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  • Anne Baxter: All About Anne

    Anne Baxter is probably best remembered today for her Oscar-winning supporting role in The Razor's Edge (1946) and her Oscar-nominated performance in All About Eve (1950), but a closer look at her career shows she starred in a great many excellent films throughout the 1940s and '50s. Baxter, the granddaughter of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was born in Indiana on May 2, 1923. Anne aspired to an acting career from a young age, and she was just 13 when she ...

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  • Hitchcock: The Nooks and Crannies

    As a twelve-year-old in the mid-60's, I watched whatever vintage films the networks aired (these were mostly from the mid-50's on up) and whatever aired on the matinee movie on Cleveland's local stations. Alfred Hitchcock was my favorite director. Back then, station libraries had very few films predating WWII, and for years Saboteur (1942) was the earliest Hitchcock I knew. I watched it whenever it ran, if I didn't have to be in school, and after repeated viewings I anticipated spec...

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  • Carole Lombard: Screwball Comedienne

    January 16th, 2014, marked the 72nd anniversary of actress Carole Lombard's tragically early death in the crash of TWA Flight 3. Lombard was on a highly successful war bonds drive just weeks after Pearl Harbor when her plane crashed outside Las Vegas, Nevada, killing all 22 people on board. Details of Lombard's life and the ill-fated flight have been chronicled in Robert Matzen's outstanding new book Fireball. On the flight's anniversary I attended a lecture...

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  • Silent Cinema: Buster Keaton, Part One (The Roscoe Arbuckle Years, 1917-1920)

    Of all the developments that made 1917 such a landmark year in film - the industry-wide adoption of what is now known as 'classical continuity editing,' Mary Pickford's emergence as the most powerful woman in Hollywood history, Charlie Chaplin

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  • The Old Corral: Fred MacMurray Rides the '50s West

    We don't think about it so much today, but at a certain point in time, Fred MacMurray was a big star in Hollywood and one of the highest paid. And certainly one of the most versatile, as he bounced from breezy stuff like The Egg And I (1947) to the noir-est of noir, Double Indemnity (1944), with incredible ease. As much as we liked him when he played, what we assume, was himself (the kind, wise, easy-going fatherly type), he really shined when cast against that - proven by h...

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  • Classics 101: Eight Wonders, Twelve Movies - A History of King Kong

    The original King Kong was one of the most ballyhooed of all motion pictures, and yet it’s quite the rarity: a film that lived up to all the hyperbole. It truly was – and remains – the Eighth Wonder of the World, moving the artistry and technology of filmmaking ahead in 60-foot strides. A monster hit in 1933 and subsequent re-re-releases, Kong has been remade and ripped off several times, which is no surprise. What IS surprising is most of the Sons of Kong ...

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  • Doris Day: The Romantic Sweetheart

    One of our greatest stars, Doris Day, recently celebrated her 90th birthday. Day made a rare public appearance for the occasion, delighting not only fans present to see her in person, but those of us who were happy to see smiling new photos of the beloved singer-actress. Day was the biggest female box office star in history, but she's has been off the screen for four decades, At this year's TCM Classic Film Festival, TCM staffers shared that Doris is Number One on their wish-list...

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  • Dying is Easy - Comedy is Hard

    Dying is easy – comedy is hard. This show biz byword has been around for ages, but no one knows who said it first. It has been attributed to Donald Crisp and to Edmund Gwenn on his deathbed, but it may go back to some unsung vaudeville comic. Its meaning is clear, and comic actors often insist that comedy is harder to play tha...

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  • Victor Mature: An Epic Life

    There's an oft-repeated anecdote about Victor Mature, whose application for membership in a fancy country club was turned down because he was a member of the lowly acting profession. Mature is reported to have said something along the lines of 'I'm no actor, and I've got the films to prove it!' Whether apocryphal or not, the quote embodies Mature's lighthearted approach to his life and career, and it also belies the fact that he was, in fact, a hardworking man and a very fine act...

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  • TV TIME: Classic TV Songs

    Theme songs are an essential part of classic television history, with many more memorable and beloved than the series themselves, but let's not neglect the great songs that appear within some of the best TV programs of the past. I hereby salute my favorites, focusing on numbers performed during episodes of fictional series. In other words, no variety show appearances, and I ...

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