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

Cultural Kleptos: How the Left Hijacks Art (and Everything Else) for the Good of Mankind

Kids love movies about people who tell lies – because they’re such naughty, little fibbers themselves.  During my formative years, it seemed like the same two films were on TV everyday when I came home from school – to remind me of the dangers of mendacity.  Perhaps it was a portent of things to come.

William Wyler’s “The Children’s Hour” (1961)

One was Weird Woman (1944), a neglected camp classic that was part of Universal’s low-budget Inner Sanctum series - about a scorned librarian (scream queen Evelyn Ankers) who seeks revenge on her ex- (Lon Chaney Jr.) by spreading gossip about his new wife (Anne Gwynne), an all-American voodoo princess he met on a South Seas expedition (don’t ask).

After several people inadvertently die as a result of Ankers’s aspersions, Chaney and gang steal a move straight out of the Democratic playbook - they devise an elaborate, fear-mongering ruse to guilt her into submission (and make her confess).  Here’s a clip of Ankers being browbeaten – with prophecies of gloom and doom – by little-known B-actress Elizabeth Russell: (more…)

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Tags: Anne Gwynne, audrey hepburn, Cairo, Charles Bronson, Dashell Hammett
Posted Jul 30th 2009 at 5:03 am in Classic Hollywood, Culture, Featured Story, Politics | 18642669 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/cwinecoff/2009/07/30/cultural-kleptos-how-the-left-hijacks-art-and-everything-else-for-the-good-of-mankind/Cultural+Kleptos%3A+How+the+Left+Hijacks+Art+%28and+Everything+Else%29+for+the+Good+of+Mankind2009-07-30+12%3A03%3A16Charles+Winecoff

Stars With Pluck

Hedy Lamarr’s perfectly arched eyebrows emphasize her symmetrical features. Considered the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, Lamarr was also incredibly bright, co-inventing, in 1941, a “frequency-hopping device that now serves as the basis for modern spread-spectrum communication technology.” That quote is grabbed from Wikipedia. I have absolutely no idea what it means, but darn, I’m impressed. Anyhoo. Married six times, Lamarr gained and lost several fortunes. After her career was over she was arrested on shoplifting charges.

Screening movies from Hollywood’s Golden Age, I’ve noticed an interesting trend—in eyebrows.

During the early days of silent films, female stars appeared pretty normal. Which is to say, eyebrows were lightly plucked, but retained a recognizably human configuration. (more…)

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Tags: Alice Faye, Anna May Wong, audrey hepburn, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard
Posted Jul 29th 2009 at 8:44 am in Classic Hollywood | 19256665 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/07/29/stars-with-pluck/Stars+With+Pluck+2009-07-29+15%3A44%3A40Robert+J.+Avrech

Hollywood Hair: Masculine or Feminine?

Mary Pickford's rich and lustrous hair was the paradigm of female beauty in early Hollywood.

I’ve been looking at portraits of Hollywood stars from the 50’s, a time when the studio system was finally collapsing, and I noticed a few things.

The quality of studio portrait photography was dismal.

The images are, for the most part, bland, with little creative inspiration. Everyone seems bored—the photographers and the stars. Hollywood once employed geniuses like George Hurrell and C.S. Bull, whose iconic photography helped mold the G-d-like images of Hollywood’s golden age.

But as the studios were shrinking in power, they drastically cut back on their still departments. And because actors were no longer under long-term contract to the studios, the technocrat executives who replaced the original passionate moguls had no stake or ability to carefully shape and control the images of their most promising thespians.

(more…)

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Tags: audrey hepburn, burt lancaster, charlton heston, Claire Bloom, Clark Gable
Posted Jun 18th 2009 at 6:40 am in Entertainment | 1635543 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/06/18/hollywood-hair-masculinefeminine/Hollywood+Hair%3A+Masculine+or+Feminine%3F2009-06-18+13%3A40%3A57Robert+J.+Avrech

‘Up’ Where We Belong

A young scout yearns to help an elderly widower in order to earn a merit badge.  A senior citizen unfurls hard-learned life lessons for the world.  Disney/Pixar’s Up is a lofty film that thrives off old fashioned values, and it is your new number-one 2009 summer blockbuster.  Complete with newsreel footage only a great grand-dad could recall, Up is a film which cherishes that very dated, old fashioned concept – great storytelling.  

In an age where Dreamworks’ feeds us a steady diet of kung-fu pandas and boogie-in-your-butt lemurs voiced by the guy that gave us Borat, three-to-thirteen year olds have a place to fill up on some traditional values – Disney/Pixar.  

My wife and I took our 6-year old boy to see Up on Saturday to a packed movie theater in Washington, DC’s Georgetown neighborhood.  All we heard in the theater was laughing, deep emotion and applause. And why not?  Up is film that, had it been produced with live actors decades ago, may have starred Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant.  It is classic American storytelling – true love, big dreams, self-reliance and fierce determination. It doesn’t need gimmicks, politically correct characters or audience focus-group testing to determine its destination.  It relies on Russell, who misses his Dad, and Carl Fredricksen, a lost old curmudgeon grieving over the death of his wife – they get us where we’re going.  You know them – they’re the sort of folks we see and meet most everyday.   (more…)

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Tags: audrey hepburn, cary grant, disney, feminist critics, Finding Nemo
Posted Jun 2nd 2009 at 4:47 pm in Entertainment, Politics, Reviews | 1495222 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jmeath/2009/06/02/up-where-we-belong-by-jason-killian-meath/%27Up%27+Where+We+Belong2009-06-02+23%3A47%3A37Jason+Killian+Meath

The All-Time Top 10 Movie Posters (one man’s opinion) – #1 JAWS, #2 CHINATOWN, #3 THE DARK KNIGHT

Over the weekend, I was pondering why the low budget, standard genre pic The Haunting in Connecticut (Lionsgate) has become a nifty little box office hit. The film added almost $9.5M over the weekend for a new 10-day cume of $37M, and the only conclusion I have been able to reach is that it’s all about the poster.

Creepy, right? I have not seen Haunting and will probably wait for DVD or pay cable, but that is a weird, startling, attention-grabbing image. As a movie junkie, I love good movie art. The best movie posters are evocative. They capture what a movie is all about without giving away the mystery. There are certain movie posters that instantly put me back in that theatre experiencing the film for the very first time. The best movie posters are not just promotional tools. They stand as a work of art on their own. These are my favorites, buit it is by no means a definitive list. Feel free to add your favorites (and subtract any of mine).

(more…)

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Tags: 2001: a space odyssey, a clockwork orange, academy award, alan ball, alfred hitchcock
Posted Apr 6th 2009 at 8:27 pm in Entertainment, Featured Story, Steve Mason's Box Office | 9912237 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/smason/2009/04/06/posters/The+All-Time+Top+10+Movie+Posters+%28one+man%27s+opinion%29+-+%231+JAWS%2C+%232+CHINATOWN%2C+%233+THE+DARK+KNIGHT2009-04-07+03%3A27%3A28Steve+Mason