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Historian Michael Taylor praises Spartacus' Roman battle scene's accuracy, rating it a 7/10. Spartacus won four Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor for Peter Ustinov. The film marked a significant achievement for director Stanley Kubrick and star Kirk Douglas.

The 1960 film Spartacus gets a review from a history expert. Starring Kirk Douglas as the titular Roman slave, the historical epic film follows the protagonist's journey as he trains to become a gladiator and leads a violent revolution against the Roman Republic, while his rival Crassus works to gain power through squashing this uprising. In addition to Douglas, Spartacus features a leading cast including Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, and Nina Foch.

In an Insider interview, historian Michael Taylor rates a Roman battle scene in Spartacus.

According to the historian, the basic setup of the battle scene in Spartacus, with separate "cohorts" and a "checkerboard formation" is accurate...

by Cláudio Alves

Like Mark said in his Veronica Cartwright tribute, this 4/20 is an essential date for actressexuals... among others. After all, we celebrate the horror queen's 75th birthday and that of Jessica Lange as well. Initially, I thought about writing about the star's upcoming adaptation of O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, but that film seems trapped in some nebulous distribution limbo. By all accounts, production wrapped in late 2022 after a brief halt due to financing issues. Since then, there's been hardly any news, and Lange herself speculated it might not yet be finished in a Vulture interview. Let's hope we don't have another Blue Sky situation in our hands, though that farrago resulted in a Best Actress Oscar.

So, instead of dwelling on that mystery, why not remember The Film Experience's collective love for Jessica Lange? Going through the site, I came up with a selection of write-ups worth revisiting,...

About 20 notebooks are socked away in producer-director-writer Edward Zwick’s office in no particular order, full of odd magazine clippings and notes. During the pandemic he rooted through them and rewatched his work, looking for the nuggets and details that would become his memoir “Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions: My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood.”

He chronicles a television career with longtime Bedford Falls partner Marshall Herskovitz — together they created “Thirtysomething,” “Once and Again,” and “My So-Called Life” — but much of the book tracks Zwick in the movie business, from Demi Moore and Rob Lowe in “About Last Night” in 1986, “Legends of the Fall” with Brad Pitt in 1994, “The Last Samurai” with Tom Cruise in 2003, “Blood DIamond” with Leonardo DiCaprio in 2006, and his last outing with Cruise, “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” in 2016.

Zwick and I have talked many times over the years; we reconvened over Zoom to parse his book,...

“The Ten Commandments” is the 1956 epic religious drama feature produced, directed and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille, based on the 1949 novel “Prince of Egypt” by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, the 1859 novel “Pillar of Fire” by J. H. Ingraham, the 1937 novel “On Eagle's Wings” by A. E. Southon and the “Book of Exodus”, found in the ‘Bible’, starring Charlton Heston (“Planet of the Apes”):

“…the ‘Ten Commandments’ dramatizes the biblical story of the life of ‘Moses, an adopted Egyptian prince who becomes the deliverer of the enslaved ‘Hebrews’ and leads the ‘Exodus’ to ‘Mount Sinai’, where he receives the ‘Ten Commandments’…”

Cast also includes Yul Brynner (“Westworld”) as ‘Rameses’, Anne Baxter as ‘Nefretiri’, Edward G. Robinson as ‘Dathan’…

…Yvonne De Carlo (“The Munsters”) as ‘Sephora’, Debra Paget as ‘Lilia’, John Derek as ‘Joshua, Sir Cedric Hardwicke as ‘Seti I, Nina Foch as ‘Bithiah’, Martha Scott as ‘Yochabel’, Judith Anderson as ‘Memnet...

Thrillers from the Vault – 8 Classic Films

Blu-ray

Mill Creek Entertainment

1941, 1942, 1943, 1951 / B&w / 1.33: 1 / Blu ray

Starring Boris Karloff, Anne Revere, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi

Written by Robert Andrews, Edwin Blum, Randall Faye, Arch Oboler

Directed by Edward Dmytryk, Lew Landers, Arch Oboler

This is part two of a review for Mill Creek Entertainment’s Thrillers from the Vault, 8 Classics Films. Part one can be found here.

The Devil Commands is a hell of a title, and it’s a pretty good movie too. Released in 1941, Edward Dmytryk’s spookfest stars Boris Karloff as Julian Blair, a scientist whose experiments are a family affair—his wife Helen is one of his subjects.

Blair achieves his goal—a machine that records thought processes—but on a night he should be celebrating, his wife is killed in a car crash. Something breaks inside Blair and when he discovers that Helen may continue to live on through his invention,...

We're revisiting the 1951 film year in the lead up to the next Supporting Actress Smackdown. As always Nick Taylor will suggest a few alternatives to Oscar's ballot.

Surely we all remember Jan Sterling from the excellent 1954 Smackdown, whose performance as an “anxious catfishing pioneer” in The High and the Mighty gave a misogynistic role one of the only moments of real pathos in the whole film. That disaster film was enough of a critical and box office success to justify her nomination, but much like Katy Jurado in Broken Lance and even Nina Foch in Executive Suite (who I love!) from the same lineup, the energy around Sterling’s nomination reeks more than a little of belated recognition.

In Sterling’s case, that missed opportunity came in 1951. Beford the National Board of Review introduced supporting categories to their own awards they handed her Best Actress for her supporting turn as a bored,...

Retro-active: The Best From The Cinema Retro Archives

Review – Naked City: The Complete Series

Rlj Entertainment / 6,063 minutes

By Harvey F. Chartrand

Naked City was like no other TV series before or since – Michel Moriarty, star of Law and Order, once told this reviewer.

Inspired by Jules Dassin's 1948 film of the same name, Naked City centers on the detectives of the NYPD’s 65th Precinct, but the criminals and New York City itself often played as prominent a role in the dramas as the series regulars. Like the film it was based on, Naked City (1958- 1963) was shot almost entirely on location. The first season ran as a half-hour show under the title The Naked City, starring James Franciscus and John McIntire playing, respectively, Detective Jimmy Halloran and Lieutenant Dan Muldoon—the same roles essayed by Don Taylor and Barry Fitzgerald in the film.

The Naked City also starred Harry Bellaver as Det.

Witness six noir heroes, doing what noir heroes do: one crooked gambler, one psycho, another psycho with access to a gun, a dope railroaded into a prison sentence, and an even bigger dope who doesn’t realize he’s poisoning himself. That’s only five, but the sixth is a cop, and not a particularly compromised one, the way we like ’em in noir. This third Columbia Noir Collection can boast big stars and some name directors, beautiful HD transfers and some fascinating short subjects as extras.

Columbia Noir #3

Region B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1947-57 / B&w / 1:37 Academy, 1:85 widescreen / Street Date May 17, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £49.99

Starring: Dick Powell, Lee J Cobb, Nina Foch, William Holden, Edmond O’Brien, Dorothy Malone, Glenn Ford, Broderick Crawford, Marie Windsor, and Vince Edwards.

Directed by Robert Rossen, Rudolph Mat&eacute, Henry Levin, Gordon Douglas, Edward Dmytryk, Irving Lerner

Powerhouse Indicator’s...

Cloris Leachman, who would have turned 95 on April 30, was already a seasoned performer before her impressive streak in film and television began in the early 1970s. In 1972, she pulled off a rare feat: She won the best supporting actress Oscar for Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show,” in a finely-drawn dramatic performance, and was nominated for an Emmy in comedy supporting actress for her role as the nutty Phyllis on CBS’ “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

The longtime stage, big screen and TV actress was in her mid-forties when two of her most memorable roles came along, followed just a few years later by her hilarious Frau Blücher in “Young Frankenstein,” for which she received a Golden Globe comedy acting nomination.

Bogdanovich recalled casting Leachman in “Last Picture Show” after her death in January. When she first entered the room, he said, he thought she seemed wrong for the part.

Region B Blu-ray-capable noir fans have a formidable six-pack of noir crime pictures on tap: a WW2 espionage thriller, two caper pix and the show that launched the notion of a hit man who’s both charismatic and psychopathic. The list of leading actors is stellar as well: Glenn Ford, Kim Novak, Eli Wallach, Brian Keith, James Whitmore and Nina Foch. Do you like extras? Like to read about the movies you see? No video extra has been left behind, and Pi’s big yellow box contains a 120-page book. Plus — several newly remastered Three Stooges shorts. Don’t forget, Noir and Stooges go together like sanity and American politics!

Columbia Noir #1

Region B Blu-ray

Escape in the Fog, The Undercover Man, Drive a Crooked Road, 5 Against the House, The Garment Jungle, The Lineup

Powerhouse Indicator

1945-1958 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / 8 hours, 11 min. / Street Date November 30, 2020 / available...

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

That haunting line opened Daphne Du Maurier’s treasured 1938 romantic thriller “Rebecca,” which was published in 1938. Lauded by critics, it quickly became a best-seller and has been in print ever since. And for good reason.

Du Maurier wraps readers around her little finger with this addictive tale of a timid young woman-her name is never mentioned-who meets and falls in love with an enigmatic wealthy widower, Maxim de Winter, while in Monte Carlo working as a paid companion to the obnoxious American, Mrs. Van Hopper. Max and the young woman soon fall in love. They marry and he takes her home to his gothic estate Manderley run with an iron-fist by the tightly wound housekeeper Mrs. Danvers who is obsessed with the late, charismatic Rebecca, the late wife of Maxim.

Two years after its publication, “Gone with the Wind” producer David O. Selznick...

James Lipton, the acclaimed wordsmith, theater historian, radio star, and long-time host of “Inside the Actors Studio” has passed away at the age of 93. The news was confirmed by both TMZ and Lipton’s wife, Kedakai Turner.

He created “Inside the Actors Studio” in 1994 wherein students of the Actors Studio Drama School could listen to successful performers discuss their craft with Lipton. Paul Newman was the inaugural guest and from there Lipton interviewed nearly 300 award-winning actors. The series was one of Bravo’s longest-running series and won a Primetime Emmy. The series also garnered a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Daytime Emmys in 2016 and a Critics Choice award for best reality show host. In 2018 the series moved from Bravo onto Ovation, a move coinciding with Lipton’s retirement from the program.

The young James Lipton began his writing employment as a teenager, where he was a copyboy for “The Detroit Times.

James Lipton, executive producer, writer and host of Inside the Actors Studio, has died. He was 93.

Lipton’s wife Kendekai Turner told The New York Times that he died at his Manhattan home Monday from bladder cancer.

In 1994, he created Inside the Actors Studio and served as the host and executive producer from its inception until he stepped down in September 2018 after nearly 25 years. The show was one of cable’s longest-running series. He had also served as the Dean Emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University in New York City for several years.

Born in Detroit on Sept.

This incomparable classic has inspired generations – and heavily influenced the enormously popular La La Land – and is one of the crowning achievements of MGM’s golden age. An American In Paris plays two days only: Sunday, January 19, and Wednesday, January 22. Each screening will include brand-new, fascinating insight into the making and legacy of the film by TCM Primetime host Ben Mankiewicz.

Beauty often comes from simplicity. Men, women, art, romance, Paris. These are the simple tools with which acclaimed director Vincente Minnelli builds a lively, lovely and beautiful city for Gene Kelly to dance, sing and wisecrack through in a buoyant and legendary performance. An American in Paris returns to movie theaters nationwide for two days only – January 19 and 22 – as part of the TCM Big Screen Classics Series, featuring the exhilarating music of George Gershwin,memorable choreography from Kelly, and brand-new insights from TCM Primetime Host Ben Mankiewicz. “’Swonderful”!

The...

“Goddamn it Chief, you’re about as big as a damn mountain! “

Get ready to laugh, cry, scream, sigh, and sing along with some of the greatest movies ever made, because throughout 2020, Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies are teaming up for the fourth year in a row to present the hugely popular TCM Big Screen Classics Series in movie theaters nationwide.

In addition to pristine digital projection and movie-quality sound, each presentation will also feature all-new pre- and post-film commentary from popular TCM hosts, showcasing what makes each of these unique cinematic achievements such an important – and lasting – part of movie history. We hope you can share this exciting news with fellow movie lovers!

Now in its fourth year, the TCM Big Screen Classicsseries continues to grow in popularity. In 2019, many events in the series experienced sold-out audiences and ranked near or at the top of box-office results – showcasing...

James Gray is a filmmaker known for his work with actors who, like “Ad Astra” star Brad Pitt, go out of their way to work with the celebrated writer/director. Yet with his latest film about an astronaut (Pitt) embarking on secret mission to Neptune, Gray found himself at a loss when it came to directing Pitt during a sequence in which the actor hung from a wire in black box, one that the visual effects team would later convert into outer space. In discussing the difficulty he had directing in this environment, Gray recalled a lesson he learned at USC film school from successful actress-turned-legendary professor Nina Foch.

“She used to say, ‘The essence of a scene was what does one person want from the other,'” said Gray, while a guest on IndieWire’s Filmmaker Toolkit. “And here I certainly found myself, with one actor, not two, in...

On April 15, 1954, MGM's star-studded drama Executive Suite held its premiere in Hollywood. The film went on to earn four Oscar nominations at the 27th Academy Awards, including for best supporting actress (Nina Foch), art direction, cinematography and costume design. The Hollywood Reporter's original review, headlined "'Executive Suite' Dynamic Drama; Certain B.O. Smash," is below.

Here is a magnificent motion picture that meets the standard of greatness on almost every count. Running a fast 103 minutes, Executive Suite holds the viewer from the opening scene, building absorbingly to a smashing climax. With such ...

On April 15, 1954, MGM's star-studded drama Executive Suite held its premiere in Hollywood. The film went on to earn four Oscar nominations at the 27th Academy Awards, including for best supporting actress (Nina Foch), art direction, cinematography and costume design. The Hollywood Reporter's original review, headlined "'Executive Suite' Dynamic Drama; Certain B.O. Smash," is below.

Here is a magnificent motion picture that meets the standard of greatness on almost every count. Running a fast 103 minutes, Executive Suite holds the viewer from the opening scene, building absorbingly to a smashing climax. With such ...

Mill Creek and Kit Parker package nine mid-range Columbia features from the 1940s and 1950s, not all of them strictly noir but all with dark themes — crime, creepy politics, etc. None have been on Blu-ray, and all but one are in fine condition.

Noir Archive 9-Film Collection

Address Unknown, Escape in the Fog, The Guilt of Janet Ames, The Black Book, Johnny Allegro, 711 Ocean Drive, The Killer That Stalked New York, Assignment: Paris, The Miami Story

Blu-ray

Mill Creek / Kit Parker

1944 -1954 / B&W / 8 x 1:37 Academy; 1 x 1:85 widescreen / 734 min. / Street Date April 23, 2019 / 49.95

Starring: Paul Lukas, Nina Foch, Rosalind Russell, Robert Cummings, George Raft, Edmond O’Brien, Evelyn Keyes, Dana Andrews, Barry Sullivan.

Cinematography: Rudolph Maté, George Meehan, Joseph Walker, John Alton, Joseph Biroc, Franz Planer, Joseph Biroc, Burnett Guffey, Henry Freulich.

Written by Herbert Dalmas, Aubrey Wisberg, Louella MacFarlane, Philip Yordan, Karen DeWolf, Richard English, Harry Essex, William Bowers,...

CineSavant contributor and advisor Gary Teetzel revisits a film he reviewed for us seventeen years ago. Instead of continuing to play his greatest role for Universal, Bela Lugosi ‘returns’ as a generic vampire in a very Dracula-like tale for Columbia. He’s still the best fiend for the role. The show introduces a novel demise for Lugosi’s creature of the undead, plus a furry-faced werewolf to compete with Universal’s Wolf Man… a werewolf that talks.

The Return of the Vampire

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1943 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 69 min. / Street Date February 19, 2019 / 27.99

Starring: Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch, Roland Varno, Miles Mander, Matt Willis, Ottola Nesmith, Gilbert Emery.

Cinematography: L.W. O’Connell, John Stumar

Film Editor: Paul Borofsky

Original Music: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco

Written by Griffin Jay, Randall Faye, Kurt Neumann

Produced by Sam White

Directed by Lew Landers

Reviewed by Gary Teetzel

For Bela Lugosi, Hollywood’s...

Is this any way to treat a lady? Lovely Nina Foch just wanted a job, but she instead becomes the fall-gal in a psychologically perverse plan to deny her very identity. Cult director Joseph H. Lewis makes deft use of cinematic suspense techniques to compel our involvement in a bizarre conspiracy: not just convincing a woman that she’s insane, but that she’s literally not herself.

My Name is Julia Ross

Blu-ray

Arrow Academy

1945 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 65 min. / Street Date February 19, 2019 / Available from Arrow Films (UK) / 39.95

Starring: Nina Foch, Dame May Whitty, George Macready, Roland Varno, Leonard Mudie, Anita Bolster, Doris Lloyd, Queenie Leonard.

Cinematography: Burnett Guffey

Film Editor: Henry Batista

Visual Effects: Lawrence Butler, Donald Glouner

Musical director: Mischa Bakaleinikoff

Written by Muriel Roy Bolton, from the novel by Anthony Gilbert (Lucy Malleson)

Produced by Wallace MacDonald

Directed by Joseph H. Lewis

2019 is shaping up just fine for Blu-ray releases of small-scale,...

My Name Is Julia Ross will be available on Blu-ray from Arrow Academy February 19th

After a promising start on Poverty Row quickies, Joseph H. Lewis (The Big Combo) made his first film at Columbia and established himself as a director to watch with this Gothic-tinged Hitchcockian breakout hit, which later proved so popular that Columbia promoted it to A-feature status.

The morning after Julia Ross takes a job in London as secretary to wealthy widow Mrs Williamson Hughes, she wakes up in a windswept Cornish mansion, having been drugged. Mrs Hughes and her volatile son, Ralph, attempt to gaslight Julia into believing she is Ralph s wife, Marion. Her belongings have been destroyed, the windows barred and the locals believe that she is mad. Will Julia be able to escape before she falls prey to the Hughes sinister charade? And what happened to the real Marion Hughes?

A briskly...

The Return Of The Vampire Starring Bela Lugosi, Frieda Inescort, Nina Foch, and Miles Manders Highly-anticipated Cult Horror Classic Arrives On Blu-ray™ February 19, 2019 From Scream Factory™ In 1918, Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), a 200-year-old Hungarian Vampire, prowls the English countryside, feeding from the jugulars of the villagers. But Tesla’s reign of terror is …

The post Scream Factory Home Ent./ Bela Lugosi classic The Return Of The Vampire arrives on Blu-ray February 19. appeared first on Hnn | Horrornews.net.

Who says that vampires and werewolves can't work together? Bela Lugosi stars as a bloodsucker out for revenge alongside his werewolf aide (Matt Willis) in The Return of the Vampire, coming to Blu-ray on February 19th, and ahead of its release, Scream Factory revealed the full list of special features for the 1943 film, including three new audio commentaries:

Press Release: In 1918, Armand Tesla (Bela Lugosi), a 200-year-old Hungarian Vampire, prowls the English countryside, feeding from the jugulars of the villagers. But Tesla's reign of terror is interrupted when a pair of scientists, Lady Jane and Sir John Ainsley, drive a railroad spike through his heart. The "un-dead" Tesla remains safely entombed for two decades until the impact from a stray Nazi bomb accidentally releases him. Along with his werewolf servant Andreas Obry, the resurrected vampire now plots vengeance on the family that put a halt to his nocturnal feasting. On...

On this day (April 20th) in history as it relates to showbiz...

1893 Harold Lloyd, silent comedian of excellence, born in Nebraska

1889 Adolf Hitler born. The German Führer has been played in movies by literally hundreds of actors including in recent years Robert Carlyle, Udo Keir, Noah Taylor, and Bruno Ganz. On this awful subject let's consider it a shame that Jodie Foster never made that rumored Leni Reifenstahl (Triumph of the Will) biopic she was interested in doing. That would have made an interesting less covered piece of the ever-harrowing Nazi puzzle.

⇱ 1924 Oscar nominated actress Nina Foch (Executive Suite, An American in Paris, Spartacus) is born in The Netherlands. She was awesome.

1937 Modern gay hero George Takei born in Los Angeles. Becomes famous as Lt. Sulu in the Star Trek TV series in the 60s.

“Oh, Moses, Moses, you stubborn, splendid, adorable fool!”

The Ten Commandments screens Wednesday October 5th at The Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar in ‘The Loop’) as part of their new ‘Classics in the Loop’ film series. The movie starts at 7pm and admission is $7. It will be on The Tivoli’s big screen.

Sixty years after its initial release, The Ten Commandments remains one of the highest-grossing and most popular titles of all time. Filmed in Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula with one of the biggest sets ever constructed for a motion picture, The Ten Commandments remains a cinematic triumph and perennial fan-favorite. Directed by renowned filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille, The Ten Commandments grossed more than $65 million at the U.S. box office in 1956—equal to more than $1.1 billion today—ranking it below only Gone With the Wind, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Titanic on the list of highest-grossing titles.

On January 22nd of this year I lost someone very close to me. The someone I was closest to, in fact. She was (is) my best friend, my daughter. The love of my life a lot of people say, though this someone wasn’t actually a person. She was better—she was a dog. A nearly 19-year-old Silver Dapple Dachshund named Elizabeth Alaina Freeman, Libby for short. I got her when I was 11 and going through my Queen Elizabeth I phase. I was there when she was born, was the first person she saw when she opened her eyes and the first to hold her. As fate mercifully had it, I was also the last person she saw and the last one to hold her. She died in my arms while I was sleeping. I woke to find her looking at me, eyes unmoving.Last week I turned 30. It was...

Merle Oberon movies: Mysterious star of British and American cinema. Merle Oberon on TCM: Donning men's clothes in 'A Song to Remember,' fighting hiccups in 'That Uncertain Feeling' Merle Oberon is Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month of March 2016. The good news: the exquisite (and mysterious) Oberon, whose ancestry has been a matter of conjecture for decades, makes any movie worth a look. The bad news: TCM isn't offering any Oberon premieres despite the fact that a number of the actress' films – e.g., Temptation, Night in Paradise, Pardon My French, Interval – can be tough to find. This evening, March 18, TCM will be showing six Merle Oberon movies released during the first half of the 1940s. Never a top box office draw in the United States, Oberon was an important international star all the same, having worked with many of the top actors and filmmakers of the studio era.

Sixty years after its initial release, The Ten Commandments remains one of the highest-grossing and most popular titles of all time, and on Sunday, March 20, and Wednesday, March 23, Fathom Events and Turner Classic Movies (TCM) offer a rare chance to see the monumental epic on the big screen.

For four screenings only – two each day – the TCM Big Screen Classics series presents this fully restored Vista Vision production, which reveals every vibrant detail of the stunning landscapes, costumes and visual effects, digitally projected in its original 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio. This special presentation of The Ten Commandments will play at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. (local time) each day in more than 650 theaters nationwide.

Filmed in Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula with one of the biggest sets ever constructed for a motion picture, The Ten Commandments remains a cinematic triumph and perennial fan-favorite. Directed by renowned filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille,...

Most of us love the Trumbo-Douglas-Kubrick thinking man's leftist gladiator epic, and after several iffy disc presentations this exacting digital restoration follows through on the photochemical reconstruction done 25 years ago. It looks incredibly good, almost too good to be a Blu-ray. Kirk contributes a new featurette interview, telling us that this is the show he'll be remembered for. Spartacus Blu-ray + Digital HD Universal Studios Home Entertainment 1960 / Color / 2:20 widescreen / 197 min. / Street Date October 6, 2015 / 19.98 Starring Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Jean Simmons, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis, Woody Strode, John Gavin, Nina Foch, Herbert Lom, Charles McGraw, John Ireland, Nick Dennis, John Dall, Herbert Lom, Joanna Barnes, Harold J. Stone, Peter Brocco, John Hoyt, Richard Farnsworth, George Kennedy. Cinematography by Russell Metty Music by Alex North Edited by Robert Lawrence Produced by Kirk Douglas and Edward Lewis Screenplay by Dalton Trumbo Based on the novel by Howard Fast Produced by...

Rex Ingram in 'The Thief of Bagdad' 1940 with tiny Sabu. Actor Rex Ingram movies on TCM: Early black film performer in 'Cabin in the Sky,' 'Anna Lucasta' It's somewhat unusual for two well-known film celebrities, whether past or present, to share the same name.* One such rarity is – or rather, are – the two movie people known as Rex Ingram;† one an Irish-born white director, the other an Illinois-born black actor. Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” continues today, Aug. 11, '15, with a day dedicated to the latter. Right now, TCM is showing Cabin in the Sky (1943), an all-black musical adaptation of the Faust tale that is notable as the first full-fledged feature film directed by another Illinois-born movie person, Vincente Minnelli. Also worth mentioning, the movie marked Lena Horne's first important appearance in a mainstream motion picture.§ A financial disappointment on the...

We're just 9 days away from the launch of another Smackdown Summer. Rather than announce piecemeal, we'll give you all five lineups in case you'd like more time to catch up with these films (some of them stone cold classics) over the hot months. Remember to cast your own ballots during each month for the reader-polling (your 1979 votes are due by June 4th). Your votes count toward the final Smackdown win so more of you should join in. 

These Oscar years were chosen after comment reading, dvd searching, handwringing, and desire-to-watch moods.  I wish we had time to squeeze in a dozen Smackdowns each summer! As it is there will be Two Smackdowns in June, a gift to you since this first episode was delayed.

Sunday June 7th

The Best Supporting Actresses of 1979

Meryl Streep won her first of three Oscars while taking her co-star Jane Alexander along for the Oscar ride in Kramer vs. Kramer.

It was going to be a movie about two kept people who fall in love with each other. That was Alan Jay Lerner’s original concept for his “An American in Paris” screenplay. Naturally, the powers at MGM decided that one kept person was more than enough for their 1951 movie musical. Struggling painter Gene Kelly could be “supported” by art patron Nina Foch (impersonating Peggy Guggenheim), but it was just too much for Leslie Caron to be kept by her wealthy boyfriend too. Instead, Caron’s character Lise became a waif who’s indebted to the wealthy Henri Baurel for protecting.

As we move closer to October 31st, horror fans have several amazing collections and special edition releases to look forward to this week, including the highly anticipated “Black Maria” collection from Dark Sky and Mpi in celebration of the 40th anniversary of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Universal is also releasing a really cool box set that features a handful of Steven Spielberg’s finest films, Kino Lorber is resurrecting the cult classic Jennifer in high-def this week, and the indie horror comedy Witching & Bitching makes its way home on DVD as well, all in time for Halloween.

Spotlight Titles:

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 40th Anniversary Black Maria Edition (Mpi Home Video/Dark Sky Films, Blu-ray)

40 years ago, five youths on a weekend getaway in the Texas countryside fell prey to a butcher in a mask made of human skin and his cannibalistic family, and horror cinema would never be the same.

Kind of a shame the Carrie remake wasn’t a bigger hit because part of me would like to believe that might lead to a remake of the obscure 1978 knock-off Jennifer. Thanks to Scorpion Releasing, “The Snake Goddess” will be reborn on Blu-ray.

Jennifer is the movie that answers the question as to what you would get if someone combined the bullied high school girl with magic powers seeking revenge on her cool kid tormentors premise (i.e., Carrie) with the social misfit with the ability to make animals do their bidding to get revenge against their tormentors trope (i.e., Willard).

Lisa Pelikan starred in the film (also known by the title Jennifer the Snake Goddess) as a shy young woman from a poor, rural family of Pentecostal snake charmers who finds herself the target of conniving rich kids at the snooty private school she attends via scholarship. They finally push her too far,...

James Garner movies on TCM: ‘Grand Prix,’ ‘Victor Victoria’ among highlights (photo: James Garner ca. 1960) James Garner, whose film and television career spanned more than five decades, died of "natural causes" at age 86 on July 19, 2014, in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. On Monday, July 28, Turner Classic Movies will present an all-day marathon of James Garner movies (see below) as a tribute to the Oscar-nominated star of Murphy’s Romance and Emmy-winning star of the television series The Rockford Files. Among the highlights in TCM’s James Garner film lineup is John Frankenheimer’s Monaco-set Grand Prix (1966), an all-star, race-car drama featuring Garner as a Formula One driver who has an affair with the wife (Jessica Walter) of his former teammate (Brian Bedford). Among the other Grand Prix drivers facing their own personal issues are Yves Montand and Antonio Sabato, while Akira Kurosawa’s (male) muse Toshiro Mifune plays a...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will remember award-winning actor James Garner on Monday, July 28, with an all-day marathon featuring 12 of his films. The Oscar nominated actor passed away on Saturday in Los Angeles at age 86.

TCM’s lineup features Garner’s performances in such movies as Toward the Unknown (1956), which marked his film debut; the racing drama Grand Prix (1966); the popular romantic comedy The Thrill of It All (1963); the Paddy Cheyefsky-penned The Americanization of Emily (1964); the groundbreaking drama The Children’s Hour(1961); and the gender-bending Victor/Victoria (1982).

The following is the complete schedule for TCM’s tribute to James Garner.

TCM Remembers James Garner – Monday, July 28

6 a.m. – Toward the Unknown (1956) – starring William Holden, Lloyd Nolan, Virginia Leith and James Garner

8 a.m. – Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend (1957) – starring Randolph Scott, James Craig, Angie Dickinson and James Garner

9:30 a.m. – Grand Prix (1966) – starring James Garner, Eva Marie Saint, Brian Bedford and Yves Montand

12:30 p.

Johnny O’Clock

Written and directed by Robert Rossen

USA, 1947

Balancing plot and character must be a complex feat to pull off. It seems that, on a weekly basis, especially with the plethora of blogs and websites dedicated to film reviews, articles and podcasts discount various movies for their lack of character development, presenting overly convoluted plots and many similar faux pas. Carrying the precarious pressures of both screenwriting and directing can easily make the exercise of filmmaking all the more demanding, save perhaps for the few masters of both art forms (even then they would surely confess to experiencing some troubled waters). Robert Rossen, who would go on to direct All The King’s Men to Oscar victory in 1949, worked on a much smaller scale for 1947′s Johnny O’Clock.

Johnny O’Clock (Dick Powell) is an upper-lever employee at a local and legal gambling establishment operating under the...

William Holden movies: ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ William Holden is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" featured actor today, August 21, 2013. Throughout the day, TCM has been showing several William Holden movies made at Columbia, though his work at Paramount (e.g., I Wanted Wings, Dear Ruth, Streets of Laredo, Dear Wife) remains mostly off-limits. Right now, TCM is presenting David Lean’s 1957 Best Picture Academy Award winner and all-around blockbuster The Bridge on the River Kwai, the Anglo-American production that turned Lean into filmdom’s brainier Cecil B. DeMille. Until then a director of mostly small-scale dramas, Lean (quite literally) widened the scope of his movies with the widescreen-formatted Southeast Asian-set World War II drama, which clocks in at 161 minutes. Even though William Holden was The Bridge on the River Kwai‘s big box-office draw, the film actually belongs to Alec Guinness’ Pow British commander and to...

Eleanor Parker today: Beautiful as ever in Scaramouche, Interrupted Melody Eleanor Parker, who turns 91 in ten days (June 26, 2013), can be seen at her most radiantly beautiful in several films Turner Classic Movies is showing this evening and tomorrow morning as part of their Star of the Month Eleanor Parker "tribute." Among them are the classic Scaramouche, the politically delicate Above and Beyond, and the biopic Interrupted Melody, which earned Parker her third and final Best Actress Academy Award nomination. (Photo: publicity shot of Eleanor Parker in Scaramouche.) The best of the lot is probably George Sidney’s balletic Scaramouche (1952), in which Eleanor Parker plays one of Stewart Granger’s love interests — the other one is Janet Leigh. A loose remake of Rex Ingram’s 1923 blockbuster, the George Sidney version features plenty of humor, romance, and adventure; vibrant colors (cinematography by Charles Rosher); an elaborately staged climactic swordfight; and tough dudes...

Three Takes is a column dedicated to the art of short-form criticism. Each week, three writers—Calum Marsh, Fernando F. Croce, and Joseph Jon Lanthier—offer stylized capsules which engage, in brief, with classic and contemporary films.

Joseph H. Lewis'

My Name Is Julia Ross (1945)

Correspondence is so often destroyed in Joseph L. Lewis' My Name is Julia Ross—by everything from smugly shredding fingers to curling flame—that the film starts to appear contemptuous toward text. The unlucky scrawlings belong to the title character (Nina Foch), an American expat in London who's kidnapped, dragged to the Cornwall coast, and installed as the faux-loony surrogate wife of a burly nobleman named Hughes (George Macready). (Hughes’ wealth is surpassed only by his barbarism; he reenacts his real spouse’s fate by jabbing a couch pillow, not insignificantly, with a letter opener.) Ever resourceful, the captive Julia scribbles Sos's on scraps...

This will be the last top ten off the top of my head whole decade thingies for a bit -- we need to get to real articles but I've been swamped off blog. But these discussions are fun, don't you agree? The 1950s were the first film decade I was obsessed with in that when I was first becoming interested in cinema in the mid 80s, the 50s somehow came to signify Mythic Classic Hollywood to me, though cinema obviously stretched much much further back. So I guess I'll always be kind of attached to this decade when the movies got literally bigger (I do so prefer rectangulars to squares) and the era's stars really defined (at least for me) the concept of "Movie Star". I mean it's hard to argue with Liz, Brando, Clift, Dean, Monroe in all caps.

Which is why Giant is such a perfect 1950s movie...

Here is last week's caption pic winner. This week's caption pic is at the bottom of the page.

Thanks to everyone for participating! The winner is ...

"This week on Mythbusters: Can animals sense evil? Myth Confirmed!"

Thanks to NemiForever for this week's winning caption!

Weekend Birthdays! (Note: Birthday shoutouts are for out entertainers, allies, or for any celeb that seems to have a following on Ae). Chris Carmack (above) is 32, Susan Lucci is 66, Joanna Kelly is 34, Ralph Fiennes is 50, and Samuel Jackson is 64. Despite the rumors, NBC there are no plans for Rosie O'Donnell to join America's Got TalentIn shocking news, AMC has renewed The Walking Dead for a fourth season. Oh, and they lost yet another showrunner.Chuck Hagel has apologized for the antigay remarks he made 15 years ago. He's apologizing now ... 15 years later. But I'm sure he would have gotten around to it eventually even if he wasn't up for Defense Secretary.

Sophisticated and witty actor who triumphed on Broadway and won an Oscar

Celeste Holm, who has died aged 95, was the original Ado Annie in Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's groundbreaking musical Oklahoma! which opened on Broadway in 1943. In I Cain't Say No, she sang: "I cain't be prissy and quaint / I ain't the type that can faint." Annie was a none-too-bright farm girl, but Holm was a smart, witty and sophisticated actor, whom everybody seemed to like. Many years later, during the interval of a Broadway show, she came out on stage and made a plea for her mental-health charity. It was done with such sincerity and passion that the audience could not fail to pay up.

On screen, Holm was the first woman to sing the Cole Porter song Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, sharing the delightful duet with Frank Sinatra in High Society (1956). Holm and Sinatra...

Illegal

Directed by Lewis Allen

Screenplay by W. R. Burnett and James R. Webb

1955, U.S.A.

Few those familiar with the Hollywood of the 1930s, 40s and 50s, few names strike a chord like Edward G. Robinson. Shorter than most of his co-stars perhaps, what the actor lacked in physical stature he made up for with a lively personality and charm in bringing his roles to life, so much so that he made quite a name for himself playing especially tough characters in the early days of his career over at Warner Brothers in films the likes of Little Caesar (1931). Remembering Robinson purely as a tough thug paints an incomplete picture for his roles were far more diverse, as exemplified in Lewis Allen’s courtroom noir, Illegal.

Illegal takes the notion of starting off a movie with a bang in the most literal sense possible, as a young woman...

Diane Kruger as Marie Antoinette, Farewell, My Queen The world premiere of Les Adieux à la reine / Farewell, My Queen will open the 2012 Berlin Film Festival next February 9. Directed by Benoît Jacquot (Tosca, Villa Amalia, Deep in the Woods), Farewell, My Queen stars Inglourious Basterds' Diane Kruger (as Marie Antoinette), Midnight in Paris' Léa Seydoux, and Army of Crime's Virginie Ledoyen. Adapted by Jacquot and Gilles Taurand from Chantal Thomas’ novel, Farewell, My Queen is set during the first days of the French Revolution, as seen from the perspective of the servants at Versailles. The synopsis below is from the Berlin Film Festival website: Versailles in July 1789. Unrest is growing in the court of King Louis the XVI (Xavier Beauvois). The people are rebelling — a revolution is imminent. Behind the facades of the royal palaces, everyone is thinking of fleeing, including Queen Marie Antoinette (Diane Kruger) and her entourage.

Vincente Minnelli's musical sejourn in Paris has perhaps dated less well than other classic Hollywood musicals but it still has a charm

Here is a film for which you might need a sweet tooth. It is a little sugary and theatrical and perhaps it has dated less well than other classic Hollywood musicals. But there is charm and a kind of willed American innocence. Gene Kelly plays Jerry, a former GI who stayed on in Paris after the Liberation to be an artist of the most quaintly chocolate-boxy sort: he finds himself taken up by an infatuated sugar-mummy patron (Nina Foch) at the same time as he falls for a beautiful gamine (Leslie Caron) considerably his junior. The most distinctive things about the film are possibly Caron's personae-montage at the beginning, which showcases her virtuoso dance moves, and the final fantasy sequence, which resolves (a little hurriedly) the emotional obstacles to their love.

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (Sphe) are joining forces on a new line of DVDs to be made available as part of the TCM Vault Collection. The offerings will include first-time DVD releases of classic films from the Columbia Pictures library. Among the DVD sets on tap will be a four-film collection of comedies starring Jean Arthur and introduced by TCM’s Ben Mankiewicz; a five-film set starring Humphrey Bogart; a large selection of cartoons from the United Productions of America (Upa) Jolly Frolics series, which includes the debut of the one-and-only Mr. Magoo and a special introduction and audio commentaries by film historian Leonard Maltin; as well as an intriguing collection of film noir thrillers, presented in partnership with The Film Foundation.

Like all films in the TCM Vault Collection, the new sets from Sphe are digitally remastered and include extensive on-screen bonus materials, including photos,...

Director of a string of successful TV series, including 44 episodes of M*A*S*H

There is an episode in the television series M*A*S*H in which a congressional aide comes to Korea to expose Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan (Loretta Swit) as a communist sympathiser. Under pressure to reveal the names of those she knew as communists, she refuses. The episode, called Are You Now, Margaret?, broadcast in 1979, was directed by Charles Dubin, who has died aged 92.

This would not be especially significant but for the fact that Dubin had found himself in a similar position in 1958, when he was subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Dubin denied that he was a communist and refused 22 times to say whether he had ever been one, citing constitutional protections against self-incrimination. As a result, he was blacklisted for four years, during which time he was forced to take work directing commercials.

A park policeman hears gunshots in the park and finds a dead marine. Tony (Michael Weatherly) is washing and drying his sock in the office. There, bet you didn't think he could also do his washing there, I mean after the countless number of shirt changes and deodorant refreshers, ha. Tony got his feet wet. Ducky (David McCallum) comments Gibbs (Mark Harmon) is working him too hard and he doesn't have time to do his laundry except in the office. Tony stepped in a puddle whilst texting Ziva. (Cote de Pablo). He thinks cos she's a Probie that she's also his Pa. Ducky loves the rain, don't we all. Actually it's mostly raining in NCIS, especially when one of their own is killed off, or hurt. Tony asks for talc. McGee (Sean Murray) notices Ducky is wearing a tie and not his customary bow tie. Gibbs gives Tony socks and...