Warner Brothers released “Casablanca” in New York on Nov. 26, 1942, which just happened to be Thanksgiving. But the romantic World War II drama starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid was anything but a turkey. To say the New York Times review was effusive is something of an understatement: “Warners here have a picture which makes the spine tingle and the heart take a leap….And they have so combined sentiment, humor and pathos with taut melodrama and bristling intrigue that the result is a highly entertaining and even inspiring film.”
And critical praise and audiences’ adoration continued when it opened in Los Angeles and nationwide in January 1943. It went on to win three Oscars for Best Picture, director for Michael Curtiz and adapted screenplay for Julius J. and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch. Let’s take a look back on the occasion of the 80th anniversary.
As time has gone by,...
And critical praise and audiences’ adoration continued when it opened in Los Angeles and nationwide in January 1943. It went on to win three Oscars for Best Picture, director for Michael Curtiz and adapted screenplay for Julius J. and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch. Let’s take a look back on the occasion of the 80th anniversary.
As time has gone by,...
- 11/28/2022
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Click here to read the full article.
Helen Grayco, the pop singer and actress who appeared on records, tours, radio programs and TV shows as a classy contrast to her zany bandleader husband, Spike Jones, has died. She was 97.
Grayco died Saturday of cancer at her home in Los Angeles, her son, longtime Creative Arts Emmy Awards producer Spike Jones Jr., told The Hollywood Reporter.
Jones Sr. was about to embark on a tour with his City Slickers bandmates when he approached Grayco with a job offer after watching her perform with Stan Kenton’s orchestra at the Hollywood Palladium in 1946.
“I was terribly insulted when Spike first asked to hire me,” Grayco recalled in a 2009 interview. “He had just done ‘Cocktails for Two’ and all that stuff that he was known for. ‘I don’t know where I could possibly fit in in your group. I’m not a comedienne,...
Helen Grayco, the pop singer and actress who appeared on records, tours, radio programs and TV shows as a classy contrast to her zany bandleader husband, Spike Jones, has died. She was 97.
Grayco died Saturday of cancer at her home in Los Angeles, her son, longtime Creative Arts Emmy Awards producer Spike Jones Jr., told The Hollywood Reporter.
Jones Sr. was about to embark on a tour with his City Slickers bandmates when he approached Grayco with a job offer after watching her perform with Stan Kenton’s orchestra at the Hollywood Palladium in 1946.
“I was terribly insulted when Spike first asked to hire me,” Grayco recalled in a 2009 interview. “He had just done ‘Cocktails for Two’ and all that stuff that he was known for. ‘I don’t know where I could possibly fit in in your group. I’m not a comedienne,...
- 8/23/2022
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Jane Powell, who starred as an angelically visaged young actress in a number of MGM musicals including “Royal Wedding” and “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” during the 1940s and 1950s, has died of natural causes. She was 92 years old.
The blonde, blue-eyed Powell usually played characters with a gentle mischievous streak in her musical comedies, but she would shatter the light-hearted atmosphere of her films when she sang: A surprisingly powerful coloratura would emerge from the diminutive (5-feet-1) thesp.
Her producer and mentor was MGM’s Joe Pasternak, who had earlier developed the talents of Deanna Durbin at Universal.
Auditioning for Louis B. Mayer and for David O. Selznick, she quickly drew a seven-year contract with MGM in 1943. Her first film, on loan-out, was 1944 musical “Song of the Open Road,” in which the actress played a child film star who runs away. She took her character’s name, Jane Powell,...
The blonde, blue-eyed Powell usually played characters with a gentle mischievous streak in her musical comedies, but she would shatter the light-hearted atmosphere of her films when she sang: A surprisingly powerful coloratura would emerge from the diminutive (5-feet-1) thesp.
Her producer and mentor was MGM’s Joe Pasternak, who had earlier developed the talents of Deanna Durbin at Universal.
Auditioning for Louis B. Mayer and for David O. Selznick, she quickly drew a seven-year contract with MGM in 1943. Her first film, on loan-out, was 1944 musical “Song of the Open Road,” in which the actress played a child film star who runs away. She took her character’s name, Jane Powell,...
- 9/16/2021
- by Carmel Dagan
- Variety Film + TV
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Vintage magazines make a great collector’s item (or gift idea) for movie lovers, and anyone looking to capture that Old Hollywood aesthetic. But you don’t even have to leave the house to get your hands on these collectibles. If you’re not in the mood to visit a garage sale or thrift store, we put together a list of rare magazines that you can buy online.
From Photoplay to Movieland magazine, you might not be familiar with some of the publications listed but if you’re a fan of Hollywood’s Golden Era, then you’re likely to recognize some (if not all) of the screen legends captured on the covers,...
Vintage magazines make a great collector’s item (or gift idea) for movie lovers, and anyone looking to capture that Old Hollywood aesthetic. But you don’t even have to leave the house to get your hands on these collectibles. If you’re not in the mood to visit a garage sale or thrift store, we put together a list of rare magazines that you can buy online.
From Photoplay to Movieland magazine, you might not be familiar with some of the publications listed but if you’re a fan of Hollywood’s Golden Era, then you’re likely to recognize some (if not all) of the screen legends captured on the covers,...
- 9/7/2021
- by Latifah Muhammad
- Indiewire
Harper’s Bizarre: DuVall Reinvents the Queerness of Holiday Traditions
Across a wide variety of genres and narratives, going home for the holidays, and the intended cheerfulness of these and traditions in general, are ripe for their effective universality and entertainment value. At a certain point in Hollywood, these traditions also served as formidable juxtapositions of the facades we cling to vs. the dire reality of those who, for various reasons, were denied access to the heteronormative bliss of celebratory staples.
In the 1940s, there were film noirs like the Deanna Durbin drama Christmas Holiday (1942) and the (eventually) celebrated It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) from Frank Capra, here serving as a diegetic reference.…...
Across a wide variety of genres and narratives, going home for the holidays, and the intended cheerfulness of these and traditions in general, are ripe for their effective universality and entertainment value. At a certain point in Hollywood, these traditions also served as formidable juxtapositions of the facades we cling to vs. the dire reality of those who, for various reasons, were denied access to the heteronormative bliss of celebratory staples.
In the 1940s, there were film noirs like the Deanna Durbin drama Christmas Holiday (1942) and the (eventually) celebrated It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) from Frank Capra, here serving as a diegetic reference.…...
- 11/20/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday.
This week’s question: What’s the best Christmas movie for people who hate Christmas movies?
Ken Bakely (@kbake_99), Freelance for Film Pulse
If you want a movie that emulates the feeling of the holidays without being directly about them, look no further than Todd Haynes’s “Carol,” with the film’s first act taking place against the backdrop of the last days before Christmas. In establishing its characters and setting, everything from the winter weather, crowded department stores, and putting up Christmas trees is included with a delicate sense of detail that is simply haunting. It’s emblematic of how note-perfect and intimately precise the entire movie is, sublimely starting at a time of year rooted in high expectations and the feeling of possibility, and expanding out from there in the development of its central romance,...
This week’s question: What’s the best Christmas movie for people who hate Christmas movies?
Ken Bakely (@kbake_99), Freelance for Film Pulse
If you want a movie that emulates the feeling of the holidays without being directly about them, look no further than Todd Haynes’s “Carol,” with the film’s first act taking place against the backdrop of the last days before Christmas. In establishing its characters and setting, everything from the winter weather, crowded department stores, and putting up Christmas trees is included with a delicate sense of detail that is simply haunting. It’s emblematic of how note-perfect and intimately precise the entire movie is, sublimely starting at a time of year rooted in high expectations and the feeling of possibility, and expanding out from there in the development of its central romance,...
- 12/24/2018
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
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
Over the decades, special or honorary Oscars have gone to everything from a film series to animated shorts to innovators to a ventriloquist to child performers to foreign films. Tour our photo galleries for a look back featuring every performer honored (above) and every non-performer honored (below).
Two special awards were handed out at the first Academy Awards on May 16, 1929:
Charlie Chaplin, who had originally been nominated for lead actor and for comedy direction for his 1928 masterpiece “The Circus,” was withdrawn from those nominations when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Board of Governors gave him a special award for his “versatility in writing, acting, directing and producing” the comedy.
Warner Brothers also picked up a special honorary for producing 1927’s “The Jazz Singer”-“the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry”.
Now called honorary Oscars, Donald Sutherland, cinematographer Owen Roizman (“The French Connection,” “The Exorcist...
Two special awards were handed out at the first Academy Awards on May 16, 1929:
Charlie Chaplin, who had originally been nominated for lead actor and for comedy direction for his 1928 masterpiece “The Circus,” was withdrawn from those nominations when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences’ Board of Governors gave him a special award for his “versatility in writing, acting, directing and producing” the comedy.
Warner Brothers also picked up a special honorary for producing 1927’s “The Jazz Singer”-“the pioneer outstanding talking picture, which has revolutionized the industry”.
Now called honorary Oscars, Donald Sutherland, cinematographer Owen Roizman (“The French Connection,” “The Exorcist...
- 2/27/2018
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Part of the Jerry Lewis tribute A Mubi Jerrython. Writer, director, star of stage, screen and television, humanitarian, producer, and total filmmaker—Jerry Lewis was all of the above. For the first six years of his career he was also a professional lip syncher. At age twelve, desperate to follow his parents on stage, Jerry began developing a “record act.” A staple on the lower rungs of the Borscht Belt, burlesque, vaudeville, and nightclubs, record acts (a.k.a. dummy acts) were cheap and easy: they consisted of a performer or performers miming away to recordings. Always considered pretty corny, they were the poor stepchildren on the theatrical bills, but there were plenty of budding comics who broke into show business that way. Jerry Van Dyke was another newbie who started his career doing record acts, and much later Andy Kaufman would put his own spin on it mouthing only...
- 1/17/2018
- MUBI
This time they may have gotten it right! If a knife or a straight razor won’t do, how about killing a victim with 500-pound metal artwork studded with spikes? Dario Argento distilled a new kind of slick, visually fetishistic horror who-dunnit thriller subgenre with this shocker, aided by the dreamy cinematography of Vittorio Storaro.
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Blu-ray + DVD
Arrow Video USA
1971 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date June 20, 2017 / L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo / Available from Arrow Video/ 49.95
/ 49.95
Starring: Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Enrico Maria Salerno, Eva Renzi, Umberto Raho, Raf Valenti, Giuseppe Castellano, Mario Adorf, Pino Patti, Gildo Di Marco, Rosita Torosh, Omar Bonaro, Fulvio Mingozzi, Werner Peters, Karen Valenti, Carla Mancini, Reggie Nalder.
Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro
Film Editor: Franco Fraticelli
Original Music: Ennio Morricone
Written by Dario Argento from a novel by Fredric Brown
Produced by Salvatore Argento, Artur Brauner
Directed by Dario Argento...
The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
Blu-ray + DVD
Arrow Video USA
1971 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date June 20, 2017 / L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo / Available from Arrow Video/ 49.95
/ 49.95
Starring: Tony Musante, Suzy Kendall, Enrico Maria Salerno, Eva Renzi, Umberto Raho, Raf Valenti, Giuseppe Castellano, Mario Adorf, Pino Patti, Gildo Di Marco, Rosita Torosh, Omar Bonaro, Fulvio Mingozzi, Werner Peters, Karen Valenti, Carla Mancini, Reggie Nalder.
Cinematography: Vittorio Storaro
Film Editor: Franco Fraticelli
Original Music: Ennio Morricone
Written by Dario Argento from a novel by Fredric Brown
Produced by Salvatore Argento, Artur Brauner
Directed by Dario Argento...
- 6/19/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Yesterday, amid a crush of sweaty people desperate for last-minute props, I visited a local Halloween superstore with my daughter, looking for a Pikachu mask. Well, there wasn’t much to choose from in the Cute Kid Division. But this particular hall of Halloween hell definitely had the adult sensibility covered. Of course there were the usual skimpy or otherwise outrageous costumes for purchase —ladies, you can dress up like a sexy Kim Kardashian-esque vampire out for a night of Hollywood clubbing, and gents, how about impressing all the sexy Kim Kardashian vampires at your party by dressing up like a walking, talking matched set of cock and balls! It’s been a while since I’ve shopped for fake tools of terror, but it seems there’s been a real advance in sophistication in the market for “Leatherface-approved” (I swear) chainsaws with moving parts and authentic revving noises,...
- 10/30/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Anne Marie is tracking Judy Garland's career through musical numbers...
With Judy Garland now such an established hit, MGM worked overtime to make the most of its musical star. This meant that while Arthur Freed and the Freed Unit "made" her by crafting her star image (and arguably used her to her best advantage), Judy couldn't work with them exclusively. She was too valuable a commodity for that. So, MGM also put her under the watchful tutelage of another producer well-known for his musical mojo: Joe Pasternak.
The Movie: Presenting Lily Mars (1942)
The Songwriters: Walter Jurmann (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics)
The Players: Judy Garland, Van Heflin, Fay Bainter, Spring Byington, directed by Norman Taurog
The Story: Had Judy's fateful short with Deanna Durbin turned out differently only six years previous, she might have met Joe Pasternak earlier. For most of the 1930s, Pasternak was a top producer at Universal Studios,...
With Judy Garland now such an established hit, MGM worked overtime to make the most of its musical star. This meant that while Arthur Freed and the Freed Unit "made" her by crafting her star image (and arguably used her to her best advantage), Judy couldn't work with them exclusively. She was too valuable a commodity for that. So, MGM also put her under the watchful tutelage of another producer well-known for his musical mojo: Joe Pasternak.
The Movie: Presenting Lily Mars (1942)
The Songwriters: Walter Jurmann (music) and Paul Francis Webster (lyrics)
The Players: Judy Garland, Van Heflin, Fay Bainter, Spring Byington, directed by Norman Taurog
The Story: Had Judy's fateful short with Deanna Durbin turned out differently only six years previous, she might have met Joe Pasternak earlier. For most of the 1930s, Pasternak was a top producer at Universal Studios,...
- 5/4/2016
- by Anne Marie
- FilmExperience
Merle Oberon films: From empress to duchess in 'Hotel.' Merle Oberon films: From starring to supporting roles Turner Classic Movies' Merle Oberon month comes to an end tonight, March 25, '16, with six movies: Désirée, Hotel, Deep in My Heart, Affectionately Yours, Berlin Express, and Night Song. Oberon's presence alone would have sufficed to make them all worth a look, but they have other qualities to recommend them as well. 'Désirée': First supporting role in two decades Directed by Henry Koster, best remembered for his Deanna Durbin musicals and the 1947 fantasy comedy The Bishop's Wife, Désirée (1954) is a sumptuous production that, thanks to its big-name cast, became a major box office hit upon its release. Marlon Brando is laughably miscast as Napoleon Bonaparte, while Jean Simmons plays the title role, the Corsican Conqueror's one-time fiancée Désirée Clary (later Queen of Sweden and Norway). In a supporting role – her...
- 3/26/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Anne Marie here with one of the foundational building blocks of the legend that is Judy. This week it's the story you've probably heard: young Judy Garland sings in a two-reel with another mostly-unknown MGM child actor named Deanna Durbin. Mayer sees the short and decides to dump one of the girls. Which he chooses and why is up for debate, but the practical fallout turns one girl into a big star at a small studio, and puts the other on the road towards a mythmaking career.
The Movie: "Every Sunday" (MGM, 1936)
The Songwriter: Roger Eden
The Players: Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin directed by Felix E. Feist
The Story: When young Judy had signed with MGM, she had done so without a screentest. The powers that be decided to rectify that in 1936, casting Judy with Deanna Durbin, another girl singer whose classical style contrasted nicely with Judy's big,...
The Movie: "Every Sunday" (MGM, 1936)
The Songwriter: Roger Eden
The Players: Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin directed by Felix E. Feist
The Story: When young Judy had signed with MGM, she had done so without a screentest. The powers that be decided to rectify that in 1936, casting Judy with Deanna Durbin, another girl singer whose classical style contrasted nicely with Judy's big,...
- 1/20/2016
- by Anne Marie
- FilmExperience
Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...
- 9/16/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Child actor Dickie Moore: 'Our Gang' member. Former child actor Dickie Moore dead at 89: Film career ranged from 'Our Gang' shorts to features opposite Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper 1930s child actor Dickie Moore, whose 100+ movie career ranged from Our Gang shorts to playing opposite the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck, and Gary Cooper, died in Connecticut on Sept. 7, '15 – five days before his 90th birthday. So far, news reports haven't specified the cause of death. According to a 2013 Boston Phoenix article about Moore's wife, MGM musical star Jane Powell, he had been “suffering from arthritis and bouts of dementia.” Dickie Moore movies At the behest of a persistent family friend, combined with the fact that his father was out of a job, Dickie Moore (born on Sept. 12, 1925, in Los Angeles) made his film debut as an infant in Alan Crosland's 1927 costume drama The Beloved Rogue,...
- 9/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Debbie Reynolds ca. early 1950s. Debbie Reynolds movies: Oscar nominee for 'The Unsinkable Molly Brown,' sweetness and light in phony 'The Singing Nun' Debbie Reynolds is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 23, '15. An MGM contract player from 1950 to 1959, Reynolds' movies can be seen just about every week on TCM. The only premiere on Debbie Reynolds Day is Jerry Paris' lively marital comedy How Sweet It Is (1968), costarring James Garner. This evening, TCM is showing Divorce American Style, The Catered Affair, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and The Singing Nun. 'Divorce American Style,' 'The Catered Affair' Directed by the recently deceased Bud Yorkin, Divorce American Style (1967) is notable for its cast – Reynolds, Dick Van Dyke, Jean Simmons, Jason Robards, Van Johnson, Lee Grant – and for the fact that it earned Norman Lear (screenplay) and Robert Kaufman (story) a Best Original Screenplay Academy Award nomination.
- 8/24/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'The Devil Strikes at Night,' with Mario Adorf as World War II era serial killer Bruno Lüdke 'The Devil Strikes at Night' movie review: Serial killing vs. mass murder in unsubtle but intriguing World War II political drama After more than a decade in Hollywood, German director Robert Siodmak (Academy Award nominated for the 1946 film noir The Killers) resumed his European career in the mid-1950s. In 1957, he directed The Devil Strikes at Night / Nachts, wenn der Teufel kam, an intriguing, well-crafted crime drama about the pursuit of a serial killer – and its political consequences – during the last months of the mass-murderous Nazi regime. Inspired by real events, The Devil Strikes at Night begins as war-scarred Hamburg is deeply shaken by the horrific murder of a waitress. Through the Homicide Bureau, inspector Axel Kersten (Claus Holm) begins an investigation that leads him to a mentally disabled laborer,...
- 5/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock heroine (image: Joseph Cotten about to strangle Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt') (See preceding article: "Teresa Wright Movies: Actress Made Oscar History.") After scoring with The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver, and The Pride of the Yankees, Teresa Wright was loaned to Universal – once initial choices Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland became unavailable – to play the small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. (Check out video below: Teresa Wright reminiscing about the making of Shadow of a Doubt.) Co-written by Thornton Wilder, whose Our Town had provided Wright with her first chance on Broadway and who had suggested her to Hitchcock; Meet Me in St. Louis and Junior Miss author Sally Benson; and Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, Shadow of a Doubt was based on "Uncle Charlie," a story outline by Gordon McDonell – itself based on actual events.
- 3/7/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Cary Grant movies: 'An Affair to Remember' does justice to its title (photo: Cary Grant ca. late 1940s) Cary Grant excelled at playing Cary Grant. This evening, fans of the charming, sophisticated, debonair actor -- not to be confused with the Bristol-born Archibald Leach -- can rejoice, as no less than eight Cary Grant movies are being shown on Turner Classic Movies, including a handful of his most successful and best-remembered star vehicles from the late '30s to the late '50s. (See also: "Cary Grant Classic Movies" and "Cary Grant and Randolph Scott: Gay Lovers?") The evening begins with what may well be Cary Grant's best-known film, An Affair to Remember. This 1957 romantic comedy-melodrama is unusual in that it's an even more successful remake of a previous critical and box-office hit -- the Academy Award-nominated 1939 release Love Affair -- and that it was directed...
- 12/9/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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
Women presidents at the Academy: Cheryl Boone Isaacs is only the third one (photo: Angelina Jolie, Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Brad Pitt) (See previous post: "Honorary Award Non-Winners: Too Late for Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich.") Wrapping up this four-part "Honorary Oscars Bypass Women" article, let it be noted that in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 85-year history there have been only two women presidents: two-time Oscar-winning actress Bette Davis (for two months in 1941, before the Dangerous and Jezebel star was forced to resign) and screenwriter Fay Kanin (1979-1983), whose best-known screen credit is the 1958 Doris Day-Clark Gable comedy Teacher's Pet. Additionally, following some top-level restructuring in April 2011, the Academy created the positions of Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer, with the CEO post currently held by a woman, former Film Independent executive director and sometime actress Dawn Hudson. The COO post is held...
- 9/4/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...
- 9/4/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Honorary Oscars have bypassed women: Angela Lansbury, Lauren Bacall among rare exceptions (photo: 2013 Honorary Oscar winner Angela Lansbury and Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award winner Angelina Jolie) September 4, 2014, Introduction: This four-part article on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Awards and the dearth of female Honorary Oscar winners was originally posted in February 2007. The article was updated in February 2012 and fully revised before its republication today. All outdated figures regarding the Honorary Oscars and the Academy's other Special Awards have been "scratched out," with the updated numbers and related information inserted below each affected paragraph or text section. See also "Honorary Oscars 2014 addendum" at the bottom of this post. At the 1936 Academy Awards ceremony, groundbreaking film pioneer D.W. Griffith, by then a veteran with more than 500 shorts and features to his credit — among them the epoch-making The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance — became the first individual to...
- 9/4/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Mickey Rooney was earliest surviving Best Actor Oscar nominee (photo: Mickey Rooney and Spencer Tracy in ‘Boys Town’) (See previous post: “Mickey Rooney Dead at 93: MGM’s Andy Hardy Series’ Hero and Judy Garland Frequent Co-Star Had Longest Film Career Ever?”) Mickey Rooney was the earliest surviving Best Actor Academy Award nominee — Babes in Arms, 1939; The Human Comedy, 1943 — and the last surviving male acting Oscar nominee of the 1930s. Rooney lost the Best Actor Oscar to two considerably more “prestigious” — albeit less popular — stars: Robert Donat for Sam Wood’s Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) and Paul Lukas for Herman Shumlin’s Watch on the Rhine (1943). Following Mickey Rooney’s death, there are only two acting Academy Award nominees from the ’30s still alive: two-time Best Actress winner Luise Rainer, 104 (for Robert Z. Leonard’s The Great Ziegfeld, 1936, and Sidney Franklin’s The Good Earth, 1937), and Best Supporting Actress nominee Olivia de Havilland,...
- 4/9/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The legendary performer has passed away at the age of 93.
"As adept at comedy as drama and an excellent singer and dancer, Rooney was regarded as the consummate entertainer. During a prolific career on stage and screen that spanned eight decades (“I’ve been working all my life, but it seems longer,” he once said), he was nominated for four Academy Awards and received two special Oscars, the Juvenile Award in 1939 (shared with Deanna Durbin) and one in 1983 for his body of work."...
"As adept at comedy as drama and an excellent singer and dancer, Rooney was regarded as the consummate entertainer. During a prolific career on stage and screen that spanned eight decades (“I’ve been working all my life, but it seems longer,” he once said), he was nominated for four Academy Awards and received two special Oscars, the Juvenile Award in 1939 (shared with Deanna Durbin) and one in 1983 for his body of work."...
- 4/7/2014
- by Notebook
- MUBI
Los Angeles (AP) — Mickey Rooney, the pint-size, precocious actor and all-around talent whose more than 80-year career spanned silent comedies, Shakespeare, Judy Garland musicals, Andy Hardy stardom, television and the Broadway theater, died Sunday at age 93. Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith said that Rooney was with his family when he died at his North Hollywood home. Smith said police took a death report but indicated that there was nothing suspicious and it was not a police case. He said he had no additional details on the circumstances of his passing. Rooney started his career in his parents' vaudeville act while still a toddler, and broke into movies before age 10. He was still racking up film and TV credits more than 80 years later — a tenure likely unmatched in the history of show business. "I always say, 'Don't retire — inspire,'" he told The Associated Press in March 2008. "There's a lot to be done.
- 4/7/2014
- by Anthony McCartney (AP)
- Hitfix
American stage and screen icon Mickey Rooney died Sunday night, sources close to the actor have confirmed. Rooney was 93. TMZ broke the news of Rooney.s death, while Variety confirmed it, reporting that Rooney had been ill for some time. Specific cause of death has not yet been revealed. Rooney did it all in the entertainment field, and had been doing it for the bulk of his career. He primarily was recognized for his stature, and his brilliant comedic timing. He started acting in his teens, with a film role in the silent movie Not to be Trusted. He played a midget. Rooney went on to become the first teenager to earn an Academy Award Juvenile Award (which he shared with Deanna Durbin) in 1939. The following year, he presented the same award to his frequent on-screen collaborator, Judy Garland: That wasn.t Rooney.s only brush with the Oscars.
- 4/7/2014
- cinemablend.com
Anthony McCartney, AP Entertainment Writer
Los Angeles (AP) - Mickey Rooney, the pint-size, precocious actor and all-around talent whose more than 80-year career spanned silent comedies, Shakespeare, Judy Garland musicals, Andy Hardy stardom, television and the Broadway theater, died Sunday at age 93.
Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith said that Rooney was with his family when he died at his North Hollywood home.
Smith said police took a death report but indicated that there was nothing suspicious and he had no additional details on the circumstances of his passing. The Los Angeles County Coroner's office said it was not their case because Rooney died a natural death.
There were no further immediate details on the cause of death, but Rooney did attend an Oscar party last month.
Rooney started his career in his parents' vaudeville act while still a toddler, and broke into movies before age 10. He was still racking...
Los Angeles (AP) - Mickey Rooney, the pint-size, precocious actor and all-around talent whose more than 80-year career spanned silent comedies, Shakespeare, Judy Garland musicals, Andy Hardy stardom, television and the Broadway theater, died Sunday at age 93.
Los Angeles Police Commander Andrew Smith said that Rooney was with his family when he died at his North Hollywood home.
Smith said police took a death report but indicated that there was nothing suspicious and he had no additional details on the circumstances of his passing. The Los Angeles County Coroner's office said it was not their case because Rooney died a natural death.
There were no further immediate details on the cause of death, but Rooney did attend an Oscar party last month.
Rooney started his career in his parents' vaudeville act while still a toddler, and broke into movies before age 10. He was still racking...
- 4/7/2014
- by The Associated Press
- Moviefone
Shirley Temple dead at 85: Was one of the biggest domestic box office draws of the ’30s (photo: Shirley Temple in the late ’40s) Shirley Temple, one of the biggest box office draws of the 1930s in the United States, died Monday night, February 10, 2014, at her home in Woodside, near San Francisco. The cause of death wasn’t made public. Shirley Temple (born in Santa Monica on April 23, 1928) was 85. Shirley Temple became a star in 1934, following the release of Paramount’s Alexander Hall-directed comedy-tearjerker Little Miss Marker, in which Temple had the title role as a little girl who, left in the care of bookies, almost loses her childlike ways before coming around to regenerate Adolphe Menjou and his gang. That same year, Temple became a Fox contract player, and is credited with saving the studio — 20th Century Fox from 1935 on — from bankruptcy. Whether or not that’s true is a different story,...
- 2/11/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Sure, Sunday tends to be overcrowded with high-end TV (like "Downton Abbey," returning to PBS this week), but what to watch the rest of the time? Every Monday, we bring you five noteworthy highlights from the other six days of the week. "In Memoriam" Monday, December 30th at 8pm on TCM Turner Classic Movies' year-end "In Memoriam" tribute is a salute to those who passed who weren't already honored during the year. The night begins with the 1941 Deanna Durbin musical "It Started with Eve" at 8pm, followed by Annette Funicello's 1964 "Bikini Beach" at 9:45pm. Eileen Brennan stars in Neil Simon's 1978 "The Cheap Detective" at 11:30pm, while Jonathan Winters plays a pair of brothers in 1965 black comedy "The Loved One" at 1:15am. Karen Black received an Oscar nomination for her performance in 1970's "Five Easy Pieces" at 3:30am, while Julie Harris is terrific in 1955's...
- 12/30/2013
- by Alison Willmore
- Indiewire
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will pay tribute to Oscar® winner Joan Fontaine and eight-time Oscar® nominee and honorary Academy Award® recipient Peter O’Toole with tributes Today Sunday, Dec. 29.
The Fontaine collection features Blonde Cheat (1938), The Women (1939), Born To Be Bad (1950), Ivanhoe (1952), Fontaine’s Oscar-nominated roles in The Constant Nymph (1943) and Rebecca (1940), and her Oscar-winning performance in Suspicion (1940).
In the evening, TCM will pay tribute to O’Toole with his Oscar-nominated performances in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) and My Favorite Year (1982). Also featured will be a special encore telecast of Peter O’Toole: Live from the TCM Classic Film Festival, a one-hour extended interview with TCM host Robert Osborne taped before a live audience at the 2011 TCM Classic Film Festival.
The following is the complete lineup for TCM’s on-air tributes to Joan Fontaine and Peter O’Toole:
Sunday, Dec. 29
All times are Et/Pt.
TCM Remembers Joan Fontaine
6:30 a.
The Fontaine collection features Blonde Cheat (1938), The Women (1939), Born To Be Bad (1950), Ivanhoe (1952), Fontaine’s Oscar-nominated roles in The Constant Nymph (1943) and Rebecca (1940), and her Oscar-winning performance in Suspicion (1940).
In the evening, TCM will pay tribute to O’Toole with his Oscar-nominated performances in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) and My Favorite Year (1982). Also featured will be a special encore telecast of Peter O’Toole: Live from the TCM Classic Film Festival, a one-hour extended interview with TCM host Robert Osborne taped before a live audience at the 2011 TCM Classic Film Festival.
The following is the complete lineup for TCM’s on-air tributes to Joan Fontaine and Peter O’Toole:
Sunday, Dec. 29
All times are Et/Pt.
TCM Remembers Joan Fontaine
6:30 a.
- 12/29/2013
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
“Guess who?! Ha ha ha hah hah! Ha ha ha hah hah! Hahahahah!” Looks like another iconic cartoon character from Hollywood’s Golden Age is finally returning to the silver screen! He joins the ranks of Mickey Mouse in the theatrical short subject “Get a Horse’ that will be paired with Disney’s Frozen, the Loony Tunes Warner Brothers gang recently seen in the “I Tawt I Taw a Putty Tat” short preceeding Happy Feet 2, and Popeye the Sailor Man (technically a comic strip star) in his very own CGI feature from director Genndy Tartakovsky (Hotel Transylvania) in production at Sony Pictures. Why it’s that fine feathered frantic fury, Woody Woodpecker! Animation reporter and historian Jerry Beck reported over at the website Indiewire that animator Bill Kopp (TV’s “Eek the Cat” and “Dan Vs.” amongst many credits) has been signed to bring that red-headed rascal back to theatres...
- 10/14/2013
- by Jim Batts
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Marlene Dietrich Grandson J. Michael Riva, Robert Clatworthy, and Harper Goff: Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame 2014 Production Designers Robert Clatworthy, Harper Goff, and J. Michael Riva will be posthumously inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame at the 18th Art Directors Guild Awards ceremony, to be held on February 8, 2014, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. (Photo: Production designer J. Michael Riva.) J. Michael Riva J. Michael Riva (1948-2012), grandson of Marlene Dietrich (The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, A Foreign Affair), was production designer for Stuart Rosenberg / Robert Redford’s 1980 socially conscious drama Brubaker. Later on, Redford hired Riva as the art director for Ordinary People, also released in 1980. Riva’s other production design credits include the Lethal Weapon movies starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover; A Few Good Men (1992), with Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore; The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), with Will Smith; Spider-Man 3 (2007), with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst,...
- 9/12/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
"There isn't any such thing in the world as a bad boy."
Even people who haven't seen "Boys Town" know Spencer Tracy's line, in character as Father Edward Flanagan, as the credo of the real Boys Town, the institution renowned for its care of orphaned and troubled kids. The classic movie, released 75 years ago this week (on September 9, 1938), was a huge hit, a milestone in the careers of Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, and an inspiration to wayward kids and those who would help them, all over the country.
As beloved as the movie has been for generations, there's still plenty you may not know about it -- how it almost didn't get released, how Tracy's Oscar victory almost turned into a publicity nightmare, and how the movie almost did more harm than good to the real Boys Town.
Read on for 25 true tales behind the making of "Boys Town.
Even people who haven't seen "Boys Town" know Spencer Tracy's line, in character as Father Edward Flanagan, as the credo of the real Boys Town, the institution renowned for its care of orphaned and troubled kids. The classic movie, released 75 years ago this week (on September 9, 1938), was a huge hit, a milestone in the careers of Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, and an inspiration to wayward kids and those who would help them, all over the country.
As beloved as the movie has been for generations, there's still plenty you may not know about it -- how it almost didn't get released, how Tracy's Oscar victory almost turned into a publicity nightmare, and how the movie almost did more harm than good to the real Boys Town.
Read on for 25 true tales behind the making of "Boys Town.
- 9/9/2013
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
Shirley Jones: From book to film A few weeks ago, Shirley Jones, 79, made headlines following the publication of her book of memoirs, concisely titled Shirley Jones: A Memoir. But why the headlines? Does Shirley Jones twerk like Miley Cyrus? Nope. (And that may explain why the release of Jones’ book wasn’t selected as CNN.com’s Top Story of the Day.) So, were The Media and The People interested in Jones’ Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for Elmer Gantry, or maybe they were curious about her work in several major 1950s musicals and 1960s comedies? Are you crazy? Who gives a damn about that? The Answer: Let’s just say that the furor had something to do with sweet and innocent all-American bare breasts and three-ways. Keep that in mind next time you watch Oklahoma! (Photo: Shirley Jones ca. 1955.) (On TCM: “Shirley Jones Movies: Innocent Virgins and Sex Workers Galore.
- 8/28/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Wallace Beery: Best Actor Academy Award winner and Best Actor Academy Award runner-up in the same year (photo: Jackie Cooper and Wallace Beery in ‘The Champ’) (See previous post: “Wallace Beery Movies: Anomalous Hollywood Star.”) In the Academy’s 1931-32 season, Wallace Beery took home the Best Actor Academy Award — I mean, one of them. In the King Vidor-directed melodrama The Champ (1931), Beery plays a down-on-his-luck boxer and caring Dad to tearduct-challenged Jackie Cooper, while veteran Irene Rich is Beery’s cool former wife and Cooper’s mother. Will daddy and son remain together forever and ever? Audiences the world over were drowned in tears — theirs and Jackie Cooper’s. Now, regarding Wallace Beery’s Best Actor Academy Award, he was actually a runner-up: Fredric March, initially announced as the sole winner for his performance in Rouben Mamoulian’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, turned out to have...
- 8/17/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Mickey Rooney movies on TCM: Music and murder (photo: Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland ca. 1940) Mickey Rooney is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 13, 2013. According to the IMDb, Mickey Rooney, who turns 93 next September 23, has been featured in more than 250 movies — in shorts and features, in Hollywood and international productions, in cameos and starring roles, in bit parts and second leads. You name it, Rooney has done it: comedies, dramas, thrillers, musicals, biopics, war movies, horse movies, horror movies. (Mickey Rooney: TCM movie schedule.) Mickey Rooney in a horror movie? Yes, in about a dozen of those. Scarier than World War Z, The Conjuring, The Exorcist, and Alien combined were A Family Affair (on TCM earlier today) and ensuing Andy Hardy movies. Creepy stuff. Nearly as frightening are Rooney’s musicals with Judy Garland, one of which TCM presented earlier this morning, Strike Up the Band (1940). Another,...
- 8/13/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
“If images don’t do anything in this culture,” I said, plunging on, “if they haven’t done anything, then why are we sitting here in the twilight of the twentieth century talking about them? And if they only do things after we have talked about them, then they aren’t doing them, we are. Therefore, if our criticism aspires to anything beyond soft-science, the efficacy of images must be the cause of criticism, and not its consequence—the subject of criticism and not its object. And this,” I concluded rather grandly, “is why I direct your attention to the language of visual affect—to the rhetoric of how things look—to the iconography of desire—in a word, to beauty!” I made a voilá gesture for punctuation, but to no avail. People were quietly filing out. —Dave Hickey, The Invisible Dragon.
“Originally, the embeddedness of an artwork in the...
“Originally, the embeddedness of an artwork in the...
- 8/5/2013
- by Uncas Blythe
- MUBI
Esther Williams, the swimming champion turned actress who starred in glittering and aquatic Technicolor musicals of the 1940s and 1950s, has died. She was 91.
Williams died early Thursday in her sleep, according to her longtime publicist Harlan Boll.
Following in the footsteps of Sonja Henie, who went from skating champion to movie star, Williams became one of Hollywood’s biggest moneymakers, appearing in spectacular swimsuit numbers that capitalized on her wholesome beauty and perfect figure.
Such films as Easy to Wed, Neptune’s Daughter, and Dangerous When Wet followed the same formula: romance, music, a bit of comedy and a flimsy plot that provided excuses to get Esther into the water.
The extravaganzas dazzled a second generation via television and the compilation films That’s Entertainment. Williams’ co-stars included the pick of the MGM contract list, including Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban and Howard Keel.
When hard times signaled the end of big studios and costly musicals in the mid-’50s, Williams tried non-swimming roles with little success. After her 1962 marriage to Fernando Lamas, her co-star in Dangerous When Wet, she retired from public life.
Williams died early Thursday in her sleep, according to her longtime publicist Harlan Boll.
Following in the footsteps of Sonja Henie, who went from skating champion to movie star, Williams became one of Hollywood’s biggest moneymakers, appearing in spectacular swimsuit numbers that capitalized on her wholesome beauty and perfect figure.
Such films as Easy to Wed, Neptune’s Daughter, and Dangerous When Wet followed the same formula: romance, music, a bit of comedy and a flimsy plot that provided excuses to get Esther into the water.
The extravaganzas dazzled a second generation via television and the compilation films That’s Entertainment. Williams’ co-stars included the pick of the MGM contract list, including Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Red Skelton, Ricardo Montalban and Howard Keel.
When hard times signaled the end of big studios and costly musicals in the mid-’50s, Williams tried non-swimming roles with little success. After her 1962 marriage to Fernando Lamas, her co-star in Dangerous When Wet, she retired from public life.
- 6/6/2013
- by Associated Press
- EW - Inside Movies
Richard Madden: Game of Thrones’ King of the North to play Prince Charming in Cinderella Richard Madden, Game of Thrones‘ King of the North Robb Stark, has been cast as Prince Charming in Disney’s live-action retelling of the Cinderella fairy-tale. A few days ago, Lily James (Wrath of the Titans, Downton Abbey) was announced as the actress to try on Cinderella’s tiny glass slippers. The other major Cinderella cast member announced so far is Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett (Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator), who’ll play the evil Lady Tremaine, Cinderella’s wicked stepmother — perhaps with shades of Queen Elizabeth I? Cinderella follows in the (sizable) footsteps of other fairy-tales that have reached the world’s screens in recent years: Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010), starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice and Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter, grossed $1.02 billion worldwide. Tarsem Singh’s Mirror Mirror...
- 5/8/2013
- by Zac Gille
- Alt Film Guide
Oscar winners Olivia de Havilland and Luise Rainer among movie stars of the 1930s still alive With the passing of Deanna Durbin this past April, only a handful of movie stars of the 1930s remain on Planet Earth. Below is a (I believe) full list of surviving Hollywood "movie stars of the 1930s," in addition to a handful of secondary players, chiefly those who achieved stardom in the ensuing decade. Note: There’s only one male performer on the list — and curiously, four of the five child actresses listed below were born in April. (Please scroll down to check out the list of Oscar winners at the 75th Academy Awards, held on March 23, 2003, as seen in the picture above. Click on the photo to enlarge it. © A.M.P.A.S.) Two-time Oscar winner and London resident Luise Rainer (The Great Ziegfeld, The Good Earth, The Great Waltz), 103 last January...
- 5/7/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Deanna Durbin: Ephemeral fame (photo: Deanna Durbin in 1981) [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin: 'Sweet Monster.'"] Unlike Greta Garbo, whose mystique remained basically intact following her retirement in 1941, Deanna Durbin’s popularity faded away much like that of the vast majority of celebrities who were removed — or who chose to remove themselves — from public view. Despite the advent of home video and classic-movie cable channels, Durbin remains virtually unknown to the vast majority of those who weren’t around in her heyday in the ’30s and ’40s. Yet, although relatively few in number, she continues to have her ardent fans. There are a handful of websites devoted to Deanna Durbin and her film and recording careers, chiefly among them the appropriately titled "Deanna Durbin Devotees." Fade Out Charles David, Deanna Durbin’s husband of 48 years, died in March 1999, at the age of 92; Institut Pasteur medical researcher Peter H. David is their only son. Durbin also had a daughter,...
- 5/7/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Deanna Durbin assesses her own movie stardom: Private individual vs. public persona [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin: Less-Than-Rosy Hollywood Memories."] While researching Deanna Durbin for this article, what impressed me the most — besides her beatific singing voice — was her clear-headed appraisal of her own popularity, and by extension, of fame in general. Much to her credit, she apparently never believed her own publicity. In fact, Durbin’s is probably the most incisive, bluntly honest assessment of the appeal of any celebrity who, like her, at an early age became associated with a public persona — from Betty Bronson and Jackie Coogan in the ’20s, Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney in the ’30s, Margaret O’Brien and Jane Powell in the ’40s, and Debbie Reynolds and Sandra Dee in the ’50s to Macauley Culkin, Daniel Radcliffe, Zac Efron, Kristen Stewart, Miley Cyrus, and Taylor Lautner in the last two decades. As illustrations of the sort of publicity enveloping Deanna Durbin in her heyday,...
- 5/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Deanna Durbin: Three Husbands with Universal Pictures background [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin: Highest Paid Actress in the World."] By the time the 26-year-old Deanna Durbin’s film career was over, the movies’ personification of girl-next-door wholesomeness had been married twice: Durbin’s union with Universal Pictures assistant director Vaughn Paul ended in 1943. Two years later, she married another Universal employee, 43-year-old German-born writer-producer Felix Jackson, among whose screenwriting and/or producing credits were the James Stewart / Marlene Dietrich Western hit Destry Rides Again (1939), the well-regarded Ginger Rogers / David Niven comedy Bachelor Mother (1939), and several Deanna Durbin star vehicles, including Mad About Music, Hers to Hold, and Lady on a Train. Jackson, in fact, produced nearly all of her post-Joe Pasternak films of the mid-’40s, the one exception being The Amazing Mrs. Holliday. The last Jackson-Durbin collaboration was the 1947 critical and box-office misfire I’ll Be Yours, which came out as their marriage was crumbling. Deanna Durbin would...
- 5/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Deanna Durbin: Highest-paid actress in the world [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin in the '40s: From Wholesome Musicals to Film Noir Sex Worker."] Despite several missteps in the handling of her career, David Shipman states that Deanna Durbin was Hollywood’s (and the world’s) highest-paid actress in both 1945 and 1947. In 1946, Durbin’s earnings of $323,477 trailed only Bette Davis’ $328,000 at Warner Bros. Those are impressive rankings (and wages), but ironically Durbin’s high earnings ultimately harmed her career. By the mid-’40s, her domestic box-office allure was beginning to fade, a situation surely worsened by World War II closing off most of Hollywood’s top international markets. As a result, Universal, since 1947 a new entity known as Universal-International, was unwilling to spend extra money in their star’s already costly vehicles. That’s a similar predicament to the one faced by silent-era superstar John Gilbert at MGM in the early ’30s: the studio had to pay Gilbert an exorbitant salary that made his movies much...
- 5/5/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Deanna Durbin in the 1940s: From wholesome musicals to film noir sex worker (photo: Gene Kelly and Deanna Durbin cast against type in the un-Christmas-y Christmas Holiday) [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin Without Joe Pasternak: Adrift at Universal."] The Deanna Durbin vs. Universal dispute was settled in early 1942, when the actress was supposedly granted director and story approval. But things didn’t go all that smoothly from then on. There would be no loan-outs to the more opulent MGM, and Durbin would later complain that Universal refused to abide by her requests. Also, for the first time since her career skyrocketed in 1936, Durbin was absent from the screen for a whole year. The key reason there were no 1942 Deanna Durbin movies was the troubled production of her next star vehicle, The Amazing Mrs. Holliday, in which Durbin tries to smuggle Chinese orphans into the U.S., and which underwent not only various title changes, but also various directors and various script...
- 5/5/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
‘The Deanna Durbin Unit’ (photo: Robert Cummings, Deanna Durbin, and Charles Laughton in It Started with Eve) [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin Movies Save Universal."] Deanna Durbin and Henry Koster, who has been credited with helping to mold Durbin’s screen persona, collaborated on five movies. Besides Three Smart Girls, there was the inevitable sequel, Three Smart Girls Grow Up (1939), in addition to One Hundred Men and a Girl, after which Durbin’s salary was reportedly doubled to $3,000 per week, plus a $10,000 bonus per film; the Cinderella-like First Love (1939), in which, following worldwide publicity, Durbin gets kissed on screen for the first time (Robert Stack was the kisser); Spring Parade (1940), with a Viennese setting and Robert Cummings as her leading man; and It Started with Eve (1941), a light, well-received romantic comedy co-starring Cummings and Charles Laughton. (Universal would also release the 1964 remake, I’d Rather Be Rich, starring Sandra Dee in the Robert Cummings role, Robert Goulet in the Deanna Durbin part,...
- 5/5/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Deanna Durbin ‘saves’ Universal (photo: Deanna Durbin in Three Smart Girls) [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin: Remembering One of Hollywood's Top Stars."] During the Great Depression most Hollywood studios were in dire financial straits, until, as the story goes, one (or more) lucky star(s) made them once again solvent. Mae West is credited for "saving" Paramount; Shirley Temple "saved" Fox; the Busby Berkeley, Ruby Keeler, and Dick Powell combo "saved" Warner Bros.; and the curious mix of King Kong, Fred Astaire, and Ginger Rogers "saved" Rko. So, did Deanna Durbin truly save Universal from bankruptcy? Well, Charles Rogers’ investment company came to the financial rescue of Universal in 1936, but the success of Durbin’s movies surely helped the new management get the studio back on its feet. For instance, according to author David Shipman, Three Smart Girls cost $300,000 — its budget doubled after studio bosses realized they had a hit in their hands — and earned Universal a hefty $2m. (An unspecified...
- 5/4/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
His first column appeared in April 1963 and he would become the doyen of UK film critics. Having announced he will soon file his last column, he talks about meeting Chaplin, and Hollywood's greatest canine actors
Philip French's international reputation as a film critic is unrivalled. As recently as February, after a career with the Observer that began in 1963, an American film journal rated him as Britain's "greatest living movie analyst". But at the end of August he is to file his last column as this newspaper's film critic. After an illustrious half century, French, who was honoured with an OBE in January, has decided to step down following his 80th birthday the same month.
In his first column for the Observer, he bemoaned the lack of British films offering a believable picture of criminathe underworld. He noted "the tired vignettes of sub-Runyon characters" in The Small World of Sammy Lee starring Anthony Newley.
Philip French's international reputation as a film critic is unrivalled. As recently as February, after a career with the Observer that began in 1963, an American film journal rated him as Britain's "greatest living movie analyst". But at the end of August he is to file his last column as this newspaper's film critic. After an illustrious half century, French, who was honoured with an OBE in January, has decided to step down following his 80th birthday the same month.
In his first column for the Observer, he bemoaned the lack of British films offering a believable picture of criminathe underworld. He noted "the tired vignettes of sub-Runyon characters" in The Small World of Sammy Lee starring Anthony Newley.
- 5/4/2013
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
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