Carol Lynley: In her heyday, the Blue Denim, Bunny Lake Is Missing, and The Poseidon Adventure actress was often cast as dreamy girl-next-door types willing and able to tear down the walls of social conventions. In all, throughout her 45-year big-screen career, Carol Lynley was…
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Ann Sothern: Actress in Maisie movie series enjoyed two Hollywood career peaks. Ann Sothern, an actress in Hollywood and, somewhat briefly, on Broadway since the late 1920s, became a star in 1939, courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Edwin L. Marin-directed low-budget comedy Maisie. That led to the…
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Ann Sothern. Although never a superstar, Ann Sothern was billed above the title in a series of comedies, musicals, and dramas of the 1940s and early 1950s, mostly at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Today perhaps chiefly associated with MGM’s Maisie comedy series (1939–1947), Sothern was actually featured in…
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Ava Gardner: The Barefoot Contessa, Mogambo, and Earthquake actress. In Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s (partly) Rita Hayworth-inspired The Barefoot Contessa, Ava Gardner discovers that the life of a noblewoman is not what it’s cracked up to be. Julie Christie, who apparently didn’t watch the 1954 release,…
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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 and bad literature – James Stewart, fondly remembered by some as “Jimmy Stewart,” was one…
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Lena Horne. Lena Horne movies: Velvety-voiced singer generally relegated to specialty numbers during heyday of the Hollywood musical Had things been different, it’s anybody’s guess whether or not three-time Grammy winner Lena Horne, Turner Classic Movies’ “Summer Under the Stars” performer of the day (Aug.…
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Melvyn Douglas. Melvyn Douglas: From suave leading man to Hollywood’s top female stars to first-rate dramatic actor Unlike Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, or Gary Cooper, Melvyn Douglas couldn’t exactly be considered a handsome, matinee idol type. Unlike Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, or Spencer Tracy,…
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The Music Man with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones: Independence Day movies. Numerous Hollywood musicals have attempted to capture that elusive, reality-averse quality known as “Americana-ness” – e.g., Yankee Doodle Dandy, Meet Me in St. Louis, In the Good Old Summertime, On Moonlight Bay, By…
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John Paul Jones with Robert Stack: 4th of July movies. Although every sign indicates that 2019 is the new 1984, those in the U.S. shouldn’t fret: TCM’s 4th of July movies will transport viewers to the distant past, when there was no climate crisis (or…
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Kay Francis. Kay Francis revisited: One of the brightest & most underrated Hollywood stars of the 1930s Kay Francis is the star of the day (April 9) on Turner Classic Movies, which is presenting 10 of her films. One of the biggest Hollywood names of…
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John Boles. Actor & singer John Boles remembered On March 4, Turner Classic Movies is remembering actor-singer John Boles, a name that even the majority of film historians and connoisseurs will likely have trouble recognizing. Yet John Boles – who could both act and sing…
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Updated: Following a couple of Julie London Westerns*, Turner Classic Movies will return to its July 2017 Star of the Month presentations. This evening, July 27, Ronald Colman can be seen in five titles from his later years: A Double Life, Random Harvest (1942), The…
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Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies’ July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM presented five Colman star vehicles…
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(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you’re watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there’s the following: Peter H. Hunt’s 1776 (1972),…
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Fourth of July movies: A few recommended titles that should help you temporarily escape current global madness Two thousand and seventeen has been a weirder-than-usual year on the already pretty weird Planet Earth. Unsurprisingly, this Fourth of July, the day the United States celebrates its…
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Turner Classic Movies’ 2017 Gay Pride film series comes to a close this evening and tomorrow morning, Thursday–Friday, June 29–30, with the presentation of seven movies, hosted by TV interviewer Dave Karger and author William J. Mann, whose books include Wisecracker: The Life and Times…