Mercedes McCambridge Articles

Linda Blair in William Friedkin's The Exorcist Natalie Portman Dance-Double Controversy Predecessor: Linda Blair's THE EXORCIST Voice and Body Doubles Considering all the work Mercedes McCambridge put into The Exorcist, it's hard to believe she would have refused credit for it. In any case, Warner Bros. finally gave her on-screen credit after more prints of the film were released to theaters. Even so, McCambridge was [...]

Linda Blair's face, Mercedes McCambridge's voice in William Friedkin's The Exorcist Much like Natalie Portman's out-of-wedlock pregnancy issue had a predecessor — in the Ingrid Bergman-Roberto Rossellini affair back in 1950 — something similar to the Portman-Sarah Lane-Black Swan Best Actress Academy Award controversy took place several decades ago, but with radically different results. "Having reaped a huge financial success with The Exorcist, Director William [...]

Joseph L. Mankiewicz Centennial – Part I And if Guys and Dolls (1955) was a bore — just about everyone in this film musical is miscast, from Brando to Mankiewicz himself — the director recovered his touch with the adult (and bizarre) Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), a psychotic psychological drama adapted by Gore Vidal and (officially) Tennessee Williams from Williams's own play. (Williams later said [...]

Considered by many one of Joseph L. Mankiewicz's lesser films, The Barefoot Contessa is a classy, intelligently written, and generally well acted morality tale. Inspired by the life of Rita Hayworth (née Margarita Cansino), the film's plot revolves around the tragic fate of Maria Vargas, a great, earthy beauty who becomes a Hollywood movie star. Besides Jack Cardiff's beautiful cinematography and Mario Nascimbene's melancholy score, [...]