Jack Warner had been shouldering in on credit from one of his studio’s top producers. At least that’s what Hal Wallis may have told you after the 1944 Academy Awards when Jack Warner accepted the Casablanca Oscar that some felt should have been palmed by Wallis, the Warner Bros. film’s producer. But who should accept the best picture award? Today it’s the producers, but during Hollywood’s Golden Age it was sometimes the producer, sometimes the studio chief.
Wallis had been with the company for many years, first joining the studio in 1923, their first year of incorporation. Soon, Wallis was managing essential Warner films such as Little Caesar (1931), The Petrified Forest (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1937), Dark Victory (1939), Sergeant York (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and, of course, Casablanca (1942). Despite being released in late 1942, Casablanca didn’t go into wide release until early 1943 and wasn’t...
Wallis had been with the company for many years, first joining the studio in 1923, their first year of incorporation. Soon, Wallis was managing essential Warner films such as Little Caesar (1931), The Petrified Forest (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1937), Dark Victory (1939), Sergeant York (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and, of course, Casablanca (1942). Despite being released in late 1942, Casablanca didn’t go into wide release until early 1943 and wasn’t...
- 3/7/2024
- by Chris Yogerst
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
If Everything Everywhere All at Once‘s Michelle Yeoh wins the best actress Oscar on March 12, she will become the first Asian to do so. But she’s not the first to be nominated: Merle Oberon preceded Yeoh 87 years ago — though no one knew it at the time.
The star of 1935’s The Dark Angel, for which she was nominated, kept her Indian heritage hidden her entire life. Born in Bombay to a Sri Lankan-Maori mother and white father, Oberon grew up in poverty in Calcutta. When she was 17, she moved to England to pursue acting; fearing backlash from a racist entertainment industry, she claimed she was born in Tasmania and that her birth certificate was lost in a fire.
She broke out playing Anne Boleyn in director Alexander Korda’s The Private Life of Henry VIII in 1933, which led to her being cast in Sidney Franklin’s World War I drama The Dark Angel,...
The star of 1935’s The Dark Angel, for which she was nominated, kept her Indian heritage hidden her entire life. Born in Bombay to a Sri Lankan-Maori mother and white father, Oberon grew up in poverty in Calcutta. When she was 17, she moved to England to pursue acting; fearing backlash from a racist entertainment industry, she claimed she was born in Tasmania and that her birth certificate was lost in a fire.
She broke out playing Anne Boleyn in director Alexander Korda’s The Private Life of Henry VIII in 1933, which led to her being cast in Sidney Franklin’s World War I drama The Dark Angel,...
- 3/12/2023
- by Hilton Dresden
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Look into the series Criterion Channel have programmed for August and this lineup is revealed as (in scientific terms) quite something. “Hollywood Chinese” proves an especially deep bench, spanning “cinema’s first hundred years to explore the ways in which the Chinese people have been imagined in American feature films” and bringing with it the likes of Cronenberg’s M. Butterfly, Cimino’s Year of the Dragon, Griffith’s Broken Blossoms, and Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet—among 20-or-so others. A three-film Marguerite Duras series brings one of the greatest films ever (India Song) and two lesser-screened experiments; films featuring Yaphet Kotto include Blue Collar, Across 110th Street, and Midnight Run; and lest we ignore a Myrna Loy retro that goes no later than 1949.
Criterion editions include The Asphalt Jungle, Husbands, Rouge, and Sweet Smell of Success; streaming premieres for Loznitsa’s Donbass, Béla Tarr’s watershed Damnation, and...
Criterion editions include The Asphalt Jungle, Husbands, Rouge, and Sweet Smell of Success; streaming premieres for Loznitsa’s Donbass, Béla Tarr’s watershed Damnation, and...
- 7/25/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
With readers turning to their home viewing options more than ever, this daily feature provides one new movie each day worth checking out on a major streaming platform.
[Editor’s note: This post contains some spoilers for the Netflix series “Hollywood.”]
At the conclusion of Ryan Murphy’s latest limited series, the fluffy revisionist history “Hollywood,” one of its central stars gets her due, ascending to the highest echelon of movie stardom and getting a permanent title to match: Oscar winner. In reality, actress Anna May Wong never won an Oscar, despite being hailed as Hollywood’s first Chinese American movie star and appearing in a variety of productions (from silent films to even television) over the span of her decades-long career.
For viewers interested in the true histories of the Hollywood stars and industry brass portrayed in Murphy’s discomfitting and often immature rose-colored glasses, the reality of Wong and her career is a bitter pill to swallow. At the same time,...
[Editor’s note: This post contains some spoilers for the Netflix series “Hollywood.”]
At the conclusion of Ryan Murphy’s latest limited series, the fluffy revisionist history “Hollywood,” one of its central stars gets her due, ascending to the highest echelon of movie stardom and getting a permanent title to match: Oscar winner. In reality, actress Anna May Wong never won an Oscar, despite being hailed as Hollywood’s first Chinese American movie star and appearing in a variety of productions (from silent films to even television) over the span of her decades-long career.
For viewers interested in the true histories of the Hollywood stars and industry brass portrayed in Murphy’s discomfitting and often immature rose-colored glasses, the reality of Wong and her career is a bitter pill to swallow. At the same time,...
- 5/4/2020
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
If Agnes Varda wins the Best Documentary Feature Oscar for “Faces Places” on Sunday night, she will become just the 13th person, and the first woman, to take home a competitive Oscar and an honorary award in the same year. This would be in addition to setting the record, at age 89, as the oldest person to win a competitive Oscar.
The French/Belgian filmmaker is already the 31st person to receive an Oscar nomination and an honorary award in the same year. If she wins, she would join a list that includes some of the titans of the film industry. While she would be the 13th person to accomplish this, it would actually be the 15th time that this has occurred, since Walt Disney did it three times. Listed below are the other instances where a person claimed competitive and honorary wins within the same year.
See: Predictions in all...
The French/Belgian filmmaker is already the 31st person to receive an Oscar nomination and an honorary award in the same year. If she wins, she would join a list that includes some of the titans of the film industry. While she would be the 13th person to accomplish this, it would actually be the 15th time that this has occurred, since Walt Disney did it three times. Listed below are the other instances where a person claimed competitive and honorary wins within the same year.
See: Predictions in all...
- 3/3/2018
- by Charles Bright
- Gold Derby
'The Merry Widow' with Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and Minna Gombell under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch. Ernst Lubitsch movies: 'The Merry Widow,' 'Ninotchka' (See previous post: “Ernst Lubitsch Best Films: Passé Subtle 'Touch' in Age of Sledgehammer Filmmaking.”) Initially a project for Ramon Novarro – who for quite some time aspired to become an opera singer and who had a pleasant singing voice – The Merry Widow ultimately starred Maurice Chevalier, the hammiest film performer this side of Bob Hope, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler – the list goes on and on. Generally speaking, “hammy” isn't my idea of effective film acting. For that reason, I usually find Chevalier a major handicap to his movies, especially during the early talkie era; he upsets their dramatic (or comedic) balance much like Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's The Departed or Jerry Lewis in anything (excepting Scorsese's The King of Comedy...
- 1/31/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Norma Shearer: The Boss' wife was cast in 'The Divorcee.' Norma Shearer movies on TCM: Early talkies and Best Actress Oscar Note: This Norma Shearer article is currently being revised and expanded. Please Check back later. Norma Shearer, one of the top stars in Hollywood history and known as the Queen of MGM back in the 1930s, is Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month of Nov. 2015. That's the good news. The not-so-good news is that even though its parent company, Time Warner, owns most of Shearer's movies, TCM isn't airing any premieres. So, if you were expecting to check out a very young Norma Shearer in The Devil's Circus, Upstage, or After Midnight, you're out of luck. (I've seen all three; they're all worth a look.) It's a crime that, music score or no, restored print or no, TCM/Time Warner don't make available for viewing the...
- 11/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Saint Joan': Constance Cummings as the George Bernard Shaw heroine. Constance Cummings on stage: From sex-change farce and Emma Bovary to Juliet and 'Saint Joan' (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit.”) In the mid-1930s, Constance Cummings landed the title roles in two of husband Benn W. Levy's stage adaptations: Levy and Hubert Griffith's Young Madame Conti (1936), starring Cummings as a demimondaine who falls in love with a villainous character. She ends up killing him – or does she? Adapted from Bruno Frank's German-language original, Young Madame Conti was presented on both sides of the Atlantic; on Broadway, it had a brief run in spring 1937 at the Music Box Theatre. Based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, the Theatre Guild-produced Madame Bovary (1937) was staged in late fall at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre. Referring to the London production of Young Madame Conti, The...
- 11/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Greta Garbo movie 'The Kiss.' Greta Garbo movies on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” performer today, Aug. 26, '15. Now, why would Garbo be considered a silent era rarity? Well, certainly not because she easily made the transition to sound, remaining a major star for another decade. Think Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, William Powell, Fay Wray, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, etc. And so much for all the stories about actors with foreign accents being unable to maintain their Hollywood stardom following the advent of sound motion pictures. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer star, Garbo was no major exception to the supposed rule. Mexican Ramon Novarro, another MGM star, also made an easy transition to sound, and so did fellow Mexicans Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio, in addition to the very British...
- 8/27/2015
- 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
Teresa Wright ca. 1945. Teresa Wright movies on TCM: 'The Little Foxes,' 'The Pride of the Yankees' Pretty, talented Teresa Wright made a relatively small number of movies: 28 in all, over the course of more than half a century. Most of her films have already been shown on Turner Classic Movies, so it's more than a little disappointing that TCM will not be presenting Teresa Wright rarities such as The Imperfect Lady and The Trouble with Women – two 1947 releases co-starring Ray Milland – on Aug. 4, '15, a "Summer Under the Stars" day dedicated to the only performer to date to have been shortlisted for Academy Awards for their first three film roles. TCM's Teresa Wright day would also have benefited from a presentation of The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956), an unusual entry – parapsychology, reincarnation – in the Wright movie canon and/or Roseland (1977), a little-remembered entry in James Ivory's canon.
- 8/4/2015
- 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
Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...
- 3/15/2015
- 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
Luise Rainer dies at age 104: Rainer was first consecutive Oscar winner, first two-time winner in acting categories and oldest surviving winner (photo: MGM star Luise Rainer in the mid-'30s.) The first consecutive Academy Award winner, the first two-time winner in the acting categories, and, at age 104, the oldest surviving Oscar winner as well, Luise Rainer (Best Actress for The Great Ziegfeld, 1936, and The Good Earth, 1937) died at her London apartment on December 30 -- nearly two weeks before her 105th birthday. Below is an article originally posted in January 2014, at the time Rainer turned 104. I'll be sharing more Luise Rainer news later on Tuesday. January 17, 2014: Inevitably, the Transformers movies' director Michael Bay (who recently had an on-camera "meltdown" after a teleprompter stopped working at the Consumer Electronics Show) and the Transformers movies' star Shia Labeouf (who was recently accused of plagiarism) were mentioned -- or rather, blasted, in...
- 12/30/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
First Best Actor Oscar winner Emil Jannings and first Best Actress Oscar winner Janet Gaynor on TCM (photo: Emil Jannings in 'The Last Command') First Best Actor Academy Award winner Emil Jannings in The Last Command, first Best Actress Academy Award winner Janet Gaynor in Sunrise, and sisters Norma Talmadge and Constance Talmadge are a few of the silent era performers featured this evening on Turner Classic Movies, as TCM continues with its Silent Monday presentations. Starting at 5 p.m. Pt / 8 p.m. Et on November 17, 2014, get ready to check out several of the biggest movie stars of the 1920s. Following the Jean Negulesco-directed 1943 musical short Hit Parade of the Gay Nineties -- believe me, even the most rabid anti-gay bigot will be able to enjoy this one -- TCM will be showing Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928) one of the two movies that earned...
- 11/18/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Oldest person in movies? (Photo: Manoel de Oliveira) Following the recent passing of 1931 Dracula actress Carla Laemmle at age 104, there is one less movie centenarian still around. So, in mid-June 2014, who is the oldest person in movies? Manoel de Oliveira Portuguese filmmaker Manoel de Oliveira will turn 106 next December 11; he’s surely the oldest person — at least the oldest well-known person — in movies today. De Oliveira’s film credits include the autobiographical docudrama Memories and Confessions / Visita ou Memórias e Confissões (1982), with de Oliveira as himself, and reportedly to be screened publicly only after his death; The Cannibals / Os Canibais (1988); The Convent / O Convento (1995); Porto of My Childhood / Porto da Minha Infância (2001); The Fifth Empire / O Quinto Império - Ontem Como Hoje (2004); and, currently in production, O Velho do Restelo ("The Old Man of Restelo"). Among the international stars who have been directed by de Oliveira are Catherine Deneuve, Pilar López de Ayala,...
- 6/17/2014
- 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
Gregory Peck movies: Memorable miscasting in David O. Selznick’s Western Gregory Peck is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 15, 2013. TCM is currently showing Raoul Walsh’s good-looking but not too exciting Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951), with Peck in the title role and Virginia Mayo as his leading lady. (See “Gregory Peck in ‘Duel in the Sun’: TCM movie schedule.”) (Photo: Gregory Peck ca. 1950.) Next in line is Zoltan Korda’s crime melodrama The Macomber Affair (1947), based on a story by Ernest Hemingway about a troubled married couple and their safari guide. This is another good-looking film — black-and-white cinematography by veteran Karl Struss, whose credits ranged from the 1920 Gloria Swanson melo Something to Think About to Charles Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Unfortunately, the psychology, the romance, and some of the acting found in The Macomber Affair is — at best — superficial. Joan Bennett and Gregory Peck look great,...
- 8/16/2013
- 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: Silent movie star proves he can talk and sing (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro: Mexican-Born Actor Was First Latin American Hollywood Superstar.") On Ramon Novarro Day, Turner Classic Movies’ first Novarro movie is Rex Ingram’s The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), a stately version of Edward Rose’s play, itself based on Anthony Hope’s 1897 novel: in the Central European kingdom of Ruritania, a traveling Englishman takes the place of the kidnapped local king-to-be-crowned. A pre-Judge Hardy Lewis Stone has the double role, while Novarro plays the scheming Rupert of Hentzau. (Photo: Ramon Novarro ca. 1922.) Despite his stage training, Stone is as interesting to watch as a beach pebble; Novarro, for his part, has a good time hamming it up in his first major break — courtesy of director Rex Ingram, then looking for a replacement for Rudolph Valentino, with whom he’d had a serious falling out...
- 8/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Everybody's favorite movie decade: Which ones are the best movies released in the 20th century's second decade? Best Film (Pictured above) Broken Blossoms: Barthelmess and Gish star as ill-fated lovers in D.W. Griffith’s romantic melodrama featuring interethnic love. Check These Out (Pictured below) Cabiria: is considered one of the major landmarks in motion picture history, having inspired the scope and visual grandeur of D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance. Also of note, Pastrone's epic of ancient Rome introduced Maciste, a bulky hero who would be featured in countless movies in the ensuing decades. Best Actor (Pictured below) In the tragic The Italian, George Beban plays an Italian immigrant recently arrived in the United States (Click below for film review). Unfortunately, his American dream quickly becomes a horrendous nightmare of poverty and despair. Best Actress (Pictured below) The movies' super-vamp Theda Bara in A Fool There Was: A little...
- 3/27/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Luise Rainer: Second Best Actress Oscar and the ‘Oscar Curse’ [Please see previous post: "Luise Rainer: Oldest Surviving Oscar Winner Turns 103."] The following year, Luise Rainer was back on the Academy Awards’ roster, this time for playing a Chinese peasant in Sidney Franklin’s blockbuster The Good Earth. Some have since complained that Chinese-American actress Anna May Wong should been cast as the female lead in what turned out to be one of the studio’s costliest productions up to that time. I agree that Wong [...]...
- 1/13/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Best Supporting Actress Nominees pre-1950 still alive, Oscar nonagenarians / centenarian. (Photo: Ann Blyth Mildred Pierce, with Joan Crawford.) Following Celeste Holm’s death today and Ernest Borgnine’s death last Sunday, there are only a handful of 90-year-old+ Oscar winners in the acting categories still alive: sisters Joan Fontaine (1941, Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion), who’ll turn 95 next October 22, and Olivia de Havilland (1946, Mitchell Leisen’s To Each His Own; 1949, William Wyler’s The Heiress), who turned 96 last July 1; and two-time Oscar winner Luise Rainer (Robert Z. Leonard’s The Great Ziegfeld, 1936; Sidney Franklin’s The Good Earth, 1937), who’ll turn 103 on January [...]...
- 7/16/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy took a well-deserved swipe at Fox News while taking part at a press conference at London's May Fair Hotel this past January 26. Please scroll down to check out the video. A little while ago, Fox Business Channel's Eric Bolling said the following: "The Muppets are back and being terrorized by an evil oil executive in their new movie. Liberal Hollywood depicting a successful businessman as 'evil,' that's not new. I'll put it out there: Is liberal Hollywood using class warfare to kind of brainwash our kids?" Kermit the Frog doesn't quite think so. "Oh yeah, it's sooo dangerous," Kermit responded when a journalist asked him about Bolling's accusation. "It's a funny thing, they were concerned with us having some prejudice against oil companies and I can tell you that's categorically not true. And besides, if we had a problem with oil companies, why...
- 2/2/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Frank Capra, Luise Rainer, George Jessel Luise Rainer turns 102 today, January 12. She is the oldest living Academy Award winner in the acting categories, having won two consecutive Best Actress Oscars for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). Because of both her longevity and the fact that Turner Classic Movies regularly shows nearly all of her films, the Dusseldorf-born (some sources say Vienna) Rainer is probably better known today than at any time since the 1940s, when she last starred in a Hollywood production: Frank Tuttle's now-forgotten Paramount resistance drama Hostages (1943). Before this ongoing revival, Rainer was best remembered as the two-time Oscar winner with a four-year film career (1935-1938), while her acting was generally dismissed as several notches below subpar. In fact, to many she served as one of the prime reminders of the unworthiness of the Academy Awards. As the oft-told story goes, when Raymond Chandler got...
- 1/12/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Luise Rainer as Anna Held, The Great Ziegfeld Best Picture Academy Award winner The Great Ziegfeld (1936) will be screening tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the American Cinematheque's Aero Theater in Santa Monica. Robert Z. Leonard directed this sumptuous MGM production, starring William Powell as theatrical showman Florenz "Flo" Ziegfeld, Myrna Loy as Ziegfeld's wife Billie Burke (the good witch Glinda in The Wizard of Oz), and Luise Rainer as Anna Held. For her performance — which amounts to a supporting role, including a highly effective telephone scene — Rainer won the first of her two back-to-back Best Actress Oscars. The following year, she would take home the statuette for her Chinese peasant in Sidney Franklin's The Good Earth. Rainer, by the way, is the oldest Oscar winning performer around. The London resident turned 101 last January. Featuring cinematography by Oliver T. Marsh and others, art direction by Cedric Gibbons, costumes by Adrian,...
- 9/18/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Lost Horizon Ronald Colman on TCM: Random Harvest, Kiki, A Tale Of Two Cities Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Lucky Partners (1940) Two strangers who share a sweepstakes ticket take it on the lam. Dir: Lewis Milestone. Cast: Ronald Colman, Ginger Rogers, Jack Carson. Bw-99 mins. 7:45 Am My Life With Caroline (1941) A man thinks his high-spirited wife is cheating on him. Dir: Lewis Milestone. Cast: Ronald Colman, Anna Lee, Charles Winninger. Bw-81 mins. 9:15 Am The White Sister (1923) Thinking her lover was killed in the war, a young woman becomes a nun. Dir: Henry King. Cast: Lillian Gish, Ronald Colman, Gail Kane. Bw-135 mins. 11:30 Am Kiki (1926) A Parisian dancer vies with a glamorous actress for a producer's heart. Dir: Clarence Brown. Cast: Norma Talmadge, Ronald Colman, Gertrude Astor. Bw-97 mins. 1:30 Pm Raffles (1930) A distinguished British gentleman hides his true...
- 8/4/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ronald Colman, A Tale of Two Cities Ronald Colman is Turner Classic Movies "Summer Under the Stars" performer on Thursday, August 4. One of the finest film actors ever, at ease in both heavy drama and light comedy, Ronald Colman will have his extensive career represented by 13 films. Among those are three TCM premieres: the silent comedies Kiki (1926) and Her Night of Romance (1924), and the 1931 romantic drama The Unholy Garden. [Ronald Colman Movie Schedule.] Kiki is notable as one of Drama Queen Norma Talmadge's relatively rare comedy forays. Though all but forgotten today, Talmadge was one of the top two or three movie stars of the 1920s, starring in a series of melodramas that gave her the chance both to suffer for love and to wear some really fancy gowns. Women loved her. And I'm assuming many men loved her as well. In fact, had the Academy been founded a few years earlier, I...
- 8/4/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
John Gielgud, Jennifer Jones, The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1957) Top Father's Day Movies In The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Charles Laughton and John Gielgud play the, ahem, doting fathers in, respectively, the 1934 and 1957 versions. Laughton's performance as the domineering Edward Moulton-Barrett is by far the better of the two; yet, Gielgud is the one who makes Moulton-Barrett's incestuous attraction to his daughter Elizabeth Barrett (Jennifer Jones) much more clear. Sidney Franklin directed both versions. Norma Shearer and Fredric March were the lovers in the 1934 movie; Bill Travers courted Jennifer Jones in the remake. In my view, both films are of [...]...
- 6/20/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Colleen Moore in Alfred E. Green's Ella Cinders (top); Mabel Normand (bottom) The Silent Society of Hollywood Heritage will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in the company of silent-era superstars Norma Talmadge, Constance Talmadge, Colleen Moore, Viola Dana, and Mabel Normand. Never heard of them? Never seen them? Well, that's your loss. A loss that can be rectified on Saturday, April 2, at the Hollywood Heritage Museum, 2100 N. Highland Avenue, right across from the Hollywood Bowl. The day-long rare-movie marathon will feature 16mm prints of the following: Viola Dana's melodrama The Innocence of Ruth (1916); Constance Talmadge's comedy of errors The Veiled Adventure (1919); Norma Talmadge's slice of exotica The Forbidden City (1918), co-starring future superstar Thomas Meighan and directed by The Good Earth's Sidney Franklin; the Mabel Normand short A Dash Through the Clouds (1912); and the Colleen Moore comedy Ella Cinders (1926), in which starstruck Ella wants to go...
- 4/1/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
David Strathairn, Rodrigo Santoro, Molly Parker, Parker Posey, Lars Ulrich, Santiago Cabrera, Peter Coyote, Saverio Guerra, Diane Baker and Tony Shalhoub have all joined the cast of the upcoming HBO biopic "Hemingway & Gellhorn" reports Deadline.
The story covers the tumultuous romance and subsequent marriage of literary master Ernest Hemingway (Clive Owen) and up-and-coming war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (Nicole Kidman) from their first meeting in a Key West bar in 1936 to their cross-Europe romance and five-year marriage.
Strathairn will play famous American writer John Dos Passos, Santoro will play Dos Passos friend and Spanish loyalist Zarra, while Parker and Posey will play Hemingway's second and fourth wife respectively.
Ulrich will play Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens, Cabrera will portray famous war photographer Robert Capa, Coyote will play Hemingway's editor Maxwell Perkins, Guerra will play Hemingway's close friend Sidney Franklin, Baker will play Martha's mother, and Shalhoub will play Russian journalist and apparatchik Koltsov.
The story covers the tumultuous romance and subsequent marriage of literary master Ernest Hemingway (Clive Owen) and up-and-coming war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (Nicole Kidman) from their first meeting in a Key West bar in 1936 to their cross-Europe romance and five-year marriage.
Strathairn will play famous American writer John Dos Passos, Santoro will play Dos Passos friend and Spanish loyalist Zarra, while Parker and Posey will play Hemingway's second and fourth wife respectively.
Ulrich will play Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens, Cabrera will portray famous war photographer Robert Capa, Coyote will play Hemingway's editor Maxwell Perkins, Guerra will play Hemingway's close friend Sidney Franklin, Baker will play Martha's mother, and Shalhoub will play Russian journalist and apparatchik Koltsov.
- 3/11/2011
- by Garth Franklin
- Dark Horizons
A slew of actors have joined Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman in the HBO film Hemingway & Gellhorn. The biopic, exec produced by James Gandolfini and directed by Phil Kaufman, recounts the tumultuous romance and subsequent marriage of literary master Ernest Hemingway (Owen) and up-and-coming war correspondent Martha Gellhorn (Kidman), following them through the Spanish Civil War and beyond. David Strathairn, who just won an Emmy for another HBO biopic, Temple Grandin, will play famous American writer and Hemingway friend John Dos Passos. Molly Parker will play Hemingway's second wife, Pauline. Parker Posey will play his fourth wife, Mary. Rodrigo Santoro will play play Zarra, a Spanish Loyalist and friend of Dos Passos. Lars Ulrich will play Joris Ivens, the Dutch documentarian of The Spanish Earth. Santiago Cabrera will portray famous war photographer Robert Capa. Saverio Guerra will play Hemingway's close friend Sidney Franklin, and Peter Coyote will play his editor Maxwell Perkins.
- 3/10/2011
- by NELLIE ANDREEVA
- Deadline TV
Paul Muni, Luise Rainer in Sidney Franklin's The Good Earth Luise Rainer Reminisces: The Oscars, Greta Garbo, Albert Einstein, Ernest Hemingway – Part I Why did she leave Hollywood in 1938, after only nine films? (Actually, eight at MGM from 1935-1938; she then quit Hollywood, but returned for one, Hostages, at Paramount in 1943.) Luise Rainer explains: "I felt the work in films that I was supposed to do wasn't worth it. I felt I didn't become an actress to make second-class nonsense." Among the "second-class nonsense" were, apparently, The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937), once again opposite William Powell; Big City (1937), opposite Spencer Tracy; and the — in my view, really good — Dramatic School (1938), featuring the likes of Paulette Goddard, Lana Turner, Genevieve Tobin, and fellow Oscar winner Gale Sondergaard. "Because I got the Oscars," Rainer adds, "they felt 'Rainer can do anything!' So, they threw films at me that [...]...
- 2/25/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The Smiling Lieutenant (Ernst Lubitsch) City Lights (Charlie Chaplin) Tabu (F.W. Murnau & Robert Flaherty) Street Scene (King Vidor) Dishonored (Josef von Sternberg) The Champ (King Vidor) The Struggle (D.W. Griffith) The Criminal Code (Howard Hawks) Arrowsmith (John Ford) An American Tragedy (Josef von Sternberg) The Skin Game (Alfred Hitchcock) Private Lives (Sidney Franklin) Wicked (Allan Dwan) Bad Girl (Frank Borzage) Chances (Allan Dwan) The Miracle Woman (Frank Capra) Girls About Town (George Cukor) Frankenstein (James Whale) The Public Enemy (William Wellman) Seas Beneath (John Ford) The Yellow Ticket (Raoul Walsh) Tarnished Lady (George Cukor) The Guardsman (Sidney Franklin) Dirigible…...
- 2/18/2011
- Blogdanovich
Noteworthy inclusions: “Winter’s Bone” for best picture; Ethan Coen and Joel Coen (“True Grit”) for best director; Javier Bardem (“Biutiful”) for best actor; Jeremy Renner (“The Town”) and John Hawkes (“Winter’s Bone”) for best supporting actor; Hailee Steinfeld (“True Grit”) and Jacki Weaver (“Animal Kingdom”) for best supporting actress; “The Illusionist” for best animated film (feature); “GasLand,” “Restrepo,” and “Waste Land” for best documentary film (feature); Greece (“Dogtooth”) for best foreign language film; “I Am Love” for best costume design; “127 Hours” for best film editing; “Barney’s Version” and “The Way Back” for best makeup; “Unstoppable” for best sound editing; “Hereafter” and “Iron Man 2” for best visual effects. Noteworthy snubs: “Blue Valentine” and “The Town” for best picture; Christopher Nolan (“Inception”) for best director; Robert Duvall (“Get Low”), Ryan Gosling (“Blue Valentine”), and Mark Wahlberg (“The Fighter”) for best actor; Julianne Moore (“The Kids Are All Right...
- 1/25/2011
- by Scott Feinberg
- Scott Feinberg
Luise Rainer as Florenz Ziegfeld's wife Anna Held in Robert Z. Leonard's The Great Ziegfeld (I believe Virginia Bruce is the first girl on the left) (top); Luise Rainer in Julien Duvivier's The Great Waltz (bottom) Directed by Sidney Franklin, The Good Earth (1937) is on right now as Turner Classic Movies' first film presentation of an evening dedicated to two-time Academy Award winner Luise Rainer, who turns 101 today. [See also: Luise Rainer Turns 100 and Two-Time Oscar Winner Luise Rainer Interview on TCM.] The Good Earth is notable as one of the most expensive Hollywood productions of the 1930s ($2.8m) and the only film to carry Irving G. Thalberg's name — in a dedication at the beginning of the film. Initially as MGM's second-in-command and later as the head of one of the studio's producing units, Thalberg was responsible for dozens of the studio's films from the mid-1920s to his [...]...
- 1/13/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Maggie McNamara, William Holden in Otto Preminger's scandalous The Moon Is Blue Turner Classic Movies has a lot to offer tonight and tomorrow morning. There's a lot to say about the scheduled movies, but since time is short — the first one listed below has already started, I'll be brief. First of all, don't miss Sidney Franklin's The Hoodlum, a 1919 comedy-drama that feels more modern than most of the stuff that gets released today. Mary Pickford is simply sensational in the title role. Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon, considered by many one of the greatest movies ever made, features one of the greatest performances ever: Machiko Kyo's conniving wife. Peter Davis' Oscar winning Hearts and Minds probably caused strokes and heart attacks in American militaristic right-wingers. One sequence that haunts me to this day shows a U.S. military officer describing the Vietnamese as cold, detached people unlike "us.
- 11/15/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
On Tuesday morning, Wamg was invited to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ special press preview of John Ford’s Upstream (1927), one of 75 films recently found in the New Zealand Film Archive and repatriated to the U.S. with the cooperation of the National Film Preservation Foundation.
The 1927 silent film, that was thought lost for decades, had it’s re-premiere Wednesday night, September 1, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Many of the VIP’s on hand included Silent Film Historians and those involved with the restoration, as well as the general public.
Having seen the film on Tuesday, I must say the transfer is absolutely beautiful. I was so impressed by the special care taken with the film’s clarity and how vibrant the tinting is on the multiple color frames throughout. The smoky special effects combined with the subtle transitions made me forget I was...
The 1927 silent film, that was thought lost for decades, had it’s re-premiere Wednesday night, September 1, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Many of the VIP’s on hand included Silent Film Historians and those involved with the restoration, as well as the general public.
Having seen the film on Tuesday, I must say the transfer is absolutely beautiful. I was so impressed by the special care taken with the film’s clarity and how vibrant the tinting is on the multiple color frames throughout. The smoky special effects combined with the subtle transitions made me forget I was...
- 9/2/2010
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Luise Rainer in Sidney Franklin’s The Good Earth (1937) (top); Richard Bennett, Joseph Cotten, Dolores Costello, Don Dillaway, Agnes Moorehead, Ray Collins in Orson Welles‘ The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) (upper middle); Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Marilyn Monroe in Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot (1959) (lower middle); Joan Crawford, Conrad Veidt in George Cukor’s A Woman’s Face (1941) (bottom) The first TCM Classic Film Festival has just come to a close, but Turner Classic Movies has already given the go-ahead for a second edition slated for Spring 2011. TCM primetime host and film historian Robert Osborne announced the news on Sunday night, right before the North American premiere of the restored Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s classic 1927 science-fiction/political drama. [...]...
- 4/27/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
"Sound and Silents" is the title of a four-film series — part of the wider "Birds Eye View Film Festival" celebrating women filmmakers — to be held at London’s bfi Southbank and the Barbican from March 6-10. The four screening silent films are: King Vidor’s The Patsy (1928), starring Marion Davies; Sidney Franklin’s Her Sister from Paris (1925), starring Constance Talmadge and Ronald Colman (right); Cecil B. DeMille’s Chicago (1927), with Phyllis Haver and Victor Varconi; and Lotte Reiniger’s animated The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926). All four films will feature live musical accompaniment. The most enjoyable of the four is Sidney Franklin’s Lubitschesque Her Sister from Paris, which offers Constance Talmadge at her screwballish best — and this before screwball [...]...
- 2/14/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Her Night of Romance (1924) Direction: Sidney Franklin Screenplay: Hans Kräly Cast: Constance Talmadge, Ronald Colman, Jean Hersholt, Albert Grand, Robert Rendel Directed by Sidney Franklin and written by frequent Ernst Lubitsch collaborator Hans Kräly, Her Night of Romance is certainly on my list of top three favorite films at Cinesation 2009. Constance Talmadge, whose extant films are hard to come by, is always a delightful comedienne. In Her Night of Romance, Talmadge plays Dorothy Adams, a wealthy young woman who goes about in hideous disguises to ward off fortune hunters only interested in her money. Eventually, Dorothy meets and falls in love with an impoverished English Lord (Ronald Colman), who is mistaken for a doctor. The "doctor" goes along with [...]...
- 11/2/2009
- by James Bazen
- Alt Film Guide
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