News

Joan Evans, the daughter of screenwriters and goddaughter of Joan Crawford, who starred opposite Farley Granger in her first three films and with Audie Murphy in a pair of Westerns, has died. She was 89.

Evans died Oct. 21 in Henderson, Nevada, her son, John Weatherly, told The Hollywood Reporter.

She also toplined the Charles Lederer-directed On the Loose (1951), playing a suicidal teenager in the drama written by her parents, Dale Eunson and Katherine Albert; portrayed Irene Dunne’s daughter in the fantasy It Grows on Trees (1952); and enlisted in the U.S. Navy with Esther Williams in the musical comedy Skirts Ahoy! (1952).

Evans played the love interest of Granger’s character in the title role of Roseanna McCoy (1949), a drama loosely based on the family feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. The two worked together again in the 1950 releases Our Very Own and Edge of Doom, a bleak film noir directed by Mark Robson.

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By Darren Allison

The Film Detective continues to thrill us with a couple of excellent cult classics. Frankenstein’s Daughter is a film that had been denied a great deal of exposure to fans of the strange and macabre. For many, it’s a title that has teased us for decades, with a still or a lobby card appearing once in a while by way of a horror book or a specialist periodical, so it is certainly welcome. It is typically what one would expect from this lush 1950s period. An incredibly low-budget affair, these films would often be produced for around $60,000, but the filmmakers certainly knew how to squeeze every ounce out of that budget. If anything, it ignited creativity and provided a lesson in how to make the most of the limited resources that were available to them.

Frankenstein’s Daughter is a fine example of that.

Hello, dear readers! To paraphrase a popular movie, “We’re in the Endgame now,” as Halloween is now merely only a few days away. If you’re looking for some last-minute viewing ideas to get you to the spooky season finish line, we definitely have a great array of choices heading home on Tuesday. The biggest recommendation that I can personally make in regard to perfect Halloween movie experiences is the Wnuf Halloween Special, which is getting a killer Blu-ray release tomorrow. Arrow Films is giving Dario Argento’s Deep Red a 4K upgrade this week, too, and Severin Films is showing love to both An Angel for Satan and Beyond Darkness.

Other releases for October 26th include Don’t Breathe 2, The Amazing Mr. X, Boardinghouse, Eye of the Devil, Skull: The Mask, Frankenstein’s Daughter, and Underworld: Limited Edition 5-Movie Collection.

The Amazing Mr. X: Special Edition

An atmospheric masterpiece,...

Ryan Murphy’s new limited series “Hollywood” is about envisioning a filmic landscape more representative of real people. Murphy and co-screenwriter Ian Brennan envision a world where anyone, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation can thrive in entertainment. Their hope is that, by revising history, it makes the viewer think about how different movies (and our conversations about them) can be.

And, yet, there’s a crucial group whose contributions, either within the late-1940s landscape “Hollywood” is set in or in Murphy’s revisionist fairy tale, aren’t acknowledged: the disabled. People with disabilities are commonly ignored from inclusion talks so, sadly, this isn’t particularly surprising in the grand scheme of things. What is surprising is that Murphy, who has placed disabled actors in prominent roles before, ignores the actual strides disabled actors made by 1947-1948 (the year in which “Hollywood” takes place). And to create a...

” 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.

Updated: Following a couple of Julie London Westerns*, Turner Classic Movies will return to its July 2017 Star of the Month presentations. On July 27, Ronald Colman can be seen in five films from his later years: A Double Life, Random Harvest (1942), The Talk of the Town (1942), The Late George Apley (1947), and The Story of Mankind (1957). The first three titles are among the most important in Colman's long film career. George Cukor's A Double Life earned him his one and only Best Actor Oscar; Mervyn LeRoy's Random Harvest earned him his second Best Actor Oscar nomination; George Stevens' The Talk of the Town was shortlisted for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. All three feature Ronald Colman at his very best. The early 21st century motto of international trendsetters, from Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro and Turkey's Recep Erdogan to Russia's Vladimir Putin and the United States' Donald Trump, seems to be, The world is reality TV and reality TV...

'The Pink Panther' with Peter Sellers: Blake Edwards' 1963 comedy hit and its many sequels revolve around one of the most iconic film characters of the 20th century: clueless, thick-accented Inspector Clouseau – in some quarters surely deemed politically incorrect, or 'insensitive,' despite the lack of brown face make-up à la Sellers' clueless Indian guest in Edwards' 'The Party.' 'The Pink Panther' movies [1] There were a total of eight big-screen Pink Panther movies co-written and directed by Blake Edwards, most of them starring Peter Sellers – even after his death in 1980. Edwards was also one of the producers of every (direct) Pink Panther sequel, from A Shot in the Dark to Curse of the Pink Panther. Despite its iconic lead character, the last three movies in the Pink Panther franchise were box office bombs. Two of these, The Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther, were co-written by Edwards' son,...

'Ben-Hur' 2016 with Jack Huston: Chariot race to the death. 'Ben-Hur' 2016 trailer: 'Gladiator' meets 'Fast Seven' meets 'Star Wars' meets… Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have released the trailer for their 2016 Ben-Hur remake (or reboot or readaptation) – a.k.a. Fast and Furious A.D., as one wag called it in an online comment. Instead of grandiose spectacle featuring at its core a “human” story with Christian overtones, this chariot-and-sandals epic is being sold as Gladiator meets Fast Seven meets Spartacus: Blood and Sand meets Star Wars – with Morgan Freeman's Sheik Ilderim as the Roman Empire's dreadlocked version of Alec Guinness' Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi. Say what you will, the trailer-makers sure know their target audience. And that's not the same crowd that would go check out what's usually referred to in the U.S. media as “faith” (i.e., Christian) movies. One assumes that particular audience segment will be getting...

'Ben-Hur' 1959 with Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston: TCM's '31 Days of Oscar.' '31 Days of Oscar': 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Ben-Hur' are in, Paramount stars are out Today, Feb. 1, '16, Turner Classic Movies is kicking off the 21st edition of its “31 Days of Oscar.” While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is being vociferously reviled for its “lack of diversity” – more on that appallingly myopic, self-serving, and double-standard-embracing furore in an upcoming post – TCM is celebrating nearly nine decades of the Academy Awards. That's the good news. The disappointing news is that if you're expecting to find rare Paramount, Universal, or Fox/20th Century Fox entries in the mix, you're out of luck. So, missing from the TCM schedule are, among others: Best Actress nominees Ruth Chatterton in Sarah and Son, Nancy Carroll in The Devil's Holiday, Claudette Colbert in Private Worlds. Unofficial Best Actor...

Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup.' Groucho Marx movies: 'Duck Soup,' 'The Story of Mankind' and romancing Margaret Dumont on TCM Grouch Marx, the bespectacled, (painted) mustached, cigar-chomping Marx brother, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 14, '15. Marx Brothers fans will be delighted, as TCM is presenting no less than 11 of their comedies, in addition to a brotherly reunion in the 1957 all-star fantasy The Story of Mankind. Non-Marx Brothers fans should be delighted as well – as long as they're fans of Kay Francis, Thelma Todd, Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Allan Jones, affectionate, long-tongued giraffes, and/or that great, scene-stealing dowager, Margaret Dumont. Right now, TCM is showing Robert Florey and Joseph Santley's The Cocoanuts (1929), an early talkie notable as the first movie featuring the four Marx Brothers – Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Based on their hit Broadway...

Teresa Wright ca. 1945. Teresa Wright movies on TCM: 'The Little Foxes,' 'The Pride of the Yankees' Pretty, talented Teresa Wright made a relatively small number of movies: 28 in all, over the course of more than half a century. Most of her films have already been shown on Turner Classic Movies, so it's more than a little disappointing that TCM will not be presenting Teresa Wright rarities such as The Imperfect Lady and The Trouble with Women – two 1947 releases co-starring Ray Milland – on Aug. 4, '15, a "Summer Under the Stars" day dedicated to the only performer to date to have been shortlisted for Academy Awards for their first three film roles. TCM's Teresa Wright day would also have benefited from a presentation of The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956), an unusual entry – parapsychology, reincarnation – in the Wright movie canon and/or Roseland (1977), a little-remembered entry in James Ivory's canon.

Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...

Teresa Wright-Samuel Goldwyn association comes to a nasty end (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock Heroine in His Favorite Film.") Whether or not because she was aware that Enchantment wasn't going to be the hit she needed – or perhaps some other disagreement with Samuel Goldwyn or personal issue with husband Niven Busch – Teresa Wright, claiming illness, refused to go to New York City to promote the film. (Top image: Teresa Wright in a publicity shot for The Men.) Goldwyn had previously announced that Wright, whose contract still had another four and half years to run, was to star in a film version of J.D. Salinger's 1948 short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut." Instead, he unceremoniously – and quite publicly – fired her.[1] The Goldwyn organization issued a statement, explaining that besides refusing the assignment to travel to New York to help generate pre-opening publicity for Enchantment,...

Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock heroine (image: Joseph Cotten about to strangle Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt') (See preceding article: "Teresa Wright Movies: Actress Made Oscar History.") After scoring with The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver, and The Pride of the Yankees, Teresa Wright was loaned to Universal – once initial choices Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland became unavailable – to play the small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. (Check out video below: Teresa Wright reminiscing about the making of Shadow of a Doubt.) Co-written by Thornton Wilder, whose Our Town had provided Wright with her first chance on Broadway and who had suggested her to Hitchcock; Meet Me in St. Louis and Junior Miss author Sally Benson; and Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, Shadow of a Doubt was based on "Uncle Charlie," a story outline by Gordon McDonell – itself based on actual events.

Anthony Mann

As much as any other filmmaker who found a niche in a given genre, in the 10 Westerns Anthony Mann directed from 1950 to 1958 he carved out a place in film history as one who not only reveled in the conventions of that particular form, but also as one who imbued in it a distinct aesthetic and narrative approach. In doing so, Mann created Westerns that were simultaneously about the making of the West as a historical phenomenon, as well as about the making of its own developing cinematic genus. At the same time, he also established the traits that would define his auteur status, formal devices that lend his work the qualities of a director who enjoyed, understood, and readily exploited and manipulated a type of film's essential features.

Though he made several fine pictures outside the Western, Mann as an American auteur is most notably recognized for his work in this field,...

Having played the bizarre giant god-emperor Xerxes in 300 and its sequel Rise Of An Empire, Rodrigo Santoro is now in line to play another religious icon. He's negotiating to be one Jesus of Nazareth in MGM and Paramount's upcoming Ben-Hur remake. Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Wanted) is directing. Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen: Timur Bekmambetov has found Jesus. Thank you, we'll be here all week.In the 1959 film, Jesus shows up towards the end. Charlton Heston's Ben-Hur takes the ailing Tirzah (Cathy O'Donnell) to be healed, but they arrive too late. Jesus' trial, presided over by Pontius Pilate (Frank Thring) has already begun, and Ben-Hur then witnesses the events of the crucifixion. Jesus was played on this occasion by the opera singer Claude Heater, although his name doesn't appear in the credits.Taken once again from Lew Wallace’s 1880 novel (which actually carries on significantly beyond Jesus' execution), the...

While adored by the French and the Cahiers Du Cinema coterie that went on to become the rebellious French New Wave -- which spawned the oft-quoted Jean-Luc Godard phrase "cinema is Nicholas Ray" -- the American filmmaker never really received his due outside of the one film of his that most moviegoers have seen (and even then, they’re possibly unaware that he directed it): “Rebel Without A Cause.” And while that iconic 1950s film, with its audacious, expressionistic colors, its passionate angst and anguish, its mix of quiet machismo and vulnerability, is perhaps the cornerstone of many of Nicholas Ray’s films -- vibrant melodrama on the surface, percolating emotional agony within -- it’s certainly just the tip of iceberg when it comes to the director’s career.

Starting out as a would-be actor, Ray moved to moved to New York where he appeared in the great Elia Kazan's theater debut.

We look back at Farley Granger's movie career, from the two masterpieces he made with Alfred Hitchcock to Luchino Visconti's operatic melodrama Senso

Spotted doing a cockney accent in a play while still at high school, Farley Granger was signed to a seven-year deal by MGM in 1943 and soon put to work alongside Anne Baxter and Dana Andrews in The North Star, a pro-Soviet war film about the sufferings of a Ukrainian village under the Nazi yoke.

With a script by blacklistee Lillian Hellman, The North Star – later reissued under the title Armored Attack! – was cited by the House Committee on Un-American Activities as a prime example of Hollywood communist propaganda.

After one more film – The Purple Heart (1944) – and a spell in the navy where he discovered his bisexuality, Granger found himself cast in what would become his breakthrough film, They Live by Night. Shot in 1947, Nicholas Ray...

"Farley Granger, best known for the Alfred Hitchcock thrillers Rope (1948) and Strangers on a Train (1951), and for Luchino Visconti's period romantic drama Senso (1954), has died," reports Andre Soares at the Alt Film Guide. "Granger's big break came when the independent producer [Samuel Goldwyn] cast him in Nicholas Ray's film noir They Live by Night (1949), in which the 24-year-old played a rebellious young man opposite minor leading lady Cathy O'Donnell."

Duane Byrge in the Hollywood Reporter: "In 2007, Granger published a memoir, Include Me Out, in which he told of being bisexual, documenting affairs with Shelley Winters, Ava Gardner and Patricia Neal as well as playwright Arthur Laurents and a two-night fling with Leonard Bernstein. Since the 1960s, he lived with his longtime partner Robert Calhoun, a soap opera producer, who died three years ago."

Bilge Ebiri has "been reading James Kaplan's pretty great biography Sinatra: The Voice, and there is,...

Farley Granger in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (top); Farley Granger, Robert Walker in Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (bottom) Farley Granger, best known for the Alfred Hitchcock thrillers Rope (1948) and Strangers on a Train (1951), and for Luchino Visconti's period romantic drama Senso (1954), has died. Variety reports that Granger, who was 85, died of "natural causes" in New York City. One of the best-looking men to have a career in movies, Granger (born in San Jose, Calif., on July 1, 1925) was a Samuel Goldwyn discovery of the 1940s. Granger's big break came when the independent producer cast him in Nicholas Ray's film noir They Live by Night (1949), in which the 24-year-old played a rebellious young man opposite minor leading lady Cathy O'Donnell, best remembered for Goldwyn's own The Best Years of Our Lives. Granger developed a following, but he was never to become a major screen star. His work [...]...