WUTHERING HEIGHTS Screening
The 1939 Best Picture nominee Wuthering Heights, directed by William Wyler, and starring Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier, will be the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ series “Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939.” The Wuthering Heights screening will take place on Monday, June 8, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
Starting at 7 p.m., the feature will be preceded by the fourth chapter of the 1939 serial Buck Rogers, starring Buster Crabbe and Constance Moore, and the animated short The Pointer, starring Mickey Mouse and Pluto.
According to Samuel Goldwyn biographer A. Scott Berg, Wuthering Heights was the producer’s favorite among his films. [...]
by Andre Soares | June 3, 2009
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Tags: A. Scott Berg, Academy Awards, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Alfred Newman, Ben Hecht, Buck Rogers, Buster Crabbe, Charles MacArthur, Charlotte Brontë, Classic Movies, Constance Moore, David Copperfield, David Niven, David O. Selznick, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Emily Brontë, Flora Robson, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Gone with the Wind, Gregg Toland, Greta Garbo, James Basevi, Jane Eyre, John Gilbert, Laurence Olivier, Little Women, Los Angeles Screenings, Merle Oberon, Mickey Mouse, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Myron Selznick, Oscar 1939, Pluto, Queen Christina, Robert Newton, Samuel Goldwyn, Sylvia Sidney, The Pointer, Vivien Leigh, William Wyler, Wuthering Heights
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 [...]
by Andre Soares | January 9, 2009
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Tags: Allan Ellenberger, Becky Sharp, Cedric Hardwicke, Classic Movies, Edward G. Robinson, Fredric March, Interviews, Lowell Sherman, Miriam Hopkins, Rouben Mamoulian, Samuel Goldwyn
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 [...]
by Andre Soares | January 9, 2009
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Tags: Allan Ellenberger, Anatole Litvak, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, Classic Movies, Ernst Lubitsch, Gone with the Wind, Interviews, Jack Warner, Margaret Mitchell, Miriam Hopkins, Samuel Goldwyn, Virginia City
Virginia Mayo
Virginia Mayo, the star of several Technicolor productions of the 1940s and 1950s, died today at a nursing home in the Los Angeles suburb of Thousand Oaks. Mayo, who was 84, had been in poor health since contracting pneumonia a year ago.
Beginning her career as a chorus girl, the honey-blonde Virginia Mayo (born Virginia Clara Jones on Nov. 30, 1920, in St. Louis, Missouri) soon became one of the leading exponents of Technicolored female beauty during the post-World War II era. Never a great actress, she was always interesting to look at. And if her performances lacked warmth, Mayo exuded more than enough sultriness to compensate for that deficiency.
Initially a Samuel Goldwyn contract player, Mayo went from bit parts [...]
