Contact Help Wanted

Fredric March on TCM

Carole Lombard, Fredric March in a Nothing Sacred publicity shot.

Fredric March has his "Summer Under the Stars" day on Monday, Aug. 24.
Turner Classic Movies will present 13 Fredric March films, including the TCM premiere of Richard Boleslawski’s Academy Award-nominated Les Miserables (1935), a handsome — if dramatically stale — adaptation of Victor Hugo’s classic novel that pits March’s bread-thief Jean Valjean against Charles Laughton’s law-enforcing sociopath Inspector Javert.
Among the other Fredric March must-sees that day are:
Produced by David O. Selznick, William Wellman’s 1937 version of A Star Is Born features Janet Gaynor the actress doing a delicious impersonation of Janet Gaynor the persona, here named Esther Blodgett (and later renamed Vicki Lester), an ambitious but [...]

Miriam Hopkins on TCM

An early photo of Miriam Hopkins. Photos in this article: courtesy of Allan Ellenberger

Miriam Hopkins, one of the most underrated performers of the studio era, will have her "Summer Under the Stars" day on Thursday, Aug. 20.
Turner Classic Movies will present fourteen Miriam Hopkins films, including one TCM premiere — the Samuel Goldwyn production of Barbary Coast — and three of Hopkins’ saucy pre-Code vehicles made at Paramount.
Although there are no Hopkins rarities in the program — TCM must lease the Universal library, which contains both the Universal and Paramount classics — it’s great to have a day dedicated to an actress who, no matter how good, has been usually dismissed because of her (alleged) off-screen behavior.
As I’ve [...]

Best Films – 1939

The Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir
FILM
Gone with the Wind
d: Victor Fleming; scr: Sidney Howard
Le Jour se lève / Daybreak
d: Marcel Carné; scr: Jacques Viot, Jacques Prévert
Midnight
d: Mitchell Leisen; scr: Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
d: Frank Capra; scr: Sidney Buchman
Ninotchka
d: Ernst Lubitsch; scr: Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch
The Old Maid
d: Edmund Goulding; scr: Casey Robinson
The Rains Came
d: Clarence Brown; scr: Philip Dunne, Julien Josephson
La Règle du jeu / The Rules of the Game
d: Jean Renoir; scr: Jean Renoir, Carl Koch
The Roaring Twenties
d: Raoul Walsh; scr: Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay, Robert Rossen
The Women
d: George Cukor; scr: Anita Loos, Jane Murfin
Wuthering Heights
d: William Wyler; scr: Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur
 
CHECK [...]

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
CHECK THESE OUT
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 – 1935

Jean Harlow, Wallace Beery, Clark Gable in China Seas
FILM
Alice Adams
d: George Stevens; scr: Dorothy Yost, Mortimer Offner
China Seas
d: Tay Garnett; scr: Jules Furthman, James K. McGuinness
The Gay Deception
d: William Wyler; scr: Stephen Avery, Don Hartman
A Tale of Two Cities
d: Jack Conway; scr: W. P. Lipscomb, S. N. Behrman
The Whole Town’s Talking
d: John Ford; scr: Jo Swerling, Robert Riskin
 

Chico Marx, Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Allan Jones in A Night at the Opera
CHECK THESE OUT
Broadway Melody of 1936
d: Roy Del Ruth; scr: Jack McGowan, Sid Silvers
Lives of a Bengal Lancer
d: Henry Hathaway; scr: Waldemar Young, John L. Balderston, Achmed Abdullah
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
d: Max Reinhardt, William Dieterle; scr: Charles Kenyon, Mary C. McCall Jr.
A Night at the Opera
d: Sam [...]

Best Films – 1931

Willi Fritsch and Lilian Harvey in Congress Dances
FILM
À nous la liberté / Liberty for Us
d, scr: René Clair
City Streets
d: Rouben Mamoulian; scr: Max Marcin, Oliver H. P. Garrett, Dashiell Hammett
Daybreak
d: Jacques Feyder; scr: Ruth Cummings, Cyril Hume, Zelda Sears
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
d: Rouben Mamoulian; scr: Samuel Hoffenstein, Percy Heath
Five Star Final
d: Mervyn LeRoy; scr: Robert Lord, Byron Morgan
Der Kongreß tanzt / Congress Dances
d: Erik Charell; scr: Norbert Falk, Robert Liebmann
The Maltese Falcon / Dangerous Female
d: Roy del Ruth; scr: Maude Fulton, Lucien Hubbard, Brown Holmes
The New Adventures of Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford
d: Sam Wood; scr: Charles MacArthur
The Public Enemy
d: William A. Wellman; scr: Kubec F. Glasmon, [...]

Miriam Hopkins and Kate Morton’s THE SHIFTING FOG

Australian author Kate Morton’s bestselling novel The Shifting Fog (The House at Riverton in the US and the UK — see comment below) chronicles the emotional and romantic travails of two beautiful sisters from a declining aristocratic British family during the early 20th century.
The reason I’m posting a mention of The Shifting Fog has nothing to do with the plot or with author Morton or with a possible film adaptation of the novel. What matters here is the Australian book cover, which features a photo of Miriam Hopkins at her most glamorous.
Only yesterday, I posted a two-part interview with author Allan Ellenberger, who’s currently working on a Miriam Hopkins biography. Today, Allan sent me a link to a review [...]

Miriam Hopkins IV: Hollywood Blacklist, Bette Davis

Miriam Hopkins III: BECKY SHARP
Miriam Hopkins blacklisted during the post-war anti-Red hysteria? Why? And how come that fact — to the best of my knowledge — has never been discussed anywhere?
During the late ’30s and throughout the ’40s, Hopkins was involved with several political and social groups that were considered fronts for the Communist Party. These groups included the Motion Picture Democratic Committee (of which Hopkins was 2nd vice president) and the incendiary League of Women Shoppers.
In 1945, Louis Bundenz, a Communist Party functionary and the managing editor of the Daily Worker, renounced communism and in 1950 created a “List of 400 Concealed Communists” for the FBI. Miriam Hopkins was on that list. Of course she wasn’t [...]

Miriam Hopkins III: BECKY SHARP

Miriam Hopkins: Q&A with Allan Ellenberger Part II
Becky Sharp was the first feature film in three-strip Technicolor. Why was Miriam Hopkins selected for the title role? And what was filming like?
Hopkins was producer Jock Whitney’s choice for the role from the beginning; I’m not aware of anyone else being mentioned. However, she almost lost it when she couldn’t come to an agreement with RKO over her salary. The studio then considered replacing her with Myrna Loy (who had starred in a modern-day version in 1932) or Claudette Colbert, who turned down the role after reading the script. Finally, Hopkins and RKO came to terms and she was reinstated.
Jock Whitney and his Pioneer Pictures’ first attempt at Technicolor [...]

Miriam Hopkins: Q&A with Allan Ellenberger, Part II

Miriam Hopkins: Allan Ellenberger Interview Part I
I understand that Miriam Hopkins turned down a large number of parts. Could you name a few of those? And was there anything she felt sorry she missed out on — any part she rejected but then came to regret her decision, or any part she wanted to play but lost out to someone else?
[Photo: One role Miriam Hopkins accepted: the schoolteacher in These Three, opposite Merle Oberon.]
During her career, Hopkins was scheduled to appear in countless films that were never made, or the parts were given to another actress. Of course, it was a combination of her changing her mind about projects and in some cases the studio changing theirs. Some [...]

Miriam Hopkins: Allan Ellenberger Interview I

Fredric March, Miriam Hopkins in All of Me

Miriam Hopkins: Allan Ellenberger Interview Intro
First of all, why Miriam Hopkins?
The films she made with Bette Davis — The Old Maid (1939) and Old Acquaintance (1943) — first attracted me to Miriam Hopkins. Also, the stories of their purported feud and Davis’ virulent comments that she spouted forth during her last days piqued my interest. Davis has always been a favorite of mine, so anyone who could incur this diva’s wrath must have something going on. I also felt that Hopkins is one of the most underrated actresses from Hollywood’s golden era. Regardless of the quality of her vehicles, she always gave an interesting performance.
 
When people think of the major [...]

Miriam Hopkins: Q&A with Author Allan Ellenberger

Miriam Hopkins in a publicity shot for Becky Sharp

Miriam Hopkins.

If mentioned at all today, Miriam Hopkins‘ name pops up in the media for two reasons:

One of her movies is being shown on cable or at some retrospective or other, and someone says or writes that Old Hollywood’s Miriam Hopkins was a selfish, self-centered, megalomaniacal, scene-stealing, temperamental, fire-spitting Bitch from Hell who made life difficult for co-stars, directors, producers, writers, cameramen, hairdressers, manicurists, costume designers, studio carpenters, and special effects personnel, among others.
Miriam Hopkins was Bette Davis‘ Foremost Nemesis. Davis hated her so much, but so much, that Joan Crawford, Jack Warner, Errol Flynn, and whoever else Davis feuded & fought with during her sixty-year career were transmogrified into [...]

SAVAGE INTRUDER – Miriam Hopkins

Savage Intruder (1970)
Direction and Screenplay: Donald H. Wolfe. Cast: Miriam Hopkins, John David Garfield (aka David Garfield), Gale Sondergaard, Florence Lake, Lester Matthews, Joe Besser, Virginia Wing, Riza Royce, Charles Martin, Minta Durfee
 
Savage Intruder was filmed in 1970 but (briefly) released in 1974, and is also known as either Hollywood Horror House (the video edition) or The Comeback (its production title).
The film stars Miriam Hopkins, in her last big-screen role, as a drunken, washed-up Norma Desmond-ish movie queen living in a decaying mansion in the Hollywood Hills, watching her old movies while referring to herself in the third person.
John David Garfield (John Garfield’s son) plays the young psychopath who seduces her. Gale Sondergaard plays the mysterious housekeeper, Lez (that [...]

Rouben Mamoulian Retrospective at Film Forum

"Mamoulian," a complete retrospective of Hollywood director Rouben Mamoulian (1897-1987), one of cinema’s greatest stylists and innovators, will run at the Film Forum from Friday, September 7 through Tuesday, September 18.
As per the Film Forum’s press release, Mamoulian was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, to an Armenian family. He worked at the Moscow Art Theater while attending university, and, following a chance meeting with industrialist/philanthropist George Eastman (founder of the Kodak film company) he moved to Rochester, New York, to direct plays.
Shortly thereafter he was on Broadway, directing Dorothy and Dubose Heyward’s Porgy, which became the basis for George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, a musical that Mamoulian would also direct. [See Porgy and Bess screening in New York.]
That initial [...]

Miriam Hopkins Biography in the Works

Though relatively forgotten and, when remembered, usually dismissed as a second-rate talent (quite possibly by those who have never seen her on film), Miriam Hopkins was actually a highly capable performer who worked with some of the most renowned directors in Hollywood history — Rouben Mamoulian, Ernst Lubitsch, and William Wyler, among them.
Hopkins was also a household name in the 1930s, a time when she co-reigned, at least for a brief while early in the decade, as one of the Queens of Paramount.
Apart from the fact that time tends to dim memories, that most early Paramount films are shamefully unavailable (thanks to thoughtless executives at Universal, the studio that now owns most of the Paramount classics), and that most U.S. [...]

Recently Posted

• Oscar 2010: Animated Short Film Semi-Finalists
• Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Picture – Comedy or Musical
• Golden Globes 2010 Predictions: Best Picture - Drama
• Noel Clarke's ADULTHOOD on IFC Festival Direct
• Oscar 2010: Documentary Feature Semi-Finalists
• THE FUPLERS: Q&A with Matt Koval
• Yoav Shamir's DEFAMATION Opens in NY/LA
• TCM Classic Film Festival: A STAR IS BORN, METROPOLIS, BREATHLESS, 2001
• FOUR SEASONS LODGE Screenings
• Oscar 2010: Hash Hamilton to Direct Oscar Telecast

Most Popular Tags

2008 Oscar 2010 Oscar Academy Awards Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Animation Best Films Books Box Office Brokeback Mountain Censorship Classic Movies Daniel Day-Lewis Documentaries DVDs Film Awards Film Festivals Film Reviews Gay Film Festivals Gay Interest Gay Movies Heath Ledger Helen Mirren Interviews London Film Festival London Film Festival 2009 Los Angeles Screenings Martin Scorsese New York Screenings No Country for Old Men Oscar Movies Photos Political Movies Politics Sex Shorts Silent Films Slumdog Millionaire Sundance Film Festival Trailers Turner Classic Movies


Related Posts

Miriam Hopkins and Kate Morton’s THE SHIFTING FOGNancy Carroll at Shadow WaltzMiriam Hopkins IV: Hollywood Blacklist, Bette DavisAllan Ellenberger on Miriam HopkinsMiriam Hopkins: Allan Ellenberger Interview ISAVAGE INTRUDER – Miriam Hopkins