If Criterion24/7 hasn’t completely colonized your attention every time you open the Channel––this is to say: if you’re stronger than me––their May lineup may be of interest. First and foremost I’m happy to see a Michael Roemer triple-feature: his superlative Nothing But a Man, arriving in a Criterion Edition, and the recently rediscovered The Plot Against Harry and Vengeance is Mine, three distinct features that suggest a long-lost voice of American movies. Meanwhile, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Antiwar Trilogy four by Sara Driver, and a wide collection from Ayoka Chenzira fill out the auteurist sets.
Series-wise, a highlight of 1999 goes beyond the well-established canon with films like Trick and Bye Bye Africa, while of course including Sofia Coppola, Michael Mann, Scorsese, and Claire Denis. Films starring Shirley Maclaine, a study of 1960s paranoia, and Columbia’s “golden era” (read: 1950-1961) are curated; meanwhile, The Breaking Ice,...
Series-wise, a highlight of 1999 goes beyond the well-established canon with films like Trick and Bye Bye Africa, while of course including Sofia Coppola, Michael Mann, Scorsese, and Claire Denis. Films starring Shirley Maclaine, a study of 1960s paranoia, and Columbia’s “golden era” (read: 1950-1961) are curated; meanwhile, The Breaking Ice,...
- 4/17/2024
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
These last few years the Criterion Channel have made October viewing much easier to prioritize, and in the spirit of their ’70s and ’80s horror series we’ve graduated to––you guessed it––”’90s Horror.” A couple of obvious classics stand with cult favorites and more unknown entities (When a Stranger Calls Back and Def By Temptation are new to me). Three more series continue the trend: “Technothrillers” does what it says on the tin, courtesy the likes of eXistenZ and Demonlover; “Art-House Horror” is precisely the kind of place to host Cure, Suspiria, Onibaba; and “Pre-Code Horror” is a black-and-white dream. Phantom of the Paradise, Unfriended, and John Brahm’s The Lodger are added elsewhere.
James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...
James Gray is the latest with an “Adventures in Moviegoing” series populated by deep cuts and straight classics. Stonewalling and restorations of Trouble Every Day and The Devil, Probably make streaming debuts, while Flesh for Frankenstein,...
- 9/28/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...
- 7/5/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Dana Andrews movies: Film noir actor excelled in both major and minor crime dramas. Dana Andrews movies: First-rate film noir actor excelled in both classics & minor fare One of the best-looking and most underrated actors of the studio era, Dana Andrews was a first-rate film noir/crime thriller star. Oftentimes dismissed as no more than a “dependable” or “reliable” leading man, in truth Andrews brought to life complex characters that never quite fit into the mold of Hollywood's standardized heroes – or rather, antiheroes. Unlike the cynical, tough-talking, and (albeit at times self-delusionally) self-confident characters played by the likes of Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and, however lazily, Robert Mitchum, Andrews created portrayals of tortured men at odds with their social standing, their sense of ethics, and even their romantic yearnings. Not infrequently, there was only a very fine line separating his (anti)heroes from most movie villains.
- 1/22/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
On this day in history at it relates to showbiz...
The Director and I
1787 Mozart competes his chamber piece "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" which has shown up in dozens of films over the years, many of which are classics. Here is but a small sampling of films that have used it in the past 40 years or so: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Alien, Sophie's Choice, The Bride, Hope & Glory, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, GI Jane, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Milk, and April and the Extraordinary World.
1896 Oscar nominated director Walter Lang (The King and I, 1956) is born
1897 Jack Haley is born. Enters screen immortality when he gets the part of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz when Buddy Ebsen has a terrible allergic reaction to the makeup...
The Director and I
1787 Mozart competes his chamber piece "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" which has shown up in dozens of films over the years, many of which are classics. Here is but a small sampling of films that have used it in the past 40 years or so: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Alien, Sophie's Choice, The Bride, Hope & Glory, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, GI Jane, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Milk, and April and the Extraordinary World.
1896 Oscar nominated director Walter Lang (The King and I, 1956) is born
1897 Jack Haley is born. Enters screen immortality when he gets the part of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz when Buddy Ebsen has a terrible allergic reaction to the makeup...
- 8/10/2016
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Coleen Gray actress ca. 1950. Coleen Gray: Actress in early Stanley Kubrick film noir, destroyer of men in cult horror 'classic' Actress Coleen Gray, best known as the leading lady in Stanley Kubrick's film noir The Killing and – as far as B horror movie aficionados are concerned – for playing the title role in The Leech Woman, died at age 92 in Aug. 2015. This two-part article, which focuses on Gray's film career, is a revised and expanded version of the original post published at the time of her death. Born Doris Bernice Jensen on Oct. 23, 1922, in Staplehurst, Nebraska, at a young age she moved with her parents, strict Lutheran Danish farmers, to Minnesota. After getting a degree from St. Paul's Hamline University, she relocated to Southern California to be with her then fiancé, an army private. At first, she eked out a living as a waitress at a La Jolla hotel...
- 10/14/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Coleen Gray actress ca. 1950. Coleen Gray: Actress in early Stanley Kubrick film noir, destroyer of men in cult horror 'classic' Actress Coleen Gray, best known as the leading lady in Stanley Kubrick's film noir The Killing and – as far as B horror movie aficionados are concerned – for playing the title role in The Leech Woman, died at age 92 in Aug. 2015. This two-part article, which focuses on Gray's film career, is a revised and expanded version of the original post published at the time of her death. Born Doris Bernice Jensen on Oct. 23, 1922, in Staplehurst, Nebraska, at a young age she moved with her parents, strict Lutheran Danish farmers, to Minnesota. After getting a degree from St. Paul's Hamline University, she relocated to Southern California to be with her then fiancé, an army private. At first, she eked out a living as a waitress at a La Jolla hotel...
- 10/14/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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
'Father of the Bride': Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams. Top Five Father's Day Movies? From giant Gregory Peck to tyrant John Gielgud What would be the Top Five Father's Day movies ever made? Well, there have been countless films about fathers and/or featuring fathers of various sizes, shapes, and inclinations. In terms of quality, these range from the amusing – e.g., the 1950 version of Cheaper by the Dozen; the Oscar-nominated The Grandfather – to the nauseating – e.g., the 1950 version of Father of the Bride; its atrocious sequel, Father's Little Dividend. Although I'm unable to come up with the absolute Top Five Father's Day Movies – or rather, just plain Father Movies – ever made, below are the first five (actually six, including a remake) "quality" patriarch-centered films that come to mind. Now, the fathers portrayed in these films aren't all heroic, loving, and/or saintly paternal figures. Several are...
- 6/22/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ron Moody as Fagin in 'Oliver!' based on Charles Dickens' 'Oliver Twist.' Ron Moody as Fagin in Dickens musical 'Oliver!': Box office and critical hit (See previous post: "Ron Moody: 'Oliver!' Actor, Academy Award Nominee Dead at 91.") Although British made, Oliver! turned out to be an elephantine release along the lines of – exclamation point or no – Gypsy, Star!, Hello Dolly!, and other Hollywood mega-musicals from the mid'-50s to the early '70s.[1] But however bloated and conventional the final result, and a cast whose best-known name was that of director Carol Reed's nephew, Oliver Reed, Oliver! found countless fans.[2] The mostly British production became a huge financial and critical success in the U.S. at a time when star-studded mega-musicals had become perilous – at times downright disastrous – ventures.[3] Upon the American release of Oliver! in Dec. 1968, frequently acerbic The...
- 6/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Oscar 2015 winners (photo: Chris Pratt during Oscar 2015 rehearsals) The complete list of Oscar 2015 winners and nominees can be found below. See also: Oscar 2015 presenters and performers. Now, a little Oscar 2015 trivia. If you know a bit about the history of the Academy Awards, you'll have noticed several little curiosities about this year's nominations. For instance, there are quite a few first-time nominees in the acting and directing categories. In fact, nine of the nominated actors and three of the nominated directors are Oscar newcomers. Here's the list in the acting categories: Eddie Redmayne. Michael Keaton. Steve Carell. Benedict Cumberbatch. Felicity Jones. Rosamund Pike. J.K. Simmons. Emma Stone. Patricia Arquette. The three directors are: Morten Tyldum. Richard Linklater. Wes Anderson. Oscar 2015 comebacks Oscar 2015 also marks the Academy Awards' "comeback" of several performers and directors last nominated years ago. Marion Cotillard and Reese Witherspoon won Best Actress Oscars for, respectively, Olivier Dahan...
- 2/22/2015
- by Steve Montgomery
- Alt Film Guide
By Todd Garbarini
The 60th anniversary of Walter Lang’s 1954 film There’s No Business Like Show Business, which stars Ethel Merman, Donald O’Connor, Marilyn Monroe, and Mitzi Gaynor, will be celebrated on Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at the Regent Theatre in Los Angeles at 7:00 pm. Scheduled to appear at the screening in person is actress Mitzi Gaynor who played Katy Donahue in the film. From the press release:
There's No Business Like Show Business. This Cinemascope musical hit from 1954 (nominated for 3 Oscars®) chronicles the ups and downs of an Irish showbiz family over the course of many years. The outstanding ensemble cast includes Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe and Johnnie Ray. The music by Irving Berlin includes the title song performed by Ethel Merman, "Heat Wave" performed by Marilyn Monroe, "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody," "Alexander's Ragtime Band," and many other standards.
The 60th anniversary of Walter Lang’s 1954 film There’s No Business Like Show Business, which stars Ethel Merman, Donald O’Connor, Marilyn Monroe, and Mitzi Gaynor, will be celebrated on Tuesday, December 9, 2014 at the Regent Theatre in Los Angeles at 7:00 pm. Scheduled to appear at the screening in person is actress Mitzi Gaynor who played Katy Donahue in the film. From the press release:
There's No Business Like Show Business. This Cinemascope musical hit from 1954 (nominated for 3 Oscars®) chronicles the ups and downs of an Irish showbiz family over the course of many years. The outstanding ensemble cast includes Ethel Merman, Dan Dailey, Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, Marilyn Monroe and Johnnie Ray. The music by Irving Berlin includes the title song performed by Ethel Merman, "Heat Wave" performed by Marilyn Monroe, "A Pretty Girl Is Like a Melody," "Alexander's Ragtime Band," and many other standards.
- 11/24/2014
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Part of the list provides a few Best Picture nominees, a number of Oscar winners, and a childhood favorite that still pops up now and again. In reality, this list could be half-full of music documentaries, but for that reason, I stayed away from them. Plus, I did my best to include only films that really are musicals in every sense of the word. Plenty of films have lots of musical components, but only true musicals have performances in the film that truly drive the story forward. The songs in movie musicals have a purpose, if there could be a true definition.
courtesy of ew.com
40. Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)
Directed by Michael Apted
Signature Song: “Coal Miner’s Daughter”
Michael Apted certainly has a dicey filmography, this probably being his best: a biographical piece featuring a breakout adult role from Sissy Spacek, winning her the Oscar for Best Actress.
courtesy of ew.com
40. Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)
Directed by Michael Apted
Signature Song: “Coal Miner’s Daughter”
Michael Apted certainly has a dicey filmography, this probably being his best: a biographical piece featuring a breakout adult role from Sissy Spacek, winning her the Oscar for Best Actress.
- 5/5/2014
- by Joshua Gaul
- SoundOnSight
‘Gone with the Wind’ actress Mary Anderson dead at 96; also featured in Alfred Hitchcock thriller ‘Lifeboat’ Mary Anderson, an actress featured in both Gone with the Wind and Alfred Hitchcock’s adventure thriller Lifeboat, died following a series of small strokes on Sunday, April 6, 2014, while under hospice care in Toluca Lake/Burbank, northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Anderson, the widow of multiple Oscar-winning cinematographer Leon Shamroy, had turned 96 on April 3. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1918, Mary Anderson was reportedly discovered by director George Cukor, at the time looking for an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in David O. Selznick’s film version of Margaret Mitchell’s bestseller Gone with the Wind. Instead of Scarlett, eventually played by Vivien Leigh, Anderson was cast in the small role of Maybelle Merriwether — most of which reportedly ended up on the cutting-room floor. Cukor was later fired from the project; his replacement, Victor Fleming,...
- 4/10/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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
Above: 1979 Hungarian poster for 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, UK/USA, 1968); Designer: unknown.
When I started the Movie Poster of the Day Tumblr almost two years ago to augment my weekly poster essays here, I thought I might well run out of great posters to post daily after a year or so. But the deeper I dig the more gems I seem to unearth and the more popular the site seems to become (nearly a quarter of a million followers to date).
I’ve been posting these Best Of round-ups every six months (see parts one, two and three) but I’ve found so much good stuff lately that I feel the urge to do these four times a year instead of twice. As usual I’m using the very unscientific method of number of likes and reblogs to judge a poster’s popularity, but it does tend to...
When I started the Movie Poster of the Day Tumblr almost two years ago to augment my weekly poster essays here, I thought I might well run out of great posters to post daily after a year or so. But the deeper I dig the more gems I seem to unearth and the more popular the site seems to become (nearly a quarter of a million followers to date).
I’ve been posting these Best Of round-ups every six months (see parts one, two and three) but I’ve found so much good stuff lately that I feel the urge to do these four times a year instead of twice. As usual I’m using the very unscientific method of number of likes and reblogs to judge a poster’s popularity, but it does tend to...
- 9/7/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Rex Harrison hat on TCM: ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ Rex Harrison is Turner Classic Movies’ final "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 31, 2013. TCM is currently showing George Cukor’s lavish My Fair Lady (1964), an Academy Award-winning musical that has (in my humble opinion) unfairly lost quite a bit of its prestige in the last several decades. Rex Harrison, invariably a major ham whether playing Saladin, the King of Siam, Julius Caesar, the ghost of a dead sea captain, or Richard Burton’s lover, is for once flawlessly cast as Professor Henry Higgins, who on stage transformed Julie Andrews from cockney duckling to diction-master swan and who in the movie version does the same for Audrey Hepburn. Harrison, by the way, was the year’s Best Actor Oscar winner. (See also: "Audrey Hepburn vs. Julie Andrews: Biggest Oscar Snubs.") Following My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison...
- 8/31/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Best Supporting Actress nominee Adams on the 85th Academy Awards red carpet Amy Adams, a Best Supporting Actress nominee for Paul Thomas Anderson's well-received psychological drama The Master, is seen arriving at the 85th Academy Awards show. Adams' competitors were the following: Jacki Weaver for David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook, Anne Hathaway for Tom Hooper's Les Misérables, Sally Field for Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, and Helen Hunt for Ben Lewin's The Sessions. Hathaway, as expected, turned out to be the winner. (See below photos of Aaron Tveit and Best Director nominee Benh Zeitlin on the Oscar red carpet.) This was Adams' fourth Oscar nod. Her previous ones, all in the Best Supporting Actress category, were the following: Phil Morrison's comedy-drama Junebug (2005); John Patrick Shanley's drama Doubt (2008), with Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman; and David O. Russell's family drama The Fighter (2010), opposite Mark Wahlberg,...
- 2/25/2013
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
The Two Kerrs: John and Deborah in Tea and Sympathy play and movie [Please see previous article: "John Kerr Has Died: (Possibly) Gay Adolescent in play and movie versions of Tea and Sympathy."] Playwright Robert Anderson's psychological drama Tea and Sympathy is notable for a number of reasons: it marked Hollywood/British cinema star Deborah Kerr's Broadway debut (coincidentally, on her 32nd birthday, Sept. 30); one of the play's key characters (the one played by English Rose Kerr) turns out to be a sympathetic adulteress; and Anderson's play tackles homosexuality, a topic that, despite Elia Kazan's movie version of A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan also directed the play), remained taboo throughout the 1950s. Also worth mentioning is that Tea and Sympathy shows that the last sixty years haven't necessarily led to a major lessening in cultural or social prejudices, as the narrative would still be considered quite daring in the early 21st century -- even if for not the same reasons. (Above movie still: The two Kerrs, John and Deborah,...
- 2/9/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi in Oscar nominee (but not DGA nominee) David Lean's Summertime DGA Awards vs. Academy Awards 1948-1952: Odd Men Out George Cukor, John Huston, Vincente Minnelli 1953 DGA (12) Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, Above and Beyond Walter Lang, Call Me Madam Daniel Mann, Come Back, Little Sheba Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Julius Caesar Henry Koster, The Robe Jean Negulesco, Titanic George Sidney, Young Bess DGA/AMPAS George Stevens, Shane Charles Walters, Lili Billy Wilder, Stalag 17 William Wyler, Roman Holiday Fred Zinnemann, From Here to Eternity 1954 DGA (16) Edward Dmytryk, The Caine Mutiny Alfred Hitchcock, Dial M for Murder Robert Wise, Executive Suite Anthony Mann, The Glenn Miller Story Samuel Fuller, Hell and High Water Henry King, King of Khyber Rifles Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, Knock on Wood Don Siegel, Riot in Cell Block 11 Stanley Donen, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers George Cukor, A Star Is Born Jean Negulesco,...
- 1/10/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Carole Lombard on TCM: My Man Godfrey, Nothing Sacred, The Racketeer Mitchell Leisen's Hands Across the Table (1935) would have been more enjoyable had Carole Lombard ended up with Ralph Bellamy instead of Fred MacMurray. In fact, MacMurray's obnoxious Average Joe portrayal — who comes across as the Average Jerk instead — all but destroys the film. His character should have gone to, once again, Melvyn Douglas, Herbert Marshall, Cary Grant, Brian Aherne, Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Edward G. Robinson, Bela Lugosi, Ginger Rogers, May Robson, or just about anyone else in Hollywood at that time. I haven't watched Vigil in the Night (1940), a melodrama about two sisters/nurses that isn't considered one of George Stevens' best. The cast, however, is good: in addition to Lombard, there are Brian Aherne and Anne Shirley. Vigil in the Night is also of interest in that it's one of Lombard's rare post-1935 non-comedic roles.
- 8/28/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ann Sothern, Linda Darnell, Jeanne Crain, A Letter to Three Wives Linda Darnell, the gorgeous leading lady of numerous 20th Century Fox productions of the '40s, is Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" player this Saturday, August 27. TCM, which has leased titles from the Fox library, is showing 14 Linda Darnell movies, including no less than 9 TCM premieres. [Linda Darnell Movie Schedule.] Right now, TCM is showing writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives (1949), winner of Academy Awards for Best Direction and Best Screenplay. This curious comedy-drama about a husband who leaves his wife for another woman — but whose husband? Linda Darnell's, Jeanne Crain's, or Ann Sothern's? — also earned Mankiewicz the very first Directors Guild of America Award and a Writers Guild Award (which Mankiewicz shared with Vera Caspary) for the Best Written American Comedy. The husbands in question are Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas, and Jeffrey Lynn.
- 8/28/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Linda Darnell Linda Darnell on TCM: A Letter To Three Wives, No Way Out Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Zero Hour! (1957) When a flight crew falls ill only man who can land the plane is afraid of flying. Dir: Hall Bartlett. Cast: Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell, Sterling Hayden. Bw-81 mins, Letterbox Format. 7:30 Am Sweet And Low Down (1944) Dir: Archie Mayo. Cast: Benny Goodman, Linda Darnell, Jack Oakie. Bw-76 mins. 9:00 Am Rise And Shine (1941) The college president head cheerleader and a gambling gangster try to keep a flunking football star in the game. Dir: Allan Dwan. Cast: Jack Oakie, George Murphy, Linda Darnell. Bw-88 mins. 10:45 Am Brigham Young (1940) Two young Mormons struggle to survive their people's journey to a new home in the West. Dir: Henry Hathaway. Cast: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Dean Jagger. Bw-113 mins. 12:45 Pm Two Flags West (1950) A bitter...
- 8/27/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Sybil Jason, Warner Bros.' answer to Shirley Temple, died Tuesday, August 23, according to film researcher and author Scott O'Brien. She was 83. Born Sybil Jacobson on November 23, 1927, in Cape Town, South Africa, while still a small child she moved to Britain with her parents. Thanks to her uncle Harry Jacobson, reportedly a London orchestra leader and pianist to highly popular entertainer Gracie Fields, by the age of five Sybil was appearing in London nightclubs, where she sang, danced, and mimicked Maurice Chevalier. In 1935, Sybil caught the eye of Irving Asher, the head of Warner Bros. London studio, who had spotted her in a supporting role in the British feature Barnacle Bill. Following a successful film test, she was brought to Hollywood, where the now renamed Sybil Jason was to become Warners' answer to 20th Century Fox's box-office goldmine Shirley Temple. Jason, however, failed to catch on despite working with some...
- 8/26/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Sitting Pretty (1948) Direction: Walter Lang Cast: Clifton Webb, Maureen O'Hara, Robert Young, Richard Haydn, Louise Allbritton, Randy Stuart, Ed Begley Screenplay: F. Hugh Herbert; from Gwen Davenport's novel Belvedere Oscar Movies Highly Recommended Clifton Webb, Sitting Pretty In the late 1940s, the bucolic suburb of Hummingbird Hill is shaken in its tranquil complacency by the scandalous actions of two middle-aged, unmarried men. Each of these elitist, academic bachelors threaten the norm of twin beds, parlor games, and ladies who lunch. One escapes his overbearing mother in persistent eavesdropping and snooping; the other inserts himself as a platonic wedge between a husband and wife, usurping household authority with conceited pleasure. The couple eventually separates under the strain, while the community itself is exposed for its flaws and hypocrisy. The convention of the two-parent, heterosexual family and its corresponding social order is besieged from within by men who exist outside the tradition.
- 2/1/2011
- by Doug Johnson
- Alt Film Guide
Neva Patterson, Cary Grant, Richard Denning, Deborah Kerr, An Affair to Remember Neva Patterson, best known for her role as Cary Grant's fiancee in Leo McCarey's 1957 romantic comedy classic An Affair to Remember, died Tuesday, Dec. 14, at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood of complications from a broken hip. Patterson was 90. A stage, screen, and television actress, Patterson (born in Nevada, Iowa, on Feb. 22, 1920) appeared in dozens of TV series, 15 features, and on Broadway originated the role of The Seven Year Itch's Helen Sherman, played by Evelyn Keyes in Billy Wilder's 1955 film. But despite good supporting roles in Richard Quine's funny Judy Holliday comedy The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956), Walter Lang's Desk Set (1957), and Frank Perry's David and Lisa (1962), Patterson is chiefly remembered for stoically losing Cary Grant to Deborah Kerr. An Affair to Remember, which many find inferior to [...]...
- 12/18/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Mark charts the cinematic history of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, from the earliest days of the moving image to the present day…
With a new interpretation of the Lewis Carroll classic on DVD and Blu-ray, I thought it might be an interesting diversion to look at the history of Alice In Wonderland in cinema and TV. This is far from a definitive list of Alice-inspired productions, but here are some of those that fell down my rabbit hole...
Alice In Wonderland (1903)
The first film Alice, I think, it stood out if only for the impressively lavish costumes and sets which the director insisted remain faithful to the drawings of Sir John Tenniel, the original illustrator of Lewis Carroll‘s story. However, that blew all the budget, so the cast is mostly the crew, including 'Alice' Mabel Clark who was also the studio secretary. When this came out it was the...
With a new interpretation of the Lewis Carroll classic on DVD and Blu-ray, I thought it might be an interesting diversion to look at the history of Alice In Wonderland in cinema and TV. This is far from a definitive list of Alice-inspired productions, but here are some of those that fell down my rabbit hole...
Alice In Wonderland (1903)
The first film Alice, I think, it stood out if only for the impressively lavish costumes and sets which the director insisted remain faithful to the drawings of Sir John Tenniel, the original illustrator of Lewis Carroll‘s story. However, that blew all the budget, so the cast is mostly the crew, including 'Alice' Mabel Clark who was also the studio secretary. When this came out it was the...
- 6/6/2010
- Den of Geek
Harems, slavery and death by fire - all tidied up by Deborah Kerr's phoney British governess in this 1956 frock-happy toe-tapper
Director: Walter Lang
Entertainment grade: C+
History grade: D+
In 1862, King Mongkut Rama IV of Siam (now Thailand) employed governess Anna Leonowens to teach English to his harem and his dozens of children.
Identity
Anna (Deborah Kerr) arrives in Bangkok, all prissy, crinolined Englishwoman abroad, complete with a nasty spoiled son in a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit. "Sometimes I wonder if you know what you're really facing, an Englishwoman alone in a country like Siam," growls the ship's captain. True, Leonowens claimed to have been born in Wales in 1834 into an upper-middle class family. But in fact, according to a recent biography, she was born in Bombay in 1831, to a poor, widowed teenage mother of mixed British and Indian origin. She grew up entirely in India, speaking Hindi and Marathi as well as English,...
Director: Walter Lang
Entertainment grade: C+
History grade: D+
In 1862, King Mongkut Rama IV of Siam (now Thailand) employed governess Anna Leonowens to teach English to his harem and his dozens of children.
Identity
Anna (Deborah Kerr) arrives in Bangkok, all prissy, crinolined Englishwoman abroad, complete with a nasty spoiled son in a Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit. "Sometimes I wonder if you know what you're really facing, an Englishwoman alone in a country like Siam," growls the ship's captain. True, Leonowens claimed to have been born in Wales in 1834 into an upper-middle class family. But in fact, according to a recent biography, she was born in Bombay in 1831, to a poor, widowed teenage mother of mixed British and Indian origin. She grew up entirely in India, speaking Hindi and Marathi as well as English,...
- 4/15/2010
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
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