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Author Shirley Jackson was a unique trailblazer in American fiction, crafting horror stories that weave supernatural elements with stories about grief, trauma, and mental illness. Over her lifetime she published six novels and more than 200 short stories, along with two memoirs, but surprisingly there have been only five film and television adaptations of her work. Plenty of others have been inspired by Jackson, of course, but only four films and one TV series actually seek to adapt her work in some way, to varying degrees of success.

There's something to appreciate in each of these works because the source material is so rich, but some Shirley Jackson adaptations are far better than others. So, let's take a look at them from worst to best, starting with the earliest adaptation: the 1957 Hugo Haas noir film "Lizzie."

Read more: The 5 Best Movies Inspired By Twilight Zone Episodes, Ranked

Lizzie (1957)

The earliest of...

We’ve got questions, and you’ve (maybe) got answers! With another week of TV gone by, we’re lobbing queries left and right about Daredevil: Born Again, 1923, Reacher, Survivor, The White Lotus and more!

1 | We get that Severance’s Mark Scout needed to bungle Helly’s name, but “Heleny”? He couldn’t guess an actual name, like Helen? Or Ellie?

More from TVLineThe White Lotus: Fight Night! Who Came Out Swinging? And Who Ran for the Hills?Carrie Coon's White Lotus Character Originally Had a Non-Binary Child - But That Was Cut After Trump's ReelectionThe White Lotus...

Producer Sherwood Schwartz wasn't looking to make anyone a star when he began casting his 1960s sitcom "Gilligan's Island." The show was intended to be slapstick fun for the whole family, peppered with jokes that landed just as hard with parents as they did with their children. To get this across, he needed an ensemble that could remain in mellifluous orbit around Bob Denver's blundering Gilligan. (Denver himself was already a small screen star thanks to his portrayal of beatnik Maynard G. Krebs on "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.") If the actors could get away with delivering Schwartz's groan-worthy banter without evoking groans from the undemanding folks at home, they were welcome on his uncharted desert island.

This isn't to say he hired a bunch of nobodies to fill out the cast of "Gilligan's Island." Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer were established, veteran performers, while Tina Louise...

The American TV-movie has gained a bad rap over the years, but there was a time when folks looked forward to these flicks — and not in an ironic sense or a need to hate-watch.

That period of kinder and less cynical viewership was surely in the 1970s and ’80s when the made-for-television movie became more widespread. The “movie of the week” format took off in the former decade, with the major networks at the time devoting blocks in their schedules to these standalone, small-screen features. And one of the more revisited genres was horror. Duel, The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Trilogy of Terror, Are You in the House Alone?, The Initiation of Sarah. These are just a few of the classic telefilms that scared a whole generation of viewers.

There have been great strides to archive and restore these past horror TV-movies,...

On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark takes a feature-length beat to honor fringe cinema in the streaming age.

First, the spoiler-free pitch for one editor’s midnight movie pick — something weird and wonderful from any age of film that deserves our memorializing.

Then, the spoiler-filled aftermath as experienced by the unwitting editor attacked by this week’s recommendation.

The Pitch: Drink (Responsibly) Every Time They Say “Cat”

Like midnight movie canonization, the Cat Distribution System works in mysterious ways. The term, as made popular on TikTok, refers to an informal branch of feline government by which every cat-human connection is ostensibly forged. Whether you met Mittens at your local animal shelter — or found Paul Gia-Meowti in an empty boarding school over Christmas break — the central tenets of the C.D.S. suggest that any time a cat and owner find one another that connection was somehow fated.

Watching a grindhouse...

The American Broadcasting Company aired its iconic series ABC Movie of the Week from 1969 to 1975. In the intro of Michael Karol’s book The ABC Movie of the Week Companion: A Loving Tribute to the Classic Series, the author called the anthology show “influential” for baby-boomers. Karol then went on to quote a press release from Barry Diller; ABC’s vice president at the time said the network was trying to “broaden the base of familiar television anthologies and movies-for-television” and how a 90-minute format would “do justice to that special echelon of story ideas, which don’t quite work in the standard one-and two-hour television program forms.” The concept also entailed working with production companies outside of their own (ABC-Circle Films), including frequent collaborator Spelling-Goldberg. And as many fans of vintage American tele-cinema will agree, one of Spelling-Goldberg’s, not to mention ABC’s most memorable TV-movies from that...

Screenwriter Norma Barzman, who got her start during the Golden Age of Hollywood and was blacklisted with her husband during the McCarthy era, died Sunday in Beverly Hills, her son Paolo confirmed. She was 103.

Barzman and her husband, fellow screenwriter Ben Barzman, moved to Europe as did many other Hollywood progressives who came under McCarthy’s scrutiny. The couple and their seven children lived in London, Paris and Mougins, France between 1949 and 1976. Ben Barzman died in 1989.

Norma Barzman was also active in getting credits restored for blacklisted writers whose films were released with a “front” name, such as her film “The Locket.” In 1999, her writing credit was restored on the 1953 film “Luxury Girls,” which had carried the name of the front Ennio Flaiano.

Barzman spoke out in protest when Elia Kazan, who was a witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, was given an honorary Oscar in 1998, and was...

The Screen Actors Guild presented legendary comic actor Eddie Cantor with the first annual Life Achievement Award back in 1962. Over the past six decades, the award for ‘outstanding achievement in fostering ideals of the acting profession” has been given to such Hollywood icons as Stan Laurel, Bob Hope, Barbara Stanwyck, Gregory Peck, Jimmy Stewart, Frank Sinatra, James Cagney, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. More recently, Mary Tyler Moore, Charles Durning, Debbie Reynolds, Rita Moreno, Carol Burnett, Helen Mirren and Robert De Niro have received the honor.

Two-time Oscar and three-time Emmy Award winning Sally Field is the latest recipient of the Life Achievement Award. The 76-year-old actress, who came to fame as the ultimate teenager “Gidget” in the 1965-66 ABC sitcom, is currently starring with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Rita Moreno in the hit feature comedy “80 for Brady.” She appeared with Jim Parsons last year in the drama...

This mid-60s detective story has the right ingredients — a good mystery and interesting characters. David Jannsen gets to play a ‘Bosch’- style lone wolf investigator given a public thrashing for a ‘mistake’ that he knows was no mistake at all. Can a ‘bad cop’ redeem himself? The parade of mid-level guest stars — Stefanie Powers, Joan Collins, Lillian Gish, Steve Allen — may resemble a TV movie, but the tense show has a good feel for Los Angeles and the new swingin’ singles lifestyle. It might be Buzz Kulik’s best job of direction, and it has a great music score by Jerry Goldsmith.

Warning Shot

Region Free Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] #177

1967 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 99 min. / Street Date October 26, 2022 / Available from [Imprint] / au 39.95

Starring: David Janssen, Ed Begley, Stefanie Powers, George Grizzard, Keenan Wynn, Joan Collins, Lillian Gish, Eleanor Parker, Sam Wanamaker, George Sanders, Steve Allen, Carroll O’Connor, Walter Pidgeon.

Cinematography: Joseph F. Biroc...

Apple TV +’s “Causeway” revolves around a U.S. soldier (Jennifer Lawrence) who suffers a traumatic brain injury while surviving in Afghanistan. Returning home, Lawrence’s Lynsey has a difficult time recovering physically, mentally, and emotionally. She finds a kindred spirit when she meets James (Brian Tyree Henry) who lost his leg in a car crash and is fighting his own demons

The well-received “Causeway” (Henry is nominated for a Gotham Independent Film Award for outstanding supporting performance) is the latest in the movie genre exploring the problems veterans have once they return from the battlefield.

The best and most beloved of these films is 1946’s “The Best Years of Our Lives,” directed by William Wyler which won seven Oscars. The haunting drama looks at three World War II vets — all dealing with trauma and severe injuries — who return home to discover they and their families have forever changed.

Conversely...

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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...

June didn't work out exactly as we planned but we delivered most of what we promised (sorry Eleanor Parker -- we'll try to make up for it in July) and it sure ended on a high note with Baz Luhrmann's Elvis.

Here are a dozen of the highlights in case you missed 'em...

• Halfway Mark the best performances and films of the year thus far

• Almost There Emily Blunt - she's a perennial at "almost" snagging an Oscar nod so Cláudio talked The Devil Wears Prada

• Judy Garland @ 100 we covered nine movies from ending with her final film I Could Go On Singing

• Best Shot Fire Island this one was fun to really look at... and not just for thirst reasons

• Ranking International Feature Oscar winners - Juan Carlos has seen them all

• Emma Thompson in Good Luck To You Leo Grande - what a performance!

• Jurassic World Dominion...

The multiverse fever of May breaks very soon and in its place, whatever June brings. But what will that be... beside birthday gifts for me (haha) But let's look back quickly at May in case you missed these highlights. You've been quiet as mice in the comments but we hope you're still enjoying. We do take requests if you have any. (May was very light outside of Cannes coverage we're aware but June will be jam-packed. Gird your loins)

A Dozen May Highlights

• FYC Honorary Oscars - 20 suggestions

• Anthony Hopkins full casting circle - from Cs Lewis to Sigmund Freud

• Best Shot: Happy Together - what a ravishment to revisit

• Nostalgia via The Breakfast Club - Baby Clyde revisited from a British kid-at-the-time perspective

• On Alexander Skarsgård - Matt says he's a character actor in hunk body

• Multiverse of Madness - Raves for The Scarlet Witch, otherwise... eh

• Returning Show...

The Palm Springs area will live up to its reputation for seediness under the cover of never-ending nights — irony intended — as the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival returns to town for its 22nd annual marathon of vintage crime dramas this weekend. Leonard Maltin and TCM “Noir Alley” host Eddie Muller will be among the guest hosts joining festival curator Alan K. Rode for a four-day deep dive into the dark that kicks off Thursday night with the 1949 Nicholas Ray film whose title pretty much says it all about the genre being celebrated: “They Live by Night.”

That opening night will be preceded Wednesday by a fundraising performance by frequent festival guest Victoria Mature, daughter of Hollywood golden-age icon Victor Mature, dubbed “Victoria/Victor Mature Cabaret, an Evening of Memories and Music,” to be held, as with the festival proper, at the Palm Springs Cultural Center. Mature will also be on...

Another film year has wrapped up here at The Film Experience. Though we go by the calendar year for all awards purposes, when it comes to the film year, we think of it as as running from the day after the Oscars through to the next Oscar night. So Happy 2022 to all of you. We're about to start all over again.

The Big Show

• The Ceremony Reviewed

• The Slap

• Best Dressed Polls

• 5 Best Speeches

• Top 10 Fashions

• On the 3 Hosts: Amy, Regina, and Wanda

• Ranking the Clips

• Appeal to the Academy re: Lady Gaga

• Podcast Discussion

Extras

• Chris James' Fabulous Annual Oscar Party

• The Help as Good Luck Charm

• Records & Trivia

• What's Next for the Directors

• What's Next for the Actors

• What's Next for the Actresses

• Winners List & Charts

And of course there was a lot before that as well if you click on any tag for various actors and films!

Sidney Poitier — film noir icon? That may not be one of the phrases that popped up most frequently in the recent obituaries and appreciations for the late actor, but Poitier did take his turn at noir. The movie with which he made his screen debut, “No Way Out,” will be featured at the upcoming resumption of the annual Noir City Hollywood Festival, which is devoting separate days to the treatment of race and women in the crime dramas of the ’40s and ’50s, along with a continued focus on presenting restorations in 35mm glory.

Noir City Hollywood has been a staple at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre each spring since the late ’90s, but with that theater closed for extensive Netflix-funded renovations, this year it will take place at the Hollywood Legion Theatre a few blocks up Highland Blvd. Hosted as always by Film Noir Foundation president (and...

This creepy-crawly epic enjoyed a strong reputation on my grade-school playground! Does George Pal’s man-versus-the-elements saga hold up 68 years later? The ‘exotic’ special effects get the point across but the real appeal is the suppressed lust between Charlton Heston and his mail order bride Eleanor Parker — all heavy breathing and stern reproaches. I’m surprised nobody has fully exploited the original short story, which back in the ’60s showed up in numerous best-of collections. “Marabunta” is not a new fragrance line from Arpege.

The Naked Jungle

All- Region Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint]

1954 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 95 min. / Street Date December 29, 2021 / Available from [Imprint], Amazon.us /

Starring: Charlton Heston, Eleanor Parker, William Conrad, John Dierkes, Abraham Sofaer, Douglas Fowley, Rodd Redwing.

Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo

Production Designer: Art Director: Hal Pereira, Franz Bachelin

Film Editor: Everett Douglas

Special Photographic Effects: John P. Fulton

Matte artist Jan Domela

Miniatures Ivyl Burks

Optical cinematography Paul K. Lerpae...

Joan Copeland, the younger sister of legendary playwright Arthur Miller whose decades-long Broadway career included performances in two of her brother’s plays, died Tuesday at age 99.

The actress, whose TV credits included multiple daytime soap operas and NBC’s “Law & Order,” passed away in her sleep in her Manhattan home, her son, Eric Kupchik, told The Hollywood Reporter. Kupchik did not immediately respond to TheWrap’s request for comment.

Copeland starred in Miller’s 1968 play “The Price” and later won a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play for her portrayal of Rose Baum in Miller’s 1980 Depression-era play “The American Clock.” The music-loving character was inspired by their mother, Augusta.

“Arthur didn’t write the part for me, but it’s one of the few roles I didn’t have to audition for my brother,” she said in a 2012 interview. “I’ve had to audition for several of his plays,...

Since the first ceremony in 1929, the Academy has nominated over 400 performances for Best Actress, with 77 actresses claiming victory. Inevitably, the debates of who “should have” won follow, some of which have lasted decades. There’s no doubt that campaigning and popularity often play roles in who wins, but in many cases there’s more than one deserving winner.

For instance, the 23rd ceremony in 1951 included five memorable performances, two of which were highlights of the veteran actresses’ careers. How could voters pick between Bette Davis‘ aging star in “All About Eve” and Gloria Swanson‘s faded actress in “Sunset Boulevard?” Also in contention were Davis’ co-star Anne Baxter as an ingenue trying to steal the spotlight, and Eleanor Parker, who gave a memorable performance as a naive young woman turned hardened criminal in “Caged!” Any of these performances in a weaker year would have won, but it’s widely believed...

Since the first ceremony in 1929, the Academy has nominated over 400 performances for Best Actress, with 77 actresses claiming victory. Inevitably, the debates of who “should have” won follow, some of which have lasted decades. There’s no doubt that campaigning and popularity often play roles in who wins, but in many cases there’s more than one deserving winner.

For instance, the 23rd ceremony in 1951 included five memorable performances, two of which were highlights of the veteran actresses’ careers. How could voters pick between Bette Davis‘ aging star in “All About Eve” and Gloria Swanson‘s faded actress in “Sunset Boulevard?” Also in contention were Davis’ co-star Anne Baxter as an ingenue trying to steal the spotlight, and Eleanor Parker, who gave a memorable performance as a naive young woman turned hardened criminal in “Caged!” Any of these performances in a weaker year would have won, but it’s widely believed...

Humphrey Bogart and Eleanor Parker in Chain Lightning (1950) will be available on Blu-ray June 22nd from Warner Archive

Matt Brennan (Humphrey Bogart) plans to show the potential of the Ja-3, an experimental jet – by flying it from Nome over the North Pole and into the Pentagon’s lap in Washington, D.C. The Ja-3 has never been tested at this range and can’t provide enough pressurization at 80,000 feet. But Brennan has modifications in mind…and no shortage of courage. Eleanor Parker, as a former World War II flame, fuels the romance in this adventure that tapped into the era’s fascination with jet aviation.

Chain Lightning stars Humphrey Bogart, Eleanor Parker, Raymond Massey, Richard Whorf, and James Brown

The post Humphrey Bogart and Eleanor Parker in Chain Lightning Available on Blu-ray June 22nd From Warner Archive appeared first on We Are Movie Geeks.

John Sturges’ first color western is a tightly organized and unpretentious winner about a stern Union prison warden and a Confederate prisoner teaming up to fight an Apache enemy … wait, that sounds familiar. William Holden and Eleanor Parker strike sparks out on the ruddy mesas, while Sturges has a field day with the amazing Death Valley scenery and a highly original action scene. ‘Realistic escapism?’ It’s like a formula for future action cinema. And the ads didn’t let us forget: it all looks sensational in glowing Ansco Color.

Escape from Fort Bravo

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1953 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date May 18, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: William Holden, Eleanor Parker, John Forsyth, William Demarest, William Campbell, Polly Bergen, Richard Anderson, Carl Benton Reid, John Lupton, Howard McNear, Glenn Strange.

Cinematography: Robert Surtees

Film Editor: George Boemler

Original Music: Jeff Alexander

Written by Frank Fenton from the story Rope’s End...

There’s a good chance that “Mank,” David Fincher’s stylish black-and-white chronicle of veteran Hollywood screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz’ struggle to write the screenplay for Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece “Citizen Kane,” will dominate the Oscar nominations on March 15. Our Oscar experts are predicting the Netflix release could garner has many has 13 nominations including picture, director, screenplay for Fincher’s latest father Jack Fincher, actor for Gary Oldman and supporting actress for Amanda Seyfried.

Exactly 70 years ago Mank’s brother, writer/director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, dominated the Academy Awards. His “All About Eve,” a sophisticated and sharp drama starring Bette Davis as aging theater actress Margo Channing who mistakenly befriends and mentors an ambitious young actress Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter), earned 14 Oscar nominations. “All About Eve” actually broke all records for Oscar nominations besting 1939’s “Gone with the Wind” lucky 13 bids.

The younger Mank’s masterpiece went on to win six...

For this Oscar flashback, we’re throwing it back 70 years to the night of March 29, 1951. The affable Fred Astaire hosted for his first and only time, helming one of the most memorable ceremonies in Academy history. Two now-iconic films battled in a number of categories, with one setting Academy records that hold today. There were surprising wins in the acting categories, with Broadway being well-represented on the night that honors film. It was an especially great year for women, with two grande dames of film facing off for their now-legendary portrayals of aging actresses, and the Best Actress category being one of the best in the history of the Academy. One can almost hear Bette Davis saying, “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

On a night in which three of the four acting winners triumphed for roles they had also played on Broadway, it’s...

Last year we watched as Renee Zellweger followed the yellow brick road all the way to the Wizard of Oscar as Judy Garland in “Judy.” Can lightning (or a tornado) strike two years in a row? That’s surely the hope of Andra Day, looking like a strong Best Actress Oscar contender for her title role in “The United States vs. Billie Holiday.” Like Garland, Holiday rose to stardom in the late 1930s. She also had multiple marriages, faced financial woes and struggled with drugs and alcohol. The question is: can the role in this Hulu release deliver the Oscar to Day?

Before making a decision, keep in mind that the academy has a long history of recognizing actresses for portraying other actresses or entertainers. And the more drama, trauma and tragedy the better. Even raging and hysterical divas are welcome. Let’s look back at some prime and primadonna examples from Oscar’s history.

Viavision’s first deluxe Film Noir boxed set gives us four titles that emphasize star power — Glenn Ford, Ray Milland, Kirk Douglas and Lee J. Cobb. The Australian release includes three Columbia titles and the home video premiere of a rare Paramount picture. Which ones are core Noir and which are merely ‘noir adjacent?’ The special extras invest in a quartet of audio commentaries from the top experts and Film Noir Foundation creators Eddie Muller and Alan K. Rode. There’s nothing that pair doesn’t know about these pictures.

Essential Film Noir Collection 1

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 18, 19, 20, 21

1947-1957 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 366 min. / Street Date October 28, 2020 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / 149.99

Starring: Glenn Ford, Janis Carter, Barry Sullivan; Ray Milland, Audrey Totter, Thomas Mitchell; Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, Joseph Wiseman, Lee Grant; Lee J. Cobb, Richard Boone, Kerwin Mathews.

Directed by Richard Wallace, John Farrow, William Wyler, Vincent Sherman

The Australian disc boutique...

While performances that win the Oscar for Best Actor are usually longer than those that win Best Actress, a solid amount of lengthy roles have won in the lead female category. The average screen time among Best Actress winners is one hour, four minutes, and 41 seconds, and plenty of much longer ones have triumphed. Here is a look at the 10 longest winners of all time. (And here’s the list of the 10 shortest winning performances for Best Actress.)

10. Natalie Portman (“Black Swan”)

1 hour, 29 minutes, 18 seconds (82.67% of the film)

Portman received her first Best Actress nomination and win in 2011 for her role as ballerina Nina Sayers. While nine performances with higher amounts of screen time had already won in the category, Portman’s became the one with the second-highest percentage. Hers is also one of only 25 performances ever nominated for the award with a screen time total of over 80%.

9. Julie Christie (“Darling”)

1 hour,...

Unlike the supporting performance categories, there there are no clear trends in terms of preferred length in the lead races. At one hour, 27 minutes, and 29 seconds, Renee Zellweger’s 2020 Best Actress-winning performance in “Judy” ranks among the 11 longest to ever win in the category. But 2019 winner Olivia Colman’s 49 minutes and 48 seconds of screen time in “The Favorite” is the lowest since Kate Winslet won for “The Reader” in 2009 with a total of 41 minutes and 55 seconds.

Not surprisingly, Colman was the subject of category fraud discussion, which leading nominees have generally avoided over the past decade. Her co-stars Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone clocked in at 42 minutes, 51 seconds and 57 minutes, 20 seconds respectively but contended in supporting. All things considered, screen time does not matter much when it comes to selecting Best Actress winners, which hopefully indicates that voters are concerned with the quality of work in the category above all else.

by Nathaniel R

Who do you suppose was in second place for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1965? We suspect Shelley Winters won in a landslide for her monster mom but perhaps Peggy Wood's Mother Superior was the runner up since The Sound of Music was so massive. What'cha think? We've noticed on the Smackdown posts that y'all don't really comment about the conversation of the podcast itself but just the write-up / blurb portion. We hope you're listening. The panelists (mwah) were super fun and lively. Here is the podcast again embedded below for your pleasure.

Podcast: 1 hour and 15 minutes

00.01 - Introductions: Spencer Garrett, Kayleigh Donaldson, Baby Clyde, Kevin Jacobsen, and Terence Johnson

06:30 - Othello , Laurence Olivier's "blackface", minstrelsy in that era, Dame Maggie Smith in her youth and today, and the documentary Tea with the Dames

27:00 - Shelley Winters in A Patch of Blue -- some people hate the performance,...

Each month before the Smackdown, Nick Taylor chooses three performances to highlight that weren't Oscar-nominated...

“And Eleanor Parker as The Baroness” reads the final casting credit of the opening credits of The Sound of Music. Hers is also the only name that appears by itself, positioning the character and the actress as events the film wants you to eagerly anticipate. Hard enough when you're the other woman in a love triangle, especially as a non-singing role in a three-hour musical. Yet Parker, boasting one of the most exciting, chameleonic personas in American cinema, lives up to the hype over fifty years later, emerging with the film's most multifaceted performance.

Baroness Elsa von Schraeder won’t appear until roughly an hour into The Sound of Music, by which time we’ve already watched the indomitably energetic Maria (Julie Andrews) enter the Von Trapp family at the direction of her Abbess, instructing...

The writer/director of The Love Witch talks about her favorite classic women’s pictures.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

The Love Witch (2016)

Baby Face (1933)

Stromboli (1950)

Europa ’51 (1951)

Fear (1951)

Duel In The Sun (1946)

The Scarlet Empress (1934)

Blonde Venus (1932)

Nora Prentiss (1947)

Woman On The Run (1950)

Wait Until Dark (1967)

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Imitation of Life (1969)

Little Women (2019)

Emma (2020)

My Cousin Rachel (2017)

Sex and the City (2008)

Mamma Mia! (2008)

Mildred Pierce (1945)

The Reckless Moment (1949)

Sudden Fear (1952)

Torch Song (1953)

Captain Marvel (2019)

Other Notable Items

The Captain Trips virus in Stephen King’s novel The Stand (1978)

Marlene Dietrich

Mae West

Jennifer Jones

Joan Crawford

Joan Bennett

Gene Tierney

Barbara Stanwyck

The Hays Code

Cary Grant

Marilyn Monroe

Ingrid Bergman

Roberto Rossellini

The Academy Awards

Bette Davis

Jennifer Jones

Gregory Peck

Joseph Cotten

Travis Banton

Josef von Sternberg

Catherine the Great

The Criterion Collection

Kent Smith

Dan Duryea

Douglas Sirk

Jane Austen

Mildred Pierce TV miniseries...

The taglines for the 1966 overstuffed turkey “The Oscar give viewers a preview of the machinations of this camp delight- “The Dreams and the Schemers… the Hustlers and the Hopefuls…All Fight for the Highest Award!”

And you thought there was a lot of campaigning now for the Academy Award!

Kino Lorber has unleashed “The Oscar” just in time for the Academy Awards Sunday on Blu-ray with a brand new 4K restoration and two audio commentaries- one with film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson and a much more funny and caustic one with comic/actor Patton Oswalt, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson (“A History of Violence”) and producer/writer/director Erik Nelson.

“The Oscar” was penned by Harlan Ellison, yes Harlan Ellison of “A Boy and His Dog,” “The Outer Limits” and “The Twilight Zone” fame and the team of Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene, who penned the 1949 classic noir “D.O.A.,...

The Oscar

Blu ray

Kino Lorber

1966/ 1:66:1 / 120 min.

Starring Stephen Boyd, Tony Bennett, Elke Sommer

Written by Harlan Ellison

Directed by Russell Rouse

Alexander Mackendrick’s Sweet Smell of Success is a great movie with two career-best performances from Burt Lancaster as a malignant gossip columnist named J. J. Hunsecker and Tony Curtis as press agent Sidney Falco – “a real louse.” The third star of the show is surely the screenplay by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets – a lyrical pastiche of streetwise slang that sizzles like “a pocketful of firecrackers.”

Hunsecker – What’s this boy got that Susie likes?

Falco – Integrity – acute, like indigestion.

Hunsecker – I’d hate to take a bite outta you. You’re a cookie full of arsenic.

And so on. Mackendrick’s Broadway melodrama is a tale of bright lights and the big city so some hyperbole is expected. But Lehman and Odets were performing...

Verily, Blu-ray 3-D is better than most theatrical 3-D! Paramount’s fourth and last 3-D production went out to theaters only in 2-D, so for all practical terms this Kino/3D Archive restoration is a depth-format premiere. Expect a kissing scene or two: lusty Fernando (¿Quién es más macho?) Lamas and demure Rhonda Fleming succumb to the sweaty allure of the tropics. He pushes the sex appeal more than she does! Together they take a 3-D trek to where the headhunters roam, into a jungle to secure a golden treasure.

Jivaro

3-D Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1954 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date March 26, 2019 / 34.95

Starring: Fernando Lamas, Rhonda Fleming, Brian Keith, Lon Chaney Jr., Richard Denning, Rita Moreno, Marvin Miller, Morgan Farley, Pascual García Peña, Nestor Paiva, Gregg Barton.

Cinematography: Lionel Lindon

Film Editor: Howard Smith

Original Music: Gregory Stone

Written by Winston Miller, story by David Duncan

Produced by William H. Pine,...

Glenn Close is ready for her Oscar Close-up. The long-gestating film adaptation of the Broadway musical version of “Sunset Boulevard” has found its Mr. DeMille to Close’s Norma Desmond: Tony winner Rob Ashford will direct the film, which is set to start production in the fall. That means Close would ideally be back in the Oscar conversation for the ceremony in 2021. So close, yet so far again. But will this finally bring Close the statuette that has eluded her seven times already?

After her shocking Best Actress loss for “The Wife” to Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”) on Sunday, the overdue narrative will be even more fierce in two years’ time. If successful, “Sunset” would mark Close’s eighth nomination — she has no projects scheduled for release this year, which is just as well because you’d hate for “Sunset” to be her potential ninth bid — and surely the academy wouldn’t deny her again,...

Here’s a confession: I’m not really a cat guy. I have nothing against the critters, and I do get why a lot of people love them; loyalty, beauty, etc. I’m just a dog person. I’m assuming the lead character of Eye of the Cat (1969) is too, because he has one lulu of a cat phobia in this sly and amusing thriller.

Ailurophobia is the exact term for an extreme fear of cats, and I won’t use the word again because it’s a bitch to spell and I ain’t no fancy lad neither. Eye of the Cat was released in June by Universal with the tagline “Terror that tears the screams right out of your throat!” This would not be true unless you also suffer from a debilitating fear of felines; but what you do get is a solid little mystery with a lot of twists,...

He-bull womanizer Robert Mitchum spars with wife Eleanor Parker for the future of their son George Hamilton in Vincente Minnelli’s attractive, sprawling tale of cruel family unrest. The real winners in the picture are the fresh-faced George Peppard and Luana Patten, whose small-town romance is more interesting than the main bout.

Home from the Hill

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1960 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 150 min. / Street Date August 14, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Robert Mitchum, Eleanor Parker, George Peppard, George Hamilton, Everett Sloane, Luana Patten, Constance Ford, Ray Teal, Bill Hickman, Denver Pyle, Stuart Randall, Dub Taylor, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams.

Cinematography: Milton Krasner

Film Editor: Harold F. Kress

Original Music: Bronislau Kaper

Written by Harriet Frank Jr., Irving Ravetch from the novel by William Humphrey

Produced by Edmund Grainger, Sol C. Siegel

Directed by Vincente Minnelli

Two and a half hours for a dramatic film was considered long in 1960, but...

Frightening felines attack in Eye of the Cat, a 1969 horror film out now on Blu-ray from Scream Factory, and we've been provided with three copies to give away to lucky Daily Dead readers.

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Prize Details: (3) Winners will receive (1) Blu-ray copy of Eye of the Cat.

How to Enter: We're giving Daily Dead readers multiple chances to enter and win:

1. Instagram: Following us on Instagram during the contest period will give you an automatic contest entry. Make sure to follow us at:

https://www.instagram.com/dailydead/

2. Email: For a chance to win via email, send an email to contest@dailydead.com with the subject "Eye of the Cat Contest". Be sure to include your name and mailing address.

Entry Details: The contest will end at 12:01am Est on January 23rd. This contest is only open to those who are eighteen years of age or older that live in the United States.

The Christmas season is a special time for many. A chance for friends to gather and spread cheer, or clans to gather in the warm glow of familial love. Sometimes, however, the warm glow cools down, love turns to hate, and the carving knife is put to more insidious uses. Welcome to ABC’s Home for the Holidays (1972), a fun murder mystery filled with proto-slasher goodness.

Originally broadcast November 28th as part of the ABC Tuesday Movie of the Week, Home for the Holidays was up against CBS’s Hawaii Five-o and NBC’s The Bold Ones: The New Doctors (whatever that was) and had a solid showing, as ABC often did with this particular brand. However, you won’t find any Snoopies or undernourished trees in this Holiday special.

Let’s open our eggnog soaked TV Guide and see what’s going on around the tree:

Home For The Holidays (Tuesday,...

This unusually sensitive, overlooked WW2 romance skips the morale-boosting baloney of the day. Two people meet on a train, each with a personal shame they dare not speak of. Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten are excellent under William Dieterle’s direction, and Shirley Temple doesn’t do half the damage you’d think she might.

I’ll Be Seeing You

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 85 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Spring Byington, John Derek, Tom Tully, Chill Wills, Kenny Bowers.

Cinematography: Tony Gaudio

Film Editor: William H. Zeigler

Special Effects: Jack Cosgrove

Original Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof

Stunt Double: Cliff Lyons

Written by Marion Parsonette from a play by Charles Martin

Produced by Dore Schary

Directed by William Dieterle

Aha! A little research explains why several late-’40s melodramas from David O. Selznick come off as smart productions,...

There’s a heapin’-helpin’ of palace intrigue in this 1952 swashbuckler starring underrated action hero Stewart Granger (the role was a gift from MGM for his bang-up job in King Solomon’s Mines made two years earlier). Though it lacks the Boy’s Life adventurism of King Solomon, the movie is still brightly colored fun, shot by Charles Rosher (The Yearling, Show Boat). The lucky Granger is supported by two beauties who took full advantage of Rosher’s Technicolor mastery, flaming-haired Eleanor Parker and a radiant Janet Leigh.

The wait is over for home media horror fans, as nine new Blu-ray titles were announced for release later this year and in 2018 at Scream Factory's coveted annual Comic-Con panel, including Collector's Edition releases of Drag Me to Hell, The Strangers, and Misery.

From Scream Factory: "We just revealed the following upcoming Scream Factory Blu-ray releases at our Comic Con panel this evening. Here's the line-up that will be coming soon to you in Nov and early 2018:

Silent Night Deadly Night (1984) – Ho Ho Horror! The anti-holiday slasher cult classic favorite is being prepped for release before Christmas.

Misery (Collector’s Edition) (1990) – Hide the sledgehammers! Stephen King and Rob Reiner’s iconic classic receives the deluxe treatment it rightfully deserves.

Drag Me To Hell (Collector’s Edition) (2009) – We go more in-depth into Sam Raimi’s wildly-entertaining and wicked soul-cursing hit film.

The Strangers (Collector’s Edition) (2008) – One of...

Canadian-born actress Alexis Smith (born 1921) would have turned 96 years old today, June 8. Turner Classic Movies is celebrating her birthday by presenting nine of her movies, mostly during her time as a Warner Bros. contract player. In addition to Michael Curtiz's box office hit Night and Day, a highly fictionalized Cole Porter biopic starring Cary Grant as a heterosexual version of the famed gay composer. Night and Day is being shown as part of TCM's Gay Pride Month celebration. Alexis Smith died on June 9, 1993, the day after she turned 72. After her film career petered out in the 1950s, she went on to receive acclaim on the Broadway stage, making sporadic film appearances all the way to the year of her death. Smith's last film appearance was in a minor supporting role in Martin Scorsese's overly genteel period drama The Age of Innocence (1993), starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder.

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...

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

 

1819 The bicycle is patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr. which could be why June has lots of bicycle holidays like "bike to work week" and such. There's even a Bicycle Film Festival happening in NYC this very weekend.

1904 Peter Lorre is born

1922 Underappeciated film star Eleanor Parker is born. Her two best known classics are Caged (1950, her first nomination in one of the all time best Best Actress years) and The Sound of Music (1965, snubbed in supporting actress). Also born on this day is two-time Oscar recipient Dick Smith, an indisputable giant in movie makeup. Among his classics: The Godfather, The Exorcist, Amadeus, and Taxi Driver

1925 Charles Chaplin's The Gold Rush premieres in Hollywood 

1956 Chris Isaak, hot musician and David Lynch favorite, is born

1970 Paul Thomas Anderson is born. We thank him forever for Boogie Nights, Magnolia, and There Will Be Blood,...

Orange Is the New Black returns June 17. The show has rightly earned praise for its nuanced, moving portrayals of female inmates of all stripes, and serves as a reminder of how far things have come in terms of images of incarcerated women on screen. In appreciation of series creator Jenji Kohan and the cast and crew's elevated take on the subject matter, we're looking back at the bleak and often exploitative history of the strange "women's prison drama" film genre. The portrayal of women in prison can be split - as most of Hollywood can - into two periods: Pre- and Post-Code.

Orange Is the New Black returns June 17. The show has rightly earned praise for its nuanced, moving portrayals of female inmates of all stripes, and serves as a reminder of how far things have come in terms of images of incarcerated women on screen. In appreciation of series creator Jenji Kohan and the cast and crew's elevated take on the subject matter, we're looking back at the bleak and often exploitative history of the strange "women's prison drama" film genre. The portrayal of women in prison can be split - as most of Hollywood can - into two periods: Pre- and Post-Code.

Clark Gable is still sufficiently frisky in this late career western to attract four well-chosen frontier women -- who in this case happen to be a quartet of robbers' wives, sitting on a rumored mountain of ill-gotten gains. Raoul Walsh abets the comedy-drama, as Gable's fox-in-a-henhouse tries to determine which hen can lead him to the promised golden eggs. The King and Four Queens Blu-ray Olive Films 1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date May 24, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Clark Gable, Eleanor Parker, Jo Van Fleet, Jean Willes, Barbara Nichols, Sara Shane, Roy Roberts, Arthur Shields, Jay C. Flippen. Cinematography Lucien Ballard Production Design Wiard Ihnen Film Editor Howard Bretherton Original Music Alex North Written by Richard Alan Simmons, Margaret Fitts from her story Produced by David Hempstead Directed by Raoul Walsh

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Olive's latest dip into MGM's United Artists holdings brings up the cheerful, not particularly...

Danièle Delorme and Jean Gabin in 'Deadlier Than the Male.' Danièle Delorme movies (See previous post: “Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 Actress Became Rare Woman Director's Muse.”) “Every actor would like to make a movie with Charles Chaplin or René Clair,” Danièle Delorme explains in the filmed interview (ca. 1960) embedded further below, adding that oftentimes it wasn't up to them to decide with whom they would get to work. Yet, although frequently beyond her control, Delorme managed to collaborate with a number of major (mostly French) filmmakers throughout her six-decade movie career. Aside from her Jacqueline Audry films discussed in the previous Danièle Delorme article, below are a few of her most notable efforts – usually playing naive-looking young women of modest means and deceptively inconspicuous sexuality, whose inner character may or may not match their external appearance. Ouvert pour cause d'inventaire (“Open for Inventory Causes,” 1946), an unreleased, no-budget comedy notable...

Coleen Gray in 'The Sleeping City' with Richard Conte. Coleen Gray after Fox: B Westerns and films noirs (See previous post: “Coleen Gray Actress: From Red River to Film Noir 'Good Girls'.”) Regarding the demise of her Fox career (the year after her divorce from Rod Amateau), Coleen Gray would recall for Confessions of a Scream Queen author Matt Beckoff: I thought that was the end of the world and that I was a total failure. I was a mass of insecurity and depended on agents. … Whether it was an 'A' picture or a 'B' picture didn't bother me. It could be a Western movie, a sci-fi film. A job was a job. You did the best with the script that you had. Fox had dropped Gray at a time of dramatic upheavals in the American film industry: fast-dwindling box office receipts as a result of competition from television,...