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Tony Bennett's first record, "Because of You" was released in 1952 and it instantly codified the entertainer as one of the music world's great crooners. In 1962, his 15th record, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" was certified platinum by the RIAA, but that was after he had already established himself with Count Basie and his Orchestra and as a great fan of songwriter Harold Arlen. All told, he released 61 records in his decades-long career, not including his eight albums of collaborations and duets. He sang with Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles, Carrie Underwood, Stevie Wonder, Natalie Cole, Mariah Carey, Bono, Sting, Paul McCartney, Diana Krall, and many others. Most recently, he released two collaborations with Lady Gaga in 2018 and 2021. Bennett passed away on July 21, 2023 at the age of 96. He will be deeply missed.

Naturally, a talent of Bennett's stature couldn't be ignored by Hollywood, and he would appear...

Versatile actor with notable roles in films such as The Thief and Klute

The actor Rita Gam, who has died aged 87, starred in many films from the 1950s onwards, alongside famous names including Gregory Peck and Jane Fonda. When just 24, with modest stage and television experience, she was cast opposite another leading figure, Ray Milland, for her Hollywood debut in what the publicity described as “the only motion picture of its kind”.

This was The Thief (1952), a cold war spy film devised by the writer-director Russell Rouse in the style of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights (1931) as a sound film entirely without dialogue. Indeed, Rouse went one better in having no intertitles, the cards using written words to set the scene or supply the dialogue.

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Shall we sing the praises of actress Marie Windsor? A self--assessed Queen of the Cheapies, she was anything but cheap, gracing some of the better films noirs and delivering some of the most deliciously acidic dialogue ever heard on screen. The woman doesn't just have bedroom eyes, she has bedroom everything, and a wicked smile to go with it.

No Man's Woman Blu-ray Olive Films 1955 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 70 min. / Street Date October 27, 2015 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98 Starring Marie Windsor, John Archer, Patric Knowles, Nancy Gates, Jil Jarmyn, Richard Crane, Louis Jean Heydt, Percy Helton, Morris Ankrum. Cinematography Bud Thackery Film Editor Howard A. Smith Original Music R. Dale Butts Written by John K. Butler story by Don Martin Produced by Rudy Ralston Directed by Franklin Adreon

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Marie Windsor is really something in Abraham Polonsky's Force of Evil, lounging around in an effort to seduce John Garfield.

"Delicious, demented satisfaction:" It's a phrase Telluride Guest Director Kim Morgan—film writer, noir enthusiast and life partner to the other of Telluride's two guest directors for 2014, filmmaker Guy Maddin—uses to describe her reaction to two favorite movies of hers, Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour and a film she programmed into the festival this year, the vividly sordid Russell Rouse picture Wicked Woman. One suspects savory satisfactions of all types to be found in the six films the couple has brought to the mountain town this year. I spoke with Maddin and Morgan over an unfortunately scratchy connection, in the midst of preparations for the their long-weekend adventure in Telluride, which by now is well underway.>> - Susan Gerhard...

"Delicious, demented satisfaction:" It's a phrase Telluride Guest Director Kim Morgan—film writer, noir enthusiast and life partner to the other of Telluride's two guest directors for 2014, filmmaker Guy Maddin—uses to describe her reaction to two favorite movies of hers, Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour and a film she programmed into the festival this year, the vividly sordid Russell Rouse picture Wicked Woman. One suspects savory satisfactions of all types to be found in the six films the couple has brought to the mountain town this year. I spoke with Maddin and Morgan over an unfortunately scratchy connection, in the midst of preparations for the their long-weekend adventure in Telluride, which by now is well underway.>> - Susan Gerhard...

Main programme includes Birdman, Foxcatcher, The Imitation Game and Rosewater.

The Telluride Film Festival (Aug 29 - Sept 1) has revealed the line-up for its 41st edition, packed with films tipped for awards season.

The festival will include 85 features, short films and revivals representing 28 countries, along with special artist tributes, conversations, panels and education programmes.

The main programme includes Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, starring Michael Keaton, which opened the Venice Film Festival to rave reviews yesterday.

The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, The Homesman, directed by Tommy Lee Jones, and Jon Stewart’s directorial debut Rosewater are all generating awards buzz.

There are also several titles that picked up prizes in Cannes earlier this year including Foxcatcher, which won Bennett Miller best director; Russian drama Leviathan, winner of best screenplay; Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner, which saw Timothy Spall win best actor; and jury prize winner Mommy from Xavier Dolan.

The 50 Year Argument (d. Martin Scorsese, [link...

There are a lot of familiar faces in the just announced 2014 Telluride Film Festival line-up, but as much as this fest is about what's officially announced, it's also about what's not mentioned as secret screenings are pretty much what makes Telluride such a buzzy fest, though this year a little bit of snow may also be part of the conversation. As for the titles announced so far you have Venice early standout Birdman, Jon Stewart's Rosewater, The Imitation Game and Jean-Marc Vallee's Wild along with a Ton of Cannes crossover pics including Foxcatcher, The Homesman, Leviathan, Mommy, Mr. Turner, Red Army, Wild Tales and Two Days, One Night. There is plenty of Toronto crossover with many of this pics as well, which also includes Ramin Bahrani's 99 Homes, the new Martin Scorsese documentary The 50 Year Argument, Joshua Oppenheimer's The Look of Silence and Ethan Hawke's Seymour among others.

Telluride — With all the reindeer games going on in the fall festival world, a lot of the drama and mystery surrounding Telluride's perennially on-the-lowdown program began to seep out like a steadily deflating balloon this year. Toronto, Venice and New York notations of "World Premiere," "Canada Premiere," "New York Premiere" or "International Premiere" and the like made it all rather obvious which films were heading to the San Juans for the 41st edition of the tiny mining village's cinephile gathering, and which were not. But the fact is, if you're in it just for the surprises — or certainly, for the awards-baiting heavies — you're never going to be fully satisfied by the Telluride experience. That having been said, this year's program might just be the most exciting one in my six years of attending. Starting with all of the stuff we were expecting, indeed, Cannes players "Foxcatcher," "Mr. Turner" and "Leviathan...

D.O.A.

Written by Russell Rouse, Clarence Greene

Directed by Rudolph Maté

U.S.A., 1950

In a terrifically dramatic opening, D.O.A. begins with a series of smooth tracking from behind one man as he walks the corridors of police headquarters whilst the credits appear in the forefront. When the man’s face is revealed, the viewer learns that it is actor Edmond O’Brien, here playing one Frank Bigelow, modest accountant and public notary. Once seated with the police captain he reveals that he has been murdered! Is Frank Bigelow a ghost? No, but he is a dead man walking as the viewer quickly learns when the picture flashes back to the start of Bigelow’s tale when he chose to go on vacation in San Francisco alone, much to the initial consternation of his infatuated girlfriend Paula (Pamela Britton). It is at a bar one night in San Francisco that...

Josh Olson on Noir! continues at Trailers from Hell, with screenwriter Olson introducing 1953's "Wicked Woman," starring Richard Egan as a small-town barkeep and perennial femme fatale Beverly Michaels as the sexy drifter who has his number.The memories of movie fans are papered with the work of the remarkably prolific producer Edward Small, ranging from such sophisticated fare as Witness for the Prosecution  to boomer favorites like Jack The Giant Killer and It, The Terror From Beyond Space. In 1953 Small produced Wicked Woman, a memorably sleazy but amusingly self-aware noir out of the Jim Thompson playbook. Directed by Russell Rouse (The Oscar), and co-starring Percy Helton, the high-pitched gnome from so many other essential noirs including Kiss Me Deadly and Criss Cross.

Jeanne Crain: Lighthearted movies vs. real life tragedies (photo: Madeleine Carroll and Jeanne Crain in ‘The Fan’) (See also: "Jeanne Crain: From ‘Pinky’ Inanity to ‘Margie’ Magic.") Unlike her characters in Margie, Home in Indiana, State Fair, Centennial Summer, The Fan, and Cheaper by the Dozen (and its sequel, Belles on Their Toes), or even in the more complex A Letter to Three Wives and People Will Talk, Jeanne Crain didn’t find a romantic Happy Ending in real life. In the mid-’50s, Crain accused her husband, former minor actor Paul Brooks aka Paul Brinkman, of infidelity, of living off her earnings, and of brutally beating her. The couple reportedly were never divorced because of their Catholic faith. (And at least in the ’60s, unlike the humanistic, progressive-thinking Margie, Crain was a “conservative” Republican who supported Richard Nixon.) In the early ’90s, she lost two of her...

Jeanne Crain: From Pinky to Margie Jeanne Crain, one of the most charming Hollywood actresses of the ’40s and ’50s, is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" featured player on Monday, August 26, 2013. Since Jeanne Crain was a top 20th Century Fox star for about a decade — a favorite of Fox mogul Darryl F. Zanuck — TCM will be showing quite a few films from the Fox library. And that’s great news. (Photo: Jeanne Crain ca. 1950.) (See also: “Jeanne Crain Movies: TCM’s ‘Summer Under the Stars’ Schedule.”) Now, my first recommendation is actually an MGM release. That’s Russell Rouse’s 1956 psychological Western The Fastest Gun Alive, an unusual movie in that the hero turns out to be a "coward" at heart: quick-on-the-trigger gunslinger Glenn Ford is reluctant to face an evil challenger (Broderick Crawford) in a small Western town. But why? Jeanne Crain is his serious-minded wife...

Eleanor Parker 2013 movie series continues today (photo: Eleanor Parker in Detective Story) Palm Springs resident Eleanor Parker is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of June 2013. Thus, eight more Eleanor Parker movies will be shown this evening on TCM. Parker turns 91 on Wednesday, June 26. (See also: “Eleanor Parker Today.”) Eleanor Parker received her second Best Actress Academy Award nomination for William Wyler’s crime drama Detective Story (1951). The movie itself feels dated, partly because of several melodramatic plot developments, and partly because of Kirk Douglas’ excessive theatricality as the detective whose story is told. Parker, however, is excellent as Douglas’ wife, though her role is subordinate to his. Just about as good is Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Lee Grant, whose career would be derailed by the anti-Red hysteria of the ’50s. Grant would make her comeback in the ’70s, eventually winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her...

The Western was a movie staple for decades. It seemed the genre that would never die, feeding the fantasies of one generation after another of young boys who galloped around their backyards, playgrounds, and brick streets on broomsticks, banging away with their Mattel cap pistols. Something about a man on a horse set against the boundless wastes of Monument Valley, the crackle of saddle leather, two men facing off in a dusty street under the noon sun connected with the free spirit in every kid.

The American movie – a celluloid telling that was more than a skit – was born in a Western: Edwin S. Porter’s 11- minute The Great Train Robbery (1903). Thereafter, Westerns grew longer, they grew more complex. The West – hostile, endless, civilization barely maintaining a toehold against the elements, hostile natives, and robber barons – proved an infinitely plastic setting. In a place with no law, and where...

Chicago – Diabolical twins, obsessed journalists and jail-breaking thugs are heading their way to the Music Box Theatre. The Film Noir Foundation’s third installment of “Noir City: Chicago” features no less than sixteen restored 35mm prints of must-see cinematic rarities. Ten of these noir classics have yet to land a DVD release, thus making this festival all the more essential for local cinephiles.

The week-long festival kicks off Friday, Aug. 12, and includes criminally overlooked performances from Hollywood legends such as Humphrey Bogart, Anne Bancroft, Barbara Stanwyck, Olivia de Havilland, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters and Burt Lancaster. Acclaimed noir historians Alan K. Rode (“Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy”) and Foster Hirsch (“Detours and Lost Highways: A Map of Neo-Noir”) will be presenting the pictures while offering their wealth of historical and filmic insight.

Among this year’s most priceless treasures is “Deadline USA,” starring Bogart as...

Chicago – Along with sixteen restored 35mm prints of overlooked cinematic gems, the Music Box Theatre’s third installment of “Noir City: Chicago” brings two renowned film historians to the Windy City: Alan K. Rode and Foster Hirsch. Both men serve on the board of directors of the Film Noir Foundation, a non-profit corporation aiming to restore rare noir classics for future generations.

In addition to serving as the co-programmer and co-host of the annual Noir City Hollywood film festival, Rode is also the charter director and treasurer of the Film Noir Foundation as well as the producer, programmer and host of the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival in Palm Springs, California. He garnered acclaim for his book, “Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy,” which followed the titular prolific actor through the rise and fall of the studio system. His latest book, “Michael Curtiz: A Man for All Movies,...

Jeanne Crain was one of 20th Century Fox's biggest stars of the 1940s and early 1950s — one who led a tragic life, not at all like her charmed (and charming) on-screen characters. Crain is also Turner Classic Movies "star of the evening" tonight, Jan. 7. I've always had a soft spot for Jeanne Crain. Anything she's in, I'd recommend. But the movies TCM is showing tonight would be worthwhile even if I weren't a major Crain fan. Russell Rouse's The Fastest Gun Alive (1956) is currently on. A little-known Western released by MGM, this "minor" effort is one of my all-time favorites in that genre. If Fred Zinnemann's High Noon was subversive (and it was), The Fastest Gun Alive subverts High Noon's premise a bit further: here, the hero who saves the day is what many (not me) would call a "coward" — he's terrified of gun duels even though...

There are just two sleeps to go to the big night! The odds have been calculated and the prognostications made! The votes are in and now can't even be changed by Harvey's semitic signage, Nicolas's nincompoop e-natterings or James revealing that the Na'vi aren't actually CG but real genetic freaks he cooked up in his garage. Yet we can't keep having the same conversations for the next 48 hours. What we need is something to feed the appetite and stoke the fever -- something that's of the Academy Awards but not about their 82nd iteration. And The Oscar is that filmic fondue, a cauldron of cheese cooked up by director Russell Rouse, writer Harlan Ellison, stars Stephen Boyd and Tony Bennett, and a who's who of Hollywood donating cameos.

“You finally made it, Frankie! Oscar night! And here you sit, on top of a glass mountain called success. You’re one of the chosen five, and the whole town’s holding its breath to see who won it! It’s been quite a climb, hasn’t it, Frankie? Down at the bottom, scuffling for dimes in those smokers, all the way to the top. Magic Hollywood!” This ripe narration opens the 1966 movie The Oscar, a cynical look at how an Oscar nomination goes to the head of its nominee and the lengths an unscrupulous man will go to win the coveted gold statuette. With an undeserved reputation as one of the lousiest Show-biz soap operas from the 60’s, The Oscar portrays Hollywood as a cesspool where you sell your soul and it’s certainly amusing for its campy dialog and sleazy situations. Sure, The Oscar is brainless tinseltown trash full of shameless clichés,...

The B Noir festival is a hit! It's always a delight to hear about retrospective programming doing well. There are still people out there interested in and trying out old movies in theaters. Or maybe the San Francisco noir crowd is just that strong. I'd written about "I Wake Up Dreaming" a couple of weeks back (read it here); I have since went and saw some of the movies they're playing.

If you're in the Bay Area and you haven't spared the time, there's good news. The festival was supposed to end this Thursday, but I have just been informed that since it is selling out so well, they've decided to add another week of showings!

The list of extra screenings is at the bottom, but before that, I want to recommend trying to get to this Friday's showing of The Devil Thumbs a Ride, which I managed to catch on the fest's opening night.