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When Robert Aldrich’s 1968 Hollywood insider yarn, “The Legend of Lylah Clare” screens at the Maine International Film Festival in Waterville, Maine, it will represent much more than a simple revival of a New Hollywood-era roman à clef.

The film’s presentation on July 12 will include a discussion between actor Michael Murphy, who co-stars in the film, and former MGM publicity director Mike Kaplan, who has from the film’s earliest screenings defended both the film’s director, who Kaplan feels was “grossly maligned” by the depiction of him in Ryan Murphy’s limited series “Feud,” and the film, which monumentally tanked both critically and commercially when first released.

Kaplan recalls “I loved the script, and I loved the film. MGM had an unexceptional slate at the time. I was a big fan at the get-go.”

But as MGM’s New York City-based publicity chief, Kaplan watched helplessly as others,...

“Before #Metoo There Was…The Apartment”

By Raymond Benson

One wonders if Billy Wilder’s magnificent comedy-drama, The Apartment, could be made today in the age of #MeToo. Probably not, despite its brilliant script, exceptional cast and performances, perfect direction, and its positive message against sexual harassment in the workplace.

Even so, in some circles The Apartment was considered controversial upon its release in 1960. Hollis Alpert in the Saturday Review called it a “dirty fairy tale.” Then again, The Apartment was coming off the heels of the hugely successful and popular Some Like it Hot, which the more-Puritan side of America may have called illicit and tawdry, too. Or perhaps co-writer and director Wilder was simply good at telling grown-up tales for adults within the context of a rapidly-maturing culture that was on the verge of a decade known for its freedom of expression. The 1960s was an explosion in...

The National Society of Film Critics awarded “Goodbye to Language” its top honor on Saturday, selecting the film as 2014’s Best Picture.

Iconic French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard directed the 3-D film, which was little seen in the United States — due, in part, to the scarcity of arthouse theaters equipped to show 3-D — and decidedly more experimental than award-season favorites “Birdman” and “Boyhood.” But “Boyhood,” Richard Linklater‘s coming-of-age drama, was a close runner-up in the Nsfc Best Picture competition, losing out by only a single point in the balloting. Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Birdman” placed a more distant third.

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Model and actress Cynthia Myers, a 1968 Playboy Playmate, died Nov. 4. She was 61. Hugh Hefner announced her death on Twitter: “I’m saddened by the news of the passing of beloved Playmate Cynthia Myers, Miss December 1968.” No details about the cause of death have been released yet. Myers' movie roles were few. She reportedly had a bit part as a native girl in The Lost Continent (1968) and an undetermined one in Sydney Pollack's They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), a psychological drama set during the Great Depression, and starring Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin. In 1970, Myers entered the annals of cult movie history when she was cast as one of the leads in Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, written by Roger Ebert and co-starring fellow Playboy Playmate Dolly Read and fashion model Marcia McBroom. Hardly one of the most well-regarded movies ever made, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls...