Actor wrote to a Swedish friend about her loathing for Beverly Hills and fears over how her films would be received
The woman in the photographs is almost unrecognisable as one of the most famously solitary stars of the 20th century: striding out on skis across a snowy landscape, chopping logs, sunbathing topless, cradling an armful of puppies – it is Greta Garbo, laughing among cherished friends.
The woman who emerges from letters carefully preserved for a lifetime by her friends along with the private album, and now to be sold at a Sotheby’s auction, is heartbreakingly different from the sociable, jolly figure in the photos. They were written when Garbo was back in the United States, despairing over feeble scripts, raging at stupid directors, terrified of the verdict of critics, which could be no harsher than her own.
Continue reading...
The woman in the photographs is almost unrecognisable as one of the most famously solitary stars of the 20th century: striding out on skis across a snowy landscape, chopping logs, sunbathing topless, cradling an armful of puppies – it is Greta Garbo, laughing among cherished friends.
The woman who emerges from letters carefully preserved for a lifetime by her friends along with the private album, and now to be sold at a Sotheby’s auction, is heartbreakingly different from the sociable, jolly figure in the photos. They were written when Garbo was back in the United States, despairing over feeble scripts, raging at stupid directors, terrified of the verdict of critics, which could be no harsher than her own.
Continue reading...
- 12/4/2017
- by Maev Kennedy
- The Guardian - Film News
The film industry has a long and unhealthy obsession with the weight of its female stars. The more who speak up – like Moretz did this week – the more chance there is of change
This week, 20-year-old actor Chloë Grace Moretz said she had been “body-shamed” by a male actor on set when she was 15. He was her co-star at the time, in his 20s, cast in the role of her love interest, and he said he would never date her in real life, because she was too big. It was a comment that drove her to tears. Moretz is the latest in a string of Hollywood stars who are prepared to be more open about their experiences of sexism in the industry, from Jennifer Lawrence to Emma Watson. Like the late Carrie Fisher, who revealed she was asked to lose weight before appearing in the new Star Wars series, Moretz...
This week, 20-year-old actor Chloë Grace Moretz said she had been “body-shamed” by a male actor on set when she was 15. He was her co-star at the time, in his 20s, cast in the role of her love interest, and he said he would never date her in real life, because she was too big. It was a comment that drove her to tears. Moretz is the latest in a string of Hollywood stars who are prepared to be more open about their experiences of sexism in the industry, from Jennifer Lawrence to Emma Watson. Like the late Carrie Fisher, who revealed she was asked to lose weight before appearing in the new Star Wars series, Moretz...
- 8/11/2017
- by Anna Smith
- The Guardian - Film News
Stepping into screen legend Greta Garbo’s former New York City home, is like taking a step back in time. The perfectly preserved floor-through apartment overlooking the East River is in one of the neighborhood’s most historic buildings, the Camponile, and is covered in knotty pine that realtor Brian Lewis notes, reminded her of her native Sweden.
Related: Jackie Kennedy’s Spectacular Childhood Home is For Sale for $49.5 Million
“She was an artist,” Lewis says, pointing out that the actress’s sprawling living room, which offers panoramic views and plenty of light, is expertly decorated despite its potentially awkward scale.
Related: Jackie Kennedy’s Spectacular Childhood Home is For Sale for $49.5 Million
“She was an artist,” Lewis says, pointing out that the actress’s sprawling living room, which offers panoramic views and plenty of light, is expertly decorated despite its potentially awkward scale.
- 7/28/2017
- by Mackenzie Schmidt
- PEOPLE.com
After winning three Academy Awards and establishing himself as one of the world's greatest living actors, Daniel Day-Lewis issued a statement last week announcing that he was retiring from acting, and that the film he recently completed, director Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread, would be his last film performance.
The decision came as a shock to fans of the 60-year-old actor and father of three, many of whom feel like he has a lot more to offer in the way of brilliant performances. However, he's far from the first star to retire before his or her time. Here's a look at just a few major stars, throughout the history of Hollywood, who have walked away from their careers in search of something different.
Watch: Daniel Day-Lewis Announces Retirement From Acting, Final Film 'Phantom Thread' to Premiere This Christmas
1. Sean Connery
20th Century Fox
After a long career playing everything from James Bond to romantic leads, Connery...
The decision came as a shock to fans of the 60-year-old actor and father of three, many of whom feel like he has a lot more to offer in the way of brilliant performances. However, he's far from the first star to retire before his or her time. Here's a look at just a few major stars, throughout the history of Hollywood, who have walked away from their careers in search of something different.
Watch: Daniel Day-Lewis Announces Retirement From Acting, Final Film 'Phantom Thread' to Premiere This Christmas
1. Sean Connery
20th Century Fox
After a long career playing everything from James Bond to romantic leads, Connery...
- 6/29/2017
- Entertainment Tonight
It's in glorious Technicolor Metrocolor, CinemaScope and StereoPhonic Sound! Fred Astaire's final MGM musical gives him Cyd Charisse and a Cole Porter score, plus some nice Hermes Pan choreography. The script and Rouben Mamoulian's direction aren't the best, but the combined magic of the musical and dancing talent saves the day. Silk Stockings Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1957 / Color / 2:40 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date July 12, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Janis Paige, Peter Lorre, George Tobias, Jules Munshin, Joseph Buloff, Wim Sonneveld Cinematography Robert Bronner Art Direction Randall Duell, William A. Horning Film Editor Harold F. Kress Original Music Cole Porter Written by Abe Burrows, Leonard Gershe, George S. Kaufman, Leueen MacGrath, and Leonard Spigelgass Produced by Arthur Freed Directed by Rouben Mamoulian
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
On the Town? The Pajama Game? Damn Yankees? The Warner Archive Collection's next musical up for the...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
On the Town? The Pajama Game? Damn Yankees? The Warner Archive Collection's next musical up for the...
- 7/23/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Add skinny-dipping legend to Jane Fonda's resume.
During an appearance on Ellen on Monday, Fonda, 78, revealed not one, but two epic skinny-dipping stories.
"Of course," she responded when Ellen DeGeneres asked if she'd swam nude with Michael Jackson. "Here's how it happened; he was visiting me when we were shooting On Golden Pond and I had a little cabin on the lake.
"He stayed with me for about eight days and one night it was a full moon and he said lets go swimming. It was his idea!"
Fonda continues, detailing how the King of Pop hadn't brought a...
During an appearance on Ellen on Monday, Fonda, 78, revealed not one, but two epic skinny-dipping stories.
"Of course," she responded when Ellen DeGeneres asked if she'd swam nude with Michael Jackson. "Here's how it happened; he was visiting me when we were shooting On Golden Pond and I had a little cabin on the lake.
"He stayed with me for about eight days and one night it was a full moon and he said lets go swimming. It was his idea!"
Fonda continues, detailing how the King of Pop hadn't brought a...
- 5/3/2016
- by Naja Rayne, @najarayne
- People.com - TV Watch
Add skinny-dipping legend to Jane Fonda's resume. During an appearance on Ellen on Monday, Fonda, 78, revealed not one, but two epic skinny-dipping stories. "Of course," she responded when Ellen DeGeneres asked if she'd swam nude with Michael Jackson. "Here's how it happened; he was visiting me when we were shooting On Golden Pond and I had a little cabin on the lake. "He stayed with me for about eight days and one night it was a full moon and he said lets go swimming. It was his idea!" Fonda continues, detailing how the King of Pop hadn't brought a...
- 5/3/2016
- by Naja Rayne, @najarayne
- PEOPLE.com
Burt Reynolds has admitted that marrying Loni Anderson was a mistake - and it turns out, his mom thought so too. Reynolds opened up to Men's Health about his relationship with Anderson, admitting there were warning signs that their marriage wouldn't last. "I remember when we got married, it was in a chapel I'd built specifically for our wedding," he said. "I was walking down the aisle, and Perry Como was walking with me." The actor, 80, said as he turned to look at his mom, she was "shaking her head 'No'" at him. "I didn't pay attention, but my mom was always right,...
- 4/16/2016
- by Jodi Guglielmi, @JodiGug3
- PEOPLE.com
'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
Greta Garbo movie 'The Kiss.' Greta Garbo movies on TCM Greta Garbo, a rarity among silent era movie stars, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” performer today, Aug. 26, '15. Now, why would Garbo be considered a silent era rarity? Well, certainly not because she easily made the transition to sound, remaining a major star for another decade. Think Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, William Powell, Fay Wray, Marie Dressler, Wallace Beery, John Barrymore, Warner Baxter, Janet Gaynor, Constance Bennett, etc. And so much for all the stories about actors with foreign accents being unable to maintain their Hollywood stardom following the advent of sound motion pictures. A Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer star, Garbo was no major exception to the supposed rule. Mexican Ramon Novarro, another MGM star, also made an easy transition to sound, and so did fellow Mexicans Lupe Velez and Dolores del Rio, in addition to the very British...
- 8/27/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Virginia Bruce: MGM actress ca. 1935. Virginia Bruce movies on TCM: Actress was the cherry on 'The Great Ziegfeld' wedding cake Unfortunately, Turner Classic Movies has chosen not to feature any non-Hollywood stars – or any out-and-out silent film stars – in its 2015 “Summer Under the Stars” series.* On the other hand, TCM has come up with several unusual inclusions, e.g., Lee J. Cobb, Warren Oates, Mae Clarke, and today, Aug. 25, Virginia Bruce. A second-rank MGM leading lady in the 1930s, the Minneapolis-born Virginia Bruce is little remembered today despite her more than 70 feature films in a career that spanned two decades, from the dawn of the talkie era to the dawn of the TV era, in addition to a handful of comebacks going all the way to 1981 – the dawn of the personal computer era. Career highlights were few and not all that bright. Examples range from playing the...
- 8/26/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
"Trainwreck," the new Amy Schumer/Judd Apatow movie, examines the plight of one snarly woman as she exits her familiar world of sexual freedom and hangovers for a detour into serious romance. Though several eye-popping cameos and supporting performances buttress the film, Schumer's performance is the acting triumph of "Trainwreck." Without her shaky conscience and burgeoning sense of fulfillment, the movie's conventional story might feel staid. Thankfully, it's anything but. Schumer's performance marks a welcome addition to cinema's long line of strident, hilarious female protagonists. We're celebrating that lineage with a list: the 20 best female-driven comedies ever. Some are old and some are new, but all are marked by a degree of cosmopolitan fun and nerviness -- and the occasional slap from Cher. 20. "How to Marry a Millionaire" We remember Lauren Bacall as a glamor girl with a damning grimace, but let's start revising that narrative to include her chops as a comic force.
- 7/16/2015
- by Louis Virtel
- Hitfix
Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...
- 7/2/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ninotchka
Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
USA, 1939
It’s easy to see why Ninotchka works as well as it does, and why it’s one of the best films from Hollywood’s golden age and of arguably Hollywood’s greatest year. Just look at the talent involved. Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Walter Reisch were all seasoned writers, though with their best work admittedly still to come. Ernst Lubitsch had directed a number of excellent silent films in Germany, had hit the ground running once in Hollywood, making his first American film with no less a star than Mary Pickford (Rosita [1923]), and after a series of charming musical comedies, many with Maurice Chevalier, directed the more sublime and sophisticated comedies for which he now best known, films like Trouble in Paradise (1932) and Design for Living (1933). While this was happening, Greta Garbo was working...
Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch
Directed by Ernst Lubitsch
USA, 1939
It’s easy to see why Ninotchka works as well as it does, and why it’s one of the best films from Hollywood’s golden age and of arguably Hollywood’s greatest year. Just look at the talent involved. Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and Walter Reisch were all seasoned writers, though with their best work admittedly still to come. Ernst Lubitsch had directed a number of excellent silent films in Germany, had hit the ground running once in Hollywood, making his first American film with no less a star than Mary Pickford (Rosita [1923]), and after a series of charming musical comedies, many with Maurice Chevalier, directed the more sublime and sophisticated comedies for which he now best known, films like Trouble in Paradise (1932) and Design for Living (1933). While this was happening, Greta Garbo was working...
- 6/16/2015
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
Cinema Retro has received the following press release:
Revisit 1939, Hollywood’s Greatest Year, with 4 New Blu-ray™ Debuts
The Golden Year Collection June 9
Features Newly Restored Blu-ray Debut of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Starring Charles Laughton, and Blu-ray Debuts of – Bette Davis’ Dark Victory, Errol Flynn’s Dodge City and Greta Garbo’s Ninotchka. Collection also includes Gone With the Wind.
Burbank, Calif. March 10, 2015 – On June 9, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will celebrate one of the most prolific twelve months in Hollywood’s history with the 6-disc The Golden Year Collection. Leading the five-film set will be the Blu-ray debut of
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in a new restoration which will have its world premiere at TCM’s Classic Film Festival beginning March 26 in Los Angeles. Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara star in Victor Hugo’s tragic tale which William Dieterle directed.
The other films featured in the Wbhe...
Revisit 1939, Hollywood’s Greatest Year, with 4 New Blu-ray™ Debuts
The Golden Year Collection June 9
Features Newly Restored Blu-ray Debut of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Starring Charles Laughton, and Blu-ray Debuts of – Bette Davis’ Dark Victory, Errol Flynn’s Dodge City and Greta Garbo’s Ninotchka. Collection also includes Gone With the Wind.
Burbank, Calif. March 10, 2015 – On June 9, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will celebrate one of the most prolific twelve months in Hollywood’s history with the 6-disc The Golden Year Collection. Leading the five-film set will be the Blu-ray debut of
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in a new restoration which will have its world premiere at TCM’s Classic Film Festival beginning March 26 in Los Angeles. Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara star in Victor Hugo’s tragic tale which William Dieterle directed.
The other films featured in the Wbhe...
- 3/13/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
The Girl King
Director: Mika Kaurismaki // Writer: Michel Marc Bouchardt
Swedish director Mika Kaurismaki, brother of famed auteur Aki Kaurismaki, has often resided in the shadows of his sibling. Directing a steady output of films since the late 1980s, he doesn’t seem to snag international distribution, but his latest is a profile international co-production, The Girl King, penned by award winning Canadian writer Bouchard. German and Swedish backers also explain the presence of names like Nyqvist and Gedeck, plus throw in some French faces, such as Hippolyte Girardot. Swedish actress Malin Buska will bear the brunt of expectation, as the film revisits the tale of Swedish Queen Christina, portrayed famously in 1933 by Greta Garbo in the Rouben Mammoulien directed film. Here’s to openly being able to discuss her sexuality in this version, famously coded in the Garbo picture often championed as one of the first defiant examples of acknowledged homosexuality in the cinema.
Director: Mika Kaurismaki // Writer: Michel Marc Bouchardt
Swedish director Mika Kaurismaki, brother of famed auteur Aki Kaurismaki, has often resided in the shadows of his sibling. Directing a steady output of films since the late 1980s, he doesn’t seem to snag international distribution, but his latest is a profile international co-production, The Girl King, penned by award winning Canadian writer Bouchard. German and Swedish backers also explain the presence of names like Nyqvist and Gedeck, plus throw in some French faces, such as Hippolyte Girardot. Swedish actress Malin Buska will bear the brunt of expectation, as the film revisits the tale of Swedish Queen Christina, portrayed famously in 1933 by Greta Garbo in the Rouben Mammoulien directed film. Here’s to openly being able to discuss her sexuality in this version, famously coded in the Garbo picture often championed as one of the first defiant examples of acknowledged homosexuality in the cinema.
- 1/6/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
By Anjelica Oswald
Managing Editor
The Fault in Our Stars features Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus “Gus” Waters, two teens who meet at a cancer-survivor support group. Though Hazel is initially skeptical about getting close to Gus and warns him of her worsening condition, Gus still falls for her. As the two fall in love, Gus relapses, and he dies shortly after they return from their romantic trip to Amsterdam. The adaptation of John Green’s novel of the same name was a box-office smash and has earned Woodley some Oscar buzz. Should Woodley receive a nomination for this role, she would join the list of best actress nominees who have been nominated for their roles in heartbreaking films.
Some of the most well-known tragic love stories didn’t score any leading actress nominations, though. For example, Natalie Wood was not nominated for her...
Managing Editor
The Fault in Our Stars features Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus “Gus” Waters, two teens who meet at a cancer-survivor support group. Though Hazel is initially skeptical about getting close to Gus and warns him of her worsening condition, Gus still falls for her. As the two fall in love, Gus relapses, and he dies shortly after they return from their romantic trip to Amsterdam. The adaptation of John Green’s novel of the same name was a box-office smash and has earned Woodley some Oscar buzz. Should Woodley receive a nomination for this role, she would join the list of best actress nominees who have been nominated for their roles in heartbreaking films.
Some of the most well-known tragic love stories didn’t score any leading actress nominations, though. For example, Natalie Wood was not nominated for her...
- 10/3/2014
- by Anjelica Oswald
- Scott Feinberg
We all from time to time enjoy a comfortable stay when vacationing anywhere in the world. So why should movie characters not appreciate a great place to stay as well? Interestingly, big screen hotels and motels almost play an important part as an extra movie character in addition to serving as a backdrop to the proceedings.
In Enjoy Your Stay: The Top 10 Movies About Hotels/Motels let’s look at some special selections where hotels and motels in film are featured and play a primary role in plot and theme. Cinematic room service has never been so accommodating.
The Enjoy Your Stay: The Top 10 Movies About Hotels/Motels selections are (in alphabetical order):
1.) The Best Exotic Manigold Hotel (2011)
Director John Madden’s The Best Exotic Manigold Hotel juggles various topical matters at hand: the aging process, deception in advertising, exotic travel and cultural clashing. Madden assembles a notable cast...
In Enjoy Your Stay: The Top 10 Movies About Hotels/Motels let’s look at some special selections where hotels and motels in film are featured and play a primary role in plot and theme. Cinematic room service has never been so accommodating.
The Enjoy Your Stay: The Top 10 Movies About Hotels/Motels selections are (in alphabetical order):
1.) The Best Exotic Manigold Hotel (2011)
Director John Madden’s The Best Exotic Manigold Hotel juggles various topical matters at hand: the aging process, deception in advertising, exotic travel and cultural clashing. Madden assembles a notable cast...
- 7/2/2014
- by Frank Ochieng
- SoundOnSight
Greta Garbo is a delight in this biopic of the exotic dancer executed for espionage, and the supporting moustaches a special treat
Mata Hari (1931)
Director: George Fitzmaurice
Entertainment grade: B+
History grade: B+
Mata Hari (real name Margaretha Zelle) was an exotic dancer in Paris during the first world war. She was accused of espionage and was executed by firing squad in October 1917.
International relations
It is 1917. Russian aviator Alexis Rosanoff (Ramon Novarro) has an amusing moustache and a strong Mexican accent. This must be very early in 1917: Russia was in turmoil that year, with a revolution in February and the tsar's abdication in March. Fortunately, no sign of that here. Rosanoff is taken by imperial Russian general Serge Shubin (Lionel Barrymore) to see the celebrated Mata Hari dance. In real life, he'd have been disappointed: her final performance was in March 1915.
Performance
"Shiva, I dance for you tonight,...
Mata Hari (1931)
Director: George Fitzmaurice
Entertainment grade: B+
History grade: B+
Mata Hari (real name Margaretha Zelle) was an exotic dancer in Paris during the first world war. She was accused of espionage and was executed by firing squad in October 1917.
International relations
It is 1917. Russian aviator Alexis Rosanoff (Ramon Novarro) has an amusing moustache and a strong Mexican accent. This must be very early in 1917: Russia was in turmoil that year, with a revolution in February and the tsar's abdication in March. Fortunately, no sign of that here. Rosanoff is taken by imperial Russian general Serge Shubin (Lionel Barrymore) to see the celebrated Mata Hari dance. In real life, he'd have been disappointed: her final performance was in March 1915.
Performance
"Shiva, I dance for you tonight,...
- 3/20/2014
- by Alex von Tunzelmann
- The Guardian - Film News
The history of Tinseltown is littered with allegations of espionage, as the revelations about the successful producer have reminded us. Welcome to the world of 'thespionage'
The history of Hollywood is littered with spies. So it should come as no surprise that the producer Arnon Milchan began his working life as an Israeli secret agent and arms dealer. The billionaire behind Fight Club, Pretty Woman and Heat confirmed rumours of his shady past in an interview broadcast on Israeli television on Monday. At one point, we learned, he ran 30 companies worldwide on behalf of the Israeli government.
He joins a long line of Hollywood power-brokers who have dabbled in the spying game. In the early 1950s, the head of foreign and domestic censorship at Paramount was a CIA employee named Luigi Luraschi. Among Luraschi's many covert triumphs was the insertion of "well-dressed" respectable "negroes" into Us movies, to undermine Soviet...
The history of Hollywood is littered with spies. So it should come as no surprise that the producer Arnon Milchan began his working life as an Israeli secret agent and arms dealer. The billionaire behind Fight Club, Pretty Woman and Heat confirmed rumours of his shady past in an interview broadcast on Israeli television on Monday. At one point, we learned, he ran 30 companies worldwide on behalf of the Israeli government.
He joins a long line of Hollywood power-brokers who have dabbled in the spying game. In the early 1950s, the head of foreign and domestic censorship at Paramount was a CIA employee named Luigi Luraschi. Among Luraschi's many covert triumphs was the insertion of "well-dressed" respectable "negroes" into Us movies, to undermine Soviet...
- 11/28/2013
- by Tom Meltzer
- The Guardian - Film News
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...
- 8/9/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Carice van Houten has had head-turning roles in Paul Verhoeven's World War II thriller Black Book and the challenging Ingrid Jonker biopic Black Butterflies. But the strikingly gorgeous Dutch actress has reached a new level of fame thanks to her recurring role as the menacing red lady Melisandre on Game of Thrones, and she's putting her fame and classic Hollywood style beauty to use in making an English-language biopic about the iconic film star Greta Garbo. Screendaily reports van Houten will produce and star in the presently untitled biopic, which will follow Garbo from her beginnings as shopgirl in Stockholm, to her heyday as one of MGM's most celebrated stars, one who deftly made the tricky transition from silent films to talkies before retiring in her prime. The screenplay by Soni Jorgensen is currently in flux, but van Houten promises it will offer a respectful yet insightful perspective into...
- 5/20/2013
- cinemablend.com
In light of Prada, Tiffany & Co., and Brooks Brothers, all producing Great Gatsby inspired lines and the much publicised drama between fashion and costume designers, we should consider the influence that costume has over fashion. The alliance between costume and fashion designers has been both beneficial and contentious. Fashion does have a much longer history than film costume design, but since the beginning of moving pictures, both industries have nurtured an intimate relationship.
In the advent of cinema, fashion was placed centre stage in filmed fashion shows. These fashion shorts slowly evolved from runway shows via the introduction of a stories surrounding the garments (Bruzzi, 4). Early costume design was influenced by current runway fashions, such as Vionnet’s signature bias cut gowns hugging actress’ bodies on the big screen. Starting in the 1930s, costume design and current fashion slowly began to pull away from each other. This changed when MGM...
In the advent of cinema, fashion was placed centre stage in filmed fashion shows. These fashion shorts slowly evolved from runway shows via the introduction of a stories surrounding the garments (Bruzzi, 4). Early costume design was influenced by current runway fashions, such as Vionnet’s signature bias cut gowns hugging actress’ bodies on the big screen. Starting in the 1930s, costume design and current fashion slowly began to pull away from each other. This changed when MGM...
- 5/14/2013
- by Contributor
- Clothes on Film
A new exhibition looks at the timeless personal style of one of Hollywood's most famous stars
She famously wanted to be alone, but a new exhibition that opened in London on February 15 offers visitors the chance to get to know a very different side to the mysterious Greta Garbo – by way of her clothes.
Miss G: The Private World of Greta Garbo, curated by fashion journalist and author Bronwyn Cosgrave and jewellery designer Julia Muggenburg, features some surprising items. A vibrantly patterned yoga onesie with matching headband represents Garbo's athletic side. "She was very healthy," says Cosgrave. "She had to maintain her body, so she did yoga. She was an early follower of Joseph Pilates. Yes – before Jane Fonda there was Garbo!"
A rather homely pink-and-white striped cotton apron replete with yellow cooking stains gives visitors a glimpse into a very different side of the enigmatic star, who is...
She famously wanted to be alone, but a new exhibition that opened in London on February 15 offers visitors the chance to get to know a very different side to the mysterious Greta Garbo – by way of her clothes.
Miss G: The Private World of Greta Garbo, curated by fashion journalist and author Bronwyn Cosgrave and jewellery designer Julia Muggenburg, features some surprising items. A vibrantly patterned yoga onesie with matching headband represents Garbo's athletic side. "She was very healthy," says Cosgrave. "She had to maintain her body, so she did yoga. She was an early follower of Joseph Pilates. Yes – before Jane Fonda there was Garbo!"
A rather homely pink-and-white striped cotton apron replete with yellow cooking stains gives visitors a glimpse into a very different side of the enigmatic star, who is...
- 2/20/2013
- by Anna-Marie Crowhurst
- The Guardian - Film News
A new exhibition looks at the timeless personal style of one of Hollywood's most famous stars
She famously wanted to be alone, but a new exhibition that opened in London on February 15 offers visitors the chance to get to know a very different side to the mysterious Greta Garbo – by way of her clothes.
Miss G: The Private World of Greta Garbo, curated by fashion journalist and author Bronwyn Cosgrave and jewellery designer Julia Muggenburg, features some surprising items. A vibrantly patterned yoga onesie with matching headband represents Garbo's athletic side. "She was very healthy," says Cosgrave. "She had to maintain her body, so she did yoga. She was an early follower of Joseph Pilates. Yes – before Jane Fonda there was Garbo!"
Continue reading...
She famously wanted to be alone, but a new exhibition that opened in London on February 15 offers visitors the chance to get to know a very different side to the mysterious Greta Garbo – by way of her clothes.
Miss G: The Private World of Greta Garbo, curated by fashion journalist and author Bronwyn Cosgrave and jewellery designer Julia Muggenburg, features some surprising items. A vibrantly patterned yoga onesie with matching headband represents Garbo's athletic side. "She was very healthy," says Cosgrave. "She had to maintain her body, so she did yoga. She was an early follower of Joseph Pilates. Yes – before Jane Fonda there was Garbo!"
Continue reading...
- 2/20/2013
- by Anna-Marie Crowhurst
- The Guardian - Film News
The personal effects of the late Hollywood actress Greta Garbo were sold at auction this weekend. The belongings took in $$1.6m (£992,000), three times the estimated total expected. Garbo's sunglasses, furs and Ferragamo shoes were among the items sold, according to The Huffington Post. "Greta Garbo commanded Marilyn Monroe prices today," said Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien's Auctions. "Her beauty, extraordinary (more)...
- 12/17/2012
- by By Sarah Luoma
- Digital Spy
Greta Garbo may have been mysterious, but there's no doubting she was loved.
The movie star's personal possessions, including her sunglasses, shoes and furs, brought in an unexpected $1.6 million at auction this weekend -- proving the "Anna Karenina" star is as beloved as other Hollywood icons.
“Greta Garbo commanded Marilyn Monroe prices today,” Martin Nolan, the Executive Director of Julien’s Auctions, which hosted the event, said (via The Wrap). “Her beauty, extraordinary screen presence and fashion trending style were proven to be timeless in this extraordinary two-day event.”
Among her belongings auctioned off were her sunglasses, which sold for $13,750, as well as her Louis Vuitton steamer trunk ($37,500), antique gold pocket knife ($8,960), driving caps ($15,000), jewelry set ($9,600), Ferragamo shoes ($8,125), Maltese cross brooch ($13,750), Valentina Ottoman silk overcoat ($11,520) and velvet black turban ($12,800).
The event brought in three times the estimated take at pre-auction.
Garbo was a Swedish-born actress who rose to stardom during Hollywood's silent and classic eras.
The movie star's personal possessions, including her sunglasses, shoes and furs, brought in an unexpected $1.6 million at auction this weekend -- proving the "Anna Karenina" star is as beloved as other Hollywood icons.
“Greta Garbo commanded Marilyn Monroe prices today,” Martin Nolan, the Executive Director of Julien’s Auctions, which hosted the event, said (via The Wrap). “Her beauty, extraordinary screen presence and fashion trending style were proven to be timeless in this extraordinary two-day event.”
Among her belongings auctioned off were her sunglasses, which sold for $13,750, as well as her Louis Vuitton steamer trunk ($37,500), antique gold pocket knife ($8,960), driving caps ($15,000), jewelry set ($9,600), Ferragamo shoes ($8,125), Maltese cross brooch ($13,750), Valentina Ottoman silk overcoat ($11,520) and velvet black turban ($12,800).
The event brought in three times the estimated take at pre-auction.
Garbo was a Swedish-born actress who rose to stardom during Hollywood's silent and classic eras.
- 12/16/2012
- by Leigh Blickley
- Huffington Post
New York, Nov mber 26: Private items belonging to screen legend Greta Garbo has set sail as part of a high seas auction.
Garbo great-nephew Derek Reisfield is aboard the Queen Mary 2 and will auction off the items, including a cigarette holder, an ashtray, an umbrella, scarves and a signed check made out to the New York Telephone Company, the New York Post reported.
Reisfield is a featured speaker in the ship's Insights Programme, providing a look into Garbo's life, her film career and her position as a cultural icon.
Recently, Reisfield introduced her 1936 film "Camille" along with a preview of the items.
Select.
Garbo great-nephew Derek Reisfield is aboard the Queen Mary 2 and will auction off the items, including a cigarette holder, an ashtray, an umbrella, scarves and a signed check made out to the New York Telephone Company, the New York Post reported.
Reisfield is a featured speaker in the ship's Insights Programme, providing a look into Garbo's life, her film career and her position as a cultural icon.
Recently, Reisfield introduced her 1936 film "Camille" along with a preview of the items.
Select.
- 11/26/2012
- by Lohit Reddy
- RealBollywood.com
Special From
By Barbara Lovenheim
It seems improbable for a new slant on Katharine Hepburn to emerge, but the upcoming exhibit Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and the five excellent essays in the new Skira/Rizzoli companion book "Katharine Hepburn: Rebel Chic" are provocative and eye-opening. Contrary to Hepburn’s public image as an indifferent fashion rebel who wore slacks in public years before pant suits came into vogue, Hepburn cultivated her counter-culture image deliberately and with great precision when she became aware of its publicity value, eventually ordering custom-made slacks and shoes and, on the sly, ordering handmade French lingerie.
“I think you should pretend you don’t care,” she once remarked to Garbo, who captivated Hollywood with her mannish suits, hats, and Ferragamo flat-heeled shoes. “But it’s the most outrageous pretense.
By Barbara Lovenheim
It seems improbable for a new slant on Katharine Hepburn to emerge, but the upcoming exhibit Katharine Hepburn: Dressed for Stage and Screen at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center and the five excellent essays in the new Skira/Rizzoli companion book "Katharine Hepburn: Rebel Chic" are provocative and eye-opening. Contrary to Hepburn’s public image as an indifferent fashion rebel who wore slacks in public years before pant suits came into vogue, Hepburn cultivated her counter-culture image deliberately and with great precision when she became aware of its publicity value, eventually ordering custom-made slacks and shoes and, on the sly, ordering handmade French lingerie.
“I think you should pretend you don’t care,” she once remarked to Garbo, who captivated Hollywood with her mannish suits, hats, and Ferragamo flat-heeled shoes. “But it’s the most outrageous pretense.
- 10/12/2012
- by NYCityWoman.com
- Huffington Post
Brian De Palma's new film Passion was one of our favorites at the Toronto International Film Festival. I raved and rambled on about the film in one of our correspondences (though, as you'll see, I was wrong about one key facet of the film's production):
A remake of the solid Alain Corneau corporate thriller Love Crime, De Palma plunges without hesitation into the iconography, audience expectations, and conventions of noirs, sex thrillers, corporate intrigue, post-Hitchcock films and Brian De Palma movies themselves, retaining the shell appearance of all of these things but hollowing them from the inside out. The result is something out of late Resnais—a study of a study. And that study, of course, is of the cinema image. Remember how Rebecca Romijn watches Stanwyck in Double Indemnity at the beginning of Femme Fatale, as if taking notes? The characters in Passion have taken notes from...
A remake of the solid Alain Corneau corporate thriller Love Crime, De Palma plunges without hesitation into the iconography, audience expectations, and conventions of noirs, sex thrillers, corporate intrigue, post-Hitchcock films and Brian De Palma movies themselves, retaining the shell appearance of all of these things but hollowing them from the inside out. The result is something out of late Resnais—a study of a study. And that study, of course, is of the cinema image. Remember how Rebecca Romijn watches Stanwyck in Double Indemnity at the beginning of Femme Fatale, as if taking notes? The characters in Passion have taken notes from...
- 10/1/2012
- by Daniel Kasman
- MUBI
The Observer's film critic, CA Lejeune, applauds a 'mature, rich, mellow' take on Tolstoy's tragic heroine
I suppose more nonsense has been written and talked about Greta Garbo than about any other actress on the screen. Because she has never been interested in imposing her own viewpoint on the public, a legend has grown up around her. She has become the archetype of the cinema woman, adulated, burlesqued, imitated, envied. It is almost impossible to approach her work today without some kind of vivid preconception. And between her disciples and her traducers, the people who defend so hotly and the people who attack her so coldly, the real Garbo, I fear, has been badly let down.
Greta Garbo is, quite simply, a great screen actress. That is to say, she adapts every technical resource of voice and body to the exact scope of the cinema medium, and adds warmth to...
I suppose more nonsense has been written and talked about Greta Garbo than about any other actress on the screen. Because she has never been interested in imposing her own viewpoint on the public, a legend has grown up around her. She has become the archetype of the cinema woman, adulated, burlesqued, imitated, envied. It is almost impossible to approach her work today without some kind of vivid preconception. And between her disciples and her traducers, the people who defend so hotly and the people who attack her so coldly, the real Garbo, I fear, has been badly let down.
Greta Garbo is, quite simply, a great screen actress. That is to say, she adapts every technical resource of voice and body to the exact scope of the cinema medium, and adds warmth to...
- 9/29/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Tom Stoppard says his original approach to writing the screenplay for Joe Wright's new film adaptation of Anna Karenina was for a fast, modern movie about being in lust. Then wiser counsels – including his own – prevailed
The latest film adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina began in what Tom Stoppard calls "a normal kind of way", though it did not exactly have a normal outcome. Sitting in his penthouse flat in west London with his back to a stunning view of the Thames, he lights the first of the six cigarettes that will measure out this conversation.
"Somebody rang my agent, Anthony Jones," he says, before adding: "It was to ask if I was up for adapting Anna Karenina for Joe Wright. It was Joe's choice of movie."
This is an ideal moment to talk to one of Britain's leading contemporary playwrights. Stoppard is in that limbo that writers experience...
The latest film adaptation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina began in what Tom Stoppard calls "a normal kind of way", though it did not exactly have a normal outcome. Sitting in his penthouse flat in west London with his back to a stunning view of the Thames, he lights the first of the six cigarettes that will measure out this conversation.
"Somebody rang my agent, Anthony Jones," he says, before adding: "It was to ask if I was up for adapting Anna Karenina for Joe Wright. It was Joe's choice of movie."
This is an ideal moment to talk to one of Britain's leading contemporary playwrights. Stoppard is in that limbo that writers experience...
- 9/1/2012
- by Robert McCrum
- The Guardian - Film News
Joe Wright's "Anna Karenina" (November 16) looks to be a highly original take on the Leo Tolstoy classic, but it's certainly not the first time (or even the 10th) that the Russian romance has been adapted for the big screen. Below, a compare-and-contrast of six film versions. "Anna Karenina," 1935: Greta Garbo stars in the title role, with Fredric March as Vronsky. Clarence Brown ("National Velvet" and another Garbo vehicle, "Anna Christie") directs. This was Garbo's second outing as Anna K., with her first go-around in 1927's "Love" (see below). The film's budget is estimated at just north of $1 million, with the domestic take at $865K. The film is 100% Fresh, and Emmanuel Levy writes: "In her 23rd film, Garbo's luminous performance, as the adulterous protag of Tolstoy's novel, is way above the mediocre level of the narrative and direction; the film is a remake of 'Love,' in which.
- 8/20/2012
- by Beth Hanna
- Thompson on Hollywood
If there are two things I love in the world, they are, in order, 1) Old Movies About Love Starring Really Amazing Actresses and 2) 19th Century Novels About Adultery That End Sadly. Do not fuck with my two things.
Tolstoy's 19th Century Russian novel about the titular unhappily-married, seduced-by-true-love, and then hit-by-train (ooops, spoiler alert!) Anna Karenina is rivaled only perhaps by Flaubert's 19th Century French novel about an unhappily married, seduced-but-ends-badly woman named Madame Bovary. But Anna Karenina has an entire chapter devoted to a dog's inner monologue so it is by far my favorite of the two.
That being said, the story has been put to film several times, usually quite well.
Artsy Fartsy, but beautiful-looking in a Baz-Luhrmann kind of way, this trailer for the 2012 new version of Anna Karenina from Joe Wright (Hanna) starring Kiera Knightley just doesn't quite live up to the predecessors. Why? Kiera has no personality.
Tolstoy's 19th Century Russian novel about the titular unhappily-married, seduced-by-true-love, and then hit-by-train (ooops, spoiler alert!) Anna Karenina is rivaled only perhaps by Flaubert's 19th Century French novel about an unhappily married, seduced-but-ends-badly woman named Madame Bovary. But Anna Karenina has an entire chapter devoted to a dog's inner monologue so it is by far my favorite of the two.
That being said, the story has been put to film several times, usually quite well.
Artsy Fartsy, but beautiful-looking in a Baz-Luhrmann kind of way, this trailer for the 2012 new version of Anna Karenina from Joe Wright (Hanna) starring Kiera Knightley just doesn't quite live up to the predecessors. Why? Kiera has no personality.
- 6/28/2012
- by Superheidi
- Planet Fury
The great movie pioneer D.W. Griffiths once said “we do not want now and we shall never want the human voice with our films.” Shame he failed to realise that film-making is a technical medium that will always develop. In the last 100 years we have had the introduction of colour, trick photography, 3D and CGI, among other numerous innovations such as CinemaScope - and even Smellovision. But none of these compare to the most revolutionary of cinematic changes: sound.
The silent era of the twenties holds little more than curiosity-value for many modern film fans. Other than a few notable exceptions such as Nosferatu (1922) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), it’s become a long-forgotten part of cinema history. But back then we had the Brad Pitts and Angelina Jolies of their day! Big stars and talented actors who sadly failed to survive the test of time.
The coming of sound was controversial,...
The silent era of the twenties holds little more than curiosity-value for many modern film fans. Other than a few notable exceptions such as Nosferatu (1922) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925), it’s become a long-forgotten part of cinema history. But back then we had the Brad Pitts and Angelina Jolies of their day! Big stars and talented actors who sadly failed to survive the test of time.
The coming of sound was controversial,...
- 3/7/2012
- Shadowlocked
Our look back over the history of MGM continues, as the silent era gives way to the talkies and musicals of the 20s and 30s...
It’s 1928, and the success of Warner Bros’ musical, The Jazz Singer, has ushered in a new age of talking pictures. Audiences adored it, and it was sink or swim time for MGM. Suddenly, the silent cinema rule book was thrown out of the window and numerous opportunities opened up in Hollywood.
Composers were in demand, and song and script writers, along with voice coaches, were needed more than ever. White Shadows In The South Seas was the first MGM sound picture, although not a talkie. Originally filmed as a silent picture, MGM realised that sound wasn’t just a passing fad and, like most studios at the time, swiftly added sound effects to its music. But they did make one character speak – and that was Leo the lion,...
It’s 1928, and the success of Warner Bros’ musical, The Jazz Singer, has ushered in a new age of talking pictures. Audiences adored it, and it was sink or swim time for MGM. Suddenly, the silent cinema rule book was thrown out of the window and numerous opportunities opened up in Hollywood.
Composers were in demand, and song and script writers, along with voice coaches, were needed more than ever. White Shadows In The South Seas was the first MGM sound picture, although not a talkie. Originally filmed as a silent picture, MGM realised that sound wasn’t just a passing fad and, like most studios at the time, swiftly added sound effects to its music. But they did make one character speak – and that was Leo the lion,...
- 1/16/2012
- Den of Geek
Frank Capra, Luise Rainer, George Jessel Luise Rainer turns 102 today, January 12. She is the oldest living Academy Award winner in the acting categories, having won two consecutive Best Actress Oscars for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). Because of both her longevity and the fact that Turner Classic Movies regularly shows nearly all of her films, the Dusseldorf-born (some sources say Vienna) Rainer is probably better known today than at any time since the 1940s, when she last starred in a Hollywood production: Frank Tuttle's now-forgotten Paramount resistance drama Hostages (1943). Before this ongoing revival, Rainer was best remembered as the two-time Oscar winner with a four-year film career (1935-1938), while her acting was generally dismissed as several notches below subpar. In fact, to many she served as one of the prime reminders of the unworthiness of the Academy Awards. As the oft-told story goes, when Raymond Chandler got...
- 1/12/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
In the first part of a new series, Zoe takes a look back at the history of MGM, one of Hollywood’s oldest and most notable studios...
Studios have come and gone since the birth of cinema, and the film business is an unpredictable one, as the history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer reveals. Founded in 1924, its name conjures up images of lavish musicals, sweeping historical epics, glamorous stars and its mascot, Leo the lion.
It’s fair to say that MGM is one of the most famous and influential studios in Hollywood, and certainly one of the most iconic studios to come out of American film industry. But where did it all begin?
The story begins in the early 1920s. Vaudeville, previously one of the most popular forms of entertainment, is beginning to dwindle, as movies capture the public’s imagination. Enter Marcus Loew, a theatre chain owner. What Loew wanted was...
Studios have come and gone since the birth of cinema, and the film business is an unpredictable one, as the history of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer reveals. Founded in 1924, its name conjures up images of lavish musicals, sweeping historical epics, glamorous stars and its mascot, Leo the lion.
It’s fair to say that MGM is one of the most famous and influential studios in Hollywood, and certainly one of the most iconic studios to come out of American film industry. But where did it all begin?
The story begins in the early 1920s. Vaudeville, previously one of the most popular forms of entertainment, is beginning to dwindle, as movies capture the public’s imagination. Enter Marcus Loew, a theatre chain owner. What Loew wanted was...
- 1/10/2012
- Den of Geek
Rare stills of silver screen greats like Greta Garbo, Bette Davis and Tallulah Bankhead are the early highlights of what has been dubbed the memorabilia auction of the year.
The glimpses of Hollywood's golden age were among the first items to go under the hammer at Profiles in History's two-day Icons of Hollywood sale in California, which began on Thursday morning.
Camera negatives of Bankhead, Garbo and Norma Shearer, which were expected to fetch $300 (£187), sold for more than 10 times that figure, while shots of Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Loretta Young taken by legendary photographers Ernest Bachrach and Clarence Sinclair Bull went under the hammer for $2,250 (£1,400).
Other early big hitters included camera negatives of Gina Lollobrigida taken by John Engstead, which sold for almost seven times their expected price; a rare signed Jean Harlow photograph, which more than doubled its asking price at $4,250 (£2,650), and an autographed Ronald Reagan self-portrait, which went under the hammer at $9,225 (£5,760).
The biggest auction items, including a collection of clothing and memorabilia from The Wizard of Oz and Cleopatra, will hit the auction block on Friday.
The glimpses of Hollywood's golden age were among the first items to go under the hammer at Profiles in History's two-day Icons of Hollywood sale in California, which began on Thursday morning.
Camera negatives of Bankhead, Garbo and Norma Shearer, which were expected to fetch $300 (£187), sold for more than 10 times that figure, while shots of Bette Davis, Barbara Stanwyck and Loretta Young taken by legendary photographers Ernest Bachrach and Clarence Sinclair Bull went under the hammer for $2,250 (£1,400).
Other early big hitters included camera negatives of Gina Lollobrigida taken by John Engstead, which sold for almost seven times their expected price; a rare signed Jean Harlow photograph, which more than doubled its asking price at $4,250 (£2,650), and an autographed Ronald Reagan self-portrait, which went under the hammer at $9,225 (£5,760).
The biggest auction items, including a collection of clothing and memorabilia from The Wizard of Oz and Cleopatra, will hit the auction block on Friday.
- 12/15/2011
- WENN
"The movies in The Silent Roar, Film Forum's ongoing Monday-night series of silent masterpieces from MGM studios, all date from 1924 to 1929, the glorious last half-decade before the coming of sound," writes Imogen Smith for Alt Screen. "While the series includes some director-dominated films, like Erich von Stroheim's Greed and The Merry Widow, the line-up consists mainly of star vehicles constructed around singular personalities: Greta Garbo, Buster Keaton, Lon Chaney, and Lillian Gish. Each of these icons presents a case study in silent acting, and taken together, The Silent Roar makes for an excellent primer in this lost art." The series runs through February 6.
"2011 has been a good year for silent cinema on DVD," writes Kristin Thompson, presenting "an overview of some of the highlights."
Fandor's Keyframe is dedicated this week to "The Silent Artists."
Listening (18'49"). Kevin Brownlow talks about restoring Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927) on the Leonard Lopate Show.
"2011 has been a good year for silent cinema on DVD," writes Kristin Thompson, presenting "an overview of some of the highlights."
Fandor's Keyframe is dedicated this week to "The Silent Artists."
Listening (18'49"). Kevin Brownlow talks about restoring Abel Gance's Napoleon (1927) on the Leonard Lopate Show.
- 11/29/2011
- MUBI
Having recently returned from London I was struck by the fact that three new posters on the main page of iTunes Trailers last week all featured that evergreen symbol of Britishness, Big Ben.
Big Ben, or, to be more precise, the Clock Tower that houses the Great Bell that was nicknamed Big Ben, has long been used as a shorthand cliché in movie posters to announce that a film is set in London, or, even more lazily, in England. Usually, as in many of the examples below, it is snuck into the background as a simple tip of the hat. However, two new posters—for The Iron Lady and Garbo: The Spy—feature it much more prominently. Of course, if ever a film had reason to feature of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, it would be a biopic of a British Prime Minister. But its useage in...
Big Ben, or, to be more precise, the Clock Tower that houses the Great Bell that was nicknamed Big Ben, has long been used as a shorthand cliché in movie posters to announce that a film is set in London, or, even more lazily, in England. Usually, as in many of the examples below, it is snuck into the background as a simple tip of the hat. However, two new posters—for The Iron Lady and Garbo: The Spy—feature it much more prominently. Of course, if ever a film had reason to feature of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, it would be a biopic of a British Prime Minister. But its useage in...
- 11/21/2011
- MUBI
Movie Star Ramon Novarro Brutally Killed Halloween Eve 1968 Paul Ferguson, in a letter he wrote me at the time I was working on Beyond Paradise, blamed his Catholic background for Ramon Novarro's death: "When [Novarro] kissed me, I reacted like a Catholic, what they call homosexual panic. Some old guy in the desert says, 'Kill homosexuals.' It's inbred. . . . I was too drunk to be civilized. Whatever my most primitive moral standings were, I reacted. It had nothing to do with Novarro, nothing to do with his being homosexual. It all had to do with how I saw myself. And the fact that my brother was there. And that he could see me in that homosexual act. It all had to do with my Catholic upbringing, with my five thousand years of Moses. And that's the only reason why this whole thing happened. Because that's what society teaches you. . . . I think after I hit Mr.
- 10/31/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ramon Novarro Earlier today, after sharing on Facebook a photo of Greta Garbo dressed in Balinese costume in the 1931 blockbuster Mata Hari, I began thinking about 1920s and 1930s Mexican-born MGM star Ramon Novarro (photo), the subject of the biography I wrote several years back, Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro. Mata Hari was one of the biggest box-office hits in the careers of both Garbo and Novarro; the movie is also notable as the only time Novarro accepted second billing after becoming a star. While thinking of Novarro, I remembered that he was brutally killed on this date, October 30, 43 years ago. The following morning, Halloween 1968, the 69-year-old former movie star was found dead at his Laurel Canyon home in the Hollywood Hills. The next few paragraphs were taken from Beyond Paradise: At 8:30 a.m. on Halloween, October 31, [Novarro's personal secretary] Edward Weber arrived at 3110 Laurel Canyon to report for work.
- 10/31/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Silent film stars are like World War One vets. They’re dying off and will soon be an extinct species. “Baby Peggy”(Diana Serra Cary), born October 26, 1918 is still with is as is 91-year old Mickey Rooney, who starred in silent shorts (as Mickey MGuire) and Dickie Moore, another child star from the silents. But Barbara Kent may have been the last one standing to have achieved substantial fame during the silent film era as an adult.
Born in Canada, the 4’11″ Ms Kent began her movie career in 1925 and ended it ten years later. She was known for comedies, starring opposite Harold Lloyd and Reginald Denny, but her most famous role may be as the heroine pitted against Great Garbo’s femme fatale in Flesh And Blood in 1926. She made the transition to talkies smoothly enough but married talent agent Harry Edington in 1932 and dropped out of the movies three years later.
Born in Canada, the 4’11″ Ms Kent began her movie career in 1925 and ended it ten years later. She was known for comedies, starring opposite Harold Lloyd and Reginald Denny, but her most famous role may be as the heroine pitted against Great Garbo’s femme fatale in Flesh And Blood in 1926. She made the transition to talkies smoothly enough but married talent agent Harry Edington in 1932 and dropped out of the movies three years later.
- 10/24/2011
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
From Farran Nehme comes word of the passing of Barbara Kent at the age of 103. Farran's "seen only two pictures starring Barbara Kent," one being "the 1933 shoestring Oliver Twist, with Kent as Rose. The other is Flesh and the Devil, in which Kent had the unenviable task of the being the forsaken lover to Garbo's lascivious temptress. Still, it's the silent Flesh and the Devil that left a far stronger impression. Sound seemed to diminish this diminutive actress, as it did so many others. In pantomime, her tiny body made her even sweeter and more fragile, and it added poignance to her hurt over John Gilbert's betrayal…. The Siren always knew she would most likely live to see every silent-film artist depart the planet before she did. But the Siren still wishes she'd gotten the chance to tell Kent, or any of the other artists that Kevin Brownlow has spent a lifetime celebrating,...
- 10/21/2011
- MUBI
Barbara Kent, a minor leading lady during the transition from silent to sound films, died October 13 in Palm Desert, in Southern California. A resident of the local Marrakesh Country Club, Kent was either 103 or 104. No cause of death was given. Barbara Kent was never a star. Not even close. In fact, most of her 35 movies were probably forgotten the week after their release. Paradoxically, Kent has become one of the most important performers of the silent era. No, not because she was Harold Lloyd's leading lady in his first talkie, Welcome Danger (1929). Or because of her career highlight: romancing Glen Tryon in Paul Fejos' naturalistic drama Lonesome (1928), frequently compared to F. W. Murnau's Sunrise. Barbara Kent has taken an importance incommensurate to her actual movie career because she was the very last individual to have had notable adult leads in American silent films. Everybody else, from Lillian Gish to Joan Crawford,...
- 10/21/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
On Tuesday night, the Paley Center in Beverly Hills hosted a cocktail party for Debbie Reynolds and the incredible costume, props and photos she has collected over the past forty years that will be auctioned off beginning on June 18. Cari Beauchamp reports: As soon as guests, as diverse as Nancy Sinatra, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Patricia Heaton, Buzz Aldrin and Mimi Rogers, got past the obligatory red carpet and entered the foyer of the Paley, they were greeted by what was clearly an almost overwhelming display of movie memories. A painting of Garbo as Camille, two of the rare Marion Davies portraits Hearst commissioned with each of her films and then the gem of the collection, Marilyn Monroe's "subway grate" dress from The Seven Year ...
- 6/10/2011
- Thompson on Hollywood
With love well and truly in the air recently with Prince William tying the knot with the rather lovely Kate Middleton a few days ago, it seems an appropriate time to take a look at some of the most legendary on/off screen couples that have fascinated us film lovers over the years. Chemistry sparks when a real romance lies behind the scenes and when a new relationship begins the tabloids go crazy!
So to celebrate the union of the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge – and to appease my wife’s (yes, we just beat the Royals by getting married on 24th April!) constant requests to chronicle the following – here are the top ten on/off screen lovers the past century has immortalised…
10. Kim Basinger & Alec Baldwin
Back in the early 90s, Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin were one of the more popular on and off screen couples in Hollywood. Meeting...
So to celebrate the union of the Duke & Duchess of Cambridge – and to appease my wife’s (yes, we just beat the Royals by getting married on 24th April!) constant requests to chronicle the following – here are the top ten on/off screen lovers the past century has immortalised…
10. Kim Basinger & Alec Baldwin
Back in the early 90s, Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin were one of the more popular on and off screen couples in Hollywood. Meeting...
- 5/4/2011
- by Stuart Cummins
- Obsessed with Film
Over in progressive Sweden, cinema icons Ingmar Bergman and Greta Garbo are among six famous Swedes whose faces will appear on currency in 2014. Garbo, silent film veteran and one of the greatest actresses of the Golden Age of Hollywood, replaces noted 18th century botanist Carl Linnaeus on the 100 kronor bill; Bergman, one of the most influential filmmakers of the 20th century, gets his own brand-spanking new 200 kronor banknote. But this begs the question: Which influential and iconic American filmmakers similarly deserve to have their faces on dollar bills?...
- 4/7/2011
- Movieline
Frank Capra, Luise Rainer, George Jessel at the 1937 Oscar ceremony, held at the Biltmore Hotel Luise Rainer, the 101-year-old, two-time Academy Award winner, was just recently interviewed by BBC entertainment reporter Colin Patterson. (You can listen to the interview here.) During the eight-minute chat, the Düsseldorf-born (Jan. 12, 1910) Rainer, whose speech lilt hasn't changed a bit since the 1930s, talks about her Academy Awards, and the people she once knew: Max Reinhardt, Albert Einstein, Bertolt Brecht, Greta Garbo, and Ernest Hemingway. Also mentioned are Julia Roberts and The King's Speech. Rainer came to Hollywood in the mid-1930s as one of MGM's potential threats to Garbo. The fact that Rainer looked, sounded, and acted nothing like Garbo probably didn't faze the studio heads. Rainer had a German accent; Garbo had a Swedish one. Surely American audiences wouldn't be able to differentiate one actress from the other. Rainer's first Hollywood movie was...
- 2/25/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.