University Press of Kentucky
464 pages
Published 15 December 2017
Isdn: 978-0-8131-7425-9
Review By Adrian Smith
Born in 1896, as a teenager Barbara La Marr, then Reatha Watson, lead something of an adventurous life. Her father worked in the newspaper business, and the family moved home constantly, almost inevitably contributing towards the turbulence and seeming inability to settle down that plagued her life. At the age of sixteen, now living in California, her elder sister and her husband kidnapped Reatha, causing a minor scandal, with some accounts stating that Reatha had helped plot the kidnaping herself in a desire to flee her oppressive parents. Reatha was already an incredibly luminous and attractive young woman, and she was regularly spotted in the nightclubs of Los Angeles dancing, drinking, and generally behaving in such a way that soon brought the wrong kind of attention. For her own protection a court declared that she...
464 pages
Published 15 December 2017
Isdn: 978-0-8131-7425-9
Review By Adrian Smith
Born in 1896, as a teenager Barbara La Marr, then Reatha Watson, lead something of an adventurous life. Her father worked in the newspaper business, and the family moved home constantly, almost inevitably contributing towards the turbulence and seeming inability to settle down that plagued her life. At the age of sixteen, now living in California, her elder sister and her husband kidnapped Reatha, causing a minor scandal, with some accounts stating that Reatha had helped plot the kidnaping herself in a desire to flee her oppressive parents. Reatha was already an incredibly luminous and attractive young woman, and she was regularly spotted in the nightclubs of Los Angeles dancing, drinking, and generally behaving in such a way that soon brought the wrong kind of attention. For her own protection a court declared that she...
- 8/1/2018
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies' July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM presented five Colman star vehicles that should be popping up again in the not-too-distant future: A Tale of Two Cities, The Prisoner of Zenda, Kismet, Lucky Partners, and My Life with Caroline. The first two movies are among not only Colman's best, but also among Hollywood's best during its so-called Golden Age. Based on Charles Dickens' classic novel, Jack Conway's Academy Award-nominated A Tale of Two Cities (1936) is a rare Hollywood production indeed: it manages to effectively condense its sprawling source, it boasts first-rate production values, and it features a phenomenal central performance. Ah, it also shows its star without his trademark mustache – about as famous at the time as Clark Gable's. Perhaps...
- 7/21/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'The Doll' with Ossi Oswalda and Hermann Thimig: Early Ernst Lubitsch satirical fantasy starring 'the German Mary Pickford' has similar premise to that of the 1925 Buster Keaton comedy 'Seven Chances.' 'The Doll': San Francisco Silent Film Festival presented fast-paced Ernst Lubitsch comedy starring the German Mary Pickford – Ossi Oswalda Directed by Ernst Lubitsch (So This Is Paris, The Wedding March), the 2017 San Francisco Silent Film Festival presentation The Doll / Die Puppe (1919) has one of the most amusing mise-en-scènes ever recorded. The set is created by cut-out figures that gradually come to life; then even more cleverly, they commence the fast-paced action. It all begins when a shy, confirmed bachelor, Lancelot (Hermann Thimig), is ordered by his rich uncle (Max Kronert), the Baron von Chanterelle, to marry for a large sum of money. As to be expected, mayhem ensues. Lancelot is forced to flee from the hordes of eligible maidens, eventually...
- 6/28/2017
- by Danny Fortune
- Alt Film Guide
Rex Ingram in 'The Thief of Bagdad' 1940 with tiny Sabu. Actor Rex Ingram movies on TCM: Early black film performer in 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'Anna Lucasta' It's somewhat unusual for two well-known film celebrities, whether past or present, to share the same name.* One such rarity is – or rather, are – the two movie people known as Rex Ingram;† one an Irish-born white director, the other an Illinois-born black actor. Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” continues today, Aug. 11, '15, with a day dedicated to the latter. Right now, TCM is showing Cabin in the Sky (1943), an all-black musical adaptation of the Faust tale that is notable as the first full-fledged feature film directed by another Illinois-born movie person, Vincente Minnelli. Also worth mentioning, the movie marked Lena Horne's first important appearance in a mainstream motion picture.§ A financial disappointment on the...
- 8/12/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Teresa Wright-Samuel Goldwyn association comes to a nasty end (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock Heroine in His Favorite Film.") Whether or not because she was aware that Enchantment wasn't going to be the hit she needed – or perhaps some other disagreement with Samuel Goldwyn or personal issue with husband Niven Busch – Teresa Wright, claiming illness, refused to go to New York City to promote the film. (Top image: Teresa Wright in a publicity shot for The Men.) Goldwyn had previously announced that Wright, whose contract still had another four and half years to run, was to star in a film version of J.D. Salinger's 1948 short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut." Instead, he unceremoniously – and quite publicly – fired her.[1] The Goldwyn organization issued a statement, explaining that besides refusing the assignment to travel to New York to help generate pre-opening publicity for Enchantment,...
- 3/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Hedy Lamarr: 'Invention' and inventor on Turner Classic Movies (photo: Hedy Lamarr publicity shot ca. early '40s) Two Hedy Lamarr movies released during her heyday in the early '40s — Victor Fleming's Tortilla Flat (1942), co-starring Spencer Tracy and John Garfield, and King Vidor's H.M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), co-starring Robert Young and Ruth Hussey — will be broadcast on Turner Classic Movies on Wednesday, November 12, 2014, at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. Pt, respectively. Best known as a glamorous Hollywood star (Ziegfeld Girl, White Cargo, Samson and Delilah), the Viennese-born Lamarr (née Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler), who would have turned 100 on November 9, was also an inventor: she co-developed and patented with composer George Antheil the concept of frequency hopping, currently known as spread-spectrum communications (or "spread-spectrum broadcasting"), which ultimately led to the evolution of wireless technology. (More on the George Antheil and Hedy Lamarr invention further below.) Somewhat ironically,...
- 11/2/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Robert Pattinson and David Cronenberg ‘Maps to the Stars’ gets German distribution, Toronto screening Starring Robert Pattinson, Julianne Moore, John Cusack, and Mia Wasikowska, Maps to the Stars has found a German distributor. Screen Daily reports that Christian Meinke’s Mfa+ has acquired the rights to the David Cronenberg-directed Hollywood satire at the American Film Market, recently held in Santa Monica. Mfa+ also picked up Vincent Grashaw’s feature debut Coldwater and Tobias Lindholm’s Danish thriller A Hijacking / Kapringen, which has a similar premise to that of the Paul Greengrass and Tom Hanks hit Captain Phillips. (Photo: Robert Pattinson on the set of Maps to the Stars.) In Map to the Stars, John Cusack (replacing Viggo Mortensen) plays a Los Angeles analyst and self-help guru whose wife (Olivia Williams) is immersed in the career of their teen star son (Evan Bird), fresh off of rehab. Their daughter (Mia Wasikowska...
- 11/20/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in ‘Mata Hari’: The wrath of the censors (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro in One of the Best Silent Movies.") George Fitzmaurice’s romantic spy melodrama Mata Hari (1931) was well received by critics and enthusiastically embraced by moviegoers. The Greta Garbo / Ramon Novarro combo — the first time Novarro took second billing since becoming a star — turned Mata Hari into a major worldwide blockbuster, with $2.22 million in worldwide rentals. The film became Garbo’s biggest international success to date, and Novarro’s highest-grossing picture after Ben-Hur. (Photo: Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in Mata Hari.) Among MGM’s 1932 releases — Mata Hari opened on December 31, 1931 — only W.S. Van Dyke’s Tarzan, the Ape Man, featuring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, and Edmund Goulding’s all-star Best Picture Academy Award winner Grand Hotel (also with Garbo, in addition to Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, and...
- 8/9/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ramon Novarro, Barbara La Marr, Trifling Women Ramon Novarro Brutal Death Pt.2: Convicted Killer Blames Catholicism Ramon Novarro's extant films for Rex Ingram, The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), in which he plays the sly villain Rupert of Hentzau, and Scaramouche (1923), in the heroic title role, are also well worth a look. I haven't watched The Arab (1924), which has been recently brought back to the United States from foreign archives. My understanding is that the print is incomplete; even so, here's hoping The Arab will soon be restored and shown on TCM. The now lost Ingram-Novarro collaboration Trifling Women (1922) would probably have been a sumptuous treat — cinematographer John F. Seitz's work in that Gothic melodrama seems to have inspired his later chiaroscuro lighting for Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. The same goes for the idyllic Where the Pavement Ends (1923), a tale of interethnic romance set on a South Pacific...
- 10/31/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Rex Ingram (top); Barbara La Marr, Ramon Novarro, in Ingram's Trifling Women (bottom) St. Patrick's Day always reminds me of silent-era filmmaker Rex Ingram, among whose silent-era efforts are The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Prisoner of Zenda, Scaramouche, Mare Nostrum, The Magician, and The Garden of Allah, and whose birth — as Reginald Ingram Montgomery Hitchcock — took place in Dublin on Jan. 15, 1893. (Some sources have 1892, but in Rex Ingram: Master of the Silent Cinema author Liam O'Leary, citing a birth notice in The Irish Times, states that 1893 is the correct date.) Though largely forgotten today, Ingram's work — clearly shaped by his background in painting and sculpture — was so influential that it inspired Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu to pursue a film career. British filmmaker Michael Powell, who initially worked as Ingram's assistant, referred to him as "the greatest stylist of his time," while .David [...]...
- 3/19/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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