Grace Kelly on TCM: REAR WINDOW, THE COUNTRY GIRL

James Stewart, Grace Kelly in Rear Window

Turner Classic Movies‘ Grace Kelly series continues this Thursday, Nov. 12, with three of Kelly’s biggest hits, all from 1954: Dial M for Murder, Rear Window, and The Country Girl. Kelly, who died in 1982 following a car accident in Monaco, would have turned 80 on Nov. 12.
Some consider Dial M for Murder a minor Alfred Hitchcock effort. Personally, I find it more enjoyable than Hitchcock’s revered Rear Window. Part of the reason is a pair of deadly scissors found in the former but not in the latter; yet, I’d say that the chief reason is that neither one of Kelly’s leading men in Dial M for Murder is James Stewart. Instead, [...]

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 [...]

Thelma Ritter

Thelma Ritter, Grace Kelly, James Stewart in Rear Window

Actress Thelma Ritter, who was born on Feb. 14, 1905, in Brooklyn, would have turned 101 years old today. Her film career began rather late — she was 42 when she made her film debut in a small role in The Miracle on 34th Street — but in a few years she was to become one of the best-known actresses in Hollywood, working mostly at 20th Century Fox.
Though never a star big enough to carry her own films, Ritter was what is referred to as a "star supporting player." She was honored with star billing every now and then, though her roles were subordinate to those of other players from whom [...]