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Longest-running Western series often had episode counts in hundreds, showcasing the genre's popularity on both small screen and theaters. Many iconic Western series featured notable names like Clint Eastwood and Ronald Reagan, shaping the television landscape of the 1950s and 1960s. Series like Gunsmoke and Death Valley Days stood out with over 600 episodes, illustrating the enduring impact of Western storytelling on TV.

During the heyday of the genre, Westerns were just as popular on the small screen as they were in theaters, as every week, viewers tuned in for the adventures of bandits, cowboys, and outlaws. With episode counts going well into the hundreds, it was astounding how many popular Western series were on the air through the 1950s and 1960s. When tracking the longest-running Western series of all time, its important to take episode count as the primary factor, as even though some shows ran for just a few seasons,...

‘Unabashed, unfettered romanticism’ runs wild in Frank Borzage’s golden-age masterpiece of a runaway wife and the crazy Frenchman who pursues her. Long lost to awful, ragged 16mm prints, the newly restored gem will dazzle fans of delirious love stories, where the right people get together despite distance, time, and the interference of jealous husbands, misunderstandings, accusations of murder and natural disasters. All the above figure in this mini-epic, yet the movie never seems like a genre mash-up. Jean Arthur skips the squeaky line deliveries, Charles Boyer drops the gloom act, Colin Clive is more frightening than in his horror movies and Leo Carillo steals the show with one of the most endearing characters of the 1930s.

History is Made at Night

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 1072

1937 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 97 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 13, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Charles Boyer, Jean Arthur, Leo Carrillo, Colin Clive, Ivan Lebedeff,...

Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. A trio of island-related movies are on the card this week to help you escape the pandemic virtually, if you’re not ready to brave an airline flight just yet.

Paradise Lagoon is the name used in the U.S. for the release of the 1957 British-American film, The Admirable Crichton. The screenplay was based on a play written in the early 20th century by J.M. Barrie, the guy behind Peter Pan. The main character in the movie is a butler. He lacks Peter Pan’s ability to fly, but he has the added advantage of being able to serve drinks.

The story of Paradise Lagoon centers on a group of upper-crust castaways who try to escape scandal on a yacht and end up shipwrecked. It’s sort of like Gilligan’s Island,...

Really, I mean Preston Sturges' Hotel Haywire, because nobody's too interested in George Archainbaud, a Paramount contract director who had been directing for 20 years without helming a really memorable film (Thirteen Women, an uncomfortably racist pre-Code with Myrna Loy, is as exciting as it gets, and even that one is remembered chiefly for featuring the girl who threw herself off the Hollywood sign), He would continue for another 20, moving from B-westerns into TV westerns, without making anything else of particular note.Sturges wrote the script as part of his plan to get a long-term contract at Paramount. To particularly appeal to the suits there, he filled the story with roles for Paramount stars such as Mary Boland, Charles Ruggles, Fred MacMurray and Burns & Allen, none of whom were necessarily famous enough to carry a movie, but whose combined star-power might make an attractive investment for studio or future ticket-buyers.

Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.

Virginia Bruce: MGM actress ca. 1935. Virginia Bruce movies on TCM: Actress was the cherry on 'The Great Ziegfeld' wedding cake Unfortunately, Turner Classic Movies has chosen not to feature any non-Hollywood stars – or any out-and-out silent film stars – in its 2015 “Summer Under the Stars” series.* On the other hand, TCM has come up with several unusual inclusions, e.g., Lee J. Cobb, Warren Oates, Mae Clarke, and today, Aug. 25, Virginia Bruce. A second-rank MGM leading lady in the 1930s, the Minneapolis-born Virginia Bruce is little remembered today despite her more than 70 feature films in a career that spanned two decades, from the dawn of the talkie era to the dawn of the TV era, in addition to a handful of comebacks going all the way to 1981 – the dawn of the personal computer era. Career highlights were few and not all that bright. Examples range from playing the...

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...

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.

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

Joel McCrea, Jean Arthur, The More the Merrier The delightful actress Jean Arthur is Turner Classic Movies' star of the evening tonight. Beginning at 5 p.m. Pt, TCM will show five Jean Arthur movies: The Talk of the Town (1942), History Is Made at Night (1937), The Public Menace (1935), The More the Merrier (1943), and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936). Directed by George Stevens, The Talk of the Town received seven Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and two for its story and screenplay. (Back in those days there were three Best Writing categories.) Arthur is outstanding as a schoolteacher — this is perhaps my favorite among her performances — torn between a law professor (an equally outstanding Ronald Colman) and an escaped convict (Cary Grant). As a plus, former Warner Bros. contract player Glenda Farrell is excellent in a supporting role. The Talk of the Town is not to be missed. Though much less...

Los Angeles, California (X17online) - Victoria Beckham took her three sons, Romeo, Cruz and Brooklyn to Leo Carrillo State Park around 11:30am on Sunday, and we photographed the family exploring the outdoors and having a blast. After about an hour at the park, Victoria and her boys headed to the Malibu Country Mart where she met up with her folks for lunch at Italian eatery Tra di Noi. While Victoria lunched on the terrace, her boys went back to the park and played with the bodyguard and the nanny, and after that the family reunited and headed to Malibu Rock Star Jewelry so Posh could pick out some baubles for herself. Victoria then took the boys across the street to the beach, where they played in the sand and surf. Click here to see the gallery of Victoria and her boys frolicking on the beach Though this would...

Johnny Depp is in talks to become the latest big name to play Mexican bandit revolutionary Pancho Villa in a new movie.

The movie star is slated to lead the cast of Serbian filmmaker Emir Kusturica's biopic, The Seven Friends of Pancho Villa and the Woman With Six Fingers.

The Spanish-language film will be shot partly in Mexico in 2011 and Depp's Once Upon A Time In Mexico co-star Salma Hayek is in negotiations to co-star, according to Variety.

If the film comes together, it won't be the first time Depp and Kusturica have worked together - they previously collaborated on 1993 movie Arizona Dream.

Antonio Banderas, Telly Savalas and Leo Carrillo are among the stars who have portrayed Pancho Villa in the movies.

The real revolutionary, aka Jose Doroteo Arango Arambula, played himself in silent movie mogul D.W. Griffith's The Life of General Villa in 1914.