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There have been many stories about Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean bonding during the production of George Stevens’ epic “Giant” in Marfa, Texas, in 1955. Though not exactly a “Harold & Maude” scenario, the 24-year-old Dean also developed a strong friendship with Edna Ferber, the diminutive Pulitzer Prize-winning author of such classic novels as “So Big,” “Showboat,” “Cimarron,” and “Giant,” who turned 70 that summer in Marfa. Ferber, who never married, was seen sitting on the back of Dean’s motorcycle as they would take rides during breaks. And she even tried her hand at twirling the lasso.

Author Julie Gilbert, Ferber’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated grand nice and biographer (“Ferber: The Biography of Edna Ferber and Her Circle”), doesn’t think the two were in love. “He was very young,” said Gilbert, who writes about her great aunt and the making of the Oscar-winning film in her latest book “Giant Love” set for a Dec.

Westerns have been a staple of the cinema world since the early days of motion pictures. For many decades, audiences have loved tuning in to see the timeless stories of the pioneers of the American West. These films may cover a wide range of topics within the genre, but they often feature heroic cowboys, daring outlaws, and plenty of beautiful scenery. However, though beloved by many, the Western genre is not without its faults.

Among the most prominent of these faults is the lack of female representation. The vast majority of Westerns are dominated by hypermasculine lead characters, with women often having to take the back seat, if they are even included at all. Of course, this is not always the case. There are some Westerns (including both classic films and modern hits) that are led by female characters. Their courageous, powerful performances prove that women deserve their rightful spot in the Western genre.

These are always the worse articles to write, and by far my least favorite to do.

James Earl Jones has passed away at the age of 93. According to Deadline, the actor passed away Monday morning in his home.

There was a time when people didn't know of Jones' contribution to a galaxy far, far away. He wasn't originally credited as the voice of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars in 1977. In fact, he had asked not to be credited, explaining in a 2008 interview:

When Linda Blair did the girl in The Exorcist, they hired Mercedes McCambridge to do the voice of the devil coming out of her. And there was controversy as to whether Mercedes should get credit. I was one who thought no, she was just special effects. So when it came to Darth Vader, I said, no, I'm just special effects. But it became so identified that by the third one,...

Very sad news to report today as it has been confirmed that James Earl Jones has died at the age of 93. The actor is best known for providing the iconic voice of Darth Vader throughout the Star Wars franchise, but that’s really only scratching the surface of his incredible legacy. A huge loss.

For an actor known for his deep, commanding voice, it’s remarkable that he struggled with speaking at an early age. When he was just five years old, he was sent to live with his grandparents in Michigan. The experience was so traumatic that he developed a severe stutter that led to him refusing to speak. “I was a stutterer. I couldn’t talk,” Jones explained. “So my first year of school was my first mute year, and then those mute years continued until I got to high school.” The actor credited his English teacher, Donald Crouch,...

James Earl Jones, the Egot-winning actor known for voicing Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise for four decades, has died at age 93.

Jones passed away at his home in Dutchess County, New York, on Monday, September 9th, according to the actor’s representatives.

The son of actor and boxer Robert Earl Jones, James Earl Jones was born in Arkabutla, Mississippi on January 17th, 1931. His father left the family shortly after his birth, and Jones was raised by his maternal grandparents in Michigan from the age of five. Jones found the transition to living with his grandparents so traumatic that he developed a stutter and spent his time in school mute. He credited his high school English teacher, Donald Crouch, for helping him with his stutter; Crouch discovered Jones had a talent for poetry, and encouraged him to read his work aloud in class.

After graduating high school in 1949, Jones attended the University of Michigan,...

Quick Links A Closer Look at McCambridge's Relationship with Her Son The Mass Murder of McCambridge's Family: A Tale of Tragedy John's Final Letter

The history of cinema has been graced by some of the most gifted and dedicated actors, from pioneering stars like Charlie Chaplin to modern talents like Joaquin Phoenix, acclaimed for his portrayal of The Joker. However, despite their captivating on-screen performances, many of these actors have often suffered dire consequences stemming from their own actions.

One such actor, despite achieving so much in her professional life, failed to care for her family, resulting in a horrific killing spree that history will never forget. Mercedes McCambridge, born in 1916, was an acclaimed radio, film, and television actress who won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in All the King's Men (1949). In addition to her notable acting roles, such as Emma Small in Johnny Guitar and Luz Benedict in Giant,...

Barbra Fuller, who starred as the daughter Claudia on the long-running radio soap opera One Man’s Family, all while appearing in films for Republic Pictures and such TV shows as Adventures of Superman, has died. She was 102.

Fuller, who lived in the Los Angeles area, died Wednesday, her godson J.P. Sloane announced.

On the San Francisco-set One Man’s Family, created by Carlton E. Morse, Fuller played one of the Barbour family’s five kids from 1945 until the NBC Radio drama completed its 27-year run in 1959. Her character, a twin with kids of her own, was gone from the program for a couple of years before she came aboard.

“It was a fun part. Claudia was a good girl with interesting qualities,” she said in Michael G. Fitzgerald and Boyd Magers’ 2006 book, Ladies of the Western.

In 1949, Fuller signed with Republic and was under contract with the B-picture studio for a year,...

At the inaugural Academy Awards in 1929, native Pennsylvanian Janet Gaynor made history as the first American-born performer to win an Oscar by taking the Best Actress prize for her body of work in “7th Heaven,” “Street Angel,” and “Sunrise.” Over the subsequent 95 years, 215 more thespians originating from the United States won the academy’s favor, meaning the country has now produced 68.1% of all individual acting Oscar recipients. Considering the last decade alone, the rate of such winners is even higher, at 70.3%.

At this point, 96.8% of American-born acting Oscar victors have hailed from one of 34 actual states. Of those constituting the remainder, three originated from the federal District of Columbia, while four were born in the territory of Puerto Rico. New York (home to 49 winners) is the most common birth state among the entire group, followed by California (34), Illinois (13), Massachusetts (11), and Pennsylvania (11).

Bearing in mind our specific birthplace focus, the 16 states...

Just 30 minutes after final voting for the Screen Actors Guild Awards wrapped up, I made a last-minute switch in my best actress prediction — from Lily Gladstone in “Killers of the Flower Moon” to Emma Stone in “Poor Things.” Let this be a lesson: Second-guessing yourself is seldom a good idea.

Lily Gladstone made history as the first Native American and Indigenous person to clinch an individual SAG Award for her portrayal of Mollie Burkhart, an Osage woman, in Martin Scorsese’s gripping crime saga. With a lead actress (drama) Golden Globe and a SAG Award now under her belt, Gladstone’s award-season momentum continues to be formidable. Historically, only seven performers have failed to win the Oscar after winning the unique combination of Globe and SAG:

1995: Lauren Bacall (“The Mirror Has Two Faces”) lost to Juliette Binoche 2001: Russell Crowe (“A Beautiful Mind”) lost to Denzel Washington (“Training Day...

Director William Friedkin and producer/screenwriter William Peter Blatty enjoyed having fun with Warner Bros. executives during the production of “The Exorcist.” The Oscar-winning horror masterpiece celebrates its 50th anniversary Dec. 26 “We always put them on,” Friedkin told me in a 2018 L.A. Times interview “They were always concerned that we were both crazy and would eventually implode the movie. So, we staged blowups in front of them, where it looked like we were fiercely arguing over the most minute, meaningless details.”

“The Exorcist” was shot in Iraq, New York City and Georgetown in Washington, D.C. But Warners wanted the film to be made at the studio in Burbank and to “shoot day for night, so we didn’t get into night shooting,” said Friedkin, who died this past August at 87.”I I said ‘no’ to everything, I said things like ‘Why shoot day for night? Why don’t we...

As we're still at the beginning of the spooky season, we're still celebrating how impactful the horror genre is. One movie that transformed the horror genre entirely was none other than The Exorcist. While it has been 50 years since it was released, this movie’s impact can still be witnessed in horror films to date. Many people from that time claim that it was so frightening that theaters had paramedic assistance for their audience.

To make matters even more bone-chilling, it was based on an actual story. This book-turned-movie goes down in history to be one of the most terrifying movies to exist. However, the most interesting part of The Exorcist is that the crew and cast expressed that they often felt darkness during the set, which led to unexplainable, and some creepy incidents. Here are some of the insights on 10 behind-the-scenes facts that haunted the cast of The Exorcist.

With the recent passing of the great William Friedkin and the release of The Exorcist: Believer, 'tis the season once again to revel in what an unholy miracle The Exorcist is. Still one of the scariest films ever made that hasn't aged a day, it's a masterpiece of atmosphere, weaving bone-crunching technique with sophisticated domestic drama that makes you actually care about the people being terrorized. One aspect of the film that doesn't get highlighted enough is the devil itself, Pazuzu. While Linda Blair is, obviously, incredible as Regan and got an Oscar nomination, it's widely known now that her possessed voice is actually Mercedes McCambridge. But it wasn't as widely known when the film was released, and the story of why that is got messier than the pea soup vomit Regan retched out.

Whatever one wants to say about John Boorman’s absolutely maniacal and much-maligned Exorcist II: The Heretic, it certainly isn’t unimaginative. By contrast, David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer very much is. The film, written by Green and Peter Sattler, is a mélange of tired normcore horror tropes indistinguishable from any film in the Conjuring universe. It even fails to address the series’s most basic themes in any truly meaningful way beyond a conviction-less “can’t we all just get along” subtext regarding the divide between America’s secular population and religious conservatives.

The film’s cold open in Haiti hints at a unique, voodoo-tinged—that is, non-Catholic—take on the franchise’s fascination with crisis of faith. But Haiti turns out to just be a random place to witness Victor Fielding (Leslie Odom Jr.) struggling to make a very difficult choice between saving his injured wife or his unborn daughter,...

In anticipation of the highly anticipated horror film, The Exorcist: Believer, which is set to arrive soon, Fathom Events is treating fans to a special event, as part of their annual Fright Fest lineup.

The iconic 1973 horror classic, The Exorcist is making its way back to the big screen, allowing audiences to relive the terror in its highest quality to date, thanks to its arrival on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc, later this month. The screening will play additional footage and an alternate ending, via the extended director's cut from William Friedkin, who sadly passed away last month.

Related: How The Exorcist: Believer Will Tie in With the Original Movie

The Exorcist stands as the highest-rated horror film on IMDb. Linda Blair portrays Regan MacNeil, a young girl whose disturbing behavior spirals into demonic possession. Max Von Sydow and Jason Miller appear as the two priests performing the exorcism...

God, or at least the idea of a god, is an omniscient presence that’s also suspiciously absent in William Friedkin’s The Exorcist. The faith is kept alive in the film’s perpetual use of religious iconography, implying a worldly sense of spiritual belief, but the way in which the various priests conduct their pietism, most exemplified by Jason Miller’s brooding church psychologist Damien Karras, practically render their convictions as moot. At one point, Karras openly doubts his career choice after seeing firsthand the anxieties of his patients.

Of course, the devil is another story. It manifests itself within poor 12-year-old Regan McNeil (Linda Blair), turning a figure of pure innocence into a bile- and vulgarity-spewing demon who goes unnoticed by divine intervention. Friedkin and William Peter Blatty, adapting his own bestselling novel, forgo the easy psychological introspection that’s found in a crisis of faith, instead externalizing...

While you wait for The Exorcist: Believer, in theaters on October 6, Fathom Events wants you to relive the terror of the original horror classic on the biggest screen you can find.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of The Exorcist and Fathom Events is bringing it back to theaters nationwide as part of Fathom’s annual Fright Fest lineup.

The recent passing of legendary director William Friedkin has cast a renewed spotlight on the film, which hits theaters on Sunday, October 1 at 4pm and 7pm local time, and Wednesday, October 4 at 7pm local time.

The limited engagement puts the spotlight on William Friedkin’s Extended Director’s Cut, sourced from the Original 1973 Cut Camera Negative with newly restored and remastered picture and sound in stunning 4k—removing dirt, scratches, and other defects, while maintaining the film’s original creative integrity.

Leading into each screening is an all-new exclusive tribute to...

Director David Gordon Green opens up about creating the demon voice in The Exorcist: Believer, revealing that multiple actors auditioned for the role. Green aims to make "radical choices" in the film, deviating from fan service and avoiding the inclusion of a heroic figure. The upcoming film features a new demon, not Pazuzu, and is a direct sequel to the original Exorcist, with Ellen Burstyn reprising her role.

Director David Gordon Green recently opened up about the process of creating the demon voice used in his upcoming horror film, The Exorcist: Believer. During an interview with Empire Magazine (via Syfy), the director confirmed that multiple actors auditioned for the role. Green's The Exorcist: Believer is a revival sequel that was written by Green and Peter Sattler. The upcoming film follows Angela (played by Lidya Jewett) and Katherine (played by Olivia Marcum), friends who both begin to show signs of a disturbing demon possession.

The Exorcist: Believer director David Gordon Green teased the process of creating the voice of the upcoming horror sequel’s demon.

Speaking with Empire, Green confirmed that they were auditioning multiple actors to voice the demon of The Exorcist: Believer. "We're in the demon-voice part of the process now, and we're exploring various processes," Green said. "The other day I brought five very, very different people into a room, with a microphone and asked them to say things. Maybe I want it to be each of these voices and more. Maybe I want the demon to be a lot of things." In the original 1973 movie, the demon was voiced by two actors, Ron Faber (Navy SEALs) and Oscar winner Mercedes McCambridge (All the King’s Men).

Related: The Exorcist: Believer Doubles Down on Demonic Possession With New Trailer

Before reviving The Exorcist franchise, Green first partnered with Blumhouse...

Ron Faber, an Obie Award-winning stage actor whose widest fame came from a brief but crucial scene in the 1973 horror classic The Exorcist, died March 26 of lung cancer. He was 90.

His death was only recently announced. In a Facebook post, Faber’s longtime friend and colleague, the actor David Patrick Kelly, remembered him as a “great artist and gentleman with a wonderful voice and laugh.”

Faber had just won an Obie Award for his performance in the 1972 Off Broadway play And They Put Handcuffs on Flowers when he was spotted by director William Friedkin for the small role of Chuck in The Exorcist.

In the film, Faber’s Chuck is the assistant director of Crash Course, the movie-within-the-movie in which Ellen Burstyn’s actor character Chris MacNeil stars. In a pivotal scene, a stunned Chuck arrives at MacNeil’s Georgetown home to deliver the news that Crash Course director Burke...

Spinning heads, seared flesh, holy incantations in Latin: could it be… Satan? We have reached the 50th anniversary of The Exorcist, William Friedkin’s blockbusting, genre-transforming horror landmark that has been parodied, sequelized (on multiple occasions), and firmly embedded in the collective cultural consciousness. And now along comes The Pope’s Exorcist, a passable little supernatural horror spectacle starring a big, bearded Russell Crowe trying on an Italian accent as Father Gabriele Amorth, apparently a real-life exorcist of some renown.

Yes, there are real-life exorcists, and this was actually key to...

Following six consecutive instances of Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress Oscar-winning performances being divided by a screen time gap of at least 20 minutes, last year’s triumphant duo were only separated by six minutes and 40 seconds. This minimal difference was largely caused by the fact that the winning male and female turns were the shortest and longest ones in their respective categories since 2017. Furthermore, both awards went to performances that were widely accepted as genuinely supporting, which has become rare on the male side but remains the female norm.

In 2022, Ariana DeBose took home the Best Supporting Actress trophy for her work in “West Side Story,” which amounts to a screen time total of 28 minutes and 54 seconds, or 18.49% of the film. This made her the second woman to win this exact award for playing Anita in a screen adaptation of the classic musical after Rita Moreno, who appears...

Paul Mason, the screenwriter, producer and studio executive who penned episodes of Ben Casey, Ironside and CHiPs, created The Bold Ones: The New Doctors with Steven Bochco and served as president of Viacom Pictures, has died. He was 92.

Mason died Dec. 26 at his home in West Hills, his son Barry Jacobs announced.

At the start of his six-decade career, Mason co-wrote Angel Baby (1961), a drama that starred George Hamilton, Mercedes McCambridge, Joan Blondell and, in his film debut, Burt Reynolds.

Also for the big screen, Mason’s produced Nickel & Dime (1992) and executive produced The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck (1988), Seven Hours to Judgment (1988), I, Madman (1989), Where Sleeping Dogs Lie (1991), The Amityville Horror (2005), Hachi: A Dog’s Tale (2009), A Common Man (2013), The House at the End of the Drive (2014) and Amityville: The Awakening (2017).

He, Bochco and Richard Landau created NBC’s The Bold Ones: The New Doctors, which ran from 1969-73 and starred E.G. Marshall,...

It took a little longer than we thought after her initial surge in October, but Jamie Lee Curtis has finally infiltrated the top five in the Best Supporting Actress Oscar odds. The “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star has jumped from sixth to third place, even leapfrogging over her own co-star Stephanie Hsu.

Curtis’ rise isn’t surprising after she earned Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards nominations this week and is one of three people — the others being Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”) and Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) — who was shortlisted at both in the still very messy but very fun supporting actress race. The Golden Globe category was rounded out by Dolly de Leon (“Triangle of Sadness”) and Carey Mulligan (“She Said”), while Critics Choice’s six-person field also included Hsu, Jessie Buckley (“Women Talking”) and Janelle Monáe (“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”).

See...

Ever since “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” (2017) ended a 26-year drought, double Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominees from one film have been all the rage. And this season, the category could very well tread new territory with a double set of double nominees.

“The Fabelmans” and “The Banshees of Inisherin” are both vying to field two supporting actor nominees — Paul Dano and Judd Hirsch for the former, and Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan for the latter. Three of them are in the current top five in the odds and all four are in the top six. Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”) leads the way in first place, followed by Gleeson, Ben Whishaw (“Women Talking”), Dano, Hirsch and Keoghan.

Should all four get in, this would be the second time in Oscar history in which two films score double nominations in the same acting category and the first time in supporting actor.

If it’s Tuesday, this must be Election Day in a year when democracy itself is on the ballot. It’s a moment that Jefferson Smith – the naive but idealistic young senator played by Jimmy Stewart – could have appreciated in the Oscar-winning 1939 classic “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” from director Frank Capra. It tops the list of 25 movies that this Gold Derby editor singles out as exemplary staples of the political genre over the past 80-plus years. Most originated on the big screen, but a few were made-for-tv.

Why bring this to you today? Think of it as a distraction tactic at a time when so many of us are overloaded with anxiety over an especially consequential election that will determine control of Congress. The list features biopics, satires, historical dramas and journalism hybrid thrillers as well as fictitious allegories.

SEE15 Best American Political Films

Watch any of these tonight...

While he may not be as well-known today as Alfred Hitchcock or Billy Wilder, director Nicholas Ray had a fantastic run during the '50s working across a range of genres from film noir ("In a Lonely Place") to war saga ("Flying Leathernecks"), coming-of-age teen angst ("Rebel Without a Cause") to westerns, the strangest of which is undoubtedly "Johnny Guitar." Shot in gaudy Trucolor, it stands apart from other studio westerns of the day, maybe because it isn't really a western at all -- It's more like a twisted gothic psychodrama that just happens to be set in the Old West.

Although the title refers to Sterling Hayden's nonchalant protagonist, Mr. Guitar takes a back seat for much of the movie, just one of many of Ray's subversive twists to the standard western formula. Instead, the main focus is the bitter rivalry between Vienna (Joan Crawford), a steely saloon keeper,...

Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" is an elegy for a genre that has died countless deaths. The Western has passed in and out of favor many times since the advent of the motion picture, and is currently ticking anew thanks to Taylor Sheridan's "Yellowstone" franchise. But as the 1970s approached, there was a realization that the stars and filmmakers who'd transformed the oater into the most American of movie genres were on their way out. John Ford had been driven into retirement. John Wayne was dying. Anthony Mann was dead. A glorious, yet complicated era was drawing to a close.

This was the perfect moment for Sergio Leone to go once more to the Western well with a mythic send-off to the films on which he'd built his international reputation. But his scope wasn't limited to "A Fistful of Dollars," "For a Few Dollars More...

Director Ron Underwood discusses a few of his favorite westerns with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Pearl Harbor (2001)

Mighty Joe Young (1998)

Speechless (1994)

Heart and Souls (1993)

Stealing Sinatra (2003)

City Slickers (1991)

Tremors (1990) – Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Tourist Trap (1979) – David DeCoteau’s trailer commentary

The Seduction (1982)

Puppet Master (1989)

The Boondock Saints (1999)

Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952)

Capricorn One (1977) – Larry Karaszewski’s trailer commentary

Panic In The Streets (1950) – John Landis’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Back When We Were Grownups (2004)

Tremors: A Cold Day in Hell (2018)

Tremors: Shrieker Island (2020)

The Howling (1981) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Randy Fuller’s wine pairing

Red River (1948) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary

Johnny Guitar (1954) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

The Searchers (1956)

Seven Samurai (1954) – Brian Trenchard-Smith’s trailer commentary

The Magnificent Seven (1960) – Jesus Treviño’s trailer commentary

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

Westworld...

Best Supporting Actress has always been the Oscar acting category that’s kindest to having multiple nominees from the same film. There have been 35 instances of one film scoring more than one bid in the category, compared to 20 in Best Supporting Actor, 12 in Best Actor and just five in Best Actress. The category is also the only one of the four that has ever featured two pairs of double bids in the same year — and that could just happen again this year.

A long 72 years ago, in the 1949-50 race, the Oscars nominated four women from two films: Ethel Barrymore and Ethel Waters from “Pinky,” and Celeste Holm and Elsa Lanchester from “Come to the Stable.” The fifth nominee was “All the King’s Men” star Mercedes McCambridge, who won the supporting actress award and whom you could argue benefited from the double vote-split (“All the King’s Men” also won Best...

The recent Top 5 on our picks of the Most Extreme Films went down rather well with you, our Nerdly audience, so we thought we’d bring you another Top 5 – this time looking at the Top 5 Cursed Films… in no particular order may I add! Check out the list below and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Opera Mortem

Written and directed by English painter David Fleas, Opera Mortem was apparently filmed over almost 10 years, in super-8 mm and VHS no less, and screened only one time in the 1973 at the Nottingham’s Odeon Film Theatre. Described as weird, trippy, filled with graphic blood, sex, and black magical ritualistic symbols, Opera Mortem – and its 1973 screening – are “believed” to be cursed; with reports of fires in projection booths, people dying after seeing it, riots… you name it, Opera Mortem reportedly caused it. Undoubtedly due to all the satanic symoblism within it!

Our exclusive odds predict that Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman will both earn Oscar nominations for their roles in the Sony Pictures Classics release “The Father.” He is a strong Best Actor contender for his heartbreaking portrayal of a man dealing with dementia. And she is coming on strong in the Best Supporting Actress race for her work as the daughter struggling to come to terms with him.

Should both of these past Oscar champs prevail again this year, they’d be just the eighth pair of co-stars nominated in these categories to do so. In the 84 years since the supporting awards were introduced at the 9th Oscars, a lucky seven films can boast victories in both these races.

The last such duo from the same film to both win were Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker for “My Left Foot” in 1990. That marked the first of Day-Lewis’s three Best Actor trophies.

Always bold to some degree, seldom less than ambitious, William Friedkin’s career as a filmmaker has seen countless awards won; box offices records broken; and left us with more than a few classics. While the director can tell a story behind the camera, he’s also a knowledgeable, entertaining personality in front of one. Gifted with a voice worthy of sports broadcasting, he manages to appear even larger than his resume–in the same way his contemporary Peter Bogdanovich often does, another director who kept a foot in both “New Hollywood” and the gilded past of cinema history. Yet Friedkin is perhaps the only filmmaker so intrinsically linked with both the birth of New Hollywood and, unwittingly, with its ideological demise.

This irresistible combo of charisma, auteurism, and historical clout has inspired a number of documentary filmmakers in recent years. Francesco Zippel’s 2018 movie Friedkin Uncut provided a rollicking career overview,...

Once upon a time, MGM launched a big spectacle Western remake with the top star Glenn Ford and the bright import Maria Schell — and then second-guessed the whole production, cutting back on everything so severely that director Anthony Mann ankled the set for Spain and El Cid. The storytelling is a mess — after starting big, the show soon falls into pieces. But many of individual scenes and set pieces are exemplary, especially Mann’s re-run of the Oklahoma Land Rush, staged in Arizona and augmented by classy special effects. The large cast rounds up some big talent — Mercedes McCambridge, Russ Tamblyn — to tell Edna Ferber’s multi-generational story about ambition, intolerance and dreams of glory on the frontier.

Cimarron (1960)

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1960 / Color / 2:35 anamorphic widescreen / 147 min. / Street Date January 21, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Maria Schell, Anne Baxter, Arthur O’Connell, Russ Tamblyn, Mercedes McCambridge, Vic Morrow,...

“ A man can lie, steal… and even kill. But as long as he hangs on to his pride, he’s still a man. All a woman has to do is slip – once. And she’s a “tramp!” Must be a great comfort to you to be a man. “

Webster University presents “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pm the weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th. The series continues Friday night, January 3rd at 7pm with Johnny Guitar (1954). A Facebook invite for the film can be found Here

A revisionist Western made at a time when a large section of the population didn’t recognize that the Western genre could use some revising, Nick Ray’s Johnny Guitar focuses on female...

” The city can be lonely too. Sometimes people who are never alone are the loneliest. “

Webster University presents “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pm the weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th. The series continues tonight, December 29th at 7pm with On Dangerous Ground (1951)

A film noir more often compared to the work of Carl Theodor Dreyer than its American contemporaries, On Dangerous Ground concerns the hot-headed detective Jim Wilson (Robert Ryan), who partners up with Walter Brent (Ward Bond), the father of a murdered young girl, in the solving of the crime. Along the way they encounter a blind woman, Mary Malden (Ida Lupino), who may offer a key to the case. Featuring a memorable score from master Bernard Herrmann.

” This boy… and this girl… were never properly introduced to the world we live in… To tell their story… They Live by Night. “

Webster University presents “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pmthe weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th.The series kicks off tonight, December 27th at 7pm with They Live By Night – 1948

After seven years in prison, 23-year-old Bowie (Farley Granger) escapes alongside some bank robbers. Once out, he runs into new love Keechie (Cathy O’Donnell), and makes it a priority to prove his innocence, or at least escape to the mountains with Keechie in tow. With this, his film debut, Nicholas Ray already exhibits future preoccupations with young underdogs and offers a fine contribution to the film noir canon.

” I’ve got the bullets! “

Webster University has announced “The Other St. Nick”, a six-film Nicholas Ray Film Festival that runs December 27th-January 5th at the University’s Moore Auditorium(470 E Lockwood Ave). The films screen Friday, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:00pm the weekends of Dec 27-29th and Jan 3-5th.

Jean-Luc Godard once famously wrote that “Cinema is Nicholas Ray.” Champion of the underdog, one of the earliest masters of Cinemascope, forward thinking in depictions of the aligned and marginalized, Mr. Ray’s contributions to film continue to resonate with modern filmmakers and audiences. Sure, you can spend the holiday season with an old man in a red suit, but Nicholas Ray is the one giving the gifts that keep on giving.

Here’s the lineup:

They Live By Night (1948) Friday, December 27 at 7:00pm

After seven years in prison, 23-year-old Bowie (Farley Granger) escapes alongside some bank robbers.

46 years on from its release, “The Exorcist” is not exactly a film that wants for analysis; it’s also not a film people are likely to stop analyzing any time soon. William Friedkin’s horror masterclass is, well, just that: one of its genre’s most irresistibly teachable works, with a clear, clean command of form and theme that lends itself to limitless scholarly scrutiny and interpretation. Alexandre O. Philippe’s simply styled documentary “Leap of Faith: William Friedkin on ‘The Exorcist'” has a lot more of that to offer;Essentially a single interview with Friedkin interspersed with repeatedly revisited clips, “Leap of Faith” chiefly examines — per its title — the film’s spiritual allusions and illusions, distinguishing it from just any old making-of doc.

Not that you’d expect anything quite so standard from Philippe, the Swiss filmmaker who has carved out his own auteurist niche in the realm of cinema-studies documentary,...

William Friedkin’s The Exorcist may very well be one of the most culturally significant and acclaimed horror films of all time. Adapted from the novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty, the film shocked an entire generation and to this day remains lauded as one of the scariest films ever. Its impact is […]

The post Remember Her Name: Mercedes McCambridge Was Pazuzu In The Exorcist But Her Name Was Cut From The Credits appeared first on Dread Central.

1968: Dark Shadows' Joe & Guthrie tried to break into Laura's tomb.

1984: Guiding Light's Mindy considered an abortion.

1990: General Hospital's Julian pulled a gun on Paget ("Duke").

1992: Days of our Lives' Vivian arrived in Salem."History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into d ifferent and unexpected images."

― Anselm Kiefer

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1952: Radio serial Whispering Sheets premiered. The show was a "serial with a twist." Each new episode presented the story from one character's perspective, and the character that was being focused on changed each day. The fictional narrator--and principal expositor--for the program was "Hope Winslow,...

One film in contention at this year’s Oscars earned nominations for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress: “Vice.” How likely is it that leading man Christian Bale and supporting player Amy Adams will both win Academy Awards on Feb. 24? In the 82 years since the supporting awards were introduced at the 9th Oscars, a six lucky seven films could boast victories in both these races.

While this is the second most common of the four winningcombinations behind actress/supporting actress, it is also the one that has not happened in the longest time. The last such duo from the same film to both win were Brenda Fricker and Daniel Day-Lewis for “My Left Foor” in 1990. This was the first of Day-Lewis’s three Best Actor trophies – he could’ve repeated this pairing last year with Lesley Manville for Paul Thomas Anderson’s sublime “Phantom Thread” but, sadly, neither of them won.

1962: Our Five Daughters premiered on NBC.

1968: Dark Shadows' Angelique dug her way of Jeremiah's grave.

1980: Barbara hid a big secret on As the World Turns.

2004: Rebecca and Julian were married on Passions."History speaks to artists. It changes the artist's thinking and is constantly reshaping it into different and unexpected images."

― Anselm Kiefer

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1959: CBS Radio aired the final episode of Bakcstage Wife, the story of Mary Noble, a girl from a small town in Iowa who came to New York seeking her future. The show was created by Frank and Anne Hummert and premiered August 5, 1935 on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

Cyril Connolly famously noted that “whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call promising,” an observation Orson Welles fought his whole post-“Citizen Kane” life. But Welles’ legend as one of cinema’s true geniuses — and most fervid champions of its worth as art — is also such that when he leaves enough footage behind from an unfulfilled project, others are only too eager to see it through, to celebrate him anew. Even 40 years later.

“The Other Side of the Wind,” which Welles filmed between 1970 and 1976, and built around a riotous, revealing 70th birthday party for an exiled filmmaker (John Huston) engineering a comeback, was always the unfinished work most likely to see fruition. Now, thanks to producers Frank Marshall (who worked on the initial shoot) and Filip Van Rymsza, Peter Bogdanovich (one of the movie’s co-stars), and editor Bob Murawski (“The Hurt Locker”), there’s a completed version...

While the new Halloween from the unlikely trio of David Gordon Green, Danny McBride and John Carpenter is enjoying the highest praise since the original and solid box office projections, Laurie Strode herself, Aka Jamie Lee Curtis recently revealed some interesting news while making rounds on her latest press tour.

Specifically, the 59-year-old admitted that she was almost in the role which made Linda Blair (Reagan MacNeil) famous in The Exorcist. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she shared all the details, saying:

When I was 13 years old, [a producer] called my mother (Psycho star Janet Leigh) and said, ‘Will you let Jamie audition for a movie?’ My mother said, ‘No.’ The movie was The Exorcist.”

Since this initial story made the rounds, director William Friedkin has weighed in on Twitter and claimed it’s not true, but either way, I really don’t think Curtis would’ve made any difference in...

Netflix has released a chaotic trailer for Orson Welles’ unfinished final film “The Other Side of the Wind,” just before its premiere Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.

John Huston stars as a high-profile Hollywood director making a comeback, much like Welles was attempting. The trailer mixes black-and-white and color footage, and two other filmmakers of the era — Peter Bogdanovich and Dennis Hopper — appear as characters.

Several characters in the trailer offer brutal assessments of Huston’s character, saying, “What he creates, he has to wreck. It’s a compulsion,” and, “He’s just making it up as he goes along.”

Welles shot the film-within-a-film between 1970 and 1976, and then worked on it until his death in 1985, leaving behind a 45-minute work print that he had smuggled out of France. Huston portrayed a temperamental film director battling with Hollywood executives to finish a movie — just like Welles did throughout his career.

Morgan Neville's documentary on the making of Orson Welles's The Other Side Of The Wind is a 56th New York Film Festival Special Event Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

The Film Society of Lincoln Center has announced the 56th New York Film Festival Special Events program: Orson Welles's The Other Side Of The Wind with John Huston, Peter Bogdanovich, Oja Kodar, Edmund O’Brien, Susan Strasberg, Lilli Palmer, Paul Stewart, Mercedes McCambridge, Cameron Mitchell, Paul Mazursky, Henry Jaglom, Claude Chabrol, and Norman Foster plus Morgan Neville's They’ll Love Me When I’m Dead documentary on the making of The Other Side Of The Wind, and Rex Ingram's The Four Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, courtesy of Martin Scorsese, with a score written and performed by Matthew Nolan, Barry Adamson, Seán Mac Erlaine, Adrian Crowley, and Kevin Murphy.

Film Comment Presents: Nuri Bilge Ceylan's The Wild Pear Tree starring...

1968: Dark Shadows' Joe & Guthrie tried to break into Laura's tomb.

1984: Guiding Light's Mindy considered an abortion.

1990: General Hospital's Julian pulled a gun on Paget ("Duke").

1992: Days of our Lives' Vivian arrived in Salem."Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever shall be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results."

― Machiavelli

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1952: Radio serial Whispering Sheets premiered. The show was a "serial with a twist.

1962: Our Five Daughters premiered on NBC.

1968: Dark Shadows' Angelique dug her way of Jeremiah's grave.

1980: Atwt's Barbara was keeping a big secret.

2004: Rebecca and Julian were married on Passions."History is a vast early warning system."

― Norman Cousins

"Today in Soap Opera History" is a collection of the most memorable, interesting and influential events in the history of scripted, serialized programs. From birthdays and anniversaries to scandals and controversies, every day this column celebrates the soap opera in American culture.

On this date in...

1959: CBS Radio aired the final episode of Bakcstage Wife, the story of Mary Noble, a girl from a small town in Iowa who came to New York seeking her future. The show was created by Frank and Anne Hummert and premiered August 5, 1935 on the Mutual Broadcasting System. Claire Niesen played the role of Mary from the early 1940s until the end of its run.

Jason from Mnpp here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" entertainment - I don't know if you've noticed by now that I will take any opportunity to talk about Alfred Hitchcock, but I will take any opportunity to talk about Alfred Hitchcock, and his birthday (which was yesterday) offers one of the best. Thankfully we've still plenty of choices - not many directors adored their villains like Hitch did, and so this series is a perfect fit.

And here's a good one! 1951's Strangers on a Train offers up one of Hitch's greatest bad guys in Bruno Antony, murder theorist and gay icon, played with giddy panache by Robert Walker. And Farley Granger's no slouch as the clearly-enticed-no-matter-how-hard-he-pretends-otherwise tennis-pro Guy Haines.

Previously It's one of her greatest roles so I'm not surprised that Joan Crawford stampeded her way to a win with last week's Johnny Guitar contest - she...

Jason from Mnpp here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast." On this day in 1911 was born the writer-director Nicholas Ray, whose movies have come to seem fairly ahead of their time. His biggest success would of course be 1955's Rebel Without a Cause (his only Oscar nomination was for that film's script) but several of his other works have grown in reputation over the decades, and we're here to look at maybe the weirdest of them all - 1954's technicolor acid-western Johnny Guitar. (See Also: Tfe's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" entry for this movie.)

Guitar stars Joan Crawford as the "railroad tramp" Vienna, who runs a saloon and is drawn to bad men, and her cowgirl nemesis Emma Small, played by an enthusiastically hateful Mercedes McCambridge. The actresses apparently tore it up behind the scenes (everybody who's spoken of the filming of this film makes it sound like...