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The Emmy Awards grew up on March 7, 1955. For the first time, the ceremony was broadcast nationally on NBC. Steve Allen, the star of “The Tonight Show,” was the host of the 7th annual awards honoring the best of 1954 programming which was telecast from the Moulin Rouge nightclub on Sunset Boulevard.

One of the seminal live dramas of the 1950’s, Reginald Rose’s searing “12 Angry Men,” which aired on CBS “Studio One,” earned the most Emmys that evening winning with three. The taut drama about a jury of a dozen men decided the fate of a young man accused of murder starred Robert Cummings, Franchot Tone, Edward Arnold and Walter Abel. For years, only an incomplete kinescope of the show, which was adapted into the Oscar-nominated 1957 film, existed.

Finally, a complete copy of the show was discovered in 2003. Rose told me in a 1997 L.A. Times interview that he came up...

When "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" first premiered on CBS in October 1955, the episodic half-hour anthology series immediately gained immense popularity. Hosted by Hitchcock himself, every episode opened with the director's silhouette and Charles Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette" playing in the background, which became a cultural landmark in itself. As Hitchcock believed that the show's half-hour format did not do justice to the intricate anthology tales of suspense and terror, the episodic duration was subsequently extended when the show was revamped and retitled to "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour," which ran from 1962 to 1965.

Per John McCarty and Brian Kelleher's "Alfred Hitchcock Presents: An Illustrated Guide to the Ten-year Television Career of the Master of Suspense," NBC (where the show ended up airing alternatively), after witnessing the success of Hitchcock's show, started planning a brand new mystery/suspense anthology that was set to run from 1957 through 1958. This unofficial spin-off was titled "Suspicion,...

If a single WW2 Hollywood war epic can sum up the complexity of homefront morale-building, this one is it. Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard and Veronica Lake enlist as Army nurses and are plunged into the disastrous opening onslaught in the Philippines. Adroit screenwriting and direction use the clichés of Hollywood glamour to give mom & dad back home a dramatic idea of what it might be like for a company of nurses in a failing war zone. Great studio effects show the rough retreats and casualties, while George Reeves and Sonny Tufts serve as reassuring sentimental diversions. And a squad of ‘unglamorous’ actresses get to play strong, patriotic roles. It’s an entertaining winner.

So Proudly We Hail

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1943 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 126 min. / Street Date September 13, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Claudette Colbert, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, George Reeves, Barbara Britton, Walter Abel, Sonny Tufts, Mary Servoss,...

Fritz Lang’s first American picture is a searing social statement out of message-averse Hollywood. It’s also a cinematic landmark, packed with innovative visual concepts. Sylvia Sidney and Spencer Tracy have great appeal as lovers torn apart by vigilante violence, and Tracy’s very Langian hero pulls off a ‘return from the dead’ to serve as an avenging angel. It’s one of the talkies’ earliest direct attacks on America’s plague of lynching, a liberal assault that even the Production Code couldn’t stop — the show took the ‘social issue drama’ to new heights, even as Fritz Lang didn’t find favor with the Hollywood studio system. Also starring Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot and Walter Brennan. CineSavant presents the evidence of MGM tampering at the conclusion, that changes the film’s message and meaning.

Fury

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1936 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 92 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date November 9, 2021 / 21.99

Starring Sylvia Sidney,...

Never heard of Wake Island? Its fall terrified Americans at Christmas of 1941. The war’s just begun, we’re definitely not winning, and the assignment was to make a movie about a tragic defeat that might be the first of many tragic defeats for the U.S.A.. Paramount’s careful morale-builder doesn’t exaggerate or sentimentalize the brutal fall of a tiny atoll in the Pacific, and stands as an example of filmmaking reaching for hope in the face of disaster.

Wake Island

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1942 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 88 min. / Street Date August 18, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Brian Donlevy, Robert Preston, Macdonald Carey, William Bendix, Albert Dekker, Walter Abel, Mikhail Rasumny, Rod Cameron, Bill Goodwin, Damian O’Flynn, Frank Albertson, Hugh Beaumont, Barbara Britton, Hillary Brooke, Dane Clark, Frank Faylen, Mary Field, Alan Hale Jr., Richard Loo, James Millican, Jack Mulhall, Keith Richards, Phillip Terry, Mary Thomas,...

The war’s just begun, we’re definitely not winning, and your assignment is to make a movie about a tragic defeat that could be the first of many tragic defeats for the U.S.A.. Paramount’s careful morale-building war drama doesn’t exaggerate or over-sentimentalize the brutal fall of a tiny island in the Pacific. John Farrow directs a fine group of actors who knew the film ‘had to say the right things.’ It stands as a fine example of filmmaking reaching for hope in the face of disaster.

The first WW2 Hollywood combat film based on an actual battle is the beautifully made Wake Island. It’s even more beautifully conceived to achieve multiple public relations aims in a time of great crisis. Until 1941 Wake Island had been little more than a stop for Pacific-hopping Pan-American clipper ship airplanes; Japan bombed it a few hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

All hail Olivia de Havilland, America’s longest living movie star. The more de Havilland pictures we see, the more we admire her taste and judgment in roles… or is that better expressed as, the more we admire her ability to guide a near-perfect career, going so far as to defy the studios in court. This 1941 drama has director Mitchell Leisen in fine form, a smart script by Brackett & Wilder, and a central topic that’s currently quite hot: illegal immigration.

Hold Back the Dawn

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 116 min. / Street Date July 16, 2019 / 39.95

Starring: Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Victor Francen, Walter Abel, Curt Bois, Rosemary DeCamp, Nestor Paiva, Eva Puig, Micheline Cheirel, Madeleine Lebeau, Mikhail Rasumny, Charles Arnt, Mitchell Leisen, Brian Donlevy, Kitty Kelly, Veronica Lake, Carlos Villarías, Richard Webb.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Film Editor: Doane Harrison

Original Music: Victor Young

Written by Charles Brackett,...

Nunnally Johnson hands us a well-written spy & hostage drama set in Cold War Berlin, with plenty of intrigue and good humor to boot. Gregory Peck is the troubled negotiator and Broderick Crawford a Yankee galoot sticking his nose where it isn’t wanted. This one has been out of reach for quite a while — and it works up some fun suspense.

Night People

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1954 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 93 min. / Street Date July 25, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Gregory Peck, Broderick Crawford, Anita Björk, Rita Gam, Walter Abel, Buddy Ebsen, Max Showalter, Jill Esmond, Peter van Eyck, Marianne Koch, Hugh McDermott, Paul Carpenter, Lionel Murton, Ottow Reichow.

Cinematography: Charles G. Clarke

Film Editor: Dorothy Spencer

Original Music: Cyril Mockridge

Story by Jed Harris, Tom Reed

Associate Producer Gerd Oswald

Written, Directed and Produced by Nunnally Johnson

An intelligent cold war thriller about distrust and passive aggression across the East-West divide in Berlin,...

(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...

Kirk Douglas grits his teeth and goes full macho, wrasslin’ with that beautiful Sioux up in the high country — the Sioux miss in question being the Italian model Elsa Martinelli in her screen debut. Kirk can’t decide if he wants to stay with Elsa, or lead what must be the most shameful bunch of pioneer bigots ever to cross the plains. Walter Matthau and Diana Douglas are standouts in this vigorous action western directed by André de Toth.

The Indian Fighter

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1955 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 88 min. / Street Date May 9, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Elsa Martinelli, Walter Matthau, Diana Douglas, Walter Abel, Lon Chaney Jr., Eduard Franz, Alan Hale Jr., Elisha Cook Jr., Ray Teal, Frank Cady, Michael Winkelman, William Phipps.

Cinematography: Wilfrid M. Cline

Art Direction: Wiard Ihnen

Film Editor: Richard Cahoon

Original Music: Irving Gordon, Franz Waxman

Written by Robert L. Richards,...

Savant uncovers the true, hidden ending to this Fritz Lang masterpiece. The moral outrage of Lang's searing attack on lynch terror hasn't dimmed a bit -- with his first American picture the director nails one of our primary social evils. MGM imposed some re-cutting and re-shooting, but it's still the most emotionally powerful film on the subject. Fury DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1936 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date August 2, 2016, 2016 / available through the WB Shop / 17.99 Starring Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, Frank Albertson, George Walcott, Arthur Stone, Morgan Wallace, George Chandler, Roger Gray, Edwin Maxwell, Howard C. Hickman, Jonathan Hale, Leila Bennett, Esther Dale, Helen Flint. Cinematography Joseph Ruttenberg Film Editor Frank Sullivan Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Bartlett Cormack, Fritz Lang story by Norman Krasna Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Directed by Fritz Lang

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Just...

Donald Trump vs. Starbucks' War on Christmas. The War on Christmas: The movies that come to mind We're still in November, but the War on Christmas – according to online buzz, a second cousin once removed of the War on Cops – has begun. Weeping and gritting of teeth has seized certain population segments in the U.S.A. (and perhaps other countries as well) after Fox News, that beacon of intellectual freedom at the end of the cable news tunnel, announced that … Starbucks' holiday season cups are a) red b) devoid of Christmas decorations. Could it be a satanic conspiracy disguised as politically correct inclusiveness? The result of a communist takeover at the Seattle-headquartered company? Cruel and unusual Christian persecution in the form of paper cups? Your guess is as good as mine. Far-right Republican icon, U.S. presidential candidate, and 2015 political circus ringmaster Donald Trump seems to think that Starbucks...

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...

'Hold Back the Dawn': Olivia de Havilland behind Charles Boyer and Paulette Goddard 'Hold Back the Dawn' 1941 movie: Olivia de Havilland steals show as small-town teacher in love Olivia de Havilland shines in Mitchell Leisen's melodrama Hold Back the Dawn, a sort of opening bracket for the director's World War II-era films. Adapted by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett from Ketti Frings' semi-autobiographical story, Hold Back the Dawn stars Charles Boyer as George Iscovescu, a Romanian dancer unable to enter the U.S. from Mexico due to immigration quotas imposed at the onset of the European conflict. Paulette Goddard is his scheming former partner, Anita, who marries an American to gain entry into the country only to immediately leave the duped husband. George adopts the idea – a naïve small-town schoolteacher visiting a Mexican border town is his prey. As the unsuspecting teacher, Olivia de Havilland radiates understanding and sympathy.

Claudette Colbert movies on Turner Classic Movies: From ‘The Smiling Lieutenant’ to TCM premiere ‘Skylark’ (photo: Claudette Colbert and Maurice Chevalier in ‘The Smiling Lieutenant’) Claudette Colbert, the studio era’s perky, independent-minded — and French-born — "all-American" girlfriend (and later all-American wife and mother), is Turner Classic Movies’ star of the day today, August 18, 2014, as TCM continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" film series. Colbert, a surprise Best Actress Academy Award winner for Frank Capra’s 1934 comedy It Happened One Night, was one Paramount’s biggest box office draws for more than decade and Hollywood’s top-paid female star of 1938, with reported earnings of $426,944 — or about $7.21 million in 2014 dollars. (See also: TCM’s Claudette Colbert day in 2011.) Right now, TCM is showing Ernst Lubitsch’s light (but ultimately bittersweet) romantic comedy-musical The Smiling Lieutenant (1931), a Best Picture Academy Award nominee starring Maurice Chevalier as a French-accented Central European lieutenant in...

Many horror fans have seen Black Christmas and Silent Night, Deadly Night, but there’s one Christmas-themed horror movie that pre-dates them both. We have word that 1974′s Silent Night, Bloody Night has been digitally restored and will be released just in time for Christmas:

“It’s Christmas Eve in a small town, but the local children aren’t dreaming of sugarplum fairies in Silent Night, Bloody Night, on DVD Dec. 10, from Film Chest.

A ’70s drive-in, B-movie flick, Silent Night, Bloody Night gained notoriety in the mid-1980s when it was featured on Elvira’s Movie Macabre, gaining a dedicated cult following. Now don’t miss a bloody drop … Enjoy this thriller in HD for the first time ever!

In Silent Night, Bloody Night, a young man inherits a mansion once used as an insane asylum … and in which his grandfather died in a fire.When he puts it up for sale,...

Now that Halloween is over and millions of turkeys are embarking on their death march, it's time to start thinking about the holiday season. And what better way to kick off your December than with a demented little movie fully restored for the first time?

From the Press Release

It’s Christmas Eve in a small town, but the local children aren’t dreaming of sugarplum fairies in Silent Night, Bloody Night, on DVD December 10 from Film Chest.

A ’70s drive-in, B-movie flick, Silent Night, Bloody Night gained notoriety in the mid-1980s when it was featured on Elvira’s Movie Macabre, gaining a dedicated cult following. Now don’t miss a bloody drop … Enjoy this thriller in HD for the first time ever!

In Silent Night, Bloody Night, a young man inherits a mansion once used as an insane asylum… and in which his grandfather died in a fire.

Claudette Colbert, Alla Nazimova, Marion Davies, Charles Boyer: Cinecon 2011 Thursday September 1 (photo: Alla Nazimova) 7:00 Hollywood Rhythm (1934) 7:10 Welcoming Remarks 7:15 Hollywood Story (1951) 77 min. Richard Conte, Julie Adams, Richard Egan. Dir: William Castle. 8:35 Q & A with Julie Adams 9:10 Blazing Days (1927) 60 min. Fred Humes. Dir: William Wyler. 10:20 In The Sweet Pie And Pie (1941) 18 min 10:40 She Had To Eat (1937) 75 min. Jack Haley, Rochelle Hudson, Eugene Pallette. Friday September 2 9:00 Signing Off (1936) 9:20 Moon Over Her Shoulder (1941) 68 min. Dan Dailey, Lynn Bari, John Sutton, Alan Mowbray. 10:40 The Active Life Of Dolly Of The Dailies (1914) 15 min. Mary Fuller. 10:55 Stronger Than Death (1920) 80 min. Alla Nazimova, Charles Bryant. Dir: Herbert Blaché, Charles Bryant, Robert Z. Leonard. 12:15 Lunch Break 1:45 Open Track (1916) 2:00 On The Night Stage (1915) 60 min. William S. Hart, Rhea Mitchell. Dir: Reginald Barker. 3:15 50 Miles From Broadway (1929) 23 min 3:45 Cinerama Adventure (2002). Dir: David Strohmaier. 5:18 Discussion...