Festival of Preservation 2009: Joan Bennett, Michael Redgrave, William Powell, Fay Wray, William Desmond Taylor
Tonight at 7:30 pm at UCLA’s Festival of Preservation you’ll be able to catch a screening of Fritz Lang’s unfairly neglected Secret Beyond the Door (above), a 1947 noirish psychological melodrama starring Joan Bennett as woman married to Michael Redgrave, whom she suspects is out to kill her (possibly for her money).
Unlike Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion (1941) and George Cukor’s similarly themed Gaslight (1944), Secret Beyond the Door boasts a highly stylized Gothic feel that makes the viewer feel just as off-kilter as both the heroine and the hero. Stanley Cortez, who also shot Orson Welles‘ The Magnificent Ambersons, was the cinematographer.
Tomorrow, Sunday, April 5, at 7pm, the Festival of Preservation will feature two rarities from the 1910s: Lena Rivers, a [...]
by Andre Soares | April 4, 2009
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Tags: Amos 'n Andy, Bigamy, Check and Double Check, Classic Movies, Fay Wray, Festival of Preservation, Film Festivals, Film Noir, Film Preservation, Fritz Lang, He Fell in Love with His Wife, Helen Kane, Irene Rich, Joan Bennett, Lena Rivers, Los Angeles Screenings, Michael Redgrave, Musicals, Phillips Holmes, Pointed Heels, Production Code, Secret Beyond the Door, Silent Films, Stanley Cortez, William Desmond Taylor, William Powell
Best Films – 1925
Ramon Novarro and May McAvoy in Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
FILM
Ben-Hur
d: Fred Niblo (assisted by Christy Cabanne, Alfred L. Raboch, B. Reeves Eason); scr: Carey Wilson, Bess Meredyth, June Mathis; titles: Katherine Hilliker, H. H. Caldwell
The Big Parade
d: King Vidor; scr: Laurence Stallings, Harry Behn; titles: Joseph W. Farnham
Her Sister from Paris
d: Sidney Franklin; scr: Hans Kräly
Lady Windermere’s Fan
d: Ernst Lubitsch; scr: Julien Josephson; titles: Maude Fulton, Erik Yorke
The Merry Widow
d: Erich von Stroheim; scr: Benjamin Glazer, Erich von Stroheim; titles: Marian Ainslee
Battleship Potemkin
CHECK THESE OUT
Bronenosets Potyomkin / Battleship Potemkin
d: Sergei Eisenstein; scr: Nina Agadzhanova, Sergei Eisenstein; titles: Nikolai Aseyev, Sergei Tretyakov
Renée Adorée, John Gilbert in The Big Parade
ACTOR
John Gilbert
The Big Parade
Constance Talmadge, Ronald [...]
by Andre Soares | April 2, 2009
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Tags: Alice Joyce, Belle Bennett, Ben-Hur, Best Films, Betty Bronson, Charles Van Enger, Classic Movies, Constance Talmadge, Eleanor Boardman, Erich von Stroheim, Ernst Lubitsch, Fred Niblo, Hal Mohr, Hans Kraly, Her Sister from Paris, Irene Rich, John Arnold, John Gilbert, Joseph W. Farnham, Julien Josephson, Karl Struss, King Vidor, Lady of the Night, Lady Windermere's Fan, Lois Moran, Lon Chaney, Mary Philbin, May McAvoy, Norma Shearer, Ramon Novarro, Renée Adorée, Ronald Colman, Sidney Franklin, Silent Films, Stella Dallas, The Big Parade, The Merry Widow
LADY WINDERMERE’S FAN – Ronald Colman – d: Ernst Lubitsch
Lady Windermere’s Fan (1925)
Direction: Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay: Julien Josephson; titles: Maude Fulton and Erik Yorke; from Oscar Wilde’s play
Cast: Ronald Colman, May McAvoy, Bert Lytell, Irene Rich, Edward Martindel
Bert Lytell is the nice husband, May McAvoy the jealous wife, Ronald Colman the other man, and Irene Rich (above) the scene stealer in Ernst Lubitsch’s delightful film version of Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan.
In the film, Rich plays Mrs. Erlynne, a woman of the world in search of a lordly husband. McAvoy is her clueless daughter, Lady Windermere: she doesn’t know her mother’s identity and mistakenly believes that Mrs. Erlynne has set her sights on handsome Lord Windermere (Lytell).
Petulant child that she is, Lady Windermere goes after eligible [...]
by Andre Soares | March 30, 2009
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Tags: Bert Lytell, Classic Movies, Edward Martindel, Ernst Lubitsch, Film Reviews, Four-Star Movies, Irene Rich, Julien Josephson, Maude Fulton, May McAvoy, Oscar Wilde, Ronald Colman, Silent Films, Sophisticated Comedies
