Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” is destined to be a classic in its own right, already garnering nearly half a billion dollars at the box office in under a week. The film, about a stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) in the grips of an existential crisis that sees her going to the Real World, is all manner of fun and wacky, with a number of Old Hollywood influences.
Gerwig herself has cited a number of features that either directly or indirectly inspired “Barbie,” starting with the 1939 Technicolor classic, “The Wizard of Oz.” That film, with its now iconic transition between Kansas and the land of Oz, no doubt factored into how the feature approaches color. The idea of a character transitioning from one world to another draws comparisons to “The Truman Show” and “Heaven Can Wait.”
Among the more nuanced, less obvious films, Gerwig took inspiration from “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,...
Gerwig herself has cited a number of features that either directly or indirectly inspired “Barbie,” starting with the 1939 Technicolor classic, “The Wizard of Oz.” That film, with its now iconic transition between Kansas and the land of Oz, no doubt factored into how the feature approaches color. The idea of a character transitioning from one world to another draws comparisons to “The Truman Show” and “Heaven Can Wait.”
Among the more nuanced, less obvious films, Gerwig took inspiration from “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,...
- 7/28/2023
- by Kristen Lopez
- The Wrap
MGM in 1940 was just the movie factory to turn out a smart, compact version of the Jane Austen novel, with Greer Garson in fine form and Laurence Olivier possibly slumming but also contributing a flawless performance. Robert Z. Leonard’s direction is invisible but does no harm; adaptors Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin telescope events and concoct an even happier ending, all with great skill. Sorry, despite persistent rumors, the story hasn’t a single zombie.
Pride and Prejudice
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 118 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ann Rutherford, Frieda Inescort, Edmund Gwenn, Heather Angel, Marsha Hunt.
Cinematography: Karl Freund
Film Editor: Robert Kern
Original Music: Herbert Stothart
Written by Aldous Huxley, Jane Murfin from the book by Jane Austen
Produced by Hunt Stromberg
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
I...
Pride and Prejudice
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 118 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ann Rutherford, Frieda Inescort, Edmund Gwenn, Heather Angel, Marsha Hunt.
Cinematography: Karl Freund
Film Editor: Robert Kern
Original Music: Herbert Stothart
Written by Aldous Huxley, Jane Murfin from the book by Jane Austen
Produced by Hunt Stromberg
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
I...
- 7/18/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
George Cukor’s rereleased firecracker comedy, with Rosalind Russell and Norma Shearer as ladies who lunch, is an exhilarating delight
‘It’s all about men!” said the tagline on the poster for this extraordinary, almost Dalíesque Hollywood comedy from 1939, now on rerelease, gallopingly directed by George Cukor and adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin from the stage play by Claire Boothe.
But there isn’t a single (or married) man in it. Every character on camera is female, and it’s an elegant whirl of moneyed and married Manhattan women: ladies who lunch off each other’s reputations in health salons and beauty parlours, participating in bizarre regimens and surreal treatments, breaking out firecracker dialogue and indiscreetly tattling about whose husbands are stepping out with shopgirls on the sly. But these gossips get karmically punished by having their own husbands pinched.
‘It’s all about men!” said the tagline on the poster for this extraordinary, almost Dalíesque Hollywood comedy from 1939, now on rerelease, gallopingly directed by George Cukor and adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin from the stage play by Claire Boothe.
But there isn’t a single (or married) man in it. Every character on camera is female, and it’s an elegant whirl of moneyed and married Manhattan women: ladies who lunch off each other’s reputations in health salons and beauty parlours, participating in bizarre regimens and surreal treatments, breaking out firecracker dialogue and indiscreetly tattling about whose husbands are stepping out with shopgirls on the sly. But these gossips get karmically punished by having their own husbands pinched.
- 8/16/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
By Todd Garbarini
Robert Z. Leonard’s 1940 film Pride and Predjudice, which stars Lawrence Olivier, Edmund Gwenn, Marsha Hunt, Greer Garson, and Maureen O’Sullivan, will be screened at the The Royale Laemmle Theater in Los Angeles. Based upon the novel by Jane Austen, the 118-minute film will be screened on Tuesday, December 8th, 2015 at 7:00 pm.
Actress Marsha Hunt, who played Mary Bennet in the film, is scheduled to appear in-person to discuss the film and answer audience questions.
From the press release:
This lush, Oscar-winning film from the heyday of MGM is the most entertaining of the many screen adaptations of Jane Austen’s best-loved novel. Laurence Olivier plays Mr. Darcy, Greer Garson is Elizabeth Bennet, and they give definitive performances as the archetypal battling lovers who set the model for almost every rom-com of the future. The supporting cast includes Edmund Gwenn, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver,...
Robert Z. Leonard’s 1940 film Pride and Predjudice, which stars Lawrence Olivier, Edmund Gwenn, Marsha Hunt, Greer Garson, and Maureen O’Sullivan, will be screened at the The Royale Laemmle Theater in Los Angeles. Based upon the novel by Jane Austen, the 118-minute film will be screened on Tuesday, December 8th, 2015 at 7:00 pm.
Actress Marsha Hunt, who played Mary Bennet in the film, is scheduled to appear in-person to discuss the film and answer audience questions.
From the press release:
This lush, Oscar-winning film from the heyday of MGM is the most entertaining of the many screen adaptations of Jane Austen’s best-loved novel. Laurence Olivier plays Mr. Darcy, Greer Garson is Elizabeth Bennet, and they give definitive performances as the archetypal battling lovers who set the model for almost every rom-com of the future. The supporting cast includes Edmund Gwenn, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver,...
- 12/1/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...
- 9/4/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Hattie McDaniel: Oscar winner on TCM tonight One of the best and, despite nearly 100 film appearances, most poorly utilized actresses of the studio era was Hattie McDaniel, Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" featured player today, August 20, 2013. Right now, TCM is showing Gone with the Wind (1939), the movie that earned McDaniel — as Scarlett O’Hara’s Mammy — the year’s history-making Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. She was the first black performer to take home an Oscar; in her (reportedly) studio-prepared Oscar acceptance speech, McDaniel hoped to “always be a credit to my race and to the motion picture industry.” And in my view, she remains among the most well-deserved winners, regardless of skin color. (See also: “Hattie McDaniel Oscar Speech.”) (Photo: Hattie McDaniel ca. 1930s.) Hattie McDaniel movies: ‘Show Boat,’ ‘Alice Adams’ Two other movies showcasing Hattie McDaniel’s talents will follow Gone with the Wind: Show Boat and Alice Adams.
- 8/21/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Paulette Goddard, Modern Times Paulette Goddard on TCM Part I: Modern Times, Reap The Wild Wind I've never watched Alexander Korda's British-made An Ideal Husband, a 1948 adaptation (by Lajos Biro) of Oscar Wilde's play, but it should be at least worth a look. The respectable cast includes Michael Wilding, Diana Wynyard, C. Aubrey Smith, Hugh Williams, Constance Collier, and Glynis Johns. George Cukor's film version of Clare Boothe Luce's hilarious The Women ("officially" adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin) is definitely worth numerous looks; once or twice or even three times isn't/aren't enough to catch the machine-gun dialogue spewed forth by the likes of Goddard, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Mary Boland, Phyllis Povah, Lucile Watson, et al. A big hit at the time, The Women actually ended up in the red because of its high cost. Norma Shearer, aka The Widow Thalberg, was the nominal star; curiously,...
- 8/2/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
hollywoodnews.com:Emmy Award-winning Murphy Brown creator Diane English has been named recipient of the Writers Guild of America, West’s 2011 Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television, honoring lifetime achievement for outstanding television writing. English will be feted, along with other honorees, at the 2011 Writers Guild Awards West Coast ceremony on Saturday, February 5, 2011, in Hollywood.
“Diane English is a total class act – a trailblazing, supremely talented writer whose groundbreaking body of work has helped to both equalize and revolutionize television, while raising the bar for insightful, caustic, and moving writing on primetime TV. Her unique voice influenced not only a generation of women writers, but all creative artists who strive to deliver quality work,” said Wgaw President John Wells.
A Wgaw member since 1977, multiple award-winning writer-producer English first began her career at Wnet/13, New York City’s PBS affiliate. She worked first as a story editor for the Theatre in America series,...
“Diane English is a total class act – a trailblazing, supremely talented writer whose groundbreaking body of work has helped to both equalize and revolutionize television, while raising the bar for insightful, caustic, and moving writing on primetime TV. Her unique voice influenced not only a generation of women writers, but all creative artists who strive to deliver quality work,” said Wgaw President John Wells.
A Wgaw member since 1977, multiple award-winning writer-producer English first began her career at Wnet/13, New York City’s PBS affiliate. She worked first as a story editor for the Theatre in America series,...
- 1/20/2011
- by HollywoodNews.com
- Hollywoodnews.com
The Rules of the Game by Jean Renoir Film Gone with the Wind d: Victor Fleming; scr: Sidney Howard Le Jour se lève / Daybreak d: Marcel Carné; scr: Jacques Viot, Jacques Prévert Midnight d: Mitchell Leisen; scr: Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett Mr. Smith Goes to Washington d: Frank Capra; scr: Sidney Buchman Ninotchka d: Ernst Lubitsch; scr: Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, Walter Reisch The Old Maid d: Edmund Goulding; scr: Casey Robinson The Rains Came d: Clarence Brown; scr: Philip Dunne, Julien Josephson La Règle du jeu / The Rules of the Game d: Jean Renoir; scr: Jean Renoir, Carl Koch The Women d: George Cukor; scr: Anita Loos, Jane Murfin Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon in Wuthering Heights Check These Out Bachelor Mother d: Garson Kanin; scr: Norman Krasna Beau Geste d: William A. Wellman; scr: Robert Carson Hello Janine d: Carl Boese; scr: Hans Fritz Beckmann, Karl Georg Külb The...
- 5/10/2009
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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