When you think of actors like Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, you think of their titanic starring roles that came at the peak of their powers. For Davis, it might well be something like the southern melodrama "Jezebel" or 1950's "All About Eve," the movie that revived her career by letting her embrace her age, her pettiness, and her acid tongue. For Bogart, it would be any of his many roles in film noir, a cinematic movement through the '40s and '50s of which he still registers as the face and the voice.
Digging through their respective careers, one can find early roles that show none of what would make the actors legendary. While technically impressive, these performances lack the vitality, electricity, and movie star charisma that both performers would come to master. And in the early '30s, with the industry in tumult and the Great Depression at its most suffocating,...
Digging through their respective careers, one can find early roles that show none of what would make the actors legendary. While technically impressive, these performances lack the vitality, electricity, and movie star charisma that both performers would come to master. And in the early '30s, with the industry in tumult and the Great Depression at its most suffocating,...
- 3/5/2023
- by Anthony Crislip
- Slash Film
The multi-hyphenate’s follow-up to Citizen Kane was a nightmare production and a box office disappointment but remains a fascinating film about America
Meet Orson Welles. Director of Citizen Kane. Star of Citizen Kane. Writer, producer and hero behind, Citizen Kane. Twenty-six years old and fizzing with ideas and energy. Had I worked for the studio employing him in 1942, I would have tried very hard to keep him on-side. Rko Radio Pictures did not.
The Magnificent Ambersons, released 80 years today, is famously the film Orson Welles made after Citizen Kane. It’s also regarded as one of the great travesties in film history. Adapted from Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel from 1918, it charts the fading success and eventual misery of the upper-class midwestern Amberson family during an extended turn-of-the-century period. After being shown only twice in its original Welles cut, and being received terribly by preview audiences, Rko seized control of the picture,...
Meet Orson Welles. Director of Citizen Kane. Star of Citizen Kane. Writer, producer and hero behind, Citizen Kane. Twenty-six years old and fizzing with ideas and energy. Had I worked for the studio employing him in 1942, I would have tried very hard to keep him on-side. Rko Radio Pictures did not.
The Magnificent Ambersons, released 80 years today, is famously the film Orson Welles made after Citizen Kane. It’s also regarded as one of the great travesties in film history. Adapted from Booth Tarkington’s Pulitzer prize-winning novel from 1918, it charts the fading success and eventual misery of the upper-class midwestern Amberson family during an extended turn-of-the-century period. After being shown only twice in its original Welles cut, and being received terribly by preview audiences, Rko seized control of the picture,...
- 7/10/2022
- by David Alexander
- The Guardian - Film News
'The Magnificent Ambersons': Directed by Orson Welles, and starring Tim Holt (pictured), Dolores Costello (in the background), Joseph Cotten, Anne Baxter, and Agnes Moorehead, this Academy Award-nominated adaptation of Booth Tarkington's novel earned Ricardo Cortez's brother Stanley Cortez an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White. He lost to Joseph Ruttenberg for William Wyler's blockbuster 'Mrs. Miniver.' Two years later, Cortez – along with Lee Garmes – would win Oscar statuettes for their evocative black-and-white work on John Cromwell's homefront drama 'Since You Went Away,' starring Ricardo Cortez's 'Torch Singer' leading lady, Claudette Colbert. In all, Stanley Cortez would receive cinematography credit in more than 80 films, ranging from B fare such as 'The Lady in the Morgue' and the 1940 'Margie' to Fritz Lang's 'Secret Beyond the Door,' Charles Laughton's 'The Night of the Hunter,' and Nunnally Johnson's 'The Three Faces...
- 7/8/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Katharine Hepburn movies. Katharine Hepburn movies: Woman in drag, in love, in danger In case you're suffering from insomnia, you might want to spend your night and early morning watching Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" series. Four-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Katharine Hepburn is TCM's star today, Aug. 7, '15. (See TCM's Katharine Hepburn movie schedule further below.) Whether you find Hepburn's voice as melodious as a singing nightingale or as grating as nails on a chalkboard, you may want to check out the 1933 version of Little Women. Directed by George Cukor, this cozy – and more than a bit schmaltzy – version of Louisa May Alcott's novel was a major box office success, helping to solidify Hepburn's Hollywood stardom the year after her film debut opposite John Barrymore and David Manners in Cukor's A Bill of Divorcement. They don't make 'em like they used to Also, the 1933 Little Women...
- 8/7/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The Magnificent Ambersons
Landon’S Take:
Orson Welles is celebrated as one of the foremost visionaries in the history of American filmmaking. He’s also renowned as the perennial artist against the system. While both of these factors make Welles perhaps the ideal auteur – someone satisfied with nothing less than a perfect articulation of his individual vision within the collaborative medium of filmmaking – it also presents some unique problems in examining works that were taken away from him.
The classically celebrated auteurs of studio era Hollywood (e.g., Hawks, Ford, Hitchcock) were known for creating individuated worldviews across their body of work either despite or even because of the strictures inherent in Classical Hollywood filmmaking. This was not Welles, who from his rise to infamy with the 1938 “War of the Worlds” broadcast to his first studio feature made a name by challenging the assumed utilities of a medium. Neither could...
Landon’S Take:
Orson Welles is celebrated as one of the foremost visionaries in the history of American filmmaking. He’s also renowned as the perennial artist against the system. While both of these factors make Welles perhaps the ideal auteur – someone satisfied with nothing less than a perfect articulation of his individual vision within the collaborative medium of filmmaking – it also presents some unique problems in examining works that were taken away from him.
The classically celebrated auteurs of studio era Hollywood (e.g., Hawks, Ford, Hitchcock) were known for creating individuated worldviews across their body of work either despite or even because of the strictures inherent in Classical Hollywood filmmaking. This was not Welles, who from his rise to infamy with the 1938 “War of the Worlds” broadcast to his first studio feature made a name by challenging the assumed utilities of a medium. Neither could...
- 5/24/2015
- by Drew Morton
- SoundOnSight
Hattie McDaniel: Oscar winner on TCM tonight One of the best and, despite nearly 100 film appearances, most poorly utilized actresses of the studio era was Hattie McDaniel, Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" featured player today, August 20, 2013. Right now, TCM is showing Gone with the Wind (1939), the movie that earned McDaniel — as Scarlett O’Hara’s Mammy — the year’s history-making Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. She was the first black performer to take home an Oscar; in her (reportedly) studio-prepared Oscar acceptance speech, McDaniel hoped to “always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry.” And in my view, she remains among the most well-deserved winners, regardless of skin color. (See also: “Hattie McDaniel Oscar Speech.”) (Photo: Hattie McDaniel ca. 1930s.) Hattie McDaniel movies: ‘Show Boat,’ ‘Alice Adams’ Two other movies showcasing Hattie McDaniel’s talents will follow Gone with the Wind: Show Boat and Alice Adams.
- 8/21/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
There is an ambition among the best of films – and the best of filmmakers – for the work to carry the same dramatic heft and dignity, be treated with the same respect and appreciation as a fine work of literature. Think of the best works of Welles and Lean, of Kubrick and Coppola. Citizen Kane has all the density and texture and period flavor of Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons (which, probably not coincidentally, served as the basis for Welles’ second feature). Coppola’s Godfather saga achieved a majesty and resonance Mario Puzo’s popular but lurid novel never did.
So, who better, during this award season, to talk about that ever-more-rare literary quality in filmmaking than someone who makes his living by his literary qualities?
A debuting TV series may compete in a given season against possibly 100 other shows; a newly-released movie will be scored against several hundred other...
So, who better, during this award season, to talk about that ever-more-rare literary quality in filmmaking than someone who makes his living by his literary qualities?
A debuting TV series may compete in a given season against possibly 100 other shows; a newly-released movie will be scored against several hundred other...
- 2/14/2011
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
Enter for your chance to win tickets to see Citizen Kane, and The Magnificent Ambersons at The Aero Theatre in Santa Monica!
Famous Monsters is giving away tickets, courtesy of American Cinematheque and the Aero Theater, to Five Lucky winners!!!
Event Details: Saturday, November 21 7:30 Pm
Double Feature: Citizen Kane, 1941, Warner Bros., 119 min. Orson Welles’ debut remains one of the most phenomenal motion pictures ever made. It unspools in flashback the life story of legendary newspaperman Charles Foster Kane (based on the real life of William Randolph Hearst), as a pack of reporters tries to decipher the meaning of Kane’s final utterance: “Rosebud.” Trailblazing in so many aspects, from Gregg Toland’s complex camera and lighting to Bernard Herrmann’s score to one of the finest ensemble casts (including Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane and Agnes Moorehead) ever assembled.
The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942, Warner Bros., 88 min. Director Orson Welles’ poetic,...
Famous Monsters is giving away tickets, courtesy of American Cinematheque and the Aero Theater, to Five Lucky winners!!!
Event Details: Saturday, November 21 7:30 Pm
Double Feature: Citizen Kane, 1941, Warner Bros., 119 min. Orson Welles’ debut remains one of the most phenomenal motion pictures ever made. It unspools in flashback the life story of legendary newspaperman Charles Foster Kane (based on the real life of William Randolph Hearst), as a pack of reporters tries to decipher the meaning of Kane’s final utterance: “Rosebud.” Trailblazing in so many aspects, from Gregg Toland’s complex camera and lighting to Bernard Herrmann’s score to one of the finest ensemble casts (including Welles, Joseph Cotten, Everett Sloane and Agnes Moorehead) ever assembled.
The Magnificent Ambersons, 1942, Warner Bros., 88 min. Director Orson Welles’ poetic,...
- 11/4/2009
- by kristen
- FamousMonsters of Filmland
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