With its list of May 2024 releases, Amazon Prime Video is giving us the kindest gift of all: cougar Anne Hathaway.
May 2 sees the premiere of The Idea of You, a romantic-comedy that features Hathaway as a 40-year-old mom finding romance with a 24-year-old boy band singer (Nicholas Galitzine). Having saved the medium of film forever, Prime Video is celebrating with some big time library titles this month as well. American Fiction and BlacKkKlansman arrive on May 14 and will be followed by Creed and Pearl: An X-traordinary Origin Story on May 16.
For its TV offerings, Prime is leading off with Outer Range season 2 on May 16. This James Brolin sci-fi Western will continue the mysteries of the strange happenings on Thanos’ ranch. Reality TV fans will be able to enjoy the Daniel Tosh-hosted competition series The Goat on May 9.
Here’s everything coming to Prime Video and Freevee in April – Amazon...
May 2 sees the premiere of The Idea of You, a romantic-comedy that features Hathaway as a 40-year-old mom finding romance with a 24-year-old boy band singer (Nicholas Galitzine). Having saved the medium of film forever, Prime Video is celebrating with some big time library titles this month as well. American Fiction and BlacKkKlansman arrive on May 14 and will be followed by Creed and Pearl: An X-traordinary Origin Story on May 16.
For its TV offerings, Prime is leading off with Outer Range season 2 on May 16. This James Brolin sci-fi Western will continue the mysteries of the strange happenings on Thanos’ ranch. Reality TV fans will be able to enjoy the Daniel Tosh-hosted competition series The Goat on May 9.
Here’s everything coming to Prime Video and Freevee in April – Amazon...
- 5/1/2024
- by Alec Bojalad
- Den of Geek
Best known for her work in 1950s sci-fi, the actor also took supporting roles in films including Bigger Than Life and Magnificent Obsession
Barbara Rush, the female lead of 1950s sci-fi horror It Came from Outer Space, has died aged 97. Her daughter Claudia Cowan, a reporter for Fox News, told Fox News Digital: “My wonderful mother passed away peacefully at 5:28 this evening. I was with her this morning and know she was waiting for me to return home safely to transition.”
Born in Denver in 1927, Rush grew up in Los Angeles and, after studying theatre at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was signed to Paramount Pictures. After making her screen acting debut in The Goldbergs – a big-screen spinoff of the popular radio and TV series – Rush’s breakthrough role came in 1951 in the Oscar-winning sci-fi picture When Worlds Collide, as the daughter of an astronomer attempting to...
Barbara Rush, the female lead of 1950s sci-fi horror It Came from Outer Space, has died aged 97. Her daughter Claudia Cowan, a reporter for Fox News, told Fox News Digital: “My wonderful mother passed away peacefully at 5:28 this evening. I was with her this morning and know she was waiting for me to return home safely to transition.”
Born in Denver in 1927, Rush grew up in Los Angeles and, after studying theatre at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was signed to Paramount Pictures. After making her screen acting debut in The Goldbergs – a big-screen spinoff of the popular radio and TV series – Rush’s breakthrough role came in 1951 in the Oscar-winning sci-fi picture When Worlds Collide, as the daughter of an astronomer attempting to...
- 4/1/2024
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
Barbra Rush, the prolific actress best known for roles in 1953’s It Came From Outer Space and long runs on Peyton Place and All My Children, has died. Her daughter confirmed Rush’s passing to Fox News on Sunday. She was 97.
Rush had a near 60-year career. In the ’50s and ’60s, she worked on the big screen with Paul Newman (three times), Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Richard Burton. In addition to pulpier fare like Prince of Pirates and Taza, Son of Cochise, Rush did a trio of films with Douglas Sirk — The First Legion, Magnificent Obsession and Captain Lightfoot — and Bigger Than Life with Nicholas Ray.
By the late 1960s, Rush had segued mostly to TV, appearing in mainstays of the period such as Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Fugitive, Marcus Welby, M.D., McCloud, Maude, Ironside and Mannix.
Rush appeared in...
Rush had a near 60-year career. In the ’50s and ’60s, she worked on the big screen with Paul Newman (three times), Kirk Douglas, Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Richard Burton. In addition to pulpier fare like Prince of Pirates and Taza, Son of Cochise, Rush did a trio of films with Douglas Sirk — The First Legion, Magnificent Obsession and Captain Lightfoot — and Bigger Than Life with Nicholas Ray.
By the late 1960s, Rush had segued mostly to TV, appearing in mainstays of the period such as Ben Casey, Dr. Kildare, The Fugitive, Marcus Welby, M.D., McCloud, Maude, Ironside and Mannix.
Rush appeared in...
- 4/1/2024
- by Tom Tapp
- Deadline Film + TV
Barbara Rush, the classy yet largely unheralded leading lady who sparkled in the 1950s melodramas Magnificent Obsession, Bigger Than Life and The Young Philadelphians, has died. She was 97.
Rush, a regular on the fifth and final season of ABC’s Peyton Place and a favorite of sci-fi fans thanks to her work in When Worlds Collide (1951) and It Came From Outer Space (1953), died Sunday in Westlake Village, her daughter, Fox News senior correspondent Claudia Cowan, announced.
“My wonderful mother passed away peacefully at 5:28 this evening. I was with her this morning and know she was waiting for me to return home safely to transition,” Cowan said. “It’s fitting she chose to leave on Easter as it was one of her favorite holidays and now, of course, Easter will have a deeper significance for me and my family.”
A starlet at Paramount, Universal and Fox whose career blossomed at...
Rush, a regular on the fifth and final season of ABC’s Peyton Place and a favorite of sci-fi fans thanks to her work in When Worlds Collide (1951) and It Came From Outer Space (1953), died Sunday in Westlake Village, her daughter, Fox News senior correspondent Claudia Cowan, announced.
“My wonderful mother passed away peacefully at 5:28 this evening. I was with her this morning and know she was waiting for me to return home safely to transition,” Cowan said. “It’s fitting she chose to leave on Easter as it was one of her favorite holidays and now, of course, Easter will have a deeper significance for me and my family.”
A starlet at Paramount, Universal and Fox whose career blossomed at...
- 4/1/2024
- by Mike Barnes and Duane Byrge
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Courtesy of Kino Lorber
by Chad Kennerk
Set in the 1920s, Has Anybody Seen My Gal? gets its name from the once-popular jazz song recorded by the California Ramblers in 1925. Loosely based upon the Eleanor Porter novel Oh Money! Money! (she was also the author behind Pollyanna), the 1952 jukebox musical comedy was given the full Technicolor treatment – a visual bee’s knees in Kino Lorber’s sterling release.
The Universal Pictures title makes good use of Twenties tunes such as ‘Tiger Rag,’ ‘When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along,’ ‘It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More,’ ‘Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?’ - and of course, ‘Has Anybody Seen My Gal?’. It was directed by studio regular Douglas Sirk, who would go on to make his name with lush, slyly ironic melodramas such as Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind (all with Rock Hudson), There's Always Tomorrow,...
by Chad Kennerk
Set in the 1920s, Has Anybody Seen My Gal? gets its name from the once-popular jazz song recorded by the California Ramblers in 1925. Loosely based upon the Eleanor Porter novel Oh Money! Money! (she was also the author behind Pollyanna), the 1952 jukebox musical comedy was given the full Technicolor treatment – a visual bee’s knees in Kino Lorber’s sterling release.
The Universal Pictures title makes good use of Twenties tunes such as ‘Tiger Rag,’ ‘When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along,’ ‘It Ain’t Gonna Rain No More,’ ‘Gimme a Little Kiss, Will Ya, Huh?’ - and of course, ‘Has Anybody Seen My Gal?’. It was directed by studio regular Douglas Sirk, who would go on to make his name with lush, slyly ironic melodramas such as Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind (all with Rock Hudson), There's Always Tomorrow,...
- 1/15/2024
- by Chad Kennerk
- Film Review Daily
Judy Nugent, the former ’50s child actor who co-starred with Jane Wyman in Magnificent Obsession, Annette Funicello in the popular Annette serial on ABC’s The Mickey Mouse Club and flew in the arms of George Reeves’ Superman in a 1954 episode of The Adventures of Superman, died of October 26 cancer, surrounded by family at her ranch in Montana. She was 83.
Her death was announced in a family statement released by daughter-in-law Anne Lockhart, the Chicago Fire actor and daughter of Lost in Space star June Lockhart.
A Los Angeles native – she was the daughter of MGM prop man Carl Nugent – Nugent had already appeared in a handful of uncredited roles, including in the 1951 film Angels in the Outfield, when she landed her breakthrough role as Donna Ruggles in the 1949-52 TV series The Ruggles, an early family sitcom starring comic actor Charles Ruggles (Bringing Up Baby). Nugent played the twin...
Her death was announced in a family statement released by daughter-in-law Anne Lockhart, the Chicago Fire actor and daughter of Lost in Space star June Lockhart.
A Los Angeles native – she was the daughter of MGM prop man Carl Nugent – Nugent had already appeared in a handful of uncredited roles, including in the 1951 film Angels in the Outfield, when she landed her breakthrough role as Donna Ruggles in the 1949-52 TV series The Ruggles, an early family sitcom starring comic actor Charles Ruggles (Bringing Up Baby). Nugent played the twin...
- 10/31/2023
- by Greg Evans
- Deadline Film + TV
Judy Nugent, who portrayed one of the twins on the early TV sitcom The Ruggles and a girl who flies around the world in the arms of the Man of Steel on a heartwarming Adventures of Superman episode, has died. She was 83.
Nugent died on Oct. 26 “surrounded by family at her Montana ranch after a short battle with cancer,” according to a family statement shared by her daughter-in-law and Battlestar Galactica and Chicago Fire actress Anne Lockhart (the older daughter of Lassie and Lost in Space star June Lockhart).
The younger daughter of a prop man at MGM, Nugent also appeared in two films directed by Douglas Sirk: as a wise-cracking tomboy who tries to get a blinded widow (Jane Wyman) to snap out of it in Magnificent Obsession (1954), and as one of the daughters of Fred MacMurray and Joan Bennett’s characters in There’s Always Tomorrow (1956).
Nugent also...
Nugent died on Oct. 26 “surrounded by family at her Montana ranch after a short battle with cancer,” according to a family statement shared by her daughter-in-law and Battlestar Galactica and Chicago Fire actress Anne Lockhart (the older daughter of Lassie and Lost in Space star June Lockhart).
The younger daughter of a prop man at MGM, Nugent also appeared in two films directed by Douglas Sirk: as a wise-cracking tomboy who tries to get a blinded widow (Jane Wyman) to snap out of it in Magnificent Obsession (1954), and as one of the daughters of Fred MacMurray and Joan Bennett’s characters in There’s Always Tomorrow (1956).
Nugent also...
- 10/31/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
The most important thing about “Rock Hudson: All That Heaven Allowed” is that, within the essential act of reclamation it provides for the star, it doesn’t just write off the Hollywood icon’s life as sad. That’s a remarkable thing for a documentary in which its last 40 minutes are as harrowing a depiction of AIDS in the ’80s there’s been in a film since “How to Survive a Plague.”
Certainly, it’s infuriating and upsetting on many levels: that Hudson wasn’t allowed to fly on a commercial airliner because of his diagnosis and had to rent an Air France Boeing 747 at the cost of $250,000 to return home to Los Angeles from Paris as it became clear his experimental treatment there had failed. And the revelation that his friend Nancy Reagan even urged her husband to deny him treatment at a military hospital is beyond enraging.
Stephen Kijak...
Certainly, it’s infuriating and upsetting on many levels: that Hudson wasn’t allowed to fly on a commercial airliner because of his diagnosis and had to rent an Air France Boeing 747 at the cost of $250,000 to return home to Los Angeles from Paris as it became clear his experimental treatment there had failed. And the revelation that his friend Nancy Reagan even urged her husband to deny him treatment at a military hospital is beyond enraging.
Stephen Kijak...
- 7/4/2023
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Rock Hudson was one of the biggest stars of the 1950’s and 60s: the most handsome leading man who romanced the likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Doris Day, Jane Wyman, Barbara Rush, Julie Andrews and Gina Lollobrigida on the silver screen. But he was living a secret life off-screen — he was gay.
The new Max/HBO documentary “Rock Hudson All That Heaven Allowed” examines his double life and the lengths that were taken to ensure his LGBTQ+ identity wasn’t revealed It wasn’t until 1985 did the truth make the headlines when he became the first famous Hollywood star to die of AIDs.
Barbara Rush, who appeared in three films with Hudson including 1954’s “Magnificent Obsession,” told me in a 2019 L.A. Times interview that it was no secret in Tinseltown that he was gay. “His agent [Henry Willson] decided that there had been enough about the rumors about Rock being gay.
The new Max/HBO documentary “Rock Hudson All That Heaven Allowed” examines his double life and the lengths that were taken to ensure his LGBTQ+ identity wasn’t revealed It wasn’t until 1985 did the truth make the headlines when he became the first famous Hollywood star to die of AIDs.
Barbara Rush, who appeared in three films with Hudson including 1954’s “Magnificent Obsession,” told me in a 2019 L.A. Times interview that it was no secret in Tinseltown that he was gay. “His agent [Henry Willson] decided that there had been enough about the rumors about Rock being gay.
- 6/30/2023
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Like a lot of all-American dreamboats, Roy Harold Fitzgerald (née Scherer Jr.) made his way to Hollywood after World War II, making good on the offer to look up a friend’s brother should he ever find himself in the greater Los Angeles area. The ex-Navy mechanic had matinee-idol looks, a cornfed wholesomeness, and a lean-beefcake physique; anyone who took one look at Fitzgerald would have immediately thought, “He ought to be in pictures.” The young man had been told that acting was “sissy stuff” when he was growing up in the Midwest,...
- 6/28/2023
- by David Fear
- Rollingstone.com
As we approach O-Day and the 95th Academy Awards on March 12, it’s always fun to go back and look at the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories and revel in some of the trivia and shockers that have gone down on the awards season’s biggest stage. This is the rare year when Meryl Streep isn’t in the running, as her 21 overall nominations in the acting categories are nearly double the number of her closest female pursuer, Katherine Hepburn, who has 12. However, Hepburn still holds the all-time Oscar record with four acting wins. Streep has a mere three.
Here are some other actress category factoids to chew on:
Should Cate Blanchett win Best Actress this year for her role in “Tar,” she would tie Streep, Ingrid Bergman and Frances McDormand for second place behind Hepburn among actresses with three triumphs apiece. All four of Hepburn’s wins...
Here are some other actress category factoids to chew on:
Should Cate Blanchett win Best Actress this year for her role in “Tar,” she would tie Streep, Ingrid Bergman and Frances McDormand for second place behind Hepburn among actresses with three triumphs apiece. All four of Hepburn’s wins...
- 2/28/2023
- by Ray Richmond
- Gold Derby
Click here to read the full article.
Sara Shane, who starred opposite Gordon Scott in Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure and appeared alongside Clark Gable in The King and Four Queens, has died. She was 94.
Shane died July 31 on the Gold Coast of Australia, her family announced.
Shane also starred with Kathleen Hughes and Marla English in the melodrama Three Bad Sisters (1956) and had the female lead in Affair in Havana (1957), featuring John Cassavetes and Raymond Burr.
With the Jane character absent in the John Guillermin-directed Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959), Shane stepped in to portray Angie Loring, an American model and pilot who meets up with the King of the Jungle in Africa. The film was Scott’s fourth as Tarzan.
And in The King and Four Queens (1956), helmed by Raoul Walsh, Shane played Oralie McDade, one of four young widows — Eleanor Parker, Jean Willes and Barbara Nichols are the others — who...
Sara Shane, who starred opposite Gordon Scott in Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure and appeared alongside Clark Gable in The King and Four Queens, has died. She was 94.
Shane died July 31 on the Gold Coast of Australia, her family announced.
Shane also starred with Kathleen Hughes and Marla English in the melodrama Three Bad Sisters (1956) and had the female lead in Affair in Havana (1957), featuring John Cassavetes and Raymond Burr.
With the Jane character absent in the John Guillermin-directed Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959), Shane stepped in to portray Angie Loring, an American model and pilot who meets up with the King of the Jungle in Africa. The film was Scott’s fourth as Tarzan.
And in The King and Four Queens (1956), helmed by Raoul Walsh, Shane played Oralie McDade, one of four young widows — Eleanor Parker, Jean Willes and Barbara Nichols are the others — who...
- 9/21/2022
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Ivana Miloš, Magnificently Obsessed (2022), monotype, nature print and gouache on paper, 33 x 24 cm.Learning To Fall In Love Again"People ask me why there are so many flowers in my films. Because these homes are tombs, mausoleums filled with the corpses of plants. The flowers have been sheared and are dead, and they fill the homes with a funeral air."—Douglas SirkNobody has ever used flowers in films quite like Douglas Sirk. The German-born director, with his eloquent style between melodramatic splendor and ironic camp, frames his bouquets and garden flowers so prominently, I can’t help myself wondering whether he is more interested in his romantic characters or the florets they like to surround themselves with. If I had to choose a smell related to his work (a game I love to play with any director), I’d go for the fragrance of lilacs. It’s a scent appearing sweet and enchanting,...
- 5/30/2022
- MUBI
When German director Douglas Sirk fled the Nazis in 1937 and planted his flag in Hollywood, he quickly became a reliable studio craftsman equally adept at war films, musicals (Slightly French), comedies and Westerns. Nevertheless, today his reputation rests almost entirely on the melodramas made in the last five years of his career: movies like Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, and The Tarnished Angels, whose heightened emotions justify Sirk’s most delirious flights of visual fancy. A brilliant smuggler, Sirk had it […]
The post Written on the Wind, The Devil Strikes at Night, and Dexter: New Blood: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Written on the Wind, The Devil Strikes at Night, and Dexter: New Blood: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 3/18/2022
- by Jim Hemphill
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
When German director Douglas Sirk fled the Nazis in 1937 and planted his flag in Hollywood, he quickly became a reliable studio craftsman equally adept at war films, musicals (Slightly French), comedies and Westerns. Nevertheless, today his reputation rests almost entirely on the melodramas made in the last five years of his career: movies like Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, and The Tarnished Angels, whose heightened emotions justify Sirk’s most delirious flights of visual fancy. A brilliant smuggler, Sirk had it […]
The post Written on the Wind, The Devil Strikes at Night, and Dexter: New Blood: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post Written on the Wind, The Devil Strikes at Night, and Dexter: New Blood: Jim Hemphill’s Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 3/18/2022
- by Jim Hemphill
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Watching Written on the Wind was my first introduction to the famous auteur of the melodramatic, Douglas Sirk. The 2K Blu-ray restoration is out now via the Criterion Collection. Sirk was a German filmmaker who fled the country when he was approached by the notorious Joseph Goebbels (Nazi war criminal and the German Minister of Propaganda) to make the films that Leni Riefenstahl ended up working on. There’s more to that story that’s both sad and tawdry; check it out if you have interest in this strange intersection with world history and cinema. Sirk became known for exploring the kind of daily ugly realities that bubbled beneath a bright, polished veneer, a gauntlet later picked up by fellow...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...
- 2/28/2022
- Screen Anarchy
The Locarno Film Festival recently announced a complete retro dedicated to Douglas Sirk, 35 years after the death of the director best known for melodramas made in Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s, such as “Magnificent Obsession” and “Written on the Wind,” that aims to provide a fresh critical interpretation of his work.
Sirk, who was born in Denmark and worked in Germany, which he left for Hollywood during Hitler’s rise to power, later returned to Europe and eventually retired in Switzerland.
Among his most prominent fans were late great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Bernardo Bertolucci.
For the first time, Sirk’s filmography will be reviewed in the light of unpublished documents made available by the director’s family through the Douglas Sirk Foundation and preserved since 2012 at the Cinémathèque Suisse, broadening the perspective on this major auteur.
Variety spoke to Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro...
Sirk, who was born in Denmark and worked in Germany, which he left for Hollywood during Hitler’s rise to power, later returned to Europe and eventually retired in Switzerland.
Among his most prominent fans were late great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Bernardo Bertolucci.
For the first time, Sirk’s filmography will be reviewed in the light of unpublished documents made available by the director’s family through the Douglas Sirk Foundation and preserved since 2012 at the Cinémathèque Suisse, broadening the perspective on this major auteur.
Variety spoke to Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro...
- 2/16/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
The Criterion Channel’s February Lineup Includes Melvin Van Peebles, Douglas Sirk, Laura Dern & More
Another month, another Criterion Channel lineup. In accordance with Black History Month their selections are especially refreshing: seven by Melvin Van Peebles, five from Kevin Jerome Everson, and Criterion editions of The Harder They Come and The Learning Tree.
Regarding individual features I’m quite happy to see Abderrahmane Sissako’s fantastic Bamako, last year’s big Sundance winner (and Kosovo’s Oscar entry) Hive, and the remarkably beautiful Portuguese feature The Metamorphosis of Birds. Add a three-film Laura Dern collection (including the recently canonized Smooth Talk) and Pasolini’s rarely shown documentary Love Meetings to make this a fine smorgasboard.
See the full list of February titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.
Alan & Naomi, Sterling Van Wagenen, 1992
All That Heaven Allows, Douglas Sirk, 1955
The Angel Levine, Ján Kadár, 1970
Babylon, Franco Rosso, 1980
Babymother, Julian Henriques, 1998
Bamako, Abderrahmane Sissako, 2006
Beat Street, Stan Lathan, 1984
Blacks Britannica, David Koff, 1978
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,...
Regarding individual features I’m quite happy to see Abderrahmane Sissako’s fantastic Bamako, last year’s big Sundance winner (and Kosovo’s Oscar entry) Hive, and the remarkably beautiful Portuguese feature The Metamorphosis of Birds. Add a three-film Laura Dern collection (including the recently canonized Smooth Talk) and Pasolini’s rarely shown documentary Love Meetings to make this a fine smorgasboard.
See the full list of February titles below and more on the Criterion Channel.
Alan & Naomi, Sterling Van Wagenen, 1992
All That Heaven Allows, Douglas Sirk, 1955
The Angel Levine, Ján Kadár, 1970
Babylon, Franco Rosso, 1980
Babymother, Julian Henriques, 1998
Bamako, Abderrahmane Sissako, 2006
Beat Street, Stan Lathan, 1984
Blacks Britannica, David Koff, 1978
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution,...
- 1/24/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
Celebration of German Hollywood legend promises a fresh perspective on his life and work.
Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival is set to explore the life and work of legendary German Hollywood director Douglas Sirk for the retrospective of its 75th edition, running August 3-13 this year.
The celebration of his work will coincide with the 35th anniversary of the death of the filmmaker whose classic melodramas include Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, There’s Always A Tomorrow, Written On The Wind, A Time To Love And Die and Imitation Of Life.
Born in Hamburg in 1897 as Hans Detlef Sierck,...
Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival is set to explore the life and work of legendary German Hollywood director Douglas Sirk for the retrospective of its 75th edition, running August 3-13 this year.
The celebration of his work will coincide with the 35th anniversary of the death of the filmmaker whose classic melodramas include Magnificent Obsession, All That Heaven Allows, There’s Always A Tomorrow, Written On The Wind, A Time To Love And Die and Imitation Of Life.
Born in Hamburg in 1897 as Hans Detlef Sierck,...
- 1/20/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Writer, director and actress Rebecca Miller discusses a few of her favorite films with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002)
The Ballad Of Jack And Rose (2005)
The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee (2009)
Maggie’s Plan (2015)
Explorers (1985)
The Way We Were (1973)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953)
Annie Hall (1977)
Repulsion (1965)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Knife In The Water (1962)
The Tenant (1976)
Cries and Whispers (1972)
Persona (1966)
The Magician (1958)
Hour Of The Wolf (1968)
The Virgin Spring (1960)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Shining (1980)
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Regarding Henry (1991)
Angela (1995)
Badlands (1973)
Casino (1995)
On The Waterfront (1954)
My Dinner with Andre (1981)
Jules and Jim (1962)
The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant (1972)
Wings Of Desire (1987)
The Killer Inside Me (1976)
The Killer Inside Me (2010)
Married To The Mob (1988)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Dune (1984)
Imitation Of Life (1934)
Imitation Of Life (1959)
Written On The Wind (1956)
Magnificent Obsession (1954)
All That Heaven Allows...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (2002)
The Ballad Of Jack And Rose (2005)
The Private Lives Of Pippa Lee (2009)
Maggie’s Plan (2015)
Explorers (1985)
The Way We Were (1973)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday (1953)
Annie Hall (1977)
Repulsion (1965)
Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Knife In The Water (1962)
The Tenant (1976)
Cries and Whispers (1972)
Persona (1966)
The Magician (1958)
Hour Of The Wolf (1968)
The Virgin Spring (1960)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Shining (1980)
La Dolce Vita (1960)
Regarding Henry (1991)
Angela (1995)
Badlands (1973)
Casino (1995)
On The Waterfront (1954)
My Dinner with Andre (1981)
Jules and Jim (1962)
The Bitter Tears Of Petra von Kant (1972)
Wings Of Desire (1987)
The Killer Inside Me (1976)
The Killer Inside Me (2010)
Married To The Mob (1988)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Dune (1984)
Imitation Of Life (1934)
Imitation Of Life (1959)
Written On The Wind (1956)
Magnificent Obsession (1954)
All That Heaven Allows...
- 5/11/2021
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
With the end of the most unconventional Academy Awards cycle in sight, the 93rd Oscars will be the culmination of more than a year of campaigning as the entertainment industry (and the world at large) was turned upside down by the pandemic. Along the way, Variety remained an essential stop for storytellers to discuss their films. Actors, writers, directors and icons alike shared intimate stories about creativity, determination and art. Check out our Oscar season cover stories below.
Viola Davis and Stacey Abrams on Oscar Season, Politics and Wielding Their Power as Black Women
As the intersection between entertainment and politics continues to meld, mutual success has landed Viola Davis and Stacey Abrams smack in the middle of Hollywood’s film awards conversation. Davis, one of the industry’s most celebrated actors, is being lauded for her performance in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and is considered a lead contender in...
Viola Davis and Stacey Abrams on Oscar Season, Politics and Wielding Their Power as Black Women
As the intersection between entertainment and politics continues to meld, mutual success has landed Viola Davis and Stacey Abrams smack in the middle of Hollywood’s film awards conversation. Davis, one of the industry’s most celebrated actors, is being lauded for her performance in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” and is considered a lead contender in...
- 4/21/2021
- by William Earl
- Variety Film + TV
This dubious mix of war combat and faith-based inspiration is as well directed as any of Douglas Sirk’s films, even if literally every scene seems to be saying the wrong thing. Combat pilot Col. Dean Hess helped found and publicize a major orphanage in South Korea, but as personified by a pious Rock Hudson his story comes off as a public relations gambit. A fine cast empowers the grandstanding bid for sainthood, where ‘Killer Hess’ channels his guilt into good works. The aerial footage is outstanding — Sirk really loved his airplanes.
Battle Hymn
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 108 min. / Street Date April 27, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Rock Hudson, Dan Duryea, Anna Kashfi, James Edwards, Martha Hyer, Philip Ahn, James Hong, Don DeFore, Jock Mahoney, Carl Benton Reid, Alan Hale Jr., Bartlett Robinson, Carleton Young, William Hudson.
Cinematography: Russell Metty
Film Editor: Russel F. Schoengarth
Art Directors: Alexander Golitzen,...
Battle Hymn
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 108 min. / Street Date April 27, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Rock Hudson, Dan Duryea, Anna Kashfi, James Edwards, Martha Hyer, Philip Ahn, James Hong, Don DeFore, Jock Mahoney, Carl Benton Reid, Alan Hale Jr., Bartlett Robinson, Carleton Young, William Hudson.
Cinematography: Russell Metty
Film Editor: Russel F. Schoengarth
Art Directors: Alexander Golitzen,...
- 3/16/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Good movies can get away with murder, while bad movies can’t get away with anything. Classic Hollywood melodramas — often soldered together by strained coincidences and Shakespearian twists of fate — depended on that eternal truth of high-key storytelling almost as much as they did on the celluloid required to shoot them. Douglas Sirk and George Stevens linger in the collective imagination because they knew how to swing for the fences without making audiences cry foul.
Director Kerem Sanga may not be working at quite the same level, but his stirring new film pays effective tribute to the likes of “Magnificent Obsession” and “A Place in the Sun” through its vivid self-belief that audiences will buy anything so long as they get enough bang for their buck.
For the majority of its running time, “The Violent Heart” appears to have more in common with the sullen indie romances of today than...
Director Kerem Sanga may not be working at quite the same level, but his stirring new film pays effective tribute to the likes of “Magnificent Obsession” and “A Place in the Sun” through its vivid self-belief that audiences will buy anything so long as they get enough bang for their buck.
For the majority of its running time, “The Violent Heart” appears to have more in common with the sullen indie romances of today than...
- 2/17/2021
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
The Chalk Garden
Blu ray
1964 / 106 min. / 1:85:1
Starring Deborah Kerr, Hayley Mills, John Mills
Cinematography by Arthur Ibbetson
Directed by Ronald Neame
Julie Andrews thrived in the role of governess—even when pitted against the Nazis in The Sound of Music she found plenty of time for sing-alongs—the same for Mary Poppins where the greatest threat was Dick Van Dyke’s British accent. But Deborah Kerr was never so lucky in the job; as the tutor assigned to a pair of possibly possessed tykes in The Innocents, she struggled as much with her own demons as the children’s. She still hadn’t learned her lesson when she signed on as companion to a troubled child in 1964’s The Chalk Garden. Kerr’s presence, along with Hayley Mills, Dame Edith Evans, and Hayley’s dad John, may seem inviting, but beware—the production is in the heavy hands...
Blu ray
1964 / 106 min. / 1:85:1
Starring Deborah Kerr, Hayley Mills, John Mills
Cinematography by Arthur Ibbetson
Directed by Ronald Neame
Julie Andrews thrived in the role of governess—even when pitted against the Nazis in The Sound of Music she found plenty of time for sing-alongs—the same for Mary Poppins where the greatest threat was Dick Van Dyke’s British accent. But Deborah Kerr was never so lucky in the job; as the tutor assigned to a pair of possibly possessed tykes in The Innocents, she struggled as much with her own demons as the children’s. She still hadn’t learned her lesson when she signed on as companion to a troubled child in 1964’s The Chalk Garden. Kerr’s presence, along with Hayley Mills, Dame Edith Evans, and Hayley’s dad John, may seem inviting, but beware—the production is in the heavy hands...
- 10/13/2020
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
The Oscar winning co-writer and producer of Brokeback Mountain takes us on a cinematic journey through her life, and talks about the pleasures of writing with Larry McMurtry and Joe Bonnano, and what Ken Kesey’s favorite movie was.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Good Night, And Good Luck (2005)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Red River (1948)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
Hud (1963)
Piranha (1978)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
They Drive By Night (1940)
Kings Row (1942)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
The Grapes of Wrath (1942)
Buffalo Bill (1944)
Laura (1944)
Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950)
The Day of the Triffids (1963)
Moby Dick (1956)
Village of the Damned (1960)
Written on the Wind (1956)
Magnificent Obsession (1954)
There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Brazil (1985)
Lost In La Mancha (2002)
The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys (1996)
The Fisher King (1991)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
A History of Violence...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Good Night, And Good Luck (2005)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Red River (1948)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
Hud (1963)
Piranha (1978)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
They Drive By Night (1940)
Kings Row (1942)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
The Grapes of Wrath (1942)
Buffalo Bill (1944)
Laura (1944)
Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950)
The Day of the Triffids (1963)
Moby Dick (1956)
Village of the Damned (1960)
Written on the Wind (1956)
Magnificent Obsession (1954)
There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Brazil (1985)
Lost In La Mancha (2002)
The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys (1996)
The Fisher King (1991)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
A History of Violence...
- 6/23/2020
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
Kino Lorber unleashes their second volume of forgotten film noir classics with Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II which includes three distinctly different titles from the 1950s, including Thunder on the Hill (1951), The Price of Fear (1956) and The Female Animal (1958), each containing their own notable nuggets among their cast members and directors.
The gem of the collection is Thunder on the Hill, a 1951 melodrama from Douglas Sirk, which by comparison’s standards is noir-light. The German émigré is of course most noted for a string of 1950s melodramas which would set the inspirational standards for a host of future international auteurs, with items such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Written on the Wind (1956), and his 1959 swan song Imitation of Life (the first and last of those being remakes of John M.…...
The gem of the collection is Thunder on the Hill, a 1951 melodrama from Douglas Sirk, which by comparison’s standards is noir-light. The German émigré is of course most noted for a string of 1950s melodramas which would set the inspirational standards for a host of future international auteurs, with items such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Written on the Wind (1956), and his 1959 swan song Imitation of Life (the first and last of those being remakes of John M.…...
- 6/2/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
The life and career of Rock Hudson gets a revisionist look in Ryan Murphy’s new limited series “Hollywood.” The Oscar-nominated actor made a name for himself as a hunky leading man in romantic comedies, melodramas and adventure flicks. While you’re binging Murphy’s newest show, let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Hudson spent years as a supporting player and leading man in B-pictures before shooting to stardom in Douglas Sirk‘s soap opera satire “Magnificent Obsession” (1954). Shot in glossy Technicolor with a sweeping musical score, the film was the first of many the actor made with the German-born auteur, including “All That Heaven Allows” (1955), “Written on the Wind” (1956), and “The Tarnished Angels” (1957). Trashed by critics and adored by audiences in their time, these works have found a second life as clever subversions of American values, influencing filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes.
Hudson spent years as a supporting player and leading man in B-pictures before shooting to stardom in Douglas Sirk‘s soap opera satire “Magnificent Obsession” (1954). Shot in glossy Technicolor with a sweeping musical score, the film was the first of many the actor made with the German-born auteur, including “All That Heaven Allows” (1955), “Written on the Wind” (1956), and “The Tarnished Angels” (1957). Trashed by critics and adored by audiences in their time, these works have found a second life as clever subversions of American values, influencing filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes.
- 5/5/2020
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
“It was extremely daunting to play someone who’s such an icon and such a hero,” admits Jake Picking about taking on the role of Rock Hudson in the Netflix limited series, “Hollywood.” The period drama from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan takes a revisionist look at Hollywood in the 1940s and features an all star cast including Emmy-winners Darren Criss, Jim Parsons, Holland Taylor, Dylan McDermott and Patti Lupone. In our exclusive video interview (watch above), Picking discusses the tragedy of Hudson and the show’s hopeful outlook.
SEEEmmys flashback: 21 years after winning for ‘The Practice,’ Holland Taylor could earn bookend trophy for ‘Hollywood’ [Watch]
Picking began his research with watching many of Hudson’s films such as “Pillow Talk” and “Magnificent Obsession.” As he began reading about Hudson, Picking tried to “delve into the personal relationships with his family,” something that surprised the actor. “I was just trying to...
SEEEmmys flashback: 21 years after winning for ‘The Practice,’ Holland Taylor could earn bookend trophy for ‘Hollywood’ [Watch]
Picking began his research with watching many of Hudson’s films such as “Pillow Talk” and “Magnificent Obsession.” As he began reading about Hudson, Picking tried to “delve into the personal relationships with his family,” something that surprised the actor. “I was just trying to...
- 5/4/2020
- by Tony Ruiz
- Gold Derby
This article contains spoilers for all seven episodes of Hollywood.
“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” That line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the last masterpiece from one of Golden Age Hollywood’s most revered directors, John Ford has become pretty legendary itself. Yet it seems Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan decided to do Ford one better in their version of Hollywood: write the fantasy.
Running across seven episodes on Netflix, Hollywood is far more a golden hued fairy tale than even Quentin Tarantino’s vision of 1969 Tinseltown in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, and yet the Murphy series is both inspired by and written around some very real people. A few of them were the biggest movie stars of their eras, and others were dreamers denied or discarded from the promise of a life in the spotlight. Here are some of their stories.
Rock Hudson...
“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” That line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, the last masterpiece from one of Golden Age Hollywood’s most revered directors, John Ford has become pretty legendary itself. Yet it seems Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan decided to do Ford one better in their version of Hollywood: write the fantasy.
Running across seven episodes on Netflix, Hollywood is far more a golden hued fairy tale than even Quentin Tarantino’s vision of 1969 Tinseltown in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, and yet the Murphy series is both inspired by and written around some very real people. A few of them were the biggest movie stars of their eras, and others were dreamers denied or discarded from the promise of a life in the spotlight. Here are some of their stories.
Rock Hudson...
- 5/1/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
“I’ll never let you go,” Gene Tierney’s Ellen Berent coos to her husband/victim in the 1945 melodrama film-noir Leave Her to Heaven. It’s a sentiment first uttered at an intimate juncture where such words still seem somewhat innocent from her increasingly toxic personality. Indeed, at least in cinematic terms, she’s a character who hasn’t let go, an exotically charged Technicolor femme fatale whose deadly beauty is merely one part of a dangerous trifecta, as equally bad as her bark and her bite.
Directed by John M. Stahl, who would pass away only five years later at the age of 63, with several of his previous titles (such as ‘women’s pictures’ Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life) remade in the 1950s by Douglas Sirk, it remains both Stahl and Tierney’s vibrant stranglehold on iconicity, the power of which can never be usurped.…
Continue reading.
Directed by John M. Stahl, who would pass away only five years later at the age of 63, with several of his previous titles (such as ‘women’s pictures’ Magnificent Obsession and Imitation of Life) remade in the 1950s by Douglas Sirk, it remains both Stahl and Tierney’s vibrant stranglehold on iconicity, the power of which can never be usurped.…
Continue reading.
- 4/7/2020
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
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
The German actress is the recipinet of Hamburg FilmFest’s presitgious Douglas Sirk prize.
German actress Nina Hoss is optimistic about more female directors getting feature films off the ground.
This makes sense when you consider her two most recent movies – Katrin Gebbe’s Pelican Blood and Ina Weisse’s The Audition – were both directed by women. Her upcoming drama, Schwesterlein, was co-directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.
But her “hope” things are improving for female directors is tempered by a question about getting their movies into festivals. “At festivals, the eye is on the decision-making,” says Hoss. “If...
German actress Nina Hoss is optimistic about more female directors getting feature films off the ground.
This makes sense when you consider her two most recent movies – Katrin Gebbe’s Pelican Blood and Ina Weisse’s The Audition – were both directed by women. Her upcoming drama, Schwesterlein, was co-directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.
But her “hope” things are improving for female directors is tempered by a question about getting their movies into festivals. “At festivals, the eye is on the decision-making,” says Hoss. “If...
- 9/27/2019
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
The German actress is the recipinet of Hamburg FilmFest’s presitgious Douglas Sirk prize.
German actress Nina Hoss is optimistic about more female directors getting feature films off the ground.
This makes sense when you consider her two most recent movies – Katrin Gebbe’s Pelican Blood and Ina Weisse’s The Audition – were both directed by women. Her upcoming drama, Schwesterlein, was co-directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.
But her “hope” things are improving for female directors is tempered by a question about getting their movies into festivals. “At festivals, the eye is on the decision-making,” says Hoss. “If...
German actress Nina Hoss is optimistic about more female directors getting feature films off the ground.
This makes sense when you consider her two most recent movies – Katrin Gebbe’s Pelican Blood and Ina Weisse’s The Audition – were both directed by women. Her upcoming drama, Schwesterlein, was co-directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.
But her “hope” things are improving for female directors is tempered by a question about getting their movies into festivals. “At festivals, the eye is on the decision-making,” says Hoss. “If...
- 9/26/2019
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
One of the strangest ‘uplifting moral tales’ of the 1950s was a huge hit, and launched Rock Hudson as a major star. Criterion’s deluxe presentation puts it on a par with world cinema, mawkish Kitsch-o-Rama and all. Comes with a restored copy of the slightly less head-spinning 1935 version, too. Co-stars Jane Wyman, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead, and Otto Kruger, whose moral guidance has something to do with ‘contacting one’s power source.’ Oh, it’s about recharging my iPhone!
Magnificent Obsession
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 457
1954 / Color / 2.00:1 anamorphic widescreen / 108 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 20, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead, Otto Kruger.
Cinematography: Russell Metty
Film Editor: Milton Carruth
Original Music: Frank Skinner
Written by Robert Blees from an original screenplay by Victor Heerman, Sarah Y. Mason, George O’Neil from the novel by Lloyd C. Douglas
Produced by Ross Hunter
Directed...
Magnificent Obsession
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 457
1954 / Color / 2.00:1 anamorphic widescreen / 108 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date August 20, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Jane Wyman, Rock Hudson, Barbara Rush, Agnes Moorehead, Otto Kruger.
Cinematography: Russell Metty
Film Editor: Milton Carruth
Original Music: Frank Skinner
Written by Robert Blees from an original screenplay by Victor Heerman, Sarah Y. Mason, George O’Neil from the novel by Lloyd C. Douglas
Produced by Ross Hunter
Directed...
- 9/3/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
While it sometimes comes across platitudinous and trite, one cannot stay in any conversation about arthouse film more than five minutes without hearing the phrase “auteur” tossed out. It has become a tad sterile, but, as Andrew Dudley pointed out in The Major Film Theories, it is a valid form of critical theory. So for an August Blu-ray round-up, the conversation will revolve around three classic Hollywood “auteurs” and films from each that often go overlooked. Kino Lorber released Billy Wilder’s critique of war-time Hollywood, A Foreign Affair; the Warner Archive presented John Ford’s passion project Wagon Master; and Criterion added Douglas Sirk’s first foray into widescreen Technicolor, Magnificent Obsession, to their illustrious collection. While each release is a fairly underrated title in their director’s larger filmography, a close watch unveils tricks and tropes that each respective filmmaker would later use in their more popular works.
- 8/29/2019
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
By Todd Garbarini
According to actor and film historian Douglas Dunning, his friend, legendary actress Barbara Rush, will be appearing in-person for a Q & A following a 60th anniversary screening of Vincent Sherman’s The Young Philadelphians. The 1959 film, which stars Paul Newman, Alexis Smith, Brian Keith, and Robert Vaughn among many others, will be screened at Laemmle’s Royal Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday, August 7th, 2019 at 7:00 pm. The film runs 136 minutes.
From the press release:
The Young Philadelphians
Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.
60th Anniversary Screening
Q & A with Actress Barbara Rush
Wednesday, August 7, at 7 Pm at the Royal Theatre
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a rediscovery of a juicy melodrama from 1959: The Young Philadelphians, which boasted a vibrant cast headed by Paul Newman and our special guest, Barbara Rush. As Leonard Maltin wrote in his review,...
According to actor and film historian Douglas Dunning, his friend, legendary actress Barbara Rush, will be appearing in-person for a Q & A following a 60th anniversary screening of Vincent Sherman’s The Young Philadelphians. The 1959 film, which stars Paul Newman, Alexis Smith, Brian Keith, and Robert Vaughn among many others, will be screened at Laemmle’s Royal Theatre in Los Angeles on Wednesday, August 7th, 2019 at 7:00 pm. The film runs 136 minutes.
From the press release:
The Young Philadelphians
Part of our Anniversary Classics series. For details, visit: laemmle.com/ac.
60th Anniversary Screening
Q & A with Actress Barbara Rush
Wednesday, August 7, at 7 Pm at the Royal Theatre
Laemmle Theatres and the Anniversary Classics Series present a rediscovery of a juicy melodrama from 1959: The Young Philadelphians, which boasted a vibrant cast headed by Paul Newman and our special guest, Barbara Rush. As Leonard Maltin wrote in his review,...
- 7/25/2019
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
There remains a dearth of unappreciated titles from German émigré Douglas Sirk’s lengthy filmography, which basically includes anything outside of his seminal Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s—films would influence the output of more contemporary international auteurs, from Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Todd Haynes. Sirk is now best renowned for a quartet of iconic titles, including Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Written on the Wind (1956) and his final masterpiece, Imitation of Life (1959), itself a remake of an earlier 1934 Claudette Colbert film directed by John M. Stahl. While some of his English language noirs of the 1940s have been recuperated, such as the Lucille Ball headlined Lured (1947), his German period remains neglected, and perhaps more surprisingly, several other 1950s works which starred his plethora of regular players.…...
- 3/26/2019
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Douglas Sirk took our heads off with this intense, thematically adult tale of love and obsession in a Depression-Era flying circus that’s the open air equivalent of the marathon dance craze — pilots die to thrill the crowd. The terrific-looking show provides career-best roles for some deserving actors: Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Jack Carson and Robert Middleton … but the newly-minted star Rock Hudson seems miscast.
The Tarnished Angels
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date March 26, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Jack Carson, Robert Middleton, Alan Reed, Alexander Lockwood, Chris Olsen, Robert J. Wilke, Troy Donahue.
Cinematography: Irving Glassberg
Film Editor: Russell F. Schoengarth
Original Music: Frank Skinner
Written by George Zuckerman from a novel by William Faulkner
Produced by Albert Zugsmith
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk made his name with big, glossy soap operas starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson,...
The Tarnished Angels
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1957 / B&W / 2:35 widescreen / 91 min. / Street Date March 26, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Rock Hudson, Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone, Jack Carson, Robert Middleton, Alan Reed, Alexander Lockwood, Chris Olsen, Robert J. Wilke, Troy Donahue.
Cinematography: Irving Glassberg
Film Editor: Russell F. Schoengarth
Original Music: Frank Skinner
Written by George Zuckerman from a novel by William Faulkner
Produced by Albert Zugsmith
Directed by Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk made his name with big, glossy soap operas starring Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson,...
- 3/12/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Universal Pictures, moving ahead with its Rock Hudson biopic “All That Heaven Allows,” is in talks with Richard Lagravenese to write the screenplay.
The studio bought the movie rights last year to Mark Griffin’s “All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson.” Greg Berlanti is attached to direct and will produce alongside Sarah Schechter for Berlanti Film Corp. and Sherry Marsh for Marsh Productions Entertainment.
Hudson was one of the leading movie stars of the 1950s and ’60s, with credits on “Magnificent Obsession,” “Pillow Talk,” “All That Heaven Allows,” “Send Me No Flowers,” and the James Dean western “Giant,” for which he received an Oscar nomination. Hudson successfully transitioned to television in the ’70s in the long-running series “McMillan & Wife” and “Dynasty.”
He remained discreet about his sexual orientation throughout his life and died of complications from AIDS in 1985.
Berlanti is a prolific television producer with credits on “Dawson’s Creek,...
The studio bought the movie rights last year to Mark Griffin’s “All That Heaven Allows: A Biography of Rock Hudson.” Greg Berlanti is attached to direct and will produce alongside Sarah Schechter for Berlanti Film Corp. and Sherry Marsh for Marsh Productions Entertainment.
Hudson was one of the leading movie stars of the 1950s and ’60s, with credits on “Magnificent Obsession,” “Pillow Talk,” “All That Heaven Allows,” “Send Me No Flowers,” and the James Dean western “Giant,” for which he received an Oscar nomination. Hudson successfully transitioned to television in the ’70s in the long-running series “McMillan & Wife” and “Dynasty.”
He remained discreet about his sexual orientation throughout his life and died of complications from AIDS in 1985.
Berlanti is a prolific television producer with credits on “Dawson’s Creek,...
- 3/6/2019
- by Dave McNary
- Variety Film + TV
Rock Hudson would’ve celebrated his 93rd birthday on November 17, 2018. The Oscar-nominated actor made a name for himself as a hunky leading man in romantic comedies, melodramas, and adventure flicks. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 12 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Hudson spent years as a supporting player and leading man in B-pictures before shooting to stardom in Douglas Sirk‘s soap opera satire “Magnificent Obsession” (1954). Shot in glossy Technicolor with a sweeping musical score, the film was the first of many the actor made with the German-born auteur, including “All That Heaven Allows” (1955), “Written on the Wind” (1956), and “The Tarnished Angels” (1957). Trashed by critics and adored by audiences in their time, these works have found a second life as clever subversions of American values, influencing filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes.
He received his sole Oscar nomination for...
Hudson spent years as a supporting player and leading man in B-pictures before shooting to stardom in Douglas Sirk‘s soap opera satire “Magnificent Obsession” (1954). Shot in glossy Technicolor with a sweeping musical score, the film was the first of many the actor made with the German-born auteur, including “All That Heaven Allows” (1955), “Written on the Wind” (1956), and “The Tarnished Angels” (1957). Trashed by critics and adored by audiences in their time, these works have found a second life as clever subversions of American values, influencing filmmakers such as Pedro Almodovar and Todd Haynes.
He received his sole Oscar nomination for...
- 11/17/2018
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Mubi's series, In the Realm of Melodrama: A Douglas Sirk Retrospective, is showing April 2 - June 20, 2018 in the United Kingdom and many other countries.The mythos of director Douglas Sirk—cold leftist emigré subverting hammy melodramatic conventions and sickly Hollywood homilies from within—has never been in alignment with Sirk himself, let alone the thirty-some movies he made for Ufa, Universal-International, Columbia, and the independent companies that belatedly, unceremoniously greeted him several years after his prewar arrival in the Us. In Sirk, who lived another 28 years after his health forced him to retire from cinema, there likely existed the same antinomies as are evident in his films. What makes him a fascinating figure is that it is possible to see the guy, in interviews and press materials for the movies, as the articulate iconoclast, the aloof and erudite artist who found himself at the helm of many of a...
- 5/5/2018
- MUBI
Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1955) is showing April 16 - May 16, 2018 in the many countries around the world as part of the series In the Realm of Melodrama: A Douglas Sirk Retrospective."The studio loved the title All That Heaven Allows. They thought it meant you could have everything you wanted. I meant it exactly the other way round. As far as I am concerned, heaven is stingy."—Douglas SirkUntil very recently, Douglas Sirk remained in a kind of critical limbo. In the last couple of years some valuable and novel material has appeared, covering many aspects of his work. The most important element so far left unstudied is Sirk’s relationship to the melodrama, the genre he most used during both his German period (1935-37) in feature films, and in his second American period, at Universal (1950-58).Two reasons, certainly, have contributed to the neglect of Sirk. One...
- 5/3/2018
- MUBI
Douglas Sirk at Universal-International is a two-part overview by Blake Lucas. Part 2 can be found here. Mubi's series, In the Realm of Melodrama: A Douglas Sirk Retrospective, is showing April 2 - June 20, 2018 in the United Kingdom and many other countries.It is often felt that in an ideal world, film directors—or artists of any kind—might carve out their own bodies of work, in freedom, without any interference, beholden to nothing but a personal vision that they labor to express. In movies, it has often not worked that way, and in Hollywood in the years of the studio system especially, directors worked within conditions. One of these was the studio itself, generally conceded to have its own style, and so many other defining aspects—genre preferences, contract players and craftsmen, contract producers with power of their own. But a fair number of directors now widely considered among the...
- 4/9/2018
- MUBI
Douglas Sirk at Universal-International is a two-part overview by Blake Lucas. Part 1 can be found here. Mubi's series, In the Realm of Melodrama: A Douglas Sirk Retrospective, is showing April 2 - June 20, 2018 in the United Kingdom and many other countries.Is a great director like Douglas Sirk apart from the world he is in, a subversive artist in social critique as well as in his engagement with studio aesthetics and intentions? In truth, that argument is both superficial in its view of filmmaking and patronizing toward audiences. The idea that anyone would actually set out to make a complacent film comfortably validating everything about its present world really doesn’t even make sense. Who would be engaged by seeing it, for one thing? I was around in the 1950s, and whatever repressions or suppressions there were, I can assure that people had plenty of tension, melancholy, alienation and even despair living with them,...
- 4/9/2018
- MUBI
Rock Hudson and Donna Reed star in a kidnapping-vengeance-pursuit western filmed in large part in gorgeous Sedona, Arizona, in 3-D and (originally) Technicolor. It’s another 3-D treasure from the 1950s boom years. The trailer is in 3-D too.
Gun Fury 3-D
3-D Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1953 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 82 min. / Street Date September 19, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95
Starring: Rock Hudson, Donna Reed, Phil Carey, Roberta Haynes, Leo Gordon, Lee Marvin, Neville Brand.
Cinematography: Lester WhiteMusical Director (Stock Music): Mischa Bakaleinikoff
Written by Irving Wallace, Roy Huggins
Produced by Lewis Rachmil
Directed by Raoul Walsh
I have a new theory for why the 1950s 3-D craze only lasted about 2.5 years: they couldn’t find any more one-eyed directors to make them.
Gun Fury arrived at the end of 1953, in the thick of what would be called the ‘fad’ of 3-D. Columbia Pictures jumped into ‘depth pictures’ as if it were a gimmick,...
Gun Fury 3-D
3-D Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1953 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 82 min. / Street Date September 19, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95
Starring: Rock Hudson, Donna Reed, Phil Carey, Roberta Haynes, Leo Gordon, Lee Marvin, Neville Brand.
Cinematography: Lester WhiteMusical Director (Stock Music): Mischa Bakaleinikoff
Written by Irving Wallace, Roy Huggins
Produced by Lewis Rachmil
Directed by Raoul Walsh
I have a new theory for why the 1950s 3-D craze only lasted about 2.5 years: they couldn’t find any more one-eyed directors to make them.
Gun Fury arrived at the end of 1953, in the thick of what would be called the ‘fad’ of 3-D. Columbia Pictures jumped into ‘depth pictures’ as if it were a gimmick,...
- 9/26/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Submarine movie evening: Underwater war waged in TCM's Memorial Day films In the U.S., Turner Classic Movies has gone all red, white, and blue this 2017 Memorial Day weekend, presenting a few dozen Hollywood movies set during some of the numerous wars in which the U.S. has been involved around the globe during the last century or so. On Memorial Day proper, TCM is offering a submarine movie evening. More on that further below. But first it's good to remember that although war has, to put it mildly, serious consequences for all involved, it can be particularly brutal on civilians – whether male or female; young or old; saintly or devilish; no matter the nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other label used in order to, figuratively or literally, split apart human beings. Just this past Sunday, the Pentagon chief announced that civilian deaths should be anticipated as “a...
- 5/30/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The European filmmaker directed a series of deceptively complex melodramas in the 1950s.“This is the dialectic — there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art” — Douglas Sirk
Douglas Sirk was born in Germany in 1900, and began his career in the early 1920s working in theater. In 1922, he directed his first production — an adaptation of Hermann Bossdorf’s Stationmaster Death, and from then on he became one of the most respected theater directors in Weimar Germany. Then, in 1934, he took a job as a film director at Ufa, the biggest studio in Germany at the time.
In 1941, Sirk left Germany and began working as a director in Hollywood. His early films, such as the WWII drama Hitler’s Madman (1942) have largely been forgotten. These early films varied in genre — he directed war films (Mystery Submarine), historical dramas (A Scandal in Paris), film...
Douglas Sirk was born in Germany in 1900, and began his career in the early 1920s working in theater. In 1922, he directed his first production — an adaptation of Hermann Bossdorf’s Stationmaster Death, and from then on he became one of the most respected theater directors in Weimar Germany. Then, in 1934, he took a job as a film director at Ufa, the biggest studio in Germany at the time.
In 1941, Sirk left Germany and began working as a director in Hollywood. His early films, such as the WWII drama Hitler’s Madman (1942) have largely been forgotten. These early films varied in genre — he directed war films (Mystery Submarine), historical dramas (A Scandal in Paris), film...
- 4/5/2017
- by Angela Morrison
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
There are two major sides to the film noir coin, as I see it – the psychological and the practical. Now, the practical noir is fairly straightforward; maybe a detective has to solve a crime, or someone gets themselves in over their head with some scheme gone wrong. There’s a problem to be solved, and the protagonist either overcomes or becomes consumed by it. Double Indemnity, Where the Sidewalk Ends, Night and the City, The Killing, and The Maltese Falcon fit into this section rather well. The psychological noir uses genre tropes to investigate someone’s soul, usually stemming from their nearness to sin and death. Scarlet Street, Laura, Female on the Beach, The Chase, Sunset Boulevard, and Kiss Me Deadly fit the bill. Obviously films in each use elements of the other to shade the characters or move the story along, but the texture and flavor is notably distinct,...
- 7/19/2016
- by Scott Nye
- CriterionCast
Terence Davies’ films deal with repressed desire, longing, and emotional pain that springs from the depths of his characters’ souls, and yet, in person, the great British auteur is undoubtedly the funniest person in the room. He is all smiles and jokes as we sit down to discuss his glorious Sunset Song, entering a limited release this week, and a retrospective of his work at the Museum of the Moving Image. It makes sense that he is joyful rather than somber, because it makes one feel a sort of relief knowing that levity was welcomed between takes on haunting dramas such as Distant Voices, Still Lives and The Deep Blue Sea. In Sunset Song, Davies takes on the first part of a trilogy written by Lewis Grassic Gibbons, in which we meet farm girl Chris Guthrie (a luminous Agyness Deyn) as she is forced to take on the reins of her life in pre-wwi Scotland.
- 5/12/2016
- by Jose Solís
- The Film Stage
After realizing that we'd never featured an Akira Kurosawa on Hit Me With Your Best Shot, we obviously had to. Ran (1985) was tempting but it gets a lot of attention already. So we opted to watch his other Shakespeare inspired masterpiece, Throne of Blood (1957) which is still the best Macbeth movie even if its more Macbeth-inspired than traditionally adapted.
If you've never seen it, give it a shot. It's gorgeous and haunting and unlike most Shakespeare films grippingly compact at only 110 minutes.
Hit Me With Your Best Shot(s)
Throne of Blood (1957)
Director: Akira Kurosawa; Cinematographer: Asakazu Nakai
Click on any of the 11 images to be taken to its accompanying article
Throne of Blood teaches us how to watch it.
-Antagony & Ecstasy
The minute we see Isuzu Yamada as Lady Asaji in this cold spare room, we know exactly where things will go...
-Scopophiliac at the Cinema
One of my...
If you've never seen it, give it a shot. It's gorgeous and haunting and unlike most Shakespeare films grippingly compact at only 110 minutes.
Hit Me With Your Best Shot(s)
Throne of Blood (1957)
Director: Akira Kurosawa; Cinematographer: Asakazu Nakai
Click on any of the 11 images to be taken to its accompanying article
Throne of Blood teaches us how to watch it.
-Antagony & Ecstasy
The minute we see Isuzu Yamada as Lady Asaji in this cold spare room, we know exactly where things will go...
-Scopophiliac at the Cinema
One of my...
- 4/27/2016
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
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