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Producer David O. Selznick was always looking for the next big thing. He had scored an enormous hit — it was a cultural phenom — with his 1939 Civil War drama “Gone with the Wind,’ which won eight Oscars including best picture, director, actress and supporting actress. And for those fashion-minded, “Gwtw” also caused an uptick in sales of the women’s headgear called the snood.

The following year, Selznick produced the best picture winner, Alfred Hitchcock’s romantic mystery “Rebecca.” Four years after ‘Rebecca” on July 20, 1944, Selznick released the sentimental, home-fires-burning drama “Since You Went Away,” which he hoped would the next “Gwtw” in terms of box office and Oscar love.

The world was war weary in 1944. In fact, World War II seemed never ending. The Allied troops launched its invasion of Europe on the beaches of Normandy on June 6th. But even with the success of D-day, the war wouldn’t...

Veteran Kelly Oubre Jr. has become something of a journeyman in the NBA. In 2023, he inked a deal with his fifth team the Philadelphia 76ers. Kelly made an immediate impact off the bench for the Sixers and the City of Brotherly Love has embraced him.

Here’s more about the athlete, his wife, and which of Kelly’s teammates she was in a relationship with first.

When Kelly and Shylynn got married and how many children they have

Kelly met Shylynnitaa “Shylynn” Gibson in 2020 through mutual friends. They began dating and after a few months, the NBA player proposed. The couple wed in 2022.

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Kelly spoke to People about how he and Shylynn knew when it was the right time to get married.

“We wanted to take the next steps and give our love to God, for his seal of approval,...

Every year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gives out shiny gold Oscar statuettes to actors in four categories: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. But believe it or not, what they don't do, anywhere in the Oscar rulebook, is clearly define what the difference is between a lead performance and a supporting performance.

In the end, they leave that decision up to the Academy voters, who can sometimes make weird calls. How the heck they thought Viola Davis was just "supporting" Denzel Washington in "Fences" is anyone's guess, for example. But the thing is, one rule the Academy does have for these categories, is that you are absolutely not allowed to be nominated for Best Lead and Best Supporting for the same performance, in the same film, in the same year.

At least, not anymore. Because someone already did get nominated for...

Grant is a suave stranger who stirs up the strained marriage of Niven and Loretta Young in this fey but beguiling seasonal tale

There’s an unworldly charm and odd, innocent solemnity to this Christmas fantasy comedy from 1947, now on rerelease, directed by Henry Koster and starring Cary Grant, David Niven and Loretta Young. Niven plays the sobersided Bishop Henry Brougham, a decent but now careworn man whose overwork has lately caused him to neglect the happiness of his sweet-natured wife Julia (Young) and infant daughter Debby (Karolyn Grimes). As the Christmas season approaches, the bishop is becoming a veritable Scrooge, a role he effectively shares with the wealthy widow Mrs Hamilton (Gladys Cooper). She was instrumental in getting him the bishop’s job in the first place, and is now exhaustingly stringing him along with a promise to fund the building of a vainglorious new cathedral with which the...

The rate at which Steven Spielberg has pumped out classic movies over his nearly 50-year career is astounding. From his directorial debut with "The Sugarland Express" in 1974 to this year's Toronto International Film Festival People's Choice Award winner "The Fabelmans," Spielberg has put out more bonafide classics than perhaps any modern director.

"Jurassic Park" may be Spielberg's greatest film of all. The 1993 adventure film's innovative special effects, amazing score, and strong cast help it stand the test of time. On paper, it's not surprising that a Spielberg film about dinosaurs rocked. Spielberg rocks, dinosaurs rock. It adds up.

But despite having a story with an absolutely killer premise, the success of "Jurassic Park" was not pre-ordained. It still required lots of hard work on the part of the cast, crew, and Spielberg himself. Spielberg especially had to work very hard to keep his actors motivated when they had to act...

A never ending mission to save the world featuring Ron Perlman, Peter Ramsey, James Adomian, Will Menaker, and Blaire Bercy from the Hollywood Food Coalition.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Karado: The Kung Fu Flash a.k.a. Karado: The Kung Fu Cat a.k.a. The Super Kung Fu Kid (1974)

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

Nobody’s Fool (1994)

The Hustler (1961)

Elmer Gantry (1960)

Mean Dog Blues (1978)

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

Mona Lisa (1986)

The Crying Game (1992)

The Hairdresser’s Husband (1990)

Ridicule (1996)

Man on the Train (2002)

The Girl on the Bridge (1999)

Pale Flower (1964)

Out of the Past (1947)

The Lunchbox (2013)

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

Raw Deal (1986)

Commando (1985)

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

The Last Man On Earth (1964)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers...

Turner Classic Movies continues with its Gay Hollywood presentations tonight and tomorrow morning, June 8–9. Seven movies will be shown about, featuring, directed, or produced by the following: Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart, Farley Granger, John Dall, Edmund Goulding, W. Somerset Maughan, Clifton Webb, Montgomery Clift, Raymond Burr, Charles Walters, DeWitt Bodeen, and Harriet Parsons. (One assumes that it's a mere coincidence that gay rumor subjects Cary Grant and Tyrone Power are also featured.) Night and Day (1946), which could also be considered part of TCM's homage to birthday girl Alexis Smith, who would have turned 96 today, is a Cole Porter biopic starring Cary Grant as a posh, heterosexualized version of Porter. As the warning goes, any similaries to real-life people and/or events found in Night and Day are a mere coincidence. The same goes for Words and Music (1948), a highly fictionalized version of the Richard Rodgers-Lorenz Hart musical partnership.

Charles Brackett ca. 1945: Hollywood diarist and Billy Wilder's co-screenwriter (1936–1949) and producer (1945–1949). Q&A with 'Charles Brackett Diaries' editor Anthony Slide: Billy Wilder's screenwriter-producer partner in his own words Six-time Academy Award winner Billy Wilder is a film legend. He is renowned for classics such as The Major and the Minor, Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment. The fact that Wilder was not the sole creator of these movies is all but irrelevant to graduates from the Auteur School of Film History. Wilder directed, co-wrote, and at times produced his films. That should suffice. For auteurists, perhaps. But not for those interested in the whole story. That's one key reason why the Charles Brackett diaries are such a great read. Through Brackett's vantage point, they offer a welcome – and unique – glimpse into the collaborative efforts that resulted in...

Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...

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,...

Martha Stewart: Actress / Singer in Fox movies apparently not dead despite two-year-old reports to the contrary (Photo: Martha Stewart and Perry Como in 'Doll Face') According to various online reports, including Variety's, actress and singer Martha Stewart, a pretty blonde featured in supporting roles in a handful of 20th Century Fox movies of the '40s, died at age 89 of "natural causes" in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on February 25, 2012. Needless to say, that was not the same Martha Stewart hawking "delicious foods" and whatever else on American television. But quite possibly, the Martha Stewart who died in February 2012 -- if any -- was not the Martha Stewart of old Fox movies either. And that's why I'm republishing this (former) obit, originally posted more than two and a half years ago: March 11, 2012. Earlier today, a commenter wrote to Alt Film Guide, claiming that the Martha Stewart featured in Doll Face, I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now,...

Shirley Temple dead at 85: Was one of the biggest domestic box office draws of the ’30s (photo: Shirley Temple in the late ’40s) Shirley Temple, one of the biggest box office draws of the 1930s in the United States, died Monday night, February 10, 2014, at her home in Woodside, near San Francisco. The cause of death wasn’t made public. Shirley Temple (born in Santa Monica on April 23, 1928) was 85. Shirley Temple became a star in 1934, following the release of Paramount’s Alexander Hall-directed comedy-tearjerker Little Miss Marker, in which Temple had the title role as a little girl who, left in the care of bookies, almost loses her childlike ways before coming around to regenerate Adolphe Menjou and his gang. That same year, Temple became a Fox contract player, and is credited with saving the studio — 20th Century Fox from 1935 on — from bankruptcy. Whether or not that’s true is a different story,...

“The only people who grow old were born old to begin with.”

The Bishop’S Wife (1947) is about an Angel called Dudley, yes, just Dudley played by Cary Grant. This Angel comes to Earth to answer a prayer of guidance for Henry (David Niven). Henry wants to build a large and great edifice for God. Henry is married to Julia (Loretta Young) a woman that places a poor second to the new building in the “mind” of Henry. Oh, how she wishes that things were like it used to be when Henry was just the Reverend of a small Parish. When Henry would take her to the restaurant called “Michelle’s.” But now that Henry has become a Bishop, poor Julia gets more attention from the family dog. It will be a tough job for Dudley. Henry only sees a building but Dudley sees a family in crisis. One problem develops,...

Bette Davis movies: TCM schedule on August 14 (photo: Bette Davis in ‘Dangerous,’ with Franchot Tone) See previous post: “Bette Davis Eyes: They’re Watching You Tonight.” 3:00 Am Parachute Jumper (1933). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Harold Huber, Leo Carrillo, Thomas E. Jackson, Lyle Talbot, Leon Ames, Stanley Blystone, Reginald Barlow, George Chandler, Walter Brennan, Pat O’Malley, Paul Panzer, Nat Pendleton, Dewey Robinson, Tom Wilson, Sheila Terry. Bw-72 mins. 4:30 Am The Girl From 10th Avenue (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Ian Hunter, Colin Clive, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Phillip Reed, Katharine Alexander, Helen Jerome Eddy, Bill Elliott, Edward McWade, André Cheron, Wedgwood Nowell, John Quillan, Mary Treen. Bw-69 mins. 6:00 Am Dangerous (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Dick Foran, Walter Walker, Richard Carle, George Irving, Pierre Watkin, Douglas Wood,...

Bette Davis’ eyes keep ‘Watch on the Rhine’ Bette Davis’ eyes are watching everything and everyone on Turner Classic Movies this evening, as TCM continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" film series: today, August 14, 2013, belongs to two-time Oscar winner Bette Davis’ eyes, cigarettes, and clipped tones. Right now, TCM is showing the Herman Shumlin-directed Watch on the Rhine (1943), an earnest — too much so, in fact — melodrama featuring Nazis, anti-Nazis, and lofty political speeches. (See “Bette Davis Movies: TCM schedule.”) As a prestigious and timely Warner Bros. release, Watch on the Rhine was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and earned Paul Lukas the year’s Best Actor Oscar. Bette Davis has a subordinate role and — for once during her years as Warners’ Reigning Queen — subordinate billing as well. As so often happens when Davis tried to play a sympathetic character, she’s not very good; Lukas, however,...

Rodgers amp Hart's On Your Toes, an improbable mix of gangsters, vaudeville and classical ballet, was the first musical to successfully integrate classical dance into the Broadway musical format. The original production was choreographed by George Balanchine and starred Ray Bolger, Tamara Geva and Monty Woolley. It opened on April 11, 1936, at the Imperial Theatre and ran for 315 performances. Songs include Glad to be Unhappy, There's A Small Hotel and the legendary ballet Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.

By Allen Gardner

A Separation (Sony) This drama from Iran won the 2011 Best Foreign Film Oscar, telling the story of a couple who file for a legal separation, with the wife pushing for a divorce. He won’t leave his Alzheimer’s-afflicted father behind, while she is wanting to take their young daughter with her to the United States. After a series of misunderstandings, threats and legal actions, the couple find that there is more than just their marriage that’s on the line. Hyper-realistic to a fault, reminiscent of the neo-realist films that came out of post-ww II Europe, but also repressive and redundant in the extreme, with the characters seeming to throw the same temper tantrum for two hours straight while the story, meanwhile, seems stalled. Wildly overpraised film is a real litmus test, with viewers seeming to be staunch defenders or equally impassioned detractors. It did win an Oscar,...

Bette Davis in a breezy, holiday comedy -- why, yes! In The Man Who Came to Dinner, she plays secretary Maggie Cutler to Monty Woolley's acerbic blowhard Sheridan Whiteside. The film is based on the 1938 play by Kaufman and Hart, and is so full of then-contemporary pop culture references, it's almost like I Love the '30s (and Early '40s). Jimmy Durante plays a character based on Harpo Marx, fictional Beverly Carlton (played by Reginald Gardiner) is shaped on Noel Coward, and Ann Sheridan's Lorraine Sheldon is formed on legendary actress Gertrude Lawrence.

The 1942 movie runs like a play at times; most of the action is based at the home of the wealthy Stanley clan, which you almost pity and dislike at the same time. Whiteside is the "Man" of the title, a radio host and public speaker unafraid to speak his mind to anyone that will listen.

Ronald Colman, centenarian Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Madeleine Carroll, and Mary Astor (in the Ruritanian classic The Prisoner of Zenda); Fairbanks again, with Irene Dunne and Lucille Ball (in the not-so-classic comedy Joy of Living); Bette Davis, Monty Woolley and Ann Sheridan (in the comedy classic The Man Who Came to Dinner); John Gilbert and Renée Adorée (in the anti-war classic The Big Parade); Humphrey Bogart, Joan Bennett, and Peter Ustinov (in the demi-classic allegorical comedy We’re No Angels); Woody Allen and Diane Keaton (in the middle-age-crisis classic Manhattan); James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, and Gloria Grahame (in the horror classic It’s a Wonderful Life); Ingmar Bergman’s Oscar-winning classic Fanny and Alexander; and, inevitably, several Walt Disney classic shorts [...]...

Danny DeVito is set to play the title role in a re-make of the classic 1941 comedy The Man Who Came To Dinner. The small-town yarn was originally directed by William Keighley for Warner Bros and starred Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan and Monty Woolley. Woolley, a close personal friend of Cole Porter, reprised his Broadway role of a pompous critic who returns to his Midwestern hometown to accept an award. Things start going wrong when he goes to dinner with a wealthy local resident and is taken ill, and is forced to become an unwanted house guest. In the new version, the critic becomes an arrogant talk-show host. A film crew member says, "Danny has been dreaming about playing this part for many years. It is one of his favorites. Steven Spielberg thinks it could become a modern-day classic."...