Joan Fontaine, who won the Best Actress Oscar for Alfred Hitchcock's 1941 classic Suspicion, has died in her California home at age 96. Fontaine began her film career playing attractive but nondescript characters until Hitchcock cast her as the female lead in his 1940 film version of the bestseller Rebecca opposite Laurence Olivier. The film earned her an Oscar nomination and elevated her to one of Hollywood's most in-demand actresses. In 1943 she received a third and final Oscar nomination for The Constant Nymph. Fontaine also won rave notices in the film version of the Gothic novel Jane Eyre, starring opposite Orson Welles. In both films she played an innocent woman whose husband is harboring a shocking secret that is unveiled within the walls of a stately but foreboding country manor. Fontaine's other major films include Ivanhoe, The Emperor Waltz, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, This Above All, The Women, Gunga Din,...
- 12/16/2013
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Hal Kanter (see photo), creator of the groundbreaking television series Julia, starring Diahann Carroll (photo) as a nurse, died Sunday, Nov. 6, of complications from pneumonia at Encino Hospital in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino. Kanter was 92. Julia (1968-71) marked the first time a black actress had an important role in an American television series playing something other than a maid (e.g., Ethel Waters and Louise Beavers in the 1950s series Beulah). As quoted in the Los Angeles Times obit, Kanter said he didn't want to make profound political statements with each Julia episode. But political statements were made all the same, as Kanter explained: There is a fallout of social comment. Every week we see a black child playing with a white child with complete acceptance and without incident. One of the recurring themes in the thousands of letters we get is from people who thank us for...
- 11/8/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
I stumbled upon a list of 41 of Woody Allen's favorite films over at This Recording, which were actually pulled from Allen's 2007 biography written by Eric Lax titled "Conversations with Woody Allen: His Films, the Movies, and Moviemaking" which you can buy from Amazon for $16.47.
Allen comments on the lists, of which he breaks up into different categories, saying, "My tastes seem to me unremarkable except in the area of talking plot comedies where I seem to have little tolerance for anything and certainly not my own films."
Unfortunately, he's pretty much right as I would bet most avid movie watchers will have seen the majority of the films he lists and then when he does get to talking plot comedies he waves a white flag in fear of looking foolish saying, "[My] taste is eccentric and there are any number of comedies I love that would make me seem foolish or should I say,...
Allen comments on the lists, of which he breaks up into different categories, saying, "My tastes seem to me unremarkable except in the area of talking plot comedies where I seem to have little tolerance for anything and certainly not my own films."
Unfortunately, he's pretty much right as I would bet most avid movie watchers will have seen the majority of the films he lists and then when he does get to talking plot comedies he waves a white flag in fear of looking foolish saying, "[My] taste is eccentric and there are any number of comedies I love that would make me seem foolish or should I say,...
- 6/7/2011
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
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