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Though Louis B. Mayer created the Academy Awards as a union-busting enterprise and a bid for further studio control, they're now considered the highest honors in Hollywood. Studios put millions into Oscars campaigns for their films and stars, and Oscars commentary has become an industry in and of itself. In the Internet age, the Academy Awards now generate iconic viral moments like the memorable "La La Land" and "Moonlight" mix-up in 2017.

Even as we recognize their insignificance, it's difficult not to get invested in the outcome of the Oscars. However, as Oscar voters are fallible people, they don't always get it right. Remember when "Green Book" inexplicably won Best Picture in 2017, mirroring the "Driving Miss Daisy" controversy in 1990? The history of the Academy Awards is filled with instances of voters having very bad taste and having very good taste -- though, of course, taste is subjective.

Indeed, some Oscar winners are best left gathering dust.

Another month means another slate of HBO Max releases. The streamer will bring a few notable films onto its service this August, including A24’s “The Legend of Ochi” and the horror sensation “Final Destination: Bloodlines.” It also boasts a minor selection of archive entries, bringing new horror, romance, comedy and drama onto the service.

Here are the seven best movies that are new to HBO Max in August

20th Century “Alien: Covenant”

“Alien: Covenant” isn’t the best of the “Alien” franchise. It’s barely in the top five. Still, Ridley Scott’s third feature in his outer space horror franchise expands upon the interesting themes and ideas established in his earlier entries.

Scott and company bring Michael Fassbender back into the fold, allowing one of the franchise’s best actors to give a dual performance as synthetics David and Walter. Through these characters (particularly David), “Covenant” continues to...

Sara Fgaier on Leo McCarey’s An Affair To Remember, starring Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant and Love Affair with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer: “I saw the two versions in Paris. It was incredible, because I already wrote the film [Weightless] and then I discovered them.” Photo: Anne Katrin Titze

Sara Fgaier’s Weightless (Sulla Terra Leggeri), a highlight of Cinecittà and Film at Lincoln Center’s 24th edition of Open Roads: New Italian Cinema, stars Andrea Renzi, Sara Serraiocco, Emilio Scarpa, and Lise Lomi. The story by Fgaier and Sabrina Cusano, who both co-wrote the screenplay with Maurizio Buquicchio, links love and memory and in an exciting new cinematic way combines past and present, the life of the mind and that of physical remnants of what may never have been.

Lise Lomi and Emilio Scarpa star in Sara Fgaier’s Weightless

Fgaier chose a Julian Barnes quote from...

Cora Sue Collins, the charming child actress of the 1930s and ’40s who worked alongside such legends as Greta Garbo, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Irene Dunne and Merle Oberon during her brief but sensational career, has died. She was 98.

Collins died Sunday at her home in Beverly Hills of complications from a stroke, her daughter, Susie Krieser, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Collins played younger versions of Colbert in Torch Singer (1933), Frances Dee in The Strange Case of Clara Deane (1932) and Keep ‘Em Rolling (1934), Loretta Young in Caravan (1934), Oberon in The Dark Angel (1935) and Lynn Bari in Blood and Sand (1941).

“I must have the most common face in the world,” she said in a 2019 interview. “I played either the most famous actresses of the ’30s as a child or their child. They made me up to look like everybody.”

The MGM contract player also was William Powell and Myrna Loy’s...

Netflix is bringing another classic novel adaptation to the screen. Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, which was previously filmed by Martin Scorsese in 1993, is being adapted into a miniseries at the streamer. The news comes on the heels, coincidentally, of Miramax announcing plans to produce a series adaptation of Gangs of New York, another Scorsese film that, like The Age of Innocence, also starred Daniel Day-Lewis.

Netflix has tapped British screenwriter Emma Frost, a veteran of Shameless, The Spanish Princess, and The Man in the High Castle, to showrun the series. Frost is not to be confused with the Marvel Comics character of the same name, although she did write for The White Queen. It will attempt to stay true to the novel's original themes, while also bringing the novel to a new, younger audience. The series is the latest in Netflix's attempts to mine the literary canon for content.

For the first time in 47 years, all five Best Actress Oscar nominees hail from Best Picture nominees.

The Best Actress lineup was the top five in the odds: Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), Mikey Madison (Anora), Demi Moore (The Substance), and Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here). Four of those films were widely predicted to score Best Picture nominations except for I’m Still Here, which was in 13th place in the odds; but in the biggest surprise of the day, the Brazilian feature made the cut on Thursday. The other Best Picture nominees are The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, and Nickel Boys.

The last time the Best Actress and Best Picture lineups aligned was during the 1977-78 season when Diane Keaton (Annie Hall) won Best Actress over Jane Fonda (Julia), Marsha Mason (The Goodbye Girl), and The Turning Point stars Anne Bancroft and Shirley MacLaine.

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In the history of the Academy Awards, only 17 Westerns have ever been nominated for Best Picture. A brief list of the nominees: "In Old Arizona" (1928), "Cimarron" (1931), "Viva Villa!" (1934), "Stagecoach" (1939), "The Ox-Bow Incident" (1943), "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948), "High Noon" (1952), "Shane" (1953), "How the West Was Won" (1963), "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" (1969), "Dances with Wolves" (1990), "Unforgiven" (1992), "No Country for Old Men" (2007), "True Grit" (2010), "Django Unchained" (2012), "Hell or High Water" (2016), and "The Power of the Dog" (2021).

Others may be on the border of the genre, like, say, "Brokeback Mountain" or "The Revenant," but the above 17 are indisputable.

The first of those 17 films to win Best Picture was Wesley Ruggles' American history epic "Cimarron," one of the highest-reviewed films of its day. Variety's 1931 review of the film praised it as one of the modern age's great spectacles, a pinnacle of pop filmmaking.

[Editor’s note: For this article, The Hollywood Reporter only looked at the shortest and longest screen times in the lead acting categories. Best supporting actor and actress were not included.]

Longest Screen Times Vivien Leigh, Gone With the Wind (1939)

Movie Length 3 hrs 58 mins

Time Onscreen 2 hrs 23 mins

Percent of Run Time 60 Percent

Vivien Leigh holds the record for the longest performance to win an Oscar, though the work took a deep physical and mental toll on her. The film itself is also the longest to win best picture. At the 12th Academy Awards, Victor Fleming’s Gone With the Wind also won best supporting actress for Hattie McDaniel, who became the first African American to win an Oscar. Leigh was nominated alongside Bette Davis (Dark Victory), Irene Dunne (Love Affair), Greta Garbo (Ninotchka) and Greer Garson (Goodbye, Mr. Chips).

Charlton Heston, Ben-Hur (1959)

Movie Length 3 hrs 32 mins

Time Onscreen 2 hrs 1 min

Percent of Run Time 57.1 Percent...

What's your favorite romantic movie, the one that moves you to tears, be they of happiness or sorrow? Perhaps it's Leo McCarey's four-hankie 1939 weeper "Love Affair" starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne, or maybe it's McCarey's own remake "An Affair to Remember" lead by the insanely photogenic likes of Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. And then there's Nora Ephron's rom-com riff on those films, "Sleepless in Seattle" toplined by Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Prefer a good ugly cry? Arthur Hiller's "Love Story" and that Francis Lai score will mug it out of you as Ryan O'Neal loses the love of his life in Ali MacGraw. In the mood for a good emotional scalding? Bernardo Bertolucci's "Last Tango in Paris" will leave you stunned and in the mood for anything but love.

For fans of the "Love Story" flavor, John Crowley's "We Live in Time" did...

Throughout American movie history, historical accuracy has certainly not been one of Hollywood's strong suits. Most Hollywood films distort the truth, utilizing their right to artistic license to add heightened drama to their narratives. High-profile movies such as JFK, Argo, and Selma have garnered significant controversy for their deviations from historical fact.

The Western, a genre whose foundation is built upon the mythology of the Old West, is one of Hollywood's most historically inaccurate genres. While no film will ever be one hundred percent historically accurate, there are some Westerns that have attempted to be more true to reality than others. Westerns such as The Covered Wagon and The Big Trail opted for realistic approaches in their depictions of Westward Expansion. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Killers of the Flower Moon tried their best to portray real historical events properly. The John Ford Westerns...

Most people who are familiar with Show Boat likely know the 1951 MGM Technicolor version, starring Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel, as it is the more recent and easily available version. However, the earlier 1936 black-and-white production, directed by James Whale for Universal Pictures, climaxing his streak of successes (including Frankenstein), and starring Irene Dunne, is correctly considered definitive by many and the better of the two.

Vanity Street.Broke and homeless, a young woman hurls a brick through the window of a drugstore, hoping to go to jail because at least “they feed you there.” Instead of arresting her, a kindly cop gets her a job as a showgirl at the theater next door; soon she’s wearing furs and fending off passes from top-hatted stage-door Johnnies. So it goes in lightning-paced B movies such as Vanity Street (1932), directed by Poverty Row maestro Nick Grinde. The plot may be flimsy, but Max Ophuls could have been proud of the long, breezy tracking shot that glides past the windows of the drugstore, packed with a motley crowd of chorus girls, costumed actors, and burlesque comedians. This casually terrific sequence is representative of the treasures that were to be found in the retrospective honoring the 2024 centenary of Columbia Pictures at this year’s Locarno Film Festival. Most of the films were short.

With the elections less than two months away and the highly anticipated debate between former President Donald Trump and current vice president Kamala Harris on Sept 10, it’s time to revisit classic political movies. TCM is currently presenting a nine-week series “Making Change: The Most Significant Political Films of All Time.” Political films run the gamut from thrillers, to dramas (“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”), to the historical, to satirical comedies.

Speaking of satires, Preston Sturges received his one and only Oscar for his screenplay for 1940’s “The Great McGinty,” his smart, funny comedy about a hobo (Brian Donlevy) who rises to governor only to lose it all. Sturges had originally written a piece “The Story of Man” in 1933 with Spencer Tracy in mind. Tracy had just starred in 1933’s “The Power and the Glory,” which marked Sturges’ first film script. He attempted to sell it to Universal which also turned the story down; so,...

Quick Links What Is Cimarron About? Cimarron's Contemporary Reception Cimarron's Post-Release Appraisal

Not every Oscar winner for Best Picture can withstand the test of time to achieve terminal greatness. One glaring example is the 1931 epic movie Western Cimarron, which won three Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Writing (Adaptation), and Best Art Direction. While acclaimed by contemporary film critics and general moviegoers, Cimarron has formed a reputation for being one of the least deserving Oscar winners in Hollywood history.

As such, Cimarron was remade in 1960 to modernize the story, although the remake was criticized and only earned one Oscar nomination. Movie fans often enjoy debating famous Oscar snubs and unworthy acting nominations, but beyond 2004's Crash, they rarely argue over which Best Picture winners do not deserve the Academy's highest honor. Now that Cimarron has celebrated its 93rd birthday in 2024, a closer look at how the first Western to win...

When IndieWire recently ranked the 25 best films of Alfred Hitchcock, it was probably no surprise to anyone that “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” the director’s sole attempt at a light romantic comedy, didn’t make the cut. Even Hitchcock himself tended to underrate the film, as when he told interviewer François Truffaut that “since I didn’t really understand the type of people who were portrayed in the film, all I did was photograph the scenes as written.” From a filmmaker who regularly dismissed movies he considered uncinematic as mere “photographs of people talking,” this was the ultimate self-directed insult.

Yet even a casual reappraisal of “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” newly available in an exquisite Blu-ray special edition from Warner Archive, undermines Hitchcock’s claims about his own movie. While it would be a bridge too far to declare the film a masterpiece on a par with “Psycho” or “Rear Window,...

Comedy is one of the most universal film genres with dozens of subgenres, such as screwball, romantic comedies, and dark comedies. Since the Silent Era, comedies have been popular among audiences and popularized by some of the earliest film stars, such as Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. Throughout film history, there have been many big names, including Bob Hope, Katharine Hepburn, and Irene Dunne, who had an immense influence on the genre.

Numerous actors aspire to stand on the illustrious stage and utter the iconic words, “I would like to thank The Academy,” as they receive the coveted Oscar. The Oscar is the pinnacle of achievement in the filmmaking industry, a dream for many. However, the reality is that not everyone can emerge victorious.

Many actors have come to understand that even multiple nominations don’t guarantee a win. The competition at the Academy Awards is fierce, and not everyone will have the honor of seeing their name engraved on the prestigious golden statue. We are now listing four deserving actors who finished their careers without ever winning an Oscar.

4 Actors Who Ended Their Careers Without An Oscar Win

As previously noted, securing an Oscar remains the pinnacle of acknowledgement for numerous actors, yet several top stars have not won the prestigious award. In fact, some actors concluded their careers without ever attaining an Academy Award.

Clockwise from top left: Notting Hill (Universal Pictures), Love & Basketball (New Line Cinema), Amelie (20th Century Fox),Say Anything (Ugc-Fox Distribution)Graphic: The A.V. Club

Running through the airport to stop a lover’s flight. Making a big speech in front of a crowd of strangers. Picking the perfect song for a serenade.

For the second time in six years, the Best Actress category looked to be on track to feature nominees from films nominated for Best Picture. But just like six years ago, it came up short — and it once again involved Margot Robbie.

Annette Bening (“Nyad”), Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Sandra Hüller (“Anatomy of a Fall”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”) and Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) made the Best Actress cut on Tuesday. Every film but “Nyad” is nominated for Best Picture. Gladstone, Hüller, Mulligan and Stone were all expected to get in, but Bening was in seventh place in the odds. Now a five-time nominee, she made it in over Robbie, who was in fifth place in the odds and headlines Best Picture nominee “Barbie” (Robbie is nominated as producer).

Six years ago, it was the reverse situation with Robbie. She earned her first career Oscar nomination for her...

Alice Walker published her acclaimed novel “The Color Purple” in 1982. It sold five million copies; Walker became the first Black woman to win the Pulitzer Prize and she also received the National Book Club Award. Three years later, Steven Spielberg directed the lauded film version which made stars out of Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover. It earned 11 Oscar nominations. The story revolves around a young woman who suffers abuse from her father and husband for four decades until she finds her own identity. Not exactly the stuff of a Broadway musical.

But the 2005 tuner version received strong reviews, ran 910 performances and earned ten Tony nominations, winning best actress for Lachanze. The 2015 production picked up two Tonys for best revival and actress for Cynthia Erivo. The movie musical version opened strong Christmas Day with $18 million and is a strong contender in several Oscar categories especially for Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks.

Nancy Meyers has written a love letter to Cary Grant by recommending his screwball comedies and classics like North by Northwest and The Philadelphia Story as part of the December 2023 Turner Classic Movies lineup in her own TCM Picks video.

“He’s a brilliant prototype for a leading man in a romantic comedy certainly. And I would be lying if I said I didn’t think of him sometimes as I’m writing. You can picture him doing it and it makes you better,” Meyers, whose rom-com canon includes box office performers like Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday and What Women Want, tells The Hollywood Reporter.

Her TCM movie picks follow Meyers insisting she has viewed most Cary Grant movies dozens of times, not least to study the iconic star’s slapstick humor and verbal sparring with leading ladies to see beneath his debonair looks and onscreen charisma, to the...

Joan Evans, an actress who was the goddaughter of Joan Crawford, died Oct. 21 in Henderson, Nevada, according to her son, John Weatherly. No cause was given.

During her career, she worked with the likes of Farley Granger, Audie Murphy, Irene Dunne, and Esther Williams, among many others.

Among her film roles were parts in On the Loose (1951), It Grows on Trees (1952); and Skirts Ahoy! (1952).

She signed her first film contract in 1948 at age 14 to work with producer Samuel Goldwyn.

While doing reshoots, she was accidentally shot in the arm by Farley Granger. His gun discharged and she need emergency surgery and hospitalilzation.

Evans later appeared in such films as The Outcast (1954), A Strange Adventure (1956), The Flying Fontaines (1959) and The Walking Target (1960), and on TV shows including Climax!, The Millionaire, Cheyenne, 77 Sunset Strip, Wagon Train, Zorro, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Tall Man and Laramie.

She stopped acting in the...

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.

Screwball comedy is a subgenre of romantic comedy that saw its classic period run from the mid-1930s until the mid-1940s. Directors such as Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, and Howard Hawks, along with stars such as Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, William Powell, and Katharine Hepburn, all helped shape the foundation of the genre.

Screwball comedies are distinguishable from stereotypical romantic comedies because screwballs typically spoof notions of love rather than emphasize romantic ideals. Common elements found in screwball comedies are rapid-fire overlapping dialogue, zany slapstick antics, mistaken identities, and a battle of the sexes narrative. Many of cinema's classic screwball comedies rank among Hollywood's funniest films.

Related: 10 Rom-Coms Critics Loved But Audiences Hated

The Awful Truth (1937)

Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne as a wealthy couple who decide to divorce but end up trying to sabotage each other's subsequent romantic conquests.

Here’s the thing: you can argue for another Indiana Jones film as the archaeologist’s greatest adventure, but then Raiders comes along and outshines it with a light that reduces all who disrespect it to dust. Raiders is a perfect film: if it had flaws they’d be like the scar on Harrison Ford’s chin: a flourish to set off the perfection of the rest. If Raiders had a flaw (see Note 2), it would be like the deliberate mistake that master Persian carpet weavers introduce to their intricate patterns so that they don’t challenge God himself. And if this film teaches us anything, it’s that challenging God is not a good idea. The other are (mostly) astonishingly great because they’re a lot like Raiders. Raiders is astonishingly great because it is a perfect film.

First and foremost, that’s down to Steven Spielberg, which explains...

The cast of One True Loves includes a combination of blockbuster movie stars and Broadway talents in a story of three characters who unexpectedly find themselves in a complicated love triangle. Based on the novel of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones & the Six), the romantic drama follows a woman torn between her thought-dead husband and her new fiancé. It's like a gender-swapped remake of the Cary Grant and Irene Dunne classic My Favorite Wife, minus the screwball comedy antics, and One True Loves is similarly hinged on the appeal of its casting.

While not filled with household names, especially compared to previous movies directed by Andy Fickman (Playing With Fire), which were led by the likes of Dwayne Johnson, John Cena, and Bette Midler, the main and supporting cast of One True Loves consists of recognizable actors from some of the biggest entertainments of the past decade.

The 2023 Oscar nominees for Best Actress are Cate Blanchett (“Tar”), Ana de Armas (“Blonde”), Andrea Riseborough (“To Leslie”), Michelle Williams (“The Fabelmans”), and Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”). Our current odds indicate that Yeoh (82/25) will take the prize, followed in order by Blanchett (18/5), Williams (9/2), Riseborough (9/2), and de Armas (9/2).

Blanchett, who triumphed here in 2014 for “Blue Jasmine,” is the only past Oscar winner in this lineup. She now belongs to a group of 20 women with at least five Best Actress nominations apiece, with her previous unsuccessful bids having come for “Elizabeth” (1999), “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (2008), and “Carol” (2016). She also has a supporting victory to her name for “The Aviator” (2005) as well as two more notices in that category for “Notes on a Scandal” (2007) and “I’m Not There” (2008). Her overall nomination total of eight is the one of the highest for an actress, behind Meryl Streep (21), Katharine Hepburn (12), and Bette Davis...

Upon earning her fifth Oscar nomination for “The Fabelmans” this year, Michelle Williams became one of the 33 most-recognized actresses in academy history. Since she has yet to win, a victory in the current lead female race would keep her from joining Irene Dunne, Deborah Kerr, Thelma Ritter, Glenn Close, and Amy Adams on the list of women with five or more unsuccessful acting bids. If screen time plays any factor in influencing voters, she may benefit from the fact that her performance stands out from the others in her lineup by being relatively short.

The three lead turns for which Williams has received Oscar nominations have a screen time average of 59 minutes and 55 seconds (or 51.43% of the respective films). She is now one of 44 women to receive multiple Best Actress notices for appearing on screen for less than one hour. When it comes to her pair of nominated supporting performances,...

Upon earning her fifth Oscar nomination for “The Fabelmans” this year, Michelle Williams became one of the 33 most-recognized actresses in academy history. Since she has yet to win, a victory in the current lead female race would keep her from joining Irene Dunne, Deborah Kerr, Thelma Ritter, Glenn Close, and Amy Adams on the list of women with five or more unsuccessful acting bids. If screen time plays any factor in influencing voters, she may benefit from the fact that her performance stands out from the others in her lineup by being relatively short.

The three lead turns for which Williams has received Oscar nominations have a screen time average of 59 minutes and 55 seconds (or 51.43% of the respective films). She is now one of 44 women to receive multiple Best Actress notices for appearing on screen for less than one hour. When it comes to her pair of nominated supporting performances,...

As we approach O-Day and the 95th Academy Awards on March 12, it’s always fun to go back and look at the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress categories and revel in some of the trivia and shockers that have gone down on the awards season’s biggest stage. This is the rare year when Meryl Streep isn’t in the running, as her 21 overall nominations in the acting categories are nearly double the number of her closest female pursuer, Katherine Hepburn, who has 12. However, Hepburn still holds the all-time Oscar record with four acting wins. Streep has a mere three.

Here are some other actress category factoids to chew on:

Should Cate Blanchett win Best Actress this year for her role in “Tar,” she would tie Streep, Ingrid Bergman and Frances McDormand for second place behind Hepburn among actresses with three triumphs apiece. All four of Hepburn’s wins...

Soon after wrapping four seasons of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, the cult CW musical that saw her segue from screenwriter to showrunner, Aline Brosh McKenna decided to revisit her past before turning her attention to the future. She rented the garden apartment in the same Larchmont-adjacent duplex she and her now-husband shared during the mid-’90s, not too far from the home where they now live. “We’d always look down at this unit and say, ‘Ugh, we wish we had that,’ ” she says of her shingle’s headquarters. “Now this is my office, which feels wonderfully full circle.”

The company, Lean Machine, is a vehicle for McKenna’s own scripts — the latest of which marks her feature directorial debut, the Netflix romantic comedy Your Place or Mine (out Feb. 10) — but the bulk of the 15 film and TV projects in various stages of development come from other voices. That’s the piece...

Of all our craft Best of 2022 lists, film scores was the one where there was the widest list of nominees and least amount of consensus about a top 10. There was just such a wide variety of great work done that delineating what was best wasn’t always clear.

What was clear from our picks, however, was that a number of the best composers working today — from Michael Giacchino to Michael Abels — were on their game in 2022; it was also apparent that this was a year of innovative uses of film music that played a subtle and almost sound design-like role. And by no surprise, so much of that best work came from director-composer collaborations that started early and stretched over many months, sometimes over year, and evolved to find the best way for the music sit in the film.

Chris O’Falt, Steve Greene, David Ehrlich, and Erik Adams also contributed to this article.

Click here to read the full article.

Mickey Kuhn, the busy child actor of the 1930s and ’40s who played Beau Wilkes, the son of Olivia de Havilland and Leslie Howard’s characters, in Gone With the Wind, has died. He was 90.

Kuhn died Sunday in a hospice facility in Naples, Florida, his wife, Barbara, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was in excellent health until recently, she said.

Kuhn also portrayed the ward of a famous movie cop in Dick Tracy (1945) and younger versions of Kirk Douglas and Montgomery Clift in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) and John Wayne’s Red River (1948), respectively.

And in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Kuhn reunited with Gwtw actress Vivien Leigh to appear as a sailor who gives Blanche DuBois directions. (Was he Leigh’s good luck charm? She won her two best actress Oscars with him in the cast.)

Kuhn was 6 when...

Movie stars — remember them? Ticket to Paradise sure does, and it’s banking on the fact that you, the audience member, would actually be willing to leave the comfort of your couch and 7,200 streaming services to go see two of ’em! Together! In a romantic comedy! On a big screen, just like in the old days! By pairing George Clooney and Julia Roberts and casting them as a long-divorced couple who hate each other but must work together to sabotage their daughter’s wedding, the film requires you to answer the burning question: Wait,...

The story of the Sunday school teacher behind a bawdy best-seller, Theodora Goes Wild opened the door to more comedy roles for the usually reserved Irene Dunne. Written by newspaper reporter Mary McCarthy, the 1936 film was directed by Polish immigrant Richard Boleslawski, no stranger to melodrama himself (he juggled all three Barrymores in Rasputin and the Empress). Melvyn Douglas, an expert in high class satire, co-stars as the illustrator of Theodora’s risqué novel.

The post Theodora Goes Wild appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Despite the increase in pop-culture amnesia, there are actually a lot of great rom-coms that predate the Reagan era

For many pop-culture websites, which we will not name here, the history of cinema apparently begins somewhere around the release of “Star Wars” (1977), with almost everything that preceded it to the big screen being sloughed off as quaint, forgettable and irrelevant.

It’s the sort of thing that people who love movies and movie history can often ignore with the roll of an eye, but when one site recently trumpeted its list of the 50 Best Rom-Coms of All Time — which featured exactly one movie made before 1980 and zero prior to 1970 — we could sit by no longer.

Here is an alphabetical list of 50 classic romantic comedies that merely scratches the surface of great movies made during ye olden times of 1979 and earlier:

“The Awful Truth” (1937): Cary Grant and Irene Dunne star...

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Leo McCarey’s beloved 1939 romance “Love Affair” starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer as star-crossed lovers who meet cute on a luxury liner. Since they are both attached to others — Dunne is actually a “kept” woman — they agree to meet six months after they land in New York at the Empire State Building. For years, “Love Affair” was near impossible to see after the rights of the Rko production had been sold to 20th Century Fox for Carey’s scene-by-scene 1957 remake “An Affair to Remember” with Deborah Kerr and Cary Grant.

But in 1977, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s film department lead by the late great Ron Haver presented a months’ long Rko festival featuring every film from the studio that still existed including “Love Affair,” which had earned six Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best...

“This picture is perfect, end of review.” That may not be 100 true, but Leo McCarey’s unabashed leap into romantic Nirvana really hasn’t been bettered, although his color & ‘scope remake is very good. Never was smart adult dialogue this winning — Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer’s cinematic courtship is a highlight of the Big Studio years. And Maria Ouspenskaya’s performance will send you out to pamper the nearest grandmother. The restoration for this one is a revelation, as the show has looked terrible for sixty years- plus. Serge Bromberg and Farran Smith Nehme make the extras especially valuable.

Love Affair

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1114

1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 15, 2022 / 39.95

Starring: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman, Astrid Allwyn, Maurice Moscovitch, Ferike Boros, Scotty Beckett, Bess Flowers, Harold Miller, Dell Henderson, Frank McGlynn, Sr., Joan Leslie.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté

Art Director: Van Nest Polglase,...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Twentieth CenturyA common misconception about 1930s Hollywood cinema is that escapism was the trend du jour. The ubiquity of genres like historical melodramas and musicals indicates that rationale may be true to an extent, but even the most fantastic films were grounded in some semblance of social realism. And how could they not be? With nearly one in four Americans out of work by 1933 and a slow-but-stable economic recovery stimulated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal program, the bleakness of the Great Depression and the disparity between the haves and have-nots was an omnipresent thread throughout the decade’s popular culture. Like any major American industry, Hollywood was formative to the public’s perception of culture and politics, and the movies were a temperature gauge of the decade’s cultural climate.

Gulp. Just two months left in 2021. Here's what you might have missed but shouldn't have from the past month

A dozen highlights

• Girl Interrupted Matt has a personal connection to Winona Ryder's star vehicle to wrap up our team tribute to Winona for her 50th birthday

• King Richard and Belfast Crowdpleasing Oscar threats

• No Time To Die Deborah, our resident Bond expert, considers Daniel Craig's farewell

• Coffee & Contenders Nathaniel's annual panel at the Middleburg Film Festival

• Almost There: To Die For Cláudio takes on one of Nicole Kidman's most beloved star turns

• Yes No Maybe So: Being the Ricardos Nathaniel looks at the trailer

• Irene Dunne Baby Clyde wonders why the versatile actress isn't as big of a name to modern audiences as some of her glamorous peers still are

• C'mon C'mon Jason falls hard for Joaquin Phoenix's latest

• Gotham Nods they went all in for...

In 2001, Will Smith headlined “Ali,” which brought him his first Oscar nomination. He lost the Best Actor prize to Denzel Washington for “Training Day,” but now, 20 years later, Smith can avenge that loss with “King Richard” against Washington’s turn in “The Tragedy of Macbeth.” And if he doesn’t, he would be the latest performer who has lost to the same person twice.

There have been four people with an 0-2 record agains the same actor. They are:

1. Irene Dunne lost Best Actress for “Theodora Goes Wild” (1936) and “The Awful Truth” (1937) to Luise Rainer for “The Great Ziegfeld” (1936) and “The Good Earth” (1937)

2. Charles Boyer lost Best Actor for “Conquest” (1937) and “Algiers” (1938) to Spencer Tracy for “Captains Courageous” (1937) and “Boys Town” (1938) over

3. Basil Rathbone lost Best Supporting Actor for “Romeo and Juliet” (1936) and “If I Were King” (1938) to Walter Brennan for “Come and Get It” (1936) and “Kentucky” (1938)

4. Annette Bening lost...

When Raiders of the Lost Ark was released in 1981, it was like a jolt of lightning from out of the past. As with George Lucas’ Star Wars before it, here was a throwback to many of the cinematic touchstones high and low that Baby Boomers grew up with: Saturday morning serials, prestige Oscar winners from yesteryear, and even boys’ pulp magazines were sifted through, borrowed from, and recontextualized into one of the most thrilling action-adventure movies anyone had ever seen. Somehow Lucas, who was a producer on the project, director Steven Spielberg, and the whole Indiana Jones team were able to craft a movie simultaneously retro and new.

Of course the younger generations who were swept up in Indy’s adventures may not have noticed any of this. They were here to see Indy outrun a boulder. And as the years have passed, Raiders of the Lost Ark and the...

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“The Original Money Pit”

By Raymond Benson

Remember the 1986 comedy The Money Pit, starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long? The official credits of that film do not mention the excellent writing team of Frank Panama and Melvin Frank, who adapted Eric Hodgins’ 1946 biographical comic novel Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House into the popular 1948 “disaster comedy” starring Cary Grant and Myrna Loy. The Money Pit is, in reality, an under-the-table remake of Blandings. It’s a pity that the original was not acknowledged, for, frankly, Blandings is much more realistic (and clever).

Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House was indeed a popular film and yet during its initial run was deemed to have lost money—just like the hapless Mr. Blandings does while attempting to move out of New York City to Connecticut. The movie is funny enough, for sure, but perhaps in...

“You’ve been taken to the cleaners, and you don’t even know your pants are off.”

Cary Grant in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House will be available on Blu-ray May 18th from Warner Archive

New York adman Jim Blandings is ready to say goodbye to his cramped city apartment and build, from the ground up, a Connecticut home with room enough for his growing family and dreams. All it will cost him is his time and money…and perhaps his job, marriage, happiness and what’s left of his sanity. Goodbye, Manhattan. Hello, comedy. As Jim, Cary Grant is a flustered poster boy for homeowner anxiety in this gleeful laughfest. Myrna Loy, her voice and line phrasing like musical chimes, plays Jim’s ever-patient wife. Louise Beavers is the sunny housemaid whose enthusiasm for Wham Ham saves Jim’s career bacon. And Melvyn Douglas is the perhaps-too-friendly family friend.

By Tim McGlynn

“What does he care if the land ain’t free?”

The Warner Archive has done itself proud with their new release of MGM’s splendid 1951 production of Showboat. This Technicolor spectacular is actually the third film version of the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein classic, which is based on a novel by Edna Ferber. The Freed unit at MGM pulled out all the stops for this effort and cast Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ava Gardner, Joe E. Brown, Agnes Moorehead, Marge and Gower Champion and William Warfield in this turn- of -the last century story set in the deep South.

Cap’n Andy and his wife Parthy use their paddle Wheeler, the Cotton Blossom, to put on shows up and down the Mississippi River. Their daughter, Magnolia, dreams of playing a part but is discouraged by her strict mother. One day a charming, but down and out gambler...

By Tim McGlynn

“What does he care if the land ain’t free?”

The Warner Archive has done itself proud with their new release of MGM’s splendid 1951 production of Showboat. This Technicolor spectacular is actually the third film version of the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein classic, which is based on a novel by Edna Ferber. The Freed unit at MGM pulled out all the stops for this effort and cast Kathryn Grayson, Howard Keel, Ava Gardner, Joe E. Brown, Agnes Moorehead, Marge and Gower Champion and William Warfield in this turn- of -the last century story set in the deep South.

Cap’n Andy and his wife Parthy use their paddle Wheeler, the Cotton Blossom, to put on shows up and down the Mississippi River. Their daughter, Magnolia, dreams of playing a part but is discouraged by her strict mother. One day a charming, but down and out gambler...

MGM’s remake of the grand musical can’t be ignored — the restored transfer is stunning, demonstrating the studio’s technical skill at full tilt. There are good aspects to this version, even if it’s mostly a missed opportunity more notable for production backstories than for itself. It’s Kathryn Grayson’s high water mark at MGM, and Howard Keel does yeoman’s work on his side. MGM’s musical arrangements of the Hammerstein / Kern songbook is as good as ever. Most critics in 1951 thought it superior because it was in Technicolor; and it was one of the top $ money earners of the year.

Show Boat

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 108 min. / Street Date February 23, 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Joe E. Brown, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Robert Sterling, Agnes Moorehead, Leif Erickson, William Warfield, Regis Toomey, Adele Jergens, Owen McGiveney,...

MGM’s remake of the grand musical can’t be ignored — the restored transfer is stunning, demonstrating the studio’s technical skill at full tilt. There are good aspects to this version, even if it’s mostly a missed opportunity more notable for production backstories than for itself. It’s Kathryn Grayson’s high water mark at MGM, and Howard Keel does yeoman’s work on his side. MGM’s musical arrangements of the Hammerstein / Kern songbook is as good as ever. Most critics in 1951 thought it superior because it was in Technicolor; and it was one of the top $ money earners of the year.

Show Boat

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1951 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 108 min. / Street Date February 23, 2021 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel, Joe E. Brown, Marge Champion, Gower Champion, Robert Sterling, Agnes Moorehead, Leif Erickson, William Warfield, Regis Toomey, Adele Jergens, Owen McGiveney,...

What a difference two days makes. Before last Wednesday’s Golden Globe nominations, “Hillbilly Elegy’s” Glenn Close was in sixth place in Gold Derby’s Best Supporting Actress Oscar odds, but after she accrued a bid there and at the Screen Actors Guild Awards the next day, she has rocketed to fourth place. Another post-Globe and -SAG change is Olivia Colman (“The Father”) usurping the SAG-snubbed Amanda Seyfried (“Mank”) for the top spot. You know what that means: if both Close and Colman make the final five, Colman could beat Close again, which would make her the the fifth performer to defeat the same person twice.

The first four were:

1. Luise Rainer won Best Actress for “The Great Ziegfeld” (1936) and “The Good Earth” (1937) over Irene Dunne for “Theodora Goes Wild” (1936) and “The Awful Truth” (1937)

2. Spencer Tracy won Best Actor for “Captains Courageous” (1937) and “Boys Town” (1938) over Charles Boyer...

The first thing to know about Locked Down, director Doug Liman’s semi-surprise rom-com heist movie hitting HBO Max today, is that it’s a period piece. No sooner has the Warners logo slid across your screen to the sound of metropolitan life — bustling streets, honking horns, chattering voices — then we open on a people-less London intersection, all silence and emptiness. We’re in the initial weeks of the pandemic, when the city’s residents sheltered in place, the evenings were filled with the banging of pots and pans, and...