Betty Brodel, a singer, actress and older sister of High Sierra and Sergeant York star Joan Leslie, died Sunday in Florida, family member Cathy Palmer told The Hollywood Reporter. She was 104.
Brodel appeared with Leslie in the wartime charity films Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) and Hollywood Canteen (1944), plus Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Too Young to Know (1945) and Cinderella Jones (1946).
Elizabeth Ann Brodel was born in Detroit on Feb. 5, 1920. Her father, John Brodel, was a bank teller and her mother, Agnes, a pianist and homemaker.
She and her siblings Mary (born in 1916) and Joan (born in 1925) sang and danced in a vaudeville act called The Brodel Sisters, performing in their hometown and New York City and touring from Canada to Florida.
When a talent scout signed Mary to a contract at MGM, the family headed to Burbank, and the sisters appeared in the 1936 short film Signing Off.
Betty also showed up in...
Brodel appeared with Leslie in the wartime charity films Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943) and Hollywood Canteen (1944), plus Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Too Young to Know (1945) and Cinderella Jones (1946).
Elizabeth Ann Brodel was born in Detroit on Feb. 5, 1920. Her father, John Brodel, was a bank teller and her mother, Agnes, a pianist and homemaker.
She and her siblings Mary (born in 1916) and Joan (born in 1925) sang and danced in a vaudeville act called The Brodel Sisters, performing in their hometown and New York City and touring from Canada to Florida.
When a talent scout signed Mary to a contract at MGM, the family headed to Burbank, and the sisters appeared in the 1936 short film Signing Off.
Betty also showed up in...
- 3/7/2024
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Humphrey Bogart is one of the great icons of classic Hollywood. His trademark snarl and surprising romantic heroism sealed his legendary status in pop culture at large. For how inescapable his impact was, it's hard to imagine a period in sound film before him. But his rise to stardom took time. He wasn't exactly gunning down Nazis in Casablanca in his first year on the Warner Bros. lot.
What he was doing for most of his '30s performances was playing the background gangster in the studio's many crime melodramas. In movies with titles like "Bullets or Ballots" and "Racket Busters," audiences could rely on him showing up, grimacing, and probably dying in a moral way by movie's end. If he wasn't in a gangster movie, he could be oddly miscast, such as his appearance as an Irish stable master in the Bette Davis weepie "Dark Victory." No role was...
What he was doing for most of his '30s performances was playing the background gangster in the studio's many crime melodramas. In movies with titles like "Bullets or Ballots" and "Racket Busters," audiences could rely on him showing up, grimacing, and probably dying in a moral way by movie's end. If he wasn't in a gangster movie, he could be oddly miscast, such as his appearance as an Irish stable master in the Bette Davis weepie "Dark Victory." No role was...
- 11/25/2022
- by Anthony Crislip
- Slash Film
The composer George Gershwin died in 1937 and eight years later Hollywood paid tribute with this biography directed by Irving Rapper. The preponderance of musicians appearing as themselves, including Paul Whiteman and Oscar Levant, confirms the storyline will concentrate on Gershwin’s music while playing fast and loose with the details of his private life. Robert Alda plays the composer, and Joan Leslie and Alexis Smith are on hand as two of his factionalized romantic entanglements.
The post Rhapsody in Blue appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post Rhapsody in Blue appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 10/5/2022
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
“This picture is perfect, end of review.” That may not be 100 true, but Leo McCarey’s unabashed leap into romantic Nirvana really hasn’t been bettered, although his color & ‘scope remake is very good. Never was smart adult dialogue this winning — Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer’s cinematic courtship is a highlight of the Big Studio years. And Maria Ouspenskaya’s performance will send you out to pamper the nearest grandmother. The restoration for this one is a revelation, as the show has looked terrible for sixty years- plus. Serge Bromberg and Farran Smith Nehme make the extras especially valuable.
Love Affair
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1114
1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 15, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman, Astrid Allwyn, Maurice Moscovitch, Ferike Boros, Scotty Beckett, Bess Flowers, Harold Miller, Dell Henderson, Frank McGlynn, Sr., Joan Leslie.
Cinematography: Rudolph Maté
Art Director: Van Nest Polglase,...
Love Affair
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1114
1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 15, 2022 / 39.95
Starring: Irene Dunne, Charles Boyer, Maria Ouspenskaya, Lee Bowman, Astrid Allwyn, Maurice Moscovitch, Ferike Boros, Scotty Beckett, Bess Flowers, Harold Miller, Dell Henderson, Frank McGlynn, Sr., Joan Leslie.
Cinematography: Rudolph Maté
Art Director: Van Nest Polglase,...
- 2/26/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Who Shot Barney? Or should we say, who is going to shoot Barney? Chalk up another excellent Noir Rescue by The Film Noir Foundation, the UCLA Film & Television Archive and Flicker Alley: Joan Leslie is a Broadway star in a group of ‘difficult’ actors, writers, lovers and cheats, trying to prevent a ‘repeat’ cycle of deception and murder. Richard Basehart makes a strong film debut as her confidante, a conflicted poet. The story twists tweak the noir format with supernatural content, almost like the ironic fantasies of The Twilight Zone. The choice extras double our interest in this very different noir.
Repeat Performance
Blu-ray + DVD
Flicker Alley
1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 93 min. / Street Date February 18, 2022 / Available from Flicker Alley / 39.95
Starring: Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, Virginia Field, Tom Conway, Richard Basehart, Natalie Schafer, Benay Venuta, Ilka Grüning, Keefe Brasselle. John Ireland (narrator).
Cinematography: Lew W. O’Connell
Art Director: Edward C. Jewell...
Repeat Performance
Blu-ray + DVD
Flicker Alley
1947 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 93 min. / Street Date February 18, 2022 / Available from Flicker Alley / 39.95
Starring: Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, Virginia Field, Tom Conway, Richard Basehart, Natalie Schafer, Benay Venuta, Ilka Grüning, Keefe Brasselle. John Ireland (narrator).
Cinematography: Lew W. O’Connell
Art Director: Edward C. Jewell...
- 2/19/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
For his first re-teaming sans Ginger, Fred Astaire hot-foots it to MGM and the waiting tap & sweep partner Eleanor Powell, already a terrific box office draw in her own right. These were the days when the caliber of talent in Hollywood justified the exalted, glamorous aura of star status. The story is a backstage mixup with sidebar singing and joke acts, decent dialogue and not much else. But when these two alight on a dance floor — not just ‘a’ dance floor but an enormous expanse of glittering glass — Hollywood hits a too-glamorous-to-be-real peak. The music by Cole Porter includes Begin the Beguine. Just-okay George Murphy is the third wheel on this musical bicycle, with Frank Morgan serving as fuddy-duddy comic relief.
Broadway Melody of 1940
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date April 13, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, George Murphy, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter, Florence Rice, Trixie Firschke,...
Broadway Melody of 1940
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date April 13, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Fred Astaire, Eleanor Powell, George Murphy, Frank Morgan, Ian Hunter, Florence Rice, Trixie Firschke,...
- 5/1/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Ya like quality pro-intervention propaganda? Warners’ filmic call to arms inspired America’s reluctant warriors via a superhuman feat by a highly decorated WW1 veteran… and promptly got into hot water with the United States congress. Howard Hawks’ highly effective load of sentiment and sanctimony makes Tennesseans look like denizens of Dogpatch, U.S.A.. But America loved it, even favorite Gary Cooper’s cute ‘aw shucks’ mannerisms that compare shooting the enemy with shooting a turkey. That’s how we baby boomers learned about patriotism.
Sergeant York
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 134 min. / Street Date October 13, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias, Stanley Ridges, Margaret Wycherly, Ward Bond, Noah Beery Jr., June Lockhart.
Cinematography: Sol Polito
Second Unit Director: Don Siegel
Film Editor: William Holmes
Original Music: Max Steiner
Written by Abem Finkel, Harry Chandlee, Howard Koch, John Huston...
Sergeant York
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 134 min. / Street Date October 13, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, Joan Leslie, George Tobias, Stanley Ridges, Margaret Wycherly, Ward Bond, Noah Beery Jr., June Lockhart.
Cinematography: Sol Polito
Second Unit Director: Don Siegel
Film Editor: William Holmes
Original Music: Max Steiner
Written by Abem Finkel, Harry Chandlee, Howard Koch, John Huston...
- 10/3/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.And now they've quietly disappeared William Fox's name from the company: guilty by association with Rupert Murdoch, even though he never associated with him.***"We offer for your mental scrutiny / The reasons for the mutiny."I believe Where Do We Go From Here? (1945) qualifies as a rarity, having never been released on any home video or streaming format. This is a shame, but you can see why. The whole concept of whimsy has a tendency to lumpenness, even though the very word seems to imply a lighter-than-air approach. Which is heavier, a ton of scrap metal or a ton of feathers?So what we have here is a fantasy in...
- 6/4/2020
- MUBI
Now it can be told! Or maybe, now it can’t be told? William Bradford Huie’s novel of creeping American ambition in Honolulu ends up as a tame vehicle for Jane Russell, who in one of her last big starring movies gives the Hawaiian scenery a run for its money. Raoul Walsh does well in the direction department, but the story has been cleaned up for Sunday School.
The Revolt of Mamie Stover
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1956 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date July 17, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Jane Russell, Richard Egan, Joan Leslie, Agnes Moorehead, Jorja Curtright, Michael Pate, Richard Coogan, Alan Reed, Eddie Firestone, Jean Willes, Margia Dean, Sally Todd, Hugh Beaumont.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Costumes: Travilla
Visual Effects: Ray Kellogg
Original Music: Hugo Friedhofer
Written by Sydney Boehm, from the novel by William Bradford Huie
Produced by Buddy Adler
Directed by Raoul Walsh...
The Revolt of Mamie Stover
Blu-ray
Twilight Time
1956 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 92 min. / Street Date July 17, 2018 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95
Starring: Jane Russell, Richard Egan, Joan Leslie, Agnes Moorehead, Jorja Curtright, Michael Pate, Richard Coogan, Alan Reed, Eddie Firestone, Jean Willes, Margia Dean, Sally Todd, Hugh Beaumont.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Costumes: Travilla
Visual Effects: Ray Kellogg
Original Music: Hugo Friedhofer
Written by Sydney Boehm, from the novel by William Bradford Huie
Produced by Buddy Adler
Directed by Raoul Walsh...
- 7/28/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...
- 7/5/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
I live in Los Angeles, and my residency here means that a lot of great film programming-- revival screenings, advance looks at upcoming releases and vital, fascinating glimpses at unheralded, unexpected cinema from around the world—is available to me on a week-by-week basis. But I’ve never been to Cannes. Toronto, Tribeca, New York, Venice, Berlin, Sundance, SXSW, these festivals are all events that I have yet to be lucky enough to attend, and I can reasonably expect that it’s probably going to stay that way for the foreseeable future. I never attended a film festival of any kind until I made my way to the outskirts of the Mojave Desert for the Lone Pine Film Festival in 2006, which was its own kind of grand adventure, even if it wasn’t exactly one for bumping shoulders with critics, stars and fanatics on the French Riviera.
But since 2010 there...
But since 2010 there...
- 4/24/2016
- by Dennis Cozzalio
- Trailers from Hell
Joan Leslie. Joan Leslie: Actress who fought Warner Bros. and costarred opposite Gary Cooper and Fred Astaire dead at 90 Joan Leslie, best (somewhat mis)remembered as sweet girl next door types in Hollywood movies of the '40s, died on Oct. 12, '15, in Los Angeles. Leslie (born on Jan. 26, 1925, in Detroit) was 90. Among her best-known movies are Howard Hawks' Sergeant York (1941), opposite Best Actor Oscar winner Gary Cooper; Michael Curtiz's Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), opposite Best Actor Oscar winner James Cagney; and Curtiz's militaristic musical This Is the Army (1943), opposite George Murphy and Ronald Reagan, and with songs by Irving Berlin. All three movies were mammoth box office hits. And all three did their best to showcase Leslie, who was not even 18 at the time, as insipid young things; in the first two – and in The Sky's the Limit (1943), opposite Fred Astaire – paired up with men more than...
- 10/16/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
I was saddened to hear of Joan Leslie’s death earlier this week at the age of 90. She was one of my favorite interviews in recent years. She was incredibly nice, yet at the same time she belied her screen image as a sweet young thing, as you’ll see in this excerpt from our conversation. She had savvy and ambition, and it was no accident that she succeeded in Hollywood. (You can read the complete interview in the book Leonard Maltin’s Movie Crazy, compiled from back issues of my newsletter of the same name.) She even endured a studio blackballing in the 1950s after leaving her longtime home at Warner Bros. and was forced to work at Republic Pictures—which she did, without...
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[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]...
- 10/16/2015
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Joan Leslie, best known for a string of roles opposite some of the biggest stars of Hollywood’s golden age before her 18th birthday, died October 12 at age 90, her family announced today. Described in her time as projecting “sweet innocence without seeming too sugary,” among her most notable roles was the title character’s wife in Sergeant York, alongside Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra, in Yankee Doodle Dandy opposite James Cagney, and with Fred Astair in The Sky's the Lim…...
- 10/15/2015
- Deadline TV
Joan Leslie, best known for a string of roles opposite some of the biggest stars of Hollywood’s golden age before her 18th birthday, died October 12 at age 90, her family announced today. Described in her time as projecting “sweet innocence without seeming too sugary,” among her most notable roles was the title character’s wife in Sergeant York, alongside Humphrey Bogart in High Sierra, in Yankee Doodle Dandy opposite James Cagney, and with Fred Astair in The Sky's the Lim…...
- 10/15/2015
- Deadline
Hollywood star Joan Leslie has died, aged 90.
An obituary published by her family in The Los Angeles Times confirmed that Leslie passed away in Los Angeles on Monday (October 12).
Leslie got her career breakthrough at the age of 15 as a disabled young woman in the Humphrey Bogart thriller High Sierra.
While still in her teenage years, Leslie racked up roles in the Oscar-winning Sergeant York, Yankee Doodle Dandy, This Is the Army and The Sky's the Limit.
In her later years, Leslie worked on television and made memorable appearances in Charlie's Angels, The Incredible Hulk and Murder, She Wrote, among other shows.
Leslie got married in 1950 to obstetrician Dr William Caldwell, with whom she had twin daughters. Dr Caldwell died back in 2000.
Watch a trailer for Yankee Doodle Dandy below:...
An obituary published by her family in The Los Angeles Times confirmed that Leslie passed away in Los Angeles on Monday (October 12).
Leslie got her career breakthrough at the age of 15 as a disabled young woman in the Humphrey Bogart thriller High Sierra.
While still in her teenage years, Leslie racked up roles in the Oscar-winning Sergeant York, Yankee Doodle Dandy, This Is the Army and The Sky's the Limit.
In her later years, Leslie worked on television and made memorable appearances in Charlie's Angels, The Incredible Hulk and Murder, She Wrote, among other shows.
Leslie got married in 1950 to obstetrician Dr William Caldwell, with whom she had twin daughters. Dr Caldwell died back in 2000.
Watch a trailer for Yankee Doodle Dandy below:...
- 10/15/2015
- Digital Spy
Versatile actor from Hollywood’s golden age
Female stars of Hollywood’s golden era were usually divided into sex goddesses, femmes fatales or nice girls. In line with the old sporting dictum, “nice guys finish last”, nice girls in movies seldom won the attention they deserved. Joan Leslie, who has died aged 90, was once described as “sweet innocence without seeming too sugary”. But she was versatile: she took roles in dramas, comedies, westerns or musicals, opposite actors such as Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Randolph Scott and Fred Astaire – she was a good enough dancer to partner Astaire in The Sky’s the Limit (1943). One of the best examples of her naive charm was as Mary, singing and dancing wife of the vaudevillian George M Cohan (Cagney) in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).
She was born Joan Brodel in Detroit, Michigan, of devout Catholic parents, John Brodel, a bank clerk,...
Female stars of Hollywood’s golden era were usually divided into sex goddesses, femmes fatales or nice girls. In line with the old sporting dictum, “nice guys finish last”, nice girls in movies seldom won the attention they deserved. Joan Leslie, who has died aged 90, was once described as “sweet innocence without seeming too sugary”. But she was versatile: she took roles in dramas, comedies, westerns or musicals, opposite actors such as Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney, Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Randolph Scott and Fred Astaire – she was a good enough dancer to partner Astaire in The Sky’s the Limit (1943). One of the best examples of her naive charm was as Mary, singing and dancing wife of the vaudevillian George M Cohan (Cagney) in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942).
She was born Joan Brodel in Detroit, Michigan, of devout Catholic parents, John Brodel, a bank clerk,...
- 10/15/2015
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Joan Leslie, the dark-haired Hollywood ingenue who starred in High Sierra, Sergeant York, Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Sky’s the Limit — all before she turned 18 — has died. She was 90. Leslie, who often played the sweetheart or the wholesome girl next door on the big screen, died Oct. 12 in Los Angeles, her family announced. After signing with Warner Bros. at age 15, the Detroit native played the hobbled girl Velma in High Sierra (1941) opposite Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino, then was the love interest of Gary Cooper’s World War I hero in Sergeant York
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- 10/15/2015
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Gary Cooper movies on TCM: Cooper at his best and at his weakest Gary Cooper is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 30, '15. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any Cooper movie premiere – despite the fact that most of his Paramount movies of the '20s and '30s remain unavailable. This evening's features are Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Sergeant York (1941), and Love in the Afternoon (1957). Mr. Deeds Goes to Town solidified Gary Cooper's stardom and helped to make Jean Arthur Columbia's top female star. The film is a tad overlong and, like every Frank Capra movie, it's also highly sentimental. What saves it from the Hell of Good Intentions is the acting of the two leads – Cooper and Arthur are both excellent – and of several supporting players. Directed by Howard Hawks, the jingoistic, pro-war Sergeant York was a huge box office hit, eventually earning Academy Award nominations in several categories,...
- 8/30/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Robert Walker: Actor in MGM films of the '40s. Robert Walker: Actor who conveyed boy-next-door charms, psychoses At least on screen, I've always found the underrated actor Robert Walker to be everything his fellow – and more famous – MGM contract player James Stewart only pretended to be: shy, amiable, naive. The one thing that made Walker look less like an idealized “Average Joe” than Stewart was that the former did not have a vacuous look. Walker's intelligence shone clearly through his bright (in black and white) grey eyes. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” programming, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating today, Aug. 9, '15, to Robert Walker, who was featured in 20 films between 1943 and his untimely death at age 32 in 1951. Time Warner (via Ted Turner) owns the pre-1986 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library (and almost got to buy the studio outright in 2009), so most of Walker's movies have...
- 8/9/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Fred Astaire ca. 1935. Fred Astaire movies: Dancing in the dark, on the ceiling on TCM Aug. 5, '15, is Fred Astaire Day on Turner Classic Movies, as TCM continues with its “Summer Under the Stars” series. Just don't expect any rare Astaire movies, as the actor-singer-dancer's star vehicles – mostly Rko or MGM productions – have been TCM staples since the early days of the cable channel in the mid-'90s. True, Fred Astaire was also featured in smaller, lesser-known fare like Byron Chudnow's The Amazing Dobermans (1976) and Yves Boisset's The Purple Taxi / Un taxi mauve (1977), but neither one can be found on the TCM schedule. (See TCM's Fred Astaire movie schedule further below.) Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musicals Some fans never tire of watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing together. With these particular fans in mind, TCM is showing – for the nth time – nine Astaire-Rogers musicals of the '30s,...
- 8/5/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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...
- 8/3/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Audrey Long, actress in B film noirs and Westerns, and widow of author Leslie Charteris, dead at 92 (photo: Audrey Long publicity shot ca. late '40s) Actress Audrey Long, a leading lady in mostly B crime dramas and Westerns of the '40s and early '50s, and the widow of The Saint creator Leslie Charteris, died "after a long illness" on September 19, 2014, in Virginia Water, Surrey, England. Long was 92. Her death was first reported by Ian Dickerson on the website LeslieCharteris.com. Born on April 14 (some sources claim April 12), 1922, in Orlando, Florida, Audrey Long was the daughter of an English-born Episcopal minister, who later became a U.S. Navy Chaplain. Her early years were spent moving about North America, in addition to some time in Honolulu. According to Dickerson's Audrey Long tribute on the Leslie Charteris site, following acting lessons with coach Dorothea Johnson, whose pupils had also included...
- 9/24/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Femme fatale Audrey Totter: Film noir actress and MGM leading lady dead at 95 (photo: Audrey Totter ca. 1947) Audrey Totter, film noir femme fatale and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player best remembered for the mystery crime drama Lady in the Lake and, at Rko, the hard-hitting boxing drama The Set-Up, died after suffering a stroke and congestive heart failure on Thursday, December 12, 2013, at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles County. Reportedly a resident at the Motion Picture and Television Home in Woodland Hills, Audrey Totter would have turned 96 on Dec. 20. Born in Joliet, Illinois, Audrey Totter began her show business career on radio. She landed an MGM contract in the mid-’40s, playing bit roles in several of the studio’s productions, e.g., the Clark Gable-Greer Garson pairing Adventure (1945), the Hedy Lamarr-Robert Walker-June Allyson threesome Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945), and, as an adventurous hitchhiker riding with John Garfield,...
- 12/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Marlene Dietrich Grandson J. Michael Riva, Robert Clatworthy, and Harper Goff: Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame 2014 Production Designers Robert Clatworthy, Harper Goff, and J. Michael Riva will be posthumously inducted into the Art Directors Guild Hall of Fame at the 18th Art Directors Guild Awards ceremony, to be held on February 8, 2014, at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. (Photo: Production designer J. Michael Riva.) J. Michael Riva J. Michael Riva (1948-2012), grandson of Marlene Dietrich (The Blue Angel, Shanghai Express, A Foreign Affair), was production designer for Stuart Rosenberg / Robert Redford’s 1980 socially conscious drama Brubaker. Later on, Redford hired Riva as the art director for Ordinary People, also released in 1980. Riva’s other production design credits include the Lethal Weapon movies starring Mel Gibson and Danny Glover; A Few Good Men (1992), with Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, and Demi Moore; The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), with Will Smith; Spider-Man 3 (2007), with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst,...
- 9/12/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in ‘Gone with the Wind’: TCM schedule on August 20, 2013 (photo: Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in ‘Gone with the Wind’) See previous post: “Hattie McDaniel: Oscar Winner Makes History.” 3:00 Am Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). Director: David Butler. Cast: Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Eddie Cantor, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Edward Everett Horton, S.Z. Sakall, Hattie McDaniel, Ruth Donnelly, Don Wilson, Spike Jones, Henry Armetta, Leah Baird, Willie Best, Monte Blue, James Burke, David Butler, Stanley Clements, William Desmond, Ralph Dunn, Frank Faylen, James Flavin, Creighton Hale, Sam Harris, Paul Harvey, Mark Hellinger, Brandon Hurst, Charles Irwin, Noble Johnson, Mike Mazurki, Fred Kelsey, Frank Mayo, Joyce Reynolds, Mary Treen, Doodles Weaver. Bw-127 mins. 5:15 Am Janie (1944). Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joyce Reynolds, Robert Hutton,...
- 8/21/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Fontaine movies: ‘This Above All,’ ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’ (photo: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine in ‘Suspicion’ publicity image) (See previous post: “Joan Fontaine Today.”) Also tonight on Turner Classic Movies, Joan Fontaine can be seen in today’s lone TCM premiere, the flag-waving 20th Century Fox release The Above All (1942), with Fontaine as an aristocratic (but socially conscious) English Rose named Prudence Cathaway (Fontaine was born to British parents in Japan) and Fox’s top male star, Tyrone Power, as her Awol romantic interest. This Above All was directed by Anatole Litvak, who would guide Olivia de Havilland in the major box-office hit The Snake Pit (1948), which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nod. In Max Ophüls’ darkly romantic Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Fontaine delivers not only what is probably the greatest performance of her career, but also one of the greatest movie performances ever. Letter from an Unknown Woman...
- 8/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Humphrey Bogart movies: ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ ‘High Sierra’ (Image: Most famous Humphrey Bogart quote: ‘The stuff that dreams are made of’ from ‘The Maltese Falcon’) (See previous post: “Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall Movies.”) Besides 1948, 1941 was another great year for Humphrey Bogart — one also featuring a movie with the word “Sierra” in the title. Indeed, that was when Bogart became a major star thanks to Raoul Walsh’s High Sierra and John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon. In the former, Bogart plays an ex-con who falls in love with top-billed Ida Lupino — though both are outacted by ingénue-with-a-heart-of-tin Joan Leslie. In the latter, Bogart plays Dashiel Hammett’s private detective Sam Spade, trying to discover the fate of the titular object; along the way, he is outacted by just about every other cast member, from Mary Astor’s is-she-for-real dame-in-distress to Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominee Sydney Greenstreet. John Huston...
- 8/1/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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,...
- 7/24/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
“My mother thanks you, my father thanks you, my sister thanks you, and I thank you”
Yankee Doodle Dandy is a movie anyone can see and enjoy. No sex, violence or profanity - just lively entertainment. It is good enough to watch on any day, not just the Fourth of July.
As Yankee Doodle Dandy was beginning production, the Japs attack on Pearl Harbor took place, so it would go without saying that the film came along at a much needed time and gave our country, as well as our fighting men a very much needed boost. Though it is a clear representative of times that no longer exist, it has a patriotism that is needed just as much today as it was then, if not more so. The music is great but the film’s highlight in the vibrant, Oscar-winning performance of James Cagney as the hoofer, singer, dancer,...
Yankee Doodle Dandy is a movie anyone can see and enjoy. No sex, violence or profanity - just lively entertainment. It is good enough to watch on any day, not just the Fourth of July.
As Yankee Doodle Dandy was beginning production, the Japs attack on Pearl Harbor took place, so it would go without saying that the film came along at a much needed time and gave our country, as well as our fighting men a very much needed boost. Though it is a clear representative of times that no longer exist, it has a patriotism that is needed just as much today as it was then, if not more so. The music is great but the film’s highlight in the vibrant, Oscar-winning performance of James Cagney as the hoofer, singer, dancer,...
- 7/9/2013
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
High Sierra
Written by W. R. Burnett and John Huston
Directed by Raoul Walsh
U.S.A., 1941
Last week’s column entry, White Heat, was a film directed by Raoul Walsh which exemplified some of the very best assets of both the gangster and noir genres within the same picture. Given that the latter evolved, in part, out of the former, it only seemed natural that by the end of the 1940s, when the gangster pictures were less prominent at the theatre and noir was picking up considerable steam, the two would coalesce seamlessly. In truth, White Heat s not the first Walsh picture to attempt a perfect marriage between the two iconic genres. 8 years prior in 1941 audiences were treated to High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart and co-written by yet another legend, John Huston (based on a W. R. Burnett novel, who also partook in the screenwriting process). As the spiritual precursor to White Heat,...
Written by W. R. Burnett and John Huston
Directed by Raoul Walsh
U.S.A., 1941
Last week’s column entry, White Heat, was a film directed by Raoul Walsh which exemplified some of the very best assets of both the gangster and noir genres within the same picture. Given that the latter evolved, in part, out of the former, it only seemed natural that by the end of the 1940s, when the gangster pictures were less prominent at the theatre and noir was picking up considerable steam, the two would coalesce seamlessly. In truth, White Heat s not the first Walsh picture to attempt a perfect marriage between the two iconic genres. 8 years prior in 1941 audiences were treated to High Sierra, starring Humphrey Bogart and co-written by yet another legend, John Huston (based on a W. R. Burnett novel, who also partook in the screenwriting process). As the spiritual precursor to White Heat,...
- 6/21/2013
- by Edgar Chaput
- SoundOnSight
Eleanor Parker Now on TCM Palms Springs area resident Eleanor Parker, who turns 91 next June 26, is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of June. One of the best actresses of Hollywood’s studio era, Parker isn’t nearly as well-remembered today as she should be despite three Best Actress Academy Award nominations (Caged, 1950; Detective Story, 1951; Interrupted Melody, 1955), a number of box-office and/or critical hits, and a key role in one of the biggest blockbusters of all time (The Sound of Music). Hopefully, the 34 Eleanor Parker movies TCM will be showing each Monday this month — beginning tonight — will help to introduce the actress to a broader 21st-century audience. Eleanor Parker movies "When I am spotted somewhere it means that my characterizations haven’t covered up Eleanor Parker the person. I prefer it the other way around," Parker once said. In fact, the title of Doug McClelland’s 1989 Eleanor Parker bio,...
- 6/4/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Warner Archive Collection 4th anniversary DVD / Blu-ray releases The Warner Archive Collection (aka Wac), which currently has a DVD / Blu-ray library consisting of approximately 1,500 titles, has just turned four. In celebration of its fourth anniversary, Wac is releasing with movies featuring the likes of Jane Powell, Eleanor Parker, and many more stars and filmmakers of yesteryear. (Pictured above: Greer Garson, Debbie Reynolds, Ricardo Montalban in the sentimental 1966 comedy / drama with music The Singing Nun.) For starters, Jane Powell and Debbie Reynolds play siblings in Richard Thorpe's Athena (1954), whose supporting cast includes Edmund Purdom, Vic Damone, frequent Jerry Lewis foil Kathleen Freeman, Citizen Kane's Ray Collins, Tyrone Power's then-wife Linda Christian, former Mr. Universe and future Hercules Steve Reeves, veteran Louis Calhern, not to mention numerology, astrology, and vegetarianism. As per Wac's newsletter, the score by Hugh Martin and Martin Blane "gets a first ever Stereophonic Sound remix for this disc,...
- 3/27/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
By Lee Pfeiffer
Warner Brothers continues to mine its seemingly exhaustive catalog of Humphrey Bogart titles with the release of The Wagons Roll at Night through the Warner Archive. The 1941 melodrama is compelling throughout and has an unusual setting for the story: a traveling circus. Bogart is cast as Nick Coster, the owner of the circus. He's a tough man of dubious morals who will do just about anything to increase audiences, as the show's box-office receipts dwindle. Through a bizarre happenstance, an escaped lion from the circus enters a small town store where grocery clerk Matt Varney (Eddie Albert) manages to keep it at bay. He becomes a local hero and the ever-opportunistic Nick hires him to take over as lion tamer from the show's drunken and unreliable current star. Matt proves to be a quick learner and soon becomes the star attraction of the circus. However, troubles arises...
Warner Brothers continues to mine its seemingly exhaustive catalog of Humphrey Bogart titles with the release of The Wagons Roll at Night through the Warner Archive. The 1941 melodrama is compelling throughout and has an unusual setting for the story: a traveling circus. Bogart is cast as Nick Coster, the owner of the circus. He's a tough man of dubious morals who will do just about anything to increase audiences, as the show's box-office receipts dwindle. Through a bizarre happenstance, an escaped lion from the circus enters a small town store where grocery clerk Matt Varney (Eddie Albert) manages to keep it at bay. He becomes a local hero and the ever-opportunistic Nick hires him to take over as lion tamer from the show's drunken and unreliable current star. Matt proves to be a quick learner and soon becomes the star attraction of the circus. However, troubles arises...
- 11/11/2012
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Books continue coming in at a faster pace than I can possibly keep up with and it’s been a while since I did a survey. Here are some of the recent titles that pique my interest. Remember, these are not critiques, but descriptions based on a quick once-over. I hope to print full-fledged reviews, on a few more, in the weeks ahead. The Hollywood Canteen by Lisa Mitchell and Bruce Torrence; foreword by Joan Leslie (BearManor Media) Here’s a welcome look inside the nightclub/restaurant co-founded by Bette Davis and John Garfield to entertain servicemen during World War II. While it’s been mentioned in many...
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- 8/27/2012
- by Leonard Maltin
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
Joan Fontaine in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion Joan Fontaine, who turned 94 last October 22, shines on Turner Classic Movies' tonight. TCM will be showing five Fontaine movies: Jane Eyre (1944), The Constant Nymph (1943), Born to Be Bad (1950), Suspicion (1941), and Ivanhoe (1952). I've yet to check out The Constant Nymph, which had been unavailable for decades until TCM presented it a few months ago. In the film, 26-year-old Fontaine plays a 14-year-old infatuated with a composer (Charles Boyer) married to her older cousin (Alexis Smith). Edmund Goulding directed. Enough members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences must have found Fontaine quite believable as a lovestruck teen, for The Constant Nymph earned her her third (and final) Best Actress nomination. Jane Eyre has been made and remade about a zillion times in the last century or so. Fontaine's version, directed by Robert Stevenson (later of Mary Poppins fame) and co-starring Orson Welles as Rochester,...
- 1/31/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
For me, New Year's Eve will be forever associated with the neighbourhood parties of my childhood, with middle-aged women smelling of gin planting sloppy kisses that left my cheeks smeared with lipstick. But I also look back to a seasonal feel-weird movie I saw for the one and only time in 1947. Called Repeat Performance, it's haunted me ever since. It begins with Joan Leslie murdering her worthless husband (Louis Hayward, a specialist in sneering villains) on New Year's Eve, and wishing on the stroke of midnight that she could relive a troublesome year. Suddenly she finds herself back on the previous New Year's Day with the chance to direct the next 365 days towards a different climax. A friend of hers, a troubled poet played by Richard Basehart, intuits her problem and writes a poem for her with the line: "How can you walk through snow and not leave a footprint?...
- 12/11/2011
- by Philip French
- The Guardian - Film News
Edmund Goulding's The Constant Nymph, a 1943 romantic drama starring Oscar nominee Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, and Alexis Smith, will be shown tonight on Turner Classic Movies at 5 p.m. Pt as part of TCM's tribute to the Library of Congress Film Archive. Tied up in legal complications for decades, The Constant Nymph will have its TCM premiere tonight. [In August 2010, The Constant Nymph had a rare screening at the Library of Congress' Packard Campus.] According to Matthew Kennedy's Edmund Goulding biography Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory, Jack Warner initially considered Errol Flynn for the role of the British music teacher. Goulding wanted either Robert Donat or Leslie Howard for the part, but eventually gave up on the British-ness of the music teacher and settled on by then two-time Best Actor Oscar nominee Charles Boyer. Joan Fontaine's role was initially supposed to have gone to Joan Leslie, but Goulding wasn't happy with that choice. Through then-husband Brian Aherne, who had played the music teacher in the 1934 version,...
- 9/29/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
So... before he starts filming the Tom Hooper directed film version of smash hit epic musical Les Miserables (more on that in a second) we're going to have to sit through one of the most ridiculous movies of all time (that's a guess) just to satiate our love of Mr. Jackman. The things we do for Hugh.
Here's the poster for Real Steel.
I almost want to remove those arm bandages (tenderly!) and reapply them to the face mummy style, so as to save that wonderful movie star mug from B-film embarrasments. If you're going genre, go all out: wouldn't it awesome if a mummy was training boxing robots?
The Wrap In other Hugh Jackman news, we're getting our post Oscar 2009 ceremony wish: Anne Hathaway will probably be playing Fantine in the film version of Les Miserables. Ah, Hugh & Anne singing again. Together. Sort of. I can't recall if they...
Here's the poster for Real Steel.
I almost want to remove those arm bandages (tenderly!) and reapply them to the face mummy style, so as to save that wonderful movie star mug from B-film embarrasments. If you're going genre, go all out: wouldn't it awesome if a mummy was training boxing robots?
The Wrap In other Hugh Jackman news, we're getting our post Oscar 2009 ceremony wish: Anne Hathaway will probably be playing Fantine in the film version of Les Miserables. Ah, Hugh & Anne singing again. Together. Sort of. I can't recall if they...
- 8/30/2011
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Ann Sothern, Linda Darnell, Jeanne Crain, A Letter to Three Wives Linda Darnell, the gorgeous leading lady of numerous 20th Century Fox productions of the '40s, is Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" player this Saturday, August 27. TCM, which has leased titles from the Fox library, is showing 14 Linda Darnell movies, including no less than 9 TCM premieres. [Linda Darnell Movie Schedule.] Right now, TCM is showing writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's A Letter to Three Wives (1949), winner of Academy Awards for Best Direction and Best Screenplay. This curious comedy-drama about a husband who leaves his wife for another woman — but whose husband? Linda Darnell's, Jeanne Crain's, or Ann Sothern's? — also earned Mankiewicz the very first Directors Guild of America Award and a Writers Guild Award (which Mankiewicz shared with Vera Caspary) for the Best Written American Comedy. The husbands in question are Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas, and Jeffrey Lynn.
- 8/28/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
John Garfield, Joan Crawford, Humoresque John Garfield is Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" star on Friday, August 5. TCM will be presenting twelve John Garfield movies, in addition to the 2003 documentary The John Garfield Story. There will be no TCM premieres — but don't blame TCM for that. Garfield was a Warner Bros. star and Warners' movies belong to the Time Warner library; in other words, his films are always available. In fact, I believe the only John Garfield movie that has never been shown on TCM is 20th Century Fox's 1950 drama Under My Skin. [John Garfield Movie Schedule.] Much like Warners' James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Errol Flynn, Garfield was a tough guy at a tough studio. Come to think of it, even Warners' women were tough: Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Glenda Farrell, and, off screen, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Leslie (both of...
- 8/4/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
June Lockhart and Malcolm McDowell at the opening of the exhibition "The More the Merrier: Posters from the Best Picture Nominees, 1936-1943 " at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences on Friday, January 22, 2010. The exhibition, which features posters from 80 movies, is currently being held at the Academy’s Wilshire Grand Lobby in Beverly Hills. Among the represented films are Victor Fleming’s Gone with the Wind, Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, Robert Z. Leonard’s The Great Ziegfeld, Leo McCarey’s Love Affair, and George Stevens‘ The More the Merrier. June Lockhart had a supporting role in Howard Hawks‘ sentimental war drama Sergeant York, which starred Gary Cooper, Walter Brennan, and Joan Leslie. Cooper won [...]...
- 2/10/2010
- by Anna Robinson
- Alt Film Guide
From this Sunday, February 1 through Tuesday, March 3 Turner Classic Movies (TCM) begins their annual 31 Days of Oscar, which brings you night after night of Oscar winning and nominated films uncut and commercial free on TCM and I have put together for you a mini guide for films to look for each day so you can either sit down and enjoy them as they play or set your DVR to record them for later. Either way, this is a great way to knock off so many of those classic films from your must see list. First, how about the TCM video montage preview. Can you name the films?
Now, for the full schedule you can click here to download the Pdf or you can browse TCM's online calendar at the 31 Days of Oscar official site. Because one thing is for sure, even though I list films for every single day below...
Now, for the full schedule you can click here to download the Pdf or you can browse TCM's online calendar at the 31 Days of Oscar official site. Because one thing is for sure, even though I list films for every single day below...
- 2/1/2009
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
Friends and acquaintances of late film legend Greta Garbo gathered in Hollywood on Thursday to mark the 100th anniversary of the actress' birth year. The Academy Of Motion Picture Arts And Sciences invited Swedish actress Lena Olin to host the bash, which was attended by author Gore Vidal and Joan Leslie. Garbo was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in September 1905 and got her big break when she signed a contract with Metro-goldwyn Mayer in 1925. Garbo was nominated for four Oscars in the 1930s before retiring from Hollywood at the age of 36. She died in New York on April 15, 1990 from pneumonia.
- 4/11/2005
- WENN
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