ClassicFlix - Only the Classics

Garbo: Portrait of an Icon

Greta Garbo never appeared in a mystery, but she didn't need to because she herself was a mystery fans have tried to solve for the past 90 years. Early in her career, she shunned most of the rites of Hollywood stardom: premieres, press interviews, autographs, all were anathema to Garbo. On-screen, her sonorous voice and searching eyes hinted at an intense inner life. But of what did it consist? She was linked to her line from Grand Hotel: 'I want to be alone,' and after leaving Holly...

Rediscovered: Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle

Roscoe Arbuckle is remembered less for his comic artistry than for the 1921 scandal that brought his acting career to an abrupt halt. Arbuckle's films were pulled from U.S. theaters in the crucial year when he, the other reigning male comedy stars, Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, were transitioning from shorts to features, becoming a study in frustration and unrealized potential.Roscoe's friends got him directing jobs, and he also wrote gags and complete scenarios for other comics. In ...

The Ultimate Star: Joan Crawford

There is no better example of a movie star than Joan Crawford. Crawford was a leading lady by 1926 and was still playing leads at the end of the '60s.Today it is easier than ever to see her films. Over 60 of her 82 features are in print, including six of her silents and virtually all of her films in sound.Crawford watching is addictive. She makes a loud screen statement in every scene and dares you to look away. Some rules of engagement:1. Expect a star per...

Hollywood's Great Voices Part II: The Women

Lights of New York was the first '100% talking' feature, arriving in midsummer 1928 in theaters wired for sound. In the space of the following year, every Hollywood studio created a sound department and began releasing talkies.The microphone did not simply add live sound; it dictated camera work, forced the creation of the modern screenplay, and called on film actors to project their personalities in dramatic speech. This piece surveys the accomplishments of actresses in ...

Hollywood's Great Voices Part I: The Men

'You can dish it out, but you got so you can't take it no more.'Most film buffs can identify the above quote (Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar) and many can hear it in their heads; Robinson’s jeering voice, ripe with false bonhomie and sharp with menace. Stars of the sound era cultivated a vocal style for their roles. Some had natural tone and timbre that provided character.Wallace Beery's slow delivery and casually rolling syllables matched the slove...

Distinguished Achievements in Slapstick

Film buffs take sides over many genres: B-westerns, horror films, the works of Maria Montez or Lum and Abner. Slapstick is another divider, and the division is stark. To the anti's, slapstick is lowbrow, unimaginative, and unfunny. To its fans, slapstick, done by experts, is a comic exaggeration of the extremes of human behavior, fitting the definition of comedy as bad things happening to other people.A buff who scrupulously avoids slapstick must forego the pleasures of Chaplin's ...

Instant Replays: Infinitely Repeatable Movie Moments

We film buffs are defined by our desire to see favorite films over and over. In the studio era, producers capitalized on this by reissuing their blockbusters for additional theatrical runs. In the 1950s, the studios leased or sold thousands of films for TV broadcast. Since the '80s, film buffs have been able to collect their favorite movies and acquire a frame-by-frame familiarity with them. Many buffs know their favorite films, stars, directors, and studios better than the original audience ...

Norma Shearer 101: The Overview

Norma Shearer is on the short list of MGM's iconic actresses, sharing a rarefied stratum with Garbo, Crawford, Harlow, and Garland, but she is the least remembered out of all them. Non-buffs know little or nothing about her. For decades her films were seldom screened or broadcast. Yet she was a top box office draw in early sound and had one of the best-managed careers of the studio era. TCM and DVD reissues have brought her triumphs back to us, and her fans today are as ardent as those who id...

Vintage Groucho? You Bet Your Life!

Contestant: I'm a cartoonist...I'm working on a comic strip.Groucho: If you want to see a comic strip, you should see me in the shower.You Bet Your Life was on radio from 1947 and a TV series from 1950 to 1961. Groucho Marx resisted the concept at the start. After a legendary career with his brothers on stage and in films, the role of quizmaster seemed paltry. It must have looked like a career downturn.But Groucho ...

How to Throw a Vintage Movie Party

Movies are for sharing. There are buffs that coordinate parties around specific films, from food and drink to decor; that's one step away from the obsessive level at which the guests come dressed as film characters and the family dog is renamed Pard or Toto or Asta. At a more casual level, vintage films can set a style and tone for a party, the extra shot of espresso that leads to mixing and conversation. Show The Women, for example. Not the pointlessly P.C. 2008 version, but the rau...

Author: David Pitts