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Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920–1936

The career of legendary production executive Irving Thalberg – Hollywood’s "Boy Wonder" of the 1920s and early 1930s – will be explored in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ new exhibition, "Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920–1936," opening on Thursday, September 17, in the Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery in Beverly Hills.
"Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920–1936" is guest curated by historian and Thalberg biographer Mark Vieira, whose Hollywood Dreams Made Real: Irving Thalberg and the Rise of M-G-M was profiled in the Alternative Film Guide several months ago and whose Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince is due out in early November. Admission is free.

Lon Chaney, [...]

Irving Thalberg: Q&A with Mark Vieira

"The Wedding of the Painted Doll" number from the musical The Broadway Melody (1929), the first talkie to win a best picture Academy Award; Louis B. Mayer, director Reginald Barker, Irving Thalberg on the set of The Dixie Handicap (1925); Norma Shearer and Chester Morris in the popular pre-Code melodrama The Divorcee (1930).
 
HOLLYWOOD DREAMS MADE REAL: IRVING THALBERG AND THE RISE OF M-G-M — Q&A with Mark Vieira (Introduction)
 
First of all, why did you decide to write a book on Irving Thalberg?
Ben-Hur, Flesh and the Devil, Tarzan the Ape Man, Grand Hotel, Mutiny on the Bounty, A Night at the Opera, The Good Earth — most filmgoers today have heard of these Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer [...]

HOLLYWOOD DREAMS MADE REAL: IRVING THALBERG AND THE RISE OF M-G-M – Q&A with Mark Vieira

Author and photographer Mark A. Vieira (right), who’s been a friend for a number of years, has recently written no less than two books on Irving G. Thalberg, the young MGM mogul whose high-quality productions earned him both a reputation as Hollywood’s "Boy Wonder" and a special place in Oscar history as the name attached to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Memorial Award given to “creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.” Thalberg even inspired a F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, the unfinished The Last Tycoon.
Now, Mark’s two books may cover the same ground in terms of subject matter, but they’re radically different in terms of approach to same:
Hollywood [...]

Laurence Mark, Bill Condon to Produce Oscar Show

Producer Laurence Mark has been chosen to produce and writer/director Bill Condon to executive produce the telecast of the 81st Academy Awards, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences president Sid Ganis has announced. It will be Mark and Condon’s first involvement in the production of an Oscar show.
Mark and Condon have worked together before. In 2006, Mark produced and Condon wrote and directed Dreamgirls, which received eight Academy Award nominations (none for either Mark or Condon) and won two Oscars, including one for best supporting actress Jennifer Hudson.
Mark is currently in post-production on Julie and Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams (who also co-star in Doubt), and written [...]

William Castle and ROSEMARY’S BABY

David Parkinson’s "The Horror Icon Who Spooked Himself: William Castle and Rosemary’s Baby" at Films in Focus:
"After 15 years toiling in such B-movie series as The Whistler and The Crime Doctor, William Castle sold his soul to horror. In 1958 he hit upon the notion of insuring the lives of those brave enough to see his new chiller, Macabre, and recouped around $5 million on a $90,000 outlay. The same year’s House on Haunted Hill confirmed Castle as the "King of the Gimmicks," thanks to Emergo, a pioneering process that involved a 12-foot plastic skeleton whizzing across the auditorium on a wire.
…
"But Castle had tired of novelty by the time audiences were invited to brandish cardboard axes during Strait-Jacket (1964) [...]

Walter Mirisch Book Signing at the Egyptian Theater

At 6:30 pm on Thursday, June 19, producer Walter Mirisch, 86, will sign copies of his new book of memoirs, I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History, at the American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. The book signing will be followed by a screening of two Oscar-winning Mirisch productions: Billy Wilder’s mordant 1960 comedy The Apartment, starring Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and (gasp!) an excellent Fred MacMurray, and Norman Jewison’s well-intentioned but weak 1967 cop melodrama-cum-social commentary In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier and best actor Oscar winner Rod Steiger.
Mirisch will introduce the double feature.
By the way, among Mirisch’s other productions or co-productions are Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949, he began modestly), Flight to [...]

ROSEMARY’S BABY at Robert Evans Salute

Producer William Castle, Mia Farrow, Robert Evans on the set of Rosemary’s Baby.
 
"An Academy Salute to Robert Evans" will feature a 40th anniversary screening of (a brand new print of) Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby, and an onstage "conversation" with all-powerful Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone (he of the Tom Cruise spat), film director Brett Ratner, Velvet Revolver guitarist Slash (formerly of Guns N’ Roses), and Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart — all "close friends" with producer and former Paramount head Robert Evans (right). The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Evans "Salute" will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 22, at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
According to legend, Evans was discovered by Norma Shearer, who thought [...]

Patrick Goldstein on New Line Cinema’s Bob Shaye

Patrick Goldstein’s "Hollywood’s endangered entrepreneurs" in the Los Angeles Times:
"It’s hard to imagine New Line Cinema without Bob Shaye, its prickly paterfamilias. The company is being absorbed into Time Warner’s Warner Bros. film division, with Shaye and most of the employees being cast adrift. Long after he’d sold his company in 1993, Shaye continued to treat New Line as his personal mom-and-pop movie store.
"During the company’s Lord of the Rings heyday, Shaye would host a pre-Oscar party at his stylish home off Mulholland Drive. One night I found myself chatting with the New Line founder when one of his aides scurried over, eyes bright with big news. Shaye’s then boss, Time Warner chieftain Richard Parsons, had arrived. ‘Shall I bring [...]

Gloria Swanson in THE TRESPASSER: Academy Screening

Mother love and melodrama in The Trespasser: Purnell Pratt, Gloria Swanson, and Robert Ames, who would die two years after this film was made.
 
Academy film scholar Cari Beauchamp will talk about the convoluted personal and professional relationship between actress Gloria Swanson and producer Joseph P. Kennedy (right) in a program featuring highlights from her upcoming book, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents, on Thursday, November 1, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood.
A rare screening of Edmund Goulding’s The Trespasser, a 1929 melodrama produced by Kennedy (uncredited) and starring Swanson in her first talkie, will follow Beauchamp’s presentation. Admission is free.
According to the Academy’s press release, Joseph P. Kennedy Presents "offers [...]

Inceville: Film Pioneer Thomas Ince’s Studios

Libby Motika in The Palisadian-Post:
"Once there was a city spread out idyllically on the slopes of Santa Ynez Canyon [between Santa Monica and Malibu] with sweeping views of the sea. The streets were lined with houses of many types, from humble cottages to mansions, and the buildings were fashioned after the architecture of many lands.
"But as ephemeral as Atlantis, this city appeared and then disappeared in 12 short years. [Unless I missed something, the article goes on to say that Inceville was destroyed in 1922. That would make 10 short years.]
"This was the creation of American silent film producer/director Thomas Ince, who in 1912 built a city of motion picture sets on several thousand acres of land in and around [...]

June Mathis: Q&A with Author Allan Ellenberger

© Allan Ellenberger Collection
 
June Mathis. The name means nothing to most of today’s filmgoers and to the vast majority of self-proclaimed film historians. Yet, nearly nine decades ago June Mathis was, next to Mary Pickford, one of the two most powerful women in Hollywood. “She fairly lives and breathes motion pictures,” reported the New York Morning Telegraph in February 1924, “and if ever a woman had her hand on the pulse of the film industry, it is this indefatigable worker, who not only knows what she wants, but knows how to get it.”
Author Allan Ellenberger, who has written on silent film stars Ramon Novarro and Rudolph Valentino, has agreed to answer a few questions about June Mathis, whose life [...]

IRAQ IN FRAGMENTS Producer John Sinno’s Open Letter to AMPAS

Below is an open letter (dated March 2) that producer John Sinno sent to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Sinno co-produced James Longley’s Iraq in Fragments, which earlier this year was nominated for an Academy Award in the best documentary feature category.
Note: This year’s best documentary feature Oscar winner was Davis Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth, about global warming.
 
John Sinno
Typecast Films
3131 Western Ave Suite 514
Seattle, Washington, USA
March 2, 2007

An open letter to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
I had the great fortune of attending the 79th Academy Awards following my nomination as producer for a film in the Best Documentary Feature category. At the Awards ceremony, most categories featured an introduction that glorified the [...]

Producers Guild Awards 2007

2007 Producers Guild Awards
2007 Producers Guild of America episodic television nominees: December 5, 2006. Feature-film and long-form television nominees: January 3, 2007
Producers Guild’s 2007 Golden Laurel winners: Los Angeles on January 20, 2007
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Abigail Breslin, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Greg Kinnear in Little Miss Sunshine
 

The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures
BABEL (Paramount Vantage)
Alejandro González Iñárritu
Steve Golin
Jon Kilik
THE DEPARTED (Warner Bros.)
Graham King
DREAMGIRLS (Dreamworks SKG/Paramount Pictures)
Laurence Mark
* LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE (Fox Searchlight)
Marc Turtletaub
David T. Friendly
Peter Saraf
Albert Berger & Ron Yerxa
THE QUEEN (Miramax Films)
Andy Harries
Christine Langan
Tracey Seaward
 
The Producers Guild of America Producer of the Year Award in Animated Theatrical Motion Pictures
* CARS (Walt Disney [...]

Oscar 2007: Sherry Lansing to Receive Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award

Sherry Lansing, the former Paramount chairman and an advocate for cancer research, has been voted the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Lansing will receive the award at the 2007 Academy Awards ceremony on February 25, 2007.
The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award is named after Danish-born actor Jean Hersholt, who played leads and top supporting roles in Hollywood movies from the 1920s to the 1940s, among them Erich von Stroheim’s Greed, D. W. Griffith’s The Battle of the Sexes, Edmund Goulding’s Academy Award winner Grand Hotel, and George Cukor’s Dinner at 8.
In the late 1930s, Hersholt helped to form the Motion Picture Relief Fund, an organization [...]

ALIENS Invade Hollywood

Aliens screening in Hollywood, with producer Gale Ann Hurd hosting a discussion panel. Aliens (1986) was directed by James Cameron. Aliens starred Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn. Aliens is a sequel to Alien, a 1979 horror film directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Sigourney Weaver and John Hurt.

Monty Berman

Brief Obit: British cinematographer, director, and film and television producer Monty Berman, whose television series The Saint became an international hit, died in London last June 14. His obit was reported in The [London] Independent on Aug. 4.
Born in London in 1912, at the age of 17 Berman became a camera assistant at Twickenham Studios. In 1935, he developed into a full-fledged cinematographer, working with Michael Powell on the Margaret Lockwood vehicle Some Day.
Berman’s career was curtailed by World War II, during which he served with the Eighth Army Film Unit. Once hostilities were over, Berman worked as a camera operator in films such as Hue and Cry (1946), Daughter of Darkness (1947), and The End of the River [...]

Producers Guild Awards 2006

2006 Producers Guild Awards
2006 Producers Guild of America’s Golden Laurel winners: January 22, 2006
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain
 

THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURE
* BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Diana Ossana
James Schamus
CAPOTE
Caroline Baron
William Vince
Michael Ohoven
CRASH
Paul Haggis
Cathy Schulman
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK
Grant Heslov
WALK THE LINE
James Keach
Cathy Konrad
 
ANIMATED MOTION PICTURE
CHICKEN LITTLE
Randy Fullmer
MADAGASCAR
Mireille Soria
ROBOTS
Jerry Davis
John C. Donkin
William Joyce
TIM BURTON’S CORPSE BRIDE
Tim Burton
Allison Abbate
* WALLACE & GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT
Claire Jennings
Nick Park
 
TELEVISION: LONG-FORM
EMPIRE FALLS (HBO)
INTO THE WEST (TNT)
LACKAWANNA BLUES (HBO)
Ruben Santiago-Hudson
Halle Berry
Vincent Cirrincione
Shelby Stone
Nellie Rachel Nugiel
* THE LIFE AND DEATH OF PETER SELLERS (HBO)
Freddy DeMann
George Faber & Charles Pattinson
WARM SPRINGS (HBO)
Mark Gordon
Celia Costas
Chrisann Verges
 
TELEVISION SERIES: COMEDY
ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT (FOX)
Ron Howard & Brian Grazer
David Nevins
Mitchell Hurwitz
John Levenstein
Richard [...]

Jarbas Barbosa

Jarbas Barbosa, a pioneering producer of Brazil’s Cinema Novo of the 1960s, died of respiratory problems on Dec. 10 in Recife, in the Brazilian Northeast. He was 76.
Among the films Barbosa produced or co-produced are the film noir Boca de Ouro / Golden Mouth (1963), directed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos; Ganga Zumba (1963), about the life and times of a runaway slave, directed by Carlos Diegues; and the sociopolitical drama Os Fuzis / The Guns (1964), directed by Ruy Guerra.
Also, Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol / Black God, White Devil (1964, above), the tale of a rural bandit directed by Glauber Rocha; and the highly popular erotic comedy Xica da Silva (1976), also directed [...]

Ismail Merchant

Mumbai-born producer and sometime director Ismail Merchant died today in London. He was 68.
Merchant and his partner, American director James Ivory, were responsible for several classy productions made in the last four decades, including Heat and Dust (1981), starring Julie Christie as a woman traveling through India; the drama Quartet (1981), with Maggie Smith, Alan Bates, and Isabelle Adjani; and the solid dramatic comedy Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990), with Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.
Additionally, Merchant produced a trio of Academy Award-nominated pictures: A Room with a View (1986) with Helena Bonham-Carter; Howard’s End (1992), which won Emma Thompson a Best Actress Oscar; and The Remains of the Day (1993) starring Thompson and Anthony Hopkins. German-born, English-raised [...]

Producers Guild Awards 2005

2005 Producers Guild Awards
2005 Producers Guild of America’s Golden Laurel winners: January 22, 2005
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
 

 

Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year
* The Aviator
Finding Neverland
The Incredibles
Million Dollar Baby
Sideways
David L. Wolper Producer of the Year – Longform Television
* Angels in America
Horatio Hornblower
Ike: Countdown to D-Day
The Lion in Winter
Something the Lord Made
Norman Felton Producer of the Year – Episodic Drama Television
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Nip/Tuck
Six Feet Under
* The Sopranos
The West Wing
Danny Thomas Producer of the Year – Episodic Comedy Television
Arrested Development
* Curb Your Enthusiasm
Scrubs
Sex and the City
Will & Grace
Producer of the Year Award – Non-Fiction Television
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
Inside the Actors Studio
* The Amazing Race 5
The Apprentice
Queer [...]

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