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The studio once known as 20th Century Fox is a younger entity than the other major Hollywood Studios. It was founded in 1935 out of the ashes of Fox Film, compared to Warner Bros (1923), Universal Pictures (1912), Paramount Pictures (1912), Columbia Pictures (1923), and Disney (1923) — the latter being the new parent company of 20th Century Studios.

Still, Fox waited only seven years to take home the top prize at the Oscars. At the 14th Academy Awards, held in 1942, Fox's film "How Green Was My Valley" won Best Picture, presented to Fox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck. That wasn't the only prize "Valley" won that night: it also got Best Director (John Ford), Best Supporting Actor (Donald Crisp), Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Arthur Miller), and finally Best Art Direction -- Interior Decoration, Black-and-White.

One of the films that "Valley" beat that night was "Citizen Kane" (which got only Best Original Screenplay for director Orson Welles and his co-writer Herman J.

Since the inception of the Academy Awards, the U.S.-based organization behind them has always strived to honor worldwide film achievements. Their extensive roster of competitive acting winners alone consists of artists from 30 unique countries, three of which first gained representation during the 2020s. The last full decade’s worth of triumphant performers hail from eight countries, while 42.1% of the individual actors nominated during that time originate from outside of America.

The academy’s history of recognizing acting talent on a global scale dates all the way back to the inaugural Oscars ceremony in 1929, when Swiss-born Emil Jannings (who was of German and American parentage) won Best Actor for his work in both “The Last Command” and “The Way of All Flesh.” Over the next three years, the Best Actress prize was exclusively awarded to Canadians: Mary Pickford (“Coquette”), Norma Shearer (“The Divorcee”), and Marie Dressler (“Min and Bill...

The Academy Awards grew up at the 16th annual ceremony March 2, 1944. Since the first Oscar ceremony at the Hollywood Roosevelt’s Blossom Room in 1929, the Academy Awards were small banquet ceremonies for La La Land movers and shakers. But that all changed 80 years ago. World War II was in its third year and movies meant more than ever to war-weary audiences.

So, the Oscars moved to the then-Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood and bleachers were introduced giving fans a chance to see their favorites walk the red carpet. And instead of a select industry audience, attendees included members of all branches of the armed services many of whom sat in bleachers on the stage at the Chinese. The ceremony was heard locally on Kfwb; Jack Benny hosted the international broadcast for the troops on CBS Radio via shortwave. And for the first time, supporting performers finally received a full-size Academy Award.

Who doesn't love a good Viking movie? Nearly a full millennium after the Vikings' heyday, stories of the Scandinavian seafarers and warriors who rampaged their way through Europe and around the world in the 8th through 11th centuries still fascinate us — enough to inspire an entire subgenre of historical fiction that spans various media. Film in particular has returned to the Viking world repeatedly since the silent era, with productions that hail from Iceland, America, Norway, Britain, Denmark, and more.

A quick scan of the most notorious Viking-themed films reveals that these movies have never been just one thing; it's a milieu that lends itself to comedy, romance, horror, superhero-style action, and, of course, the gruesome war sagas it's most commonly associated with. Here, then, are 14 essential Viking movies that should cover a wide range of cinematic tastes and proclivities, while still satisfying anyone who's just looking for a grand,...

This year’s documentary nominees explore diverse subject matter as saving birds (“All that Breathes”) and an exploration of the life and career of photographer and activist Nan Goldin (“All the Beauty and the Bloodshed”). But the documentary nominees, which took place at the 15th annual Oscars on March 4, 1943 at the Cocoanut Grove, primarly revolved around World War II.

There were 25 nominees — shorts and features competed against each other — and four winners. The US Navy was the producer of winner “The Battle of Midway,” directed by John Ford. The 18-minute film featured footage from the Battle of Midway which was a crucial victory in the Pacific in 1942. The film featured narration by Ford favorites Henry Fonda, Donald Crisp and Jane Darwell.

The Australian News and Information Bureau produced the full-length documentary winner “Kokoda Front Line!,” which was also the first film from Down Under to win an Oscar. The film...

For Oscar voters, the unspoken rule regarding supporting male performances is the longer the better. An average winner in the category clocks in with 33 minutes and 55 seconds of screen time, and the last five champs have consistently raised that bar. Last year’s victor, Troy Kotsur, was honored for appearing in 35 minutes and 34 seconds (or nearly one-third) of Best Picture winner “Coda.” Of the 86 performances that have won Best Supporting Actor, his falls comfortably within the longer half.

Unlike the three Best Supporting Actor recipients who directly preceded him – Daniel Kaluuya (“Judas and the Black Messiah”), Brad Pitt (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”), and Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”) – Kotsur’s category placement was uncontested, meaning there was no talk about him instead belonging in the lead race. Emilia Jones, the un-nominated star of “Coda” who plays Kotsur’s daughter, towers over him by a margin of 52 minutes. His is...

In just her fourth American movie the Swedish import Ingrid Bergman proves herself the most sensual creature in Hollywood, running away with Spencer Tracy and Victor Fleming’s remake of Mamoulian’s pre-Code classic. The morals are cleaned up and the sex angle tamed down (except for Fröken Bergman) and the acting is less stylized — overall it’s a fine show. Ingrid learned quickly how things were done at MGM — she swiped the film’s plum role from Lana Turner.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 113 min. / Available at Amazon.com / General site Wac-Amazon / Street Date May 17, 2022 / 21.99

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Ingrid Bergman, Lana Turner, Donald Crisp, Ian Hunter, Barton MacLane, Sara Allgood.

Cinematography: Joseph Ruttenberg

Art Director: Cedric Gibbons

Film Editor: Harold F. Kress

Original Music: Franz Waxman

Written by John Lee Mahin from a novella by Robert Louis Stevenson

Produced and Directed...

Ever since “The Life of Emile Zola” became the first film to win Oscars for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Joseph Schildkraut) in 1938, occurrences of films receiving nominations in both categories have been rather common. Of the 511 features that have contended for the top honor since the supporting awards were first bestowed 86 years ago, 194 (38%) have had at least one performance by a featured male cast member recognized as well. In that time, the double victory initiated by “The Life of Emile Zola” has been replicated by 16 more films, from “How Green Was My Valley” to “Green Book”.

A fair amount of these nearly 200 performances were considered surprise nominees. Some actors, such as Max von Sydow and Jonah Hill were previously thought of as longshots after missing major precursors, while others, like Lakeith Stanfield, truly came from out of the blue. Since all three of these men appeared in Best Picture contenders,...

For almost 100 years, the motion picture academy has honored the best in film, but many times the winners aren’t always the best remembered, or the films that go on to become classics. At the 14th ceremony, “How Green Was My Valley” famously won Best Picture over “Citizen Kane,” now considered by most filmmakers, historians and cinephiles as the greatest movie ever made – and even those who disagree acknowledge its profound influence on the industry. Additionally, there were quite a few now-classic films and performances that either didn’t win, or were snubbed altogether. Let’s flashback 80 years ago to the 1942 Oscars ceremony.

SEE15 biggest Oscar Best Picture upsets, ranked

Hosted by Bob Hope, the ceremony took place on February 26, less than three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and a month after beloved actress Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash – while returning home after selling war bonds.

“What’s the meaning of goodness if there isn’t a little badness to overcome?”

Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney in National Velvet (1944) will be available on Blu-ray November 16th from Warner Archive

As long as young hearts endure, so will National Velvet and movies like it. in her star-making role, Elizabeth Taylor plays Velvet Brown, a wide-eyed adolescent who, assisted by her jockey pal (Mickey Rooney), trains Pie, a horse she won in a raffle, for the Grand National Steeplechase. Of course, no girl can ride in the National, can she? Yet Velvet, posing as a boy, assuredly does. Superbly directed by Clarence Brown, this exciting winner of two Academy Awards®* (one to Anne Revere for her performance as Velvet’s mother) costars a young Angela Lansbury and veteran Donald Crisp. The film has an off-screen postscript as winning as the on-screen finale:

M-g-m was so impressed with their...

The 2020 Best Supporting Actor lineup, which included performances that ranged from 43 to 56 minutes long, proved that high screen times are fairly common in the category. Six actors have won the award with over one hour of screen time, while an additional 18 nominees have passed that mark. Here is a look at the 10 performances that rank as the longest of them all (and here are the 10 longest winners):

10. Jeff Bridges (“Thunderbolt and Lightfoot”)

1 hour, 6 minutes, 23 seconds (57.74% of the film)

After Mickey Rooney and Sal Mineo, Bridges became the third man to receive two acting Oscar nominations by age 25, and there has not been another in the 45 years since. His second bid for playing the titular Lightfoot also earned him a spot on this list and was the 11th nominated supporting male performance to have over one hour of screen time. Bridges finally scored his first win at age 60, as a lead in “Crazy Heart,...

Warning: Do not read this story until you have seen the final episode of “Hollywood.”

For its first six episodes, Ryan Murphy’s “Hollywood” mixed reality and fiction in its portrait of the movie business in the years after World War II. But there’s a good reason why the final episode is titled “A Hollywood Ending” – because it uses the Oscars of March 1948 to paint a picture of Hollywood growing more tolerant, more open to minorities and gays and more embracing of the kind of films that in reality were nearly impossible to make at the time or for decades later.

Like the ending of Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” the episode veers into a kind of wish-fulfillment fiction that is the whole point of its existence.

So we’re not really fact-checking when we look at the show’s depiction of the 20th Academy Awards ceremony.

The Uninvited

Blu ray

Criterion

1944 / 1.33:1 / 99 min.

Starring Ray Milland, Gail Russell, Ruth Hussey

Cinematography by Charles Lang

Directed by Lewis Allen

The story of a lonely young woman and the ghosts in her life, Dorothy Macardle’s Uneasy Freehold was published in 1941 and brought to the screen in 1944 as The Uninvited. The film follows the same trajectory as the book: Rick Fitzgerald and his sister Pamela are two Londoners searching for more peaceful surroundings when they discover their dream home on a sea-swept cliff in Cornwall – a vacant estate called Windward House. The couple’s first swing through the place is full of promise – roomy if dusty chambers, a kitchen ripe for renovation and a sunny studio overlooking the ocean. Once they take up residence, things change. One room is inexplicably cold. And at night, in what would be a deal breaker for most new homeowners, a woman’s sobs echo through the hallways.

[This Halloween season, we're paying tribute to classic horror cinema by celebrating films released before 1970! Check back on Daily Dead this month for more retrospectives on classic horror films, and visit our online hub to catch up on all of our Halloween 2019 special features!]

The Uninvited is a supernatural film from 1944. Though it has garnered praise both then and now for its stunning cinematography, marvelous cast and effects work used to bring the story’s ghost to the screen, it is a film that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough, and would be very at home on anyone’s October viewing list.

Written by Dodie Smith and Frank Partos (based on a novel by Dorothy Macardle) and directed by Lewis Allen, the film follows siblings Rick (Ray Milland) and Pamela Fitzgerald (Ruth Hussey) on a seaside vacation where they happen upon an old abandoned house. They immediately fall in love with the property, and inquire about buying it. The owner, Commander Beech (Donald Crisp), is more than happy to sell and offers the house at a very low price. His granddaughter, Stella (Gail Russell), is less than thrilled about the sale. The house...

Which Bette Davis movies qualify for greatness? Her flawed character in this costume picture doesn’t conquer all, and it’s historically more sensitive than Gone With the Wind. It’s also William Wyler at the top of his form, creating in just 104 minutes a rich image of a long-gone world. Southern Belle Julie Marsden is a contrary troublemaker, a flip coquette who shoots her whole life to hell with just a couple of social gaffes. The story is ‘bigger than Bette’ – the apocalyptic finale is just a side event in a fable about the nature of chivalry and honor in a flawed social structure.

Jezebel

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1938 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 104 min. / Street Date August 27, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Bette Davis, Henry Fonda, George Brent, Margaret Lindsay, Donald Crisp, Fay Bainter, Richard Cromwell, Henry O’Neill, Spring Byington, John Litel, Theresa Harris, Irving Pichel, Eddie Anderson,...

Grand action entertainment bursts forth on the high seas, showing us how much production value Golden Hollywood could lavish on an exciting, artful swashbuckler. Errol Flynn is at his glorious best, backed by greats like Flora Robson, Henry Daniell and Claude Rains in fine form. The special effects and full-sized ship sets impress in ways that computer generated images never will. And the rousing music of Erich Wolfgang Korngold seals the deal — the term ‘Timeless Classic’ was invented for marvels like this.

The Sea Hawk

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1940 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 127 min. / Street Date December 18, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Errol Flynn, Brenda Marshall, Claude Rains, Donald Crisp, Flora Robson, Alan Hale, Henry Daniell, Una O’Connor, James Stephenson, Gilbert Roland, William Lundigan, Julien Mitchell, Montagu Love, J.M. Kerrigan, David Bruce, Fritz Leiber, Francis McDonald, Pedro de Cordoba, Ian Keith, Jack La Rue, Halliwell Hobbes, Victor Varconi,...

Stars: Ruth Hussey, Ray Milland, Gail Russell, Donald Crisp, Barbara Everest | Written by Frank Partos, Dodie Smith | Directed by Lewis Allen

“Be afraid. Be afraid, for heaven’s sake.” This line may have inspired Geena Davis’s famous warning from David Cronenberg’s The Fly. Indeed, this 1944 groundbreaker provides a reference point for many a horror movie since. While The Uninvited may not chill you to the bone, it is a reminder that not everything in the horror genre prior to Jack Clayton’s The Innocents relied on spooky stageplay castles and camp.

Adapted from the novel by Dorothy Macardle and directed by feature debutant Lewis Allen, the narrative is for the most part a vehicle for exposition. In that way it’s more suited to the page or the radio play format; but the plot is intriguing enough, the performances are effective, and there are some creepy images and ideas.

In the last decade of his career, John Ford produced and directed this ode to crony politics, with Spencer Tracy as an old-fashioned mayor who uses underhanded ploys to do right by his constituents. Tracy is backed by a veritable army of supporting actors, neatly orchestrated in Frank Nugent’s screenplay. We’re talking scores of John Ford stock company players; it’s like old home week, with Ford in firm control.

The Last Hurrah

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1958 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date September 18, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95

Starring: Spencer Tracy, Jeffrey Hunter, Dianne Foster, Basil Rathbone, Pat O’Brien, Donald Crisp, James Gleason, Edward Brophy, John Carradine, Willis Bouchey, Basil Ruysdael, Ricardo Cortez, Wallace Ford, Frank McHugh, Carleton Young, Frank Albertson, Anna Lee, Ken Curtis, Jane Darwell, O.Z. Whitehead, Charles B. Fitzsimons, Arthur Walsh, Bob Sweeney, William Leslie, Danny Borzage, Richard Deacon, James Flavin,...

The Western is the quintessential American movie genre. Its iconography has been seared into our collective conscious: the solitary cowboy riding the endless frontier, towns struggling to survive in a lawless land, the quick-drawing gunfighter. Generations of filmmakers have engaged with those symbols, building an entire cinematic language on a genre that began with the simple premise of good “white hats” vs. bad “black hats.” In doing so, they have created mythologies, torn down legends and subverted what it means to be an American.

My exposure to the West began in the living room of my parents’ house. My father, a Sephardic Jew born and raised in Greece, shared with me the movies he loved as a child. Over the years my enthusiasm for the genre only grew as I became a history buff, a lover of myths, and eventually a filmmaker. In interviews, I’m often asked to name my favorite Western,...

'The Magnificent Ambersons': Directed by Orson Welles, and starring Tim Holt (pictured), Dolores Costello (in the background), Joseph Cotten, Anne Baxter, and Agnes Moorehead, this Academy Award-nominated adaptation of Booth Tarkington's novel earned Ricardo Cortez's brother Stanley Cortez an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White. He lost to Joseph Ruttenberg for William Wyler's blockbuster 'Mrs. Miniver.' Two years later, Cortez – along with Lee Garmes – would win Oscar statuettes for their evocative black-and-white work on John Cromwell's homefront drama 'Since You Went Away,' starring Ricardo Cortez's 'Torch Singer' leading lady, Claudette Colbert. In all, Stanley Cortez would receive cinematography credit in more than 80 films, ranging from B fare such as 'The Lady in the Morgue' and the 1940 'Margie' to Fritz Lang's 'Secret Beyond the Door,' Charles Laughton's 'The Night of the Hunter,' and Nunnally Johnson's 'The Three Faces...

Filmmakers and stars have often taken a political stance by choosing which projects to make. But when the Academy Awards ceremony began in 1929 to honor the best in film, this created a more public way to demonstrate opinions about the state of the world, the government or a cause.

Read More: Meryl Streep Fires Back at Donald Trump in Blistering Speech: ‘We Have the Right to Live Our Lives’

Not everyone has taken this opportunity though, except for maybe wearing the odd ribbon to support awareness or using their attendance (or lack thereof) to show solidarity. Those blessed by winning a coveted statuette, however, can use their actual acceptance speech as a platform to speak out. Although the awards started being televised in 1953, it took until the 1970s until winners began to really take advantage of having a massive audience for their views. And at times, even the Academy itself got political.

Above: French grande for El Topo (Alejandro Jodorowsky, Mexico, 1970). Artist: “Moebius,” aka Jean Giraud, aka “Gir” (1938-2012).You might expect something wilder from the fecund paired imaginations of Alejandro Jodorowsky and the artist known as Moebius. But this striking yet unusually restrained poster for El Topo (courtesy of Film/Art Gallery who provided a second, that’s-more-like-it Italian poster for the film that also made the top 20) was the most popular poster on Movie Poster of the Day over the last three months by a long stretch of desert.Collecting the posters with the most likes and reblogs yields a particularly attractive and typically diverse collection of art. There are Danish posters for French films, Polish posters for Italian films, Italian posters for Russian films and Russian posters for American films. Plenty of great artists are represented: from the Sternberg Brothers to John Alvin, from Andrzej Onegin-Dabrowski to Georges Kerfyser,...

March 30, 1970. Racing champion Secretariat was born.

After Citation in 1948, Secretariat became the first U.S. Triple Crown winner in 25 years and became the stuff of legend.

New York Post columnist Larry Merchant said:

“Secretariat is the kind of Big Horse that makes grown men weep, even when they are flint-hearted bettors, even when he goes off at 1-10. He is the apparently unflawed hunk of beauty and beast they search for doggedly in the racing charts every day, and never seemed to find. His supporters rhapsodize over him as though he is a four-legged Nureyev, extolling virtues of his musculature, his grace, his urine specimens.” If he were to lose the Belmont, Merchant warned, “the country may turn sullen and mutinous.”

As of 2015, only 12 horses have won the Triple Crown: Sir Barton (1919), Gallant Fox (1930), Omaha (1935), War Admiral (1937), Whirlaway (1941), Count Fleet (1943), Assault (1946), Citation (1948), Secretariat (1973), Seattle Slew (1977), Affirmed (1978), and American Pharoah (2015).

Just as with Secretariat,...

Maureen O'Hara: Queen of Technicolor. Maureen O'Hara movies: TCM tribute Veteran actress and Honorary Oscar recipient Maureen O'Hara, who died at age 95 on Oct. 24, '15, in Boise, Idaho, will be remembered by Turner Classic Movies with a 24-hour film tribute on Friday, Nov. 20. At one point known as “The Queen of Technicolor” – alongside “Eastern” star Maria Montez – the red-headed O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons on Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, County Dublin) was featured in more than 50 movies from 1938 to 1971 – in addition to one brief 1991 comeback (Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely). Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne Setting any hint of modesty aside, Maureen O'Hara wrote in her 2004 autobiography (with John Nicoletti), 'Tis Herself, that “I was the only leading lady big enough and tough enough for John Wayne.” Wayne, for his part, once said (as quoted in 'Tis Herself): There's only one woman who has been my friend over the...

Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...

Olivia de Havilland on Turner Classic Movies: Your chance to watch 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' for the 384th time Olivia de Havilland is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 2, '15. The two-time Best Actress Oscar winner (To Each His Own, 1946; The Heiress, 1949) whose steely determination helped to change the way studios handled their contract players turned 99 last July 1. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any de Havilland movie rarities, e.g., Universal's cool thriller The Dark Mirror (1946), the Paramount comedy The Well-Groomed Bride (1947), or Terence Young's British-made That Lady (1955), with de Havilland as eye-patch-wearing Spanish princess Ana de Mendoza. On the other hand, you'll be able to catch for the 384th time a demure Olivia de Havilland being romanced by a dashing Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood, as TCM shows this 1938 period adventure classic just about every month. But who's complaining? One the...

Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...

'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl': Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow. 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' review: Mostly an enjoyable romp (Oscar Movie Series) Pirate movies were a Hollywood staple for about three decades, from the mid-'20s (The Sea Hawk, The Black Pirate) to the mid-to-late '50s (Moonfleet, The Buccaneer), when the genre, by then mostly relegated to B films, began to die down. Sporadic resurrections in the '80s and '90s turned out to be critical and commercial bombs (Pirates, Cutthroat Island), something that didn't bode well for the Walt Disney Company's $140 million-budgeted film "adaptation" of one of their theme-park rides. But Neptune's mood has apparently improved with the arrival of the new century. He smiled – grinned would be a more appropriate word – on the Gore Verbinski-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,...

'Father of the Bride': Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams. Top Five Father's Day Movies? From giant Gregory Peck to tyrant John Gielgud What would be the Top Five Father's Day movies ever made? Well, there have been countless films about fathers and/or featuring fathers of various sizes, shapes, and inclinations. In terms of quality, these range from the amusing – e.g., the 1950 version of Cheaper by the Dozen; the Oscar-nominated The Grandfather – to the nauseating – e.g., the 1950 version of Father of the Bride; its atrocious sequel, Father's Little Dividend. Although I'm unable to come up with the absolute Top Five Father's Day Movies – or rather, just plain Father Movies – ever made, below are the first five (actually six, including a remake) "quality" patriarch-centered films that come to mind. Now, the fathers portrayed in these films aren't all heroic, loving, and/or saintly paternal figures. Several are...

'San Andreas' movie with Dwayne Johnson. 'San Andreas' movie box office: $100 million domestic milestone today As the old saying (sort of) goes: If you build it, they will come. Warner Bros. built a gigantic video game, called it San Andreas, and They have come to check out Dwayne Johnson perform miraculous deeds not seen since ... George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, released two weeks earlier. Embraced by moviegoers, hungry for quality, original storylines and well-delineated characters – and with the assistance of 3D surcharges – the San Andreas movie debuted with $54.58 million from 3,777 theaters on its first weekend out (May 29-31) in North America. Down a perfectly acceptable 52 percent on its second weekend (June 5-7), the special effects-laden actioner collected an extra $25.83 million, trailing only the Melissa McCarthy-Jason Statham comedy Spy, (with $29.08 million) as found at Box Office Mojo.* And that's how this original movie – it's not officially a remake,...

'The Fixer' movie with Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm (background) 'The Fixer' movie review: 1968 anti-Semitism drama wrecked by cast, direction, and writing In 1969, director John Frankenheimer declared that he felt "better about The Fixer than anything I've ever done in my life." Considering Frankenheimer's previous output – Seven Days in May, the much admired The Manchurian Candidate – it is hard to believe that the director was being anything but a good P.R. man for his latest release. Adapted from Bernard Malamud's National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (itself based on the real story of Jewish brick-factory worker Menahem Mendel Beilis), The Fixer is an overlong, overblown, and overwrought contrivance that, albeit well meaning, carelessly misuses most of the talent involved while sadistically abusing the patience – and at times the intelligence – of its viewers. John Frankenheimer overindulges in 1960s kitsch John Frankenheimer...

The Sea Hawk

Written by Howard Koch and Seton I. Miller

Directed by Michael Curtiz

U.S.A., 1940

Under the Warner Brothers banner, Errol Flynn leaps, bounds and rouses hearts to the tune of Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s winning score and the direction of taskmaster Michael Curtiz. Following on the coattails of Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), it’s easy to dismiss The Sea Hawk (1940) as just a studio swashbuckler, another outing of a tried and true formula that Bosley Crowther called, “an overdressed ‘spectacle’ film which derives much more from the sword than the pen.” Admittedly, this loose adaptation owes more to the seafaring adventures of Sir Francis Drake than the original Rafael Sabatini novel of the same name, but it owes even more to the politics surrounding its production. On closer examination, the film stands as a testament not only to Flynn in his booming...

This is a tale of chance encounters.1) René Clair is in London, making The Ghost Goes West (1935). Something of a flaneur, he has strolled down to the East End, and his noctivagation leads him to a Limehouse pub which strikes him with an intense but mysterious feeling of déjà vu."Of course!" he suddenly thinks. "D.W. Griffith: Broken Blossoms!" The pub is the very image of Griffith's Hollywood recreation of Victorian London from his 1919 film.And there, at the bar, sits D.W. Griffith himself. Clair approaches this mirage and learns that Griffith is in London to direct a remake of Broken Blossoms at Twickenham Studios. Drink is taken.2) All this comes from screenwriter Rodney Ackland's bittersweet memoir of his work in British cinema, The Celluloid Mistress, co-written with Elspeth Grant. He further explains that his idolisation of Griffith prompted him to volunteer his services in any capacity as...

Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...

Teresa Wright-Samuel Goldwyn association comes to a nasty end (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock Heroine in His Favorite Film.") Whether or not because she was aware that Enchantment wasn't going to be the hit she needed – or perhaps some other disagreement with Samuel Goldwyn or personal issue with husband Niven Busch – Teresa Wright, claiming illness, refused to go to New York City to promote the film. (Top image: Teresa Wright in a publicity shot for The Men.) Goldwyn had previously announced that Wright, whose contract still had another four and half years to run, was to star in a film version of J.D. Salinger's 1948 short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut." Instead, he unceremoniously – and quite publicly – fired her.[1] The Goldwyn organization issued a statement, explaining that besides refusing the assignment to travel to New York to help generate pre-opening publicity for Enchantment,...

Anthony Mann

As much as any other filmmaker who found a niche in a given genre, in the 10 Westerns Anthony Mann directed from 1950 to 1958 he carved out a place in film history as one who not only reveled in the conventions of that particular form, but also as one who imbued in it a distinct aesthetic and narrative approach. In doing so, Mann created Westerns that were simultaneously about the making of the West as a historical phenomenon, as well as about the making of its own developing cinematic genus. At the same time, he also established the traits that would define his auteur status, formal devices that lend his work the qualities of a director who enjoyed, understood, and readily exploited and manipulated a type of film's essential features.

Though he made several fine pictures outside the Western, Mann as an American auteur is most notably recognized for his work in this field,...

Maureen O'Hara movies: 2014 Honorary Oscar for Hollywood legend (photo: Maureen O'Hara at the 2014 Governors Awards) In the photo above, the movies' Maureen O'Hara, 2014 Honorary Oscar recipient for her body of work, arrives with a couple of guests at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' 2014 Governors Awards. This year's ceremony is being held this Saturday evening, November 8, in the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood. For the last couple of years, Maureen O'Hara has been a Boise, Idaho, resident. Before that, the 94-year-old movie veteran -- born Maureen FitzSimons, on August, 17, 1920, in Dublin -- had been living in Ireland. Below is a brief recap of her movies. Maureen O'Hara movies: From Charles Laughton to John Wayne Following her leading-lady role in Alfred Hitchcock's British-made Jamaica Inn, starring Charles Laughton, Maureen O'Hara arrived in Hollywood in 1939 to play the gypsy Esmeralda opposite Laughton in William Dieterle...

Sure, it would be easy to rattle off all sorts of movie titles that feature the name of colors. Go ahead and knock yourself out: The Pink Panther, Red Dawn, Yellow Submarine, Purple Rain, Blue Velvet, Goldfinger, etc. The listing seems rather endless. However, can one come up with color-contained movie titles that also carry some messaging of substance and contemplation? Maybe films such as Fried Green Tomatoes or Steel Magnolias are color-coated entries that carries some relevance in its messaging about feminine empowerment for instance. In Rainbow Coalition: Top 10 Movie Titles with Color and Substance let us look are the leading selections that have both color (in title) and substance (in thematic forethought) attached to its skin. Hey, maybe one can make a case for Pink Flamingos but The Blue Lagoon might be stretching things a bit…don’t you think? The Rainbow Coalition: Top 10 Movie Titles with Color...

The Supporting Actress Smackdown, 1941 Edition, hits these parts on Saturday May 31st (here's the full summer calendar). This month we'll be discussing Mary Astor in The Great Lie, Sara Allgood in How Green Was My Valley, Margaret Wycherly in Sergeant York, Teresa Wright and Patricia Collinge, both in The Little Foxes. 

1941 winners: Gary Cooper, Joan Fontaine, Mary Astor & Donald Crisp. Note how the supporting actors used to win a plaque instead of a statue!

It's time to introduce our panel as we dive into that film year next week with little goodies strewn about the usual postings.

Remember You are part of the panel. So get your votes in by e-mailing Nathaniel with 1941 in the subject line and giving these supporting actresses their heart rankings (1 for awful to 5 for brilliant). Please only vote on the performances you've seen. The votes are averaged so it doesn't hurt a performance to be underseen.

“Some day you’ll learn that greatness is only the seizing of opportunity – clutching with your bare hands ’til the knuckles show white!”

MGM, America’s starriest studio during the Second World War, managed to reach perfection in its writing, music, attitude, and above all the acting performances of its young stars in 1944’s National Velvet. 12-year old Elizabeth Taylor (as Velvet), Jackie Jenkins (as little brother Donald, with his insect necklace), willowy 19-year old Angela Lansbury (as boy-mad older sister Edwina), and 24-year old Mickey Rooney (as Mi Taylor, the jockey with a past, bubbling with resentment of the world), are all outstanding.

The story is a simple and far-fetched one: Velvet Brown dreams of horses, owning them, training them, winning them. Naturally when the chance comes to win a problem horse in a raffle she has to go for it; from here on in, she’s set on...

D.W. Griffith movies at the American Cinematheque (photo: D.W. Griffith circa 1915) A series of D.W. Griffith movies made at Biograph at the dawn of both the 20th century and the art of moviemaking will be screened at the American Cinematheque next weekend. "Retroformat Presents: D.W. Griffith at Biograph, Part 3 - 1909 – 1910" will take place on Saturday, April 26, 2014, at 7:30 p.m. in the Steven Spielberg auditorium of The Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. The evening will be hosted by Tom Barnes; musical accompaniment will be provided by Cliff Retallick. Among the D.W. Griffith films to be presented by Retroformat are the following: Lines of White on a Sullen Sea The Gibson Goddess The Mountaineer’s Honor Through the Breakers A Corner in Wheat Her Terrible Ordeal The Last Deal Faithful D.W. Griffith and his stars As found in Retroformat’s press release, those early D.W. Griffith efforts feature "innovative cinematography" by frequent Griffith collaborator G.W. Bitzer,...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has added an exciting roster of screen legends and beloved titles to the 2014 TCM Classic Film Festival, including appearances by Maureen O’Hara, Mel Brooks and Margaret O’Brien, plus a two-film tribute to Academy Award®-winner Richard Dreyfuss. Marking its fifth year, the TCM Classic Film Festival will take place April 10-13, 2014, in Hollywood. The gathering will coincide with TCM’s 20th anniversary as a leading authority in classic film.

O’Hara will present the world premiere restoration of John Ford’s Oscar®-winning Best Picture How Green Was My Valley (1941), while Brooks will appear at a screening of his western comedy Blazing Saddles (1974). O’Brien will be on-hand for Vincente Minnelli’s perennial musical favorite Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), starring Judy Garland. The tribute to Dreyfuss will consist of a double feature of two of his most popular roles: his Oscar®-winning performance...

By Raymond Benson

It’s not a title that readily pops into one’s head when recalling the great horror films throughout the decades. A British production released when Universal Pictures’ line of horror franchises had declined and Val Lewton’s minimalist Rko productions had reached their height, The Uninvited has remained fairly obscure, in the U.S. anyway, but has also consistently maintained a solid reputation as one of the great, classic haunted house pictures. In fact, The Uninvited could be the first film to treat ghosts seriously rather than as an instrument for humor.

Directed by Lewis Allen and starring Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey and gorgeous Gail Russell in her first film role, the motion picture was released by Paramount in early 1944. Milland was a minor star at the time who would shoot to super-status the following year by winning a Best Actor Oscar for The Lost Weekend.

I enjoyed watching Lewis Allen's 1944 haunted house feature The Uninvited for the first time on Criterion Blu-ray as much as I raised my eyebrows. Considered one of the first supernatural films to take the idea of ghosts seriously rather than as a punchline, it undoubtedly has an effective level of atmosphere and while it successfully takes its ghost story seriously, it also knows to balance any tension with some humorous beats and moments of romance. That said, I wasn't really buying the romance angle and making this a tale of cohabitating siblings also seemed a little... weird to me. We're introduced to Rick Fitzgerald (Ray Milland) and his sister Pamela (Ruth Hussey) on holiday in Cornwall, England where they stumble upon a cliffside house. After their dog chases a squirrel through an open window, they ultimately barge in to fetch him, realizing the house has been empty for some time.

Gregory Peck from ‘Duel in the Sun’ to ‘How the West Was Won’: TCM schedule (Pt) on August 15 (photo: Gregory Peck in ‘Duel in the Sun’) See previous post: “Gregory Peck Movies: Memorable Miscasting Tonight on Turner Classic Movies.” 3:00 Am Days Of Glory (1944). Director: Jacques Tourneur. Cast: Gregory Peck, Lowell Gilmore, Maria Palmer. Bw-86 mins. 4:30 Am Pork Chop Hill (1959). Director: Lewis Milestone. Cast: Gregory Peck, Harry Guardino, Rip Torn. Bw-98 mins. Letterbox Format. 6:15 Am The Valley Of Decision (1945). Director: Tay Garnett. Cast: Greer Garson, Gregory Peck, Donald Crisp. Bw-119 mins. 8:15 Am Spellbound (1945). Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming, Bill Goodwin, Norman Lloyd, Steve Geray, John Emery, Donald Curtis, Art Baker, Wallace Ford, Regis Toomey, Paul Harvey, Jean Acker, Irving Bacon, Jacqueline deWit, Edward Fielding, Matt Moore, Addison Richards, Erskine Sanford, Constance Purdy. Bw-111 mins. 10:15 Am Designing Woman (1957). Director: Vincente Minnelli.

Bette Davis movies: TCM schedule on August 14 (photo: Bette Davis in ‘Dangerous,’ with Franchot Tone) See previous post: “Bette Davis Eyes: They’re Watching You Tonight.” 3:00 Am Parachute Jumper (1933). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Bette Davis, Frank McHugh, Claire Dodd, Harold Huber, Leo Carrillo, Thomas E. Jackson, Lyle Talbot, Leon Ames, Stanley Blystone, Reginald Barlow, George Chandler, Walter Brennan, Pat O’Malley, Paul Panzer, Nat Pendleton, Dewey Robinson, Tom Wilson, Sheila Terry. Bw-72 mins. 4:30 Am The Girl From 10th Avenue (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Ian Hunter, Colin Clive, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Phillip Reed, Katharine Alexander, Helen Jerome Eddy, Bill Elliott, Edward McWade, André Cheron, Wedgwood Nowell, John Quillan, Mary Treen. Bw-69 mins. 6:00 Am Dangerous (1935). Director: Alfred E. Green. Cast: Bette Davis, Franchot Tone, Margaret Lindsay, Alison Skipworth, John Eldredge, Dick Foran, Walter Walker, Richard Carle, George Irving, Pierre Watkin, Douglas Wood,...

Lana Turner movies: Scandal and more scandal Lana Turner is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, Saturday, August 10, 2013. I’m a little — or rather, a lot — late in the game posting this article, but there are still three Lana Turner movies left. You can see Turner get herself embroiled in scandal right now, in Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), both the director and the star’s biggest box-office hit. More scandal follows in Mark Robson’s Peyton Place (1957), the movie that earned Lana Turner her one and only Academy Award nomination. And wrapping things up is George Sidney’s lively The Three Musketeers (1948), with Turner as the ruthless, heartless, remorseless — but quite elegant — Lady de Winter. Based on Fannie Hurst’s novel and a remake of John M. Stahl’s 1934 melodrama about mother love, class disparities, racism, and good cooking, Imitation of Life was shown on...

Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in ‘Mata Hari’: The wrath of the censors (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro in One of the Best Silent Movies.") George Fitzmaurice’s romantic spy melodrama Mata Hari (1931) was well received by critics and enthusiastically embraced by moviegoers. The Greta Garbo / Ramon Novarro combo — the first time Novarro took second billing since becoming a star — turned Mata Hari into a major worldwide blockbuster, with $2.22 million in worldwide rentals. The film became Garbo’s biggest international success to date, and Novarro’s highest-grossing picture after Ben-Hur. (Photo: Ramon Novarro and Greta Garbo in Mata Hari.) Among MGM’s 1932 releases — Mata Hari opened on December 31, 1931 — only W.S. Van Dyke’s Tarzan, the Ape Man, featuring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, and Edmund Goulding’s all-star Best Picture Academy Award winner Grand Hotel (also with Garbo, in addition to Joan Crawford, John Barrymore, Wallace Beery, and...

The Uninvited

Directed by Lewis Allen

Written by Dodie Smith and Frank Partos

Starring Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Donald Crisp & Gail Russell

USA , 99 min – 1944.

“If you listen to it long enough, all your senses are sharpened. You come by strange instincts. You get to recognize a peculiar cold that is the first warning. A cold which is no mere matter of degrees Fahrenheit, but a draining of warmth from the vital centers of the living.”

The Uninvited is a supernatural film that is more mysterious than it is horrific. Spirits are taken to be a real possibility in the film, which after the success of Hitchcock & Selznick’s haunting, Rebecca (1940), must have been a necessity. The people who laugh at the notion of the supernatural are quickly proved wrong (as the early voice over suggests) and the film introduces ghosts with both kind and malicious intentions. Ultimately, The Uninvited’s...

Melbourne based agency Che proximity has appointed four people to the previously single role of executive planning director because it believes the communications environment is now too complicated for any one person to lead the process.

The Clemenger subsidiary includes clients such as Foxtel and Mazda. Che Proximity managing partner Chris Howatson told Mumbrella that four people filling one former role were needed for clients due to increased market fragmentation.

He believes the focus is now on convincing consumers to switch brands rather than stick with ones they are aligned with. He said: “The audience needs to be focused on and we are addressing that by creating four roles instead of one. The reason we have gone from one person to four roles is that the communication challenges of today are far more complex than they were yesterday.

“It’s more about customer value, not just customer volume, and more...