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Lena Waithe’s production company Hillman Grad has promoted Rocio Melara, Travis Ing and Sylvia Carrasco to executive ranks in addition to hiring Garry Harris in a newly created director of development position.

Melara will now serve as vice president of film and TV after first joining Hillman Grad in 2019 as a development executive. She began her career in the commercial space before going on to work for Mad House Entertainment, Di Bonaventura Pictures and Ben Stiller’s Red Hour. Along with her current development slate, Melara has served as a producer on the BET comedy series “Twenties” and an executive producer on the “Twenties After Show.”

Ing has been promoted to creative executive. He joined Hillman Grad in 2020 after working in WME’s TV department. Before his entertainment career, Ing was a venture capital investor.

Carrasco also serves as creative executive across film and TV, having joined Hillman Grad in 2019. Previously,...

You can’t beat pre-Code Barbara Stanwyck, who glows as a knockout thieves’ accomplice, tough prison convict and deceitful lover of an incorruptible revivalist preacher-politician. She’s matched by the sassy, naughty Lillian Roth. In this Warner crime-tale-duel between piety and sin, darned if Stanwyck and Roth don’t make the crooked path seem cozy. There’s a girl-girl punch-out and an ill-fated prison break, but just watching Barbara ooze attitude as she saunters through the prison is worth the price of admission. Even more eye-opening is a positively lewd cartoon extra, also from the pre-Code halls of joyful infamy.

Ladies They Talk About

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1933 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 69 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date , 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Lyle Talbot, Dorothy Burgess, Lillian Roth, Maude Eburne, Ruth Donnelly, Harold Huber, Mary Gordon, Madame Sul-Te-Wan, Robert Warwick, Etta Moten, Helen Ware.

Cinematography: John F. Seitz

Production Designer:...

Woo hoo! The pre-Code marvels return for one last go-round -- tales of sin and moral turpitude but also serious pictures about social issues that the Production Code effectively swept from Hollywood screens -- financial crimes and ethnic bigotry. Forbidden Hollywood Volume 10 Guilty Hands, The Mouthpiece, Secrets of the French Police, The Match King, Ever in My Heart DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1932-1934 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 63, 62, 78, 85, 70 min. / Street Date October 27, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 40.99 Starring Lionel Barrymore, Kay Francis, Madge Evans; Warren William, Sidney Fox, Aline McMahon; Frank Morgan, Gwili Andre, Gregory Ratoff Rochelle Hudson; Warren William, Lili Damita, Glenda Farrell, Claire Dodd; Barbara Stanwyck, Otto Kruger, Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Donnelly. Cinematography Merritt B. Gerstad, Barney McGill; Alfred Gilks; Robert Kurrie; Written by Bayard Veiller; Joseph Jackson, Earl Baldwin, Frank J. Collins; Samuel Ornitz, Robert Tasker; Houston Branch, Sidney Sutherland, Einar Thorvaldson; Bertram Millhauser, Beulah Marie Dix.

Depraved convicts ! Crazy Manhattan gin parties! Society dames poaching other women's husbands! A flimflam artist scamming the uptown sophisticates! All these forbidden attractions are here and more -- including Bette Davis's epochal seduction line about impulsive kissing versus good hair care. It's a 9th collection of racy pre-Code wonders. Forbidden Hollywood Volume 9 Big City Blues, Hell's Highway, The Cabin in the Cotton, When Ladies Meet, I Sell Anything DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1932-1934 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 63, 62, 78, 85, 70 min. / Street Date October 27, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 40.99 Starring Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, Humphrey Bogart; Richard Dix, Tom Brown; Richard Barthelmess, Bette Davis, Dorothy Jordan, Berton Churchill; Ann Harding, Robert Montgomery, Myrna Loy, Alice Brady, Frank Morgan; Pat O' Brien, Ann Dvorak, Claire Dodd, Roscoe Karns. Cinematography James Van Trees; Edward Cronjager; Barney McGill; Ray June Written by Lillie Hayward, Ward Morehouse, from his play; Samuel Ornitz, Robert Tasker, Rowland Brown...