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The Best Picture Oscar nominees of 1936 contained a few stone-cold classics and a large handful of duds. The Academy nominated 10 films for Best Picture that year, with the top honor going to Robert Z. Leonard's three-hour glitzy musical biopic "The Great Ziegfeld". "The Great Ziegfeld" is visually spectacular but kind of mushy as a melodrama, serving more as a fond farewell to its subject (who died in 1932) than a legitimately great film.

The legit bangers nominated that year included Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," one of the master director's more notable comedies. Also pretty good were William Dieterle's "The Story of Lois Pasteur" starring Paul Muni, and Jack Conway's delightful screwball film "Libeled Lady" with Powell and Myrna Loy. Conway also directed a serviceable adaptation of "A Tale of Two Cities," which many readers may have watched in their junior high school classrooms.

But...

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,...

It was more than a little heartening to see Roger Corman paid tribute by Quentin Tarantino at Cannes’ closing night. By now the director-producer-mogul’s imprint on cinema is understood to eclipse, rough estimate, 99.5% of anybody who’s touched the medium, but on a night for celebrating what’s new, trend-following, and manicured it could’ve hardly been more necessary. Thus I’m further heartened seeing the Criterion Channel will host a retrospective of Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe adaptations running eight films and aptly titled “Grindhouse Gothic,” though I might save the selections for October.

Centerpiece, though, is a hip hop series including Bill Duke’s superb Deep Cover, Ghost Dog, and numerous documentaries––among them Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest, making Michael Rapaport a Criterion-approved auteur. Ten films starring Kay Francis and 21 Eurothrillers round out series; streaming premieres include the Dardenne brothers’ Tori and Lokita,...

“Time is all we have and every second that ticks away is one less second we’re alive,” Kenneth Anger told an interviewer from The Guardian 16 and a half years before his death this May at the age of 96. “The sands of time are going through the hourglass but it doesn’t frighten me.”

If Woody Allen’s Zelig was found rubbing elbows with the storied and famous of the ’20s and ’30s, starting in the 1950s Anger was for some decades more than a match for him. His legacy is poised between the pathbreaking cinematic auteur who made such avant-garde shorts as “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome” (1954) and “Scorpio Rising” (1963) and the purveyor of at times fictionalized Hollywood scandal in the sensational and frequently updated “Hollywood Babylon” (1959).

He was not immune from his own brushes with dark history — the very bikers he incorporated in some of his middle-period work...

The films of Maïwenn, like Maïwenn herself, tend to be divisive.

When they’re good, such as in the writer-director-actress’ breakthrough second feature, Polisse, they’re filled with hotblooded ensemble performances that channel the kinetic energy of John Cassavetes. When they’re not, such as in her last effort, DNA, they feel like overblown arthouse selfies where Maïwenn is the only star.

Either way, they hardly leave you indifferent, which is why the director’s biggest project yet, a $22.4 million biopic of the legendary 18th century French courtesan Jeanne du Barry, can seem so surprising. Sumptuously made and with enough jaw-dropping costumes — several of them courtesy of Chanel, one of the film’s sponsors — to warrant a separate runway show, Maïwenn’s lavish feature is also, well, kind of bland.

It has a great setting, with many scenes shot in and around the real Palace of Versailles, and a great setup,...

One of the many, many, many problems with the Academy Awards is that with only five nominees in each category — and even with 10 nominees for Best Picture — there's always at least one worthy artist or movie that doesn't get recognized.

In the industry we call these "snubs," and it's a somewhat loaded term that suggests the Oscar voters are deciding, intentionally, not to honor certain filmmakers and their films. While that's certainly a possibility, and there's no denying that the Academy members are human beings full of conscious and unconscious biases, it's also true that in a year full of great artistry in a variety of cinematic fields, at least one person who did amazing work was destined to get left off the ballot, and it's always a real downer for the artist and their fans.

But what if being left off the ballot wasn't the end of their story?...

This article contains Babylon spoilers.

Despite the lurid imagery associated with Babylon, Damien Chazelle’s three-hour bacchanal of a movie about Golden Age Hollywood, it wasn’t wretched excess or decadence which first caught Chazelle’s imagination. Nor was it the glamor and gaudiness associated with a new (read: low) art form in those heady days when the silent era gave way to the earliest sound films.

Rather the inciting idea for Babylon is borne from a simple yet disturbing bit of trivia on the mortality rate in Los Angeles—and how the number of deaths seemingly caused by suicide rose precipitously during the late 1920s and early ‘30s. When looked at from afar, it would appear that the advent of The Jazz Singer (1927) and talkies invited not only musicals to Hollywood, but Death itself.

“It was actors, directors, people both in front of the camera and behind the camera,...

The third ‘Essential’ noir collection is easily [Imprint]’s best, with two genuine classics of the style plus two excellent and equally entertaining thrillers. The directors are first-rank: Lewis Milestone, Mitchell Leisen, William Dieterle and William Wyler. Top stars are present too: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lisabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, William Holden, Alexis Smith, Edmond O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Fredric March. The high-quality suspense and jeopardy are uniquely noir: The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, No Man Of Her Own, The Turning Point and The Desperate Hours. [Imprint] taps bona fide experts for the xtras.

Essential Film Noir Collection 3

Blu-ray (Region-Free)

The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, No Man Of Her Own, The Turning Point, The Desperate Hours

Viavision [Imprint] 148, 149, 150, 151

1946 – 1955 / B&w / 1:37 Academy (3), 1:78 widescreen (1) / 411 min. / Street Date August 31, 2022 / Available from Viavision [Imprint] / au 139.95 , Amazon / 136.64

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lisabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas; Barbara Stanwyck, John Lund, Lyle Bettger; William Holden, Alexis Smith,...

The lasting horror of war is the blight it leaves on the lives of those left behind. Early sound pictures tried to deal with the guilt and pain of WW1, and the great Ernst Lubitsch took time out from romantic comedies and musicals for this very grim rumination on lies and responsibility. A French soldier decides to contact the family of a German he killed in the trenches; with no clear purpose or plan, he’s apt to make things worse for everybody. Lionel Barrymore and Nancy Carroll are wonderful, but you’ll choke up in the scenes with the German mother, played by Louise Carter. The film is best known for its opening montage, in which Lubitsch openly attacks the hypocrisy of militarist patriotism. It’s an exceedingly effective, non-hysterical piece of anti-war filmmaking.

Broken Lullaby

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1932 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 76 min. / The Man I Killed / Street...

The public considers the Academy Awards as a Hollywood event. True, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is headquartered in Southern California, and most of the best pic contenders are American and/or in the English language. But Oscar history proves they have been an international event from the beginning.

In the first year (1927-28), there were nominations for directors Herbert Brenon (born in Ireland) and Lewis Milestone (born in Moldova), plus a special award to Charlie Chaplin (from the U.K.).

The next five years saw two noms apiece for directors Ernst Lubitsch (Germany) and Josef von Sternberg (Austria). And the second best actress Academy Award was given to Canadian Mary Pickford.

The early years of Oscar featured a slew of non-Americans. Aside from mega-star Chaplin, the list of early Academy Award winners includes Emil Jannings, George Arliss (U.K.), Claudette Colbert (raised in the U.S. but...

Westerns are populated with cowboys, gunslingers, bandits, Native American, horses, cows and buffalos. But the genre is much more complex than shoot-‘em-ups. In fact, the best Westerns are Shakespearean in nature exploring such universal subjects as love, hate, revenge, greed, power and good versus evil. One of the most popular sub-genres is the “ranch” Western where the patriarch or matriarch — remember Barbara Stanwyck in “The Big Valley”– governs with a strict and often violent hand. They act like they are above the law and often take legal matters into their own hand. They are often widowers or widows and have sons who run the spectrum from hero to villain.

Jane Campion’s highly acclaimed Netflix Oscar-contender “The Power of the Dog” falls into this sub-genre. Set in Montana in 1925, the story revolves around the charismatic but sadistic Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) who relishes being the master of a cattle rancher.

Let’s shout our approval of this foursome of vintage noirs, all of which have been scarce since Eddie Muller was old enough to rob candy stores. Three Paramounts and one Universal give us four notable directors and a gallery of attractive stars, including a swoon-worthy array of actresses: Marta Toren, Loretta Young, Susan Hayward, Gail Russell, Frances Farmer and Marina Berti. The selection includes one of the key ‘just prior to the official style’ titles, a thriller with supernatural overtones, a ‘woman in jeopardy’ story and a gangster tale reportedly inspired by Lucky Luciano.

Kino Noir Times Four

Blu-ray

Among the Living, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, The Accused, Deported

Kl Studio Classics

1941-1950 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / Street Date November 16, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / Separate Purchases / 24.95 each

Starring: Albert Dekker, Susan Hayward; Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell; Loretta Young, Robert Cummings, Wendell Corey; Jeff Chandler, Marta Toren.

Directed by Stuart Heisler,...

The July lineup at The Criterion Channel has been revealed, most notably featuring the new Wong Kar Wai restorations from the recent box set release, including As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and his shorts Hua yang de nian hua and The Hand.

Also among the lineup is a series on neo-noir with Body Double, Manhunter, Thief, The Last Seduction, Cutter’s Way, Brick, Night Moves, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and more. The channel will also feature a spotlight on art-house animation with work by Marcell Jankovics, Satoshi Kon, Ari Folman, Don Hertzfeldt, Karel Zeman, and more.

With Jodie Mack’s delightful The Grand Bizarre, the landmark doc Hoop Dreams, Orson Welles’ take on Othello, the recent Oscar entries Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and You Will Die at Twenty, and much more,...

Despite the proliferation of streaming services, it’s becoming increasingly clear that any cinephile only needs subscriptions to a few to survive. Among the top of our list are The Criterion Channel and Mubi and now they’ve each unveiled their stellar April line-ups.

Over at The Criterion Channel, highlights include spotlights on Ennio Morricone, the Marx Brothers, Isabel Sandoval, and Ramin Bahrani, plus Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard, Frank Borzage’s Moonrise, the brand-new restoration of Joyce Chopra’s Smooth Talk, and one of last year’s best films, David Osit’s Mayor.

At Mubi (where we’re offering a 30-day trial), they’ll have the exclusive streaming premiere of two of the finest festival films from last year’s circuit, Cristi Puiu’s Malmkrog and Nobuhiko Obayashi’s Labyrinth of Cinema, plus Philippe Garrel’s latest The Salt of Tears, along with films from Terry Gilliam, George A. Romero,...

These days, director William Dieterle is best remembered for his dreamy, stylized melodramas of the mid-to-late 1940s, but in his own time his greatest successes were mostly sturdy prestige biopics like The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Life of Emile Zola. A key transitional film was 1941’s The Devil and Daniel Webster, which introduced a supernatural element to Dieterle’s work and paved the way for a return to the German expressionist style in which he had worked as an actor. Before the delirious flights of fancy to come, however, Dieterle made one last return […]

The post Tennessee Johnson, I Spit on Your Grave and Adaptation: Jim Hemphill's Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

These days, director William Dieterle is best remembered for his dreamy, stylized melodramas of the mid-to-late 1940s, but in his own time his greatest successes were mostly sturdy prestige biopics like The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Life of Emile Zola. A key transitional film was 1941’s The Devil and Daniel Webster, which introduced a supernatural element to Dieterle’s work and paved the way for a return to the German expressionist style in which he had worked as an actor. Before the delirious flights of fancy to come, however, Dieterle made one last return […]

The post Tennessee Johnson, I Spit on Your Grave and Adaptation: Jim Hemphill's Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Van Heflin in Tennessee Johnson (1942) is currently available on Blu-ray from Warner Archive

Tennessee Johnson provided M-g-m an opportunity to showcase the impressive talents of studio newcomer Van Heflin, who had just earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar(r) for the 1941 crime hit Johnny Eager. The studio found an ideal role for Heflin in Andrew Johnson, the Tennessee tailor-turned-senator who broke with the South, rose to the vice presidency under Abraham Lincoln and soon became – after Lincoln’s assassination – the first U.S. president to face impeachment.

With inspired direction by William Dieterle, Heflin convinces as Johnson “by the sheer sincerity and strength of his performance” (The New York Times). Studio stalwart Lionel Barrymore portrays Johnson’s nemesis, Thaddeus Stevens, and Ruth Hussey plays Johnson’s devoted wife.

The post Van Heflin in Tennessee Johnson Available on Blu-ray From Warner Archive appeared first on We Are Movie Geeks.

A Look Back: Murnau’s ‘Faust’A fun evening with friends including my friend Christa Lang Fuller, who introduced me to the 96 year old former actress Noreen Nash, (see blog) not too long ago. Christa hosted an evening with Justin from the Academy Museum, from next door and French American producer Martine Melloul and me to watch the vintage film ‘Faust’.

Christa is my age, German born, and was a young actress in Paris when she met the director Sam Fuller. At 23 she married him and eventually they left Paris for the U.S. They had a daughter, Samantha and she has a daughter, Samia. Sam died in 1997 and so the three women live in a beautiful warm and welcoming home on Woodrow Wilson Drive.

Christa has a sort of salon and along with her stories she feeds us food in abundance. This time Justin from the Academy Museum brought...

Above: Italian 4-fogli for Birdman of Alcatraz. Artist: Renato Casaro.Starting today with a week-long run of Robert Siodmak’s The Killers, New York’s Film Forum is hosting a 4-week, 37-film retrospective of one of the great he-men of Hollywood. With his square jaw, gymnast’s physique, and megawatt grin, Burt Lancaster (1913–1994) must have been a boon to movie poster artists and over the years he was drawn or painted by many great affichistes. I could have curated a post on just the Italian renditions of Lancaster alone: over the years he was painted by Ercole Brini, Anselmo Ballester, Luigi Martinati, Renato Casaro, Averardo Ciriello, and many more. To mark the retrospective I have selected 50 of my favorite illustrated images of the indelible star, from his brooding film noir youth (though he was actually 33 when he made his debut in The Killers), through his serious thespian mid-period to his...

Three days after Notre Dame was nearly lost forever, Alamo Drafthouse has announced its plan to honor the damaged-but-not-destroyed cathedral by screening “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” in it least three cities across the country. Charles Laughton stars as Quasimodo in William Dieterle’s adaptation of the novel by Victor Hugo, which is credited by some with literally saving the architectural marvel for which it’s named; the centuries-old church was regarded by some Parisians as an eyesore prior to the book’s publication. Drafthouse CEO Tim League announced the news with a heartfelt post:

“In times of loss, I want to spend time and reminisce and reflect. When Prince passed away, I spent nearly the whole day listening to his music and watching countless epic live performances. He was my favorite musician when I was in high school and warm memories from those days came flooding back. In the...

Bertrand Mandico's The Wild Boys (2017), which is receiving an exclusive global online premiere on Mubi, is showing September 14 – October 14, 2018 as a Special Discovery.French director Bertrand Mandico shared with us the films he thought about before, during, and after making his feature debut, The Wild Boys:ISLANDSThe Saga of AnatahanMatango: Attack of the Mushroom People: The island and its fauna and flora, the mushroom-men, the sinking. A sublime film.Lord Jim: The tempest sequence in the opening and the cowardice of Lord Jim—an amazing film.A High Wind in Jamaica: For the confusion of the captain played by Antony Quinn, the phlegm of James Coburn and the beauty of his young crew.The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (Lewis John Carlino, 1976): For the erotic figure of the Captain (Kris Kristofferson) and its clique of violent boys.Remorques: A romantic and captivating film with sequences...

This unusually sensitive, overlooked WW2 romance skips the morale-boosting baloney of the day. Two people meet on a train, each with a personal shame they dare not speak of. Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten are excellent under William Dieterle’s direction, and Shirley Temple doesn’t do half the damage you’d think she might.

I’ll Be Seeing You

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 85 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Spring Byington, John Derek, Tom Tully, Chill Wills, Kenny Bowers.

Cinematography: Tony Gaudio

Film Editor: William H. Zeigler

Special Effects: Jack Cosgrove

Original Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof

Stunt Double: Cliff Lyons

Written by Marion Parsonette from a play by Charles Martin

Produced by Dore Schary

Directed by William Dieterle

Aha! A little research explains why several late-’40s melodramas from David O. Selznick come off as smart productions,...

David O. Selznick’s marvelous romantic fantasy ode to Jennifer Jones was almost wholly unappreciated back in 1948. It’s one of those peculiar pictures that either melts one’s heart or doesn’t. Backed by a music score adapted from Debussy, just one breathy “Oh Eben . . . “ will turn average romantics into mush.

Portrait of Jennie

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1948 / B&W w/ Color Insert / 1:37 flat Academy / 86 min. / Street Date October 24, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Ethel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Cecil Kellaway, David Wayne, Albert Sharpe.

Cinematography: Joseph H. August

Production Designers: J. MacMillan Johnson, Joseph B. Platt

Original Music: Dimitri Tiomkin, also adapting themes from Claude Debussy; Bernard Herrmann

Written by Leonardo Bercovici, Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, from the novella by Robert Nathan

Produced by David O. Selznick

Directed by William Dieterle

Once upon a time David O. Selznick’s Portrait of Jennie was an...

Of all the legendary early horror films Carl Theodor Dreyer’s vampire nightmare was once the most difficult to appreciate — until Criterion’s restoration of a mostly intact, un-mutilated full cut. Dreyer creates his fantasy according to his own rules — this pallid, claustrophobic horror is closer to Ordet than it is Dracula or Nosferatu.

Vampyr

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 437

1932 / Color / 1:19 Movietone Ap. / 73 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 3, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Julian West (Baron Nicolas De Gunzberg), Maurice Schutz, Rena Mandel, Sybille Schmitz, Jan Hieronimko, Henriette Gérard.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté

Art Direction: Hermann Warm

Film Editor: Tonka Taldy

Original Music: Wolfgang Zeller

Written by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Christen Jul from In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu

Produced by Carl Theodor Dreyer, Julian West

Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer

Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr is a tough row to hoe for horror fans, many of whom just...

Welcome to the world of Jean Grémillon, where adult characters work through adult problems without benefit of melodramatic excess. The impressively directed experiences of Micheline Presle’s lady doctor on a storm-swept island opts for a progressive point of view, not sentimentality.

The Love of a Woman

Blu-ray + DVD

Arrow Video USA

1953 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 104 min. / Street Date August 22, 2017 / L’amour d’une femme / Available from Arrow Video 39.95

Starring: Micheline Presle, Massimo Girotti, Gaby Morlay, Paolo Stoppa, Marc Cassot, Marius David, Yvette Etiévant, Roland Lesaffre, Robert Naly, Madeleine Geoffroy.

Cinematography: Louis Page

Film Editor: Louisette Hautecoeur, Marguerite Renoir

Production Design: Robert Clavel

Original Music: Elsa Barraine, Henrie Dutilleux

Written by René Fallet, Jean Grémillon, René Wheeler

Produced by Mario Gabrielli, Pierre Géin

Directed by Jean Grémillon

Film critics that pride themselves on rediscovering older directors haven’t done very well by France’s Jean Grémillon, at least not in this country.

Though she’s not quite the household name that her contemporaries Anna Magnani and Alida Valli are, Italian actress Valentina Cortese had an impressive career both on screen and on stage. Besides her romantic and professional relationship with Italian theater legend Giorgio Strehler, she worked with such film luminaries as Robert Wise, Jules Dassin, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Terry Gilliam, William Dieterle — as well as Fellini, Antonioni and Truffaut — even garnering an Oscar nomination for her supporting part as an alcoholic and aging actress in Truffaut’s Day for Night.

Italian director Francesco Patierno pays homage to her life, talent and...

David O. Selznick’s absurdly over-cooked western epic is a great picture, even if much of it induces a kind of hypnotic, mouth-hanging-open disbelief. Is this monument to the sex appeal of Jennifer Jones, Kitsch in terrible taste, or have Selznick and his army of Hollywood talents found a new level of hyped melodramatic harmony? It certainly has the star-power, beginning with Gregory Peck as a cowboy rapist who learned his bedside manners from Popeye’s Bluto. It’s all hugely enjoyable.

Duel in the Sun

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1946 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 144 min. / Special Edition / Street Date August 15, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring Jennifer Jones, Gregory Peck, Joseph Cotten, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Walter Huston, Butterfly McQueen, Charles Bickford, Tilly Losch.

Cinematography Lee Garmes, Ray Rennahan and Harold Rosson

Production Designer J. McMillan Johnson

Film Editor Hal C. Kern, John Saure and William H. Ziegler

Original Music Dimitri Tiomkin

Written by Niven Busch,...

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...

Ricardo Cortez in 'Mandalay,' making love to Kay Francis – not long before he sells her into the 'white slave trade,' in which Francis reaches the top of her profession as a lavishly garbed Rangoon nightclub hostess known as 'Spot White.' Cortez was featured opposite a whole array of female stars during both the silent and the talkie eras. Earlier on, plots usually revolved around his heroic characters; later on, plots usually revolved around the characters of his victimized-but-heroic leading ladies, with Cortez cast as a heel of varying degrees of egotism. Besides 'Mandalay,' Ricardo Cortez and Kay Francis were featured together in 'Transgression,' 'The House on 56th Street,' and 'Wonder Bar.' (See previous post: “'Latin Lover' Ricardo Cortez: Q&A with Biographer Dan Van Neste.”) I am reminded of a humorous review of the melodramatic film Mandalay (1934), penned by Andre Sennwald in the...

Ricardo Cortez biography 'The Magnificent Heel: The Life and Films of Ricardo Cortez' – Paramount's 'Latin Lover' threat to a recalcitrant Rudolph Valentino, and a sly, seductive Sam Spade in the original film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 'The Maltese Falcon.' 'The Magnificent Heel: The Life and Films of Ricardo Cortez': Author Dan Van Neste remembers the silent era's 'Latin Lover' & the star of the original 'The Maltese Falcon' At odds with Famous Players-Lasky after the release of the 1922 critical and box office misfire The Young Rajah, Rudolph Valentino demands a fatter weekly paycheck and more control over his movie projects. The studio – a few years later to be reorganized under the name of its distribution arm, Paramount – balks. Valentino goes on a “one-man strike.” In 42nd Street-style, unknown 22-year-old Valentino look-alike contest winner Jacob Krantz of Manhattan steps in, shortly afterwards to become known worldwide as Latin Lover Ricardo Cortez of...

John Monk Saunders is a good example of the screenwriter-as-auteur in the sense that he had a tone (mordant, tragic) and a set of concerns (Wwi aerial combat and its effects) that were consistent throughout his work, almost to the point of claustrophobia. Saunders was an airman himself, and like his characters, he just couldn't leave it behind. A recurring theme of his work is that war is not only traumatic, but addictive. Ace of Aces is a typical work: Saunders would achieve greater glory with William A. Wellman (Wings, 1927), Howard Hawks (The Dawn Patrol, 1930) and, best of all, with William Dieterle and The Last Flight in 1931. Ace of Aces is a relatively minor-league outing. Though director J. Walter Ruben delivers a few elaborate tracking shots, the film belongs mainly to the writer and the Rko effects team—Vernon L. Walker, who worked on Citizen Kane and King Kong, stitches...

‘La La Land’ and ‘Moonlight’ (Courtesy: Dale Robinette; David Bornfriend/A24)

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

Nothing is certain at the Oscars, and that absolutely applies to the best picture and best director categories. While it is common for films to win both of these trophies in a given year, sometimes they can go to two different works. There’s a chance that La La Land and Moonlight could split these categories at the upcoming ceremony — but how often does that happen?

Both of these films are considered frontrunners in both the best picture and best director category at the upcoming Oscars. This site’s namesake, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, lists La La Land — written and directed by Damien Chazelle — and Moonlight — written and directed by Barry Jenkins — as the top two contenders in both categories in his latest check-in on the race. The two films have been...

The Lon Chaney silent The Hunchback of Notre Dame is an important document, and a pretty good movie, especially if you can see it projected. William Dieterle's 1939 film with Charles Laughton is an outright classic, with iconic casting in every role, but in a way it, like its predecessor, is as much a travesty of Victor Hugo's story as the Disney version. Tragedy is softened, hard edges blurred. (And actually there's a lot to admire in the cartoon: an epic cinematic scale and vision, use of humor that doesn't actually wreck the serious aspects. It's just that, starting with Quasimodo not being deaf—because he has to sing, you see—means you're not filming Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo at all.)So it was perhaps inevitable that the French would one day have to show us how it's done, and present a more faithful rendering of the book.

The Viennale, running this year from October 20 through November 2, has begun previewing its lineup, including a retrospective essentially built on creatively programmed double features. For example: F.W. Murnau's Faust and William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster; three versions of Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, Luis Buñuel and Jacques Rivette); Alan Clarke's Elephant (1989) and Gus Van Sant's Elephant (2003); Josef von Sternberg's Crime and Punishment and Lav Diaz's Norte, the End of History; and so on. There'll also be special programs dedicated to Christopher Walken and Peter Hutton and among the features in the main program are Mia Hansen-Løve's Things to Come, Tim Sutton's Dark Night and Paul Verhoeven's Elle. » - David Hudson...

The Viennale, running this year from October 20 through November 2, has begun previewing its lineup, including a retrospective essentially built on creatively programmed double features. For example: F.W. Murnau's Faust and William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster; three versions of Wuthering Heights (William Wyler, Luis Buñuel and Jacques Rivette); Alan Clarke's Elephant (1989) and Gus Van Sant's Elephant (2003); Josef von Sternberg's Crime and Punishment and Lav Diaz's Norte, the End of History; and so on. There'll also be special programs dedicated to Christopher Walken and Peter Hutton and among the features in the main program are Mia Hansen-Løve's Things to Come, Tim Sutton's Dark Night and Paul Verhoeven's Elle. » - David Hudson...

I live in Los Angeles, and my residency here means that a lot of great film programming-- revival screenings, advance looks at upcoming releases and vital, fascinating glimpses at unheralded, unexpected cinema from around the world—is available to me on a week-by-week basis. But I’ve never been to Cannes. Toronto, Tribeca, New York, Venice, Berlin, Sundance, SXSW, these festivals are all events that I have yet to be lucky enough to attend, and I can reasonably expect that it’s probably going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. I never attended a film festival of any kind until I made my way to the outskirts of the Mojave Desert for the Lone Pine Film Festival in 2006, which was its own kind of grand adventure, even if it wasn’t exactly one for bumping shoulders with critics, stars and fanatics on the French Riviera.

But since 2010 there...

This horror almost-classic has Christopher Lee and great atmosphere. Keep a sharp lookout for All Them Witches: they're not easy to spot... if you're as unobservant as Venetia Stevenson's sexy grad student. Were she studying sharks, this girl would wrap herself in fresh meat and jump into the middle of a mess of 'em. The City of the Dead Blu-ray Vci 1960 / B&W /1:78 widescreen / 78 min. / Horror Hotel / Street Date March 29, 2016 / 24.99 Starring Patricia Jessel, Dennis Lotis, Christopher Lee, Tom Naylor, Betta St. John, Venetia Stevenson, Valentine Dyall, Ann Beach, Norman Macowan. Cinematography Desmond Dickinson Production Designer John Blezard Film Editor John Pomeroy Original Music Douglas Gamley, Kenneth V. Jones Written by George Baxt from a story by Milton Subotsky Produced by Max Rosenberg, Milton Subotsky, Donald Taylor Directed by John Moxey

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Interest has been high for Vci's new The City of the Dead, a movie...

Rita Gam, a glamorous actress who starred in such exotic films as Saadia with Cornel Wilde, Sign of the Pagan with Jack Palance as Attila the Hun and Nicholas Ray's biblical King of Kings, died Tuesday. She was 88.   Gam, who was director Sidney Lumet's first wife and a bridesmaid at Grace Kelly's 1956 wedding to Prince Rainier, died of respiratory failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, publicist Nancy Willen said. Gam also appeared opposite Gregory Peck in Night People (1954) and Shoot Out (1971), in William Dieterle's Magic Fire (1955), with Victor Mature in Hannibal (1959) and with

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It's the final Hollywood film by the legendary Ziegfeld star Marilyn Miller, and it's also a terrific talkie feature debut for W.C. Fields -- with one of his dazzling juggling bits. But the real star is director William Dieterle, whose moving camera and creative edits rescue the talkie musical from dreary operetta staging. Her Majesty, Love DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1931 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 75 min. / Street Date January 19, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Marilyn Miller, Ben Lyon, W.C. Fields, Leon Errol, Ford Sterling, Chester Conklin, Clarence Wilson, Ruth Hall, Virginia Sale, Oscar Apfel. Cinematography Robert Kurrie Film Editor Ralph Dawson Songs Walter Jurmann, Al Dubin Written by Robert Lord, Arthur Caesar from story by Rudolph Bernauer, Rudolf Österreicher Directed by William Dieterle

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Warner Archive Collection has been kind to fans of early talkies. We've been able to discover dramatic actresses like Jeanne Eagels...

The latest restoration of a German silent classic is F.W. Murnau's lavishly mounted version of the Goethe tale, starring Emil Jannings as Mephisto. It's an impressive drama but also has a sense of (Teutonic) humor here and there. Most every shot is a fantastic visuals, and the bigger scenes use visual designs worthy of fine art. Faust Blu-ray + DVD Kino Classics 1926 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 106, 116 min / Street Date November 17, 2015 / available through Kino Lorber / 34.96 Starring Gösta Ekman, Emil Jannings, Camilla Horn, Frida Richard, William Dieterle, Yvette Guilbert, Eric Barclay, Hanna Ralph, Werner Fuetterer. Cinematography Carl Hoffman Production Design Robert Herlth, Walter Röhrig Film Editor Elfi Böttrich Written by Gerhart Hauptmann, Hans Kyser from plays by Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Christopher Marlowe Produced by Erich Pommer Directed by F.W. Murnau

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back in film school, lecturers on cinema art of the 1920s claimed that Germany had an edge over Hollywood.

A few years ago the editors of Shadowlocked asked me to compile a list of what was initially to be, the ten greatest movie matte paintings of all time. A mere ten selections was too slim by a long shot, so my list stretched considerably to twenty, then thirty and finally a nice round fifty entries. Even with that number I found it wasn’t easy to narrow down a suitably wide ranging showcase of motion picture matte art that best represented the artform. So with that in mind, and due to the surprising popularity of that 2012 Shadowlocked list (which is well worth a visit, here Ed), I’ve assembled a further fifty wonderful examples of this vast, vital and more extensively utilised than you’d imagine – though now sadly ‘dead and buried’ – movie magic.

It would of course be so easy to simply concentrate on the well known, iconic,...

Fritz Lang was born on this day 125 years ago and, to celebrate, Matthew Thrift has drawn up a list of "10 essential films" for the BFI. Also in today's roundup: Claude Chabrol's episodes for the 1980 television series Fantômas, the Chiseler on William Dieterle, Eddie Cantor and Houseley Stevenson, Yorgos Lanthimos on Nikos Papatakis's The Shepherds of Calamity, a wide-ranging interview with D.A. Pennebaker, John Waters on Christmas, a new restoration of Jean-Luc Godard's A Married Woman (1964), David Lynch and Ringo Starr on music and meditation, video essays on Luis Buñuel, remembering Robert Loggia—and more. » - David Hudson...

Fritz Lang was born on this day 125 years ago and, to celebrate, Matthew Thrift has drawn up a list of "10 essential films" for the BFI. Also in today's roundup: Claude Chabrol's episodes for the 1980 television series Fantômas, the Chiseler on William Dieterle, Eddie Cantor and Houseley Stevenson, Yorgos Lanthimos on Nikos Papatakis's The Shepherds of Calamity, a wide-ranging interview with D.A. Pennebaker, John Waters on Christmas, a new restoration of Jean-Luc Godard's A Married Woman (1964), David Lynch and Ringo Starr on music and meditation, video essays on Luis Buñuel, remembering Robert Loggia—and more. » - David Hudson...

Maureen O'Hara: Queen of Technicolor. Maureen O'Hara movies: TCM tribute Veteran actress and Honorary Oscar recipient Maureen O'Hara, who died at age 95 on Oct. 24, '15, in Boise, Idaho, will be remembered by Turner Classic Movies with a 24-hour film tribute on Friday, Nov. 20. At one point known as “The Queen of Technicolor” – alongside “Eastern” star Maria Montez – the red-headed O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons on Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, County Dublin) was featured in more than 50 movies from 1938 to 1971 – in addition to one brief 1991 comeback (Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely). Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne Setting any hint of modesty aside, Maureen O'Hara wrote in her 2004 autobiography (with John Nicoletti), 'Tis Herself, that “I was the only leading lady big enough and tough enough for John Wayne.” Wayne, for his part, once said (as quoted in 'Tis Herself): There's only one woman who has been my friend over the...

"The music seemed extraordinarily fresh and genuine still. It might grow old-fashioned, he told himself, but never old, surely, while there was any youth left in men. It was an expression of youth–that, and no more; with sweetness and foolishness, the lingering accent, the heavy stresses–the delicacy, too–belonging to that time."—"The Professor's House," Willa CatherHis last words, in a hospital four months later, are said to have been 'Mind your own business!' addressed to an enquirer after the state of his bowels. Friends got to the studio just before the wreckers' ball. Pictures, a profusion, piles of them, littered the floor: of 'a world that will never be seen except in pictures'"—"The Pound Era," Hugh Kenner***Heart Of FIREOften when I go to a movie, usually one made before 1960, I think about the opening scene of The Red Shoes, of Marius Goring and his...

Child actor Dickie Moore: 'Our Gang' member. Former child actor Dickie Moore dead at 89: Film career ranged from 'Our Gang' shorts to features opposite Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper 1930s child actor Dickie Moore, whose 100+ movie career ranged from Our Gang shorts to playing opposite the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck, and Gary Cooper, died in Connecticut on Sept. 7, '15 – five days before his 90th birthday. So far, news reports haven't specified the cause of death. According to a 2013 Boston Phoenix article about Moore's wife, MGM musical star Jane Powell, he had been “suffering from arthritis and bouts of dementia.” Dickie Moore movies At the behest of a persistent family friend, combined with the fact that his father was out of a job, Dickie Moore (born on Sept. 12, 1925, in Los Angeles) made his film debut as an infant in Alan Crosland's 1927 costume drama The Beloved Rogue,...

Glenda Jackson: Actress and former Labour MP. Two-time Oscar winner and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson returns to acting Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson set aside her acting career after becoming a Labour Party MP in 1992. Four years ago, Jackson, who represented the Greater London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate, announced that she would stand down the 2015 general election – which, somewhat controversially, was won by right-wing prime minister David Cameron's Conservative party.[1] The silver lining: following a two-decade-plus break, Glenda Jackson is returning to acting. Now, Jackson isn't – for the time being – returning to acting in front of the camera. The 79-year-old is to be featured in the Radio 4 series Emile Zola: Blood, Sex and Money, described on their website as a “mash-up” adaptation of 20 Emile Zola novels collectively known as "Les Rougon-Macquart."[2] Part 1 of the three-part Radio 4 series will be broadcast daily during an...

Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...

Seems to me I've heard that tune before.

Start with drums.  That's how Syncopation (1942) begins, with an African drum thumping while a slaver counts his money over a box of chains.  That's a hell of an opening for a film about the origins of Jazz and has to be the bravest moment in film up to that point.  Nobody saw it, nobody's heard of it, and if I'm honest it's a better idea than a movie, but what an idea.  As I sit in my apartment, listening to Massive Attack's Heligoland, I wonder if a film could ever capture an evolution in music in the manner William Dieterle attempted in Syncopation.  What Dieterle had to work with in 1942 pales in comparison to where Jazz was going in the 50's and 60's with Miles Davis, Coltrane, drugs, pain, and its speedy decline in popularity.  For that story, we're left with...

'The Fixer' movie with Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm (background) 'The Fixer' movie review: 1968 anti-Semitism drama wrecked by cast, direction, and writing In 1969, director John Frankenheimer declared that he felt "better about The Fixer than anything I've ever done in my life." Considering Frankenheimer's previous output – Seven Days in May, the much admired The Manchurian Candidate – it is hard to believe that the director was being anything but a good P.R. man for his latest release. Adapted from Bernard Malamud's National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (itself based on the real story of Jewish brick-factory worker Menahem Mendel Beilis), The Fixer is an overlong, overblown, and overwrought contrivance that, albeit well meaning, carelessly misuses most of the talent involved while sadistically abusing the patience – and at times the intelligence – of its viewers. John Frankenheimer overindulges in 1960s kitsch John Frankenheimer...