Melodrama Articles

Karen Dicker, Juanita Moore, Terry Burnham, and Lana Turner in Imitation of Life Douglas Sirk’s classic melodrama Imitation of Life, starring Lana Turner, will have its 50th anniversary celebrated with a screening of a recently struck print at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on Friday, August 21, at 7:30 p.m. Hosted by film critic Stephen Farber, [...]

The Bette Davis vehicle and 1939 Best Picture nominee Dark Victory will be screened as the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939” on Monday, June 15, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. Beginning at 7 p.m., the feature will be preceded by the fifth [...]

Broken Embraces: Pedro Almodóvar on the set (top); Penélope Cruz as the heroine (bottom). In the mystery-melodrama, a director and his female star begin a passionate love affair that leads to all sorts of trouble. Wendy Ide in The [London] Times: "Certainly, it is unmistakably an Almodovar film. Nobody else does richly-textured melodrama quite like him; nobody else can encourage such overwrought performances without unbalancing [...]

Tess of the Storm Country (1914) Direction: Edwin S. Porter Screenplay: B. P. Schulberg; from Grace Miller White's novel Cast: Mary Pickford, Harold Lockwood, Olive Carey (as Olive Golden), David Hartford, Louise Dunlap     Directed by Edwin S. Porter (of The Great Train Robbery fame), the 1914 version of Tess of the Storm Country is both technically primitive and thematically saccharine. However, this shamelessly [...]