November 13, 1921: After gaining fame in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Italian-born leading man Rudolph Valentino mesmerizes female filmgoers as The Sheik. November 19, 1924: Mystery surrounds the death of director Thomas H. Ince. Rumors suggest he was…
Read more →Articles by: Jay Steinberg
This Week In Film History, 11.06.11
November 7, 1902: French inventor/film executive Leon Gaumont demonstrates his Chronophone system of showing films with synchronized phonograph cylinders. November 6, 1958: Steve McQueen (article: Non-Expressionism The Gift of Steve McQueen) battles that man-eating goo from outer space, The Blob,…
Read more →Gregory Peck: Leading Man in a Gray Flannel Suit
Deserved of his iconic status as an American leading man, this handsome and imposing performer built an impressive screen resumé over nearly 50 years, primarily (but hardly exclusively) on winning characterizations of fundamentally decent men looked to as a moral…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 10.30.11
November 4, 1907: The Chicago City Council Ordinance forbids the showing of “obscene and immoral pictures” and grants police permission to ban a movie’s release. October 30, 1948: A major shift in the shape of the film industry begins as…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 10.23.11
October 25, 1925: France’s star of silent slapstick comedy Max Linder, 41,and his young wife are found dead in a Paris hotel, victims of an apparent suicide pact. October 23, 1950: Al Jolson, legendary entertainer and star of the seminal…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 10.16.11
October 17, 1916: Swimming star-turned-actress Annette Kellerman causes a sensation when she appears in the nude in Daughter of the Gods. October 18, 1931: “The Wizard of Menlo Park” and film pioneer Thomas Alva Edison passes away at the age…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 10.02.11
October 5, 1956: Charlton Heston, as Moses, parts the Red Sea in Cecil B. DeMille‘s gargantuan remake of The Ten Commandments. October 6, 1927: The curtain opens on the “talkies” with Warner Bros.’ The Jazz Singer. Star Al Jolson says, “You ain’t heard…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 09.25.11
September 25, 1906: Winsor McCay’s Gertie the Dinosaur astounds audiences nationwide and will blaze new trails in the art of animation. September 30, 1919: While holding what he believed to be a prop bomb for a publicity photo, Harold Lloyd…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 09.18.11
September 18, 1909: The first feature film to be produced in the U.S., Les Miserables, is released in four separate parts between now and Nov. 27. September 19, 1915: Vaudeville star W.C. Fields brings his famed pool-playing routine to the…
Read more →This Week In Film History, 09.11.11
September 14, 1919: Lon Chaney portrays the first of his memorable “grotesque roles,” twisting his body to play a fake cripple healed by The Miracle Man. September 14, 1936: Producer Irving G. Thalberg, the “boy wonder” behind many of MGM’s…
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