Patsy Ruth Miller and F. Scott Fitzgerald: Politically Incorrect in Hollywood

Actress and author Patsy Ruth Miller.

In 1924 while shooting a film in New York, actress Patsy Ruth Miller (1904-1995) developed a close friendship with author F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda. Frequently, Fitzgerald and Patsy Ruth would go out for dinner while Zelda remained home pleading fatigue. Patsy Ruth eventually realized that Zelda’s fatigue was acute alcoholism.

Observes Patsy Ruth:

It didn’t seem to me that Scott drank more than most of the men I knew. He seemed intoxicated on words, and sometimes we would sit, our after-dinner coffee growing cold, while Scott tried to make me see some fine point of writing, or understand why an emotion had been ill or well portrayed. But often I had the feeling that he was unsure of himself as a writer, that he was afraid of that one day he’d have nothing left to say, and I also had the impression that Zelda did little to build his confidence, even sometimes, in a perverse way, seemed to enjoy his battle with self-doubt.

Fitzgerald’s agonies of self-doubt are common among writers. The fear of having nothing left to say will, inevitably, be paralyzing. And a non-supportive spouse can act as a fatal poison to a vulnerable writer. Most witnesses observe that Fitzgerald was an alcoholic by the time he attended Princeton. There is no doubt that by the time he landed in Hollywood he was a hopeless drunk. It’s a measure of how common was alcoholism in early Hollywood that Patsy Ruth didn’t think Fitzgerald’s intake was all that unusual. (more…)

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Tags: Alcoholism, Early Hollywood, f. scott fitzgerald, Irving Thalberg, John Lee Mahin
Posted Nov 19th 2009 at 6:46 am in Classic Hollywood | 26337014 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/11/19/patsy-ruth-miller-and-f-scott-fitzgerald-politically-incorrect-in-hollywood/Patsy+Ruth+Miller+and+F.+Scott+Fitzgerald%3A+Politically+Incorrect+in+Hollywood2009-11-19+14%3A46%3A30Robert+J.+Avrech

‘Progressive’ Hollywood Fails Women Where Old Studio System Did Not

Oscar season approaches, which means that once again it’s time for the annual cry of … There-Are-No-Good-Roles-For-Women! Maybe “cry” isn’t the best word. ”Whine” is more suitable — from a self-inflicted wound. Here’s a taste of this year’s first-whine from a Hollywood Reporter story titled: Shallow Pool for Oscar’s Actress Contenders:

How shallow is the pool? Some are talking about performances such as Sandra Bullock’s in the feel-good film “The Blind Side

The lack of depth has led to a slew of awards-season chatter, from the expected downplaying — all categories are cyclical — to blanket explanations about studios making fewer awards movies in general. …

But it also highlights that, for all the strides made by the women behind the camera, the women in front of them can still be subject to the old prejudices. Indeed, the more cynical in town — including at least one actress awards-contender — say that the director and actress trends are hardly a coincidence. Many female directors, they argue, can feel pressure to cast a preponderance of strong male leads to negate the perception that theirs is a female-oriented film.

The article is simply wrong on one very important point. These aren’t “old prejudices,” these are new prejudices. (more…)

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Tags: Alice Faye, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Bette Grable, Claudette Colbert
Posted Nov 18th 2009 at 2:55 pm in Classic Hollywood, Politics | 26449889 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/11/18/progressive-hollywood-fails-women-where-old-studio-system-did-not/%27Progressive%27+Hollywood+Fails+Women+Where+Old+Studio+System+Did+Not2009-11-18+22%3A55%3A48John+Nolte

‘Equalizer’ Star Woodward Played Exemplary Heroes

Edward Woodward, star of the iconic 1980s U.S. TV series The Equalizer and acclaimed films such as The Wicker Man and Breaker Morant, has died at the age of 79 after a long illness.

Woodward was best known for portraying stolid, highly principled characters who stood up for the defenseless and needy. His most prominent role for U.S. viewers was certainly that of former CIA agent Robert McCall in The Equalizer.

Living a simple and seemingly joyless life in New York City, McCall helped people in trouble who answered his ambiguous newspaper classified ads offering assistance. Every week the middle-aged former CIA agent would confront powerful, villainous individuals and gangs who were menacing and exploiting people unable to defend themselves. McCall’s shadowy past and evident contempt for corrupt authorities put him in continual jeopardy from his former government masters, yet his immense personal integrity and moral rectitude always saw him through–aided greatly, of course, by his CIA training and natural ingenuity. (more…)

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Tags: Breaker Morant, Callan, Edward Woodward, Equilizer, The Wicker Man
Posted Nov 17th 2009 at 6:45 am in Classic Hollywood, Film, Television | 26345870 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/stkarnick/2009/11/17/equalizer-star-woodward-played-exemplary-heroes/%27Equalizer%27+Star+Woodward+Played+Exemplary+Heroes2009-11-17+14%3A45%3A19S.T.+Karnick

For Conservative Movie Lovers: John Ford, John Wayne, and ‘They Were Expendable’ Part 5

“I was just the paint for the palettes of Ford and Hawks.”

– John Wayne –

John Wayne was still young in 1944, only thirty-eight years old. And yet the major elements of his inimitable style were hardening into place. Perhaps no other actor in history has been so cognizant of using his body to express grand themes and timeless mythological underpinnings. Under Ford’s direction Wayne never just stands there, he poses, in ways and with effects that conjure up famous paintings and sculpture. When he fills the frame as Lieutenant Junior Grade Rusty Ryan in They Were Expendable, he becomes every man who ever fought a losing action in a war, who faced defeat with stoicism, who sacrificed for a greater good. In the history of film, John Wayne remains nonpareil in his use of presence to project subtext.

Little of that came naturally to the Duke — in his early films he’s tall and rangy and handsome, but with little of the gravity, focus, and dramatic weight that would come to typify his prime acting years. Those skills, and they were skills, were consciously learned over fifteen years of working with Ford and his old troupe of veteran actors. He watched the way they walked and carried themselves, studied the way they were directed, and began to divine the level of nuance Ford demanded. There’s a funny story from the making of Stagecoach (1939, John Wayne’s big coming-out party as an actor), where Wayne’s character was supposed to be washing his face after a hard day, and Ford started smacking him around screaming, “Christ Duke, wash you face like a man! You’re daubing it! You’re daubing it!” He was trying to teach Wayne that, when you are an actor in front of a camera, your every movement can and should mean something deeper than what is on the surface. The act of washing one’s face can be pedestrian, or it can be a sweeping gesture that evokes strength of character, or a relaxed demeanor, or a gentleness of heart. And those deft movements will unconsciously fire off all sorts of neurons in the brain of an audience. (more…)

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Tags: Al Jolson, Bataan, Corregidor, Dan Ford, Danny Borzage
Posted Nov 14th 2009 at 10:56 am in Classic Hollywood | 26249855 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/11/14/for-conservative-movie-lovers-john-ford-john-wayne-and-they-were-expendable-part-5/For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%3A+John+Ford%2C+John+Wayne%2C+and+%27They+Were+Expendable%27+Part+52009-11-14+18%3A56%3A38Leo+Grin

Burt’s Eye View: Hollywood Elitists Through the Ages

A lot of people seemed shocked to discover that the folks at the National Endowment of the Arts were so ready, even anxious, to devote their talents to propagandizing on behalf of Obama and his administration.  That merely proves that a lot of people haven’t been paying attention. 

It’s my guess that a majority of those involved with the NEA — even those few who are talented — are always eager to roll over for left-wing politicians.  Partly it’s because they are so hungry for attention and partly because they lack anything resembling a moral compass. 

Allow me to give you a few notable examples of the way that people who earn their living in the areas of art and entertainment can voluntarily blind themselves to those matters that have moral implications.  Just recently, we got to watch a swarm of Hollywood retards climbing all over themselves in a rush to defend Roman Polanski, a piece of Euro-trash who confessed to having sex with a 13-year-old child.  All sorts of big name, small brain, celebrities lined up to sign petitions on his behalf.  By attesting to his character, they merely confirmed that they lacked any themselves.  (more…)

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Tags: audrey hepburn, Cliff Robertson, David Begelman, hollywood, motion picture academy
Posted Nov 12th 2009 at 8:23 am in Celebrity News, Classic Hollywood, Politics | 259282100 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bprelutsky/2009/11/12/burts-eye-view-hollywood-elitists-through-the-ages/Burt%27s+Eye+View%3A+Hollywood+Elitists+Through+the+Ages2009-11-12+16%3A23%3A59Burt+Prelutsky

Semper Films: The Top Ten Marine Corps Movies

The men and women who earn the right to wear eagle, globe and anchor of the United States Marine Corps are a special breed.   To those outside the Corps, they talk funny.  They look funny.  They are extremely impressed with themselves – and they have every right to be. 

My beloved United States Army is a blunt instrument, a magnificent club that has pummels our nation’s enemies into submission.  But the Marines are America’s rapier, a razor sharp weapon of war that has never been bested and never will be.  For over two centuries, the United States Marine Corps has been fighting our country’s battles in the air, on land and sea.  They don’t give up.  They don’t quit.  There’s no word for retreat in a Marine’s vocabulary.  And they are making history even today in the mountains of Afghanistan and elsewhere.

November 10th is the Corps’ 234th birthday.  With the indulgence of my Devil Dog brethren, here is this Army veteran’s countdown of the Top Ten Marine Corp movies: (more…)

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Tags: 55 Days at Peking, a few good men, aaron sorkin, Adam Baldwin, Al Mathews
Posted Nov 10th 2009 at 9:41 am in Classic Hollywood, Film, Military | 260006165 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/11/10/semper-films-the-top-ten-marine-corps-movies/Semper+Films%3A+The+Top+Ten+Marine+Corps+Movies2009-11-10+17%3A41%3A33Kurt+Schlichter

Movies We Like: ‘Godzilla, King of the Monsters’ (1956)

So, when it came time for our little girl to watch her first grown-up movie, I was torn between Saving Private Ryan and a film I have loved since I was a kid, Godzilla, King of the Monsters.  Now, Private Ryan teaches important, practical lessons that every American should learn, like how to maneuver your infantry company across a beachhead under fire to wipe out a Nazi crew-served weapons bunker. On the other hand, Godzilla has a hideous dragon with radioactive breath.  Tough call, but we decided to save Private Ryan for when she’s six – better late than never.

–

What is the enduring fascination with a 55-year old flick that stars a fake Japanese reptile stomping Toyko into matchsticks?  The first thing is that Godzilla is a truly entertaining movie.  Actually, it’s two movies.  The version most Americans have seen on TV is the 1956 re-cut version of the 98-minute original Japanese movie, Gojira.  Some American producers decided it could make them a bundle, but it needed a bit of familiarization before the American audience would accept it.  They hired a pre-Perry Mason Raymond Burr to film some awkward footage as American reporter “Steve Martin,” cut out a lot of draggy filler, and shipped the slimmed down 80-minute final product to drive-ins all over the fruited plain. (more…)

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Tags: 40th Infantry Division, A Nightmare on Elm Street, A-Bomb, Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, Asahi
Posted Nov 8th 2009 at 6:24 am in Classic Hollywood, Featured Story, Film, Reviews | 25620250 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/11/08/movies-we-like-godzilla-king-of-the-monsters-1956/Movies+We+Like%3A++%27Godzilla%2C+King+of+the+Monsters%27+%281956%292009-11-08+14%3A24%3A12Kurt+Schlichter

For Conservative Movie Lovers: John Ford, John Wayne, and ‘They Were Expendable’ Part 4

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“Close-ups, affectionate or noble, are held at leisure; long shots are sustained long after their narrative role has been performed. A marginal figure is suddenly dwelt on, lovingly enlarged to fill the center of the screen. Informed with heightened emotion, a single shot, unexpectedly interposed — a ragged line of men marching into nowhere, one of them playing a bugle-call on his harmonica — assumes a deeper significance than is given by its function in the story. This is one of the properties of poetry. They Were Expendable is a heroic poem.” – Lindsay Anderson

The wondrous shots about which Mr. Anderson writes were masterminded by John Ford, but they were brought to life on film by Joseph H. August (1890-1947), one of the great cinematographers of the age. It was August who memorably crafted the hauntingly beautiful images of night-fog and shadows for Ford’s The Informer (1935), which won Oscars for both Best Picture and Best Director. He also lensed now-classic movies like Gunga Din and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (both 1939), and during the war served as a Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserves. (more…)

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Tags: American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), Breen Office, cinematography, Donna Reed, General Douglas MacArthur
Posted Nov 7th 2009 at 10:43 am in Classic Hollywood | 25840632 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/11/07/for-conservative-movie-lovers-john-ford-john-wayne-and-they-were-expendable-part-4/For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%3A+John+Ford%2C+John+Wayne%2C+and+%27They+Were+Expendable%27+Part+42009-11-07+18%3A43%3A17Leo+Grin

Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me? Part III

Esther Ralston at the height of her fame, 1920’s.

To read Part I of this series, please click here.

To read Part II, please click here.

Broke, with her second marriage in shambles and blacklisted by studio boss L.B. Mayer—Esther wouldn’t trade amorous favors for movie roles—Esther Ralston flees to New York in 1939 to find work and rebuild her shattered career.

Esther, in her slim but resonant 1985 memoir, Some Day We’ll Laugh, tells us that she was forced to leave her daughter Mary behind in California with her mother.

Working in Summer Stock and radio, Esther meets a young entertainment columnist named Ted Lloyd.  Everywhere she plays, Ted is in the audience. With characteristic understatement Esther notes that Lloyd “seemed to follow me.” (more…)

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Tags: Esther Ralston, hollywood, Some Day We’ll Laugh, Summer Stock, Ted Lloyd
Posted Nov 4th 2009 at 6:38 am in Classic Hollywood | 25717821 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/11/04/esther-ralston-why-do-all-my-husbands-want-to-kill-me-part-iii/Esther+Ralston%3A+Why+Do+All+My+Husbands+Want+to+Kill+Me%3F+Part+III2009-11-04+14%3A38%3A19Robert+J.+Avrech

For Conservative Movie Lovers: John Ford, John Wayne, and ‘They Were Expendable’ Part 3

“That bold buckaroo with the cold green eyes.”

– General Douglas MacArthur, describing his savior John Bulkeley –

In March 1942, facing imminent capture by the Japanese, America’s commander in the Far East was ordered to slip away to safety in Australia. The Empire of the Sun controlled both air and sea, and only a precious few Allied planes and ships remained in-theater, skulking through the night fog like pirates to avoid capture and running on little more than spit and baling wire. “Overhauling those motors without any replacement parts was a terrible job,” one of the few to escape that nightmare later remembered. “For instance. Any tank-town garage which overhauls a flivver back in the States always replaces the gaskets with new ones. Only we didn’t have any. Or any sealing compound. So those old gaskets had to be carefully removed, handled as gently as though they were precious lace, and laid back in place when the motors were reassembled.”

When MacArthur arrived at the dock with his family and key commanders, he found waiting for him a trio of tiny, dilapidated motor torpedo boats crewed by dirty, emaciated men with long, unkempt beards and wild eyes. Their skipper was a thirty-year-old U.S. Navy Lieutenant named John Bulkeley, who for months had held his disintegrating squadron together by scrounging like a rat among the islands for gasoline, torpedoes, and other basic supplies. His boats were little more than plywood matchboxes, but Bulkeley had kept them active long after the rest of America’s Navy and Air Force had been destroyed or driven off. He made sneak assaults against transports, cruisers, destroyers, airplanes, landing parties — anything to frustrate the pace of the overwhelming Japanese invasion. Every time he attacked it was a fearsome David-versus-Goliath mismatch, but Bulkeley had done so time and again, sinking many enemy vessels. (more…)

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Tags: Air Mail (1932), Bataan, Beulah Greenwalt, Caroline Islands, D-Day
Posted Oct 31st 2009 at 11:01 am in Classic Hollywood, Military | 24727830 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/10/31/for-conservative-movie-lovers-john-ford-john-wayne-and-they-were-expendable-part-3/For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%3A+John+Ford%2C+John+Wayne%2C+and+%27They+Were+Expendable%27+Part+32009-10-31+18%3A01%3A22Leo+Grin

Gore Vidal Describes Polanski’s Victim as ‘Young Hooker’

In an interview published today, The Atlantic describes Gore Vidal as “a sharp provocateur, as irascible and irreverent as ever.”

I’m assuming that’s some kind of internal Atlantic-code for ”twisted old has-been degenerate desperate for attention“:

ATLANTIC: In September, director Roman Polanski was arrested in Switzerland for leaving the U.S. in 1978 before being sentenced to prison for raping a 13-year-old girl at Jack Nicholson’s house in Hollywood. During the time of the original incident, you were working in the industry, and you and Polanski had a common friend in theater critic and producer Kenneth Tynan. So what’s your take on Polanski, this many years later?

VIDAL: I really don’t give a fuck. Look, am I going to sit and weep every time a young hooker feels as though she’s been taken advantage of?

Vidal then goes on to blame Polanski’s legal problems on… (more…)

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Tags: Gore Vidal, hooker, interview, rape, roman polanski
Posted Oct 28th 2009 at 2:43 pm in Classic Hollywood, Politics | 254546177 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/10/28/gore-vidal-describes-polanskis-victim-as-young-hooker/Gore+Vidal+Describes+Polanski%27s+Victim+as+%27Young+Hooker%272009-10-28+21%3A43%3A45John+Nolte

For Conservative Movie Lovers: John Ford, John Wayne, and ‘They Were Expendable’ Part 2

“I am really a coward. I know I am, so that’s why I did foolish things. I was decorated eight or nine times, trying to prove that I was not a coward, but after it was all over I still knew, know, that I was a coward.”

– John Ford –

June 4, 1942. The Battle of Midway. John Ford was on his back, covered in debris, unconscious. All around him bombs were dropping, buildings were erupting into monstrous fireballs, and young marines were dodging deadly lines of machine-gun strafing sent down by Japanese fighter planes. Ford and his assistant, young Jack MacKenzie Jr. (whose father was an RKO cinematographer) had been perched on the roof of a power station on Eastern Island, brazenly filming the morning attack by the Japanese and reporting enemy plane positions to headquarters, when a bomb landed a scant twenty feet from their position. The shockwave was so great that MacKenzie later recalled he was “bounced flat on my face by the terrific explosion,” adding, “we almost lost Commander Ford.” (more…)

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Tags: alfred newman, Anchors Aweigh, Donald Crisp, Dudley Nichols, Field Photo
Posted Oct 24th 2009 at 11:03 am in Classic Hollywood | 24718629 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/10/24/for-conservative-movie-lovers-john-ford-john-wayne-and-they-were-expendable-part-2/For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%3A+John+Ford%2C+John+Wayne%2C+and+%27They+Were+Expendable%27+Part+22009-10-24+18%3A03%3A32Leo+Grin

I Keep Watching the Skies: B Movies and Me

I have always been a fan of so-called B movies. I’m not sure I like that description because it implies that B movies are not as important as A movies, not as serious, not as good. Well, I’m not so sure about that. Of the B movies that I love, my favorites are, without a doubt, the science fiction monster movies. Yes, those wonderful creations conceived of by some of the most colorful characters in Hollywood and beyond. Studios like AIP, Toho, Daiei, Hammer and Universal are synonymous with creatures that crawl, creep and are able to stamp a city flat.

Names like Ray Harryhausen, George Pal, Bernard Herrmann and H.G. Wells come to mind. As do those of Ken Toby, Less Tremayne, Paul Frees and Whit Bissell. Each of these names, plus thousands and thousands of others, can immediately conjure up a favorite film, a scene or even just a great line or look that impressed us as kids and perhaps continues to do so.

When I think about those elements that I love in my favorite sci-fi monster movies, my mind can easily dwell for hours on the creatures themselves, the settings, the art direction, the machinery and technology and everything in between. I never grow tired of that stuff. But I also love, with equal passion the characters that people the story. They are really what it’s all about. So, indulge me as I invite you to take a little trip through my memory, recalling some character moments that stand out for me in the B genre of scifi monster movies. (more…)

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Tags: aip, arness, b movie, bissell, carrington
Posted Oct 24th 2009 at 6:58 am in Classic Hollywood, Featured Story, Military | 24710279 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smann/2009/10/24/i-keep-watching-the-skies-b-movies-and-me/I+Keep+Watching+the+Skies%3A+B+Movies+and+Me2009-10-24+13%3A58%3A31Schizoid+Mann

Movies We Like: ‘The Bad News Bears’ (1976)

Morris Buttermaker was a fair to middling minor league pitcher in his day, whose claim to fame was once striking out Ted Williams in a Spring Training game. Now, he’s a whiskey and beer swilling, filtered cigar chomping pool cleaner who’s at once soft-spoken and gruff. You love him already, don’t you?

“The Bad News Bears” is subversive from the start, its characters realistic and flawed. Of course, the engine driving this train is the late Walter Matthau, whose  Buttermaker was hired to coach a team of misfits who are so bad at baseball they’re only in the elite league because one the parents sued the league. Most of the Bears’ parents are conspicuously absent at practices and are rarely heard or seen at games. Leaving them out of the movie is a stroke of genius – we’re constantly wondering why one of them didn’t step up to coach the team. (more…)

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Tags: bad news bears, Bad-News-Bears_l “The Bad News Bears”, Baseball, Bill Lancaster, Jackie earle haley
Posted Oct 17th 2009 at 2:48 pm in Classic Hollywood, Film | 23952248 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ccannon/2009/10/17/movies-we-like-the-bad-news-bears-1976/Movies+We+Like%3A+%27The+Bad+News+Bears%27+%281976%292009-10-17+21%3A48%3A37Cam+Cannon

For Conservative Movie Lovers: John Ford, John Wayne, and ‘They Were Expendable’ Part 1

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“[John Ford] was the only one of the Hollywood directors who fought who did not forget his men.”

– Captain Mark Armistead, USN –

Thus quotes Joseph McBride in his masterful biography Searching for John Ford, at the head of the chapter dealing with the director’s wartime activities. It is usually seen as lamentable when a genius is pulled from the practice of his art for any extended period, but here we must make a special allowance. As filmmaker Lindsay Anderson (1923-1994) explains in his essential critical volume About John Ford (which, like the McBride book, should be sitting proudly and dog-eared on the bookshelf of every conservative film fan): “War service took Ford away from the making of films for some three years when his powers were at their height. One would regret this interruption more had it not led directly to the making of a masterpiece.” (more…)

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Tags: "John Ford's Navy", About John Ford (book), Bette Davis, bob hope, Charles Trowbridge
Posted Oct 17th 2009 at 11:09 am in Classic Hollywood | 24699460 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/10/17/for-conservative-movie-lovers-john-ford-john-wayne-and-they-were-expendable-part-1/For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%3A+John+Ford%2C+John+Wayne%2C+and+%27They+Were+Expendable%27+Part+12009-10-17+18%3A09%3A04Leo+Grin

Introducing ‘For Conservative Movie Lovers’

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A thousand years ago in Cairo, surrounded by ancient pyramids and the ghosts of lost civilizations, the great Arab scientist Alhazen conducted a peculiar optical experiment. Building on observations made by Aristotle thirteen centuries earlier, he first constructed a room, one completely shuttered from the light of the outside world, as dark as death. He then cleverly lit the space around the room with an array of bright lamps. Finally, he punched a single pinhole into one wall, just large enough to let a small beam of lamplight bleed in.

Alhazen confirmed that if you entered such a room, and sat in the darkness until your eyes had ample time to adjust, and then followed the beam of light emanating from the pinhole to where it splashed onto the wall opposite, you would be privy to an amazing, almost magical sight. As you watched, shapes and colors would begin to coalesce. Familiar forms would appear. And eventually, when your eyes had acclimated enough, you would be staring at nothing less than an exact upside-down projection of the outside world, perfect in every detail. Alhazen marveled at this, and gave the experiment an evocative name: Al-Bayt al-Muthlim, translated by later scribes into Latin as camera obscura — The Veiled Chamber. (more…)

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Tags: Al-Bayt al Muthlim, Alhazen, Andrew Breitbart, Aristotle, camera obscura
Posted Oct 16th 2009 at 6:43 am in Classic Hollywood | 24541078 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/lgrin/2009/10/16/introducing-for-conservative-movie-lovers/Introducing+%27For+Conservative+Movie+Lovers%272009-10-16+13%3A43%3A44Leo+Grin

Daniel Melnick, RIP

Even more than Washington, Hollywood is famously the land of, “if you want a friend, get a dog.”  Pals, business associates, even lovers come and go in this, the country’s last freewheeling bastion of untrammeled capitalism, in which “what have you done for me lately?” is not a reproach but a perfectly reasonable question.

Daniel Melnick

So it is with great sadness that I learned, up here in the New England woods, of the death on Tuesday of my friend, rabbi and mentor, Daniel Melnick, the former head of MGM and Columbia, best known for Straw Dogs, Altered States, All That Jazz, L.A. Story, and That’s Entertainment.  Dan was not only a great producer, with a story sense second to none, a sense of history, both cinematic and American, a steel-trap mind, and an amazing memory (he could read version after version of a treatment written by an idiot – in this case, me – and always find the new material.  And then tell you what was wrong with it).   No, he was much more. (more…)

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Tags: All That Jazz, Altered States, Barry Diller, Carl Reiner, Daniel Melnick
Posted Oct 15th 2009 at 2:56 pm in Art, Classic Hollywood, Politics | 24703811 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mwalsh/2009/10/15/daniel-melnick-rip/Daniel+Melnick%2C+RIP2009-10-15+21%3A56%3A40Michael+Walsh

Heroic Hollywood: Charlie, the Kid and the Cop

Charlie, the Kid and the Cop
Best Lesson Ever in Hollywood Screenwriting

If you want to write for Hollywood, study this picture.

This faded lobby card from Charles Chaplin’s The Kid is the best lesson you’ll ever have in how to write for the movies. Despite its age, it illustrates many of the essential elements you’ll need to keep in mind today as your write your Hollywood screenplay. It’s a visual reminder of the kind of movie that producers, studios and – most importantly – audiences are looking for.

And that’s no accident. This lobby card had a specific purpose: to bring people into the theater. Chaplin chose this particular image because it effectively answers the first three questions that are always on the mind of the audience when the lights go down on a Hollywood movie. (more…)

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Tags: character arc, Charlie Chaplin, ffolkes, Heroic Hollywood, Hollywood Formula
Posted Oct 3rd 2009 at 3:09 pm in Classic Hollywood, Culture | 23001844 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/rdvonch/2009/10/03/heroic-hollywood-charlie-the-kid-and-the-cop/Heroic+Hollywood%3A+Charlie%2C+the+Kid+and+the+Cop2009-10-03+22%3A09%3A20Russ+Dvonch

‘The Wizard of Oz’: Seventy Years Later — Still Inspiring, Still Relevant

“That’s the best song ever written,” Judy Garland said of “Over the Rainbow” in an interview with Barbara Walters on March 6, 1967, almost three decades after she captured countless hearts as “Dorothy” in “The Wizard of Oz,” featuring that magical song. 

So, too, “The Wizard of Oz”—released 70 years ago today—is, perhaps, the best film ever made.  

Or, at least, the most quintessentially American—in terms of our struggles, hopes, aspirations, dreams, and, ultimately, unshakable confidence, that “somewhere over the rainbow… dreams… really do come true.”

MGM had purchased this highly popular and imaginative children’s book written by L. Frank Baum, and published in 1900, for $75,000, specifically for Judy.  During development, the silver shoes became ruby, thus undercutting Baum’s apparent allegory to “bimetallism”—currency backed by silver, replacing “the gold standard” and favoring rural farmers; in contrast to the worthless “greenbacks” some say Emerald City represents.  (more…)

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Tags: 70th Anniversary, Ahmadinejad, Holocaust, iran, judy garland
Posted Sep 29th 2009 at 2:40 pm in Classic Hollywood, Film, Politics | 23721827 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mckendall/2009/09/29/the-wizard-of-oz-seventy-years-later-still-inspiring-still-relevant/%27The+Wizard+of+Oz%27%3A+Seventy+Years+Later+--+Still+Inspiring%2C+Still+Relevant2009-09-29+21%3A40%3A22Mary+Claire+Kendall

Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me? Part II

Esther Ralston at the height of her fame, mid-twenties.

To read Part I of this series, please click here.

Blessed with a lovely, melodic voice, it’s something of a puzzle why Paramount dropped Esther Ralston’s option in 1929. Esther was a rising star who, between 1924 and 1929, starred or co-starred in twenty-five films. She would seem a natural for talkies.

But the mystery is soon cleared up as Esther explains:

Since I had only a year to go on my Paramount contract, the studio sent me a new contract with a talkie clause to sign. Knowing I had been brought up in the theater before going into pictures, George decided I should ask for a hundred thousand dollars to sign this talkie clause. He sent me alone to talk to Mr. Lasky and Mr. Zukor. They were courteous as always, but explained that the new talkie panic had them worried and they didn’t feel they should have to increase my salary until they were sure I would be adequate in talkies.

Once again, the destructive Svengali-Trilby relationship asserts itself as the guiding principle of Esther and George. (more…)

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Tags: American Venus, British anti-Semitism, Christian Science, Clarence Brown, Dorothy Arzner
Posted Sep 29th 2009 at 6:35 am in Celebrity News, Classic Hollywood | 23154617 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/09/29/esther-ralston-why-do-all-my-husbands-want-to-kill-me-part-ii/Esther+Ralston%3A+Why+Do+All+My+Husbands+Want+to+Kill+Me%3F+Part+II2009-09-29+13%3A35%3A03Robert+J.+Avrech

Real Racism: Lessons in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

My name is Bob Ewell. We’re all Bob Ewells if you check with the Left and their media mouthpieces.

Who is Bob Ewell? Well, if you’ve ever watched the movie To Kill a Mockingbird, you’d know that Ewell is the racist character who destroyed the life of an innocent man.

To Kill A Mockingbird is a classic American film, based on Harper Lee’s novel of life in 1936 Alabama and racial injustice that resided there. (more…)

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Tags: 'To Kill a Mockingbird', Bob Ewells, harper Lee, Jimmy Carter. Left, Joe Wilson
Posted Sep 19th 2009 at 2:55 pm in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Politics | 22863088 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/asking/2009/09/19/race-lessons-in-to-kill-a-mockingbird/Real+Racism%3A+Lessons+in+%27To+Kill+a+Mockingbird%272009-09-19+21%3A55%3A44Andrea+Shea+King

40’s Movie Stars: Better in Bed, Better on the Battlefield

I have been watching a lot of 40s movies lately. Being radically anti-celebrity, I was taken aback by how easily mesmerized I was by the movie stars of that period. 

After all, why wouldn’t any man (straight or gay) imitate Cary Grant’s walk up the stairs to save Ingrid Bergman at the end of Hitchcock’s “Notorious?”

– 

And why wouldn’t any honest woman try to talk and look like Barbara Stanwyck? 

I was at a pool party in the Hollywood Hills once where agressive supermodels were trying to seduce fake producers. That entire pack of semi-nude nymphs had less seductive power than the play of the anklet on Barbara Stanwyck left leg in Wilders’ “Double Indemnity.”  (more…)

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Tags: Barbara Stanwyck, brad pitt, Car Grant, Clark Gable, James Stewart
Posted Sep 17th 2009 at 8:26 am in Classic Hollywood, Politics | 22530268 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ykochar/2009/09/17/40s-movie-stars-better-in-bed-better-on-the-battlefield/40%27s+Movie+Stars%3A+Better+in+Bed%2C+Better+on+the+Battlefield2009-09-17+15%3A26%3A40Yervand+Kochar

Movies We Like: ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ (1959)

There was a time when an “adult film” meant a movie by, for and about adults, not a tawdry tale of some tatted-up, dead-eyed 19-year old with daddy issues numbly coupling in front of a video camera for the gratification of leering, backward-hatted frat boys and twitchy loners with DSL.  They don’t make many truly adult films anymore – to see what you are missing, a good place to start is 50 years ago with 1959’s Anatomy of a Murder. 

Let’s start with the cast:  James Stewart.  George C. Scott.  Lee Remick.  Eve Arden.  Ben Gazzara.  Even Big Hollywood’s own Orson Bean in a supporting part as a doctor who plays a key role in the story.  If you love movies, you only needed to get to the word “George” before you were adding it to your NetFlix queue. (more…)

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Tags: Anatomy of a Murder, Arthur O’Connor, Ben Gazzara, Duke Ellington, Eve Arden
Posted Sep 16th 2009 at 11:51 am in Classic Hollywood, Law, Reviews | 22518661 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/kschlichter/2009/09/16/movies-we-like-anatomy-of-a-murder-1959/Movies+We+Like%3A+%27Anatomy+of+a+Murder%27+%281959%292009-09-16+18%3A51%3A19Kurt+Schlichter

Film Noir Revival, Anyone?

Picture a quaint Victorian house in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Los Angeles.  A modest insurance salesman shows up at the door, it is opened by a maid.  There is a beautiful woman at the top of the stairs; the sultry Mrs. Dietrichson, dressed in nothing more than a towel.  She gets dressed after the salesman tells her their car insurance doesn’t have them “fully covered.”

The following conversation takes place:

–

The fast, witty, and flirtatious dialogue in this scene gives us light into how a man could possibly get seduced into what was to come.  This is of course, the big murder/insurance scam from Billy Wilder’s classic 1944 film Double Indemnity.

There was a time when dark crime films were popular both with mainstream Hollywood films and B-grade productions. McCarthyism, Hollywood censorship, and World War II among other things all played a role in the shaping and growing popularity of what became known as the classic period of America’s film noir (1940’s-1950’s). (more…)

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Tags: Ace in the Hole, billy wilder, coen brothers, Double Indemnity, film noir
Posted Sep 14th 2009 at 6:44 am in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Film | 21966230 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cyogerst/2009/09/14/film-noir-revival-anyone/Film+Noir+Revival%2C+Anyone%3F2009-09-14+13%3A44%3A46Chris+Yogerst

Esther Ralston: Why Do All My Husbands Want to Kill Me?

Esther Ralston, at the height of her Hollywood stardom in the 1920’s.

They called her: The American Venus.

She lived in a Hollywood mansion with a staff of servants. Her chauffeur drove a limited edition limousine. But she ended her days in an upscale trailer park in Ventura, California.

One of the enduring mysteries—for yours truly—are the scores of Hollywood starlets, innocent young women, who are attracted to bad men: drunks, gamblers, liars, tinsel town sociopaths.

Esther Ralston is a prime example of an early Hollywood star who showed great promise as an actress—she played drama and comedy with equal craft—but three ill-considered marriages effectively derailed Ralston’s career and drained away her considerable fortune. (more…)

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Tags: Charlie Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin Studios, Esther Ralston, George Webb, hollywood
Posted Sep 14th 2009 at 5:05 am in Celebrity News, Classic Hollywood, Culture | 22009433 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/09/14/esther-ralston-why-do-all-my-husbands-want-to-kill-me/Esther+Ralston%3A+Why+Do+All+My+Husbands+Want+to+Kill+Me%3F2009-09-14+12%3A05%3A51Robert+J.+Avrech

Honoring September 11th: Memories of the WTC — King Kong, Carol Channing, and Ground Zero

I never liked the Twin Towers.  As a boy, I watched them go up - slowly, for years – from the terrace outside my parents’ bedroom.  My dad, who was an architect, griped about them: they were too big, they lacked style, they were monstrous.  They sat vacant for years, a folly of the Port Authority.

And they ruined the skyline.

We all loved the Empire State Building, for decades the tallest building in Manhattan, even the world.  The Empire State Building inspired loyalty.  It was a marvel of engineering and design.  It was a class act.  And King Kong had died for love on it.

Of course, we went to see what the WTC was all about.  The lobby was tacky, grandiose yet bland, like an airport or a ballroom in a chain hotel.  The elevators were fast – a cheap thrill, like a ride at Disneyland – but when you debarked, the mundane, office hallways were an anticlimax. Nothing special. (more…)

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Tags: 9/11, academy award, Bush bashing, Carol Channing, Disneyland
Posted Sep 11th 2009 at 10:27 am in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Featured Story, Politics | 21984234 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/09/11/honoring-september-11th-memories-of-the-wtc-king-kong-carol-channing-and-ground-zero/Honoring+September+11th%3A+Memories+of+the+WTC+--+King+Kong%2C+Carol+Channing%2C+and+Ground+Zero2009-09-11+17%3A27%3A37Charles+Winecoff

Jack Webb Schools Barack Obama on Healthcare

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Tags: "Dragnet" Jack Webb, Obama, ObamaCare
Posted Sep 9th 2009 at 1:43 pm in Classic Hollywood, Political Humor, Video | 22131854 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/bighollywood/2009/09/09/jack-webb-schools-barack-obama-on-healthcare/Jack+Webb+Schools+Barack+Obama+on+Healthcare2009-09-09+20%3A43%3A46Big+Hollywood

Natalie Portman’s Castle and Why the Movie Star is Dead

One day … ONE day after gushing over how exciting the recession is now that those forced to work jobs they hate or who have lost them entirely can focus on their passions, Natalie Portman bought herself a $3 million castle-like estate.

Natalie, whoever’s advising you … fire them. If no one’s advising you, find someone who doesn’t carry a small dog in their purse or dates someone who does. Look to the real world for help. Look to someone who’s spent a few years in a land where the zip codes don’t start with “9-0.” Someone who cares enough about you and your career to say (without any “Honey, babys”):

“Nat, past the gates of your community and away from the hills of Hollywood losing your job doesn’t fuel passion, it fuels despair, and working a job you hate is almost as bad because of the big black  permanent ball of dread it plants in your gut. I know you dig Barack, I did too before he targeted my children and health care, but you can’t flak for his recession. That’s what the mainstream media is for. You have to empathize with your audience, build goodwill. Besides, you’re closing on that castle tomorrow, so today wouldn’t be a good time to get all gushy over how exciting Barack’s recession is. And if you do, I quit.” (more…)

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Tags: "District 9”, "Twitter Effect", academy awards, Castle, Christian Bale
Posted Sep 5th 2009 at 9:52 am in Celebrity News, Classic Hollywood, Featured Story, Politics | 218402194 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/09/05/update-natalie-exciting-recession-portman-buys-castle-like-estate/Natalie+Portman%27s+Castle+and+Why+the+Movie+Star+is+Dead2009-09-05+16%3A52%3A07John+Nolte

Top 5: If You Were a TCM Guest Programmer

I’m not someone with many hopes and dreams, 17 years of bill collecting will do that to you, but for me sitting across from The Mighty Robert Osborne and guest programming an evening of Turner Classic Movies would be like hitting the Powerball. I’m not sure how one gets invited to do such a thing, and can tell you from experience that a letter explaining you have only six-weeks to live doesn’t help, so in the meantime we’ll all have to live vicariously through Dennis Miller or play guest programmer right here.

Sharing great movies with those who haven’t seen them is a passion of mine, so that would be the focus of my choices (and why I love Miller choosing “Dodsworth“).

1. Springtime in the Rockies (1942) — Check this cast out: Betty Grable, Carmen Miranda, John Payne, Cesar Romero, Harry James, Charlotte Greenwood and Edward Everett Horton. Twentieth Century-Fox had them some stars and TCM would just have to make a phone call to Fox and borrow this simple, sweet, unassuming color musical packed with a dozen lovely tunes over a very well-paced 91 minutes. Fox could never compete with what MGM was doing in the musical department, and to their credit didn’t really try. So instead of aspiring to create classics they went for escapism, and sometimes those are the best movies of them all.   (more…)

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Tags: "Dodsworth", "Springtime in the Rockies", "The Exterminating Angel", "The Southerner", "The Swimmer"
Posted Aug 26th 2009 at 6:50 pm in Classic Hollywood, Top 5 | 212190174 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/08/26/top-5-if-you-were-a-tcm-guest-programmer/Top+5%3A+If+You+Were+a+TCM+Guest+Programmer2009-08-27+01%3A50%3A28John+Nolte