’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.
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Miriam Hopkins interview with biographer Allan Ellenberger: Talented + mercurial actress was ‘Hollywood Rebel’ or ‘Magnificent Bitch’?
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The Doll (movie 1919) review: Ernst Lubitsch satire features incredibly inventive production design. Ossi Oswalda (‘the German Mary Pickford’) and Hermann Thimig stars.
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Ernst Lubitsch movies’ subtle touch now passé in our age of sledgehammer filmmaking but The Student Prince and The Merry Widow still delight.
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Claudette Colbert and Maurice Chevalier in The Smiling Lieutenant. Claudette Colbert movies: From ‘The Smiling Lieutenant’ to ‘Skylark’ Claudette Colbert, the studio era’s perky, independent-minded – and French-born – “all-American”…
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Ramon Novarro ca. 1925. Ramon Novarro: Mexican-born actor was first Latin American Hollywood superstar Mexican-born actor Ramon Novarro, the original Ben-Hur and one of MGM’s biggest stars of the late…
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The Loves of Pharaoh (movie 1922) review: Future Best Actor Oscar winner Emil Jannings chews the scenery in this disappointing Ernst Lubitsch epic. Dagny Servaes and Harry Liedtke costar.
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Royal romance movies: Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer discover sprightly love and excruciating heartbreak in Ernst Lubitsch’s 1927 silent classic The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg. As a William &…
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The Merry Widow with Jeanette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier. The Merry Widow is neither one of Ernst Lubitsch’s most discussed nor best-liked films. Film critics and historians generally tend to…
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Mexican actors: Durango-born Ramon Novarro, Canadian Norma Shearer, and Dane Jean Hersholt in the German Ernst Lubitsch’s The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg. Turner Classic Movies’ Hispanic Heritage Month celebration…
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Actress Miriam Hopkins: Early image courtesy of Allan Ellenberger. Miriam Hopkins, one of the most underrated performers of the studio era, will have her “Summer Under the Stars” day on…
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Ninotchka with Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas, will be screened as the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts…
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Lady Windermere’s Fan with Irene Rich. Bert Lytell is the nice husband, May McAvoy the jealous wife, Ronald Colman the other man, and Irene Rich the scene stealer in Ernst…
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Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey, with William Powell. When I think of Carole Lombard, the first thing that comes to mind – well, the second, after her ditzy heiress…
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The 2007 San Francisco Silent Film Festival (SFSFF) will be held at the Castro Theatre on July 13–15. Among the festival’s highlights are: Ernst Lubitsch’s The Student Prince in Old…
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Jessie Matthews in the musical First a Girl: Victor Victoria precursor. The bfi is currently presenting a Jessie Matthews retrospective, which ends on March 11. From Richard Stirling’s bfi article: “Few stories…
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Pola Negri in Madame Dubarry / Passion with Emil Jannings. New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (website) is currently presenting “Pola Negri: Life Is a Dream,” a week-long retrospective on…
Gary Cooper Movies: Playing Lover-Daddy to Joan Leslie, Audrey Hepburn in two of the weakest (but successful) films of his career.
Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell in 7th Heaven, which helped – along with Sunrise and Street Angel – to earn Gaynor the first-ever Best Actress Academy Award. Frank Borzage’s 7th…
The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg with Ramon Novarro and Norma Shearer. The theme of a prince who gives up the girl he loves in order to fulfill his royal…
Miriam Hopkins: Becky Sharp star. Remembering Miriam Hopkins Although relatively forgotten and, when remembered, usually dismissed as a second-rate talent (quite possibly by those who have never seen her on…
One of the highlights of this year’s San Sebastian International Film Festival (website) is a mouth-wateringly thorough Ernst Lubitsch Retrospective. (Image: Angel, with Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, and Melvyn Douglas.)…