When parents and grandparents ask me – and they often do – what’s the secret to turning young people on to the wonders of vintage black and white movies, I invariably answer “The Little Rascals!!!” (with just that level of enthusiasm, and sometimes I make the “okay” sign with my fingers and say “O-TAY”). Here’s how it’s always worked for me, ...
Read moreFather's Day is not just an opportunity for me to receive a new tie, but is a chance to reflect on my own skills and abilities as a dad. With today's modern conveniences, it's easy for me to gain wisdom by looking at scholarly research, perusing best-selling books by authors, and consulting experienced fathers around me. Of course, I ignore all those resources and turn to classic television instead.
Read moreIt was the tail end of the silent era, and screen goddess Clara Bow was surrounded by users, liars, thieves and con artists. Clara was Hollywood's first and still-reigning It Girl; vivacious, beautiful, modern and talented, audiences loved Clara and she loved them back. She had far less love for the studios she worked for, Hollywood snobs, and the agents and executives who ran her career as though she were a machine to be pushed until it broke down, and then discarded for something new.
Read moreHe was called 'The King of Hollywood' and if any actor during the Silent Era could credibly claim to be more popular than Charlie Chaplin, it was Elton Thomas Ullman, better known to his adoring public as Douglas Fairbanks. The star of forty-eight movies, including some of the greatest action films of all time, Fairbanks was a superstar before the...
Read moreBy the mid-1950s, the CinemaScope widescreen process had done what it set out to do — help bring back some of the audiences lost to television. With TV still black and white (and with tinny monaural sound), 20th Century-Fox decreed that all their CinemaScope pictures would be in color and stereo. Independent B-producer Robert Lippert and Spyros Skouras, the head of 20th Century-Fox, cooked up Regal Films, Inc. — an independent ...
Read moreThe antiheroes of film noir are almost always loners. Hardboiled detectives trying to clear their name, gangsters who learned early on that no one could be trusted, a lone insurance investigator certain there's a big story underneath that mundane pile of paperwork; sure, they might have some pals here and there to do them a favor, a girl or two will come and go in their lives, but at the heart of it, they walk alone. It's a defining characteristic of the film noir cycle, so ...
Read moreClassic Films archive a century of acting styles. Pick and choose among the decades of cinema and you can see the last holdovers of declamatory stage acting; camera-oriented emoting in both flamboyant (John Gilbert) and restrained (Buster Keaton) modes; the talkie era’s celebration of the vernacular; the Group Theatre era of realistic acting and the common man (John Garfield);...
Read moreWW2 brought a new type of action hero to the serial cinema screen: the patriotic G-Man battling enemy agents (at first, unnamed but obviously German; later, they wore so many swastikas you’d swear der Fuhrer had a “minimum bling requirement”). Sometimes, the good guys wore snap-brimmed hats and grey suits; sometimes, capes and tights and masks. But they were both equally heroic in the eyes of kids of the day.
Read moreThere are many things modern prime time television just doesn't do anymore, such as panel game shows and Westerns, but perhaps the most notable moribund genre is the variety show. You get elements of it in late night, on the Spanish-language channels and in awards ceremonies, but the networks rarely even try to mount a genuine variety series.
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