McLintock! (movie 1963): Loosely based on The Taming of the Shrew, this reactionary comedy Western marked the final pairing of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara.
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Hondo (movie 1953): John Farrow’s 3D Western provided future Best Actress Oscar winner Geraldine Page with her first major big-screen role. John Wayne costars as a ‘Shane’ type.
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Edward D. Wood Jr. (a.k.a. Ed Wood) has been labeled ‘The Worst Director of All Time.’ Yet the Grade-Z auteur whose credits include Plan 9 from Outer Space is now a cult favorite.
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Track of the Cat (movie 1954): William A. Wellman’s family drama is notable for its mostly prestigious cast and for its unconventional use of color. Robert Mitchum and Teresa Wright star.
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TCM Classic Film Festival: Angie Dickinson, Ann-Margret and Russ Tamblyn were among the celebrities in attendance, while screenings focused on Warner Bros.’ (official) centenary.
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Oscars’ Westerns: Turner Classic Movies’ ’31 Days of Oscar’ continues with 11 titles, including John Ford’s classic Stagecoach and the so-called Worst Best Picture Winner Ever.
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Oscars’ war movies: Turner Classic Movies’ monthlong Academy Award-themed series continues with nine features, including two Best Picture winners and three nominees.
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Gunga Din (movie 1939): George Stevens’ adventure pays homage to British colonialism while revamping The Front Page. Cary Grant and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. star.
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I Remember Mama (movie 1948): George Stevens’ nostalgic immigrant family drama provided veteran Irene Dunne with one of the best roles of her career. Barbara Bel Geddes costars.
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The first women filmmakers are the topic of Anthony Slide’s book The Silent Feminists. In a q&a with Alt Film Guide, the author and film historian discusses Weber, Arzner et al.
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Anthony Slide q+a: The film historian discusses his new anthology book The Truth at Twenty-Four Frames per Second. Topics range from Lillian Gish to Betty White.
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5 Nazi movies: Joseph Goebbels’ ‘Third Reich’ cinema - a crucial and extremely popular propaganda tool - promoted the White Nationalist German ethos in a variety of cinematic genres.
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10 examples of theocracy in movies and TV - from Quo Vadis to His Dark Materials - showcase the authoritarian communion between religion and government.
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Film historian Anthony Slide discusses the frenzied and once hugely popular ‘everyman’ British comedian Arthur Askey, who has finally become a biographical subject.
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Legendary Broadway actor John Barrymore also enjoyed an impressive and enduring - yet vastly undervalued - movie career in the 1920s and 1930s.
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Four-time Oscar-nominated Hollywood actress Barbara Stanwyck delivered many of the 20th century’s most captivating big-screen performances.
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Visions of the shattered American Dream in 2 ‘Arthur Miller movies’: The subversive family dramas All My Sons and Death of a Salesman.
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Best remembered for playing the creepy Omni chairman in RoboCop, Dan O’Herlihy was a one-of-a-kind Best Actor Oscar nominee during the studio era.
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Citizen Kane and Song of the South actress Ruth Warrick became All My Children snob Phoebe Tyler and a Confederate flag critic.
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Actress Sandra Dee is seen as a sweet-looking but gutsy rule-breaker in the 1959 blockbusters A Summer Place and Imitation of Life.
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In movies like the Oscar-nominated The Cardinal, actress Carol Lynley portrayed great-looking ‘girls-next-door’ who dared to defy social traditions.
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The Poseidon Adventure actress Carol Lynley should also be remembered for a landmark teen pregnancy drama and for a first-rate British thriller.
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As an RKO and MGM star, sassy blonde Ann Sothern had an unconventional professional trajectory: A and B movies in a decades-long film career that had no less than 2 peaks.
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In Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s ‘best bad movie,’ The Barefoot Contessa, Ava Gardner exudes a magnetic - and underrated - mix of glamour and charisma.
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Jimmy Stewart. ‘Jimmy’ Stewart: Unlikely Hollywood star enjoyed decades-long career in a variety of genres The personification of all-American aw-shucksiness – of the sort you find only in bad movies…
TCM Classic Film Festival: Filmmakers Steven Spielberg and Steven Soderbergh, and actor (and sometime director) George Clooney were among the Hollywood celebrities in attendance.
’31 Days of Oscar’: Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) series continues with an eclectic array of 12 comedies that (hopefully) will make you laugh while forcing you to ask some tough questions.
Alice Guy Blaché: The world’s first woman director is remembered in this q&a with film historian Anthony Slide, who also discusses the republication of her book of memoirs.
Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe joined forces on the problem-plagued The Misfits. See also: The playwright’s answer to Elia Kazan’s 1954 Oscar winner On the Waterfront.
Little Fugitive director Morris Engel was the post-WWII ‘Father of American Independent Cinema,’ inspiring John Cassavetes and the French New Wave.
Technicolor siren Virginia Mayo was most impressive as callous black-and-white women in films like The Best Years of Our Lives + White Heat.
Actress Ann Sothern enjoyed an unusual second career peak that included a top Oscar winner and decades later she became one of the oldest nominees.