Dead Ringer, while Bette Davis remembers the good old days.) (See also: “Paul Henreid Actor.”) Irving Rapper’s Now, Voyager (1942) was one of Bette Davis’ biggest hits, and it remains one of the best-remembered romantic movies of the studio era — a favorite among numerous women and some gay men. But why? Personally, I find Now, Voyager a major bore, made (barely) watchable only by a few of the supporting performances (Claude Rains, Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominee...
- 7/10/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Paul Henreid: Actor was ‘dependable’ leading man to Hollywood actresses Paul Henreid, best known as the man who wins Ingrid Bergman’s body but not her heart in Casablanca, is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013. TCM will be showing a couple of dozen movies featuring Henreid, who, though never a top star, was a "dependable" — i.e., unexciting but available — leading man to a number of top Hollywood actresses of the ’40s, among them Bette Davis, Ida Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, Eleanor Parker, Joan Bennett, and Katharine Hepburn. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of Paul Henreid movies to be shown on Turner Classic Movies in July consists of Warner Bros. productions that are frequently broadcast all year long, no matter who is TCM’s Star of the Month. Just as unfortunately, TCM will not present any of Henreid’s little-seen supporting performances of the ’30s, e.
- 7/3/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Eleanor Parker today: Beautiful as ever in Scaramouche, Interrupted Melody Eleanor Parker, who turns 91 in ten days (June 26, 2013), can be seen at her most radiantly beautiful in several films Turner Classic Movies is showing this evening and tomorrow morning as part of their Star of the Month Eleanor Parker "tribute." Among them are the classic Scaramouche, the politically delicate Above and Beyond, and the biopic Interrupted Melody, which earned Parker her third and final Best Actress Academy Award nomination. (Photo: publicity shot of Eleanor Parker in Scaramouche.) The best of the lot is probably George Sidney’s balletic Scaramouche (1952), in which Eleanor Parker plays one of Stewart Granger’s love interests — the other one is Janet Leigh. A loose remake of Rex Ingram’s 1923 blockbuster, the George Sidney version features plenty of humor, romance, and adventure; vibrant colors (cinematography by Charles Rosher); an elaborately staged climactic swordfight; and tough dudes...
- 6/18/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Above: Gustav Mezey three-sheet poster for Le Rosier de Madame Husson (Bernard Deschamps, France, 1932).
This stunning Austrian deco poster, which I came across on a Berlin antiquarian site, stands a magnificent 9 foot tall (110" x 49" to be precise) and comes in three sections. The poster is for a 1932 French film, whose German title, Der Tugendkönig, translates as “The Virtue King.” In the Us the film was titled He (or He - the Virgin Man), but the original title is Le Rosier de Madame Husson. Based on an 1887 Maupassant novella of the same name, the story concerns the titular Mme. Husson who seeks to promote chastity in her village by crowning a rosière, or a Rose Queen: a girl of unimpeachable virtue. But when none of the young women in town are equal to the title she selects the village idiot (played in the film by Fernandel) as her rosier.
Above: Roger...
This stunning Austrian deco poster, which I came across on a Berlin antiquarian site, stands a magnificent 9 foot tall (110" x 49" to be precise) and comes in three sections. The poster is for a 1932 French film, whose German title, Der Tugendkönig, translates as “The Virtue King.” In the Us the film was titled He (or He - the Virgin Man), but the original title is Le Rosier de Madame Husson. Based on an 1887 Maupassant novella of the same name, the story concerns the titular Mme. Husson who seeks to promote chastity in her village by crowning a rosière, or a Rose Queen: a girl of unimpeachable virtue. But when none of the young women in town are equal to the title she selects the village idiot (played in the film by Fernandel) as her rosier.
Above: Roger...
- 4/12/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Kerr in the 1958 box-office blockbuster musical South Pacific (seen above with love interest France Nuyen) and his (few) other post-Tea and Sympathy efforts [Please check out the previous article: "The Two Kerrs in the stage and film versions of Tea and Sympathy."] Director Curtis Bernhardt's Gaby (1956) was a generally disliked remake of Waterloo Bridge, with Kerr and leading lady Leslie Caron in the old Robert Taylor and Vivien Leigh roles (1940 movie version -- and even older Douglass Montgomery and Mae Clarke roles in the 1931 film version). Jeffrey Hayden's The Vintage (1957), starring Kerr and Mel Ferrer absurdly cast as Italian brothers, also failed to generate much box-office or critical interest. MGM leading lady Pier Angeli played Ferrer's love interest in the film, while the more mature and married French star Michèle Morgan (a plot element similar to that found in Tea and Sympathy) is Kerr's object of desire. (Pictured above: South Pacific cast members John Kerr and France Nuyen embracing.) Also in the mid-'50s, John Kerr...
- 2/9/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
With its sauna scene and romantic undercurrents, Hollywood's tale of the dandy and Prince Regent is intriguingly homoerotic, but it has little to do with the historical truth
Director: Curtis Bernhardt
Entertainment grade: B–
History grade: D–
George "Beau" Brummell was a dandy, bon viveur and friend of Britain's Prince Regent, later George IV.
Costume
Prince George (Peter Ustinov, brilliantly cast) is inspecting his 10th Light Dragoons when a dashing young captain, George Brummell (Stewart Granger), makes a snarky comment about their over-the-top uniform. The film has it more or less right: a dark blue coat with silver frogging and braided epaulettes, partnered with skintight white breeches. The dragoons were required to wear these without underwear. The immodest effect was supposed to recall the military nudity of classical marble statues. Sadly, the film's costume department appears to have imposed a 1950s sense of propriety on the actors. You really can't see a thing.
Director: Curtis Bernhardt
Entertainment grade: B–
History grade: D–
George "Beau" Brummell was a dandy, bon viveur and friend of Britain's Prince Regent, later George IV.
Costume
Prince George (Peter Ustinov, brilliantly cast) is inspecting his 10th Light Dragoons when a dashing young captain, George Brummell (Stewart Granger), makes a snarky comment about their over-the-top uniform. The film has it more or less right: a dark blue coat with silver frogging and braided epaulettes, partnered with skintight white breeches. The dragoons were required to wear these without underwear. The immodest effect was supposed to recall the military nudity of classical marble statues. Sadly, the film's costume department appears to have imposed a 1950s sense of propriety on the actors. You really can't see a thing.
- 10/5/2012
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
Olivia de Havilland, The Heiress Olivia de Havilland vs. Warner Bros. Pt.2 "From the age of 18 when I began my career as Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream," Olivia de Havilland would tell entertainment journalist Robert Osborne, "I always wanted to play difficult roles in films with significant themes. With the exception of that first Shakespearean film, no equivalent opportunities were given me at Warner Bros." (Actually, In This Our Life, for one, does have "significant themes." It also features black characters, not caricatures, something uncommon at that time.) De Havilland added that "absolutely no one in the industry thought I would win the case. When I at last succeeded, lots of flowers and telegrams began to arrive, which, of course, made me very happy." [Olivia de Havilland at 2008 Bette Davis tribute.] Following de Havilland’s legal victory, Warner Bros. made sure its remaining contract player Ida Lupino received top billing when the Curtis Bernhardt-directed 1943 drama Devotion,...
- 6/6/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Andrew Embiricos, grandson of Rita Hayworth and Prince Aly Khan, was found dead of an apparent suicide at his West 17th Street apartment in Chelsea, New York City, on Sunday, Dec. 4. Embiricos was 25. Andrew Ali Aga Khan Embiricos was the son of economist and shipping heir Basil Embiricos and Princess Yasmin Aga Khan. He was also the nephew of Prince Karim, Aga Khan IV. As such, Embiricos was purportedly a direct descendant of the prophet Mohammed. His body, lying face up in bed with a bag over his head, was found Sunday evening by a friend, Aaron Edwards, who then called 911. An autopsy is to be performed. Because the handsome Embiricos had appeared in amateur gay sex video clips on X-Tube, New York and gay tabloids have gone on to claim that his death wasn't actually suicide, but an experimentation with autoerotic asphyxiation gone wrong. Those are the same sensational...
- 12/7/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes: Introduction to Q&A with Joan Blondell biographer Matthew Kennedy Why Joan Blondell? Actually, this book idea originally came from Joan's son, Norman Powell, who is a director and producer. I was writing a biography of the director Edmund Goulding a few years back, and Norman interviewed me for a documentary he was making on Old Hollywood. When we were through filming, he said casually "Maybe you should do a biography of my mother next." Well, I knew his mother was Joan Blondell, and I was frankly stunned at the suggestion. I have admired her ever since Here Come the Brides, a show I watched religiously when I was a kid, and here was her son inviting me to tell her life story! I finished the Goulding book about a year later, then contacted Norman again to ask if he was serious. He was,...
- 8/25/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Blondell. Those who have heard the name will most likely picture either a blowsy, older woman playing the worldwise but warm-hearted saloon owner in the late 1960s television series Here Come the Brides, or a lively, fast-talking, no-nonsense, and unconventionally sexy gold digger in numerous Pre-Code Warner Bros. comedies and musicals of the early 1930s. Matthew Kennedy's Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes (University Press of Mississippi, 2007) seeks to rectify that cultural memory lapse. Not that Blondell doesn't deserve to be remembered for Here Come the Brides or, say, Gold Diggers of 1933, Footlight Parade, Havana Widows, and Broadway Bad. It's just that her other work — from her immensely touching performance as a sexually liberated woman in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to her invariably welcome (if brief) appearances in films as varied as The Blue Veil, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and Grease — should be remembered as well.
- 8/25/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Dames Joan Blondell has always been a favorite of mine, much like fellow wisecracking 1930s Warner Bros. players Aline MacMahon and Glenda Farrell. The fact that Blondell never became a top star says more about audiences — who preferred, say, Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney — than about Blondell's screen presence and acting abilities. As part of its "Summer Under the Stars" film series, Turner Classic Movies is currently showing no less than 16 Joan Blondell movies today, including the TCM premiere of the 1968 crime drama Kona Coast. Directed by Lamont Johnson, Kona Coast stars Richard Boone and the capable Vera Miles. Blondell has a supporting role — one of two dozen from 1950 (For Heaven's Sake) to 1981 (The Woman Inside, released two years after Blondell's death from leukemia). [Joan Blondell Movie Schedule.] Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing the super-rare (apparently due to rights issues) The Blue Veil, Curtis Bernhardt's 1951 melodrama that earned Blondell her...
- 8/24/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Chicago – Diabolical twins, obsessed journalists and jail-breaking thugs are heading their way to the Music Box Theatre. The Film Noir Foundation’s third installment of “Noir City: Chicago” features no less than sixteen restored 35mm prints of must-see cinematic rarities. Ten of these noir classics have yet to land a DVD release, thus making this festival all the more essential for local cinephiles.
The week-long festival kicks off Friday, Aug. 12, and includes criminally overlooked performances from Hollywood legends such as Humphrey Bogart, Anne Bancroft, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and Burt Lancaster. Acclaimed noir historians Alan K. Rode (“Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy”) and Foster Hirsch (“Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir”) will be presenting the pictures while offering their wealth of historical and filmic insight.
Among this year’s most priceless treasures is “Deadline USA,” starring Bogart as...
The week-long festival kicks off Friday, Aug. 12, and includes criminally overlooked performances from Hollywood legends such as Humphrey Bogart, Anne Bancroft, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and Burt Lancaster. Acclaimed noir historians Alan K. Rode (“Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy”) and Foster Hirsch (“Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir”) will be presenting the pictures while offering their wealth of historical and filmic insight.
Among this year’s most priceless treasures is “Deadline USA,” starring Bogart as...
- 8/11/2011
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Marlene Dietrich in Kurt Bernhardt's The Woman Men Yearn For Among the silent-film classics to be featured at this year's San Francisco Silent Film Festival are Victor Sjöström's He Who Gets Slapped (1924), starring Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, and John Gilbert in the newly founded MGM studios' first production; five-time Oscar nominee Clarence Brown's The Goose Woman (1925), starring Louise Dresser and Constance Bennett, and which was recently restored by UCLA; and William Desmond Taylor's Huckleberry Finn (1920). Taylor's 1922 murder — unsolved to this day — was one of the major scandals that rocked Hollywood in the early '20s. Other festival highlights include [...]...
- 5/24/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Possessed (1947) Direction: Curtis Bernhardt Cast: Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, Raymond Massey, Geraldine Brooks, Stanley Ridges, John Ridgely, Moroni Olsen Screenplay: Silvia Richards and Ranald MacDougall; from a story by Rita Weiman Oscar Movies Van Heflin, Joan Crawford, Possessed From the moment we see her shuffling across town in a comatose stupor to the homicidal climax, Possessed is Joan Crawford's picture all the way. And once you get past some of its contrived psychobabble, this Curtis Bernhardt-directed melodrama is also one of her best. [Note: Spoilers ahead.] In Possessed, Crawford plays Louise Howell, a private-duty nurse inexplicably obsessed with David Sutton, a cynical, hard-drinking mechanical engineer played by Van Heflin. That brings up my biggest objection to Possessed: the casting of the bland Heflin in a role that required an actor with a certain amount of animal magnetism. This viewer, for one, was unable to understand what made him put the...
- 3/22/2011
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
On this week's clip joint, Spoom does a double take on the best film clips featuring identical twins
Identical twins or "multiples" as I believe they're more correctly termed, in a slightly unsettling, Minority Report sort of way, hold – for me, at least – a unique fascination. Can you imagine having someone who looks exactly like you hanging around all the time?
Actors probably wouldn't mind though. Any actor who loves themselves – and, if we're being honest, that's probably the majority – would give their right arm to play identical twins. What better way is there to show your range, your sheer, awards-worth versatility, than appearing as two different people in the same movie? Plus: double screen time! You do the maths.
No wonder they've proved popular fodder for the cinema, then – as Matt Lucas's Tweedledum and Tweedledee double-act in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland reminds us. So in honour...
Identical twins or "multiples" as I believe they're more correctly termed, in a slightly unsettling, Minority Report sort of way, hold – for me, at least – a unique fascination. Can you imagine having someone who looks exactly like you hanging around all the time?
Actors probably wouldn't mind though. Any actor who loves themselves – and, if we're being honest, that's probably the majority – would give their right arm to play identical twins. What better way is there to show your range, your sheer, awards-worth versatility, than appearing as two different people in the same movie? Plus: double screen time! You do the maths.
No wonder they've proved popular fodder for the cinema, then – as Matt Lucas's Tweedledum and Tweedledee double-act in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland reminds us. So in honour...
- 3/17/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
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