You can’t beat pre-Code Barbara Stanwyck, who glows as a knockout thieves’ accomplice, tough prison convict and deceitful lover of an incorruptible revivalist preacher-politician. She’s matched by the sassy, naughty Lillian Roth. In this Warner crime-tale-duel between piety and sin, darned if Stanwyck and Roth don’t make the crooked path seem cozy. There’s a girl-girl punch-out and an ill-fated prison break, but just watching Barbara ooze attitude as she saunters through the prison is worth the price of admission. Even more eye-opening is a positively lewd cartoon extra, also from the pre-Code halls of joyful infamy.
Ladies They Talk About
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 69 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date , 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Lyle Talbot, Dorothy Burgess, Lillian Roth, Maude Eburne, Ruth Donnelly, Harold Huber, Mary Gordon, Madame Sul-Te-Wan, Robert Warwick, Etta Moten, Helen Ware.
Cinematography: John F. Seitz
Production Designer:...
Ladies They Talk About
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1933 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 69 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date , 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Lyle Talbot, Dorothy Burgess, Lillian Roth, Maude Eburne, Ruth Donnelly, Harold Huber, Mary Gordon, Madame Sul-Te-Wan, Robert Warwick, Etta Moten, Helen Ware.
Cinematography: John F. Seitz
Production Designer:...
- 12/27/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“Watch out for her. She likes to wrestle”
Barbara Stanwyck in the pre-code drama Ladies They Talk About (1933) will be available on Blu-ray November 9th from Warner Archive
In most prison films, the convicted man is rehabilitated by the love of a woman. In Ladies They Talk About, Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman who becomes rehabilitated by the love of the man who sent her to prison.
A prime example of the raw and racy films made before the enforcement of Hollywood’s repressive “production code”, this Warner Bros. title previously released in the “Forbidden Hollywood” series stars Stanwyck as Nan Taylor, a bank robber who gets sent to prison for her role in a bank heist. David Slade (Preston S. Foster) is the reformer who has fallen in love with her. When her two “partners” are killed in a jailbreak attempt in which she, too, is involved, Nan thinks...
Barbara Stanwyck in the pre-code drama Ladies They Talk About (1933) will be available on Blu-ray November 9th from Warner Archive
In most prison films, the convicted man is rehabilitated by the love of a woman. In Ladies They Talk About, Barbara Stanwyck plays a woman who becomes rehabilitated by the love of the man who sent her to prison.
A prime example of the raw and racy films made before the enforcement of Hollywood’s repressive “production code”, this Warner Bros. title previously released in the “Forbidden Hollywood” series stars Stanwyck as Nan Taylor, a bank robber who gets sent to prison for her role in a bank heist. David Slade (Preston S. Foster) is the reformer who has fallen in love with her. When her two “partners” are killed in a jailbreak attempt in which she, too, is involved, Nan thinks...
- 10/30/2021
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
David Crow Nov 19, 2018
The Adventures of Robin Hood went through a director-swapping production yet is still the only Robin Hood movie that matters.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see the formula that Warner Bros. pursued to make The Adventures of Robin Hood, the 1938 sweeping Technicolor classic. Conceived as a star vehicle for one of their biggest icons, as well as a picture that would be the chance for a reliable contract director to become a preeminent name in Hollywood, it should’ve been impossible for the project to run into any trouble. Yet it did since the movie was originally pitched as a Jimmy Cagney movie and was later assigned to director William Keighley, a terrific studio man from the golden age… but one who is no more Michael Curtiz than Cagney is Errol Flynn.
Eighty years later and it’s largely been forgotten that the most beloved and...
The Adventures of Robin Hood went through a director-swapping production yet is still the only Robin Hood movie that matters.
In retrospect, it’s easy to see the formula that Warner Bros. pursued to make The Adventures of Robin Hood, the 1938 sweeping Technicolor classic. Conceived as a star vehicle for one of their biggest icons, as well as a picture that would be the chance for a reliable contract director to become a preeminent name in Hollywood, it should’ve been impossible for the project to run into any trouble. Yet it did since the movie was originally pitched as a Jimmy Cagney movie and was later assigned to director William Keighley, a terrific studio man from the golden age… but one who is no more Michael Curtiz than Cagney is Errol Flynn.
Eighty years later and it’s largely been forgotten that the most beloved and...
- 11/19/2018
- Den of Geek
On Monday, August 28, 2017, Turner Classic Movies will devote an entire day of their “Summer Under the Stars” series to the late, great Louis Burton Lindley Jr. If that name doesn’t sound familiar, well, then just picture the fella riding the bomb like a buckin’ bronco at the end of Dr. Strangelove…, or the racist taskmaster heading up the railroad gang in Blazing Saddles, or the doomed Sheriff Baker, who gets one of the loveliest, most heartbreaking sendoffs in movie history in Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Lindley joined the rodeo circuit when he was 13 and soon picked up the name that would follow him throughout the length of his professional career, in rodeo and in movies & TV. One of the rodeo vets got a look at the lank newcomer and told him, “Slim pickin’s. That’s all you’re gonna get in this rodeo.
Lindley joined the rodeo circuit when he was 13 and soon picked up the name that would follow him throughout the length of his professional career, in rodeo and in movies & TV. One of the rodeo vets got a look at the lank newcomer and told him, “Slim pickin’s. That’s all you’re gonna get in this rodeo.
- 8/27/2017
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Woo hoo! The pre-Code marvels return for one last go-round -- tales of sin and moral turpitude but also serious pictures about social issues that the Production Code effectively swept from Hollywood screens -- financial crimes and ethnic bigotry. Forbidden Hollywood Volume 10 Guilty Hands, The Mouthpiece, Secrets of the French Police, The Match King, Ever in My Heart DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1932-1934 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 63, 62, 78, 85, 70 min. / Street Date October 27, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 40.99 Starring Lionel Barrymore, Kay Francis, Madge Evans; Warren William, Sidney Fox, Aline McMahon; Frank Morgan, Gwili Andre, Gregory Ratoff Rochelle Hudson; Warren William, Lili Damita, Glenda Farrell, Claire Dodd; Barbara Stanwyck, Otto Kruger, Ralph Bellamy, Ruth Donnelly. Cinematography Merritt B. Gerstad, Barney McGill; Alfred Gilks; Robert Kurrie; Written by Bayard Veiller; Joseph Jackson, Earl Baldwin, Frank J. Collins; Samuel Ornitz, Robert Tasker; Houston Branch, Sidney Sutherland, Einar Thorvaldson; Bertram Millhauser, Beulah Marie Dix.
- 6/26/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Pat O'Brien movies on TCM: 'The Front Page,' 'Oil for the Lamps of China' Remember Pat O'Brien? In case you don't, you're not alone despite the fact that O'Brien was featured – in both large and small roles – in about 100 films, from the dawn of the sound era to 1981. That in addition to nearly 50 television appearances, from the early '50s to the early '80s. Never a top star or a critics' favorite, O'Brien was nevertheless one of the busiest Hollywood leading men – and second leads – of the 1930s. In that decade alone, mostly at Warner Bros., he was seen in nearly 60 films, from Bs (Hell's House, The Final Edition) to classics (American Madness, Angels with Dirty Faces). Turner Classic Movies is showing nine of those today, Nov. 11, '15, in honor of what would have been the Milwaukee-born O'Brien's 116th birthday. Pat O'Brien and James Cagney Spencer Tracy had Katharine Hepburn.
- 11/11/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.
- 11/4/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Olivia de Havilland on Turner Classic Movies: Your chance to watch 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' for the 384th time Olivia de Havilland is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 2, '15. The two-time Best Actress Oscar winner (To Each His Own, 1946; The Heiress, 1949) whose steely determination helped to change the way studios handled their contract players turned 99 last July 1. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any de Havilland movie rarities, e.g., Universal's cool thriller The Dark Mirror (1946), the Paramount comedy The Well-Groomed Bride (1947), or Terence Young's British-made That Lady (1955), with de Havilland as eye-patch-wearing Spanish princess Ana de Mendoza. On the other hand, you'll be able to catch for the 384th time a demure Olivia de Havilland being romanced by a dashing Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood, as TCM shows this 1938 period adventure classic just about every month. But who's complaining? One the...
- 8/3/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...
- 7/2/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl': Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow. 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' review: Mostly an enjoyable romp (Oscar Movie Series) Pirate movies were a Hollywood staple for about three decades, from the mid-'20s (The Sea Hawk, The Black Pirate) to the mid-to-late '50s (Moonfleet, The Buccaneer), when the genre, by then mostly relegated to B films, began to die down. Sporadic resurrections in the '80s and '90s turned out to be critical and commercial bombs (Pirates, Cutthroat Island), something that didn't bode well for the Walt Disney Company's $140 million-budgeted film "adaptation" of one of their theme-park rides. But Neptune's mood has apparently improved with the arrival of the new century. He smiled – grinned would be a more appropriate word – on the Gore Verbinski-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,...
- 6/29/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Last week, EW published The 55 Essential Movies Kids Must Experience (Before Turning 13). Predictably, given that we published a post on the Internet whose headline contained a concrete number and the word “essential,” we got some impassioned feedback from readers—many of whom were eager to suggest additional great movies kids should see that we’d left out.
As we noted last week, “This isn’t a list of the 55 ‘best’ kids movies, nor a compendium of hidden gems. Rather, it’s a survival-guide syllabus of films that we all need to know to be able to speak the same pop-cultural language.
As we noted last week, “This isn’t a list of the 55 ‘best’ kids movies, nor a compendium of hidden gems. Rather, it’s a survival-guide syllabus of films that we all need to know to be able to speak the same pop-cultural language.
- 7/3/2014
- by EW staff
- EW.com - PopWatch
Above: Us poster for Forbidden (Frank Capra, USA, 1932)
In honor of the month-long retrospective of the films of the great Barbara Stanwyck starting today at Film Forum in New York, I thought I’d select my favorite Stanwyck posters. Brooklyn-born Ruby Catherine Stevens made 85 films over 37 years in Hollywood so there is an awful lot to choose from. But the remarkable thing about looking back at these posters is how artists seemed to have had a hard time capturing her likeness. The poster for one of her earliest films, Capra’s 1932 Forbidden, above, captures her beautifully, but the poster for Stella Dallas (1937), her first Oscar-nominated role (she never won, shockingly), seems to be of a different actress entirely. As for the sexed-up illustration on the flyer for The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), in that she looks more like Jean Harlow. Some of my favorite posters for her films are the Swedish and Danish designs,...
In honor of the month-long retrospective of the films of the great Barbara Stanwyck starting today at Film Forum in New York, I thought I’d select my favorite Stanwyck posters. Brooklyn-born Ruby Catherine Stevens made 85 films over 37 years in Hollywood so there is an awful lot to choose from. But the remarkable thing about looking back at these posters is how artists seemed to have had a hard time capturing her likeness. The poster for one of her earliest films, Capra’s 1932 Forbidden, above, captures her beautifully, but the poster for Stella Dallas (1937), her first Oscar-nominated role (she never won, shockingly), seems to be of a different actress entirely. As for the sexed-up illustration on the flyer for The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933), in that she looks more like Jean Harlow. Some of my favorite posters for her films are the Swedish and Danish designs,...
- 12/6/2013
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Glenda Farrell: Actress has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day Scene-stealer Glenda Farrell is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 29, 2013. A reliable — and very busy — Warner Bros. contract player in the ’30s, the sharp, energetic, fast-talking blonde actress was featured in more than fifty films at the studio from 1931 to 1939. Note: This particular Glenda Farrell has nothing in common with the One Tree Hill character played by Amber Wallace in the television series. The Glenda Farrell / One Tree Hill name connection seems to have been a mere coincidence. (Photo: Glenda Farrell as Torchy Blane in Smart Blonde.) Back to Warners’ Glenda Farrell: TCM is currently showing Torchy Runs for Mayor (1939), one of the seven B movies starring Farrell as intrepid reporter Torchy Blane. Major suspense: Will Torchy win the election? She should. No city would ever go bankrupt with Torchy at the helm. Glenda Farrell...
- 8/30/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in ‘Gone with the Wind’: TCM schedule on August 20, 2013 (photo: Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in ‘Gone with the Wind’) See previous post: “Hattie McDaniel: Oscar Winner Makes History.” 3:00 Am Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). Director: David Butler. Cast: Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Eddie Cantor, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Edward Everett Horton, S.Z. Sakall, Hattie McDaniel, Ruth Donnelly, Don Wilson, Spike Jones, Henry Armetta, Leah Baird, Willie Best, Monte Blue, James Burke, David Butler, Stanley Clements, William Desmond, Ralph Dunn, Frank Faylen, James Flavin, Creighton Hale, Sam Harris, Paul Harvey, Mark Hellinger, Brandon Hurst, Charles Irwin, Noble Johnson, Mike Mazurki, Fred Kelsey, Frank Mayo, Joyce Reynolds, Mary Treen, Doodles Weaver. Bw-127 mins. 5:15 Am Janie (1944). Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joyce Reynolds, Robert Hutton,...
- 8/21/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Bette Davis movies: TCM schedule on August 14 (photo: Bette Davis in ‘Dangerous,’ with Franchot Tone) See previous post: “Bette Davis Eyes: They’re Watching You Tonight.” 3:00 Am Parachute Jumper (1933). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Harold Huber, Leo Carrillo, Thomas E. Jackson, Lyle Talbot, Leon Ames, Stanley Blystone, Reginald Barlow, George Chandler, Walter Brennan, Pat O’Malley, Paul Panzer, Nat Pendleton, Dewey Robinson, Tom Wilson, Sheila Terry. Bw-72 mins. 4:30 Am The Girl From 10th Avenue (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Ian Hunter, Colin Clive, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Phillip Reed, Katharine Alexander, Helen Jerome Eddy, Bill Elliott, Edward McWade, André Cheron, Wedgwood Nowell, John Quillan, Mary Treen. Bw-69 mins. 6:00 Am Dangerous (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Dick Foran, Walter Walker, Richard Carle, George Irving, Pierre Watkin, Douglas Wood,...
- 8/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Bette Davis’ eyes keep ‘Watch on the Rhine’ Bette Davis’ eyes are watching everything and everyone on Turner Classic Movies this evening, as TCM continues with its "Summer Under the Stars" film series: today, August 14, 2013, belongs to two-time Oscar winner Bette Davis’ eyes, cigarettes, and clipped tones. Right now, TCM is showing the Herman Shumlin-directed Watch on the Rhine (1943), an earnest — too much so, in fact — melodrama featuring Nazis, anti-Nazis, and lofty political speeches. (See “Bette Davis Movies: TCM schedule.”) As a prestigious and timely Warner Bros. release, Watch on the Rhine was nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award and earned Paul Lukas the year’s Best Actor Oscar. Bette Davis has a subordinate role and — for once during her years as Warners’ Reigning Queen — subordinate billing as well. As so often happens when Davis tried to play a sympathetic character, she’s not very good; Lukas, however,...
- 8/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Fontaine today: One of the best actresses of the studio era has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day Joan Fontaine, one of the few surviving stars of the 1930s, is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, Tuesday, August 6, 2013. I’m posting this a little late in the game: TCM has already shown six Joan Fontaine movies, including the first-rate medieval adventure Ivanhoe and the curious marital drama The Bigamist, directed by and co-starring Ida Lupino, and written by Collier Young — husband of both Fontaine and Lupino (at different times). Anyhow, TCM has quite a few more Joan Fontaine movies in store. (Photo: Joan Fontaine publicity shot ca. 1950.) (TCM schedule: Joan Fontaine movies.) As far as I’m concerned, Joan Fontaine was one of the best actresses of the studio era. She didn’t star in nearly as many movies as sister Olivia de Havilland, perhaps because...
- 8/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
By Doug Gerbino
The Warner Archive has released two more volumes in their “Forbidden Hollywood” series. Marijuana, Lesbians -And-William Powell speaks Yiddish!
Forbidden Hollywood-Volumes 4 & 5 have been released by Warner Archive Collection. I have been a big fan of this series since The VHS/laser disc days. These pre-code films are a hell-of-a-lot-of-fun to watch, and no one did them better than Warner Brothers. As my cinema guru , Tom Dillon ["The Sage of Grammercy Park"] once said: “You wanna take a shower after watching a good pre-Cceighte Warner Bros. film!” These 8 films are great examples of that genre.
Volume 4-all 1932
Jewell Robbery-William Powell and Kay Francis star in this story of a high society jewel thief who uses marijuana, amongst other things, to get what he wants. Directed by William Dieterle
Lawyer Man- William Powell and Joan Blondell. Powell stars as a lawyer who workds his way up from the lower east side to Park Ave.
The Warner Archive has released two more volumes in their “Forbidden Hollywood” series. Marijuana, Lesbians -And-William Powell speaks Yiddish!
Forbidden Hollywood-Volumes 4 & 5 have been released by Warner Archive Collection. I have been a big fan of this series since The VHS/laser disc days. These pre-code films are a hell-of-a-lot-of-fun to watch, and no one did them better than Warner Brothers. As my cinema guru , Tom Dillon ["The Sage of Grammercy Park"] once said: “You wanna take a shower after watching a good pre-Cceighte Warner Bros. film!” These 8 films are great examples of that genre.
Volume 4-all 1932
Jewell Robbery-William Powell and Kay Francis star in this story of a high society jewel thief who uses marijuana, amongst other things, to get what he wants. Directed by William Dieterle
Lawyer Man- William Powell and Joan Blondell. Powell stars as a lawyer who workds his way up from the lower east side to Park Ave.
- 8/26/2012
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Jude Law as Douglas Fairbanks? It’s hard to imagine the cool and aloof (and blue-eyed blond) Law playing Fairbanks, the ever-smiling, ever-bouncing, swarthy hero of silent era blockbusters such as The Three Musketeers, Robin Hood, and The Thief of Bagdad. But stranger things have happened: I’d never have imagined Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe, but that didn’t prevent Williams from earning excellent reviews, critics’ awards, and an Oscar nod for her performance in Simon Curtis’ My Week with Marilyn. Anyhow, according to Forbes magazine, Poverty Row Entertainment producers Jennifer DeLia and Julie Pacino (Al Pacino’s daughter) want Jude Law to play opposite Lily Rabe‘s Mary Pickford in their upcoming Pickford biopic, which DeLia is set to direct. Fairbanks and Pickford, the King and Queen of Hollywood, were married in 1920. It was fairy-tale marriage — at least as far as the fan magazines were concerned. Away from the cameras and the press,...
- 5/30/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Anna Magnani in (what looks like) Luchino Visconti's Bellissima At the end of Giuseppe Tornatore's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner Cinema Paradiso, small-town projectionist Philippe Noiret has died and the Nuovo Cinema Paradiso has become a pile of rubble. The bratty Italian boy Salvatore Cascio has grown into the classy Frenchman Jacques Perrin (like Noiret, dubbed in Italian), a filmmaker who sits to watch a mysterious reel of film the deceased projectionist had left him. It turns out the reel contains clips from films censored by the prudish local parish priest, whose family values found kisses, embraces, and bare breasts and legs a danger to society. Now, who's doing all that kissing, embracing, and breast/leg-displaying in that film reel? (Please scroll down for the Cinema Paradiso clip.) Here are the ones I recognize: Silvana Mangano and Vittorio Gassman in Giuseppe De Santis' Bitter Rice (1949); Mangano...
- 2/14/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Fontaine in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion Joan Fontaine, who turned 94 last October 22, shines on Turner Classic Movies' tonight. TCM will be showing five Fontaine movies: Jane Eyre (1944), The Constant Nymph (1943), Born to Be Bad (1950), Suspicion (1941), and Ivanhoe (1952). I've yet to check out The Constant Nymph, which had been unavailable for decades until TCM presented it a few months ago. In the film, 26-year-old Fontaine plays a 14-year-old infatuated with a composer (Charles Boyer) married to her older cousin (Alexis Smith). Edmund Goulding directed. Enough members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences must have found Fontaine quite believable as a lovestruck teen, for The Constant Nymph earned her her third (and final) Best Actress nomination. Jane Eyre has been made and remade about a zillion times in the last century or so. Fontaine's version, directed by Robert Stevenson (later of Mary Poppins fame) and co-starring Orson Welles as Rochester,...
- 1/31/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Sybil Jason, Warner Bros.' answer to Shirley Temple, died Tuesday, August 23, according to film researcher and author Scott O'Brien. She was 83. Born Sybil Jacobson on November 23, 1927, in Cape Town, South Africa, while still a small child she moved to Britain with her parents. Thanks to her uncle Harry Jacobson, reportedly a London orchestra leader and pianist to highly popular entertainer Gracie Fields, by the age of five Sybil was appearing in London nightclubs, where she sang, danced, and mimicked Maurice Chevalier. In 1935, Sybil caught the eye of Irving Asher, the head of Warner Bros. London studio, who had spotted her in a supporting role in the British feature Barnacle Bill. Following a successful film test, she was brought to Hollywood, where the now renamed Sybil Jason was to become Warners' answer to 20th Century Fox's box-office goldmine Shirley Temple. Jason, however, failed to catch on despite working with some...
- 8/26/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Jennifer Jones, Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Beat the Devil Humphrey Bogart on TCM: The Caine Mutiny, The Maltese Falcon, Sahara Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Bogart: The Untold Story (1996) Stephen Bogart hosts this one-hour special on the life and career of his legendary father, Humphrey Bogart. Dir: Chris Hunt. Cast: Stephen Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Robert Sklar. C-46 mins. 7:00 Am Bullets Or Ballots (1936) A cop goes undercover to crack an influential crime ring. Dir: William Keighley. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Barton MacLane. Bw-82 mins. 8:30 Am San Quentin (1937) A convict's sister falls for the captain of the prison guards. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan. Bw-70 mins. 9:45 Am King Of The Underworld (1939) A lady doctor gets mixed up with a criminal gang. Dir: Lewis Seiler. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Kay Francis, James Stephenson. Bw-67 mins. 11:00 Am To Have And Have Not...
- 8/18/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ann Dvorak The name Ann Dvorak wouldn't ring even a faint bell for most people around at the beginning of the 21st century. Most people, I said — but definitely not everyone. [Ann Dvorak Movie Schedule on Turner Classic Movies.] A while back, author James Robert Parish heard a loud gong when I told him during lunch at a West Hollywood restaurant that I had been working on a q&a with collector-turned-biographer Christina Rice (right), who has been writing Ann Dvorak's life story. "I love Ann Dvorak! I still remember her in I Was an American Spy, when the Japanese villains stick a hose down her throat. I never forgot that!" I haven't watched I Was an American Spy (it will be on TCM at 11 p.m. tonight), but I remember being impressed by Ann Dvorak's work in Mervyn LeRoy's hard-hitting 1932 melodrama Three on a Match, in which she plays a beautiful woman whose life is destroyed by ambition,...
- 8/9/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Bette Davis, Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Three on a Match Ann Dvorak on TCM Part I: Scarface, I Was An American Spy Another cool Ann Dvorak performance is her drug addict in Mervyn LeRoy's Three on a Match (1932), which features a great cast that includes Warren William, Joan Blondell, and a pre-stardom Bette Davis. Never, ever light three cigarettes using the same match, or you'll end up like Ann Dvorak, delivering a harrowing performance without getting an Academy Award nomination for your efforts. As Three on a Match's young Ann Dvorak, future Oscar nominee Anne Shirley is billed as Dawn O'Day. (And for those who believe that remakes is something new: Three on a Mach was remade a mere six years later as Broadway Musketeers: John Farrow directed; Ann Sheridan, Marie Wilson, and Margaret Lindsay starred.) I've never watched David Miller's family drama Our Very Own...
- 8/8/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The daughter of silent-film actress Anna Lehr and director Edward McKim, Ann Dvorak began her film career at the dawn of the sound era. The pretty, wide-eyed Dvorak was one of those performers who not only could but should have become major stars — yet, thanks to studio politics, didn't. Those unfamiliar with Dvorak's name and/or work will be able to check her out all day Tuesday, August 9, on Turner Classic Movies. TCM will be presenting 16 of her films. [Ann Dvorak Movie Schedule.] Considering that TCM generally picks the usual suspects for their "Summer Under the Stars" film series — people like Marlon Brando, Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Bette Davis — I find it refreshing when they select someone like Ann Dvorak. Of course, as a Warner Bros. player in the '30s, most of Dvorak's best work has been frequently available on TCM; but to have a whole day devoted to an actress most people...
- 8/8/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Each year New York residents can look forward to two essential series programmed at the Film Forum, noirs and pre-Coders (that is, films made before the strict enforcing of the Motion Picture Production Code). These near-annual retrospective traditions are refreshed and re-varied and repeated for neophytes and cinephiles alike, giving all the chance to see and see again great film on film. Many titles in this year's Essential Pre-Code series, running an epic July 15 - August 11, are old favorites and some ache to be new discoveries; all in all there are far too many racy, slipshod, patter-filled celluloid splendors to be covered by one critic alone. Faced with such a bounty, I've enlisted the kind help of some friends and colleagues, asking them to sent in short pieces on their favorites in an incomplete but also in-progress survey and guide to one of the summer's most sought-after series. In this entry: what's playing Friday,...
- 8/4/2011
- MUBI
Each year New York residents can look forward to two essential series programmed at the Film Forum, noirs and pre-Coders (that is, films made before the strict enforcing of the Motion Picture Production Code). These near-annual retrospective traditions are refreshed and re-varied and re-repeated for neophytes and cinephiles alike, giving all the chance to see and see again great film on film. Many titles in this year's Essential Pre-Codeseries, running an epic July 15 - August 11, are old favorites and some ache to be new discoveries; all in all there are far too many racy, slipshod, patter-filled celluloid splendors to be covered by one critic alone. Faced with such a bounty, I've enlisted the kind help of some friends and colleagues, asking them to sent in short pieces on their favorites in an incomplete but also in-progress survey and guide to one of the summer's most sought-after series. In this entry: what's playing Friday,...
- 8/4/2011
- MUBI
Enid Bennett, Douglas Fairbanks, Robin Hood Long before Errol Flynn, Russell Crowe, and Kevin Costner — and their Men in Tights — there was Douglas Fairbanks and his Men in Tights. Robin Hood, aka Douglas Fairbanks in Robin Hood will be screening tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The Robin Hood screening is part of the Academy's "Summer of Silents" series, which features winners of the Photoplay Medal of Honor for Best Picture of the year, as chosen by the magazine's readership. In the case of Robin Hood, the year was 1922. Financed by Douglas Fairbanks himself, Robin Hood was the actor-producer's biggest box-office hit. Though hardly on a par with the Errol Flynn version of the legend, this Allan Dwan-directed historical romp looks appropriately grandiose; as explained in Jeffrey Vance's Douglas Fairbanks, the film's sets were...
- 6/27/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Michael C. from Serious Film here. As a rule, I don't indulge in nostalgic, "They don't make 'em like they used to" wallowing. I don't see the point. There was quality then and there is quality now. That having been said, it doesn't mean I can't geek out over one of the shining examples of classic Hollywood, which I will now do.
Watching The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley it is hard not to feel a twinge of longing for the studio system, Hayes Code and all. It was firing on all cylinders with this production and, man, is it glorious to behold. Everything is bold and colorful and exciting. It can go toe-to-toe with Singin’ in the Rain for pure joy of filmmaking on display.
As a nine-year-old viewer it was enough to inspire lifelong devotion. More than anything I think I responded...
Watching The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley it is hard not to feel a twinge of longing for the studio system, Hayes Code and all. It was firing on all cylinders with this production and, man, is it glorious to behold. Everything is bold and colorful and exciting. It can go toe-to-toe with Singin’ in the Rain for pure joy of filmmaking on display.
As a nine-year-old viewer it was enough to inspire lifelong devotion. More than anything I think I responded...
- 6/16/2011
- by Michael C.
- FilmExperience
Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, 1938
What a strange and different movie this might have been had it starred Jimmy Cagney, as was originally planned. Happily his suave and seductive replacement Errol Flynn made the part his own and the movie still stands as one of the most energetic and likable swashbucklers of Hollywood's prewar heyday. Fine-tuned for endless thrills and maximum entertainment value, Robin Hood shows the Warner Brothers house style at its best, with every part, small or large, perfectly cast with one or another of the studio's contract players: Alan Hale as a rambunctious Little John, Eugene Pallette as a gravel-voiced Friar Tuck, Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne and the breathily virginal Oliva de Havilland as a winsome Maid Marian.
Plot-wise, it's Walter Scott (he who first split arrow with arrow) meets the gruff, left-inclined Warner Brothers writing unit, with Hood's "rob-the-rich-to-feed-the-poor" ethic striking a particularly...
What a strange and different movie this might have been had it starred Jimmy Cagney, as was originally planned. Happily his suave and seductive replacement Errol Flynn made the part his own and the movie still stands as one of the most energetic and likable swashbucklers of Hollywood's prewar heyday. Fine-tuned for endless thrills and maximum entertainment value, Robin Hood shows the Warner Brothers house style at its best, with every part, small or large, perfectly cast with one or another of the studio's contract players: Alan Hale as a rambunctious Little John, Eugene Pallette as a gravel-voiced Friar Tuck, Basil Rathbone as Sir Guy of Gisbourne and the breathily virginal Oliva de Havilland as a winsome Maid Marian.
Plot-wise, it's Walter Scott (he who first split arrow with arrow) meets the gruff, left-inclined Warner Brothers writing unit, with Hood's "rob-the-rich-to-feed-the-poor" ethic striking a particularly...
- 10/19/2010
- by John Patterson
- The Guardian - Film News
Chicago – Erase from your mind every preconception you may have about a film entitled, “Robin Hood,” and you may find yourself enjoying, or at the very east admiring, Ridley Scott’s loose yet literalistic depiction of the legendary outlaw. No film will ever top Michael Curtiz and William Keighley’s 1938 classic starring Errol Flynn, which remains one of the all time great screen entertainments.
This “Robin Hood” takes place in a universe entirely separate from the one Flynn inhabited. It’s a hard-edged prequel in the modern sense, centering on an English warrior fresh from the Crusades named Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe, re-teaming with Scott a decade after their last action blockbuster, “Gladiator”), who joins the fight against King Philip of France. Scott seems intent on doing for Robin Hood what “Batman Begins” did for the Caped Crusader, yet this film is too melancholy and deliberately paced to truly take flight.
This “Robin Hood” takes place in a universe entirely separate from the one Flynn inhabited. It’s a hard-edged prequel in the modern sense, centering on an English warrior fresh from the Crusades named Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe, re-teaming with Scott a decade after their last action blockbuster, “Gladiator”), who joins the fight against King Philip of France. Scott seems intent on doing for Robin Hood what “Batman Begins” did for the Caped Crusader, yet this film is too melancholy and deliberately paced to truly take flight.
- 9/30/2010
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor‘s Adam’s Rib (top) Home movies of scary folk such as Alfred Hitchcock and Richard Nixon (and of some non-scary celebrities and non-celebrities as well), in addition to film classics and/or rarities starring Marilyn Monroe, Thelma Todd, Ken Maynard, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Dustin Farnum, Diane Lane, Judy Holliday, Michael Paré, Olivia de Havilland, and Errol Flynn will be screened at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Va., in September. [Packard Campus Sept. 2010 Schedule.] Packard Campus highlights include both the obvious — Michael Curtiz and William Keighley‘s masterful The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), George Cukor‘s delightful comedy Adam’s Rib (1949), Billy Wilder‘s entertaining, gender-bending Some Like It Hot (1959) — and the obscure: two Thelma Todd features, two Ken Maynard oaters, and one silent featuring Dustin Farnum (no relation to Dustin Hoffman, but close [...]...
- 9/1/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Cannes -- If Robin Hood had never existed, Hollywood would have had to invent him.
In fact, whether or not there was an actual historical person behind the Robin Hood sung of in English ballads -- a matter of some debate -- the outlaw of Sherwood Forest owes his present-day celebrity to the big screen, beginning with Douglas Fairbanks' silent-era 1922 swashbuckler.
"America more or less hijacked Robin Hood at that point," says Thomas Hahn, a professor of English at the University of Rochester and Robin Hood scholar. "The movie took a local English folk hero and turned him into an international icon of popular culture."
Robin Hood's enduring appeal will be tested once again as the Festival de Cannes gets under way Wednesday with the world premiere of Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood," with Russell Crowe in the titular role of an archer in the employ of King Richard...
In fact, whether or not there was an actual historical person behind the Robin Hood sung of in English ballads -- a matter of some debate -- the outlaw of Sherwood Forest owes his present-day celebrity to the big screen, beginning with Douglas Fairbanks' silent-era 1922 swashbuckler.
"America more or less hijacked Robin Hood at that point," says Thomas Hahn, a professor of English at the University of Rochester and Robin Hood scholar. "The movie took a local English folk hero and turned him into an international icon of popular culture."
Robin Hood's enduring appeal will be tested once again as the Festival de Cannes gets under way Wednesday with the world premiere of Ridley Scott's "Robin Hood," with Russell Crowe in the titular role of an archer in the employ of King Richard...
- 5/11/2010
- by By Gregg Kilday
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Below the break you'll be able to see high-resolution versions of both the one sheet and quad designs for the Robin Hood poster. Combining the posters and stills with the two trailers so far released, the lesser rock-addled Us cut and the more plot-driven UK one, we're starting to get a good idea of how this picture will look and move. The common comparison is Gladiator, for obvious reasons. My favourite Robin Hood movies so far were Michael Curtiz and William Keighley's Technicolour extravaganza The Adventures of Robin Hood, a film that could barely have more stylistic distinctions from Ridley Scott's approach, and Richard Lester's Robin and Marian, which tells a completely different story. I'm hoping for a hat trick of superb Hood pictures here, each able to complement the others. So, take your pick: you can have two slightly different compositions of Mr. Russell Crowe and his bag,...
- 12/23/2009
- by Brendon Connelly
- Slash Film
Back in the day, I remember watching a very funny play brought on stage by an amateur theater workshop during a University students' festival. For years I couldn't recall the title or any particular detail other than the fun I had as part of the audience. Then I kind of stumbled upon a movie called The Man Who Came to Dinner. It was based on the play I was looking for and I had as much fun watching it as that time in the theater. Radio celebrity Sheridan Whiteside (Monty Wooley) arrives in a small town in Ohio called Messalia, where he's invited to dinner by the Stanleys, a local wealthy family. As he goes up the icy stairs, he slips and falls on his hip. After he's treated by a doctor that advises him to stay on a wheelchair for at least ten days, Mr. Whiteside lets Mr Stanley know that he's being sued for a...
- 7/26/2009
- by Loukas Tsouknidas
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Bam Rose Cinemas in Brooklyn remembers Richard Widmark, who died in March at age 93, with screenings of three of his films.
Tomorrow: "Hell and High Water" (1954), a Sam Fuller submarine thriller. Tuesday: Jules Dassin's brilliant London-set noir "Night and the City" (1950). Wednesday: Another noir, William Keighley's "The Street With No Name" (1948). The 6:50 p.m. show will be followed by a Q&A with film historian Elliott Stein. Details:
bam.org
My one encounter with Widmark came some years...
Tomorrow: "Hell and High Water" (1954), a Sam Fuller submarine thriller. Tuesday: Jules Dassin's brilliant London-set noir "Night and the City" (1950). Wednesday: Another noir, William Keighley's "The Street With No Name" (1948). The 6:50 p.m. show will be followed by a Q&A with film historian Elliott Stein. Details:
bam.org
My one encounter with Widmark came some years...
- 8/24/2008
- by By V.A. MUSETTO
- NYPost.com
Danny DeVito is set to play the title role in a re-make of the classic 1941 comedy The Man Who Came To Dinner. The small-town yarn was originally directed by William Keighley for Warner Bros and starred Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan and Monty Woolley. Woolley, a close personal friend of Cole Porter, reprised his Broadway role of a pompous critic who returns to his Midwestern hometown to accept an award. Things start going wrong when he goes to dinner with a wealthy local resident and is taken ill, and is forced to become an unwanted house guest. In the new version, the critic becomes an arrogant talk-show host. A film crew member says, "Danny has been dreaming about playing this part for many years. It is one of his favorites. Steven Spielberg thinks it could become a modern-day classic."...
- 5/1/2001
- WENN
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