Jack Lemmon, Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier on TCM

Ruby Dee, Sidney Poitier in A Raisin in the Sun

Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award winners Stan Laurel, Jack Lemmon, Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Kirk Douglas will be celebrated by Turner Classic Movies with a four-film presentation beginning at 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 22, the night before TCM’s sister networks TNT and TBS present a live simulcast of the 2010 Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Of the four films — the short Tit for Tat, and the features The Out-of-Towners, A Raisin in the Sun, and Last Train from Gun Hill — I’ve only seen the moderately entertaining John Sturges Western Last Train from Gun Hill, whose most memorable feature is Carolyn Jones as the female lead [...]

Sidney Poitier, Richard Widmark: NO WAY OUT Screening

Sidney Poitier, Richard Widmark in No Way Out

Ruby Dee will be the special guest at a screening of No Way Out (1950), part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Monday Nights with Oscar” series on September 21 at 7 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.
Film historian and scholar Foster Hirsch will host this celebration of the centennial of director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s birth and the recent gift of Mankiewicz’ papers to the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library.
In the socially conscious No Way Out, Richard Widmark plays a racist patient — and petty criminal — who, following his brother’s death, becomes intent on destroying the life [...]

Sidney Poitier on TCM

Sidney Poitier’s "Summer Under the Stars" day is Friday, Aug. 14.
Turner Classic Movies will have no Sidney Poitier premieres, but fans of the groundbreaking actor will have the opportunity to catch him in some of his most important roles.
Poitier’s acting always looked and sounded like Acting (capital "A") to me, while the characters he played tended to be much too stolidly dignified for my taste. Had I been Spencer Tracy in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner I’d have told my daughter to go find herself someone — whatever the skin color — less one-dimensionally perfect. And that’s why I’ve never been a Sidney Poitier fan. Yet, Poitier’s crucial role in film history is undeniable. Therefore, those unfamiliar with [...]

Sidney Poitier, Martin Landau, Ben Mankiewicz at Joseph L. Mankiewicz Salute

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented "An Academy Centennial Salute to Joseph L. Mankiewicz," on Thursday, May 21, 2009, at the Academy’s headquarters in Beverly Hills.
Pictured above at the reception for the event from left to right:
Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz (nephew); Sidney Poitier, who was featured in Mankiewicz’s 1950 drama No Way Out; Rosemary Mankiewicz (widow, seated); Martin Landau, who had a supporting role in Cleopatra; Academy president Sid Ganis; C.O "Doc" Erickson (seated), production manager during the making of Cleopatra; screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz (son), among whose credits are Diamonds Are Forever and Live and Let Die; and John Mankiewicz (nephew).
Photos: Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S.
Click on the photos [...]

Joseph L. Mankiewicz Centennial

Four-time Academy Award winner screenwriter-director-producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz will be saluted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with a special 50th anniversary screening of a recently restored print of Suddenly, Last Summer, starring Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor (above, and right, with Mankiewicz), and Montgomery Clift. The screening will take place on Thursday, May 21, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.
The evening will also celebrate the recent gift of the Joseph L. Mankiewicz Papers to the Academy’s Margaret Herrick Library. Turner Classic Movies host and The Young Turks co-creator Ben Mankiewicz, Joseph L.’s great nephew and grandson of Citizen Kane co-screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz, will host [...]