'The Merry Widow' with Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette MacDonald and Minna Gombell under the direction of Ernst Lubitsch. Ernst Lubitsch movies: 'The Merry Widow,' 'Ninotchka' (See previous post: “Ernst Lubitsch Best Films: Passé Subtle 'Touch' in Age of Sledgehammer Filmmaking.”) Initially a project for Ramon Novarro – who for quite some time aspired to become an opera singer and who had a pleasant singing voice – The Merry Widow ultimately starred Maurice Chevalier, the hammiest film performer this side of Bob Hope, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler – the list goes on and on. Generally speaking, “hammy” isn't my idea of effective film acting. For that reason, I usually find Chevalier a major handicap to his movies, especially during the early talkie era; he upsets their dramatic (or comedic) balance much like Jack Nicholson in Martin Scorsese's The Departed or Jerry Lewis in anything (excepting Scorsese's The King of Comedy...
- 1/31/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...
- 8/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
All Quiet On The Western Front (1930) Direction: Lewis Milestone Cast: Lew Ayres, Louis Wolheim, Russell Gleason, John Wray, William Bakewell, Raymond Griffith, Beryl Mercer, Ben Alexander, Slim Summerville, Yola D'Avril Screenplay: Maxwell Anderson, George Abbott, Del Andrews; from Erich Maria Remarque's novel Oscar Movies Highly Recommended Lew Ayres, All Quiet on the Western Front Synopsis: World War I: A group of German schoolboys soon learn that war has absolutely nothing to do with either glory or heroics. Pros: More than eight decades after its release, Lewis Milestone's unflinching film version of Erich Maria Remarque's novel All Quiet on the Western Front remains the greatest war movie ever made. Or rather, the greatest anti-war movie ever made. In its simple, straightforward manner, All Quiet on the Western Front manages to be infinitely more powerful than all other loftier (and widely acclaimed) war dramas I've seen, including Terrence Malick...
- 3/27/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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