News

New Criterion series highlights the work of the actor and director who delivered powerful, provocative performances

When Ida Lupino starred opposite Humphrey Bogart in Raoul Walsh’s gritty film noir High Sierra, it was her name, not Bogie’s, at the top of the poster. This nail-biting movie with its terrific mountainside climax is about a released convict forced back into another heist, and the taxi dancer he can’t shake off. Lupino plays the dancer, a woman longing for an exit strategy from her tawdry world, and she transforms the role into something more than a type, with an unexpectedly authentic air of desperation. The film made household names out of both its leads, but for Lupino, as for Bogart, there was no such thing as overnight success.

Lupino’s own breakthrough came after seven years in Hollywood and a lifetime in showbusiness. She always refused the easy option...

The 1962 war epic "The Longest Day" starred the infamously brusque John Wayne as Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin H. Vandervoort, a real-life American soldier who was present for the titular "day," aka D-Day. Wayne was 55 at the time of filming, however, making him a full 28 years older than Vandervoort was on June 6, 1944. Wayne was still a major star, though, so the filmmakers simply had to ignore the massive age gap.

The studios also had to begrudgingly pay Wayne a massive $250,000 for his work, which was 10 times larger than most of the film's other stars. It seems that Wayne sought such a high salary not because of greed or ego, but out of spite. Wayne, you see, had a beef with 20th Century Fox executive Daryl F. Zanuck, and the actor wanted to actively butt heads with the CEO. It wasn't that Wayne wanted the money, he just wanted to make sure that Zanuck didn't have it.

After a seven-year break, FX’s anthology series “Feud” is back with another installment of rivalry and gossip titled “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” telling the story of Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) and a high society New York City socialite group known as The Swans, which includes Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart), Ann Woodward (Demi Moore) and Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald). The previous season of the Ryan Murphy docudrama that starred Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis nabbed 18 Emmy Award nominations and two wins. Let’s look back at their haul to see how it may impact this current season at the 2024 Emmys.

Here are the 2017 Emmy wins and nominations for “Feud: Bette and Joan”:

Best Limited/Movie Non-Prosthetic Makeup (Won)

Eryn Krueger Mekash, Makeup Designer

Robin Beauchesne, Assistant Makeup Department Head

Shutchai Tym Buacharern,...

David Seidler, the London-born playwright and screenwriter best known for “The King’s Speech,” has died while on a fly-fishing vacation in New Zealand, as per a report in The Guardian. His spokesperson said he was in the location he most revered, doing the activity he most loved when he passed: “It is exactly as he would have scripted it.” The winner of the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay for the Colin Firth-led film was 86 years old.

Seidler’s career began in Australian television in the late 1960s. He came to the United States in the early 1980s, working for the soap opera “Another World,” then writing television movies like “Malice in Wonderland,” something of an early version of the series “Feud” as it concerned Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons starring Jane Alexander and Elizabeth Taylor. He also wrote “Onassis: The Richest Man in the World” starring...

Jack Warner had been shouldering in on credit from one of his studio’s top producers. At least that’s what Hal Wallis may have told you after the 1944 Academy Awards when Jack Warner accepted the Casablanca Oscar that some felt should have been palmed by Wallis, the Warner Bros. film’s producer. But who should accept the best picture award? Today it’s the producers, but during Hollywood’s Golden Age it was sometimes the producer, sometimes the studio chief.

Wallis had been with the company for many years, first joining the studio in 1923, their first year of incorporation. Soon, Wallis was managing essential Warner films such as Little Caesar (1931), The Petrified Forest (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1937), Dark Victory (1939), Sergeant York (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), and, of course, Casablanca (1942). Despite being released in late 1942, Casablanca didn’t go into wide release until early 1943 and wasn’t...

She’s the reason that rising female stars are often called “the It girl.” She starred in the first movie to win an Oscar for best picture. By 1930, she’d made in 45 movies in six years. By 1933, after struggles with men and mental illness, Clara Bow’s Hollywood career was over.

There’s been a surge of interest in the legendary actress who straddled the silent and sound eras this week after Taylor Swift revealed the tracklist for her upcoming album, “The Tortured Poets Department.” The last song on Side D is titled “Clara Bow.”

A native of Brooklyn, Bow grew up in poverty and got her start in pictures after she won a contest sponsored by a magazine. Her prizes were “an evening gown, a trophy and a promise to help the aspiring young actress gain entrée into the film industry,” according to Bow’s biography from Turner Classic Movies.

Poster for FX’s ‘Feud: Capote Vs The Swans’

Tom Hollander, Naomi Watts, Diane Lane, Calista Flockhart, and Chloë Sevigny lead the cast of FX’s Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans, based on Laurence Leamer’s Capote’s Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era. The second installment of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series will premiere on January 31, 2024 on FX and Fxx with the release of the first two episodes.

New episodes of the eight-episode season air on Wednesdays at 10pm Et/Pt.

The first season, Feud: Bette and Joan, premiered in March 2017 and explored the relationship between classic movie stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Susan Sarandon starred as Bette Davis, Jessica Lange played Joan Crawford, and Judy Davis played gossip columnist Hedda Hopper.

Tom Hollander as Truman Capote in ‘Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans’ (Photo Cr: Pari Dukovic/FX)

“Acclaimed writer...

With both Disney and Warner Bros. turning 100 this year, it’s a great time to remember the Golden Age of moviemaking. The business is changing at a precipitous rate, and recent studio mergers have forever altered the longtime map of Hollywood production.

Actors and crew members, like armies, march on their stomachs, and since the dawn of the industry, it’s been up to the studios where they’re shooting to keep them well fortified. Studio executives and office workers, too, needed a convenient place to eat on the lots.

While researching the recent Culinary Historians presentation “Lunching on the Lot,” a 1997 quote from Variety story turned up which deftly explained what studio commissaries meant to the business. “After a gourmet tour of studio eateries, however, one thing is clear — It ain’t the chow that’s important. When the tribe hunkers down for its daily repast, ritual and symbolism are the rule.

Tony Bennett's first record, "Because of You" was released in 1952 and it instantly codified the entertainer as one of the music world's great crooners. In 1962, his 15th record, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" was certified platinum by the RIAA, but that was after he had already established himself with Count Basie and his Orchestra and as a great fan of songwriter Harold Arlen. All told, he released 61 records in his decades-long career, not including his eight albums of collaborations and duets. He sang with Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles, Carrie Underwood, Stevie Wonder, Natalie Cole, Mariah Carey, Bono, Sting, Paul McCartney, Diana Krall, and many others. Most recently, he released two collaborations with Lady Gaga in 2018 and 2021. Bennett passed away on July 21, 2023 at the age of 96. He will be deeply missed.

Naturally, a talent of Bennett's stature couldn't be ignored by Hollywood, and he would appear...

William Hopper, the actor who played the stalwart private detective Paul Drake on the hit 1957 legal drama "Perry Mason," was a notoriously prolific smoker, often seen with a cigarette hanging from his lips on camera. In 1970, Hopper suffered a stroke and succumbed to smoking-related health issues a month later. He was 55 years old. 

As Paul Drake, Hopper was a cynic, a more grizzled presence built to balance Perry Mason's serious intellect. He was the Dr. McCoy to Perry Mason's Spock. For those unfamiliar with the series, "Perry Mason" was about a Los Angeles defense lawyer, played brilliantly by Raymond Burr, who was always careful to investigate the clients he was hired to defend. Typically, innocent people came to Mason, and he was always curious about the details of their case. Mason would always face off against the L.A. District Attorney Hamilton Burger (William Talman), who never won a case against him.

Los Angeles native Karina Longworth has long ridden the swells of writing about Hollywood, whether as a cofounder of film blog Cinematical and contributor to Spout, critic and film editor at LA Weekly, author, or creator of the popular nine-year-old “You Must Remember This” podcast. Over the years, Longworth’s memorable series include in-depth explorations of Charles Manson; Joan Crawford; Jane Fonda and Jean Seberg; Dean Martin and Sammy Davis, Jr.; gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons; and Polly Platt and Peter Bogdanovich (which is being developed as a TV series).

It may seem like fans of the Patreon podcast have to wait long stretches between seasons. But Longworth and an assistant invest months of research and writing into podcast series such as the “Erotic 80s” (ten episodes) and the just-released “Erotic 90s” (Part One is 14 episodes; Part Two debuts in the fall), which indulge in a depth no...

Perry Mason is back on the case. Season 2 of HBO’s reimagined take on the classic legal drama premieres Monday, March 6, with Matthew Rhys again stepping into the title role. The Americans star has said he didn’t watch Raymond Burr’s iconic take on the character before season 1, which aired in 2020. But for many TV viewers, Burr is Perry Mason. The actor played the crusading defense attorney from 1957 to 1966, and again in a series of TV movies from the mid-80s through the early ‘90s.

Burr’s run as Perry Mason ended with this death in 1993. But are any other original Perry Mason cast members still alive?

‘Perry Mason’ star Raymond Burr died in 1993 Raymond Burr as Perry Mason, right, and Ray Collins as Lt. Arthur Tragg ‘in ‘Perry Mason’ | CBS via Getty Images

The Canadian-born Burr had a long career in Hollywood, including roles in classic films such...

Helen Mirren hasn’t played that many historical characters in her storied career. But somehow when she has, she not only brings exemplary acting skill but also an imposing regality, obviously handy when she’s playing monarchs like queens Elizabeth I and II as well as Catherine the Great. That said, surely I’m not the only viewer who has felt that sometimes her portrayals of, say, Alma Hitchcock (in Hitchcock) or Hedda Hopper (Trumbo) are flattering to the women she’s impersonating because Mirren, in addition to being a great performer, is and always has been a great beauty. Her Elizabeth I in The Audience and The Queen, both written by The Crown’s creator Peter Morgan, is the Og screen Lilibet — wry, haughty … and too glam by half, even in a dowdy Barbour jacket and headscarf. Cheekbones will out.

Intriguingly, for her latest performance as a great lady from history,...

Writer-director Damien Chazelle’s “Babylon” is the sort of maximalist movie where every frame teems with excess, so it’s only fitting that its costumes be outrageous in both their number and designs. Between the cast of over a hundred speaking roles and the abundance of extras, costume designer Mary Zophres estimates that she and her department created around 7,000 costumes, which is even more impressive when one considers the meticulous detail that went into every piece of clothing. Nowhere did this approach pay more dividends — both in glamour and character development — than with Jean Smart’s brutally honest gossip columnist Elinor St. John. A close look at her costumes reveals the thought and care that, when multiplied by hundreds of cast members, made “Babylon” the most sartorially spectacular film of 2022 and Zophres an Oscar nominee for best costume design.

“People don’t realize how important costumes are to creating a character,...

Kirk E. Kelleykahn’s heartfelt documentary “A Star Without a Star: The Untold Juanita Moore Story” builds the case for Moore — the director’s grandmother and an Oscar nominee, whose work spans eight decades — to be recognized on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Made over the course of 19 years, the labor of love includes the insights and testimonials of actors such as Sidney Poitier and Louise Fletcher, who died before the film was completed. Despite a structure that briefly wanders in the movie’s later stages, the doc makes a very strong argument for Moore’s contributions.

Nowadays, films like “Hidden Figures” and “The Woman King” have widened the scope of screen roles available for Black performers. But “A Star Without a Star” occupies a different Hollywood, one where parts for Black female actors were largely limited to chorus girls and mammies. The film juxtaposes examples of Hollywood’s overtly...

Spike Jonze plays Otto Von Strassberger, Lukas Haas plays George Munn and Robert Clendenin (back) plays Otto’s Assistant Director in Babylon from Paramount Pictures.

LA LA Land director Damien Chazelle gives a different take on the movie industry with ‘s Babylon, focused on Hollywood pre- and post- the transition from silent films to sound, but as if that took place in an alternate reality partly in the 1920s and partly in the late 1970s, eras that share reputations for excess, partying and drugs, although the 1920s had much better clothes.

This tale of a wild silent-era Hollywood opens in 1926, according a title card, at the height of the Hollywood’s Babylon of partying excess and creative freedom and shortly before the debut of talking films brought the party to a halt. The opening sequence features an elephant as studio employee Manny Torres (Diego Calva) negotiating with someone hired to...

Jovan Adepo (center) in Babylon Image: Scott Garfield / Courtesy of Paramount Pictures It’s the late 1920s at the start of writer-director Damien Chazelle’s shimmering and breathtaking old Hollywood odyssey Babylon, and the desert-like soils on the screen look nothing like today’s pricey L.A. enclave Bel Air.

Those seeking an insightful exploration of cinema history in Hollywood’s Golden Age or a nuanced, affecting character study on the lives within this early era will mostly like be disappointed by Damien Chazelle’s latest. Babylon is a brash, bombastic, unwieldy comic opera conveyed with enough bad taste and directorial panache that it—refreshingly—registers as a refutation of the well-mannered prestige drama to which these kinds of nostalgic odes often conform. And while there’s a touch of wistfulness in regards to the communal power of big-screen cinema, the film is more defined by an acidic unsentimentality, both when it comes to its characters and the precarious world they inhabit. Capturing the mad, violent clash of high and low art during a period of upheaval in a fledgling industry that has no consideration for basic morality (much less the safety of its workforce), Chazelle’s indulgent, rollicking vision...

Click here to read the full article.

When the dizzying trailer for Babylon dropped, its coke-fueled bacchanal of sex, partying, moviemaking and sleaze sold it as The Day of the Locust meets The Wolf of Wall Street. Marketing can be deceptive, but in this case, turns out that’s an accurate taste of what the whopping three hours and change of Damien Chazelle’s poison-pen letter to 1920s and ‘30s Hollywood delivers, with the freewheeling storytelling of Boogie Nights and a sticky dollop of Lynchian creepiness. No doubt plenty of cool kids will eagerly sign up to be pummeled by the film’s crazed excesses, though just as many will find it exhausting and sour. Even its technical virtuosity feels assaultive.

To all the folks who stomped out any chance of Chazelle’s soulful space-travel drama, First Man, finding an audience by whipping up a fake controversy charging that it was unpatriotic,...

The first movie to directly confront McCarthyism! Or so said the editorials touting this ‘Long-Awaited Screen Event’ in which ‘Bette Davis Hits the Screen in a Cyclone of Dramatic Fury!’ The storm of the title was based on a real activist in Oklahoma who lost her job for promoting equal rights. Bette’s polite librarian is victimized by small-minded civic types; a subplot depicts the traumatic reaction of one of her patrons, a child expected to despise her as a traitor to the country. Daniel Taradash’s movie is an excellent starting point to discuss the thorny dramatic subgenre of liberal social issue movies.

Storm Center

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 155

1956 / B&w / 1:78 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date September 30, 2022 / Available from / au 39.95

Starring:

Bette Davis, Brian Keith, Kim Hunter, Paul Kelly, Joe Mantell, Kevin Coughlin, Sallie Brophie, Howard Wierum, Curtis Cooksey, Michael Raffetto, Joseph Kearns, Edward Platt, Kathryn Grant, Howard Wendell, Malcolm Atterbury,...

Cynics have tabbed them “The Doomsday Summits.” To believers, however, their mission is to re-energize the Oscars at a moment when award shows in general are in massive retreat.

“The show should represent an exciting battlefield where forces in our culture collide,” suggests a new book titled Oscar Wars: Gold, Sweat and Tears.

While the recent “collisions” have been studies in chaos, the ongoing meetings among the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences leaders, Oscar show producers and ABC/Disney continue to search for the keys to a renaissance. Or at least to survival. Bill Kramer, the new Academy CEO, regards himself as a consensus builder, not a collision builder.

By studying the traumas of the past, what can they learn about re-shaping the present? Viewership has been plummeting in recent years and telecast revenues (guesses put them at 120 million) are key to the survival of the Academy — its...

Humphrey Bogart may have built himself a reputation as the perfect smoldering lead — the tough guy who could banter with the villain, save the day, then wash his cares away with a nightcap — but he was far from pretentious about it. Rather than always insisting upon playing the lead role, Bogart was excited by small parts. And despite his widespread success, he never saw minor characters as beneath him.

Bogart wasn't shy about his willingness to experiment, either. When actress and journalist Hedda Hopper asked him if he had ever turned down a role because it was too small, the mega-star replied:

"Somebody once asked my pal [character actor] George Tobias that same question ... and George said, 'There are no small parts, there are only small actors.' Well, that goes for me, too.'"

And experiment Bogart did. Though he primarily played serious, heavy characters (and dubbed them his favorites), Bogart...

Since 1992, the TV academy has honored the work of voice actors almost annually, beginning with half a dozen cast members from “The Simpsons.” From 2014 onward, the Best Voice-Over Performance award has been bestowed separately from the Best Narrator one, with the inaugural recipient of the former prize having been Harry Shearer of “The Simpsons.” This year’s lineup features seven nominees, including one former winner and two posthumous contenders.

Maya Rudolph, who took this award in 2020 and 2021 for “Big Mouth,” is now seeking her third win for the same show. She is involved in her second consecutive rematches with Julie Andrews (“Bridgerton”), Stanley Tucci (“Central Park”) and Jessica Walter (“Archer”), the last of whom is on her second post-death bid in a row. The remaining three slots are filled by category newcomers F. Murray Abraham (“Moon Knight”) and “What If…?” duo Chadwick Boseman (who died in August 2020) and Jeffrey Wright.

Hollywood history podcast “You Must Remember This,” hosted by generously insightful historian and movie expert Karina Longworth, is set to dive into erotic films of the 1980s and 1990s, with a two-part season premiering April 5.

While juicy recent seasons have focused on Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, gossip columnists Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper, and the life and forgotten-by-many career of producer and production designer Polly Platt, Longworth is taking on more recent cinematic history for her next outing.

The upcoming “You Must Remember This” season will be split into two parts, with “Erotic 80s” debuting on April 5, and “Erotic 90s” set to premiere in the fall. Episodes will focus on genres including erotic thrillers, body horrors, neo-noirs, and sex comedies, and will also trace the fallout of the Motion Picture Production Code, as well as the rise of X-rated movies. As always, new episodes will debut on Tuesdays.

Lady in a Cage

Blu ray

ViaVision [Imprint]

1964/ B&w / 1.78:1 / 95 Minutes

Starring Olivia de Havilland, James Caan, Ann Sothern

Directed by Walter Grauman

Though the title suggests anything from a feminist manifesto to a women-in-prison melodrama, Lady in a Cage is in fact a home invasion thriller with a mile-wide mean streak. Critics in 1964 saw the film itself as the intruder, a smash and grab aberration wallowing in bloodshed and perversion. In The New York Times, Bosley Crowther labeled it as “reprehensible.” Gossipmonger Hedda Hopper wailed, “The picture should be burned.” Chances are good the reaction to Walter Grauman’s claustrophobic shocker would have been far less shrill without the presence of its leading lady, Olivia de Havilland—according to Hollywood taste-makers, Maid Marian should not be consorting with such riffraff.

De Havilland plays Cornelia Hilyard, a ripely beautiful dowager who lives in a spacious if drably generic house in an unnamed city.

As directed by Peter Middleton and James Spinney, The Real Charlie Chaplin attempts a delicate dance, quite ambitiously trying to understand both Chaplin the genius filmmaker and his iconic character the Tramp. “Enjoy any Charlie Chaplin you have the good luck to encounter, but don’t try to link them up to anything you can grasp,” observed writer Max Eastman. A title card with the above text opens the film, offering a direct warning: as much as one can know Chaplin, one never really will. Given access to an incredible amount of archival footage from the legend’s estate, Middleton and Spinney do their damndest to confront the man from every angle. And though they don’t succeed, perhaps that’s the point?

Pearl Mackie does sharp work as the narrator, guiding the viewer through Chaplin’s downtrodden childhood in London, to his signing with Fred Karno and move to America,...

Tommy Kirk, the actor known for playing Travis Coates in “Old Yeller” and several other Disney films, was found dead in his Las Vegas home Tuesday. He was 79.

Kirk’s longtime friend Paul Petersen II posted the news on Facebook, writing, “Please know that Tommy Kirk loved you, his fans.”

Kirk was born in Louisville, Ky. in 1941 and grew up in Los Angeles County. He began acting as a teenager, and appeared in a play at the Pasadena Playhouse, where he was discovered by an agent who helped him to make his screen debut in “The Last of the Old Time Shooting Sheriffs,” a 1955 episode of “TV Reader’s Digest.” From there, he appeared in episodes of several TV series including “The Loretta Young Show” and “Gunsmoke.” His profile rose when he began to play the role of Joe Hardy in the “Hardy Boys” series “The Mystery of the Applegate...

Joanne Linville, a character actress who had memorable guest-starring turns on episodes of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone in the 1960s, died Sunday in Los Angeles, CAA announced. She was 93.

Linville appeared on dozens of TV shows during her career, from Studio One, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The United States Steel Hour and Have Gun — Will Travel to Dr. Kildare, Route 66, Naked City, I Spy, Hawaii Five-o, Gunsmoke, Columbo and L.A. Law.

On the big screen, she worked in such films as The Goddess (1958) with Kim Stanley, Scorpio (1973) with Burt Lancaster and A Star Is Born (1976) with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.

Linville also played gossip columnist Hedda Hopper ...

Joanne Linville, a character actress who had memorable guest-starring turns on episodes of Star Trek and The Twilight Zone in the 1960s, died Sunday in Los Angeles, CAA announced. She was 93.

Linville appeared on dozens of TV shows during her career, from Studio One, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The United States Steel Hour and Have Gun — Will Travel to Dr. Kildare, Route 66, Naked City, I Spy, Hawaii Five-o, Gunsmoke, Columbo and L.A. Law.

On the big screen, she worked in such films as The Goddess (1958) with Kim Stanley, Scorpio (1973) with Burt Lancaster and A Star Is Born (1976) with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.

Linville also played gossip columnist Hedda Hopper ...

The 78th annual Golden Globes take place virtually Sunday night on NBC with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey returning as hosts. “Mank,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” “The Crown,” “The Flight Attendant” and “Ted Lasso” are among the top nominees in the feature film and TV categories.

Also in contention is a movie called “Music” that was shot in 2017 and marks the directorial debut of the singer Sia. While it merits a mere 11% at Rotten Tomatoes, it reaped nominations for Best Musical/Comedy and star Kate Hudson. These bids harken back to 1982 when Pia Zadora won New Star of the Year for the well-stuffed turkey “Butterfly.” She also won the Razzie Award for the film which also starred Orson Welles.

And just who was Zadora’s competition for New Star of the Year? Elizabeth McGovern and Howard Rollins Jr. for “Ragtime”; Kathleen Turner for “Body Heat” Rachel Ward for...

6 random things that happened on this day, January 8th, in showbiz history

1941 William Randolph Hearts forbids any of his papers for running advertisements for Citizen Kane (not in theaters till later that year), after Hedda Hopper informs him of the film's content and treatment of Marion Davies. His anger about the film spreads to Hollywood, where he had many allies and where the arrogant young Welles had already pissed off many in power. Citizen Kane struggled at the box office and was supposedly booed at the Oscars (imagine... though it's hard to fact check that since the awards weren't televised then) but history has, of course, been kind to it. 

1942 Stephen Hawking born in Oxford, England...

Please welcome first time contributor Baby Clyde, weighing in on 1947, the year we're celebrating this week...

Rosalind & Loretta, friends and Best Actress rivalsSuch a forgone conclusion was the result of the final award at the 20th Academy Awards, that the audience at the back of the Shrine Auditorium had already started filing out as Frederic March rose to announce the Best Actress winner. They soon stopped in their tracks as a huge gasp swept around the room. No one was more surprised than the previous year’s Best Actor champ who is said to have started reading the name of the expected winner, Rosalind Russell for Mourning Becomes Electra, before stopping and declaring that the awards was, in fact, going to rank outsider Loretta Young for the comedic trifle The Farmers Daughter. The next day noted gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, sitting directly behind her, reported that Russell had already started...

This article contains major Hollywood spoilers. You can find our easter egg guide for the previous episode here.

Don’t you just love a happy ending? Ryan Murphy clearly did with regards to Hollywood, and while we had mixed ideas of our own about that conclusion, there is no denying how gratifying it is to see representation shared with those whom society marginalized for years and centuries. There is a real sugar rush of “what if” good cheer about the series’ version of Oscar night 1948. Here are some of the facts the series changed, and some other shout-outs it enjoyed in its closing moments.

Hollywood Episode 7

-The Meg editor admits he didn’t shtup Gloria Swanson. He only got to third base while she was on the rebound after Joe Kennedy dumped her. This would’ve placed the screening room action around 1928 or ’29—an affair Swanson denied until she finally admitted it in her 1980 autobiography.

The taglines for the 1966 overstuffed turkey “The Oscar give viewers a preview of the machinations of this camp delight- “The Dreams and the Schemers… the Hustlers and the Hopefuls…All Fight for the Highest Award!”

And you thought there was a lot of campaigning now for the Academy Award!

Kino Lorber has unleashed “The Oscar” just in time for the Academy Awards Sunday on Blu-ray with a brand new 4K restoration and two audio commentaries- one with film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson and a much more funny and caustic one with comic/actor Patton Oswalt, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Josh Olson (“A History of Violence”) and producer/writer/director Erik Nelson.

“The Oscar” was penned by Harlan Ellison, yes Harlan Ellison of “A Boy and His Dog,” “The Outer Limits” and “The Twilight Zone” fame and the team of Russell Rouse and Clarence Greene, who penned the 1949 classic noir “D.O.A.,...

Perhaps Renee Zellweger will have better luck than Judy Garland did at the Academy Awards. Zellweger, who won supporting actress for 2003’s “Cold Mountain,” is the favorite to take home the Oscar next February for her haunting portrayal of the legendary star/singer in the acclaimed “Judy.”

Exactly 65 years ago, Garland was the front-runner to receive her first Academy Award for her powerhouse performance in “A Star is Born,” George Cukor‘s lavish musical version of the 1937 William Wellman classic tale of a matinee idol on the descent who marries an ingenue on the rise.

When the star-studded premiere at the Pantages Theatre aired live on TV on Sept. 29, 1954, star after star told host Jack Carson, who also appears in the film, that Garland was a shoo-in for Oscar gold. Dean Martin told the crowd Garland would probably take home every accolade and Lucille Ball echoed his sentiments.

Reviewers loved...

When grocery store shoppers snag a copy of Weekly World News (the rag responsible for the refuses-to-die “Bat Child” hoax), they know they’re getting fake news. But when they pick up the National Enquirer, it’s a far more ambiguous prospect.

Enquirer headlines are deliberately provocative, shouting details of the private lives of real people — including Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor and Oprah Winfrey — from their strategic perch in checkout aisles across America. Over the course of nearly seven decades, the tabloid crushed the aspirations of at least one presidential contender (by publishing the photo that exposed Gary Hart’s extramarital affair) and crusaded to elect another, running negative coverage of Donald Trump’s political opponents, which the candidate conveniently referenced in his 2016 campaign.

A hard-hitting — and at times hard-to-stomach — documentary from “Thunder Soul” director Mark Landsman, “Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer” subjects the tabloid to the...

Why Are The Oscars Called “Oscars”?

Ever wonder why the Academy Awards are called the Oscars? Like most narratives in Hollywood, it’s a story lost to lore. The name credit primarily has been given to three assignors: Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, journalist Sidney Skolsky, and actress Bette Davis. The Academy officially adopted the nickname in 1939 making Oscar part of history.

Oscar was originally called the much more formal “The Academy Award of Merit,” which doesn’t quite have the personality that “Oscar” does. One of the academy’s founding members, MGM art director Cedric Gibbons, designed the original statuette: a sword-wielding crusader for the arts, standing on a film reel. He would go on to garner twenty-eight nominations and take home eleven awards. His collaborator, sculptor George Stanley reportedly modeled the statue after a Mexican model and actor Emilio “El Indio” Fernández.

Upon seeing the bronze and gold image...

CineSavant obsesses over yet another obscure bit of cinematic sociology: a glossy pre-Code MGM melodrama about mothers and war, which half-debates issues like pacifism, the losses of world war one, military vigilance, cowardice, chemical WMDs and foolish idealism! But don’t worry, the title statement is the ultimate answer to everything. Oh, it’s also political sci-fi: it takes place in the future year of 1940, when New York City comes under aerial attack, with skyscrapers bombed to bits and poison gas dropped in the streets. No, this is not new, it was released in 1933.

Men Must Fight

DVD

The Warner Archive Collection

1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 72 min. / Street Date January 15, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 191.99

Starring: Diana Wynyard, Lewis Stone, Phillips Holmes, May Robson, Ruth Selwyn, Robert Young, Robert Greig, Hedda Hopper, Donald Dilloway, Mary Carlisle, Luis Alberni.

Cinematography: George J. Folsey

Film Editor: William S. Gray

Written by C. Gardner Sullivan...

CineSavant obsesses over yet another obscure bit of cinematic sociology: a glossy pre-Code MGM melodrama about mothers and war, which half-debates issues like pacifism, the losses of world war one, military vigilance, cowardice, chemical WMDs and foolish idealism! But don’t worry, the title statement is the ultimate answer to everything. Oh, it’s also political sci-fi: it takes place in the future year of 1940, when New York City comes under aerial attack, with skyscrapers bombed to bits and poison gas dropped in the streets. No, this is not new, but from 1933.

Men Must Fight

DVD

The Warner Archive Collection

1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 72 min. / Street Date January 15, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 191.99

Starring: Diana Wynyard, Lewis Stone, Phillips Holmes, May Robson, Ruth Selwyn, Robert Young, Robert Greig, Hedda Hopper, Donald Dilloway, Mary Carlisle, Luis Alberni.

Cinematography: George J. Folsey

Film Editor: William S. Gray

Written by C. Gardner Sullivan...

It’s not that Alexandra Dean’s documentary “Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story” starts off with a montage of individuals attesting to the legendary actress’ on-screen allure. It’s how quickly the film moves past that to a more profound understanding of the woman behind the face. “Bombshell,” which airs this week as part of PBS’ American Masters series, is a biography of a classic film star that doesn’t need to do much to bolster Lamarr’s bona fides as someone who captivated the moviegoing public’s attention.

But even if Lamarr (born Hedwig Kiesler in 1914 Austria) is best known for her roles, she left behind a legacy that extends far beyond her filmography. It’s a testament to both Lamarr’s life and Dean’s crafting of the film that the interview subjects for this doc extend into a variety of fields. There are film historians, family members, friends, and the man who becomes a kind of unofficial narrator of the film, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes.

Before there was Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, or Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, there was Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The iconic duo shared screen time on nine different occasions, starting with the 1942 rival-reporters classic “Woman of the Year” and coming to a close in 1967 with the unforgettable “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.” For years, rumors of a real-life romance between the twosome swirled around Hollywood, but recent reports have called the affair a sham. (More likely is the story that both Hepburn and Tracy were gay or bisexual and quietly tolerated gossip about their involvement as a convenient diversion.)

But more than romance, what defines the Hepburn/Tracy spirit is a progressive take on gender politics. Midcentury rom-coms might not be the first place you’d expect to find early rumblings of feminist thought and attacks on toxic masculinity, but Hepburn and...

Helen Mirren has played an astounding array of characters onscreen, some of them portrayals of actual people, ranging from right-wing gossip maven Hedda Hopper in “Trumbo” to her Oscar-winning turn as Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen”. But if she had it her way, the former “Prime Suspect” star would love to play the 45th […]...

They’re non-corporeal cut-ups, rich ghosts on the town with nothing better to do than spice up the love life of Roland Young’s harried, henpecked bank president. Hal Roach’s screwball hit did good things for everybody concerned, especially star Cary Grant and bit player Arthur Lake. But the show’s nostalgic heart is Billie Burke, of the tinkly-glass voice. Also starring platinum blonde Constance Bennett, Alan Mowbray and Eugene Pallette.

Topper

Blu-ray

Vci

1937 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 97 min. / Street Date October, 2017 / 20.99

Starring: Constance Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young, Billie Burke, Alan Mowbray, Eugene Pallette, Arthur Lake, Hedda Hopper, Virginia Sale, Theodore von Eltz, J. Farrell MacDonald, Elaine Shepard, Ward Bond, Hoagy Carmichael, Lana Turner, Russell Wade, Claire Windsor.

Cinematography: Norbert Brodine

Film Editor: William Terhune

Art Director: William Stevens

Original Music: Marvin Hatley

Written by Jack Jevne, Eric Hatch, Eddie Moran from a novel by Thorne Smith...

There’s a lot of fierce competition in this Emmys category this year… but in the end, there’s only one King.

Regina King has won two straight Emmys in the Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie category for ABC’s acclaimed anthology American Crime, and she’s looking to make it three in a row, this time for playing social worker Kimara Walters. But a couple of Feud-ers and a trio of Lie-ers are standing in her way.

RelatedEmmys 2017 Poll: Who Should Win for Supporting Actor, Miniseries/Movie?

FX’s Feud: Bette and Joan scored...

Welcome to Career Watch, a vocational checkup of top actors and directors, and those who hope to get there. In this edition we take on Jessica Lange, who’s at the height of powers at age 68, revealing depths of emotion as fading Golden Age star Joan Crawford in FX’s mighty Emmy contender “Feud: Bette and Joan.”

Bottom Line: Jessica Lange has matured from a gorgeous movie ingenue to a theater and screen character actress with extraordinary range who keeps surprising audiences with what she can make them feel.

Career Peaks: From the start, Lange impressed people even when she was in the clutches of the Dino De Laurentiis incarnation of “Kong Kong.” She followed that up with her performance as a sexy waitress who seduces Jack Nicholson on a kitchen table in Bob Rafelson’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1981) and with a weighty dramatic role as the depressed...

Welcome to Career Watch, a vocational checkup of top actors and directors, and those who hope to get there. In this edition we take on Jessica Lange, who’s at the height of powers at age 68, revealing depths of emotion as fading Golden Age star Joan Crawford in FX’s mighty Emmy contender “Feud: Bette and Joan.”

Bottom Line: Jessica Lange has matured from a gorgeous movie ingenue to a theater and screen character actress with extraordinary range who keeps surprising audiences with what she can make them feel.

Career Peaks: From the start, Lange impressed people even when she was in the clutches of the Dino De Laurentiis incarnation of “Kong Kong.” She followed that up with her performance as a sexy waitress who seduces Jack Nicholson on a kitchen table in Bob Rafelson’s “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1981) and with a weighty dramatic role as the depressed...

Aaron Pedersen as Jay Swan in 'Goldstone'..

Detective Jay Swan, the protagonist in Ivan Sen.s films Mystery Road and Goldstone, is headed to the small screen.

Aaron Pedersen will reprise the role in Mystery Road - The Series, alongside Judy Davis as a small town cop, for the ABC and international distributor All3Media International.

Directed by Rachel Perkins and produced by Bunya Productions. David Jowsey and Greer Simpkin, the 6-part mystery/drama starts shooting in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia in late August..

The plot follows Swan as he investigates the disappearance of two young farm hands on an outback cattle station. One is a local Indigenous footy hero, the other a backpacker. Working with local cop Emma James (Davis), his investigation uncovers a past injustice that threatens the whole community

It is a rare Australian screen role for Davis, who was last seen...

So much news to catch up with. Deep breaths...

Vanity Fair Brie Larson is this month's cover girl. Talks awards season madness, Hollywood friendships, and Captain Marvel

Slate a breathless take on early footage from Marvel's Black Panther including kudos for what sounds like Angela Bassett's best movie part in a long time

Coming Soon Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs, his second animated feature, got a teaser poster and a release date

EW Faye Dunaway breaks her silence on February's Oscar Best Picture mixup

Av Club release dates for upcoming Disney pictures including Star Wars, The Lion King, and the bound to be terrible Frozen 2 (because didn't that story feel complete as is. sigh) 

Movie City News David Poland is done apologizing for not liking James Gray movies very much. Here's why.

Deadline Monumental Pictures has announced they're making a big screen version of the Roe v Wade...

Joey Moser previews Sunday’s Feud finale with an appreciation of Hedda Hopper ‘s extravagant collection of fantastic hats. Judy Davis as Hedda Hopper on Ryan Murphy’s bitchfest Feud: Bette and Joan...

The Performer | Lena Dunham

The Show | Girls

The Episode | “What Will We Do This Time About Adam?” (April 9, 2017)

The Performance | Whether you’ve ever even checked out Girls, chances are you’ve formed an opinion about the HBO dramedy’s creator/star. Maybe you love Dunham for embracing her non-model-skinny body. Maybe you resent her for her advantaged upbringing, or dislike her politics, or can’t abide her all-too-human habit of inserting foot in mouth.

But what’s sometimes lost among the opinions is that, at the end of the day, Dunham is not only a unique actress but a damn fine one,...