Bette Midler at THE ROSE Screening
Mark Rydell will take part in an onstage discussion following the 30th anniversary screening of The Rose on Friday, September 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. (Bette Midler was scheduled to attend, but has had to cancel her appearance at the screening.)
Inspired by the wild life and times of Janis Joplin, The Rose chronicles the rise and fall of late ’60s rock star Mary Rose Foster (Midler), who is used by her self-serving manager (Alan Bates at his slimiest); loved by a just-folksy, Starred-and-Striped limo driver (Frederic Forrest); and who eventually comes to the realization that [...]
by Andre Soares | August 25, 2009
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Tags: Alan Bates, Bette Midler, Classic Movies, Los Angeles Screenings, Mark Rydell, Musicals, Oscar 1979, Oscar Movies, The Rose
THE MERRY WIDOW d: Ernst Lubitsch
The Merry Widow (1934)
Direction: Ernst Lubitsch
Screenplay: Ernest Vajda and Samson Raphaelson; from Franz Lehár’s operetta
Cast: Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald, Edward Everett Horton, Una Merkel, George Barbier, Minna Gombell, Sterling Holloway
The Merry Widow is not one of Ernst Lubitsch’s most discussed films. Critics generally tend to focus on his early Paramount talkies, such as One Hour with You (co-directed by George Cukor) and Trouble in Paradise, and his later comedies Ninotchka and To Be or Not to Be.
Yet, The Merry Widow is a superior musical, boasting sumptuous sets (production design by Cedric Gibbons), exquisite cinematography (courtesy of Oliver T. Marsh), a magnificently staged ballroom-dancing sequence, witty lines and situations (by Lubitsch collaborators Samson Raphaelson and Ernest Vajda, from Franz Lehár’s operetta), [...]
by Andre Soares | April 14, 2009
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Tags: Cedric Gibbons, Classic Movies, Comedies, Ernst Lubitsch, Five-Star Movies, Five-Star Oscar Nominees, Franz Lehar, Jeanette MacDonald, Maurice Chevalier, Musicals, Oscar 1934, Oscar Movies, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Romantic Movies, Samson Raphaelson, The Merry Widow, Una Merkel
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
MY FAIR LADY, THE GREAT RACE Screening
My Fair Lady (1964) and The Great Race (1965) will be screened at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Linwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood on Friday, March 27, and Saturday, March 28, respectively. Screenings will begin at 8 p.m. The programs are being presented by the Academy’s Science and Technology Council in conjunction with its "Dressed in Color: The Costumes exhibition," which includes costumes from both films.
Though its reputation in critical circles has somewhat faded in the last four and a half decades, I find George Cukor’s film adaptation of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s My Fair Lady one of the top ten Best Picture Oscar winners — and this [...]
by Andre Soares | March 20, 2009
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Tags: Classic Movies, Comedies, Los Angeles Screenings, Musicals
WERE THE WORLD MINE: Q&A with Tom Gustafson
Nathaniel David Becker, Tanner Cohen in Were the World Mine
Just last week, I watched the romantic, dramatic-comedy musical Were the World Mine from beginning to end for the third time. (I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched just the way-out-there — as in Queen meets Rocky Horror — musical numbers.)
Co-written by partners Cory James Krueckeberg and Tom Gustafson — inspired by Gustafson’s 2003 short Faeries and by William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream — and directed by Gustafson, Were the World Mine tells the story of a small-town teen, Timothy (Tanner Cohen), the ostracized gay guy inevitably in love with the captain of his school’s rugby team, Jonathon (Nathaniel David Becker).
Initially, Timothy’s sole means of escape from [...]
by Andre Soares | December 2, 2008
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Tags: Brad Bukauskas, Gay Interest, Gay Movies, Jill Larson, Judy McLane, Musicals, Nathaniel David Becker, Tanner Cohen, Tom Gustafson, Wendy Robie, Were the World Mine
Howard Keel
Actor Howard Keel, best known for his MGM musicals of the 1950s, died on November 7 in Palm Desert, in Southern California. Keel, who had been suffering from colon cancer, was 85 years old.
He was born in 1919 in Gillespie, Illinois, as Harold Clifford Leek, but had his name changed when he was hired by MGM in the 1940s following a stint in Broadway musicals. The studio’s own musicals were then at the height of their popularity and prestige, and Keel was set to start at the top: playing opposite Judy Garland (as Annie Oakley) in Annie Get Your Gun. Garland eventually dropped out, being replaced by Betty Hutton (borrowed from Paramount), but Keel remained the leading man in what [...]
by Andre Soares | November 8, 2004
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Tags: Annie Get Your Gun, Betty Hutton, Callaway Went Thatway, Classic Movies, Howard Keel, Jane Powell, Kathryn Grayson, Kiss Me Kate, Musicals, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Show Boat
