News

The TCM Classic Film Festival, running this year from April 24-27 for its 16th annual edition, comes at a pivotal time for the network and the state of classic cinema as a whole.

As a new generation of cinephiles flock to vintage film screenings across Los Angeles and beyond, the TCM Classic Film Festival is meeting the moment with Tiktoks and creators helping spread the word.

Beginning in January, TCM hosted a video series titled “New Voices of Film,” where three content creators and impassioned cinema lovers presented a film of their choosing to program on the network. The selections ranged from the Douglas Sirk melodrama “All That Heaven Allows,” Billy Wilder’s “A Foreign Affair” to the pre-code classic “Merrily We Go to Hell.” But in order to reach younger audiences, TCM has also focused its efforts across social media, with short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram drawing bridges between contemporary and older films.

As the star of some of the most iconic films ever made, James Stewart's career was one of the most varied and impressive in Hollywood history. From his acting debut in the 1930s until his semi-retirement at the end of the 1970s, Stewart starred in Christmas classics, acclaimed thrillers by Alfred Hitchcock, and a whole host of beloved rom-coms, screwball comedies, and thought-provoking dramas. As an Academy Award-winning performer, Stewarts likable persona and distinctive drawl made him the quintessential American ideal whose embodied qualities of strong moral resilience and fortitude.

The best James Stewart movies have stood the test of time, and his definitive roles made him one of Hollywoods most sought-after performers throughout the 1940s and 1950s. Stewarts best movies left a major mark on Hollywood, as George Baileys story in Its a Wonderful Life has become annual viewing for families worldwide every holiday season, and his performance...

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...

Released soon after the end of the Great Depression and on the precipice of America’s entry into World War II, William Dieterle’s All That Money Can Buy is a peculiar and fascinating blend of the populist agitprop of the 1930s and the patriotic hokum that defined much of the war years.

In transposing the legend of Faust and his pact with the devil to a rousing bit of American folklore, the screenplay by Dan Totheroh and Stephen Vincent Benét presents greed as anathema to the American way of life, and in one of the few brief eras where that notion was anything short of risible. As such, rugged individualism is spurned in favor of collectivism, specifically in the exalting of the values of an agricultural grange—a communal safety net for small farmers like All That Money Can Buy’s protagonist, Jabez Stone (James Craig).

After a string of bad luck,...

Collider can exclusively unveil the trailer for Bandit, a new film from Allan Ungar based on the true story of Canada's infamous Flying Bandit with inspiration from Robert Knuckle and Ed Arnold's novel The Flying Bandit. Josh Duhamel leads the film as the titular bank robber, who after escaping from prison and crossing the border from the U.S. to Canada, goes on to become one of the most infamous criminals in Canadian history. When the charming outlaw falls in love with a caring social worker named Andrea (Elisha Cuthbert), he decides to start robbing banks in order to give her the lifestyle he dreams of — it doesn't hurt that he happens to be incredibly good at it.

Part of a perfect 1956 matinee double bill, Alex Gordon’s supernatural thriller features an iconic monster, a piece of real horror art from monster-maker Paul Blaisdell. The production can best be described as ‘pedestrian’ but there’s no denying that the movie is an odd nostalgic favorite — a great poster helps. The cast mixes veterans with new blood — but the real reason to watch is starlet Marla English. This one should have been a classic.

The She-Creature

Blu-ray

1956 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 77 min. / Street Date June 28, 2022

Starring: Chester Morris, Marla English, Tom Conway, Cathy Downs, Lance Fuller, Ron Randell, Frieda Inescort, Frank Jenks, El Brendel, Paul Dubov, William Hudson, Paul Blaisdell.

Cinematography: Frederick E. West

Production Designer: Art Director: Don Ament

Creature costume: Paul Blaisdell

Film Editor: Ronald Sinclair

Original Music: Ronald Stein

Written by Lou Rusoff

Produced by Samuel Z. Arkoff, Alex Gordon

Directed by Edward L. Cahn

Nicholson...

Jeanine Ann Roose, best known for playing Little Violet Bick in the holiday classic film It’s a Wonderful Life, died Friday night at her Los Angeles home after battling an infection, TMZ reports. She was 84.

Roose worked as a child actor in the 1940s and ’50s. Her role as Little Violet in the 1946 Christmas classic was her sole film credit. You can see a clip of her in a scene from the film below.

Roose landed her first acting job at the age of eight on The Jack Benny Program. She also appeared on The Fitch Bandwagon and The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show from 1946 to 1954 as a character based on the real-life daughter of Harris and Faye.

Other radio appearances included playing Chris in the Lux Radio Theatre production of I Remember Mama and an episode of Mr. President with Edward Arnold. She also starred in the unaired television pilot Arabella’s Tall Tales.

Years in the making! The glory of MGM on parade! Enough studio resources to film twenty pictures were expended on this paean to showman Florenz Ziegfeld. It’s really Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s Technicolor valentine to itself, showing off the studio’s enormous stable of musical talent, along with various of its comic performers. Arthur Freed and Louis B. Mayer’s notion of ‘something for everyone’ results in weird stack of grandiose musical numbers and mostly weak comedy. The biggest draw is the incredible color cinematography that peeks through in three or four jaw-droppingly elaborate musical spectacles. The picture is a workout to find the artistic limits of the Technicolor system.

Ziegfeld Follies

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1945 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 117 110 min. / Street Date June 15, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: (alphabetically): Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Victor Moore, Red Skelton, Esther Williams. Also...

The legendary punk god joins us to talk about movies he finds unforgettable. Special appearance by his cat, Moon Unit.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Tapeheads (1988)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979) – Eli Roth’s trailer commentary

A Face In The Crowd (1957) – Josh Olson’s trailer commentary, Glenn Erickson’s Blu-ray review

Meet John Doe (1941)

Bob Roberts (1992)

Bachelor Party (1984)

Dangerously Close (1986)

Videodrome (1983) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary

F/X (1986)

Hot Rods To Hell (1967)

Riot On Sunset Strip (1967)

While The City Sleeps (1956) – Glenn Erickson’s trailer commentary

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Spider-Man (2002)

The Killing (1956) – Michael Lehmann’s trailer commentary

Serpent’s Egg (1977)

The Thin Man (1934)

Meet Nero Wolfe (1936)

The Hidden Eye (1945)

Eyes In The Night (1942)

Sudden Impact (1983) – Alan Spencer’s trailer commentary

Red Dawn (1984)

Warlock (1989)

The Dead Zone (1983) – Mick Garris’s trailer commentary

Secret Honor (1984)

The Player (1992) – Allan Arkush’s trailer commentary,...

MGM’s old-fashioned Irving Berlin musical has superior songs and powerful performances, especially that of Betty Hutton. She gets plenty loud and rambunctious, but it fits the ‘big’ Annie Oakley character. And the talented, under-appreciated Howard Keel really fires up the screen with her in songs like ‘Anything You Can Do.’ The Wac disc contains plenty of George Feltenstein- rescued unused audio material, plus footage … depressing footage … of Judy Garland’s attempt in the leading role. Yep, the show may be PC minefield begging for a Cancel Culture intervention, but if it goes we’ll have to put most of Hollywood film history in a landfill.

Annie Get Your Gun

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1950 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 107 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date April 10, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Betty Hutton, Howard Keel, Louis Calhern, J. Carrol Naish, Edward Arnold, Keenan Wynn, Benay Venuta, Clinton Sundberg, Mae Clarke, John Mylong, Chief Yowlachie, Evelyn Beresford.

Graft, Greed and One Man’s Fight Against Political Corruption: The TCM Big Screen Classics Series Brings Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Back to Movie Theaters Nationwide on October 14 and 17 Only.

he David-and-Goliath story, set within the not-so-hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol. This special presentation of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington also includes exclusive insight from TCM Primetime Host Ben Mankiewicz.

When Governor Hubert “Happy” Hopper (Guy Kibbee) appoints affable Jeff Smith — head of the Boy Rangers — to the U.S. Senate, corrupt political boss Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) and secretly crooked U.S. Senator Joseph Paine (Claude Rains) believe they can easily manipulate the newly minted politician when he arrives in Washington. But guidance from his hard-nosed, Beltway-savvy secretary Clarissa Saunders (Jean Arthur), Mr. Smith exposes graft and greed that threatens the very fabric of American democracy, and the junior Senator becomes a heroic one-man filibuster.

Soap and daytime soap opera actor Robert Mandan died on April 29 in Los Angeles after a long illness, his friend, playwright and screenwriter Gary Goldstein, told The Hollywood Reporter. He was 86.

Mandan had worked on such soap operas as From These Roots (as David Allen), The Doctors (Mike Hennessey/Mr. Tabor), The Edge of Night (Nathan Axelrod) and Search for Tomorrow (Sam Reynolds) when he was hired to play Chester, a conniving Wall Street stock broker, on the ABC primetime comedy Soap.

Susan Harris created the sitcom, which aired for four seasons, from 1977-1981. The show, always a critical darling, was a top 10 hit in its first season but suffered in the ratings as it was moved around the schedule.

Mandan and Helmond reunited for two episodes of her next series, Who's the Boss?, and for a 2002 production of "A Twilight Romance" at the Falcon Theatre in Burbank. He also...

Barns are a-burning, Paul Newman is recommended to Joanne Woodward as ‘a big stud horse’ and Lee Remick oozes sexuality all over Martin Ritt’s CinemaScope screen. William Faulkner may be the literary source, but this tale of ambition in the family of yet another southern Big Daddy is given the faux Tennessee Williams treatment — it’s a grand soap opera with a fistful of great stars having a grand time.

The Long, Hot Summer

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1958 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date August 14, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa, Orson Welles, Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury, Richard Anderson

Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle

Art Direction: Maurice Ransford, Lyle R. Wheeler

Film Editor: Louis R. Loeffler

Original Music: Alex North

Written by Irving Ravetch, Harriet Frank Jr. from stories and a novel by William Faulkner

Produced by Jerry Wald

Directed by Martin Ritt

Time...

Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies' July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM presented five Colman star vehicles that should be popping up again in the not-too-distant future: A Tale of Two Cities, The Prisoner of Zenda, Kismet, Lucky Partners, and My Life with Caroline. The first two movies are among not only Colman's best, but also among Hollywood's best during its so-called Golden Age. Based on Charles Dickens' classic novel, Jack Conway's Academy Award-nominated A Tale of Two Cities (1936) is a rare Hollywood production indeed: it manages to effectively condense its sprawling source, it boasts first-rate production values, and it features a phenomenal central performance. Ah, it also shows its star without his trademark mustache – about as famous at the time as Clark Gable's. Perhaps...

The retrospective Frank Capra, The American Dreamer is showing April 10 - May 31, 2017 in the United Kingdom.Frank CapraFrank Capra has fallen badly out of fashion in recent decades. While still well-known for the extraordinary Depression-era purple patch that produced It Happened One Night (1934), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), the critics have rarely been kind. His work is routinely derided as “Capra-corn” for its perceived sentimentality and “fairy tale” idealism while the man himself is written off in favour of contemporaries Howard Hawks, Preston Sturges and Ernst Lubitsch.Elliot Stein, writing in Sight & Sound in 1972, attacked Capra’s “fantasies of good will, which at no point conflict with middle-class American status quo values”, arguing that his “shrewdly commercial manipulative tracts” consist of little more than “philistine-populist notions and greeting-card sentiments”. Pauline Kael found him “softheaded,” Derek Malcolm a huckster hawking “cosily absurd fables.” To an extent,...

“Can’T Buy Me Love”

By Raymond Benson

Frank Capra was a superstar Hollywood director in the 1930s. He had a string of critically-acclaimed and successful pictures after joining Columbia Pictures and elevating the studio from “poverty row” to a force that competed with the big leagues. Two of Capra’s Columbia movies won the Oscar for Best Picture, and Capra became the first filmmaker to win the Oscar for Best Director three times, all within five years. You Can’t Take it With You was Capra’s second Best Picture winner and his third Best Director achievement.

Sometimes his films have been called “Capra-corn,” because they are usually steeped in Americana, explore themes of social class inequality, feature casts of eccentric—but lovable—protagonists and greedy, heartless villains, and contain stories about the Everyman’s struggle against the Establishment. Capra was also one of the developers of the screwball comedy,...

Frank Capra’s 1938 film You Can’t Take it with You utilizes its titular expression as eloquently as Thomas Wolfe would wield his two years later with the posthumously published novel You Can’t Go Home Again. Both are texts dealing with a specific period of American history, in-between the ravages of the Great Depression and the onset of WWII, each conveying its author’s specific outlook, reflecting a sort of bittersweet melancholia between the two. Capra, as usual, presents his universe from the glass half full perspective, and the title arrives at the zenith of his popularity during his most lucrative decade. All told, he would be nominated for Best Director six times during his career (five of those were in the seven year time span of 1934 and 1940), winning three of those (including for this particular title). And following the impending cynicism bleeding into American cinema post WWII, Capra...

Frank Capra won his third Best Directing Oscar for this Kaufman and Hart adaptation. Star Jean Arthur is radiant, and relative newcomer James Stewart seems to have lifted his 'aw shucks' nice-guy personal from his role. With Lionel Barrymore, Ann Miller, Dub Taylor, Spring Byington and a terrific Edward Arnold. You Can't Take It with You Blu-ray + Digital HD Sony Pictures Home Entertainment 1938 / B&W / 1:37 flat / 126 min. / Street Date December 8, 2015 / 19.99 Starring Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Edward Arnold, Mischa Auer, Ann Miller, Spring Byington, Samuel S. Hinds, Donald Meek, H.B. Warner, Halliwell Hobbes, Dub Taylor, Mary Forbes, Lillian Yarbo, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson. Cinematography Joseph Walker Art Direction Stephen Goosson Film Editor Gene Havlick Original Music Dimitri Tiomkin Written by Robert Riskin from the play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart Produced and Directed by Frank Capra

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

One of Frank Capra's brightest, most entertaining features,...

Norma Shearer films Note: This article is being revised and expanded. Please check back later. Turner Classic Movies' Norma Shearer month comes to a close this evening, Nov. 24, '15, with the presentation of the last six films of Shearer's two-decade-plus career. Two of these are remarkably good; one is schizophrenic, a confused mix of high comedy and low drama; while the other three aren't the greatest. Yet all six are worth a look even if only because of Norma Shearer herself – though, really, they all have more to offer than just their top star. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the no-expense-spared Marie Antoinette (1938) – $2.9 million, making it one of the most expensive movies ever made up to that time – stars the Canadian-born Queen of MGM as the Austrian-born Queen of France. This was Shearer's first film in two years (following Romeo and Juliet) and her first release following husband Irving G.

Norma Shearer films Note: This article is being revised and expanded. Please check back later. Turner Classic Movies' Norma Shearer month comes to a close this evening, Nov. 24, '15, with the presentation of the last six films of Shearer's two-decade-plus career. Two of these are remarkably good; one is schizophrenic, a confused mix of high comedy and low drama; while the other three aren't the greatest. Yet all six are worth a look even if only because of Norma Shearer herself – though, really, they all have more to offer than just their top star. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the no-expense-spared Marie Antoinette (1938) – $2.9 million, making it one of the most expensive movies ever made up to that time – stars the Canadian-born Queen of MGM as the Austrian-born Queen of France. This was Shearer's first film in two years (following Romeo and Juliet) and her first release following husband Irving G.

Constance Cummings in 'Night After Night.' Constance Cummings: Working with Frank Capra and Mae West (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Actress Went from Harold Lloyd to Eugene O'Neill.”) Back at Columbia, Harry Cohn didn't do a very good job at making Constance Cummings feel important. By the end of 1932, Columbia and its sweet ingenue found themselves in court, fighting bitterly over stipulations in her contract. According to the actress and lawyer's daughter, Columbia had failed to notify her that they were picking up her option. Therefore, she was a free agent, able to offer her services wherever she pleased. Harry Cohn felt otherwise, claiming that his contract player had waived such a notice. The battle would spill over into 1933. On the positive side, in addition to Movie Crazy 1932 provided Cummings with three other notable Hollywood movies: Washington Merry-Go-Round, American Madness, and Night After Night. 'Washington Merry-Go-Round...

Gary Cooper movies on TCM: Cooper at his best and at his weakest Gary Cooper is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 30, '15. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any Cooper movie premiere – despite the fact that most of his Paramount movies of the '20s and '30s remain unavailable. This evening's features are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Sergeant York (1941), and Love in the Afternoon (1957). Mr. Deeds Goes to Town solidified Gary Cooper's stardom and helped to make Jean Arthur Columbia's top female star. The film is a tad overlong and, like every Frank Capra movie, it's also highly sentimental. What saves it from the Hell of Good Intentions is the acting of the two leads – Cooper and Arthur are both excellent – and of several supporting players. Directed by Howard Hawks, the jingoistic, pro-war Sergeant York was a huge box office hit, eventually earning Academy Award nominations in several categories,...

Greta Garbo movie 'The Kiss.' Greta Garbo movies on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” performer today, Aug. 26, '15. Now, why would Garbo be considered a silent era rarity? Well, certainly not because she easily made the transition to sound, remaining a major star for another decade. Think Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, William Powell, Fay Wray, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, etc. And so much for all the stories about actors with foreign accents being unable to maintain their Hollywood stardom following the advent of sound motion pictures. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer star, Garbo was no major exception to the supposed rule. Mexican Ramon Novarro, another MGM star, also made an easy transition to sound, and so did fellow Mexicans Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio, in addition to the very British...

Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup.' Groucho Marx movies: 'Duck Soup,' 'The Story of Mankind' and romancing Margaret Dumont on TCM Grouch Marx, the bespectacled, (painted) mustached, cigar-chomping Marx brother, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 14, '15. Marx Brothers fans will be delighted, as TCM is presenting no less than 11 of their comedies, in addition to a brotherly reunion in the 1957 all-star fantasy The Story of Mankind. Non-Marx Brothers fans should be delighted as well – as long as they're fans of Kay Francis, Thelma Todd, Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Allan Jones, affectionate, long-tongued giraffes, and/or that great, scene-stealing dowager, Margaret Dumont. Right now, TCM is showing Robert Florey and Joseph Santley's The Cocoanuts (1929), an early talkie notable as the first movie featuring the four Marx Brothers – Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Based on their hit Broadway...

Robert Walker: Actor in MGM films of the '40s. Robert Walker: Actor who conveyed boy-next-door charms, psychoses At least on screen, I've always found the underrated actor Robert Walker to be everything his fellow – and more famous – MGM contract player James Stewart only pretended to be: shy, amiable, naive. The one thing that made Walker look less like an idealized “Average Joe” than Stewart was that the former did not have a vacuous look. Walker's intelligence shone clearly through his bright (in black and white) grey eyes. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” programming, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating today, Aug. 9, '15, to Robert Walker, who was featured in 20 films between 1943 and his untimely death at age 32 in 1951. Time Warner (via Ted Turner) owns the pre-1986 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library (and almost got to buy the studio outright in 2009), so most of Walker's movies have...

Adolphe Menjou movies today (This article is currently being revised.) Despite countless stories to the contrary, numerous silent film performers managed to survive the coming of sound. Adolphe Menjou, however, is a special case in that he not only remained a leading man in the early sound era, but smoothly made the transition to top supporting player in mid-decade, a position he would continue to hold for the quarter of a century. Menjou is Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Day today, Aug. 3, as part of TCM's "Summer Under the Stars" 2015 series. Right now, TCM is showing William A. Wellman's A Star Is Born, the "original" version of the story about a small-town girl (Janet Gaynor) who becomes a Hollywood star, while her husband (Fredric March) boozes his way into oblivion. In typical Hollywood originality (not that things are any different elsewhere), this 1937 version of the story – produced by...

African-American film 'Bert Williams: Lime Kiln Club Field Day.' With Williams and Odessa Warren Grey.* Rare, early 20th-century African-American film among San Francisco Silent Film Festival highlights Directed by Edwin Middleton and T. Hayes Hunter, the Biograph Company's Lime Kiln Club Field Day (1913) was the film I most looked forward to at the 2015 edition of the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. One hundred years old, unfinished, and destined to be scrapped and tossed into the dust bin, it rose from the ashes. Starring entertainer Bert Williams – whose film appearances have virtually disappeared, but whose legacy lives on – Lime Kiln Club Field Day has become a rare example of African-American life in the first years of the 20th century. In the introduction to the film, the audience was treated to a treasure trove of Black memorabilia: sheet music, stills, promotional material, and newspaper clippings that survive. Details of the...

'Cat People' 1942 actress Simone Simon Remembered: Starred in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie classic (photo: Simone Simon in 'Cat People') Pert, pouty, pretty Simone Simon is best remembered for her starring roles in Jacques Tourneur's cult horror movie Cat People (1942) and in Jean Renoir's French film noir La Bête Humaine (1938). Long before Brigitte Bardot, Mamie Van Doren, Ann-Margret, and (for a few years) Jane Fonda became known as cinema's Sex Kittens, Simone Simon exuded feline charm in a film career that spanned a quarter of a century. From the early '30s to the mid-'50s, she seduced men young and old on both sides of the Atlantic – at times, with fatal results. During that period, Simon was featured in nearly 40 movies in France, Italy, Germany, Britain, and Hollywood. Besides Jean Renoir, in her native country she worked for the likes of Jacqueline Audry...

Jean Arthur films on TCM include three Frank Capra classics Five Jean Arthur films will be shown this evening, Monday, January 5, 2015, on Turner Classic Movies, including three directed by Frank Capra, the man who helped to turn Arthur into a major Hollywood star. They are the following: Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; George Stevens' The More the Merrier; and Frank Borzage's History Is Made at Night. One the most effective performers of the studio era, Jean Arthur -- whose film career began inauspiciously in 1923 -- was Columbia Pictures' biggest female star from the mid-'30s to the mid-'40s, when Rita Hayworth came to prominence and, coincidentally, Arthur's Columbia contract expired. Today, she's best known for her trio of films directed by Frank Capra, Columbia's top director of the 1930s. Jean Arthur-Frank Capra...

Episode 15 of 52 as Anne Marie screens all of Katharine Hepburn's films in chronological order.

In which Katharine Hepburn is named Box Office Poison, which might be the best thing that could have happened to her.

Wake Up! Hollywood Producers

Practically all of the major studios are burdened with stars--whose public appeal is negligible--receiving tremendous salaries necessitated by contractual obligations...

Among these players, whose dramatic ability is unquestioned but whose box office draw is nil, can be numbered Mae West, Edward Arnold, Garbo, Joan Crawford, Katharine Hepburn, and many, many others... Hepburn turned in excellent performances in 'Stage Door' and 'Bringing Up Baby' but both pictures died."

Reading that “wake up call” on the morning of May 3rd, 1938 had to sting. The Manhattan Independent Theatre Owners Association bought a full-page ad in The Hollywood Reporter and the Independent Film Journal to air its grievances, and the effects for Kate were immediate.

Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in ‘Gone with the Wind’: TCM schedule on August 20, 2013 (photo: Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in ‘Gone with the Wind’) See previous post: “Hattie McDaniel: Oscar Winner Makes History.” 3:00 Am Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). Director: David Butler. Cast: Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Eddie Cantor, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Edward Everett Horton, S.Z. Sakall, Hattie McDaniel, Ruth Donnelly, Don Wilson, Spike Jones, Henry Armetta, Leah Baird, Willie Best, Monte Blue, James Burke, David Butler, Stanley Clements, William Desmond, Ralph Dunn, Frank Faylen, James Flavin, Creighton Hale, Sam Harris, Paul Harvey, Mark Hellinger, Brandon Hurst, Charles Irwin, Noble Johnson, Mike Mazurki, Fred Kelsey, Frank Mayo, Joyce Reynolds, Mary Treen, Doodles Weaver. Bw-127 mins. 5:15 Am Janie (1944). Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joyce Reynolds, Robert Hutton,...

Wallace Beery from Pancho Villa to Long John Silver: TCM schedule (Pt) on August 17, 2013 (photo: Fay Wray, Wallace Beery as Pancho Villa in ‘Viva Villa!’) See previous post: “Wallace Beery: Best Actor Oscar Winner — and Runner-Up.” 3:00 Am The Last Of The Mohicans (1920). Director: Maurice Tourneur. Cast: Barbara Bedford, Albert Roscoe, Wallace Beery, Lillian Hall, Henry Woodward, James Gordon, George Hackathorne, Nelson McDowell, Harry Lorraine, Theodore Lorch, Jack McDonald, Sydney Deane, Boris Karloff. Bw-76 mins. 4:30 Am The Big House (1930). Director: George W. Hill. Cast: Chester Morris, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Robert Montgomery, Leila Hyams, George F. Marion, J.C. Nugent, DeWitt Jennings, Matthew Betz, Claire McDowell, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Tom Wilson, Eddie Foyer, Roscoe Ates, Fletcher Norton, Noah Beery Jr, Chris-Pin Martin, Eddie Lambert, Harry Wilson. Bw-87 mins. 6:00 Am Bad Man Of Brimstone (1937). Director: J. Walter Ruben. Cast: Wallace Beery, Virginia Bruce, Dennis O’Keefe. Bw-89 mins.

Lana Turner movies: Scandal and more scandal Lana Turner is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, Saturday, August 10, 2013. I’m a little — or rather, a lot — late in the game posting this article, but there are still three Lana Turner movies left. You can see Turner get herself embroiled in scandal right now, in Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), both the director and the star’s biggest box-office hit. More scandal follows in Mark Robson’s Peyton Place (1957), the movie that earned Lana Turner her one and only Academy Award nomination. And wrapping things up is George Sidney’s lively The Three Musketeers (1948), with Turner as the ruthless, heartless, remorseless — but quite elegant — Lady de Winter. Based on Fannie Hurst’s novel and a remake of John M. Stahl’s 1934 melodrama about mother love, class disparities, racism, and good cooking, Imitation of Life was shown on...

One of the most famous films that Jimmy Stewart ever had to stand to the point of exhaustion in was Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Made almost a decade before his even more famous yet less senatorial It’s a Wonderful Life, the film tells the story of a small-town man who is appointed as a U.S. Senator to replace one that has suddenly died. Stewart stars as Jefferson Smith, an idealistic man who takes his new job almost too seriously. However, Smith’s wide-eyed wonder at the seat of government is soon rocked by political corruption and dirty dealings. Smith tries to arrange the use of public land for boy rangers in his home state, causing a problem for the building of a dam in the same area — a dam that’s a critical part of a bill being pursued by local tycoon and political heavy Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) who has...

Esther Williams: Swimwear-garbed star of MGM Technicolor musicals dead at 91 Esther Williams, known for her swimming skills and ability to smile and keep her makeup and coiffure intact underwater in several MGM Technicolor aqua-musicals of the ’40s and ’50s, died in her sleep earlier today at her Beverly Hills home. Williams, who in recent decades launched a successful swimwear line, was 91. (Photo: Esther Williams publicity shot ca. 1945.) Born on August 8, 1921, in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, Esther Williams began honing her swimming skills at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Following several victories in swimming competitions, she looked forward to taking part in the 1940 Olympics. World War II, however, interfered. In the early ’40s, she was reportedly discovered by an MGM scout while appearing as a "bathing beauty" at the World’s Fair in San Francisco. The swimming champion would write in her 1999 autobiography The Million Dollar Mermaid that...

Lionel Barrymore movies on TCM. (Photo: Lionel Barrymore [right] You Can’t Take It with You, with Edward Arnold, Jean Arthur, and James Stewart.) Lionel Barrymore isn’t just Drew Barrymore’s long-dead great-uncle. Barrymore, a favorite buddy of MGM honcho Louis B. Mayer, was a stage star, Academy Award-winning film actor, infrequent film director (Madame X, Redemption), brother of John Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore, son of Maurice Barrymore, grandson of stage actor John Drew, and Turner Classic Movies’ Summer Under the Stars star on Friday, August 10. [Lionel Barrymore movie schedule.] But however well-regarded and despite his Best Actor Academy Award, Lionel Barrymore was also an [...]...

Paula Kerger seems destined to have become the public face of PBS. Her grandfather, Ed Arnold, founded the public radio station Wbjc in Baltimore, and PBS was a favorite channel in her Baltimore household when she was growing up. "I remember watching Masterpiece Theatre programs like The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth R and I, Claudius," she says. "Public media was always part of my life." Today, it is her calling. Kerger, who began her career in the nonprofit sector, was recruited in 1993 by Wnet, PBS' flagship station in New York, to run a capital campaign.

read more...

Part of a series by David Cairns on forgotten pre-Code films.

Edward L. Cahn—how shall I sing your praises? Perhaps before seeing this film I wouldn't have bothered, though It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) is a genuinely exciting sci-fi horror, and a clear precursor to Alien. Apart from that, Cahn seems to resemble W. Lee Wilder (Billy Wilder's idiot brother), in that he was capable of semi-decent Z-grade noirs, but concentrated much of his attention on science fiction, a genre he seemed to have no understanding of and nothing but contempt for. Cahn's Invisible Invaders (1959) may safely be recommended to anybody who likes really, really stupid movies. Movies so stupid they forget to breath.

Above: The chain gang chorus line—a surprisingly uncommon trope.

But decades earlier, things were different. Cahn was already churning out several quickies a year, with snap-brimmed titles like Homicide Squad (1931) and Radio Patrol (1932). The difference was,...

Throughout the month of December, TV Editor Kate Kulzick and Film Editor Ricky D will review classic Christmas adaptions, posting a total of 13 each, one a day, until the 25th of December.

The catch: They will swap roles as Rick will take on reviews of classic television Christmas specials and Kate will take on Christmas movies. Today is day 8.

Meet John Doe (1941)

Screenplay by Robert Riskin

Story by Richard Connell and Robert Presnell, Sr.

Directed by Frank Capra

What’s it about?

A journalist, Ann Mitchell (Barbara Stanwyck) dreams up an article to save her job and winds up entangled with John Doe, her fictional creation, Long John Willoughby (Gary Cooper), the man hired to play him, and the men who seek to exploit them all.

How is it?

Capra’s Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life may have the holiday locked down, but this pleasing entry deserves a look as well.

Looking for something to do in Manhattan over the next month? MoMA has announced the slate for its 9th annual International Festival of Film Preservation, in which the museum presents preserved and restored films from archives, studios and distributors around the world. This year’s festival runs from October 14 through November 19, and the lineup looks like a pretty stellar way to spend an evening (or twenty).

One of the highlights is the focus on ’70s genre-enthusiast and frequent Spielberg collaborator Joe Dante (Gremlins, Piranha). The festival opens this Friday with a digital preservation of the original celluloid print of Dante’s rarely screened 1968 debut, The Movie Orgy, a 4-hour barrage of B-movie trailers, ’60s commercials and bizarre found footage. A trashy spectacle that more than lives up to its ever-growing cult status.

Then, on Saturday, Dante’s Twilight Zone: The Movie segment, “It’s a Good Life” (the one with...

Paulette Goddard, Modern Times Paulette Goddard on TCM Part I: Modern Times, Reap The Wild Wind I've never watched Alexander Korda's British-made An Ideal Husband, a 1948 adaptation (by Lajos Biro) of Oscar Wilde's play, but it should be at least worth a look. The respectable cast includes Michael Wilding, Diana Wynyard, C. Aubrey Smith, Hugh Williams, Constance Collier, and Glynis Johns. George Cukor's film version of Clare Boothe Luce's hilarious The Women ("officially" adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin) is definitely worth numerous looks; once or twice or even three times isn't/aren't enough to catch the machine-gun dialogue spewed forth by the likes of Goddard, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Mary Boland, Phyllis Povah, Lucile Watson, et al. A big hit at the time, The Women actually ended up in the red because of its high cost. Norma Shearer, aka The Widow Thalberg, was the nominal star; curiously,...

Dec 25, 2010

The halo surrounding the accolade "film classic" can weigh heavily, indeed, and few films have encountered the extremes of opinion as has Frank Capra's classic, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It has been considered a most profound American tragedy. It has also been called sheer cornball on celluloid, even a veiled paean to fascism.

When an idealistic youth leader is named to the U.S. Senate to fill an unexpired term, he clashes with the party machine. Senator Paine (Claude Rains), industrial magnate Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) and others are pushing through a bill giving ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...

Evergreen satire Meet John Doe shows the little people being used by the media to serve its own ends. Sounds familiar, says John Patterson

Sometimes I blame Frank Capra for Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell. Capra's evergreen 1939 melodrama in the form of a civics lesson, Mr Smith Goes To Washington, peddles the notion that our most desirable elected representative isn't the richest, canniest or best-connected professional politician, but the honest, untutored back-country hick with a love for the founding fathers – or, failing that, Jimmy Stewart himself.

It turns out that Capra, the director most closely associated with the 1930s, era of the Great Depression, had mixed feelings about The People whom the majority of his movies celebrate, and who are by and large depicted by him as dignified, funny, resilient and honest. The famous bus ride scene in his masterpiece It Happened One Night, when passengers take turns on verses...

Race to Witch Mountain co-writer Mark Bomback has been hired by New Line and Playtone to adapt Agent Zigzag , a WWII spy drama, reports Variety . Playtone's Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman are producing. The film is based on a Ben Macintyre book that tells the story of Edward Arnold Chapman, a career criminal who was trained by the Nazis to be a spy during WWII. On a mission to sabotage an airplane factory in England, he contacted the British and began a life as a double agent. Bomback's recent scripting efforts include Live Free or Die Hard , Deception and Fox's upcoming Unstoppable .

Tyrone Power, who died 50 years ago at 44, has more of his movies available on DVD than practically any of his peers from Hollywood's Golden Age.

Partly, it's because he worked almost exclusively from 1937 to 1952 for 20th Century Fox, which has already released his classics, including "The Mark of Zorro," "Jesse James," "The Black Swan" and "In Old Chicago."

It's also because Power is more respected today - because of more ambitious roles in darker films like "Nightmare Alley" and "The Razor's Edge" -...

• Besides taking my last year’s resolution and placing it at the top of the following year’s list of things I need to do, part of my habitual beginning-of-the-year practices is to look ahead at the year of film offerings, filter through all the crap that will come out in the next 12 months and make my most anticipated list. While you won’t find Michael Bay’s The Tranformers nor the next Peter Parker installment, you’ll find a grouping of visionary directors, great screenplays and talented cast and crews on the sort of projects that might be in contention for the Palme D’or or that will play at your local art house theatre. Commencing today (Monday) and concluding on Friday, I’ll be counting down the list of most anticipated films for 2007. You’ll find brief introductions to both the film title and the filmmaker behind

...

“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” is typically Capra, punchy, human and absorbing-a drama that combines timeliness with current topical interest and a patriotic flavor blended masterfully into the composite whole to provide one of the finest and consistently interesting dramas of the season. Picture is a cinch for top grosses in the key runs, with hold­overs the rule rather than exception. It’s meaty and attention arresting for the subsequent run houses, and a topflight attraction for general audiences.

Capra goes to Washington in unwinding the story, and in so doing provides a graphic picture of just how the national lawmakers operate. His one-man campaign against crooked politics will catch attention in the largest cities and smallest hamlets. In unfolding his narrative, Capra never attempts to expose political skullduggery on a wide scale within our governmental system. He selects one state political machine, and after displaying its power and ruthlessness,...