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Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies' July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM presented five Colman star vehicles that should be popping up again in the not-too-distant future: A Tale of Two Cities, The Prisoner of Zenda, Kismet, Lucky Partners, and My Life with Caroline. The first two movies are among not only Colman's best, but also among Hollywood's best during its so-called Golden Age. Based on Charles Dickens' classic novel, Jack Conway's Academy Award-nominated A Tale of Two Cities (1936) is a rare Hollywood production indeed: it manages to effectively condense its sprawling source, it boasts first-rate production values, and it features a phenomenal central performance. Ah, it also shows its star without his trademark mustache – about as famous at the time as Clark Gable's. Perhaps...

Ricardo Cortez: Although never as big a star as fellow 1920s screen heartthrobs Rudolph Valentino, Ramon Novarro, and John Gilbert, Cortez had a long – and, to some extent, prestigious – film career, appearing in nearly 100 movies between 1923 and 1950. Among his directors: Allan Dwan, Cecil B. DeMille, D.W. Griffith, James Cruze, Alexander Korda, Herbert Brenon, Roy Del Ruth, Frank Lloyd, Gregory La Cava, William A. Wellman, Alexander Hall, Lloyd Bacon, Tay Garnett, Archie Mayo, Raoul Walsh, Frank Capra, Walter Lang, Michael Curtiz, and John Ford. See previous post: “Remembering Ricardo Cortez: Hollywood's Silent “Latin Lover” & Star of Original 'The Maltese Falcon'.” First of all, why Ricardo Cortez? Since I began writing about classic movies and vintage filmmakers roughly 30 years ago, people have always been curious why I choose particular subjects. It sounds kind of corny, but I have always wanted to do original work and perhaps make a minor contribution to film history at the...

Ricardo Cortez biography 'The Magnificent Heel: The Life and Films of Ricardo Cortez' – Paramount's 'Latin Lover' threat to a recalcitrant Rudolph Valentino, and a sly, seductive Sam Spade in the original film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett's 'The Maltese Falcon.' 'The Magnificent Heel: The Life and Films of Ricardo Cortez': Author Dan Van Neste remembers the silent era's 'Latin Lover' & the star of the original 'The Maltese Falcon' At odds with Famous Players-Lasky after the release of the 1922 critical and box office misfire The Young Rajah, Rudolph Valentino demands a fatter weekly paycheck and more control over his movie projects. The studio – a few years later to be reorganized under the name of its distribution arm, Paramount – balks. Valentino goes on a “one-man strike.” In 42nd Street-style, unknown 22-year-old Valentino look-alike contest winner Jacob Krantz of Manhattan steps in, shortly afterwards to become known worldwide as Latin Lover Ricardo Cortez of...

Ryan Lambie Dec 23, 2016

Editor Thelma Schoonmaker talks to us about Martin Scorsese’s new film, Silence, taking risks in filmmaking and lots more...

Name a great Scorsese movie, and it’ll almost certainly have been edited by Thelma Schoonmaker. From 1980 onwards, the pair have been inseparable, with Schoonmaker cutting such classics as Raging Bull, The King Of Comedy, After Hours, Goodfellas, Casino and Gangs Of New York. Scorsese’s latest film is Silence, a powerful, heartfelt period piece about the limits of faith. Starring Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver as a pair of Jesuit priests who witness the torture and execution of Christians in 17th century Japan, the movie is a stark tonal contrast to The Wolf Of Wall Street, Scorsese’s wilfully gaudy, giddy account of drug-addled millionaire corporate crook Jordan Belfort.

See related John Carney interview: Sing Street, X-Men, Hitchcock & more Den Of Geek films of the year:...

Ernst Lubitsch: The movies' lost 'Touch.' Ernst Lubitsch movies on TCM: Classics of a bygone era Ernst Lubitsch and William Cameron Menzies were Turner Classic Movies' “stars” on Jan. 28, '16. (This is a fully revised and expanded version of a post published on that day.) Lubitsch had the morning/afternoon, with seven films; Menzies had the evening/night, also with seven features. (TCM's Ernst Lubitsch schedule can be found further below.) The forgotten 'Touch' As a sign of the times, Ernst Lubitsch is hardly ever mentioned whenever “connoisseurs” (between quotes) discuss Hollywood movies of the studio era. But why? Well, probably because The Lubitsch Touch is considered passé at a time when the sledgehammer approach to filmmaking is deemed “fresh,” “innovative,” “cool,” and “daring” – as if a crass lack of subtlety in storytelling were anything new. Minus the multimillion-dollar budgets, the explicit violence and gore, and the overbearing smugness passing for hipness,...

Ramon Novarro: 'Ben-Hur' 1925 star. 'Ben-Hur' on TCM: Ramon Novarro in most satisfying version of the semi-biblical epic Christmas 2015 is just around the corner. That's surely the reason Turner Classic Movies presented Fred Niblo's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ last night, Dec. 20, '15, featuring Carl Davis' magnificent score. Starring Ramon Novarro, the 1925 version of Ben-Hur became not only the most expensive movie production,[1] but also the biggest worldwide box office hit up to that time.[2] Equally important, that was probably the first instance when the international market came to the rescue of a Hollywood mega-production,[3] saving not only Ben-Hur from a fate worse than getting trampled by a runaway chariot, but also the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which could have been financially strangled at birth had the epic based on Gen. Lew Wallace's bestseller been a commercial bomb. The convoluted making of 'Ben-Hur,' as described...

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...

The Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 was put into effect in the late 1920s in order to promote growth in the British film industry. Beginning in 1928 it imposed a quota on the amount of British films that needed to be exhibited and distributed. While on paper the system was a success, with most distributors and exhibitors easily meeting the imposed quotas, the truth was that the majority of these films were made cheaply and poorly. As the Cinematograph Films Act of 1927 did not stipulate any measure of quality in their demands, a large majority of these projects were stilted and unwatchable, they were often referred to as “quota quickies”. It is in this environment that Michael Powell, now regarded as among the very best British filmmakers, emerged.

Powell began his film career in the mid-1920s after abandoning his job at a bank. He began as a stagehand on a project...

Film scores aren't just for playing in the background any more. Ivan looks at how they're taking centre stage...

Feature

Film soundtracks have always been a strange medium. The music relies on movies for their full meaning. They're so integral to a film and its mood that to listen to them away from the big screen can seem strange to many. Others, meanwhile, take the chance outside of the cinema to pore over them in detail, or use them for background music while running or working (How to Train Your Dragon's on now, if you're wondering). It's only in recent years that another way of listening to them has become popular again: with your eyes.

Do a quick Google for "film with live score" and you'll discover a whole heap of events currently happening around the UK in which orchestras accompany a screening. Why the sudden trend? Is it...

Eleanor Parker: Actress Wasted in ‘Valentino,’ brilliant in abortion-themed crime drama ‘Detective Story’ (photo: Eleanor Parker ca. 1955) (See previous post: "Eleanor Parker Dead at 91: ‘The Sound of Music’ Actress.") Eleanor Parker’s three 1950 releases were her last ones for Warner Bros. The following year, she starred in Columbia’s critical and box office flop Valentino, with Anthony Dexter as silent film idol Rudolph Valentino and Parker as a mix of Alice Terry (Valentino’s leading lady in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Conquering Power), Agnes Ayres (Valentino’s leading lady in The Sheik), and Hollywood bullshit. As an aside: Alice Terry wasn’t at all pleased with Valentino. Eleanor Parker wasn’t the problem; Terry was angry because Parker’s character, "Joan Carlisle" aka "Sarah Gray," is shown becoming involved with Valentino both before and after Terry’s marriage to The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse director Rex Ingram,...

Lon Chaney didn't speak during early childhood, as his parents were deaf and mute, and he communicated with them via sign language. When silent movies came along, he was a natural. And at the end of his life, stricken with throat cancer, he lost his voice and again relied on pantomime to make himself understood. He came from silence and went back to silence.

Chaney was a unique kind of movie star, in that his success rested more on variety than reliability: if his audiences had any expectations going into a Chaney film, surely they must have been expectations of surprise, perhaps of an encounter with the unfamiliar and bizarre.

Outside the Law (1920) was Chaney's second film for director Tod Browning, whose concerns seemed to merge with his own in a particularly conducive way: separately and apart, both men pursued stories of humiliation, disfigurement, and revenge, featuring bizarre, displaced menageries and elaborate and uncomfortable disguises.

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...

Ramon Novarro in one of the best silent movies: ‘The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg’ (photo: Ramon Novarro leapfrog) (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro Ben-Hur: First Big-Budget Hollywood Movie Saved by the International Market.") Ben-Hur also solidified Ramon Novarro’s international superstardom. In fact, moviegoers outside North America helped to keep Novarro working steadily at MGM up to the mid-’30s, several years after his domestic popularity had markedly diminished — and several years after fellow male silent era stars John Gilbert and William Haines had been gone from the studio. With the passing of the decades, especially since the release of William Wyler’s multiple Oscar-winning 1959 version of Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston, Ramon Novarro’s 1925 movie fell into oblivion. The following is from Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro: As the years passed, Ben-Hur, the motion picture that would “remain, as the Bible remains” became but...

Ramon Novarro: Silent movie star proves he can talk and sing (See previous post: "Ramon Novarro: Mexican-Born Actor Was First Latin American Hollywood Superstar.") On Ramon Novarro Day, Turner Classic Movies’ first Novarro movie is Rex Ingram’s The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), a stately version of Edward Rose’s play, itself based on Anthony Hope’s 1897 novel: in the Central European kingdom of Ruritania, a traveling Englishman takes the place of the kidnapped local king-to-be-crowned. A pre-Judge Hardy Lewis Stone has the double role, while Novarro plays the scheming Rupert of Hentzau. (Photo: Ramon Novarro ca. 1922.) Despite his stage training, Stone is as interesting to watch as a beach pebble; Novarro, for his part, has a good time hamming it up in his first major break — courtesy of director Rex Ingram, then looking for a replacement for Rudolph Valentino, with whom he’d had a serious falling out...

Paul Henreid: From Eleanor Parker to ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ (photo: Paul Henreid and Eleanor Parker in ‘Between Two Worlds’) Paul Henreid returns this evening, as Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013. In Of Human Bondage (1946), he stars in the old Leslie Howard role: a clubfooted medical student who falls for a ruthless waitress (Eleanor Parker, in the old Bette Davis role). Next on TCM, Henreid and Eleanor Parker are reunited in Between Two Worlds (1944), in which passengers aboard an ocean liner wonder where they are and where the hell (or heaven or purgatory) they’re going. Hollywood Canteen (1944) is a near-plotless, all-star showcase for Warner Bros.’ talent, a World War II morale-boosting follow-up to that studio’s Thank Your Lucky Stars, released the previous year. Last of the Buccaneers (1950) and Pirates of Tripoli (1955) are B pirate movies. The former is an uninspired affair,...

Eleanor Parker 2013 movie series continues today (photo: Eleanor Parker in Detective Story) Palm Springs resident Eleanor Parker is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of June 2013. Thus, eight more Eleanor Parker movies will be shown this evening on TCM. Parker turns 91 on Wednesday, June 26. (See also: “Eleanor Parker Today.”) Eleanor Parker received her second Best Actress Academy Award nomination for William Wyler’s crime drama Detective Story (1951). The movie itself feels dated, partly because of several melodramatic plot developments, and partly because of Kirk Douglas’ excessive theatricality as the detective whose story is told. Parker, however, is excellent as Douglas’ wife, though her role is subordinate to his. Just about as good is Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee Lee Grant, whose career would be derailed by the anti-Red hysteria of the ’50s. Grant would make her comeback in the ’70s, eventually winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her...

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...

Earlier this month I discovered this Deco delight on the excellent silent film Tumblr The Loudest Voice, where it was billed as “Ad for Bettina Loved a Soldier, 1916” with no further information as to where it came from. The film has an IMDb page but on its listing on the Progressive Silent Film List the survival status of the fim is “unknown.” A synopsis of the film can be found in Clive Hirschhorn’s The Universal Story (which documents the 2,641 films produced by Universal from the silent era until 1982) and there is also a synopsis on the TCM database.

Searching for the origins of the ad, which was more than likely an insert in a trade magazine (though what a poster it would have made), I stumbled across a treasure trove of similar ads on Flickr. The ads, all for Bluebird Photoplays Inc. and all seemingly drawn by one Burton Rice,...

One of the Most Amazing Silent Movies (or Movies of Any Era, Period) Ever Made Tops the List of Best of Movies Released in 1921 Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Metro Pictures' film version of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s epic novel -- from a scenario by the immensely powerful writer-producer June Mathis -- catapulted Mathis’ protégé, the until then little known Rudolph Valentino (photo, left), to worldwide superstardom, as The Four Horsemen became one of the biggest box-office hits of the silent era. Ingram’s wife, the invariably excellent Alice Terry (right, dark-haired in real life; a light-haired in her many movies), played Valentino's love interest. Ninety-two years after its initial launch, the Four Horsemen remains a monumental achievement. Released by MGM, Vincente Minnelli's 1962 remake of this Metro Pictures production featured an all-star cast: Glenn Ford, Ingrid Thulin (dubbed by Angela Lansbury), Charles Boyer, Lee J. Cobb,...

Innocence of Muslims / 'Desert Warrior' director Alan Roberts best-known for '70s soft-core porn The polemical anti-Islam "film" (actually, a cheap, grade Z amateur video), now has not only a producer, but also a director. The "Israeli entrepreneur Sam Bacile" has been exposed as the Egyptian Coptic Christian Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who allegedly misled all (or most) involved in the production. And Gawker has reported that Alan Roberts aka Robert Brownell, the director of a handful of softcore porn movies in the '70s and early '80s, helmed "Desert Warrior," a cheesy Arabian adventure that was to become -- following some sloppy overdubbing -- Innocence of Muslims. Besides the now infamous Islamophobic YouTube sensation, which has been blamed for riots in several Muslim countries from Tunisia to Pakistan, Alan Roberts' movie credits include several now long forgotten titles. (Please scroll down for more details.) Alan Roberts also produced several little-known movies,...

Innocence of Muslims: Cast and crew repudiate rabidly anti-Islam 'film' An amateurish, rabidly anti-Islam 'film' -- actually, more like a homemade video made three decades ago -- whose Arabic-dubbed version was initially blamed for this week's attacks by Muslim fanatics against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the U.S. embassy in Cairo, Muslims was initially called "Desert Warrior." (Photo: Actor purportedly as Islam's prophet Mohammad.) According to 80 cast and crew members of the film, they thought "Desert Warrior" was going to be an adventure flick set in Biblical times. Indeed, the movie's casting notice on Backstage calls it a "historical Arabian Desert adventure film." Below is the statement submitted to CNN on behalf of those who worked on what eventually became Innocence of Muslims. (Please scroll down to check out: Innocence of Muslims creator: Coptic Christian involved in meth manufacture, bank fraud.) "The entire cast and crew...

Gabriel Garko (photo) will play Rudolph Valentino (aka Rodolfo Valentino in places like Italy and Brazil) in a two-part Italian TV movie. To be directed by Alessio Inturri for Mediaset, the Valentino project is reportedly to be filmed this year in both Italy and the United States. Gabriel Garko, who’ll turn 38 next July 12, has worked steadily on Italian television. His feature-film appearances, however, have been sporadic. Most notable among those were supporting roles in Ferzan Ozpetek’s gay/bisexual drama Le fate ignoranti / The Ignorant Fairies (2001) and Franco Zeffirelli’s Callas Forever (2002). In terms of movie fandom, the Italian-born Rudolph Valentino was the George Clooney / Robert Pattinson / Johnny Depp / Zac Efron of the early-to-mid-’20s. One of Hollywood’s earliest superstars, Valentino’s movie career skyrocketed in 1921, after he was featured in Rex Ingram’s blockbuster The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and in George Melford’s The Sheik.

You want action? Movie-movie action? Then forget The Avengers, which opens in the Us on May 4. The following day, head instead to the Niles Essanay Film Museum in the northern Californian town of Fremont, where they’ll be screening two action-packed flicks: Laughing at Danger and "The Tragic Plunge," episode 7 of the serial The Perils of Pauline. Haven’t heard of either one? Well, Laughing at Danger was an independent production released in 1924. It stars Richard Talmadge (no relation to sisters Constance Talmadge and Norma Talmadge), who, according to some sources, was quite popular in the Soviet Union, of all places. As for the serial The Perils of Pauline, it was a humongous success in 1914, turning Pearl White (photo) into a major screen star. Actually, more than that. White became a near-legendary movie icon, one whose adventures have been copied, remade, and rebooted ever since. In fact, I wouldn’t...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has unveiled its list of 10 Most Influential Silent Films in celebration of Michel Hazanavicius’ ode to the silent era, The Artist, which won three Golden Globes® Sunday night, including Best Picture . Musical or Comedy, Best Actor . Musical or Comedy for Jean Dujardin and Best Original Score. The Artist also picked up 12 British Academy Film Award nominations. The Weinstein Company will expand its release of The Artist nationwide on Friday.

TCM’s list of 10 Most Influential Silent Films spans from the years 1915 to 1928 and features such remarkable films as D.W. Griffith’s groundbreaking (and controversial) The Birth of a Nation (1915), which revolutionized filmmaking techniques; Nanook of the North (1922), a film frequently cited as the first feature-length documentary; Cecil B. DeMille’s epic silent version of The Ten Commandments (1923); Sergei Eisenstein’s oft-imitated Battleship Potemkin (1925), which took montage techniques to an entirely new level; and Fritz Lang’s...

Ramon Novarro, Barbara La Marr, Trifling Women Ramon Novarro Brutal Death Pt.2: Convicted Killer Blames Catholicism Ramon Novarro's extant films for Rex Ingram, The Prisoner of Zenda (1922), in which he plays the sly villain Rupert of Hentzau, and Scaramouche (1923), in the heroic title role, are also well worth a look. I haven't watched The Arab (1924), which has been recently brought back to the United States from foreign archives. My understanding is that the print is incomplete; even so, here's hoping The Arab will soon be restored and shown on TCM. The now lost Ingram-Novarro collaboration Trifling Women (1922) would probably have been a sumptuous treat — cinematographer John F. Seitz's work in that Gothic melodrama seems to have inspired his later chiaroscuro lighting for Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. The same goes for the idyllic Where the Pavement Ends (1923), a tale of interethnic romance set on a South Pacific...

Ronald Colman, A Tale of Two Cities Ronald Colman is Turner Classic Movies "Summer Under the Stars" performer on Thursday, August 4. One of the finest film actors ever, at ease in both heavy drama and light comedy, Ronald Colman will have his extensive career represented by 13 films. Among those are three TCM premieres: the silent comedies Kiki (1926) and Her Night of Romance (1924), and the 1931 romantic drama The Unholy Garden. [Ronald Colman Movie Schedule.] Kiki is notable as one of Drama Queen Norma Talmadge's relatively rare comedy forays. Though all but forgotten today, Talmadge was one of the top two or three movie stars of the 1920s, starring in a series of melodramas that gave her the chance both to suffer for love and to wear some really fancy gowns. Women loved her. And I'm assuming many men loved her as well. In fact, had the Academy been founded a few years earlier, I...

Betty Compson, Clive Brook, Woman to Woman Despite some confusion in various reports, the 1923 melodrama The White Shadow, half of which was recently found at the New Zealand Film Archive, is not Alfred Hitchcock's directorial debut. It isn't Hitchcock's first ever credited effort, either. That honor apparently belongs to Woman to Woman, which came out earlier that same year. The White Shadow, in fact, was a Woman to Woman afterthought. Both movies were directed by Graham Cutts, both were produced by future British film industry stalwarts Victor Saville and Michael Balcon, both were based on works by Michael Morton (the earlier film was taken from a Morton play; the later one from a Morton novel), and both starred Clive Brook and Hollywood import Betty Compson. (Compson plays two parts in both films as well; but whereas in The White Shadow she plays two actual characters, in Woman to Woman...

Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres in George Melford's The Sheik Long before they became Hollywood's favorite terrorists, Arabs were generally portrayed as lusty, uncouth, infantile beings in myriad Hollywood movies. Turner Classic Movies returns this month with their annual "Race & Hollywood" film series. The "race" this time around: Arabs. Frank Lloyd's long but generally entertaining 1924 epic The Sea Hawk is almost over. TCM has shown this one before a few times; long-thought lost, The Sea Hawk was restored about a decade ago. Popular leading man Milton Sills stars. Next are two silents starring movie idols of the 1920s: The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Sheik (1921). One of Douglas Fairbanks' biggest hits, The Thief of Bagdad was directed by Raoul Walsh; this Arabian Nights romp is probably Fairbanks' most enjoyable vehicle of that era. Quite possibly, it's Fairbanks best movie, period. Starring Rudolph Valentino, who set as many hearts aflutter as Justin Bieber,...

Cinema has been shortsighted about specs appeal. Lads and lasses, let's have your film glasses

A simple pair of spectacles denotes so much on the screen, but rarely anything good for the person wearing them. Affixed to a man, they can instantly render him geek or weakling – or pervert (the ordeal of viewing the world through that extra lens having stopped him from attaining the more accepted "heroic" stature of non-glasses-wearing men). And woe betide those who dare to take theirs off, or – worse still – lose the things. For they bring down the wrath of the movie gods, with their insatiable thirst for the blood of marginal character actors.

Much better to be a glasses-wearing woman; then the only way is up. Usually it takes some interference from a charismatic, non-glasses-wearing man. Patrick Swayze, for instance. But with the magic of his manly touch, a woman can go from functionally...

Rudolph Valentino, Blood and Sand Hollywood Heritage will celebrate Rudolph Valentino's birthday on Wednesday, May 11. The event will include screenings of the abridged version of Blood and Sand (1922) and the short Rudolph Valentino and His 88 American Beauties; rare photographs and artifacts on display in the lobby of the Hollywood Heritage Museum; and the presence of Donna Hill, author of Rudolph Valentino, The Silent Idol: His Life in Photographs. In addition to Blood and Sand, directed by Fred Niblo (Ben-Hur) and co-starring Nita Naldi (photo) and Martha Mansfield, Valentino starred in a number of major hits of the 1920s, among them Rex Ingram's epoch-making The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Beyond the Rocks, Monsieur Beaucaire, The Eagle, and Son of the Sheik. Born on May 6 in Castelanetta, Italy, Valentino died unexpectedly in 1926 at the age of 31. According to the Hollywood Heritage press release, in Rudolph Valentino, [...]...

Elizabeth Taylor in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Suddenly Last Summer Elizabeth Taylor’s funeral was held — without the presence of Westboro Baptist Church anti-gay picketers — at around 2 p.m. on Thursday at Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial-Park. In accordance with her religion, Taylor, who had converted to Judaism in the late '50s, was buried within 24 hours of her death at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Hospital. According to the Los Angeles Times, Taylor's remains were placed near those of Michael Jackson. Among the other show business celebrities whose remains were laid to rest at Glendale's Forest Lawn (not to be confused with the Hollywood Hills Forest Lawn) are Oscar winners Marie Dressler, William Cameron Menzies, Norma Shearer, William Wyler, Warner Baxter, Wallace Beery, Clark Gable, Humphrey Bogart, Frank Borzage, Walt Disney, Edith Head, James Stewart, and Spencer Tracy. Other celebrities at Forest Lawn Glendale range from silent-film director Rex Ingram to entertainer...

Rex Ingram directing Scaramouche (top); Henri Matisse, Rex Ingram (middle); Rex Ingram, the actor-director, with off-screen girlfriend Rosita Garcia in Baroud (bottom) Rex Ingram Part I In Beyond Paradise, I wrote that "Ingram's unquestionable talent was matched only by his arrogance, fiery temperament, and lack of respect for authority." Indeed, those qualities were his undoing. A couple of years after his falling out with June Mathis and Rudolph Valentino, Ingram was heartbroken when he was passed over for the job of directing Goldwyn Pictures' monumental Ben-Hur, which was to be shot in Italy under Mathis' supervision. After two more years had gone by, both Mathis and her chosen director, Charles Brabin, were fired from the out-of-control project. But instead of replacing Brabin with Ingram, the top brass at Metro-Goldwyn opted for the more malleable Fred Niblo. (Ironically, Ingram's own discovery, Ramon Novarro, landed the role of Judah Ben-Hur after leading...

Rex Ingram (top); Barbara La Marr, Ramon Novarro, in Ingram's Trifling Women (bottom) St. Patrick's Day always reminds me of silent-era filmmaker Rex Ingram, among whose silent-era efforts are The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Prisoner of Zenda, Scaramouche, Mare Nostrum, The Magician, and The Garden of Allah, and whose birth — as Reginald Ingram Montgomery Hitchcock — took place in Dublin on Jan. 15, 1893. (Some sources have 1892, but in Rex Ingram: Master of the Silent Cinema author Liam O'Leary, citing a birth notice in The Irish Times, states that 1893 is the correct date.) Though largely forgotten today, Ingram's work — clearly shaped by his background in painting and sculpture — was so influential that it inspired Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu to pursue a film career. British filmmaker Michael Powell, who initially worked as Ingram's assistant, referred to him as "the greatest stylist of his time," while .David [...]...

By John Exshaw

Saturday, 26 February, saw the triumphant return of director Rex Ingram – or at any rate, his most celebrated film – to the city of his birth, as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse thundered once more across the big screen at the National Concert Hall in Dublin. Last seen at the same venue in 1993 (the centenary of Ingram’s birth), the film was showing as part of the recently-concluded Jameson Dublin International Film Festival, and, as on that previous occasion, the score was again performed by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, this time under the direction of David Brophy.

Ingram’s masterpiece not only propelled Rudolph Valentino and Alice Terry to international stardom but made Ingram himself the leading director of his day, with complete power over all future projects and his own studio in the south of France. But while Valentino has retained his iconic status – albeit of a...

After his electrifying performance as Blacula (1972), the great William Marshall was briefly considered a worthy successor to Christopher Lee's vampire king. A respected Shakespearean actor with an impressive theatre background, he was set to become a major horror star of the seventies, but like his fellow stage actor Robert Quarry, who achieved the same status as Count Yorga, his film career faded rapidly after the genre went through a radical re-think following the commercial success of The Exorcist (1973).

Marshall remained in New York to train in as an actor and director in Grand Opera and Shakespeare, although he had to support himself in a variety of jobs before making his professional stage debut. At 6ft 5inches, he was an impressively built, handsome, strong-featured actor with a booming bass baritone voice to match his towering presence. Not surprisingly, he quickly built up a formidable reputation as America's finest Shakespearean actor,...

Van Johnson, Elizabeth Taylor in Richard Brooks' The Last Time I Saw Paris (top); Alice Terry, Antonio Moreno in Rex Ingram's Mare Nostrum (middle); Gina Lollobrigida (bottom) F. Scott Fitzgerald, Rex Ingram, and Gina Lollobrigida. No, not together again — or ever, for that matter. But samples of their individual works can all be found this evening on Turner Classic Movies. Right now, TCM is showing Henry King's Tender Is the Night (1962), Jennifer Jones' swan song as a major movie star. Jones was criticized for being too old to play the film's young heroine Nicole Diver — and at 42 or so she surely was. Having said that, let me add that I enjoyed her performance all the same. Coincidentally, I'm currently reading Richard Buller's biography of silent-film actress Lois Moran (the young daughter in the 1925 version of Stella Dallas), who befriended F. Scott Fitzgerald in the late 1920s...

Francis Ford Coppola wasn’t around to give writer W. Somerset Maugham his father’s famous advice about “stealing” from the best to create your own art, but mystic Aleister Crowley accused the British author of doing just that after he read Maugham’s 1908 novel, The Magician. Maybe it was just sour grapes—seeing as how Maugham’s fantasy-terror tale was said to be inspired in part by Crowley’s life—but in Maugham’s story of a mad medical student who dabbles in the occult secrets of creating life (not to mention unnecessary surgery), Crowley saw elements he felt were directly lifted variously from Rosenroth’s Kabbalah Unveiled, as well as a book about 16th-century physician/alchemist Paracelsus and H.G. Wells’ man-beast classic The Island of Dr. Moreau.

Sounds like that could be a great movie? Not only has the obscure 1926 silent thriller made from Maugham’s book, produced and directed by Rex Ingram,...

Alice Terry, Ramon Novarro in Rex Ingram's Scaramouche Ramon Novarro is back for the fourth and last installment of Turner Classic Movies' Sunday evening celebration of the 100 years of the Mexican Revolution. Tonight, Novarro's vehicle is Scaramouche (1923), one of his most prestigious critical and box-office hits, and one featuring another revolution, the one in France back in the late 18th century. Directed by Rex Ingram, and co-starring Alice Terry and Lewis Stone, Scaramouche was the vehicle that turned Novarro into a top box-office attraction — though official star billing would only come two years later, with the release of The Midshipman. Ingram's version of Scaramouche is also much closer to Rafael Sabatini's highly political — and at times quite subversive — novel than the fluffier but equally entertaining 1952 release directed by George Sidney and starring Stewart Granger in the title role. The information below about Scaramouche is from my [...]...

Francis Ford Coppola Oscar 2011: Jean-Luc Godard, Eli Wallach Honorary Oscar Recipients Kevin Brownlow (right), 72, is the most renowned silent-film historian and preservationist. Among his various restoration projects are Abel Gance’s epic Napoleon (1927), with Albert Dieudonné; Rex Ingram’s blockbuster The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), starring Rudolph Valentino and Alice Terry; and Raoul Walsh‘s fantasy The Thief of Bagdad (1924), starring Douglas Fairbanks. Among the documentaries Brownlow co-directed with David Gill are Unknown Chaplin, Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow, Harold Lloyd: The Third Genius, D.W. Griffith: Father of Film, and the outstanding Hollywood. Brownlow also directed Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic and, with Christopher Bird, Garbo. Additionally, Brownlow has authored numerous film books, including The Parade’s Gone By; The War, the West, and the Wilderness; Hollywood: The Pioneers; Behind the Mask of Innocence; David Lean; and Mary Pickford Rediscovered. Well, Brownlow should feel right...

HollywoodNews.com: The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted last night to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producer-director Francis Ford Coppola and Honorary Awards to historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow, director Jean-Luc Godard and actor Eli Wallach. All four awards will be presented at the Academy’s 2nd Annual Governors Awards dinner on Saturday, November 13, at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center®.

“Each of these honorees has touched movie audiences worldwide and influenced the motion picture industry through their work,” said Academy President Tom Sherak. “It will be an honor to celebrate their extraordinary achievements and contributions at the Governors Awards.”

Brownlow is widely regarded as the preeminent historian of the silent film era as well as a preservationist. Among his many silent film restoration projects are Abel Gance’s 1927 epic “Napoleon,” Rex Ingram’s “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...

The honorees for the upcoming 2010 Governors Awards were selected by the Academy’s Board of Governors at a specially convened meeting last night on August 24.

The official press release from AMPAS:

Beverly Hills, CA . The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted last night to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producer-director Francis Ford Coppola and Honorary Awards to historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow, director Jean-Luc Godard and actor Eli Wallach. All four awards will be presented at the Academy.s 2nd Annual Governors Awards dinner on Saturday, November 13, at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center®.

.Each of these honorees has touched movie audiences worldwide and influenced the motion picture industry through their work,. said Academy President Tom Sherak. .It will be an honor to celebrate their extraordinary achievements and contributions at the Governors Awards..

Brownlow is widely regarded as the...

The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted last night to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producer-director Francis Ford Coppola and Honorary Awards to historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow, director Jean-Luc Godard and actor Eli Wallach. All four awards will be presented at the Academy’s 2nd Annual Governors Awards dinner on Saturday, November 13, at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center.

“Each of these honorees has touched movie audiences worldwide and influenced the motion picture industry through their work,” said Academy President Tom Sherak. “It will be an honor to celebrate their extraordinary achievements and contributions at the Governors Awards.”

Brownlow is widely regarded as the preeminent historian of the silent film era as well as a preservationist. Among his many silent film restoration projects are Abel Gance’s 1927 epic “Napoleon,” Rex Ingram’s “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...

Beverly Hills, CA – The Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voted last night to present the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award to producer-director Francis Ford Coppola and Honorary Awards to historian and preservationist Kevin Brownlow, director Jean-Luc Godard and actor Eli Wallach. All four awards will be presented at the Academy’s 2nd Annual Governors Awards dinner on Saturday, November 13, at the Grand Ballroom at Hollywood & Highland Center®. “Each of these honorees has touched movie audiences worldwide and influenced the motion picture industry through their work,” said Academy President Tom Sherak. “It will be an honor to celebrate their extraordinary achievements and contributions at the Governors Awards.” Brownlow is widely regarded as the preeminent historian of the silent film era as well as a preservationist. Among his many silent film restoration projects are Abel Gance’s 1927 epic “Napoleon,” Rex Ingram’s “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...

By John Exshaw

Imagine my surprise, on perusing last week’s Sunday Times, to discover that none other than the great Kevin Brownlow, Mr. Silent Cinema himself, was scheduled to appear, if not “at a cinema near you”, then at least at a rambling country estate not a million miles from me. Hot damn! I thought, and I’m sure you’ll agree it was warranted. For anyone with even a sliver of interest in the history of cinema, Brownlow is a positively Olympian figure, the man who, trusty two-reel tape recorder in hand, assiduously stalked the retirement homes of the Hollywood Hills to capture the last flickering memories of a time when the movies moved, later collected in his classic 1968 book, The Parade’s Gone By . . . The man who, together with his collaborator, the late David Gill, rescued and restored such great films as Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse...

Jackie Coogan in Oliver Twist Frank Lloyd II: Cavalcade, Mutiny On The Bounty In your book, you discuss a number of early Frank Lloyd efforts, including many rarities from the 1910s. I’m assuming you got to watch many of those films. The questions are: Are there many extant Frank Lloyd silents? How do they compare with the work of other major silent filmmakers who tackled melodramas of one form or another, say, D. W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, or Rex Ingram? Some of Lloyd’s Universal one- and two-reelers survive at various archives. They are not "masterpieces," but they are on a par with films from other secondary directors of the period. In other words, they are not comparable to those directed [...]...