Hollywood’s Great Latin Lover vs. Hollywood’s Great Jewish Mother

The great pioneering director D.W. Griffith hired Rabbi Isadore Myers as the Jewish technical consultant on his great epic, Intolerance, 1916. Griffith was so happy with Rabbi Myer’s expert advice and attention to detail that he said to the good Rabbi:

“How can I ever repay you?”

Replied Rabbi Myers: “I have a daughter who would like to get into pictures.”

Rudolph Valentino at the height of his fame.

True to his word, Griffith extended a helping hand to Carmel, Rabbi Myer’s striking and talented daughter. Carmel Myers (1899 – 1980) appears fleetingly as a dancing girl in Intolerance and after production wrapped, she was signed as a contract Griffith player. A few months later, the future star Colleen Moore arrived in Hollywood, also under exclusive contract to Griffith.

Myers and Moore became close friends. In her excellent memoir Silent Star, Colleen Moore remembers that a club for young actresses—Our Club—was organized as a means of mutual support. The young actresses would lunch on Sunday, discuss movies, books, “boys” and generously feed one another tips on what roles were available at which studios. Myers was an active member. (more…)

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Tags: ben hur, Carmel Myers, Classic Hollywood, Colleen Moore, D.W. Griffith
Posted Feb 18th 2010 at 9:11 am in Classic Hollywood | 30893453 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ravrech/2010/02/18/hollywoods-great-latin-lover-vs-hollywoods-great-jewish-mother/Hollywood%27s+Great+Latin+Lover+vs.+Hollywood%27s+Great+Jewish+Mother2010-02-18+17%3A11%3A44Robert+J.+Avrech

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 | 260006170 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

Hollywood’s Greatest Year: 1939

This year marks the 70th anniversary of Hollywood’s greatest year, 1939. Accordingly, Turner Classic Movies is celebrating the anniversary this month by showing 39 films released in ‘39, starting with The Wizard of Oz. Throughout the month, TCM will also screen a new documentary, 1939: Hollywood’s Greatest Year.

It’s a truism among fans of classic movies that 1939 was the Hollywood cinema’s greatest year. But if it has become something of a cliche to say so, it’s only because it’s so undeniably true.

It’s really rather amazing to consider how many classic or transcendentally classic films were released during that annus mirabilis. Among the most highly praised then and in the ensuring years were the following: (more…)

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Tags: Allegheny Uprising, Another Thin Man, Babes in Arms, Classic Hollywood, Dark Victory
Posted Jul 5th 2009 at 7:03 am in Featured Story | 17554628 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/stkarnick/2009/07/05/hollywoods-greatest-year-1939/Hollywood%27s+Greatest+Year%3A+19392009-07-05+14%3A03%3A29S.T.+Karnick

Charm Overcomes Comic Anarchy at U.S. Box Office

It will be a good thing if the Sandra Bullock romantic comedy The Proposal continues its box-office success–if Hollywood draws the right conclusions about why it did well.

The film had a rather surprisingly strong opening weekend at the U.S. box office, finishing on top of the heap with a take of $34.1 million in North American ticket sales.

It’s the first film starring Sandra Bullock in a decade to reach number one. Men accounted for a healthy 37 percent of the audience, according to Reuters. The film’s trailers and commercials strongly established the film as a by-the-books romantic comedy centered on a distinctly meager and unoriginal comic premise: female executive fakes engagement to her assistant in order to escape deportation (she’s from Canada). When she takes him to meet her family, hilarity ensues. (more…)

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Tags: charm, Classic Hollywood, Golden Age, hollywood, romantic comedy
Posted Jun 27th 2009 at 11:02 am in Entertainment, News | 16811418 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/stkarnick/2009/06/27/character-charm-overcomes-comic-anarchy-at-us-box-office/Charm+Overcomes+Comic+Anarchy+at+U.S.+Box+Office2009-06-27+18%3A02%3A11S.T.+Karnick