While we expect to soon hear some casting news on Quentin Tarantino’s final feature The Movie Critic ahead of a shoot later this year, the small details being doled-out will have to suffice. In the meantime, he joined the latest episode of the Pure Cinema Podcast to promote a forthcoming all-film Ib Technicolor Fest taking place at his newly acquired Vista Theatre in LA. As part of this discussion, he shared the notable update that he plans to write Cinema Speculation Vol. Two, a sequel to his 2022 book of film analysis. He confirmed the book will feature his insights on Peter Bogdanovich’s 1972 comedy classic What’s Up, Doc?, and shared a tease. The director also shared quite an interesting take on Robert Altman’s McCabe & Mrs. Miller.
Speaking about Bogdanovich’s hilarious comedy, which he says “was made for I.B. Technicolor” and is “as close to [Frank] Tashlin as you are going to get,...
Speaking about Bogdanovich’s hilarious comedy, which he says “was made for I.B. Technicolor” and is “as close to [Frank] Tashlin as you are going to get,...
- 1/30/2024
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
Milt Larsen, who wrote for the game show Truth or Consequences for nearly two decades and co-founded The Magic Castle in Hollywood, died Sunday of natural causes in Los Angeles, his family announced. He was 92.
Larsen produced TV specials for ABC, CBS and NBC and wrote songs with Richard Sherman, the Oscar winner who partnered with his late brother, Robert, to create tunes for such Disney classics as Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Jungle Book.
He also was the creator and consultant for the $50 million Caesars Magic Empire at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
In 1963, Larsen and his late brother, Bill, founded The Magic Castle in a 1909 French Chateau mansion on Franklin Avenue. With its many stages, labyrinthine corridors and old-fashioned decor, the place would become a renowned private club for magicians.
Larsen wrote five joke books and three books involving The Magic Castle, penned a weekly...
Larsen produced TV specials for ABC, CBS and NBC and wrote songs with Richard Sherman, the Oscar winner who partnered with his late brother, Robert, to create tunes for such Disney classics as Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The Jungle Book.
He also was the creator and consultant for the $50 million Caesars Magic Empire at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
In 1963, Larsen and his late brother, Bill, founded The Magic Castle in a 1909 French Chateau mansion on Franklin Avenue. With its many stages, labyrinthine corridors and old-fashioned decor, the place would become a renowned private club for magicians.
Larsen wrote five joke books and three books involving The Magic Castle, penned a weekly...
- 5/29/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Milt Larsen, the magician and TV writer who co-founded Hollywood’s famed Magic Castle night spot, died May 28 in Los Angeles. He was 92.
Larsen had deep roots in the world of magic and in Los Angeles. His father, William Larsen Sr., was a prominent local defense attorney and a performing magician. His mother, Geraldine, made early appearances on TV as “The Magic Lady.” Milt Larsen worked as a writer for TV game shows including “Truth or Consequences” during 18 years of Bob Barker’s tenure as host in the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s.
Larsen teamed with his older brother, William Larsen Jr., and William’s wife, Irene, in the early 1960s to transform a Gothic renaissance mansion on Franklin Avenue in the heart of Hollywood into a clubhouse designed to cater to working magicians. The trio created the Academy of Magical Arts, but the venue became known as the Magic Castle.
Larsen had deep roots in the world of magic and in Los Angeles. His father, William Larsen Sr., was a prominent local defense attorney and a performing magician. His mother, Geraldine, made early appearances on TV as “The Magic Lady.” Milt Larsen worked as a writer for TV game shows including “Truth or Consequences” during 18 years of Bob Barker’s tenure as host in the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s.
Larsen teamed with his older brother, William Larsen Jr., and William’s wife, Irene, in the early 1960s to transform a Gothic renaissance mansion on Franklin Avenue in the heart of Hollywood into a clubhouse designed to cater to working magicians. The trio created the Academy of Magical Arts, but the venue became known as the Magic Castle.
- 5/29/2023
- by William Earl
- Variety Film + TV
When Twa Flight 3, a twin-engine DC-3 concluding its cross-country route from Indiana to Burbank, California, slammed into Potosi Mountain just outside of Las Vegas in the early evening of January 16, 1942, the movies lost its greatest screwball comedienne.
Carole Lombard was 33 years old, and had just weathered a run of tepidly received dramas to reclaim her stature as one of Hollywood's most dependably hilarious performers via Alfred Hitchcock's "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." She was about to receive another round of critical acclaim for her turn as the Polish theater diva Maria Tura in Ernst Lubitsch's masterful "To Be or Not to Be." She was married to Rhett Butler himself, Clark Gable, and had committed herself to the war effort (she'd been in her home state of Indiana to host a war bond rally). Lombard was as beloved and consequential an actor as there was in the industry, and, just like that,...
Carole Lombard was 33 years old, and had just weathered a run of tepidly received dramas to reclaim her stature as one of Hollywood's most dependably hilarious performers via Alfred Hitchcock's "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." She was about to receive another round of critical acclaim for her turn as the Polish theater diva Maria Tura in Ernst Lubitsch's masterful "To Be or Not to Be." She was married to Rhett Butler himself, Clark Gable, and had committed herself to the war effort (she'd been in her home state of Indiana to host a war bond rally). Lombard was as beloved and consequential an actor as there was in the industry, and, just like that,...
- 5/13/2023
- by Jeremy Smith
- Slash Film
Above: 1919 Swedish poster for Out West. Design by Eric Rohman.I’ve recently come across a little known, rather brief but quite extraordinary chapter in illustrated movie poster history, thanks to the poster department of Heritage Auctions. Just over one hundred years ago in Sweden, one distribution company or state agency seems to have commissioned an astonishing series of posters for imported American silent films that to today’s eyes seem both retro and modern at the same time (some of them could be mistaken for Mondo designs). They have been popping up for auction at Heritage over the past few years, reaching prices as high as 4,320 for Out West (above) and as low as 73 for the lovely Kingdom of Youth seen below. In fact there are a number coming up for auction next month and bidding begins next week.The posters are all 2- or 3-color linocut designs and...
- 10/23/2022
- MUBI
When I first watched the 1992 Charlie Chaplin biopic, "Chaplin," I didn't know anything about the slapstick comic and actor besides that he was renowned as a legendary figure. But by the end of the first act, I was already drawing connections between the silent-movie star and entertainers of my generation. "Aye, that's Mr. Noodle!" I yelled at the screen during the scene where Chaplin, played by a 20-something-year-old Robert Downey Jr., auditions for Hollywood comedy producer Mack Sennett (Dan Aykroyd). Mr. Noodle and his brother, Mister Noodle, were played by Bill Irwin and Michael Jeter, respectively, during the "Elmo's...
The post Robert Downey Jr. Pulled Out All The Stops To Prepare For His Chaplin Performance appeared first on /Film.
The post Robert Downey Jr. Pulled Out All The Stops To Prepare For His Chaplin Performance appeared first on /Film.
- 8/7/2022
- by J. Gabriel Ware
- Slash Film
Let us now praise Brad Pitt. Or rather, the whole repertory company of Brad Pitts — the leading man who chased kooky character-actor roles, the matinee idol who stopped worrying and learned to love movie stardom, the wild-card outlier, the endlessly snacking comic relief, the grungy sex symbol, the All-American Adonis next door, the A-list veteran who lets his supernova aura do the talking. You get every single one of them in Bullet Train, the ballistics-and-whistles blockbuster adaptation of Kotaro Isaka’s 2010 crime novel about a commuter train filled with killers...
- 8/2/2022
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
Click here to read the full article.
Tony Dow, the wholesome actor who portrayed “the perfect big brother” Wally Cleaver on the everlasting TV comedy Leave It to Beaver and its 1980s sequel, has died, his reps announced after a tumultuous day for his family. He was 77.
Dow died Wednesday morning with his family at his side at his home in Topanga. A post on his official Facebook page read: “We have received confirmation from Christopher, Tony’s son, that Tony passed away earlier this morning, with his loving family at his side to see him through this journey.”
The post continued: “We know that the world is collectively saddened by the loss of this incredible man. He gave so much to us all and was loved by so many. One fan said it best—’It is rare when there is a person who is so universally loved like Tony.
Tony Dow, the wholesome actor who portrayed “the perfect big brother” Wally Cleaver on the everlasting TV comedy Leave It to Beaver and its 1980s sequel, has died, his reps announced after a tumultuous day for his family. He was 77.
Dow died Wednesday morning with his family at his side at his home in Topanga. A post on his official Facebook page read: “We have received confirmation from Christopher, Tony’s son, that Tony passed away earlier this morning, with his loving family at his side to see him through this journey.”
The post continued: “We know that the world is collectively saddened by the loss of this incredible man. He gave so much to us all and was loved by so many. One fan said it best—’It is rare when there is a person who is so universally loved like Tony.
- 7/27/2022
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.The Kid.For over a century, Charles Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” has been a global icon. His signifiers are simple: the derby hat and cane; the toothbrush mustache; the tight jacket and baggy trousers; the giant shoes. His significations, however—what the Tramp has meant to audiences around the world—have been profound.The most diminutive of men, the Tramp has had an outsized role in film history. Indeed, he is a portrait in paradoxes: a tragic-comic hobo-gentleman, flea-riddled but fastidious; a poet of pantomime, whose silence speaks volumes; a prat-falling klutz, who is the most graceful of danseurs; and a loner, who is worthier than most of human intimacy. Obtuse to the socioeconomic realities that structure his existence, he is an idealist hero akin to Don Quixote, as pointed out...
- 4/13/2022
- MUBI
The Little Rascals Volume 4
Blu ray – The ClassicFlix Restorations
ClassicFlix
1933, ’34, ’35,/ 1.37:1 / 218 Min.
Starring George McFarland, Dorothy DeBorba, Dickie Moore
Written by H.W. Walker
Directed by Robert F. McGowan, Gus Meins
Often dismissed for their old-fashioned ways, classic films should be applauded for those very qualities. For better—and sometimes for a lot worse—movies operate as de facto documentaries of their generation, and none more so than the string of depression-era comedies produced under the most un-comical circumstances. Those two-reelers featured bankable stars at center stage but lingering on the sidelines were the dime a dozen extras who came to California looking for work and found it in, of all places, Hollywood. Brutalized by their circumstances, these migrants would not have been out of place in a Walker Evans photograph—instead those careworn faces would be documented by the likes of Mack Sennett and Hal Roach. One of Roach...
Blu ray – The ClassicFlix Restorations
ClassicFlix
1933, ’34, ’35,/ 1.37:1 / 218 Min.
Starring George McFarland, Dorothy DeBorba, Dickie Moore
Written by H.W. Walker
Directed by Robert F. McGowan, Gus Meins
Often dismissed for their old-fashioned ways, classic films should be applauded for those very qualities. For better—and sometimes for a lot worse—movies operate as de facto documentaries of their generation, and none more so than the string of depression-era comedies produced under the most un-comical circumstances. Those two-reelers featured bankable stars at center stage but lingering on the sidelines were the dime a dozen extras who came to California looking for work and found it in, of all places, Hollywood. Brutalized by their circumstances, these migrants would not have been out of place in a Walker Evans photograph—instead those careworn faces would be documented by the likes of Mack Sennett and Hal Roach. One of Roach...
- 3/12/2022
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Conrad Nagel, the handsome matinee idol and co-founder of the Academy Motion Picture Arts & Sciences was the host of the fifth annual Academy Awards on Nov. 18, 1932. The evening marked Nagel’s second stint at Oscars host; the then-academy prez had hosted the festivities two years earlier. He turned on the charm in his sophomore outing at the glamorous banquet at the Fiesta Room of the Ambassador Hotel honoring films released between Aug. 1, 1931 and July 31, 1932. (Nagel would later co-host the first televised Oscars with Bob Hope in 1953.)
Eight films vied for Best Picture: John Ford’s medical drama “Arrowsmith”; Frank Borzage’s marital drama “Bad Girl”; Mervyn LeRoy’s examination of tabloid journalism “Five Star Final,” Edmund Goulding’s stylish drama “Grand Hotel”; Ernst Lubitsch’s pre-Code musical comedies “One Hour with You” and “The Smiling Lieutenant”; and Josef von Sternberg’s luscious pre-Code melodrama “Shanghai Express,” starring his muse Marlene Dietrich.
Eight films vied for Best Picture: John Ford’s medical drama “Arrowsmith”; Frank Borzage’s marital drama “Bad Girl”; Mervyn LeRoy’s examination of tabloid journalism “Five Star Final,” Edmund Goulding’s stylish drama “Grand Hotel”; Ernst Lubitsch’s pre-Code musical comedies “One Hour with You” and “The Smiling Lieutenant”; and Josef von Sternberg’s luscious pre-Code melodrama “Shanghai Express,” starring his muse Marlene Dietrich.
- 2/23/2022
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
The American movie business started in New Jersey.
Between 1893 and 1896 in West Orange, N.J., Thomas Edison was developing the early motion picture tech, inventing new ways to capture images in motion, and the result is that “you have the only fully operational motion picture studio facility in the world,” says Richard Koszarski, professor emeritus of English and cinema studies at Rutgers University, and expert in the early motion picture industry in New York and New Jersey.
His latest book on film history is “Keep ’Em in the East: Kazan, Kubrick, and the Postwar New York Film Renaissance.”
While companies were setting up production operations and offices in New York City, including Edison, “it’s very difficult to film in New York City. In those days, they didn’t have very good artificial lights,” says Koszarski. Making films required enormous skylights and other sources of natural light.
But over in Fort Lee,...
Between 1893 and 1896 in West Orange, N.J., Thomas Edison was developing the early motion picture tech, inventing new ways to capture images in motion, and the result is that “you have the only fully operational motion picture studio facility in the world,” says Richard Koszarski, professor emeritus of English and cinema studies at Rutgers University, and expert in the early motion picture industry in New York and New Jersey.
His latest book on film history is “Keep ’Em in the East: Kazan, Kubrick, and the Postwar New York Film Renaissance.”
While companies were setting up production operations and offices in New York City, including Edison, “it’s very difficult to film in New York City. In those days, they didn’t have very good artificial lights,” says Koszarski. Making films required enormous skylights and other sources of natural light.
But over in Fort Lee,...
- 12/9/2021
- by Carole Horst
- Variety Film + TV
“The Real Charlie Chaplin” is an alluring title for a documentary about the man who was arguably the greatest comic artist in the history of the planet. (I could be wrong in that assessment; I wasn’t around in 1230 or 5600 B.C. But I’ll stand by it.) The title suggests that we’re going to get an unvarnished look at the man behind the curtain — the brilliant and complicated human being that Charlie Chaplin was, a charmer and a scoundrel, a sweetheart and a monster, not to mention a celebrity of scandalous appetites. All of that is covered, quite ingeniously, in “The Real Charlie Chaplin.”
Yet the documentary doesn’t shy away from immersing us in Chaplin’s artistry, a subject that has, of course, been covered once or twice before. We learn a lot about his films and how, exactly, he put them together. And the trick of...
Yet the documentary doesn’t shy away from immersing us in Chaplin’s artistry, a subject that has, of course, been covered once or twice before. We learn a lot about his films and how, exactly, he put them together. And the trick of...
- 11/21/2021
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
As directed by Peter Middleton and James Spinney, The Real Charlie Chaplin attempts a delicate dance, quite ambitiously trying to understand both Chaplin the genius filmmaker and his iconic character the Tramp. “Enjoy any Charlie Chaplin you have the good luck to encounter, but don’t try to link them up to anything you can grasp,” observed writer Max Eastman. A title card with the above text opens the film, offering a direct warning: as much as one can know Chaplin, one never really will. Given access to an incredible amount of archival footage from the legend’s estate, Middleton and Spinney do their damndest to confront the man from every angle. And though they don’t succeed, perhaps that’s the point?
Pearl Mackie does sharp work as the narrator, guiding the viewer through Chaplin’s downtrodden childhood in London, to his signing with Fred Karno and move to America,...
Pearl Mackie does sharp work as the narrator, guiding the viewer through Chaplin’s downtrodden childhood in London, to his signing with Fred Karno and move to America,...
- 11/17/2021
- by Dan Mecca
- The Film Stage
ViacomCBS’ sell-off of its iconic real estate properties may next include the CBS Studio Center, popularly known as the “CBS Radford lot,” in Studio City. In a memo to staffers, CBS CEO George Cheeks confirmed that it had hired commercial real estate firm Jll to explore a potential sale of the Radford campus.
The news comes following last week’s sale of CBS’ iconic New York headquarters, the Black Rock skyscraper, for $760 million to real estate investment firm Harbor Group International. In Los Angeles, CBS Corp. sold its similarly iconic Television City property in the Fairfax district to real estate investment company Hackman Capital Partners for $750 million in 2018.
CBS’ entertainment division had long been based out of Television City, but moved to the Radford lot in the late 2000s. Kcbs, which had been based at Columbia Square, and Kcal, which moved in with Kcbs when the stations became a duopoly,...
The news comes following last week’s sale of CBS’ iconic New York headquarters, the Black Rock skyscraper, for $760 million to real estate investment firm Harbor Group International. In Los Angeles, CBS Corp. sold its similarly iconic Television City property in the Fairfax district to real estate investment company Hackman Capital Partners for $750 million in 2018.
CBS’ entertainment division had long been based out of Television City, but moved to the Radford lot in the late 2000s. Kcbs, which had been based at Columbia Square, and Kcal, which moved in with Kcbs when the stations became a duopoly,...
- 8/24/2021
- by Michael Schneider
- Variety Film + TV
A week after completing the sale of Black Rock, the longtime New York City headquarters of CBS, ViacomCBS is now looking to part with its CBS Studios campus in Studio City.
CBS CEO George Cheeks confirmed in a memo to employees that the company has hired commercial real estate firm Jll to investigate all options for the space. He said the move “aligns with our strategy to divest non-core assets like real estate and direct that value to priorities such as creating more of our best-in-class content.”
While Cheeks acknowledged that employees will likely have questions related to the decision, he assured them the company would have adequate capacity for broadcast and studio production.
Since CBS and Viacom reunited in December 2019, many duplicated assets have been shed or marked for divestiture. The Black Rock sale to Harbor Group, which was finalized last week, netted $760 million. The company runs another LA production facility,...
CBS CEO George Cheeks confirmed in a memo to employees that the company has hired commercial real estate firm Jll to investigate all options for the space. He said the move “aligns with our strategy to divest non-core assets like real estate and direct that value to priorities such as creating more of our best-in-class content.”
While Cheeks acknowledged that employees will likely have questions related to the decision, he assured them the company would have adequate capacity for broadcast and studio production.
Since CBS and Viacom reunited in December 2019, many duplicated assets have been shed or marked for divestiture. The Black Rock sale to Harbor Group, which was finalized last week, netted $760 million. The company runs another LA production facility,...
- 8/23/2021
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Speaking after her tragic death at the age of 33, President Franklin D. Roosevelt testified to the legacy of Carole Lombard. “She is and always will be a star,” he stated in 1942, “one that we shall never forget, nor cease to be grateful to.” Although the president’s words were at least in part influenced by Lombard’s recent patriotic zeal (she died in a plane crash after traveling to sell war bonds), his comments resonated throughout the country, especially Hollywood, where the actress’s impact had been progressively pronounced for years. Her films were like a breath of fresh air to Depression-era audiences, adding silver screen levity to individuals seeking a brief reprieve from day-to-day hardship. By contrast, Lombard’s cinematic sphere was often one of glamour, romance, and, above all,...
- 1/6/2021
- MUBI
Women seeking the vote had already become comic fodder by the time Variety began publishing in 1905. But gags about suffrage gave way to showbiz support as the women’s vote crept closer to reality. The 19th amendment was finally signed into law Aug. 26, 1920, 78 years after the first women’s rights convention in this country and 144 years after the Declaration of Independence asserted that all men are created equal.
Looking back on this 100th year anniversary, there was plenty of resistance to the notion of women voting, and those tensions animated the entertainment community along with the rest of society.
Around the time that Variety began publishing Stateside, U.K. media coined the term suffragette, and the lighter, more dismissive sobriquet quickly gained traction in entertainment circles. In 1908, Harry Houdini employed suffragettes in his stage act, Variety reported. And early film star Charlie Chaplin donned drag for the first time on...
Looking back on this 100th year anniversary, there was plenty of resistance to the notion of women voting, and those tensions animated the entertainment community along with the rest of society.
Around the time that Variety began publishing Stateside, U.K. media coined the term suffragette, and the lighter, more dismissive sobriquet quickly gained traction in entertainment circles. In 1908, Harry Houdini employed suffragettes in his stage act, Variety reported. And early film star Charlie Chaplin donned drag for the first time on...
- 8/19/2020
- by Diane Garrett
- Variety Film + TV
Carole Lombard came to Hollywood from the Midwest at the age of 7 and was making Westerns at Fox by age 9.
The legendary star of such classics as “My Man Godfrey” and “Twentieth Century” would rise to become a high-paid performer in the middle of the Depression. Lombard was known for her tomboy style, for throwing great parties, for her marriages to megastars William Powell and Clark Gable. She was also destined to be Hollywood’s first casualty of World War II. She was only 33 and at the peak of her career.
“Carole Lombard gave her life in the service of America,” Will Hays, president of Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, told Variety in January 1942 as the shock of Lombard’s death in a plane crash outside Las Vegas spread through the industry.
Daily Variety editor Arthur Ungar penned a page-one tribute to Lombard that led the Jan. 19, 1942, edition.
The legendary star of such classics as “My Man Godfrey” and “Twentieth Century” would rise to become a high-paid performer in the middle of the Depression. Lombard was known for her tomboy style, for throwing great parties, for her marriages to megastars William Powell and Clark Gable. She was also destined to be Hollywood’s first casualty of World War II. She was only 33 and at the peak of her career.
“Carole Lombard gave her life in the service of America,” Will Hays, president of Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, told Variety in January 1942 as the shock of Lombard’s death in a plane crash outside Las Vegas spread through the industry.
Daily Variety editor Arthur Ungar penned a page-one tribute to Lombard that led the Jan. 19, 1942, edition.
- 5/25/2020
- by Cynthia Littleton
- Variety Film + TV
The coronavirus pandemic is still going on, and shutdowns are being lifted oh so gently. That generally means two things: go outside with a mask on while strafing away from passersby on the sidewalk, or stay in and watch stuff. Luckily, The Criterion Channel has announced its June 2020 lineup, which is full of things old and new.
June sees the streaming premiere of Bertrand Bonello’s fantasy-horror, Zombi Child, which originally premiered in the Director’s Fortnight section of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The month also brings us the Channel’s addition of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, which comes with deleted scenes, a making-of documentary, and more. Meanwhile, they will also flesh out the service’s Chantal Akerman selection, adding features such as One Day Pina Asked…, Golden Eighties, and her penultimate feature, Almayer’s Folly. On the other side of the coin comes Jamie Babbit...
June sees the streaming premiere of Bertrand Bonello’s fantasy-horror, Zombi Child, which originally premiered in the Director’s Fortnight section of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. The month also brings us the Channel’s addition of Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, which comes with deleted scenes, a making-of documentary, and more. Meanwhile, they will also flesh out the service’s Chantal Akerman selection, adding features such as One Day Pina Asked…, Golden Eighties, and her penultimate feature, Almayer’s Folly. On the other side of the coin comes Jamie Babbit...
- 5/20/2020
- by Matt Cipolla
- The Film Stage
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.When you look through the IMDb entries for the early releases of the Fox Film Corporation (recommended: it's dispiriting and boggling at once: how many Buck Jones and Tom Mix westerns did the world need—and how many survive?) it's striking how many potentially interesting ones are unheard-of and impossible for the ordinary cinephile to see. My mouth waters in particular at the many, many Roy William Neill silents: Neill was a terrific, expressive filmmaker, a journeyman maybe, but a very talented one, best known today...
- 1/22/2020
- MUBI
New York City Center today announced complete casting for the Encores production of Mack Mabel. Joining previously announced cast members Douglas Sills as Mack Sennett and Alexandra Socha as Mabel Normand are Major Attaway Fatty Arbuckle, Michael Berresse William Desmond Taylor, Lilli Cooper Lottie Ames, Ben Fankhauser Frank Wyman, Jordan Gelber Mr. Kessel, Evan Kasprzak Freddy, Raymond J. Lee Andy, Kevin Ligon Eddie, Janet Noh Ella, and Allen Lewis Rickman Mr. Bauman.
- 1/10/2020
- by BWW News Desk
- BroadwayWorld.com
Musso & Frank Grill has catered to Hollywood players for 100 years and the venerable establishment is celebrating its centennial anniversary on Sept. 27. A book about the restaurant will be released. The Hollywood Award of Excellence, the first of its kind for a restaurant, will be presented by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
Musso’s is also expanding, with three new private dining rooms set to open in early 2020.
“Our family and the Hollywood community can’t even measure the historic importance of the restaurant reaching its 100th anniversary,” says COO-cfo-proprietor and fourth-generation owner Mark Echeverria. “We’re so proud of the entire team and what the generations before us did. It’s an unbelievable milestone.
“We grew up with Hollywood. In 1919, Hollywood Boulevard was a dirt road and the industry was just starting to take off.”
When Musso & Frank opened its doors on the now iconic boulevard in 1919, it was in...
Musso’s is also expanding, with three new private dining rooms set to open in early 2020.
“Our family and the Hollywood community can’t even measure the historic importance of the restaurant reaching its 100th anniversary,” says COO-cfo-proprietor and fourth-generation owner Mark Echeverria. “We’re so proud of the entire team and what the generations before us did. It’s an unbelievable milestone.
“We grew up with Hollywood. In 1919, Hollywood Boulevard was a dirt road and the industry was just starting to take off.”
When Musso & Frank opened its doors on the now iconic boulevard in 1919, it was in...
- 9/27/2019
- by Nick Clement
- Variety Film + TV
An underappreciated gem of the silent era gets a welcome return to the big screen with the rerelease of four classics
The BFI is releasing this collection of four short films from the neglected pioneer of silent comedy, Mabel Normand – a performer, producer and director who worked with Charlie Chaplin, Mack Sennett, Roscoe Arbuckle, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel. It was in a film she directed, Mabel’s Strange Predicament (1914), that Chaplin first wore the “tramp” outfit, although that is not included here.
The shorts are Mabel’s Blunder (1914), in which Mabel misreads her fiance’s apparent dalliance with another woman; Mabel’s Dramatic Career (1913), with Sennett, in which she heads off to Hollywood after her cruel fiance rejects her, and he suffers the poetic justice of seeing her triumphantly up on the silver screen in a Keystone production – surely one of the earliest meta-cinema moments; His Trysting Places (1914), directed...
The BFI is releasing this collection of four short films from the neglected pioneer of silent comedy, Mabel Normand – a performer, producer and director who worked with Charlie Chaplin, Mack Sennett, Roscoe Arbuckle, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel. It was in a film she directed, Mabel’s Strange Predicament (1914), that Chaplin first wore the “tramp” outfit, although that is not included here.
The shorts are Mabel’s Blunder (1914), in which Mabel misreads her fiance’s apparent dalliance with another woman; Mabel’s Dramatic Career (1913), with Sennett, in which she heads off to Hollywood after her cruel fiance rejects her, and he suffers the poetic justice of seeing her triumphantly up on the silver screen in a Keystone production – surely one of the earliest meta-cinema moments; His Trysting Places (1914), directed...
- 11/8/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Proving again that there’s always more to learn about film history, Marc J. Perez’s documentary tells the story of a major American film capital before Hollywood. Milestone surrounds it with a couple of hours of early silent films made in the cinema Mecca of . . . Fort Lee, New Jersey.
The Champion: A Story of America’s First Film Town
DVD
The Milestone Cinematheque
2015 / Color + B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 35 min. main documentary; many more short subjects / Street Date October 17, 2017 / available through The Milestone Cinematheque / 34.99
Film Editor: B.B. Enriquez
Original Music: Ryan Shore
Based on a book by Richard Koszarski
Produced by Tom Myers, John L. Sikes
Directed by Marc J. Perez
Milestone’s new crash course in film history is a two-disc set centered around a 2015 documentary, The Champion: A Story of America’s First Film Town. ‘The Champion’ was the name of a short-lived but significant film company,...
The Champion: A Story of America’s First Film Town
DVD
The Milestone Cinematheque
2015 / Color + B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 35 min. main documentary; many more short subjects / Street Date October 17, 2017 / available through The Milestone Cinematheque / 34.99
Film Editor: B.B. Enriquez
Original Music: Ryan Shore
Based on a book by Richard Koszarski
Produced by Tom Myers, John L. Sikes
Directed by Marc J. Perez
Milestone’s new crash course in film history is a two-disc set centered around a 2015 documentary, The Champion: A Story of America’s First Film Town. ‘The Champion’ was the name of a short-lived but significant film company,...
- 9/23/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The laid-back, plot challenged non-violent western gets a boost in this folksy comedy about two aging cowboys with less sense than the horses they tame. Glenn Ford and Henry Fonda star together for the first time, leaving behind their older images… they’re too tender-hearted for their own good. If the sex comedy wasn’t quite so dated, Burt Kennedy’s picture might be a classic.
The Rounders
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 84 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Glenn Ford, Henry Fonda, Sue Ane Langdon, Hope Holiday, Chill Wills, Edgar Buchanan, Kathleen Freeman, Joan Freeman, Denver Pyle, Barton MacLane, Doodles Weaver, Peter Fonda, Peter Ford, Bill Hart, Warren Oates, Chuck Roberson.
Cinematography: Paul Vogel
Film Editor: John McSweeney
Original Music: Jeff Alexander
From the Novel by Max Evans
Produced by Richard E. Lyons
Written and Directed by Burt Kennedy
Producer Richard E. Lyons is...
The Rounders
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 84 min. / Street Date April 18, 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Glenn Ford, Henry Fonda, Sue Ane Langdon, Hope Holiday, Chill Wills, Edgar Buchanan, Kathleen Freeman, Joan Freeman, Denver Pyle, Barton MacLane, Doodles Weaver, Peter Fonda, Peter Ford, Bill Hart, Warren Oates, Chuck Roberson.
Cinematography: Paul Vogel
Film Editor: John McSweeney
Original Music: Jeff Alexander
From the Novel by Max Evans
Produced by Richard E. Lyons
Written and Directed by Burt Kennedy
Producer Richard E. Lyons is...
- 4/22/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Comedy actress Alice Howell on the cover of film historian Anthony Slide's latest book: Pioneering funky-haired performer 'could have been Chaplin' – or at the very least another Louise Fazenda. Rediscovering comedy actress Alice Howell: Female performer in movie field dominated by men Early comedy actress Alice Howell is an obscure entity even for silent film aficionados. With luck, only a handful of them will be able to name one of her more than 100 movies, mostly shorts – among them Sin on the Sabbath, A Busted Honeymoon, How Stars Are Made – released between 1914 and 1920. Yet Alice Howell holds (what should be) an important – or at the very least an interesting – place in film history. After all, she was one of the American cinema's relatively few pioneering “funny actresses,” along with the likes of the better-known Flora Finch, Louise Fazenda, and, a top star in her day, Mabel Normand.[1] Also of note,...
- 4/20/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
All the context you'll need to deal with at the Lyceum's latest offering, Britain's Mischief Theatre import, The Play That Goes Wrong, is right there in the title. Forgoing pesky details like plot and character development, the two-act evening of visual gags - some worthy of a Mack Sennet silent - pieced together by bits of verbal silliness is one of those endeavors that charges onto the stage as a force of choreographed chaos, bombarding the audience with so many jabs to the funny bone that even if only a third of them strike properly you're in for a sufficient number of laughs.
- 4/3/2017
- by Michael Dale
- BroadwayWorld.com
Exclusive: Juho Kuosmanen is plotting a silent film based on the 1907 slapstick comedy.
Finnish writer-director Juho Kuosmanen, who earned strong notices for Cannes title The Happiest Day In The Life of Olli Mäki, is plotting a remake of the earliest film in Finnish cinema history, The Moonshiners (1907).
Salaviinanpolttajat, to give the film its Finnish title, is a silent comedy directed by Louis Sparre and Teuvo Puro. It is about two men making illicit hooch in the woods.
“The Moonshiners introduces a theme and formula that have become standard in mainstream Finnish filmmaking: the joy and catharsis of heavy drinking and its consequences,” the Historical Dictionary of Scandinavian Cinema notes of the film.
The Moonshiners has long since gone missing as has its original script. However, Kuosmanen is reconstructing the film using advertisements and press articles from the period as a guide.
“That was the first film ever made in Finland.” Kuosmanen says of...
Finnish writer-director Juho Kuosmanen, who earned strong notices for Cannes title The Happiest Day In The Life of Olli Mäki, is plotting a remake of the earliest film in Finnish cinema history, The Moonshiners (1907).
Salaviinanpolttajat, to give the film its Finnish title, is a silent comedy directed by Louis Sparre and Teuvo Puro. It is about two men making illicit hooch in the woods.
“The Moonshiners introduces a theme and formula that have become standard in mainstream Finnish filmmaking: the joy and catharsis of heavy drinking and its consequences,” the Historical Dictionary of Scandinavian Cinema notes of the film.
The Moonshiners has long since gone missing as has its original script. However, Kuosmanen is reconstructing the film using advertisements and press articles from the period as a guide.
“That was the first film ever made in Finland.” Kuosmanen says of...
- 10/18/2016
- by geoffrey@macnab.demon.co.uk (Geoffrey Macnab)
- ScreenDaily
Happy Birthday, Robert Preston best remembered for his performance as 'Professor' Harold Hill in Meredith Willson's musical The Music Man 1962. He had already won a Tony Award for his performance in the original Broadway production, in 1957. In 1965 he was the male part of a duo-lead musical, I Do I Do with Mary Martin, for which he won his second Tony Award. He played the title role in the musical Ben Franklin in Paris and originated the role of Henry II in the original production of The Lion in Winter. In 1974 he starred alongside Bernadette Peters in Jerry Herman's Broadway musical Mack amp Mabel as Mack Sennett, the famous silent film director. That same year 1974 the film version of Mame, another famed Jerry Herman musical, was released with Preston starring, alongside Lucille Ball, in the role of Beauregard Burnside.
- 6/8/2016
- by Stage Tube
- BroadwayWorld.com
[caption id="attachment_24623" align="aligncenter" width="575"] Edgar G. Ulmer/caption]
Seeing Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Black Cat (1934) again recently, my appetite was whetted to re-read Theodore Roszak’s Flicker, which uses Ulmer’s strange career as a master stylist exiled to a career toiling in B-movie obscurity as a jumping-off point for a sinister story engorged with a decadent and whispered history of movies. Three years ago I was commissioned to write about Flicker for writer Bill Ryan’s annual October consideration of horror at his great blog The Kind of Face You Hate. I had to admit, I never really thought of Flicker as a horror novel in the strictest sense while I was immersed in it-- the first half reads more like an indulgent orgy of movie lore woven expertly into a pleasingly reluctant, expertly teased detective story. But the book certainly qualifies as horror in that it shares the obsessive nature of its protagonist,...
Seeing Edgar G. Ulmer’s The Black Cat (1934) again recently, my appetite was whetted to re-read Theodore Roszak’s Flicker, which uses Ulmer’s strange career as a master stylist exiled to a career toiling in B-movie obscurity as a jumping-off point for a sinister story engorged with a decadent and whispered history of movies. Three years ago I was commissioned to write about Flicker for writer Bill Ryan’s annual October consideration of horror at his great blog The Kind of Face You Hate. I had to admit, I never really thought of Flicker as a horror novel in the strictest sense while I was immersed in it-- the first half reads more like an indulgent orgy of movie lore woven expertly into a pleasingly reluctant, expertly teased detective story. But the book certainly qualifies as horror in that it shares the obsessive nature of its protagonist,...
- 4/2/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
The record shows Orson Welles as a grand artist of serious subjects and baroque tastes. That alone is reason enough to hail the discovery, restoration and presentation of the long-thought-lost Too Much Johnson, a tribute to the silent slapstick shorts of Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. It is an unfinished project in its own right but is nonetheless complete enough to reveal a side of Welles so rarely exhibited to the public. That it was made three years before Citizen Kane makes it an invaluable find, a glimpse of the artist exploring the new medium of film with a natural affinity for the possibilities inherent in cinema. But that's a matter of historical scholarship. What matters to the rest of us is that Too Much Johnson is funny, clever, cheeky, inventive and genuinely accomplished, which makes it worth watching on its own modest yet playful merits.>> - Sean...
- 1/31/2016
- Keyframe
The record shows Orson Welles as a grand artist of serious subjects and baroque tastes. That alone is reason enough to hail the discovery, restoration and presentation of the long-thought-lost Too Much Johnson, a tribute to the silent slapstick shorts of Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. It is an unfinished project in its own right but is nonetheless complete enough to reveal a side of Welles so rarely exhibited to the public. That it was made three years before Citizen Kane makes it an invaluable find, a glimpse of the artist exploring the new medium of film with a natural affinity for the possibilities inherent in cinema. But that's a matter of historical scholarship. What matters to the rest of us is that Too Much Johnson is funny, clever, cheeky, inventive and genuinely accomplished, which makes it worth watching on its own modest yet playful merits.>> - Sean...
- 1/31/2016
- Fandor: Keyframe
Mack amp Mabel, which will embark on a UK amp Ireland Tour in Autumn 2015 following its premiere at Chichester Festival Theatre, stars double Oliver award-winning Michael Ball and Rebecca Lachance. Based on the real-life romance between Hollywood legends Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand, it tells the story of a group of pioneering filmmakers who changed the world surrounded by the great fun of the silent screen heroes in capes, girls tied to the tracks, glamorous Bathing Beauties and the chaos of the Keystone Kops.
- 7/28/2015
- by Review Roundups
- BroadwayWorld.com
The national film body is behind a Us tour this autumn of 10 new comedies without Us distribution.
Former MoMA senior curator of film Laurence Kardish selected the films, which will arrive in New York and travel to Los Angeles and additional markets.
The Canada Cool tour runs from throughout the autumn and kicks off in New York on September 18 with the premiere of Robert Cohen’s Being Canadian (pictured) at Cinema Village.
The other titles are: Ingrid Veninger’s Animal Project; Shayne Ehman and Seth Scriver’s Asphalt Watches; Jeffrey St Jules’ Bang Bang Baby; and Émile Gaudreault’s Fathers And Guns (De Père En Flic).
Rounding out the slate are Henri Henri by Martin Talbot;
Relative Happiness from Deanne Foley; Kris Elgstrand’s Songs She Wrote About People She Knows; Aaron Houston’s Sunflower Hour; and Maureen Bradley’s Two 4 One.
Classics Selection entries are John Paizs’ Crime Wave and The Decline Of The American Empire (Le Déclin...
Former MoMA senior curator of film Laurence Kardish selected the films, which will arrive in New York and travel to Los Angeles and additional markets.
The Canada Cool tour runs from throughout the autumn and kicks off in New York on September 18 with the premiere of Robert Cohen’s Being Canadian (pictured) at Cinema Village.
The other titles are: Ingrid Veninger’s Animal Project; Shayne Ehman and Seth Scriver’s Asphalt Watches; Jeffrey St Jules’ Bang Bang Baby; and Émile Gaudreault’s Fathers And Guns (De Père En Flic).
Rounding out the slate are Henri Henri by Martin Talbot;
Relative Happiness from Deanne Foley; Kris Elgstrand’s Songs She Wrote About People She Knows; Aaron Houston’s Sunflower Hour; and Maureen Bradley’s Two 4 One.
Classics Selection entries are John Paizs’ Crime Wave and The Decline Of The American Empire (Le Déclin...
- 7/23/2015
- by jeremykay67@gmail.com (Jeremy Kay)
- ScreenDaily
Real Housewives of New York City star Kristen Taekman sprayed the crowd with a smoke machine at the annual Winter White Party at Shrine at Foxwoods. Gavin Rossdale presented at the 5th Annual Guild of Music Supervisors Awards (Guild co-founded by Maureen Crowe) at the historical Mack Sennett Studios in Los Angeles. Alexa Chung celebrated the launch of her line with Ag Jeans at James Goldstein's private residence in Beverly Hills. Sam Smith had lunch with his band in a private dining room at Chicago Cut Steakhouse in the [...]...
- 1/29/2015
- Us Weekly
Steven Awalt – author interviewed by Todd Garbarini
“Well, it’s about time, Charlie!”
Dennis Weaver utters these words in my favorite Steven Spielberg film, Duel, a production that was originally commissioned by Universal Pictures as an Mow, industry shorthand for “movie of the week”, which aired on Saturday, November 13, 1971. The reviews were glowing; the film’s admirers greatly outweighed its detractors and it put Mr. Spielberg, arguably the most phenomenally successful director in the history of the medium, on a path to a career that would make any contemporary director green with envy. Followed by a spate of contractually obligated television outings, Duel would prove to be the springboard that would catapult Mr. Spielberg into the realm that he was shooting for since his youth: that of feature film directing. Duel would also land him in the court of Hollywood producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck and get him his...
“Well, it’s about time, Charlie!”
Dennis Weaver utters these words in my favorite Steven Spielberg film, Duel, a production that was originally commissioned by Universal Pictures as an Mow, industry shorthand for “movie of the week”, which aired on Saturday, November 13, 1971. The reviews were glowing; the film’s admirers greatly outweighed its detractors and it put Mr. Spielberg, arguably the most phenomenally successful director in the history of the medium, on a path to a career that would make any contemporary director green with envy. Followed by a spate of contractually obligated television outings, Duel would prove to be the springboard that would catapult Mr. Spielberg into the realm that he was shooting for since his youth: that of feature film directing. Duel would also land him in the court of Hollywood producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck and get him his...
- 10/16/2014
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...
- 9/4/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The record shows Orson Welles as a grand artist of serious subjects and baroque tastes. That alone is reason enough to hail the discovery, restoration and presentation of the long-thought-lost Too Much Johnson, a tribute to the silent slapstick shorts of Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. It is an unfinished project in its own right but is nonetheless complete enough to reveal a side of Welles so rarely exhibited to the public. That it was made three years before Citizen Kane makes it an invaluable find, a glimpse of the artist exploring the new medium of film with a natural affinity for the possibilities inherent in cinema. But that's a matter of historical scholarship. What matters to the rest of us is that Too Much Johnson is funny, clever, cheeky, inventive and genuinely accomplished, which makes it worth watching on its own modest yet playful merits.>> - Sean...
- 8/21/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
The record shows Orson Welles as a grand artist of serious subjects and baroque tastes. That alone is reason enough to hail the discovery, restoration and presentation of the long-thought-lost Too Much Johnson, a tribute to the silent slapstick shorts of Mack Sennett, Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. It is an unfinished project in its own right but is nonetheless complete enough to reveal a side of Welles so rarely exhibited to the public. That it was made three years before Citizen Kane makes it an invaluable find, a glimpse of the artist exploring the new medium of film with a natural affinity for the possibilities inherent in cinema. But that's a matter of historical scholarship. What matters to the rest of us is that Too Much Johnson is funny, clever, cheeky, inventive and genuinely accomplished, which makes it worth watching on its own modest yet playful merits.>> - Sean...
- 8/21/2014
- Keyframe
By Mireille Latil-Le-Dantec. Originally published in Cinématographe, no. 35, February 1978 in an issue with a Chaplin dossier.
Translation by Ted Fendt. Thanks to Marie-Pierre Duhamel.
The Chaplinesque Quest
The overbearing weight of interpretative studies devoted to Chaplin makes any pretension to some "fresh look" at a universe already studied from every angle seem absurd from the outset. At least, on the occasion of the homages currently being made in theaters to the little man who would become so big, a few fragmentary re-viewings more modestly allow for the rediscovery of the thematic unity of this body of work and the inanity of any artificial divide between the "excellent" Charlie films and the "mediocre" Chaplin films – a divide corresponding, of course, to the event which his art was not supposed to have survived: the appearance of those talkies that – in the excellent company of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, René Clair and many others – he...
Translation by Ted Fendt. Thanks to Marie-Pierre Duhamel.
The Chaplinesque Quest
The overbearing weight of interpretative studies devoted to Chaplin makes any pretension to some "fresh look" at a universe already studied from every angle seem absurd from the outset. At least, on the occasion of the homages currently being made in theaters to the little man who would become so big, a few fragmentary re-viewings more modestly allow for the rediscovery of the thematic unity of this body of work and the inanity of any artificial divide between the "excellent" Charlie films and the "mediocre" Chaplin films – a divide corresponding, of course, to the event which his art was not supposed to have survived: the appearance of those talkies that – in the excellent company of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, René Clair and many others – he...
- 7/22/2014
- by Ted Fendt
- MUBI
This story first appeared in the June 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. The arrival of Josh Charles at Mack Sennett Studio in Los Angeles' Silver Lake neighborhood on the morning of March 30 was like seeing a ghost. Only seven days earlier, the Good Wife star (and long-time pal of panelist Jon Hamm) was brutally killed off his hit CBS series, lending a palpable memorial vibe to the start of an otherwise buoyant gathering of six dramatic actors: The Newsroom's Jeff Daniels, 59; Ray Donovan's Liev Schreiber, 46; Masters of Sex's Michael Sheen, 45; The Normal Heart's
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- 6/5/2014
- by Stacey Wilson, Matthew Belloni
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Mabel Normand in Fatty and Mabel Adrift (1916)
Mabel Normand is someone I knew more as a concept than as an actual screen personality. As Mack Sennett's one-again-off-again betrothed, and his favorite leading lady at Keystone, she helped discover Charlie Chaplin and threw the screen's first custard pie. And she was a wild girl who gave good copy. ("Say anything you like, but don't say I love to work. That sounds like Mary Pickford, that prissy bitch. Just say I like to pinch babies and twist their legs. And get drunk.")
I'd seen her in some early Chaplin films, typically rather disorganized affairs where she cries a lot and is almost crowded off the screen by rhubarbing clowns (Mabel's Busy Day, 1914). It was always a problem, making any impression amid the chaos of a Keystone movie, which is part of why Chaplin hated it. No room to breathe for the gags,...
Mabel Normand is someone I knew more as a concept than as an actual screen personality. As Mack Sennett's one-again-off-again betrothed, and his favorite leading lady at Keystone, she helped discover Charlie Chaplin and threw the screen's first custard pie. And she was a wild girl who gave good copy. ("Say anything you like, but don't say I love to work. That sounds like Mary Pickford, that prissy bitch. Just say I like to pinch babies and twist their legs. And get drunk.")
I'd seen her in some early Chaplin films, typically rather disorganized affairs where she cries a lot and is almost crowded off the screen by rhubarbing clowns (Mabel's Busy Day, 1914). It was always a problem, making any impression amid the chaos of a Keystone movie, which is part of why Chaplin hated it. No room to breathe for the gags,...
- 5/29/2014
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Review by Sam Moffitt
I love the silent era of movie making. I’ve written of this before and will again, many times I’m sure. Roger Ebert, on his website, made the observation (accurately I’d say) that silent films are not just movies without sound; they are a different medium altogether from the movies we are used to seeing now. Silent films are as different to sound films as radio is to television.
Hollywood Cavalcade was one of the first movies to look back at Hollywood history, and managed to involve several artists who were instrumental in making films that are still enjoyable today.
Hollywood Cavalcade tells the story of Mike Conners (Don Ameche) and his partner, ace cameraman Pete Tinney (Stu Erwin) and their trip to New York City to find a stage actress they can take back to Hollywood and make into a star of moving pictures.
I love the silent era of movie making. I’ve written of this before and will again, many times I’m sure. Roger Ebert, on his website, made the observation (accurately I’d say) that silent films are not just movies without sound; they are a different medium altogether from the movies we are used to seeing now. Silent films are as different to sound films as radio is to television.
Hollywood Cavalcade was one of the first movies to look back at Hollywood history, and managed to involve several artists who were instrumental in making films that are still enjoyable today.
Hollywood Cavalcade tells the story of Mike Conners (Don Ameche) and his partner, ace cameraman Pete Tinney (Stu Erwin) and their trip to New York City to find a stage actress they can take back to Hollywood and make into a star of moving pictures.
- 5/23/2014
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
D.W. Griffith movies at the American Cinematheque (photo: D.W. Griffith circa 1915) A series of D.W. Griffith movies made at Biograph at the dawn of both the 20th century and the art of moviemaking will be screened at the American Cinematheque next weekend. "Retroformat Presents: D.W. Griffith at Biograph, Part 3 - 1909 – 1910" will take place on Saturday, April 26, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. in the Steven Spielberg auditorium of The Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The evening will be hosted by Tom Barnes; musical accompaniment will be provided by Cliff Retallick. Among the D.W. Griffith films to be presented by Retroformat are the following: Lines of White on a Sullen Sea The Gibson Goddess The Mountaineer’s Honor Through the Breakers A Corner in Wheat Her Terrible Ordeal The Last Deal Faithful D.W. Griffith and his stars As found in Retroformat’s press release, those early D.W. Griffith efforts feature "innovative cinematography" by frequent Griffith collaborator G.W. Bitzer,...
- 4/24/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Book review: Mabel and Me: a novel about the Movies by Jon Boorstin (Angel City Press)The first movie book I ever read—borrowed from my local public library—was Mack Sennett’s autobiography, King of Comedy. I returned to it over and over again, mesmerized by the producer’s stories about the early days of moviemaking and his love for the beguiling comedienne Mabel Normand. Some years later, I came to realize that many of Sennett’s tales were fanciful and not to be trusted, but the broad outlines were true, as was his devotion to Mabel—in spite of his infidelities. My abiding fondness for this book, and the period it evokes, made it difficult to enjoy Jerry Herman’s Broadway...
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- 3/24/2014
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
It is 100 years since Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character was first seen and at Bristol's Slapstick festival the corks popped
A centenary is more than excuse enough for a party, even if the birthday boy is a work of fiction – a beggar, even, with ill-fitting shoes, a violent streak and bow legs. This is the year of the Tramp. Twenty-fourteen marks 100 years since Charlie Chaplin first appeared on a movie screen as an eccentric fellow with a toothbrush moustache and a derby hat, walking with splayed feet and carrying a cane. Due to the global reach of Chaplin's fame, there will be events to mark the anniversary around the world all year, but this weekend, the corks were popped in Bristol. The city's Slapstick festival, itself celebrating a decade on the job, kicked up its heels with a sumptuous gala screening of Chaplin's late silent masterpiece City Lights,...
A centenary is more than excuse enough for a party, even if the birthday boy is a work of fiction – a beggar, even, with ill-fitting shoes, a violent streak and bow legs. This is the year of the Tramp. Twenty-fourteen marks 100 years since Charlie Chaplin first appeared on a movie screen as an eccentric fellow with a toothbrush moustache and a derby hat, walking with splayed feet and carrying a cane. Due to the global reach of Chaplin's fame, there will be events to mark the anniversary around the world all year, but this weekend, the corks were popped in Bristol. The city's Slapstick festival, itself celebrating a decade on the job, kicked up its heels with a sumptuous gala screening of Chaplin's late silent masterpiece City Lights,...
- 1/27/2014
- by Pamela Hutchinson
- The Guardian - Film News
Ulrich Seidl's Paradise: Love is playing through January 26 and Paradise: Faith is playing through February 10 on Mubi in the U.S..
***
Above: Maria (Maria Hofstätter) in Paradise: Faith.
Think of the silent film star Pearl White, decamped and tuned up in a boxy frame lit through the middle, giggling or screaming or whispering her perils against a few dozen uncomprehending faces. Split into three, she becomes, in Ulrich Seidl’s vision of her, a botched vigilante of her own wayward desires, long unregulated and frayed, whether by age (Teresa, the giggler on holiday in Paradise: Love), chastity (Anna Maria, the gnarled scream of Paradise: Faith), or by size (the impressionable and adolescent Melanie, the whisperer of Paradise: Hope). Seidl’s three films are really one continuous achievement in the art of corporeal crisis management; taken together, they make a fleshy, nested triumvirate with impeccable feline intuition.
The middle-aged Teresa...
***
Above: Maria (Maria Hofstätter) in Paradise: Faith.
Think of the silent film star Pearl White, decamped and tuned up in a boxy frame lit through the middle, giggling or screaming or whispering her perils against a few dozen uncomprehending faces. Split into three, she becomes, in Ulrich Seidl’s vision of her, a botched vigilante of her own wayward desires, long unregulated and frayed, whether by age (Teresa, the giggler on holiday in Paradise: Love), chastity (Anna Maria, the gnarled scream of Paradise: Faith), or by size (the impressionable and adolescent Melanie, the whisperer of Paradise: Hope). Seidl’s three films are really one continuous achievement in the art of corporeal crisis management; taken together, they make a fleshy, nested triumvirate with impeccable feline intuition.
The middle-aged Teresa...
- 1/20/2014
- by Ricky D'Ambrose
- MUBI
In search of flickering reminders of Chaplin's La, Kira Cochrane follows in the footsteps of The Little Tramp, on the centenary of his arrival in Hollywood
Charlie Chaplin slept here: La hotels
The footprints and signature on the doorstep have faded, but there's no confusion about who built these studios: Charlie Chaplin, dressed as the Little Tramp, is painted on the door. Time-lapse footage of the construction of this mock Tudor village – now owned by the Jim Henson Company and identified by a 12ft statue of Kermit above the entrance – appears in How To Make Movies, a film directed by Chaplin in 1918. It shows the small hamlet emerging among the lemon groves that once undulated here, a city rising from the dust.
I wonder how much of Hollywood would exist if Chaplin had never arrived. If the manager of his touring vaudeville troupe had never received that abrupt, misspelled...
Charlie Chaplin slept here: La hotels
The footprints and signature on the doorstep have faded, but there's no confusion about who built these studios: Charlie Chaplin, dressed as the Little Tramp, is painted on the door. Time-lapse footage of the construction of this mock Tudor village – now owned by the Jim Henson Company and identified by a 12ft statue of Kermit above the entrance – appears in How To Make Movies, a film directed by Chaplin in 1918. It shows the small hamlet emerging among the lemon groves that once undulated here, a city rising from the dust.
I wonder how much of Hollywood would exist if Chaplin had never arrived. If the manager of his touring vaudeville troupe had never received that abrupt, misspelled...
- 12/8/2013
- by Kira Cochrane
- The Guardian - Film News
You know what wouldn't be much fun? Life as a lovable tramp, dodging railroad dicks, getting caught up in antic chases, and never being able to eat that pie you've filched from the widow's windowsill because it's got to be smashed into the face of that cop who's harassed you since the first reel. In his warm, surprisingly sharp-elbowed, not-really-for-kids Sidewalk Stories, just barely released back in 1989, writer-director-star Charles Lane honors the traditions of silent-film comedy, especially of the wistful Chaplin sort rather than the firetrucks-a-go-go Mack Sennett school. He also honors the reality of actual on-the-streets homelessness in the hard years of the Reagan–Bush–Koch era.
In the sweet, brisk film, which is mostly silent in the sense that w...
In the sweet, brisk film, which is mostly silent in the sense that w...
- 11/5/2013
- Village Voice
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