MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON Screening

A newly restored print of Frank Capra’s 1939 Best Picture nominee Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, starring Jean Arthur, James Stewart, and Claude Rains, will be screened tonight, July 20, as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939.” The screening will take place at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The evening will begin at 7 p.m., with the tenth chapter of the 1939 serial Buck Rogers, starring Buster Crabbe and Constance Moore, and the Columbia animated short Scrappy’s Added Attraction.
By the time Mr. Smith Goes to Washington came out in 1939, [...]

Great Directors Series on Turner Classic Movies

Jeanne Moreau, Henri Serre, Oskar Werner in François Truffaut’s Jules et Jim

In June, Turner Classic Movies‘ month-long series "Great Directors" will be celebrating the efforts of 52 films directors, from past and present, from Hollywood and overseas (though, as to be expected, mostly Hollywood).
Among TCM’s "greats" are, inevitably, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Billy Wilder, Steven Spielberg, and John Ford, but also Jacques Tourneur, Mervyn LeRoy, and Budd Boetticher.
Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Carol Reed, and Ingmar Bergman are four of the non-Hollywood filmmakers who have been included in the series.
Each weekday of the "Great Directors" series will feature two directors — one during the day; the other at night.  The daytime lineup includes Victor Fleming (June [...]

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
 

[...]

Best Films – 1937

Robert Taylor, Greta Garbo in Camille
FILM
The Awful Truth
d, scr: Leo McCarey
Camille
d: George Cukor; scr: Frances Marion, James Hilton, Zoe Akins
The Hurricane
d: John Ford; scr: Dudley Nichols, Oliver H. P. Garrett
The Last of Mrs. Cheyney
d: Richard Boleslawski; scr: Leon Gordon, Samson Raphaelson, Monckton Hoffe
Lost Horizon
d: Frank Capra; scr: Robert Riskin
Night Must Fall
d: Richard Thorpe; scr: John Van Druten
Les Perles de la couronne / Pearls of the Crown
d: Sacha Guitry, Christian-Jacque; scr: Sacha Guitry
The Prisoner of Zenda
d: John Cromwell; scr: Wells Root, John G. Balderstone, Donald Ogden Stewart
Quality Street
d: George Stevens; scr: Mortimer Offner, Allan Scott
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
d: David Hand; scr: Ted Sears, Richard Creedon and others
A Star Is Born
d: William A. Wellman; scr: Dorothy Parker, [...]

Best Films – 1936

Sacha Guitry in The Story of a Cheat
FILM
Follow the Fleet
d: Mark Sandrich; scr: Dwight Taylor
Fury
d: Fritz Lang; scr: Bartlett Cormack, Fritz Lang
Libeled Lady
d: Jack Conway; scr: Maurine Watkins, Howard Emmett Rogers, George Oppenheimer
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
d: Frank Capra; scr: Robert Riskin
My Man Godfrey
d: Gregory La Cava; scr: Morrie Ryskind, Eric Hatch
Le Roman d’un tricheur / The Story of a Cheat
d, scr: Sacha Guitry
Show Boat
d: James Whale; scr: Oscar Hammerstein II
Theodora Goes Wild
d: Richard Boleslawsky; scr: Sidney Buchman
These Three
d: William Wyler; scr: Lillian Hellman
 

Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton in Dodsworth
CHECK THESE OUT
César
d, scr: Marcel Pagnol
Club de femmes
d, scr: Jacques Deval
Desire
d: Frank Borzage; scr: Edwin Justus Mayer, Waldemar Young, Samuel Hoffenstein
Dodsworth
d: William [...]

Best Films – 1934

Norma Shearer in The Barretts of Wimpole Street
FILM
The Barretts of Wimpole Street
d: Sidney Franklin; scr: Ernest Vajda, Claudine West, Donald Ogden Stewart
The Count of Monte Cristo
d: Rowland V. Lee; scr: Philip Dunne, Dan Totheroh, Rowland V. Lee
The Gay Divorcee
d: Mark Sandrich; scr: George Marion Jr., Dorothy Yost, Edward Kaufman
Hide-out
d: W. S. Van Dyke; scr: Albert Hackett, Frances Goodrich
The Merry Widow
d: Ernst Lubitsch; scr: Samson Raphaelson, Ernest Vajda
 

Fredric March, Evelyn Venable in Death Takes a Holiday
CHECK THESE OUT
Broadway Bill
d: Frank Capra; scr: Robert Riskin
Death Takes a Holiday
d: Mitchell Leisen; scr: Maxwell Anderson, Gladys Lehman
Gold
d: Karl Hartl; scr: Rolf E. Vanloo
Here Comes the Navy
d: Lloyd Bacon; scr: Earl Baldwin, Ben Markson
Maskerade / Masquerade in Vienna
d: Willi Forst; scr: [...]

Jean Arthur on TCM

Jean Arthur was Columbia’s top star of the 1930s and early 1940s. Jean Arthur starred in numerous classics, including Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and You Can’t Take It with You. Jean Arthur died in 1991.

Argentina Brunetti

Actress Argentina Brunetti, a founding member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and a supporting player in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), died in Rome on Dec. 20. She was 98.
Born in Buenos Aires, Brunetti came to Hollywood in 1937 to dub into Italian the voices of MGM stars Jeanette MacDonald and Norma Shearer. She began acting in films about a decade later.
In addition to Capra’s sugary fairy tale, Brunetti had roles in dozens of American productions, often uncredited, including Broken Arrow (1950), When in Rome (1952), The Caddy (1953), and The Brothers Rico (1957).
She also appeared in numerous television shows, among them The Untouchables, Kojak, and Everybody Loves Raymond.
Her last film, The 4th [...]

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 [...]