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Bette Davis, Barbara Steele, ALIEN: Library of Congress Packard Campus’ Fall Series

 
Oscar winners, horror movies, and silent shorts are all part of the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation’s fall film series in Culpeper, Va., starting Oct. 8.
Among the Oscar winners is best actress Bette Davis in Jezebel (1938), William Wyler’s classic romantic melodrama that was Warner Bros.’ answer to Gone with the Wind. (The film was based on a flop play that starred Miriam Hopkins, Bette Davis’ future archrival.) Davis was one of the top contenders for the role of Scarlett O’Hara, but had to content herself with playing Jezebel’s wilful Southern belle — who dares to wear a red dress (in black and white) at a ball much to the shock and [...]

Claude Rains on TCM: HERE COMES MR. JORDAN, DECEPTION

Claude Rains returns this Wednesday, Sept. 9, in more films featuring Turner Classic Movies‘ Star of the Month.
Every single one of the titles listed below is worth watching if only because of Rains’ presence. That said, a couple of them actually have considerably more to offer: Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) and Deception (1946).
Here Comes Mr. Jordan is a witty, romantic comedy about love, death, reincarnation, greed, bad timing, and prizefighting. I know, this all (minus the prizefighting) sounds like some heavy-duty drama straight out of the Bible or some other holy book, but director Alexander Hall and screenwriters Sidney Buchman and Seton I. Miller, adapting Harry Segall’s play Heaven Can Wait, handle those serious themes with [...]

Claude Rains on TCM

Claude Rains, one of the greatest actors of the studio era — in fact, one of the greatest film actors of the 20th century — is Turner Classic Movies‘ Star of the Month of September.
What would I recommend?
Well, whether on TCM or on DVD or on VHS or in some hidden vault somewhere, I’d say check him out in The Invisible Man and (ouch!) The Lost World; his supporting roles opposite Priscilla Lane and Bette Davis; his Oscar-nominated roles in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Casablanca, Mr. Skeffington, and Notorious; his brief appearances in Lawrence of Arabia and The Greatest Story Ever Told; his cinematic swan song, Twilight of Honor. In sum, if Claude Rains is in it, [...]

Miriam Hopkins on TCM

An early photo of Miriam Hopkins. Photos in this article: courtesy of Allan Ellenberger

Miriam Hopkins, one of the most underrated performers of the studio era, will have her "Summer Under the Stars" day on Thursday, Aug. 20.
Turner Classic Movies will present fourteen Miriam Hopkins films, including one TCM premiere — the Samuel Goldwyn production of Barbary Coast — and three of Hopkins’ saucy pre-Code vehicles made at Paramount.
Although there are no Hopkins rarities in the program — TCM must lease the Universal library, which contains both the Universal and Paramount classics — it’s great to have a day dedicated to an actress who, no matter how good, has been usually dismissed because of her (alleged) off-screen behavior.
As I’ve [...]

Bette Davis on TCM

No rare Bette Davis flicks on her Turner Classic Movies‘ "Summer Under the Stars" day, Saturday, Aug. 8.
That’s too bad, as TCM now has access to Columbia’s film library. They could have unearthed Davis’ early Columbia flick The Menace (1931), which isn’t very good, but it’s rare and it’s Bette Davis. Also, there’s the little-seen, Columbia-distributed, political drama Storm Center (1956), in which Davis co-stars with Kim Hunter, who happened to be blacklisted during the anti-Red hysteria of the 1950s. Well, maybe later in the year…
I can’t say I’m a huge Bette Davis fan, but I do like watching her. In fact, I find several of her performances to be among the best ever committed to [...]

Hollywood’s Greatest Year in New York City

Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind (top); Bette Davis, Geraldine Fitzgerald in Dark Victory (middle); Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights (bottom)

Gone with the Wind, the 1939 Best Picture winner, will kick off the New York presentation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ latest screening series, "Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939," on Saturday, June 20, at 12:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Theater in New York City. Turner Classic Movies host and film historian Robert Osborne will host the event.
"Hollywood’s Greatest Year" will continue through mid-October, showcasing all 10 Best Picture nominees from 1939. Screenings will take place on Monday at 7:30 p.m., [...]

Bette Davis’ DARK VICTORY Screening

The Bette Davis vehicle and 1939 Best Picture nominee Dark Victory will be screened as the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939” on Monday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Beginning at 7 p.m., the feature will be preceded by the fifth chapter of the 1939 serial Buck Rogers, starring Buster Crabbe and Constance Moore, and the Warner Bros. cartoon Dangerous Dan McFoo, directed by Tex Avery.
Adapted by Casey Robinson from a play by George Emerson Brewer Jr. and Bertram Bloch, Dark Victory is one of Bette Davis’ [...]

Joseph L. Mankiewicz Centennial

Four-time Academy Award winner screenwriter-director-producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz will be saluted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a special 50th anniversary screening of a recently restored print of Suddenly, Last Summer, starring Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor (above, and right, with Mankiewicz), and Montgomery Clift. The screening will take place on Thursday, May 21, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The evening will also celebrate the recent gift of the Joseph L. Mankiewicz Papers to the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library. Turner Classic Movies host and The Young Turks co-creator Ben Mankiewicz, Joseph L.’s great nephew and grandson of Citizen Kane co-screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, will host [...]

Jane Bryan

Jane Bryan, who played ingenues in several Warner Bros. productions of the late 1930s, died on April 8 at her home in Pebble Beach, California, following a long illness. She was 90.
The Los Angeles-born (on June 11, 1918) Jane O’Brien had her name changed to Jane Bryan after landing a Warners contract in the mid ’30s.
Bryan’s most notable role at the studio was as Paul Muni’s mistress in We Are Not Alone (1939), directed by Edmund Goulding. Apart from that, she was usually seen as forgettable sweet young things, supporting Bette Davis in Marked Woman (1937), Kid Galahad (1937), The Sisters (1938), and The Old Maid (1939); Edward G. Robinson in A Slight Case of Murder (1938); [...]

Best Films – 1941

Orson Welles in Citizen Kane
FILM
Cheers for Miss Bishop
d: Tay Garnett; scr: Sheridan Gibney, Adelaide Heilbron
Citizen Kane
d: Orson Welles; scr: Herman J. Mankiewicz, Orson Welles
The Devil and Miss Jones
d: Sam Wood; scr: Norman Krasna
Dumbo
d: Ben Sharpsteen; scr: Joe Grant, Dick Huemer and others
The Great Lie
d: Edmund Goulding; scr: Lenore J. Coffee
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
d: Alexander Hall; scr: Seton I. Miller, Sidney Buchman
The Lady Eve
d, scr: Preston Sturges
The Little Foxes
d: William Wyler; scr: Lillian Hellman
Manpower
d: Raoul Walsh; scr: Richard Macauley, Jerry Wald
The Sea Wolf
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Robert Rossen
 

Sara Allgood, Roddy McDowall in How Green Was My Valley
CHECK THESE OUT
La Fille du puisatier / The Well-Digger’s Daughter
d, scr: Marcel Pagnol
How Green Was My Valley
d: John Ford; scr: Philip Dunne
Meet John Doe
d: [...]

Best Films – 1940

Henry Fonda in The Grapes of Wrath
FILM
The Blue Bird
d: Walter Lang; scr: Ernest Pascal
The Grapes of Wrath
d: John Ford; scr: Nunnally Johnson
Kitty Foyle
d: Sam Wood; scr: Dalton Trumbo
The Letter
d: William Wyler; scr: Howard Koch
The Mark of Zorro
d: Rouben Mamoulian; scr: John Tainton Foote, Garrett Fort, Bess Meredyth
Pinocchio
d: Hamilton Luske, Ben Sharpsteen; scr: Ted Sears, Otto Englander and others
Pride and Prejudice
d: Robert Z. Leonard; scr: Aldous Huxley, Jane Murfin
Rebecca
d: Alfred Hitchcock; scr: Robert E. Sherwood, Joan Harrison
Waterloo Bridge
d: Mervyn LeRoy; scr: S.N. Behrman, Hans Rameau, George Froeschel
 

Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday
CHECK THESE OUT
Busman’s Honeymoon / Haunted Honeymoon
d: Arthur B. Woods; scr: Monckton Hoffe, Angus MacPhail, Harold Goldman
His Girl Friday
d: Howard Hawks; scr: Charles Lederer
The Long Voyage Home
d: John [...]

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
 

[...]

Miriam Hopkins IV: Hollywood Blacklist, Bette Davis

Miriam Hopkins III: BECKY SHARP
Miriam Hopkins blacklisted during the post-war anti-Red hysteria? Why? And how come that fact — to the best of my knowledge — has never been discussed anywhere?
During the late ’30s and throughout the ’40s, Hopkins was involved with several political and social groups that were considered fronts for the Communist Party. These groups included the Motion Picture Democratic Committee (of which Hopkins was 2nd vice president) and the incendiary League of Women Shoppers.
In 1945, Louis Bundenz, a Communist Party functionary and the managing editor of the Daily Worker, renounced communism and in 1950 created a “List of 400 Concealed Communists” for the FBI. Miriam Hopkins was on that list. Of course she wasn’t [...]

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: Allan Ellenberger Interview I

Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins in All of Me

Miriam Hopkins: Allan Ellenberger Interview Intro
First of all, why Miriam Hopkins?
The films she made with Bette Davis — The Old Maid (1939) and Old Acquaintance (1943) — first attracted me to Miriam Hopkins. Also, the stories of their purported feud and Davis’ virulent comments that she spouted forth during her last days piqued my interest. Davis has always been a favorite of mine, so anyone who could incur this diva’s wrath must have something going on. I also felt that Hopkins is one of the most underrated actresses from Hollywood’s golden era. Regardless of the quality of her vehicles, she always gave an interesting performance.
 
When people think of the major [...]

Miriam Hopkins: Q&A with Author Allan Ellenberger

Miriam Hopkins in a publicity shot for Becky Sharp

Miriam Hopkins.

If mentioned at all today, Miriam Hopkins‘ name pops up in the media for two reasons:

One of her movies is being shown on cable or at some retrospective or other, and someone says or writes that Old Hollywood’s Miriam Hopkins was a selfish, self-centered, megalomaniacal, scene-stealing, temperamental, fire-spitting Bitch from Hell who made life difficult for co-stars, directors, producers, writers, cameramen, hairdressers, manicurists, costume designers, studio carpenters, and special effects personnel, among others.
Miriam Hopkins was Bette Davis‘ Foremost Nemesis. Davis hated her so much, but so much, that Joan Crawford, Jack Warner, Errol Flynn, and whoever else Davis feuded & fought with during her sixty-year career were transmogrified into [...]

Bette Davis Sings “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”

 
Bette Davis would have turned 100 today. This clip, in which Bette Davis sings "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?," is from the December 20, 1962, episode of The Andy Williams Show.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? was released that year, earning Davis her tenth — and last — Academy Award nomination. She won two Oscars, for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938).
The beginning of the song, without the lyrics, can be heard on the radio right before the film’s grand finale.
Clip posted by markyyu.
 

Glasgow Film Festival 2008

Among the many sections of the 2008 Glasgow Film Festival, to be held from February 14-24, are Great Scots, Once Upon a Time in the East (that’s Eastern Europe; above, top photo, Jan Sverák’s Czech comedy-drama Empties), It’s a Wonderful World (world cinema), Fright Fest, The State of Independents (above, bottom photo, Alex Holdridge’s In Search of a Midnight Kiss), and Bette Davis, whose centennial is being celebrated this year.
Among the scheduled films are Woody Allen’s Cassandra’s Dream, with Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell; Giuseppe Tornatore’s David di Donatello winner The Unknown; Roy Andersson’s Guldbagge winner You the Living; and Michael Haneke’s Funny Games remake, starring Tim Roth and Naomi Watts.

The Bette Davis tribute, sponsored by Turner Classic Movies UK, [...]

William Wyler’s Oscar Nominated Actors

William Wyler
36 Acting Nominations
(s) supporting category
(*) Academy Award winner
William Wyler: Top Oscar Directors for Actors
 
1936

Walter Huston (above, with Ruth Chatterton) Dodsworth
Walter Brennan (s) Come and Get It * (Wyler replaced Howard Hawks, who received co-directing credit)
Bonita Granville (s) These Three
Maria Ouspenskaya (s) Dodsworth
 
1937
Claire Trevor (s) Dead End
 
1938

Bette Davis Jezebel *
Fay Bainter (s) Jezebel *
 
1939

Laurence Olivier (above, with Merle Oberon) Wuthering Heights
Geraldine Fitzgerald (s) Wuthering Heights
 
1940
Bette Davis The Letter
Walter Brennan (s) The Westerner *
James Stephenson (s) The Letter
 
1941
Bette Davis The Little Foxes
Patricia Collinge (s) The Little Foxes
Teresa Wright (s) The Little Foxes
 
1942

Walter Pidgeon Mrs. Miniver
Greer Garson Mrs. Miniver *
Henry Travers (s) Mrs. Miniver
Teresa Wright (s) Mrs. Miniver *
Dame May Whitty (s) Mrs. Miniver
 
1946
Fredric March The Best Years of Our [...]

William Wyler: Top Oscar Directors for Actors

William Wyler was one of the greatest film directors Hollywood — or any other film industry — has ever produced. Today, Wyler lacks the following of Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, or even Howard Hawks most likely because, unlike Hitchcock or Ford, Wyler never focused on a particular genre, while his films were hardly as male-centered as those of the aforementioned three directors. Dumb but true: Films about women and their issues tend to be perceived as inferior to those about men — especially tough men — and their issues.
For his part, Wyler tackled all sorts of topics, directing just about anything — epics, Westerns, family dramas, socially conscious dramas, melodramas, crime stories, thrillers, romances, comedies, and musicals.
From [...]

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 – 1944

John Hodiak, Tallulah Bankhead in Lifeboat

FILM
I Bambini ci guardano / The Children Are Watching Us
d: Vittorio De Sica; scr: Cesare Zavattini, Vittorio De Sica, Cesare Giulio Viola, Adolfo Franci, Margherita Maglione, Gherardo Gherardi
Crime by Night
d: William Clemens; scr: Joel Malone, Richard Weil
Dragon Seed
d: Harold S. Bucquet, Jack Conway; scr: Jane Murfin, Marguerite Roberts
Laura
d: Otto Preminger; scr: Jay Dratter, Samuel Hoffenstein, Betty Reinhardt
Lifeboat
d: Alfred Hitchcock; scr: Jo Swerling
Mr. Skeffington
d: Vincent Sherman; scr: Julius J. Epstein, Phillip G. Epstein
This Happy Breed
d: David Lean; scr: Anthony Havelock-Allan, David Lean, Ronald Neame
The Uninvited
d: Lewis Allen; scr: Dodie Smith
 

Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker, Joseph Cotten in Since You Went Away
CHECK THESE OUT
Arsenic and Old Lace
d: Frank Capra; scr: Julius J. Epstein, Phillip G. Epstein
Home in [...]

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