Category: Hall Of Fame
Great Actresses – Great Scenes: #2 Bette Davis in ‘All About Eve’
Bette Davis is one of my favourite actresses of all time, and with good reason. She could play a variety of difficult and powerful roles, though her greatest successes came from her willingness to play unsympathetic characters. She set a … [Read the Rest]
Great Actresses – Great Scenes – #1: Elizabeth Taylor in ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’?
Based on the Tony Award-winning 1962 play by Edward Albee, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was a box-office smash, acclaimed by the critics, and won five Academy Awards from thirteen nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Sandy Dennis), Best Cinematography (Haskell Wexler), … [Read the Rest]
Remember Me: Sidney Lumet (1924-2011)
One of the true giants passed away this week: filmmaker Sidney Lumet, dead at 86 of lymphoma. He was one of an incredibly talented class of directors who graduated from the early days of TV; a group which included such … [Read the Rest]
Worth Remembering: Barbara Stanwyck (1907-1990): The Dame from Brooklyn
A classy dame. A dynamite broad. A tough cookie. The language is definitely un-PC…and yet, it seems not only proper but singularly apt when talking about Barbara Stanwyck. It was the language of the day when her star soared off … [Read the Rest]
Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011)
The Queen is dead. Elizabeth Taylor, who died today at the age of 79, was officially a Dame of the British Empire. She was also Hollywood royalty. That phrase is wheeled out regularly by unimaginative broadcasters every time a Hollywood … [Read the Rest]
Remember Me: Michael Gough
Stars bring a character to life on the screen; but behind them is another kind of actor that brings life to that character’s world. They are the seasoning which turns a good meal into a great meal, the chinking keeping … [Read the Rest]
Remember Me: Jane Rusell
When Jane Russell died at home earlier this week at the age of 89 from respiratory failure, it was the passing of a Hollywood myth. Not a legend, but a myth, for the Jane Russell we remember, the images of … [Read the Rest]
The Artful Roger: A Thank You To Roger Ebert
Some of you (hopefully) may have noticed my recent profile on the late, great Robert Mitchum. In the course of researching the piece, I came across the fun tidbit that Mitchum had been a favorite of film critic Roger Ebert. … [Read the Rest]
Worth Remembering: Robert Mitchum (1917-1997) – “Baby I Don’t Care”
The title of Lee Server’s acclaimed 2002 biography, Robert Mitchum: Baby I Don’t Care (MacMillan), offers a perfect encapsulization of the eponymous actor: a hard-partying Hollywood Bad Boy who didn’t give a damn what moralizing finger-waggers thought of him, or what … [Read the Rest]
Peter Yates, Remember Me
Peter Yates, who died this past weekend at age 81, was one of several British directors invited to make movies in The States in the 1960s, all of whom had a particular and rare filmmaker’s gift for capturing a sense … [Read the Rest]
Mr. Cool – Blake Edwards
When the news of Blake Edwards’ passing at age 88 broke earlier this month, it stood to reason his obituaries would mandatorily lead off identifying him as the writer/director behind the “Pink Panther” movies and as a “master of sophisticated slapstick … [Read the Rest]
Ingrid Pitt 1937-2010
As one YouTube user so eloquently puts it: “Ingrid Pitt, you can bite my neck with pleasure.” The Polish actress and star of films like The Vampire Lovers and Countess Dracula, died on 23 November, just two days after celebrating … [Read the Rest]
Neo-Noiriste: John Dahl
By the time John Dahl had directed his third feature – 1994’s The Last Seduction – critics had anointed him as a contemporary torch bearer – perhaps the lone, consistent one – of the film noir ethos. Even today, with his … [Read the Rest]
Cinderella Man’s Cinderella Man: Cliff Hollingsworth
Watching Secretariat fighting for box office air against much more muscular earners like comic actioner Red ($43.5 million after two weeks), the David Fincher/Aaron Sorkin rendering of the birth of Facebook in The Social Network ($72 million in four weeks), … [Read the Rest]
Remembering Arthur Penn
In considering the passing of Arthur Penn last Tuesday, it embarrasses me to admit how little credit I gave him at one time. It was the mid-70s, I was a young, arrogant, know-it-all film student at the University of South … [Read the Rest]
