Angela Lansbury on TCM

Angela Lansbury’s "Summer Under the Stars" day is Sunday, Aug. 23.
Thanks to the popular TV series Murder She Wrote, Angela Lansbury became a bigger star in the last two decades than she ever was during her heyday as an MGM contract player in the 1940s, supporting (or antagonizing) the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Judy Garland, Margaret O’Brien, and Elizabeth Taylor.
Ironically, most people today probably know who Angela Lansbury is, while names such as Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr, and Greer Garson — three of MGM’s top stars of that era — have dimmed (at least) somewhat.
Turner Classic Movies‘ Angela Lansbury Day will offer only one TCM premiere: A Lawless Street (1955), a minor Joseph H. Lewis Western starring Randolph Scott. [...]

Hedy Lamarr III: CASABLANCA, Private Life

Charles Boyer, Hedy Lamarr in Algiers

Hedy Lamarr – Q&A with Author Patrick Agan: Part II
Is it true that Hedy Lamarr refused the lead roles in Casablanca, Gaslight, and Saratoga Trunk? If so, do you know what her reaction was after those three films became huge hits for Ingrid Bergman?
Let’s get one thing straight off the bat. Hedy Lamarr never turned down Casablanca.
L. B. had her solidly booked for several movies, two of which, I think, defined both her talent and her image. True, [producer] Hal Wallis wanted her for it, but Mayer said no as he had Tortilla Flat, Crossroads, and White Cargo already lined up.
Why should L. B. have loaned her over to [Warner [...]

GASLIGHT To Be Lit Again

Warner Bros. has begun developing a remake of Gaslight, the 1944 thriller directed by George Cukor, and starring Charles Boyer as a suave murderer and Ingrid Bergman as his naive — and quite wealthy — wife, who almost goes bananas before the final fadeout. The film received a total of seven Academy Award nominations: best picture, best director, best actor, best supporting actress (Angela Lansbury, in her film debut), and best screenplay (John L. Balderston, Walter Reisch, and John Van Druten), winning in the best actress and best art direction categories. Additionally, Bergman won a Golden Globe for what is one of the weakest performances of her career.
Also in the Gaslight cast were Joseph Cotten, Dame May Whitty, [...]

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
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