GONE WITH THE WIND Screening

"Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939" is the title of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ summer series, which kicks off next Monday, May 18, with a big-screen presentation of Gone with the Wind.
"Hollywood’s Greatest Year" will showcase all of the best picture nominees from 1939, which many consider the best film year in Hollywood history. The 10-film 70th anniversary celebration runs through August 3. (Up to 1943, most years had 10 to 12 films nominated for the best picture Oscar.) All screenings will be held on Monday evenings at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The 1939 best picture Oscar nominees were:

May 18 [...]

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 – 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
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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 – 1933

Greta Garbo in Queen Christina
FILM
Baby Face
d: Alfred E. Green; scr: Gene Markey, Kathryn Scola
The Barbarian
d: Sam Wood; scr: Anita Loos, Elmer Harris
Dinner at 8
d: George Cukor; scr: Frances Marion, Herman J. Mankiewicz, Donald Ogden Stewart
Gold Diggers of 1933
d: Mervyn LeRoy; scr: Erwin Gelsey, James Seymour, David Boehm, Ben Markson
I’m No Angel
d: Wesley Ruggles; scr: Mae West
The Kennel Murder Case
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Robert Presnell, Robert N. Lee, Peter Milne
King Kong
d: Ernest B. Schoedsack, Merian C. Cooper; scr: James Ashmore Creelman, Ruth Rose
The Mystery of the Wax Museum
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Don Mullaly, Carl Erickson
Queen Christina
d: Rouben Mamoulian; scr: H. M. Harwood, S. N. Behrman
 

Nils Asther, Barbara Stanwyck in The Bitter Tea of [...]

Best Films – 1930

Made at the dawn of the sound era, All Quiet on the Western Front remains the best war film ever made. Despite some brave (and not so brave) attempts by other filmmakers ever since, no other motion picture I’ve seen has captured the horrors of war with the honesty and the poignancy of Lewis Milestone’s rendition of Erich Maria Remarque’s pacifist novel. Lew Ayres plays the young, idealistic soldier who soon discovers that war has nothing to do with either honor or glory.
 
FILM
All Quiet on the Western Front
d: Lewis Milestone; scr: Maxwell Anderson, Del Andrews, George Abbott
The Bishop Murder Case
d: Nick Grindé, David Burton; scr: Lenore J. Coffee
Going Wild
d: William [...]

Marie Dressler IV: DINNER AT 8, THE LATE CHRISTOPHER BEAN

Marie Dressler, Jean Harlow in Dinner at 8

Marie Dressler III: Wallace Beery, Polly Moran Comedies
Some reviewers have complained that Marie Dressler didn’t act. They say she overacted. What do you think?
Writing about her as an actress was tough, because there is no one remotely like her anymore. If you watch her performances today, you can see that she was a true-blue ham. And I can see how that would bother people, but for me it’s an essential part of her charm. If I settle into a Marie Dressler picture, I know I won’t get naturalism by today’s standards. Neither will I get fart jokes, horny frat boys, or mean-spirited mockery. Instead, Marie offered character-driven humor.
She played the charwoman [...]

George Cukor’s Oscar Nominated Actors

George Cukor
21 Acting Nominations
(s) supporting category
(*) Academy Award winner
George Cukor: Top Oscar Directors for Actors
 
1930-31
Fredric March The Royal Family of Broadway (co-directed with Cyril Gardner)
 

1936
Norma Shearer Romeo and Juliet
Basil Rathbone (s) Romeo and Juliet
 
1937

Greta Garbo (above, with Robert Taylor) Camille
 
1940

James Stewart The Philadelphia Story *
Katharine Hepburn (above, with Stewart and Cary Grant) The Philadelphia Story
Ruth Hussey (s) The Philadelphia Story
 
1944

Charles Boyer Gaslight
Ingrid Bergman Gaslight *
Angela Lansbury (s) Gaslight
 
1947
Ronald Colman A Double Life *
 
1949
Deborah Kerr Edward, My Son
 
1950
Judy Holliday Born Yesterday *
 
1954

James Mason A Star Is Born
Judy Garland A Star Is Born
 
1957
Anthony Quinn Wild Is the Wind
Anna Magnani Wild Is the Wind
 
1964

Rex Harrison (above, with Audrey Hepburn) My Fair Lady *
Stanley Holloway (s) My Fair Lady
Gladys Cooper (s) [...]

George Cukor: Top Oscar Directors for Actors

Known as a refined “woman’s director,” George Cukor has had his considerable output either relegated to the sidelines or simply dismissed by those who like their directors macho and their films male-centered. Not helping matters is the general perception that Cukor was merely a hired hand for the likes of David O. Selznick at RKO and Louis B. Mayer at MGM, not an auteur following a clear professional path. Except, of course, for the (assumed) fact that he was a woman’s director — and we’re back to square one.
In truth, George Cukor was one of the most remarkable directors of the studio era. Like Elia Kazan, Cukor served his apprenticeship in the theater, thus developing into an excellent actor’s director. [...]

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, [...]

Keith Andes

Film and stage actor Keith Andes died at his home in Santa Clarita, a community northeast of Los Angeles, on November 11. The Los Angeles County coroner’s office ruled the death a suicide by asphyxiation. Andes had been suffering from bladder cancer and other ailments. He was 85.
Born John Charles Andes on July 12, 1920, in Ocean City, New Jersey, Andes was brought to Hollywood by 20th Century-Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck. The mogul had seen him perform as an understudy in the Broadway production of the homefront melodrama Winged Victory.
Besides appearing in a small part in the 1944 film version directed by George Cukor, Andes had mostly supporting roles in about 20 other films, including The Farmer’s Daughter [...]

THE WOMEN Remake in the Works

According to Variety, Clare Boothe Luce’s mordant comedy The Women may be headed for the big screen for the third time in 65 years. With New Line as the potential distributor, the new remake would be the feature-film début (as writer-director) of Diane English, best known as the creator and writer of the TV series Murphy Brown.
Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Sandra Bullock, and Ashley Judd are currently in negotiations to appear in the film, while Uma Thurman has been mentioned as a possible addition to the stellar cast. (Bening is supposed to take over the old Norma Shearer role, all sweetness and light — which would mean that Meg Ryan would be playing against type, as a scheming husband [...]

Best Films – 1947

Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, David Farrar in Black Narcissus
FILM
Black Narcissus
d, scr: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Cheyenne
d: Raoul Walsh; scr: Alan Le May, Thames Williamson
Crossfire
d: Edward Dmytryk; scr: John Paxton
Down to Earth
d: Alexander Hall; scr: Edwin Blum, Don Hartman
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
d: Joseph L. Mankiewicz; scr: Philip Dunne
Life with Father
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Donald Ogden Stewart
Miracle on 34th Street
d, scr: George Seaton
Monsieur Vincent
d: Maurice Cloche; scr: Jean Bernard Luc, Jean Anouilh
Mourning Becomes Electra
d, scr: Dudley Nichols
Nicholas Nickleby
d: Alberto Cavalcanti; scr: John Dighton
The Perils of Pauline
d: George Marshall; scr: P. J. Wolfson, Frank Butler
 
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Body and Soul
d: Robert Rossen; scr: Abraham Polonsky
A Double Life
d: George Cukor; [...]