Matinee Idol…Screen Siren.. Child Star…Teen Sensation. All of these archetypes were covered in newspapers and movie magazines extensively back in Hollywood’s Golden Age. Louella Parsons, Hedda Hopper, Walter Winchell, Earl Wilson, Army Archerd, Joyce Haber, Rona Barrett, James Bacon, and…
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Sally Kirkland: An Intense Presence On and Off the Screen
It’s safe to say an actress whose film debut has her tied to a chair naked for 45 minutes is going to have an interesting career. For Sally Kirkland, her experiences as part of Andy Warhol’s Factory crowd set the…
Read more →Pauline Collins: One Funny Valentine
To star in a one-person play on London’s West End and Broadway and walk away with seven awards–including the Olivier and Tony Awards–is a rare achievement. To then star in the play’s film version and earn Oscar and Golden Globe…
Read more →Poll: What’s Your Favorite Claude Rains Film Role?
With apologies to Bon Jovi, this week’s MovieFanFare poll celebrates “November Rains.” Today is the anniversary of British-born actor Claude Rains’ birth. A four-time Academy Award nominee, William Claude Rains was born in London in 1889, one of 12 children…
Read more →Where Have All the Bad Girls Gone?
“You aren’t too smart, are you? I like that in a man.” Kathleen Turner to Wiliam Hurt in Body Heat (1981) “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.” Kathleen Turner as Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)…
Read more →Diane Ladd: The First Rambling Rose
Sometimes Hollywood deaths happen with a strange sense of coincidence. Just two months after Polly Holliday–who played wisecraking waitress Flo on the ’70s sitcom Alice–departed, the Oscar-nominated actress who originated the role in the 1974 film Alice Doesn’t Live Here…
Read more →Poll: What’s Your Favorite Paul Muni Film Performance?
In a 1976 M*A*S*H episode, Hawkeye talked about the familiarity of American life during the Great Depression. “You knew where you stood in those days,” he says. “Franklin Roosevelt was always president, Joe Louis was always the champ, and Paul…
Read more →Six Pix: Frankenstein
Six Pix presents a sextet of movie posters representing a particular actor/director/theme. You pick the one you feel is visually the most artistic or best sums up the films. When it comes to classic horror films, few names are more…
Read more →The 10 Best ’30s Horror Movies Not from Universal
With such films as Dracula and Frankenstein, Universal Pictures set the tone for 1930s horror cinema, but other studios sometimes matched–or beat–them in scares. Read about Island of Lost Souls, Mad Love and eight more shock classics.
Read more →Why Do Some Broadway Musicals Hit False Notes on Film?
With this month’s arrival of the movie version of the Kander and Ebb musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, we thought it would be a good time to look at other Broadway musical-to-film transfers to see how they fared….
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