Best Films – 1938

Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Edward Arnold in You Can’t Take It with You
FILM
The Adventures of Robin Hood
d: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley; scr: Seton I. Miller, Norman Reilly Raine
Bringing Up Baby
d: Howard Hawks; scr: Dudley Nichols, Hagar Wilde
Dramatic School
d: Robert B. Sinclair; scr: Ernest Vajda, Mary McCall Jr.
L’Etrange Monsieur Victor
d: Jean Grémillon; scr: Albert Valentin, Charles Spaak, Marcel Achard
Four Daughters
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Lenore J. Coffee, Julius J. Epstein
If I Were King
d: Frank Lloyd; scr: Preston Sturges
The Lady Vanishes
d: Alfred Hitchcock; scr: Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder
Marie Antoinette
d: W. S. Van Dyke; scr: Claudine West, Donald Ogden Stewart, Ernest Vajda
Vivacious Lady
d: George Stevens; scr: P. J. Wolfson, Ernest Pagano
You Can’t Take It with You
d: Frank Capra; scr: Robert Riskin
 

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Miriam Hopkins: Q&A with Allan Ellenberger, Part II

Miriam Hopkins: Allan Ellenberger Interview Part I
I understand that Miriam Hopkins turned down a large number of parts. Could you name a few of those? And was there anything she felt sorry she missed out on — any part she rejected but then came to regret her decision, or any part she wanted to play but lost out to someone else?
[Photo: One role Miriam Hopkins accepted: the schoolteacher in These Three, opposite Merle Oberon.]
During her career, Hopkins was scheduled to appear in countless films that were never made, or the parts were given to another actress. Of course, it was a combination of her changing her mind about projects and in some cases the studio changing theirs. Some [...]

Miriam Hopkins Biography in the Works

Though relatively forgotten and, when remembered, usually dismissed as a second-rate talent (quite possibly by those who have never seen her on film), Miriam Hopkins was actually a highly capable performer who worked with some of the most renowned directors in Hollywood history — Rouben Mamoulian, Ernst Lubitsch, and William Wyler, among them.
Hopkins was also a household name in the 1930s, a time when she co-reigned, at least for a brief while early in the decade, as one of the Queens of Paramount.
Apart from the fact that time tends to dim memories, that most early Paramount films are shamefully unavailable (thanks to thoughtless executives at Universal, the studio that now owns most of the Paramount classics), and that most U.S. [...]

Best Films – 1948

Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan in Letter from an Unknown Woman
FILM
Anna Karenina
d: Julien Duvivier; scr: Jean Anouilh, Guy Morgan, Julien Duvivier
Cry of the City
d: Robert Siodmak; scr: Richard Murphy
Johnny Belinda
d: Jean Negulesco; scr: Irmgard von Cube, Allen Vincent
Key Largo
d: John Huston; scr: Richard Brooks, John Huston
Ladri di biciclette / The Bicycle Thief
d: Vittorio De Sica; scr: Oreste Biancoli, Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Adolfo Franci, Gherardo Gherardi, Gerardo Guerrieri, Cesare Zavattini
Letter from an Unknown Woman
d: Max Ophüls; scr: Howard Koch
Portrait of Jennie
d: William Dieterle; scr: Peter Berneis, Paul Osborn, Leonard Berrovici
State of the Union
d: Frank Capra; scr: Anthony Veiller, Myles Connolly
The Winslow Boy
d: Anthony Asquith; scr: Terence Rattigan, Anatole de Grunwald
 

Joan [...]