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

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

Broncho Billy: Son of a Jewish Gun

In 1965, a frail old man in a wheelchair appeared in the no-budget western, The Bounty Killer. It is, for those of us who love movies—especially westerns—a deeply bittersweet moment in which the man who invented the western movie hero, takes his last bow on the silver screen.

It is Broncho Billy Anderson’s final role.

Max Aaronson, better known as Broncho Billy.

The first cowboy hero of the motion pictures was Max Aaronson, (March 21, 1880 – January 20, 1971) a middle-class Jewish kid from Little Rock, Arkansas.

Max’s father, Henry, was a dry goods salesman and his mother Esther, a mother and homemaker. The family moved to St. Louis Missouri in 1883 and here Max, a teenager, was an office clerk like his brothers Jerome, Edward, and Nathaniel. A year later, Max became a cotton-buyer, in partnership with his brother-in-law Louis Roth. But Max was restless, a dreamer—and he was stage struck. (more…)

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Tags: Broncho Billy Anderson, Charlie Chaplin, Edwin S. Porter, Essany, The Great Train Robbery
Posted Jun 2nd 2009 at 8:11 am in Celebrity News, Entertainment | 148818No Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2009/06/02/broncho-billy-son-of-a-jewish-gun/Broncho+Billy%3A+Son+of+a+Jewish+Gun2009-06-02+15%3A11%3A28Robert+J.+Avrech