Constance Cummings: Actress went from minor, long-eyelashed Hollywood leading lady in Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra movies to starring in West End plays by Eugene O'Neill, Noël Coward and William Shakespeare. Constance Cummings: Vastly underrated actress should be better remembered Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades […]

Teresa Wright 'The Men' publicity shot. Teresa Wright-Samuel Goldwyn association comes to a nasty end (See preceding post: “Teresa Wright in 'The Best Years of Our Lives': Mammoth Blockbuster Was Career Highlight.”) Whether or not because she was aware that Enchantment wasn't going to be the hit she needed – […]

'The Best Years of Our Lives': Blockbuster with Michael Hall, Fredric March, Myrna Loy and Teresa Wright. Teresa Wright: Missing out on 'Duel in the Sun,' but scoring with 'The Best Years of Our Lives' (See previous post: “Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock Heroine in His […]

Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt,' facing serial killer Joseph Cotten. Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock heroine in the director's favorite film (See preceding article: “Teresa Wright: Actress Made Oscar History.”) After scoring with The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver, and The Pride of the Yankees, […]

Teresa Wright. Teresa Wright: Actress made Oscar history Teresa Wright, best remembered for her Oscar-winning performance in the World War II melodrama Mrs. Miniver and for her deceptively fragile, small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's mystery-drama Shadow of a Doubt, died at age 86 ten years ago (2005) – on March […]

'Some Like It Hot' with Marilyn Monroe: Partly shot at the United Artists Studios a.k.a. the Warner Hollywood Studios a.k.a. The Lot. Historic Warner Hollywood Studios to be torn down The historic Warner Hollywood Studios, currently known as The Lot, is to be torn down, reports the Los Angeles Times […]

Porgy and Bess with Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge: one of this year's additions to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry. Samuel Goldwyn's final production, the Otto Preminger-directed 1959 film version of George and Ira Gershwin, and DuBose Heyward's 1935 Broadway opera Porgy and Bess was a box office […]

Upon learning of author J.D. Salinger's death at the age of 91, I immediately thought of Phil Alden Robinson's Academy Award-nominated 1989 drama Field of Dreams, in which Kevin Costner's character sets out to find a reclusive writer played by James Earl Jones. In W.P Kinsella's novel Shoeless Joe, the […]

'Wuthering Heights' with Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier as star-crossed lovers Cathy Earnshaw and Heathcliff: Independent mogul Samuel Goldwyn's favorite among his movies. 'Wuthering Heights': 'Hollywood's Greatest Year' continues with Samuel Goldwyn's favorite among his films The 1939 Best Picture Oscar nominee Wuthering Heights – directed by William Wyler, and […]

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 film), Miriam Hopkins was actually a highly capable performer who worked with some of the most renowned directors in Hollywood history – Rouben Mamoulian, Ernst […]

'Porgy and Bess': Rare movie version of celebrated George Gershwin musical to be screened in New York (Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier in 'Porgy and Bess') The Samuel Goldwyn-produced, Otto Preminger-directed 1959 musical Porgy and Bess “was a much-touted, much-seen and in some quarters much-admired motion picture in its time,” […]