by way of illustration

"Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he's well dressed. There ain't much credit in that."

small screen/long story

'martin chuzzlewit' may not have been the most popular book charles dickens ever wrote, but he felt it was his finest. ain't that always how it is.
well, i have been loving the bbc dramatization. the cast is super and there are tons of characters to endure and enjoy. selfishness and sincerity walk side by side in this bbc drama full of great talents. my absolute fave is an actor i had never seen before. his name is philip franks and he totally rules in his wonderful role.

i really recommend this one.

purrrrrr

eartha kitt! 64 screen credits and 27 soundtrack credits. she possessed one of the most alluring voices ever.

spooky

here's warren gazing into the future and trying to dissuade julie from acting in 'hello darkness', a vampire movie she has signed on to do in 2011.

joanna shimkus

this beautiful canadian began her acting career by first appearing in french films. she went on to make over a dozen films before marrying one of my favorite actors. joanna and sidney poitier have been married since 1976. they have two daughters, one of whom is an actress.







photos: joanna/co-starring with sidney/their stunning daughter Sydney Tamiia

gracious guy

night fall

Edward D. Wood, Jr.: I met Bela Lugosi.
Dolores Fuller: Why, I thought he was dead.
Edward D. Wood, Jr.: No, he's very much alive. Well, sort of.

happy halloween!

small screen joy

i am still loving the bbc series 'lark rise to candleford.' this drama will place you smack in the enter of this beautiful painting.

separated at birth

is actor daniel auteuil the robert de niro of france? well, the top image is credited as de niro sr.

ellen page

two films with cillian murphy. lucky gal.










top photo: from 'peacock'

harold's maude

she was irresistible. as 'daisy's ' mom she both uplifted and broke my heart. ruth gordon, a true original. this photo of ruth gordon in the 1920's is a rare treat.

all you need is love (in the afterlife)

oh no! before casper made friends he tried to kill himself. twice! Casper was created in the late 1930s by Seymour Reit and Joe Oriolo. the first film featuring The Friendly Ghost was released by Paramount in 1945.

photo: the legendary lad with the thick ny accent lives on.

slacks rule

'Trousers are an item of clothing worn on the lower part of the body from the waist to the ankles, covering both legs separately. The word trousers is used in the UK, but some other English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, South Africa, and the United States often refer to such items of clothing as pants. Additional synonyms include slacks, strides, kegs or kex (!)

i'm glad we are now clear on that.

photo: orson welles

fave period

'gilbert' on the verge of 'ed.'

super sam riley

an education is not enough

this is not a man taking a photo home to study. this is jack helping the out on the set of one of his best films, 'carnal knowledge.' mike nichols directed the terrifically casted film which included the great ann-margret as jack's love interest. their scenes of love on the rocks are sublime for the sad truth and stunning acting.

maestro

A lot of movies are about life, mine are like a slice of cake.- hitchcock

or two.

by land or by sea

all i can deduce is this beautiful spirit was once a siren and her time in the body of natalie wood was a resting place till she returned to the sea.

human relations

it must be the greatest kick for a director and his actress to connect. it is a way for a man and a woman to be very close and fulfill one another's artistic vision, yet still go to their respective ways at the end of the day.


photos: barbara stanwyck with fritz lang making 'clash by night' (featuring robert ryan as a 'psycho tuna' of the first order)/meryl streep and woody allen making 'manhattan'

who knew

yes they did. it was called 'kings go forth' and it also starred tony curtis.

a liar's game

mitchum as 'jeff' meets the greatest femme fatale of them all in 'out of the past.' a better liar you will not find.

Ann Miller: She can't be all bad. No one is.
Jeff Bailey: Well, she comes the closest.

suggested dose: once a year as prescribed. this film will always serve me well.

in praise of men

Clarence Brown told the cinema historian Kevin Brownlow, "Tourneur was my God. I owe him every thing I've got in the world. For me, he was the greatest man who ever lived. If it hadn't been for him, I'd still be fixing automobiles." Brownlow reported that Brown had tears in his eyes when he made this confession.

maurice tourneur was a french filmmaker who, before working in theatre, was actually an assistant to the sculptor rodin! his son, jacques, also left an amazing legacy including directing 'out of the past', a movie that includes one of cinema's most memorable lines:

'baby, i don't care.'


clarence brown was garbo's favorite director. i love him too. perhaps he was as charming in life as he was on film.


he received 38 oscar nominations, lived to be 97, and directed garbo in 7 films.



photo: making 'anna christie'

marlene the magnificent

nightmares are made of this

there are two hitchcock movies i will not watch late at night. this is one of them.

sons of the same gun

starting in 1973, these two have made 9 films together. before their holy alliance, here is what they were up to:

'In 1973, De Niro had been praised for his role in Bang the Drum Slowly while Scorsese had been working as an editor on the movie Woodstock.'

lulu in (and out of ) hollywood

“There was Louise Brooks, for instance. Charming girl, Louise. Pretty girl. Clever, too. People liked her in Hollywood - those who could understand her. The others thought she was cold, haughty, and upstage. But there was no doubt about her ability. Nobody asked her to leave, she just left. The siren of Europe called her and held her. She went to work for Pabst in Berlin - at a salary at least double what she received in Hollywood, but I am naive enough to believe sincerely that it wasn’t the salary that holds Louise in Europe. Fundementally it is the fact that at heart, she is European.

‘Louise’, said Herr Pabst, ‘has a European soul. You can’t get away from it. When she described Hollywood to me - I have never been there - I cry out against the absurd fate that ever put her there at all. She belongs in Europe and to Europeans. I do not have her play silly little cuties. She plays real women, and plays them marvelously.’”

- Cedric Belfrage

staying alive

the man is 90! he has had 8 marriages! the first was to ava gardner which lasted only one year. clearly, he saved the best for last. he and his wife jan have been together for over 30 years.







mickey rooney, superstar.

if not for them

playwright john osborne's masterpiece may have many namesakes, other than this here blog. osborne defined a new wave in british theatre, creating a platform for 'angry young men' to unleash their dissatisfaction on willing audiences. his play 'look back in anger' is pure vitriol wrapped up in very tender need. when i first saw the film, starring richard burton and mary ure, i was a changed person.

burton's performance is chillingly smart and goes even further than his role as 'george' in 'who's afraid of virginia woolf.' mary's character is deeply hurt, helpless, and beautifully resurrected. beware.


here they are: osborne, mary ure, vivien leigh and laurence olivier.

c.l.

the future was then

this image is so contemporary. from michael powell's 1948 film 'the red shoes.'

sad face

early hitchcock films are not quite as popular as his deeply artistic hits, but they are surely a treasure for his fans.

by way of illustration

that's a heck of a come on.

some you win

orson welles and rita hayworth were married for five years, 1943–1948. when he directed the strange 'the lady from shanghai' he had her dye her gorgeous hair platinum so as to break the spell she usually cast.

the studio head detested the picture. he couldn't figure out what it was about and offered $1000 to anyone who could explain it to him. Even Welles could not explain the plot to him.

says you

jean harlow in 'The beast of the City' (1932)

charmed

she always brings the chic.


















Marion Cotillard photographed by Bruce Weber for Vanity Fair Italia, September 2010

museum gal

diana dors was so flipping cool. she is going down in cinema history as britain's answer to marilyn monroe. aside from her platinum hair and stereotypical roles, they were nothing alike. diana was good at characters who played the game but marilyn was downright playful. major difference right there.

Photo by Cornel Lucas, 1954 - bromide fibre print (National Portrait Gallery, London)

peter sellers

roman ping roman pong

the funniest scene ever. geniuses all around. nabokov, kubrick, and the ridiculously hysterical peter sellers in the role of 'clare quilty.' everyone loves 'lolita' (except some people) and i only hope they find their way from the beautiful book of lost souls to this masterpiece of cinema.

regarding 'quilty' and the man who put peter in the pajamas:

'So with that, I’d like to thank James Liggat whose brilliance needs to be recognized once and for all, for he has silently labored in the shadow of the looming genius of Kubrick to humbly bring you a character whose innumerable guises in Lolita represent one of my favorite film characters of all time: Quilty!. Enjoy.'- jim groom

by way of illustration