The twelve years between The Great Train Robbery (1903) and The Birth of a Nation (1915) might be the least known years in all of movie history. Yet it was during these years that the idea of what constituted a movie evolved from brief, simplistic snippets viewed through coin-operated 'peep shows' to ambitious, feature-length projects with complex storylines and characters. Any number of early pioneers during this period are worthy of examination—animators Émile Cohl and Winsor Mc...
Read moreTell me I'm beautiful, it's nothing. Tell me I'm intellectual - I know it. Tell me I'm funny and it's the greatest compliment in the world anyone could give me. – Julie Newmar Julie Newmar, who turns 80 today, is widely remembered for her role as Cat Woman on the iconic television series, Batman. Film buffs know her as Dorcas, one of the seven beautiful brides in the 1954 classic, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. A brief stint as a gold-painted exotic dancer in Serpent ...
Read moreThe top American movie experience of the 1970 Christmas season was the communal cry at screenings of Love Story. Few who saw this film in its first run have forgotten the groans, muffled sobs, and the rustling of pack after pack of Kleenex as the film neared its ending. It wasn’t over until audience members acknowledged each other’s reddened eyes as they groped their way to the exits. This was a group experience with roots. Veteran fans in Love Story’s audience remembered the studio era, when...
Read moreWho do you think had the best job during the Golden Age of Television? Reginald Rose, who got to pour his heart and soul into acclaimed socially relevant teleplays? Betty Furness, who got to dress up and show a national television audience the wonders of Westinghouse products? Or maybe Ozzie Nelson, who...who... Well, nobody's really sure what Ozzie did, of course, but it must have been fulfilling because the guy just looked so darn amiable all the time. I believe the best job may...
Read moreMy Hollywood: When Both of us were Young by Patsy Ruth Miller. A beautiful, large-format book which has 250 pages, this book was originally published some years ago and has been extremely hard to find in the recent past. BearManor Media has rectified this problem by republishing the book and therefore making it available once again, to the masses. The editor for this edition was BearManor Media author Philip J. Riley who has done a terrific job in making sure the book ha...
Read moreI will have one of the cleanest obits of any actress. I never did cheesecake like Ann Sheridan or Betty Grable. I just used my hair. – Veronica Lake Veronica Lake never received her due of sex appeal like her Hollywood competition. Her legs were not insured for million dollars like Betty Grable and her two biggest assets were not being promoted like Jane Russell. When she stood to attention in So Proudly We Hail! (1943), uniformed Veronica Lake stood 4 feet, 11 inches tal...
Read moreThe first motion picture to tell a story, have a plot, use close-ups, have actual cuts, and on and on, was The Great Train Robbery of 1903. The Western is as old as cinema itself. By 1950, the Western had gone through quite an e...
Read moreTrying to say definitively who invented the movies is a little like trying to say who invented fire—the records are sketchy, everybody who knows for certain is dead, and what evidence that does remain comes largely from the self-serving accounts of Thomas Edison's patent lawyers. And where do you start, which is to say, what was the first indispensable step toward what we now think of as motion pictures? If I knew his name, I'd say it was the first caveman who thought to entertain h...
Read moreAnimation, as a cinematic medium, does not begin and end with Walt Disney. He did not create the concept; truth be told, on his own merits, he was not even all that great of an artist. Instead, what Disney had was vision—the vision that animated cartoons could be something greater than mere novelty. He was not the only person to have this idea; since the very beginnings of film, there had been men and women intrigued by the possibilities presented by this new innovation. But unlike most of his p...
Read moreTyrone Power was one of the greatest stars of the classic film era. His spectacularly good looks were such that at times it's overlooked that he was also a fine actor whose skills grew more impressive with the passage of time. He was highly effective starring in everything from swashbucklers and Westerns to musicals and romantic comedies to film noir and costume dramas. His early death at the age of 44 was a great loss to all who love the movies. Power has always been my favorite acto...
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