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Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920–1936

The career of legendary production executive Irving Thalberg – Hollywood’s "Boy Wonder" of the 1920s and early 1930s – will be explored in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ new exhibition, "Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920–1936," opening on Thursday, September 17, in the Academy’s Fourth Floor Gallery in Beverly Hills.
"Irving Thalberg: Creating the Hollywood Studio System, 1920–1936" is guest curated by historian and Thalberg biographer Mark Vieira, whose Hollywood Dreams Made Real: Irving Thalberg and the Rise of M-G-M was profiled in the Alternative Film Guide several months ago and whose Irving Thalberg: Boy Wonder to Producer Prince is due out in early November. Admission is free.

Lon Chaney, [...]

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 [...]

HOLLYWOOD DREAMS MADE REAL: IRVING THALBERG AND THE RISE OF M-G-M – Q&A with Mark Vieira

Author and photographer Mark A. Vieira (right), who’s been a friend for a number of years, has recently written no less than two books on Irving G. Thalberg, the young MGM mogul whose high-quality productions earned him both a reputation as Hollywood’s "Boy Wonder" and a special place in Oscar history as the name attached to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Memorial Award given to “creative producers whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.” Thalberg even inspired a F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, the unfinished The Last Tycoon.
Now, Mark’s two books may cover the same ground in terms of subject matter, but they’re radically different in terms of approach to same:
Hollywood [...]

THE AVIATOR Screening

Martin Scorsese’s 2004 Best Picture nominee The Aviator is the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ "Great To Be Nominated" series. The handsome but vapid Howard Hughes biopic will be screened on Monday, July 28, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Following the screening, cast members Alec Baldwin, Jacob Davich, J.C. Mackenzie, and Amy Sloan, production sound mixer Petur Hliddal, special effects supervisor R. Bruce Steinheimer, and miniature effects supervisor Matthew Gratzner will take part in a discussion about the film.
The US$100-million-plus The Aviator wasn’t quite the hoped-for critical and box-office hit, though the biopic won numerous accolades and did good business thanks to the casting of Leonardo DiCaprio [...]

Marie Dressler V: Lesbian Rumors, Film Possibilities

Marie Dressler in Dinner at 8

Marie Dressler IV: DINNER AT 8, THE LATE CHRISTOPHER BEAN
Marie Dressler and Claire Du Brey. Were they really lovers? Did you go through Du Brey’s papers? (I believe actor John Phillip Law is in possession of them.)
Ah, the lesbian love question! I talked with Mr. Law, and met with the actress Sierra Pecheur, who knew Du Brey and shared portions of her writing. But Du Brey is problematic as a source. First of all, Marie was dying of cancer during much of the time the two were together. Du Brey wrote exacting details on medical treatments, surgeries, and recoveries, but her papers are of no help on the subject of a sexual relationship, which is [...]

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 [...]

THE AVIATOR Notes: Howard Hughes’ Hollywood

Tommy Lee Jones plays Howard Hughes (above, lower photo) in the TV movie The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977); Jason Robards plays the old and haggard Hughes in Melvin and Howard (1980), for which he received an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor; George Peppard plays a fictionalized Hughes in The Carpetbaggers (1964); and Robert Ryan plays another Hughes clone in Caught (1949).
***
Initially, Michael Mann was going to direct The Aviator, but ended up co-producing it instead. Two of Mann’s recent biopics, The Insider (1999) and Ali (2001) were major box-office disappointments.
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Nicole Kidman and Gwyneth Paltrow were reportedly scheduled to play Katharine Hepburn and Ava Gardner, respectively. (Some reports have Paltrow as Hepburn, and Kidman as [...]

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