A LADY TO LOVE – Edward G. Robinson, Vilma Banky

A Lady to Love (1930)
Direction: Victor Sjöström
Screenplay: Sidney Howard; based on his play They Knew What They Wanted
Cast: Vilma Banky, Edward G. Robinson, Robert Ames, Richard Carle, Lloyd Ingraham, Anderson Lawler
 

Edward G. Robinson, Robert Ames, Vilma Banky in A Lady to Love
 

Edward G. Robinson was only 37 years old when he gave this hammy, scene-stealing, over-the-top performance as Tony, a middle-aged Italian grape grower in Napa Valley, California, in Victor Sjöström’s A Lady to Love. Robinson is loud, peripatetic, hyperkinetic, and his accent sometimes sounds a bit too much like Chico Marx’s. But it all works. It’s believable and true, even if not always sympathetic.
When Tony notices a pretty blonde waitress, Lena (Vilma Banky), at a [...]

GONE WITH THE WIND Screening

"Hollywood’s Greatest Year: The Best Picture Nominees of 1939" is the title of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ summer series, which kicks off next Monday, May 18, with a big-screen presentation of Gone with the Wind.
"Hollywood’s Greatest Year" will showcase all of the best picture nominees from 1939, which many consider the best film year in Hollywood history. The 10-film 70th anniversary celebration runs through August 3. (Up to 1943, most years had 10 to 12 films nominated for the best picture Oscar.) All screenings will be held on Monday evenings at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The 1939 best picture Oscar nominees were:

May 18 [...]

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 [...]

Heath Ledger’s Potential Posthumous Oscar

Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight

With Heath Ledger in mind, Scott Feinberg remembers the various posthumous Oscar nominations and wins — 53 individuals for a total of 70 nominations and 13 wins, as per Feinberg’s count — in his Los Angeles Times blog:
"As you may recall, the announcement of last year’s Oscar nominations was quickly overshadowed by the tragic news that broke later that same day: Heath Ledger, the actor best known for his Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain (2005), had been found dead of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 28. It’s a terrible shame that Ledger will not be alive on nomination day this year, because his name [...]

Marie Dressler IV: DINNER AT 8, THE LATE CHRISTOPHER BEAN

Marie Dressler, Jean Harlow in Dinner at 8

Marie Dressler III: Wallace Beery, Polly Moran Comedies
Some reviewers have complained that Marie Dressler didn’t act. They say she overacted. What do you think?
Writing about her as an actress was tough, because there is no one remotely like her anymore. If you watch her performances today, you can see that she was a true-blue ham. And I can see how that would bother people, but for me it’s an essential part of her charm. If I settle into a Marie Dressler picture, I know I won’t get naturalism by today’s standards. Neither will I get fart jokes, horny frat boys, or mean-spirited mockery. Instead, Marie offered character-driven humor.
She played the charwoman [...]