Remembering ‘Remember the Night’: A Christmas movie classic with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray
Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray sizzled as the duplicitous lovers in Billy Wilder’s exceptional 1944 film noir “Double Indemnity.” But that classic based on James M. Cain’s novel wasn’t their first pairing. Four years earlier, they played very different lovers in “Remember the Night,” which was penned by the brilliant Preston Sturges and directed by Mitchell Leisen. The exquisite holiday film, ironically released in January of 1940, has become a Christmas favorite thanks to TCM, streaming services and DVDs.
MacMurray stars as Jack, a young New York City assistant district attorney. Stanwyck’s Lee has seen her share of bad breaks is on trial before Christmas for shoplifting a bracelet at a jewelry store. MacMurray decides to bail her out of jail for the holidays and ends up taking her back to his Indiana family farm where she is warmly welcomed by his mother and aunt. His mother (Beulah Bondi...
MacMurray stars as Jack, a young New York City assistant district attorney. Stanwyck’s Lee has seen her share of bad breaks is on trial before Christmas for shoplifting a bracelet at a jewelry store. MacMurray decides to bail her out of jail for the holidays and ends up taking her back to his Indiana family farm where she is warmly welcomed by his mother and aunt. His mother (Beulah Bondi...
- 12/11/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
The Criterion Channel is closing the year out with a bang––they’ve announced their December lineup. Among the highlights are retrospectives on Yasujiro Ozu (featuring nearly 40 films!), Ousmane Sembène, Alfred Hitchcock (along with Kent Jones’ Hitchcock/Truffaut), and Parker Posey. Well-timed for the season is a holiday noir series that includes They Live By Night, Blast of Silence, Lady in the Lake, and more.
Other highlights are the recent restoration of Abel Gance’s La roue, an MGM Musicals series with introduction by Michael Koresky, Helena Wittmann’s riveting second feature Human Flowers of Flesh, the recent Sundance highlight The Mountains Are a Dream That Call To Me, the new restoration of The Cassandra Cat, Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar, Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster, and more.
See the lineup below and learn more here.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Terry Gilliam, 1988
An American in Paris, Vincente Minnelli,...
Other highlights are the recent restoration of Abel Gance’s La roue, an MGM Musicals series with introduction by Michael Koresky, Helena Wittmann’s riveting second feature Human Flowers of Flesh, the recent Sundance highlight The Mountains Are a Dream That Call To Me, the new restoration of The Cassandra Cat, Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar, Wong Kar Wai’s The Grandmaster, and more.
See the lineup below and learn more here.
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Terry Gilliam, 1988
An American in Paris, Vincente Minnelli,...
- 11/13/2023
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The end of the Hollywood studio system in the late 1950s is an oft-mourned loss by anyone who spends an inordinate amount of time watching Turner Classic Movies or browsing the tiles on the Criterion Channel. Hollywood still makes great movies all the time, of course, but what has been lost is the volume of modest and unassuming but expertly crafted mid-range genre films. What made the classical era unique wasn’t the groundbreaking art of an Alfred Hitchcock or a John Ford; every age has its titans, and one could argue that in just the past few months we’ve had several Hollywood movies as bold and distinctive as any in the industry’s past.
What the now-defunct studio system gave us was a robust slate of movies from directors whose names were not known to the general public — directors like Michael Curtiz, Mitchell Leisen, Budd Boetticher, and several...
What the now-defunct studio system gave us was a robust slate of movies from directors whose names were not known to the general public — directors like Michael Curtiz, Mitchell Leisen, Budd Boetticher, and several...
- 11/11/2023
- by Jim Hemphill
- Indiewire
Just in time for Succession‘s end, let’s look at method acting. The Criterion Channel are highlighting the controversial practice in a 27-film series centered on Brando, Newman, Nicholson, and many other’s embodiment of “an intensely personal, internalized, and naturalistic approach to performance.” That series makes mention of Marilyn Monroe, who gets her own, 11-title highlight––the iconic commingling with deeper cuts.
Pride Month offers “Masc,” a consideration of “trans men, butch lesbians, and gender-nonconforming heroes” onscreen; the Michael Koresky-curated Queersighted returning with a study of the gay best friend; and the 20-film “LGBTQ+ Favorites.” Louis Garrel’s delightful The Innocent (about which I talked to him here), the director’s cut of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, and Stanley Kwan’s hugely underseen Lan Yu make streaming premieres, while Araki’s Totally F***ed Up and Mysterious Skin also get a run. Criterion Editions include Five Easy Pieces,...
Pride Month offers “Masc,” a consideration of “trans men, butch lesbians, and gender-nonconforming heroes” onscreen; the Michael Koresky-curated Queersighted returning with a study of the gay best friend; and the 20-film “LGBTQ+ Favorites.” Louis Garrel’s delightful The Innocent (about which I talked to him here), the director’s cut of Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation, and Stanley Kwan’s hugely underseen Lan Yu make streaming premieres, while Araki’s Totally F***ed Up and Mysterious Skin also get a run. Criterion Editions include Five Easy Pieces,...
- 5/22/2023
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Mitchell Leisen’s great Christmas-time tale has a brilliant screenplay by Preston Sturges and letter-perfect performances by Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray, threading the needle between light cynicism and well-earned sentiment. Sturges’ celebration of ‘country values’ is sincere and heartfelt, as is his affection for the supporting cast. The presentation includes two radio broadcasts plus a star-studded Paramount short subject for war bonds.
Remember the Night
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 94 min. / / Street Date December 19, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £18.99
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson, Sterling Holloway, Julius Tannen, Virginia Brissac, Fred ‘Snowflake’ Toones, Charles Arnt, Paul Guilfoyle.
Cinematography: Ted Tetzlaff
Art Directors: Hans Drier, Roland Anderson
Costumes: Edith Head
Film Editor: Doane Harrison
Original Music: Friedrich Hollander
Written by Preston Sturges
Produced by
Directed by Mitchell Leisen
The 1940 feature Remember the Night made its comeback a few years ago just as...
Remember the Night
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 94 min. / / Street Date December 19, 2022 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £18.99
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Beulah Bondi, Elizabeth Patterson, Sterling Holloway, Julius Tannen, Virginia Brissac, Fred ‘Snowflake’ Toones, Charles Arnt, Paul Guilfoyle.
Cinematography: Ted Tetzlaff
Art Directors: Hans Drier, Roland Anderson
Costumes: Edith Head
Film Editor: Doane Harrison
Original Music: Friedrich Hollander
Written by Preston Sturges
Produced by
Directed by Mitchell Leisen
The 1940 feature Remember the Night made its comeback a few years ago just as...
- 12/17/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Holidays loom, but don’t fear TBS marathons of A Christmas Story. If, like me, you once enacted some good and let studio classics stream on Criterion during family Christmas, you know the trip home will be easier with December’s additions. (People at Criterion: please don’t report me for logging into multiple devices.) As family arrives, drinks are downed, and questions about what you’ve been up to are stumbled through it’ll be nice to stream their “Screwball Comedy Classics” series—25 titles meeting some deep cuts (10 via Venmo if you’ve recently watched It Happens Every Spring).
Personally I’m most excited about the 11 movies in “Snow Westerns,” going as far back as The Secret of Convict Lake, as recently as Ravenous, with the likes of Wellman, Peckinpah, and Corbucci in-between. I personally cannot stand soccer but I appreciate the World Cup giving occasion for a series...
Personally I’m most excited about the 11 movies in “Snow Westerns,” going as far back as The Secret of Convict Lake, as recently as Ravenous, with the likes of Wellman, Peckinpah, and Corbucci in-between. I personally cannot stand soccer but I appreciate the World Cup giving occasion for a series...
- 11/22/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Saucy pre-Code entertainment frequently served up risqué dialogue, with edgy content like promiscuity and drug use. Mitchell Leisen’s 1934 murder mystery goes straight for a supposed family-industry no-no: Broadway-revue near-nudity featuring Earl Carroll’s ‘Most Beautiful Girls In The World’. Victor McLaglen is an inept detective and Jack Oakie a wise-cracking impresario. Gertrude Michael and Kitty Carlisle carry the musical numbers, the most famous being an ode to the still-legal Sweet Marijuana. Showgirls like Lucille Ball possess the daring to don the skimpy costumes, even if they hadn’t yet learned what Marijuana was. Duke Ellington and his orchestra sit in for Ebony Rhapsody, a mixed-race musical number with room for ‘guest dancers from Harlem.’
Murder at the Vanities
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1934 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 89 min. / Street Date October 11, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Carl Brisson, Victor McLaglen, Jack Oakie, Kitty Carlisle, Dorothy Stickney, Gertrude Michael, Jessie Ralph,...
Murder at the Vanities
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1934 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 89 min. / Street Date October 11, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Carl Brisson, Victor McLaglen, Jack Oakie, Kitty Carlisle, Dorothy Stickney, Gertrude Michael, Jessie Ralph,...
- 10/1/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The third ‘Essential’ noir collection is easily [Imprint]’s best, with two genuine classics of the style plus two excellent and equally entertaining thrillers. The directors are first-rank: Lewis Milestone, Mitchell Leisen, William Dieterle and William Wyler. Top stars are present too: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lisabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, William Holden, Alexis Smith, Edmond O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Fredric March. The high-quality suspense and jeopardy are uniquely noir: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, No Man Of Her Own, The Turning Point and The Desperate Hours. [Imprint] taps bona fide experts for the xtras.
Essential Film Noir Collection 3
Blu-ray (Region-Free)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, No Man Of Her Own, The Turning Point, The Desperate Hours
Viavision [Imprint] 148, 149, 150, 151
1946 – 1955 / B&w / 1:37 Academy (3), 1:78 widescreen (1) / 411 min. / Street Date August 31, 2022 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / au 139.95 , Amazon / 136.64
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lisabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas; Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Lyle Bettger; William Holden, Alexis Smith,...
Essential Film Noir Collection 3
Blu-ray (Region-Free)
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, No Man Of Her Own, The Turning Point, The Desperate Hours
Viavision [Imprint] 148, 149, 150, 151
1946 – 1955 / B&w / 1:37 Academy (3), 1:78 widescreen (1) / 411 min. / Street Date August 31, 2022 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / au 139.95 , Amazon / 136.64
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lisabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas; Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Lyle Bettger; William Holden, Alexis Smith,...
- 9/10/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
May on the Criterion Channel will be good to the auteurs. In fact they’re giving Richard Linklater better treatment than the distributor of his last film, with a 13-title retrospective mixing usual suspects—the Before trilogy, Boyhood, Slacker—with some truly off the beaten track. There’s a few shorts I haven’t seen but most intriguing is Heads I Win/Tails You Lose, the only available description of which calls it a four-hour (!) piece “edited together by Richard Linklater in 1991 from film countdowns and tail leaders from films submitted to the Austin Film Society in Austin, Texas from 1987 to 1990. It is Linklater’s tribute to the film countdown, used by many projectionists over the years to cue one reel of film after another when switching to another reel on another projector during projection.” Pair that with 2008’s Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach and your completionism will be on-track.
- 4/21/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Rarely one finds a friend on the Criterion Channel—discounting the parasitic relationship we form with filmmakers, I mean—but it’s great seeing their March lineup give light to Sophy Romvari, the <bias>exceptionally talented</bias> filmmaker and curator whose work has perhaps earned comparisons to Agnès Varda and Chantal Akerman but charts its own path of history and reflection. It’s a good way to lead into an exceptionally strong month, featuring as it does numerous films by Pier Paolo Pasolini, the great Japanese documentarian Kazuo Hara, newfound cult classic Arrebato, and a number of Criterion editions.
On the last front we have The Age of Innocence, Bull Durham, A Raisin in the Sun, The Celebration, Merrily We Go to Hell, and Design for Living. There’s always something lingering on the watchlist, but it might have to wait a second longer—March is an opened floodgate.
See the full...
On the last front we have The Age of Innocence, Bull Durham, A Raisin in the Sun, The Celebration, Merrily We Go to Hell, and Design for Living. There’s always something lingering on the watchlist, but it might have to wait a second longer—March is an opened floodgate.
See the full...
- 2/21/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
by Cláudio Alves
Sometimes, a writing project can take a life of its own, overwhelming you. That's what happened to me when trying to write about Old Hollywood director Mitchell Leisen. Initially, I pitched this piece to Nathaniel as a way of spotlighting an oft-forgotten talent whose best films feature in one of the Criterion Channel's latest collections. Later, as our 1946 journey began, the piece gained new value as a profile of the man who directed that year's Best Actress champion, Olivia de Havilland in To Each His Own. However, what most surprised me was how Leisen's story correlates with queer history and everything we celebrate and mourn during Pride month.
As I went down a rabbit hole of research, the marvelous writings of Mark Rappaport, David Melville, Farran Nehme, and others revealed the complex case. That of an acclaimed queer artist whose legacy was systematically tarnished, if not downright erased,...
Sometimes, a writing project can take a life of its own, overwhelming you. That's what happened to me when trying to write about Old Hollywood director Mitchell Leisen. Initially, I pitched this piece to Nathaniel as a way of spotlighting an oft-forgotten talent whose best films feature in one of the Criterion Channel's latest collections. Later, as our 1946 journey began, the piece gained new value as a profile of the man who directed that year's Best Actress champion, Olivia de Havilland in To Each His Own. However, what most surprised me was how Leisen's story correlates with queer history and everything we celebrate and mourn during Pride month.
As I went down a rabbit hole of research, the marvelous writings of Mark Rappaport, David Melville, Farran Nehme, and others revealed the complex case. That of an acclaimed queer artist whose legacy was systematically tarnished, if not downright erased,...
- 6/8/2021
- by Cláudio Alves
- FilmExperience
The Criterion Channel has unveiled their lineup for next month and it’s another strong slate, featuring retrospectives of Carole Lombard, John Waters, Robert Downey Sr., Luis García Berlanga, Jane Russell, and Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman. Also in the lineup is new additions to their Queersighted series, notably Todd Haynes’ early film Poison (Safe is also premiering in a separate presentation), William Friedkin’s Cruising, and Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorama.
The new restorations of Manoel de Oliveira’s stunning Francisca and Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli will join the channel, alongside Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor, Bong Joon Ho’s early short film Incoherence, and Luc Dardenne & Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Rosetta.
See the lineup below and explore more on criterionchannel.com.
#Blackmendream, Shikeith, 2014
12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet, 1957
About Tap, George T. Nierenberg, 1985
The AIDS Show, Peter Adair and Rob Epstein, 1986
The Assignation, Curtis Harrington, 1953
Aya of Yop City,...
The new restorations of Manoel de Oliveira’s stunning Francisca and Francesco Rosi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli will join the channel, alongside Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor, Bong Joon Ho’s early short film Incoherence, and Luc Dardenne & Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Rosetta.
See the lineup below and explore more on criterionchannel.com.
#Blackmendream, Shikeith, 2014
12 Angry Men, Sidney Lumet, 1957
About Tap, George T. Nierenberg, 1985
The AIDS Show, Peter Adair and Rob Epstein, 1986
The Assignation, Curtis Harrington, 1953
Aya of Yop City,...
- 5/24/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
While the summer movie season will kick off shortly––and we’ll be sharing a comprehensive preview on the arthouse, foreign, indie, and (few) studio films worth checking out––on the streaming side, The Criterion Channel and Mubi have unveiled their May 2021 lineups and there’s a treasure trove of highlights to dive into.
Timed with Satyajit Ray’s centenary, The Criterion Channel will have a retrospective of the Indian master, along with series on Gena Rowlands, Robert Ryan, Mitchell Leisen, Michael Almereyda, Josephine Decker, and more. In terms of recent releases, they’ll also feature Fire Will Come, The Booksellers, and the new restoration of Tom Noonan’s directorial debut What Happened Was….
On Mubi, in anticipation of Undine, they’ll feature two essential early features by Christian Petzold, Jerichow and The State That I Am In, along with his 1990 short documentary Süden. Also amongst the lineup is Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing,...
Timed with Satyajit Ray’s centenary, The Criterion Channel will have a retrospective of the Indian master, along with series on Gena Rowlands, Robert Ryan, Mitchell Leisen, Michael Almereyda, Josephine Decker, and more. In terms of recent releases, they’ll also feature Fire Will Come, The Booksellers, and the new restoration of Tom Noonan’s directorial debut What Happened Was….
On Mubi, in anticipation of Undine, they’ll feature two essential early features by Christian Petzold, Jerichow and The State That I Am In, along with his 1990 short documentary Süden. Also amongst the lineup is Sophy Romvari’s Still Processing,...
- 4/26/2021
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
The message of this ode to early Christian martyrs is overpowered by Cecil B. DeMille’s indulgence of his sanctimonious/perverse instincts: although seldom lumped in with other pre-Code sex & sadism offenders, there’s more salacious and violent content here than in a dozen ordinary ‘discouraged’ pre-Code pictures. Fredric March and Elissa Landi provide the pro-Christian idealism, but Charles Laughton and especially Claudette Colbert steal the show with marvelously wicked portraits of Emperor Nero and Empress Poppea. The smirks and come-hither looks are backed up with hot content that filled seats in Depression-era theaters.
The Sign of the Cross
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 125 min. / Street Date August 25, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Fredric March, Elissa Landi, Claudette Colbert, Charles Laughton, Ian Keith.
Cinematography: Karl Struss
Art Direction & Costumes (+ assistant director): Mitchell Leisen
Film Editor: Anne Bauchens
Original Music: Rudolph G. Kopp
Written by Waldemar Young,...
The Sign of the Cross
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1932 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 125 min. / Street Date August 25, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Fredric March, Elissa Landi, Claudette Colbert, Charles Laughton, Ian Keith.
Cinematography: Karl Struss
Art Direction & Costumes (+ assistant director): Mitchell Leisen
Film Editor: Anne Bauchens
Original Music: Rudolph G. Kopp
Written by Waldemar Young,...
- 8/18/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Romantic comedies became coy sex chase comedies in the early 1960s, once Doris Day made ‘professional virgin’ a Hollywood career. This mistaken identity/crossed prevarications farce is better than most, thanks to charming performances by Jane Fonda and Rod Taylor, and a fine script by Norman Krasna, from his play. The story doesn’t dance around the issue of should she or shouldn’t she — the frustrated young heroine asks the question right out loud: ‘Am I supposed to sleep with a steady boyfriend?’
Sunday in New York
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1963 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date May 19, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Jane Fonda, Rod Taylor, Cliff Robertson, Robert Culp, Jo Morrow, Jim Backus, Peter Nero, Jim Hutton, Alvy Moore, Teru Shimada.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Film Editor: Fredric Steinkamp
Original Music: Peter Nero
Written by Norman Krasna from his play
Produced by Everett Freeman
Directed by Peter Tewksbury...
Sunday in New York
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1963 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date May 19, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Jane Fonda, Rod Taylor, Cliff Robertson, Robert Culp, Jo Morrow, Jim Backus, Peter Nero, Jim Hutton, Alvy Moore, Teru Shimada.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Film Editor: Fredric Steinkamp
Original Music: Peter Nero
Written by Norman Krasna from his play
Produced by Everett Freeman
Directed by Peter Tewksbury...
- 6/16/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
When director Guillermo Del Toro asks for quarantine entertainment recommendations, his famous friends sure don’t disappoint.
Del Toro took to Twitter Monday for help in passing the time during the pandemic. “What are you reading, what are you watching, what are you listening to, and how many days have you been indoors?,” Del Toro posted Monday morning.
Del Toro added that he has “been indoors for over a month… self-imposed. I have gone out only for primary needs: food, supplies, etc., and I have been mostly rewatching and re-reading.”
Among the content Del Toro said he was revisiting were several films by director Mitchell Leisen, including “Death Takes a Holiday” and “Easy Living.” For literature, Del Toro said he’s re-reading “The Devils of Loudon,” a thriller by dystopian author Aldous Huxley, calling it “incredibly pertinent to what we are going through and how autonomy can be destroyed in times of crisis.
Del Toro took to Twitter Monday for help in passing the time during the pandemic. “What are you reading, what are you watching, what are you listening to, and how many days have you been indoors?,” Del Toro posted Monday morning.
Del Toro added that he has “been indoors for over a month… self-imposed. I have gone out only for primary needs: food, supplies, etc., and I have been mostly rewatching and re-reading.”
Among the content Del Toro said he was revisiting were several films by director Mitchell Leisen, including “Death Takes a Holiday” and “Easy Living.” For literature, Del Toro said he’s re-reading “The Devils of Loudon,” a thriller by dystopian author Aldous Huxley, calling it “incredibly pertinent to what we are going through and how autonomy can be destroyed in times of crisis.
- 4/20/2020
- by Samson Amore
- The Wrap
As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.And now they've quietly disappeared William Fox's name from the company: guilty by association with Rupert Murdoch, even though he never associated with him.***Twentieth Century Fox is now to be called Twentieth Century, the name of a company that ceased to be back in 1935 when it swallowed the beleaguered Fox Picture Company. Zanuck's pre-merger studio is actually rather well-represented on home video, considering it existed for less than four years: Zanuck's story instinct, which had served him so well at Warners/First National, may not have fired so consistently, but it gave us punchy entertainments like The Bowery, Blood Money, and The Call of the Wild.The studio's tastes were more eclectic than Warners,...
- 2/24/2020
- MUBI
All hail Olivia de Havilland, America’s longest living movie star. The more de Havilland pictures we see, the more we admire her taste and judgment in roles… or is that better expressed as, the more we admire her ability to guide a near-perfect career, going so far as to defy the studios in court. This 1941 drama has director Mitchell Leisen in fine form, a smart script by Brackett & Wilder, and a central topic that’s currently quite hot: illegal immigration.
Hold Back the Dawn
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 116 min. / Street Date July 16, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Victor Francen, Walter Abel, Curt Bois, Rosemary DeCamp, Nestor Paiva, Eva Puig, Micheline Cheirel, Madeleine Lebeau, Mikhail Rasumny, Charles Arnt, Mitchell Leisen, Brian Donlevy, Kitty Kelly, Veronica Lake, Carlos Villarías, Richard Webb.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Film Editor: Doane Harrison
Original Music: Victor Young
Written by Charles Brackett,...
Hold Back the Dawn
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 116 min. / Street Date July 16, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Victor Francen, Walter Abel, Curt Bois, Rosemary DeCamp, Nestor Paiva, Eva Puig, Micheline Cheirel, Madeleine Lebeau, Mikhail Rasumny, Charles Arnt, Mitchell Leisen, Brian Donlevy, Kitty Kelly, Veronica Lake, Carlos Villarías, Richard Webb.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Film Editor: Doane Harrison
Original Music: Victor Young
Written by Charles Brackett,...
- 7/6/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Celebrate Olivia de Havilland’s 103rd birthday by ordering the new blu-ray of one of her best films. Hold Back The Dawn (1941) will be available on Blu-ray July 16th From Arrow Academy
From one of the most underrated directors of Hollywood’s golden era, Mitchell Leisen (Remember the Night), comes the heart-rending romantic drama Hold Back the Dawn…
Charles Boyer (Gaslight) gives an enthralling performance as Georges Iscovescu, a Romanian-born gigolo who arrives at a Mexican border town seeking entry to the Us. Faced with a waiting period of eight years, George is encouraged by his former dancing partner Anita to marry an American girl and desert her once safely across the border. He successfully targets visiting school teacher Emmy Brown, but his plan is compromised by a pursuing immigration officer, and blossoming feelings of genuine love for Emmy.
A moving and thoughtful film with a wonderful script (co-written by...
From one of the most underrated directors of Hollywood’s golden era, Mitchell Leisen (Remember the Night), comes the heart-rending romantic drama Hold Back the Dawn…
Charles Boyer (Gaslight) gives an enthralling performance as Georges Iscovescu, a Romanian-born gigolo who arrives at a Mexican border town seeking entry to the Us. Faced with a waiting period of eight years, George is encouraged by his former dancing partner Anita to marry an American girl and desert her once safely across the border. He successfully targets visiting school teacher Emmy Brown, but his plan is compromised by a pursuing immigration officer, and blossoming feelings of genuine love for Emmy.
A moving and thoughtful film with a wonderful script (co-written by...
- 7/1/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Singer-comedienne Kaye Ballard, who starred alongside Eve Arden in the 1960s sitcom “The Mothers-in-Law” and was among the stars of the 1976 feature based on Terrence McNally’s farce “The Ritz,” died Monday in Rancho Mirage, Calif. She was 93.
She had recently attended a screening of a documentary about her life, “Kaye Ballard: The Show Goes On,” at the Palm Springs Film Festival, according to the Desert Sun, and became ill soon after.
Ballard’s career spanned stage and screen, and she was a star on Broadway when she was paired with Arden as neighbors whose kids get married on “The Mothers-in-Law,” which ran on NBC from 1967-69 and later in syndication.
On the show Ballard played Katherine “Kaye” Josephina Buell, the overly emotional wife of Roger Buell (played by Roger C. Carmel) and overprotective mother of Jerry Buell (Jerry Fogel). She was an unenthusiastic housewife, frequently spoke in Italian, and...
She had recently attended a screening of a documentary about her life, “Kaye Ballard: The Show Goes On,” at the Palm Springs Film Festival, according to the Desert Sun, and became ill soon after.
Ballard’s career spanned stage and screen, and she was a star on Broadway when she was paired with Arden as neighbors whose kids get married on “The Mothers-in-Law,” which ran on NBC from 1967-69 and later in syndication.
On the show Ballard played Katherine “Kaye” Josephina Buell, the overly emotional wife of Roger Buell (played by Roger C. Carmel) and overprotective mother of Jerry Buell (Jerry Fogel). She was an unenthusiastic housewife, frequently spoke in Italian, and...
- 1/22/2019
- by Carmel Dagan
- Variety Film + TV
For my money this is the brightest, most endearing and wittiest ’30s comedy to be given the name ‘screwball.’ Everyone on screen is flawlessly magnificent — Carole Lombard, William Powell, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Jean Dixon, Eugene Pallette and Mischa Auer — and Gregory La Cava’s direction is so good, it’s invisible. No kidding, I’ve never watched this with a group or individual that didn’t immediately rank it among the best entertainments they’ve seen.
My Man Godfrey
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 114
1936 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 18, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Eugene Pallette, Alan Mowbray, Jean Dixon, Mischa Auer.
Cinematography: Ted Tetzlaff
Film Editors: Ted Kent, Russell Schoengarth
Original Music: Charles Previn
Written by Morrie Ryskind, Eric Hatch from his novel
Produced by Gregory La Cava, Charles R. Rogers
Directed by Gregory La Cava
Screwball...
My Man Godfrey
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 114
1936 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date September 18, 2018 / 39.95
Starring: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick, Eugene Pallette, Alan Mowbray, Jean Dixon, Mischa Auer.
Cinematography: Ted Tetzlaff
Film Editors: Ted Kent, Russell Schoengarth
Original Music: Charles Previn
Written by Morrie Ryskind, Eric Hatch from his novel
Produced by Gregory La Cava, Charles R. Rogers
Directed by Gregory La Cava
Screwball...
- 9/18/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Billy Wilder always more or less disowned his one real musical, which leaves the enthusiast with a choice: keep re-watching the classic Wilder films, of which there are many, or probe into the obscure, disreputable corners of the great man's oeuvre?The year was 1948. Wilder had been involved with the war effort. Lost Weekend had belatedly come out in 1945 and won an Oscar for Ray Milland. And while the rest of Hollywood was churning out movies that developed the film noir genre Wilder had helped launch with Double Indemnity, he made a Bing Crosby musical set in Austria. He claimed it was offered to him, but the script is credited to Wilder and Charles Brackett, so he can't distance himself that easily."On a December night, some forty-odd years ago, His Majesty Franz Joseph the First, Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia,...
- 9/27/2017
- MUBI
Considering everything that's been happening on the planet in the last several months, you'd have thought we're already in November or December – of 2117. But no. It's only June. 2017. And in some parts of the world, that's the month of brides, fathers, graduates, gays, and climate change denial. Beginning this evening, Thursday, June 1, Turner Classic Movies will be focusing on one of these June groups: Lgbt people, specifically those in the American film industry. Following the presentation of about 10 movies featuring Frank Morgan, who would have turned 127 years old today, TCM will set its cinematic sights on the likes of William Haines, James Whale, George Cukor, Mitchell Leisen, Dorothy Arzner, Patsy Kelly, and Ramon Novarro. In addition to, whether or not intentionally, Claudette Colbert, Colin Clive, Katharine Hepburn, Douglass Montgomery (a.k.a. Kent Douglass), Marjorie Main, and Billie Burke, among others. But this is ridiculous! Why should TCM present a...
- 6/2/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The Last Emperor composers David Byrne and Ryuichi Sakamoto had a Forbidden Colors conversation at the Quad Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the Quad Cinema - Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise; Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth; Mitchell Leisen's Hold Back The Dawn; Elia Kazan's America, America; Werner Herzog's Stroszek; Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America, Slava Tsukerman's Liquid Sky with Anne Carlisle become Immigrant Songs. Retrospectives for Goldie Hawn, Frank Perry & Eleanor Perry, Bertrand Tavernier and Ryuichi Sakamoto; a Rainer Werner Fassbinder Lola First Encounter with Sandra Bernhard, Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear and a drop of Nathan Silver's Thirst Street come up in my conversation with Director of Programming C Mason Wells.
Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor at China: Through The Looking Glass Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Grandmaster director Wong Kar Wai chose a clip from...
At the Quad Cinema - Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise; Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth; Mitchell Leisen's Hold Back The Dawn; Elia Kazan's America, America; Werner Herzog's Stroszek; Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America, Slava Tsukerman's Liquid Sky with Anne Carlisle become Immigrant Songs. Retrospectives for Goldie Hawn, Frank Perry & Eleanor Perry, Bertrand Tavernier and Ryuichi Sakamoto; a Rainer Werner Fassbinder Lola First Encounter with Sandra Bernhard, Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear and a drop of Nathan Silver's Thirst Street come up in my conversation with Director of Programming C Mason Wells.
Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor at China: Through The Looking Glass Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Grandmaster director Wong Kar Wai chose a clip from...
- 5/25/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Really, I mean Preston Sturges' Hotel Haywire, because nobody's too interested in George Archainbaud, a Paramount contract director who had been directing for 20 years without helming a really memorable film (Thirteen Women, an uncomfortably racist pre-Code with Myrna Loy, is as exciting as it gets, and even that one is remembered chiefly for featuring the girl who threw herself off the Hollywood sign), He would continue for another 20, moving from B-westerns into TV westerns, without making anything else of particular note.Sturges wrote the script as part of his plan to get a long-term contract at Paramount. To particularly appeal to the suits there, he filled the story with roles for Paramount stars such as Mary Boland, Charles Ruggles, Fred MacMurray and Burns & Allen, none of whom were necessarily famous enough to carry a movie, but whose combined star-power might make an attractive investment for studio or future ticket-buyers.
- 5/11/2017
- MUBI
It’s not exactly remarkable that cinema has been around long enough to chart the rise of modern psychology. The first century of film covers society’s entire 20th, a hundred-year span rife with innovation in a great many fields. But as art is keen on investigating the psyche, it’s little surprise that cinema would try to keep pace in some way with the study and expression of it. From the psychological thriller to the psychodrama to most horror films, the study of the mind onscreen sometimes unfolds perfectly naturally, and other times feels like a stiff lecture from somebody who read a really fascinating article in Time the month before. Look no further than Psycho for an example of both, but look to three films that played at the TCM Classic Film Festival for some pretty wild takes.
Based on a novel by a prominent psychologist (once president...
Based on a novel by a prominent psychologist (once president...
- 4/13/2017
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
I’m guessing that you, just like most of us, have always had seasonal favorites when it comes to movies that attempt to address and evoke the spirit of Christmas. Like most from my generation, when I was a kid I learned the pleasures of perennial anticipation of Christmastime as interpreted by TV through a series of holiday specials, like How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and even musical variety hours where the likes of Bing Crosby and Andy Williams and Dean Martin et al would sit around sets elaborately designed to represent the ideal Christmas-decorated living room, drinking “wassail” (I’m sure that’s what was in those cups) and crooning classics of the season alongside a dazzling array of guests. (We knew we were moving into a new world of holiday cheer when David Bowie joined Bing Crosby for...
- 12/20/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
A neglected Preston Sturges Christmas classic is the highlight of a week of grim movies best left until after Boxing Day
Christmas, unbelievably, is almost upon us, and with it an annual playlist of endlessly watched, endlessly renewable films – an entirely personal matter of curation, whether it covers It’s a Wonderful Life, The Shop Around the Corner or The Muppet Christmas Carol. (I, meanwhile, am looking forward to my first year of being able to savour the yuletide melancholy of Todd Haynes’s Carol in my own living room: bring on the jingling bells and the mournfully yearning strings.)
Over at the BFI Player, however, I recently made the acquaintance of a film that deserves as much December ubiquity as any of the above, yet remains oddly neglected in the archives. Blessed with a characteristically brut champagne script by Preston Sturges, Mitchell Leisen’s Remember the Night is special...
Christmas, unbelievably, is almost upon us, and with it an annual playlist of endlessly watched, endlessly renewable films – an entirely personal matter of curation, whether it covers It’s a Wonderful Life, The Shop Around the Corner or The Muppet Christmas Carol. (I, meanwhile, am looking forward to my first year of being able to savour the yuletide melancholy of Todd Haynes’s Carol in my own living room: bring on the jingling bells and the mournfully yearning strings.)
Over at the BFI Player, however, I recently made the acquaintance of a film that deserves as much December ubiquity as any of the above, yet remains oddly neglected in the archives. Blessed with a characteristically brut champagne script by Preston Sturges, Mitchell Leisen’s Remember the Night is special...
- 12/18/2016
- by Guy Lodge
- The Guardian - Film News
World War, a solemn vow, and a promise betrayed lead to a ‘night of the living war dead’ – all cooked up by the director of Napoleon, Abel Gance. The early, famed pacifist fantasy is back in near-perfect condition and restored to its full length. It’s a reworking, not a remake, of Gance’s 1919 silent classic.
J’accuse
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1938 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 120 min. / That They May Live; J’accuse: Fresque tragique des temps modernes vue et Réalisée par Abel Gance / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98
Starring Victor Francen, Line Noro, Marie Lou, Jean-Max, Paul Amiot, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Delaitre, Renée Devillers, Romuald Joubé, André Nox, Georges Rollin, Georges Saillard.
Cinematography Roger Hubert
Film Editor Madeleine Crétoile
Original Music Henri Verdun
Written by Abel Gance, Steve Passeur
Produced & Directed by Abel Gance
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Around 1973, UCLA film school professor Bob Epstein...
J’accuse
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1938 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 120 min. / That They May Live; J’accuse: Fresque tragique des temps modernes vue et Réalisée par Abel Gance / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98
Starring Victor Francen, Line Noro, Marie Lou, Jean-Max, Paul Amiot, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Delaitre, Renée Devillers, Romuald Joubé, André Nox, Georges Rollin, Georges Saillard.
Cinematography Roger Hubert
Film Editor Madeleine Crétoile
Original Music Henri Verdun
Written by Abel Gance, Steve Passeur
Produced & Directed by Abel Gance
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Around 1973, UCLA film school professor Bob Epstein...
- 11/19/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Delmer Daves and Mitchell Leisen, not to mention D. W. Griffith, would know exactly what to do with the new musical “Bright Star,” which opened Thursday at Broadway’s Cort Theatre. Those three Hollywood legends don’t have much in common except that they all directed films about unwed mothers. Daves tops the illegitimate-babies list with his great knocked-up trilogy of “Susan Slade,” “Parrish,” and “A Summer Place,” his masterpiece from 1959. In those films, Sandra Dee and Connie Stevens took turns being impregnated by either Grant Williams or Troy Donahue. Adding fuel to the fire of those young passions, Daves’ parents.
- 3/25/2016
- by Robert Hofler
- The Wrap
Rko's final in-house production is a good end-of-an-era film, a spirited and well-made musical comedy. Bright-eyed Jane Powell can't stop accepting marriage proposals, from nerdy Tommy Noonan, dreamboat kisser Cliff Robertson and zillionare Keith Andes. She imagines her future with each man in musical terms, through production numbers staged by Gower Champion. The Girl Most Likely DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1956 / Color / 1:78 enhanced widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date November 17, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Jane Powell, Cliff Robertson, Keith Andes, Kaye Ballard, Tommy Noonan, Una Merkel, Kelly Brown, Judy Nugent, Frank Cady, Joseph Kearns, Marjorie Stapp, Robert Banas. Cinematography Robert H. Planck Film Editor Doane Harrison Original Music Nelson Riddle Choreographer Gower Champion Written by Devery Freeman, Paul Jarrico (uncredited) Produced by Stanley Rubin Directed by Mitchell Leisen
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
From roughly 1925 to 1957, the powerful men in charge of the big studios controlled most aspects of production. That...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
From roughly 1925 to 1957, the powerful men in charge of the big studios controlled most aspects of production. That...
- 1/1/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Despite its rampaging monster approach to the holiday season and the imposing, sort-of terrifying giant horned goat-man who provides its title, Krampus isn’t, at heart, an anti-Christmas picture-- it has at least one bloodshot eye pitched toward seasonal classic status. The movie’s story is centered on a family at war with itself—semi-sophisticated suburbanites Adam Scott and Toni Collette and their kids hosting a clan of boorish, right-wing Walmart-warrior relatives headed up by David Koechner and Alison Tolman— who finds itself besieged by the impish and deadly forces of Krampus, the flip-side of holiday cheer, Darth Vader to Santa’s Obi-wan. When the only child left in the family who still clings to his belief in Santa Claus has the last vestiges of Christmas spirit (here so defined as the will to make sacrifices for the good of others) derided out of him, he tears up his last...
- 12/12/2015
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Quite the episode of the The Cinephiliacs this week! Peter Labuza talks with Jonathan Rosenbaum about Jacques Rivette's Out 1 and more. Also in today's roundup: Rosenbaum on Kira Muratova, Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell on Otto Rippert’s 1916 serial Homunculus, Dan Callahan on Mitchell Leisen, Nathalie Morris on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going! at 70, an excerpt from a new book on Richard Pryor, an interview with Giorgio Moroder—and remembering Saeed Jaffrey. » - David Hudson...
- 11/16/2015
- Fandor: Keyframe
Quite the episode of the The Cinephiliacs this week! Peter Labuza talks with Jonathan Rosenbaum about Jacques Rivette's Out 1 and more. Also in today's roundup: Rosenbaum on Kira Muratova, Kristin Thompson and David Bordwell on Otto Rippert’s 1916 serial Homunculus, Dan Callahan on Mitchell Leisen, Nathalie Morris on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going! at 70, an excerpt from a new book on Richard Pryor, an interview with Giorgio Moroder—and remembering Saeed Jaffrey. » - David Hudson...
- 11/16/2015
- Keyframe
He's back and he's funnier than ever. The mischievous, cagey entertainer William Claude Dukenfield starred in some of the best comedies ever. This five-disc DVD set contains eighteen of his best, all the way from Million Dollar Legs in 1932 to Never Give a Sucker an Even Break in 1941. And we get to see all sides of W.C's talent -- he was a top-rank juggler, of just about anything. W.C. Fields Comedy Essentials Collection DVD Universal Studios Home Entertainment 1932-1941 / B&W / 1:37 Academy 1316 minutes (21 hours, 46 min) Street Date October 13, 2015 / 99.98 Starring Larson E. Whipsnade, T. Frothinghill Bellows, Egbert Sousé, Eustace P. McGargle, Harold Bissonette, Professor Quail, Augustus Winterbottom, Mr. Stubbins, Sam Bisbee, Ambrose Wolfinger, Cuthbert J. Twillie, Humpty-Dumpty. Written by Charles Bogle, Mahatma Kane Jeeves, Otis Criblecoblis
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
In the late 1960s there were these things called Head Shops, see, where various hippie consumer goods were sold.
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
In the late 1960s there were these things called Head Shops, see, where various hippie consumer goods were sold.
- 10/27/2015
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
© 2015 Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures. All Rights Reserved.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced its fall programming slate, beginning with “This Is Duplass: An Evening with Jay and Mark” and “In the Labyrinth: A Conversation with Guillermo del Toro” hosted by Academy Museum Director Kerry Brougher.
Other events to be presented from October through early December include a conversation with Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien, a screening of Fellini’s “Amarcord,” a look back at the first days of Disneyland with “Hollywood Home Movies,” a new restoration of 1943’s “Heaven Can Wait,” an Academy Film Scholars Lecture highlighting prolific director Lois Weber, and an anniversary screening of the holiday classic “Remember the Night.”
This Is Duplass: An Evening With Jay And Mark Tuesday, October 6, at 7:30 p.m. Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Beverly Hills Jay and Mark Duplass will take the stage to discuss their smart, off-center and comedic cinematic style,...
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced its fall programming slate, beginning with “This Is Duplass: An Evening with Jay and Mark” and “In the Labyrinth: A Conversation with Guillermo del Toro” hosted by Academy Museum Director Kerry Brougher.
Other events to be presented from October through early December include a conversation with Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien, a screening of Fellini’s “Amarcord,” a look back at the first days of Disneyland with “Hollywood Home Movies,” a new restoration of 1943’s “Heaven Can Wait,” an Academy Film Scholars Lecture highlighting prolific director Lois Weber, and an anniversary screening of the holiday classic “Remember the Night.”
This Is Duplass: An Evening With Jay And Mark Tuesday, October 6, at 7:30 p.m. Samuel Goldwyn Theater, Beverly Hills Jay and Mark Duplass will take the stage to discuss their smart, off-center and comedic cinematic style,...
- 9/24/2015
- by Michelle McCue
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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
Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...
- 7/2/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl': Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow. 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' review: Mostly an enjoyable romp (Oscar Movie Series) Pirate movies were a Hollywood staple for about three decades, from the mid-'20s (The Sea Hawk, The Black Pirate) to the mid-to-late '50s (Moonfleet, The Buccaneer), when the genre, by then mostly relegated to B films, began to die down. Sporadic resurrections in the '80s and '90s turned out to be critical and commercial bombs (Pirates, Cutthroat Island), something that didn't bode well for the Walt Disney Company's $140 million-budgeted film "adaptation" of one of their theme-park rides. But Neptune's mood has apparently improved with the arrival of the new century. He smiled – grinned would be a more appropriate word – on the Gore Verbinski-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,...
- 6/29/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'To Each His Own' movie with Olivia de Havilland and John Lund 'To Each His Own' movie review: Best Actress Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland stars in Mother Love tearjerker Olivia de Havilland, who had starred in the 1941 melodrama Hold Back the Dawn, returns to the wartime milieu in To Each His Own (1946), once again under the direction of Mitchell Leisen, who guides the proceedings with his characteristic sincerity while cleverly skirting the Production Code's restrictive guidelines. In To Each His Own, de Havilland plays Jody Norris, a small-town woman who falls quickly in love – much like her character in Hold Back the Dawn – but this time during World War I, when Jody's brief liaison with daredevil flying ace Captain Cosgrove (John Lund) results in an out-of-wedlock child. When Cosgrove is killed in battle, the young mother anonymously gives up her baby to a childless couple in her hometown, remaining...
- 5/7/2015
- by Doug Johnson
- Alt Film Guide
'Hold Back the Dawn': Olivia de Havilland behind Charles Boyer and Paulette Goddard 'Hold Back the Dawn' 1941 movie: Olivia de Havilland steals show as small-town teacher in love Olivia de Havilland shines in Mitchell Leisen's melodrama Hold Back the Dawn, a sort of opening bracket for the director's World War II-era films. Adapted by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett from Ketti Frings' semi-autobiographical story, Hold Back the Dawn stars Charles Boyer as George Iscovescu, a Romanian dancer unable to enter the U.S. from Mexico due to immigration quotas imposed at the onset of the European conflict. Paulette Goddard is his scheming former partner, Anita, who marries an American to gain entry into the country only to immediately leave the duped husband. George adopts the idea – a naïve small-town schoolteacher visiting a Mexican border town is his prey. As the unsuspecting teacher, Olivia de Havilland radiates understanding and sympathy.
- 5/7/2015
- by Doug Johnson
- 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
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
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
Death of Wolverine #3
Written by Charles Soule
Pencilled by Steve McNiven
Inked by Jay Leisen
Colors by Justin Ponsor
Published by Marvel Comics
Even if Charles Soule’s script reads like a compilation of the best solo Wolverine stories all rolled into one miniseries, Death of Wolverine #3 is another shining example of why Steve McNiven is one of the best Wolverine artists. He, inker Jay Leisen, and colorist Justin Ponsor show the serenity and violence of Wolverine’s relationship with Japan. Soule even gives him some bits of samurai poetry to say to Kitty Pryde and an old enemy to show how he is coming to grips with his death as well as wisdom he has picked up on his many travels. When McNiven uses the whole page (or two) as a canvas, he creates some of the most iconic, poster-worthy Wolverine art. If you think the cover with the...
Written by Charles Soule
Pencilled by Steve McNiven
Inked by Jay Leisen
Colors by Justin Ponsor
Published by Marvel Comics
Even if Charles Soule’s script reads like a compilation of the best solo Wolverine stories all rolled into one miniseries, Death of Wolverine #3 is another shining example of why Steve McNiven is one of the best Wolverine artists. He, inker Jay Leisen, and colorist Justin Ponsor show the serenity and violence of Wolverine’s relationship with Japan. Soule even gives him some bits of samurai poetry to say to Kitty Pryde and an old enemy to show how he is coming to grips with his death as well as wisdom he has picked up on his many travels. When McNiven uses the whole page (or two) as a canvas, he creates some of the most iconic, poster-worthy Wolverine art. If you think the cover with the...
- 10/1/2014
- by Logan Dalton
- SoundOnSight
Probably the single most influential piece of film criticism in my life is Manny Farber's piece on Preston Sturges, and in particular his paean to the Sturges stock company ~
"They all appear to be too perfectly adjusted to life to require minds, and, in place of hearts, they seem to contain an old scratch sheet, a glob of tobacco juice, or a brown banana. The reason their faces--each of which is a succulent worm's festival, bulbous with sheer living--seem to have nothing in common with the rest of the human race is precisely because they are so eternally, agelessly human, oversocialized to the point where any normal animal component has vanished. They seem to be made up not of features but a collage of spare parts, most of them as useless as the vermiform appendix."
There are things I don't love about Farber—his insistence upon virility as a...
"They all appear to be too perfectly adjusted to life to require minds, and, in place of hearts, they seem to contain an old scratch sheet, a glob of tobacco juice, or a brown banana. The reason their faces--each of which is a succulent worm's festival, bulbous with sheer living--seem to have nothing in common with the rest of the human race is precisely because they are so eternally, agelessly human, oversocialized to the point where any normal animal component has vanished. They seem to be made up not of features but a collage of spare parts, most of them as useless as the vermiform appendix."
There are things I don't love about Farber—his insistence upon virility as a...
- 5/15/2014
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
‘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
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: April 15, 2014
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Don Ameche cozies up to Claudette Colbert in Sleep My Love.
With the 1948 film noir mystery Sleep, My Love, the great Douglas Sirk (All That Heaven Allows) directed the third and final teaming of Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night) and Don Ameche (Cocoon), who previously appeared together in Mitchell Leisen’s Midnight and later in Sam Wood’s The Guest Wife).
The movie casts Colbert as Alison Courtland, a wealthy New York socialite who awakens on a Boston-bound train with no memory of how she got there. A kind, elderly woman helps Alison call her husband Richard (Ameche), who in the meantime had contacted a detective (Raymond Burr, TV’s Perry Mason) to help him find his missing wife. On the plane back home, Alison meets Bruce (Robert Cummings, The Devil and Miss Jones), who’s immediately enamored with her.
Price: DVD $24.95, Blu-ray $29.95
Studio: Olive Films
Don Ameche cozies up to Claudette Colbert in Sleep My Love.
With the 1948 film noir mystery Sleep, My Love, the great Douglas Sirk (All That Heaven Allows) directed the third and final teaming of Claudette Colbert (It Happened One Night) and Don Ameche (Cocoon), who previously appeared together in Mitchell Leisen’s Midnight and later in Sam Wood’s The Guest Wife).
The movie casts Colbert as Alison Courtland, a wealthy New York socialite who awakens on a Boston-bound train with no memory of how she got there. A kind, elderly woman helps Alison call her husband Richard (Ameche), who in the meantime had contacted a detective (Raymond Burr, TV’s Perry Mason) to help him find his missing wife. On the plane back home, Alison meets Bruce (Robert Cummings, The Devil and Miss Jones), who’s immediately enamored with her.
- 4/9/2014
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
‘Gilda,’ ‘Pulp Fiction’: 2013 National Film Registry movies (photo: Rita Hayworth in ‘Gilda’) See previous post: “‘Mary Poppins’ in National Film Registry: Good Timing for Disney’s ‘Saving Mr. Banks.’” Billy Woodberry’s UCLA thesis film Bless Their Little Hearts (1984). Stanton Kaye’s Brandy in the Wilderness (1969). The Film Group’s Cicero March (1966), about a Civil Rights march in an all-white Chicago suburb. Norbert A. Myles’ Daughter of Dawn (1920), with Hunting Horse, Oscar Yellow Wolf, Esther Labarre. Bill Morrison’s Decasia (2002), featuring decomposing archival footage. Alfred E. Green’s Ella Cinders (1926), with Colleen Moore, Lloyd Hughes, Vera Lewis. Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet (1956), with Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, Leslie Nielsen, Warren Stevens, Jack Kelly, Robby the Robot. Charles Vidor’s Gilda (1946), with Rita Hayworth, Glenn Ford, George Macready. John and Faith Hubley’s Oscar-winning animated short The Hole (1962). Stanley Kramer’s Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), with Best Actor Oscar winner Maximilian Schell,...
- 12/20/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Above: Us poster for Forbidden (Frank Capra, USA, 1932)
In honor of the month-long retrospective of the films of the great Barbara Stanwyck starting today at Film Forum in New York, I thought I’d select my favorite Stanwyck posters. Brooklyn-born Ruby Catherine Stevens made 85 films over 37 years in Hollywood so there is an awful lot to choose from. But the remarkable thing about looking back at these posters is how artists seemed to have had a hard time capturing her likeness. The poster for one of her earliest films, Capra’s 1932 Forbidden, above, captures her beautifully, but the poster for Stella Dallas (1937), her first Oscar-nominated role (she never won, shockingly), seems to be of a different actress entirely. As for the sexed-up illustration on the flyer for The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), in that she looks more like Jean Harlow. Some of my favorite posters for her films are the Swedish and Danish designs,...
In honor of the month-long retrospective of the films of the great Barbara Stanwyck starting today at Film Forum in New York, I thought I’d select my favorite Stanwyck posters. Brooklyn-born Ruby Catherine Stevens made 85 films over 37 years in Hollywood so there is an awful lot to choose from. But the remarkable thing about looking back at these posters is how artists seemed to have had a hard time capturing her likeness. The poster for one of her earliest films, Capra’s 1932 Forbidden, above, captures her beautifully, but the poster for Stella Dallas (1937), her first Oscar-nominated role (she never won, shockingly), seems to be of a different actress entirely. As for the sexed-up illustration on the flyer for The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), in that she looks more like Jean Harlow. Some of my favorite posters for her films are the Swedish and Danish designs,...
- 12/6/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.