The first half of the 20th century is often referred to as the Golden Age of Hollywood. But this distinction overlooks the abusive conditions forced upon actors of all ages. Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney were given large amounts of drugs to keep up with their intense shooting schedule when they were still children. Both actors had historic careers in the industry, but they were also damaged by these experiences in heartbreaking ways.
Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney were MGM’s premier child stars (L-r): American actors Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland hug and look at the camera with surprised expressions, in a promotional portrait for director George B. Seitz’s film, ‘Love Finds Andy Hardy.’ | Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Rooney appeared in his first film role at 6 in the short film Not to be Trusted. He soon rose to prominence. Rooney’s early big roles include the titular...
Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney were MGM’s premier child stars (L-r): American actors Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland hug and look at the camera with surprised expressions, in a promotional portrait for director George B. Seitz’s film, ‘Love Finds Andy Hardy.’ | Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Rooney appeared in his first film role at 6 in the short film Not to be Trusted. He soon rose to prominence. Rooney’s early big roles include the titular...
- 3/26/2023
- by Sam Hines
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
So much time, so few movies to see. Scratch that. Reverse it.
Running a little later than usual this year, the 2018 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival gets under way this coming Thursday, screening approximately 88 films and special programs over the course of the festival’s three-and-a-half days, beginning Thursday evening, and no doubt about it, this year’s schedule, no less than any other year, will lay out a banquet for classic film buffs, casual film fans and harder-core cinephiles looking for the opportunity to see long-time favorites as well as rare and unusual treats on the big screen. I’ve attended every festival since its inaugural run back in 2010, and since then if I have not reined in my enthusiasm for the festival and being given the opportunity to attend it every year, then I have at least managed to lasso my verbiage. That first year I wrote about...
Running a little later than usual this year, the 2018 Turner Classic Movies Film Festival gets under way this coming Thursday, screening approximately 88 films and special programs over the course of the festival’s three-and-a-half days, beginning Thursday evening, and no doubt about it, this year’s schedule, no less than any other year, will lay out a banquet for classic film buffs, casual film fans and harder-core cinephiles looking for the opportunity to see long-time favorites as well as rare and unusual treats on the big screen. I’ve attended every festival since its inaugural run back in 2010, and since then if I have not reined in my enthusiasm for the festival and being given the opportunity to attend it every year, then I have at least managed to lasso my verbiage. That first year I wrote about...
- 4/23/2018
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Gabriel Over the White House
DVD-r
The Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 86, 102 min. / Street Date October 20, 2009 / available through the Warner Archive Collection / 17.99
Starring: Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron, Dickie Moore, C. Henry Gordon, David Landau, Samuel S. Hinds, Jean Parker, Mischa Auer.
Cinematography: Bert Glennon
Film Editor: Basil Wrangell
Original Music: Dr. William Axt
Written by: Carey Wilson, from a book by T. F. Tweed
Produced by: William Randolph Hearst, Walter Wanger
Directed by Gregory La Cava
A Review Revisit.
The unique political fantasy Gabriel Over the White House has become painfully topical lately. This is an update of a 2009 review. To my knowledge nothing has changed with the product — I saw a re-promotion of Twilight Time’s 1984 disc and thought, Gabriel is twice as relevant and at least as scary.
Unstable times in America have produced some pretty strange political-religious message pictures.
DVD-r
The Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 86, 102 min. / Street Date October 20, 2009 / available through the Warner Archive Collection / 17.99
Starring: Walter Huston, Karen Morley, Franchot Tone, Arthur Byron, Dickie Moore, C. Henry Gordon, David Landau, Samuel S. Hinds, Jean Parker, Mischa Auer.
Cinematography: Bert Glennon
Film Editor: Basil Wrangell
Original Music: Dr. William Axt
Written by: Carey Wilson, from a book by T. F. Tweed
Produced by: William Randolph Hearst, Walter Wanger
Directed by Gregory La Cava
A Review Revisit.
The unique political fantasy Gabriel Over the White House has become painfully topical lately. This is an update of a 2009 review. To my knowledge nothing has changed with the product — I saw a re-promotion of Twilight Time’s 1984 disc and thought, Gabriel is twice as relevant and at least as scary.
Unstable times in America have produced some pretty strange political-religious message pictures.
- 2/4/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Anne Marie is tracking Judy Garland's career through musical numbers...
At age 16, Judy Garland already had six pictures and three years as a studio contract player under her belt. Judy's seventh picture would reteam her with Mickey Rooney for her first in many guest appearances in the wildly popular Andy Hardy series. Judy was worked hard - rumors of how hard include studio "medication" and rigid diets - and over the course of her MGM career she would average 3 pictures per year. The result was studio stardom at the expense of self. But incredibly, she never showed it when she sang.
The Movie: Love Finds Andy Hardy (MGM 1938)
The Songwriter: Roger Edens
The Players: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Lana Turner, Lewis Stone, Fay Holden directed by George B. Seitz
The Story: Young Judy was on a roll, but her biggest smashes were still to come. After the success of Thoroughbreds Don't Cry,...
At age 16, Judy Garland already had six pictures and three years as a studio contract player under her belt. Judy's seventh picture would reteam her with Mickey Rooney for her first in many guest appearances in the wildly popular Andy Hardy series. Judy was worked hard - rumors of how hard include studio "medication" and rigid diets - and over the course of her MGM career she would average 3 pictures per year. The result was studio stardom at the expense of self. But incredibly, she never showed it when she sang.
The Movie: Love Finds Andy Hardy (MGM 1938)
The Songwriter: Roger Edens
The Players: Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Lana Turner, Lewis Stone, Fay Holden directed by George B. Seitz
The Story: Young Judy was on a roll, but her biggest smashes were still to come. After the success of Thoroughbreds Don't Cry,...
- 2/17/2016
- by Anne Marie
- FilmExperience
With Hugh Jackman currently negotiating to play Wolverine for a seventh and eighth time, Cinelinx takes a look at actors who’ve played the same role eight times or more. Who has played the same character most often? Come in and find out.
Hugh Jackman has already played Wolverine five times--x-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (2003) X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), and The Wolverine (2013)—as well as a cameo in X-Men:First Class (2011). Soon we’ll be seeing him fully clawed again on the big screen in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Recently, he told Collider that he might shoot Wolverine 3 and X-Men: Apocalypse “back-to-back”, which would make a total of eight times (9 times with the cameo) that he’ll portray the Canadian mutant.
You might be thinking “Wow! That’s amazing! I’ve never heard of anyone playing the same role so many times.” Well, for those who may not know it,...
Hugh Jackman has already played Wolverine five times--x-Men (2000), X2: X-Men United (2003) X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), and The Wolverine (2013)—as well as a cameo in X-Men:First Class (2011). Soon we’ll be seeing him fully clawed again on the big screen in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Recently, he told Collider that he might shoot Wolverine 3 and X-Men: Apocalypse “back-to-back”, which would make a total of eight times (9 times with the cameo) that he’ll portray the Canadian mutant.
You might be thinking “Wow! That’s amazing! I’ve never heard of anyone playing the same role so many times.” Well, for those who may not know it,...
- 5/13/2014
- by feeds@cinelinx.com (Rob Young)
- Cinelinx
Mickey Rooney dead at 93: Four-time Oscar nominee, frequent Judy Garland co-star may have had the longest film career ever (photo: Mickey Rooney ca. 1940) Mickey Rooney, four-time Academy Award nominee and one of the biggest domestic box-office draws during the studio era, died of "natural causes" on Sunday, April 6, 2014, at his home in the Los Angeles suburb of North Hollywood. The Brooklyn-born Rooney (as Joseph Yule Jr., on September 23, 1920) had reportedly been in ill health for some time. He was 93. Besides his countless movies, and numerous television and stage appearances, Mickey Rooney was also known for his stormy private life, which featured boozing and gambling, some widely publicized family infighting (including his testifying in Congress in 2011 about elder abuse), his filing for bankruptcy in 1962 after having earned a reported $12 million (and then going bankrupt again in 1996), his eight marriages — including those to actresses Ava Gardner, Martha Vickers, and Barbara Ann Thomason...
- 4/9/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
It's with saddened hearts we report the loss of another acting legend, Mickey Rooney, who passed away in his North Hollywood home on Sunday in the presence of his family at the age of 93. Although he continued to act and appear in movies up until recently, making a cameo in the 2011 movie The Muppets , Rooney began working from the age of six when he appeared in a series of black and white short film comedies as Mickey McGuire, a role he would play for nearly nine years. He transitioned from that role into that of Andy Hardy in 1937's A Family Affair and You're Only Young Once , a character he would play for 14 more movies, including 1937's Love Finds Andy Hardy , co-starring Judy Garland. Rooney would once again team with Garland for 1940's Babes in Arms for which...
- 4/7/2014
- Comingsoon.net
Legendary actor Mickey Rooney died Sunday in Los Angeles, Calif. He was 93.
Mickey Rooney Dies
The Brooklyn-born Rooney, who got his first acting gig at just 17 months old, is best known for the series of Andy Hardy films that came out in the 1930s. Starring alongside Judy Garland, Rooney became the most bankable actor throughout the Depression-era. Among the Andy Hardy films were, Love Finds Andy Hardy, Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante and Love Laughs at Andy Hardy.
Following his incredible success at such a young age, Rooney struggled to remain a major player in Hollywood as an adult. In the 50s, there was the short-lived TV series, The Mickey Rooney Show that lasted just two years in which he played Mickey Mulligan. He had another TV vehicle in the 60s titled simply Mickey that lasted for 16 episodes.
Rooney went on to get minor parts in films,...
Mickey Rooney Dies
The Brooklyn-born Rooney, who got his first acting gig at just 17 months old, is best known for the series of Andy Hardy films that came out in the 1930s. Starring alongside Judy Garland, Rooney became the most bankable actor throughout the Depression-era. Among the Andy Hardy films were, Love Finds Andy Hardy, Andy Hardy Gets Spring Fever, Andy Hardy Meets Debutante and Love Laughs at Andy Hardy.
Following his incredible success at such a young age, Rooney struggled to remain a major player in Hollywood as an adult. In the 50s, there was the short-lived TV series, The Mickey Rooney Show that lasted just two years in which he played Mickey Mulligan. He had another TV vehicle in the 60s titled simply Mickey that lasted for 16 episodes.
Rooney went on to get minor parts in films,...
- 4/7/2014
- Uinterview
"There isn't any such thing in the world as a bad boy."
Even people who haven't seen "Boys Town" know Spencer Tracy's line, in character as Father Edward Flanagan, as the credo of the real Boys Town, the institution renowned for its care of orphaned and troubled kids. The classic movie, released 75 years ago this week (on September 9, 1938), was a huge hit, a milestone in the careers of Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, and an inspiration to wayward kids and those who would help them, all over the country.
As beloved as the movie has been for generations, there's still plenty you may not know about it -- how it almost didn't get released, how Tracy's Oscar victory almost turned into a publicity nightmare, and how the movie almost did more harm than good to the real Boys Town.
Read on for 25 true tales behind the making of "Boys Town.
Even people who haven't seen "Boys Town" know Spencer Tracy's line, in character as Father Edward Flanagan, as the credo of the real Boys Town, the institution renowned for its care of orphaned and troubled kids. The classic movie, released 75 years ago this week (on September 9, 1938), was a huge hit, a milestone in the careers of Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, and an inspiration to wayward kids and those who would help them, all over the country.
As beloved as the movie has been for generations, there's still plenty you may not know about it -- how it almost didn't get released, how Tracy's Oscar victory almost turned into a publicity nightmare, and how the movie almost did more harm than good to the real Boys Town.
Read on for 25 true tales behind the making of "Boys Town.
- 9/9/2013
- by Gary Susman
- Moviefone
Oscar winners Olivia de Havilland and Luise Rainer among movie stars of the 1930s still alive With the passing of Deanna Durbin this past April, only a handful of movie stars of the 1930s remain on Planet Earth. Below is a (I believe) full list of surviving Hollywood "movie stars of the 1930s," in addition to a handful of secondary players, chiefly those who achieved stardom in the ensuing decade. Note: There’s only one male performer on the list — and curiously, four of the five child actresses listed below were born in April. (Please scroll down to check out the list of Oscar winners at the 75th Academy Awards, held on March 23, 2003, as seen in the picture above. Click on the photo to enlarge it. © A.M.P.A.S.) Two-time Oscar winner and London resident Luise Rainer (The Great Ziegfeld, The Good Earth, The Great Waltz), 103 last January...
- 5/7/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Have you ever wondered what are the films that inspire the next generation of visionary filmmakers? As part of our monthly Ioncinephile profile (read here), we ask the filmmaker the incredibly arduous task of identifying their top ten list of favorite films. This month we get not ten, but 15 and styled in a countdown manner from David Robert Mitchell, the filmmaker behind The Myth of the American Sleepover. This is what he said about the task at hand. "My Top Fifteen Favorite Movies at the Moment (7/10/2011). Breaking this down to 10 movies sucks. It's impossible. I'm cheating and including 15. This list is still missing so many things that are important to me and the order is a jumbled mess. Oh well. Here's my top 15 at this moment in time. Tomorrow it might be a bit different. My number 32 film might just be my number 5." 15. L'Eclisse - Michelangelo Antonioni (1962) "Monica Vitti has...
- 7/13/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
Impressive retrospective of Judy Garland.s films will feature 31 titles including a presentation of seldom seen short films and rarities as well as a special .sing-along. screening of The Wizard Of Oz.
On the occasion of what would have been Judy Garland.s 89th birthday, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Paley Center have announced the details today for Fslc.s comprehensive retrospective of the peerless film icon.s work, All Singin., All Dancin., All Judy! which will screen at the Walter Reade Theater July 26 . August 9 and The Paley Center.s comprehensive retrospective of Garland.s television work,Judy Garland: The Television Years which will be presented July 20 . August 18.
With autumn marking the 75th anniversary of Judy Garland’s feature film debut (Pigskin Parade, 1936), the Film Society of Lincoln Center will screen 31 titles from July 26 . August 9, including each of her big-screen acting performances, to pay tribute to...
On the occasion of what would have been Judy Garland.s 89th birthday, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and The Paley Center have announced the details today for Fslc.s comprehensive retrospective of the peerless film icon.s work, All Singin., All Dancin., All Judy! which will screen at the Walter Reade Theater July 26 . August 9 and The Paley Center.s comprehensive retrospective of Garland.s television work,Judy Garland: The Television Years which will be presented July 20 . August 18.
With autumn marking the 75th anniversary of Judy Garland’s feature film debut (Pigskin Parade, 1936), the Film Society of Lincoln Center will screen 31 titles from July 26 . August 9, including each of her big-screen acting performances, to pay tribute to...
- 6/10/2011
- by Melissa Howland
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Actors on Actors
You know what's odd? Though Judy Garland excels at dreamy sadness, I always end up smiling when I listen to her sing. As soon as she tears up onscreen I feel way better; she alchemizes sadness and turns it towards the bittersweet at the very least. I love her two movie shout-outs here in Love Finds Andy Hardy: one is to Greta Garbo but she also has to reference her main man.I'm allowed to go to picture shows. That is if Nurse is feeling able. But we only go to Mickey Mouse, I'm not allowed Clark Gable!Oh Judy. They'd let you go to Clark Gable pictures if you hadn't already gotten so stalkerish just one summer earlier in The Broadway Melody of 1938.
All of this begs the following question:
Who made you love them when you were only 15?
*...
You know what's odd? Though Judy Garland excels at dreamy sadness, I always end up smiling when I listen to her sing. As soon as she tears up onscreen I feel way better; she alchemizes sadness and turns it towards the bittersweet at the very least. I love her two movie shout-outs here in Love Finds Andy Hardy: one is to Greta Garbo but she also has to reference her main man.I'm allowed to go to picture shows. That is if Nurse is feeling able. But we only go to Mickey Mouse, I'm not allowed Clark Gable!Oh Judy. They'd let you go to Clark Gable pictures if you hadn't already gotten so stalkerish just one summer earlier in The Broadway Melody of 1938.
All of this begs the following question:
Who made you love them when you were only 15?
*...
- 9/9/2010
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Hey gang! You've got to watch this incredible retro 1950's trailer for The Avengers! This thing was put together in credibly well, and I couldn't help but have a smile on my face the whole time I was watching it. I would love to see this movie if it actually existed! Check out the trailer below and let us know what you think!
The trailer above was created by YouTube user whoiseyevan and here's what he had to say about it.
What if... the Avengers movie was created years before the actual comic book?
Lost in the annals of time and space, comes this magnificent motion picture of epic proportions. Taking a page from such horror classics as "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman" and "House of Frankenstein," Timely Atlas Studios (the precursor to Marvel Studios), created the first superhero movie team-up. "The Avengers" featured an awesome array of characters such as Captain America,...
The trailer above was created by YouTube user whoiseyevan and here's what he had to say about it.
What if... the Avengers movie was created years before the actual comic book?
Lost in the annals of time and space, comes this magnificent motion picture of epic proportions. Taking a page from such horror classics as "Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman" and "House of Frankenstein," Timely Atlas Studios (the precursor to Marvel Studios), created the first superhero movie team-up. "The Avengers" featured an awesome array of characters such as Captain America,...
- 8/10/2010
- by Venkman
- GeekTyrant
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