Category: Classic Movies

Memorial Day Weekend + Classic Movie Update, 5/29

From "The Guns of Navarone."

By Jason Apuzzo. • In honor of Memorial Day, Turner Classic Movies is showing three days’ worth of classic war films.  Check here for specific listings.  Some of my favorites today include In Harm’s Way, Battle of the Bulge, Battle of Britain and Midway.  On Sunday, check out The Guns of Navarone and The Green Berets.  Each of these films is available through the LFM Store below.

• If you’re in Los Angeles, The Egyptian Theatre will be screening 4 other war classics: The Dirty Dozen, Attack, The Big Red One and The Steel Helmet.  Check The LA Times for further details.  Each of these films is available in the LFM Store below.

• Also at the Egyptian Theatre, Pam Grier will be doing a book signing on Saturday, June 5th at 6:15 pm for her new autobiography, Foxy: My Life in Three Acts.  There will also be a discussion with her prior to a screening of her films Foxy Brown and Jackie Brown.  See here for more details.  You can buy a copy of Foxy in the LFM Store below.

Hedy Lamarr.

• And also in Los Angeles, the Academy is putting on a wonderful-looking exhibit of Ray Harryhausen’s work, featuring many of Ray’s original models from his films.  Check the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website for further details.  You can also pick up a copy of The Ray Harryhausen Collection in the LFM Store above.

• On the book front, there’s a new biography of Hedy Lamarr coming out, called Beautiful: The Life of Hedy Lamarr.  The book will be released in October.  The author, Stephen Michael Shearer, has previously written a biography of Patricia Neal.  See here for further details.  Pre-order your copy of Beautiful in the LFM Store above.

• Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless has been re-released by Rialto Pictures, with a restored new print.  Right now it’s playing at New York’s Film Forum, to be followed by a national release.  Check here for screenings in your area, or pick up a copy of the newly restored Breathless in the LFM Store above.

• Movie Morlocks, the official blog for Turner Classic Movies, had a great post up by Moira Finnie on Duke Wayne’s Hondo.  Check that out, and pick up a copy of Hondo in the LFM Store.

• … and don’t forget to catch Jennifer Baldwin’s LFM Classic Movie Obsession post (Memorial Day Edition) for this week: Howard Hawks’ Sergeant York.

Best wishes to everyone this Memorial Day Weekend, as we honor the men and women who’ve sacrificed everything to keep this nation free.

[Update: Actor Dennis Hopper has died at age 74, after a battle with cancer.  He was, of course, one of the pivotal stars and cinema personalities of the past 40-50 years.  Our condolences to his family and friends.]

Classic Movie Obsession (Memorial Day Edition): Howard Hawks’ Sergeant York

[Editor’s Note: Memorial Day is Monday, May 31st, but we’re posting this week’s Classic Movie Obsession now because Turner Classic Movies will be airing Howard Hawks’ Sergeant York on Friday, May 28th at 2:30pm Pacific Time/5:30pm Eastern Time.]

By Jennifer Baldwin. Director Howard Hawks is a favorite among film critics and students of auteur theory. His fans include critics Robin Wood and Andrew Sarris, the Cahiers du Cinema crowd, and even Quentin Tarantino. I’m a big fan too.

Much has been written and said about Hawks, about his great films, about how he could work in every genre. But there’s one major Hawks film that doesn’t get much ink spilled over it; it’s the one major Hawks film that always seems to get ignored by the film critics and fans.

That film is SERGEANT YORK. Why are critics and Hawks experts so reluctant to discuss this classic biographical film about one of America’s greatest war heroes? It’s a movie anchored by the performance of a major movie star in Gary Cooper. It’s a rousing war movie. It includes many of the classic Hawksian themes. It’s beautifully shot. So what’s the deal, critics? Why no love for YORK when you’ve got plenty of words to write about HATARI!?

Two words: God. Country.

Critics avoid YORK like the plague because the film has been slapped with that wartime “propaganda” label and that’s all it needs to be effectively silenced as a work of art and an important film in the Hawks oeuvre.

Not that I’ve taken a poll or anything, but life experience tells me that most critics are left-of-center politically and that for them the subjects of Christianity and patriotism are sticky issues. A film that’s unabashedly pro-Christianity and pro-American patriotism doesn’t appeal to the majority of Hawks’ critical champions. We all tend to write about the movies that excite us and for most critics, a movie that wears its Christian patriotic heart on its sleeve is not something that appeals.

Which is a shame, because as a Hawks fan myself and a huge fan of SERGEANT YORK, I find there’s not enough written about the film. Seeing as it’s Memorial Day weekend and SERGEANT YORK is playing on TCM on Friday, May 28 at 2:30 PM PT/5:30 PM EST, I figured I’d give YORK its fair shake and make it my Classic Cinema Obsession of the Week. Continue reading Classic Movie Obsession (Memorial Day Edition): Howard Hawks’ Sergeant York

Happy Birthday Duke

Big Duke.

By Jason Apuzzo. Today is John Wayne’s birthday, and we would be most remiss if we didn’t remember The Duke for a just a few moments on his big day.  John Wayne was born 103 years ago today in the small town of Winterset, Iowa.  He went on to become the most enduring, popular movie star in history and an icon of American culture worldwide.

Several years ago Govindini and I had the pleasure of meeting the Duke’s family at a screening of the newly restored, 3-D version of Hondo.  They’re delightful people and are doing a wonderful job of preserving the Duke’s legacy for future generations – we wish them the very best, and congratulations to them on this day.

As I mentioned in a Classic Movie Update post from a few days ago, there’s a lot of Duke news to report:

• There’s a 50th anniversary benefit screening of The Alamo this week at John Wayne’s birthplace, with Wayne’s daughter Aissa in attendance.  The benefit event, a fundraiser for the John Wayne Birthplace Museum and Learning Center, takes place over 2 days – May 28th and 29th.  Wayne directed The Alamo himself (with spot 2nd unit direction from John Ford) – a huge, sprawling and satisfying epic, featuring an extraordinary musical score by Dmitri Tiomkin – and The Duke considered it his most important film.  Wayne considered the film a parable of America’s place in the world as the lone outpost of freedom.  The Alamo famously went up against Kirk Douglas’ left-leaning Spartacus at the 1960 Academy Awards.  If you’re anywhere near Wayne’s birthplace of Winterset, Iowa, you should certainly catch this wonderful-looking event – and feel free to purchase your own copy of The Alamo in the LFM Store below.

• In related news, The Criterion Collection has just put out a new, restored version of the John Wayne/John Ford Classic Stagecoach on DVD and Blu-Ray.  You can buy this version in the LFM store above.

• Since I’m in the mood for it, here’s my list of Duke Wayne’s Top 5 films, all available in the LFM store above:

  1. The Searchers
  2. Stagecoach
  3. Red River
  4. Hondo (particularly in 3-D)
  5. The Alamo

Classic Movie Update, 5/23

John Wayne, Richard Widmark, Laurence Harvey and the cast of "The Alamo."

By Jason Apuzzo. Those of you who remember the old version of Libertas remember how important classic movies are to us here. This week we introduced a new series to LFM called ‘Classic Cinema Obsession‘; but we’ll also be keeping you up-to-date on classic movie news each week.

• There’s a 50th anniversary benefit screening of The Alamo this week at John Wayne’s birthplace, with Wayne’s daughter Aissa in attendance.  The benefit event, a fundraiser for the John Wayne Birthplace Museum and Learning Center, takes place over 2 days – May 28th and 29th.  Wayne directed The Alamo himself (with spot 2nd unit direction from John Ford) – a huge, sprawling and satisfying epic, featuring an extraordinary musical score by Dmitri Tiomkin – and The Duke considered it his most important film.  Wayne considered the film a parable of America’s place in the world as the lone outpost of freedom.  The Alamo famously went up against Kirk Douglas’ left-leaning Spartacus at the 1960 Academy Awards … with both films ultimately losing to Billy Wilder’s The Apartment.  If you’re anywhere near Wayne’s birthplace of Winterset, Iowa, you should certainly catch this wonderful-looking event – and feel free to purchase your own copy of The Alamo in the LFM Store below.

• In related news, The Criterion Collection has just put out a new, restored version of the John Wayne/John Ford Classic Stagecoach on DVD and Blu-Ray.  You can buy this version in the LFM store above.

Anna Karina in Godard's "Vivre sa Vie."

• I’m obsessed with Godard and his films, so I was thrilled this past week to learn that one of the few Godard classics I haven’t seen, Vivre Sa Vie, also just received the Criterion DVD/Blu-Ray treatment.  You can read a review of this new disk here. As a side note, Richard Brody’s marvelous biography of Godard, Everything is Cinema, has just been released in paperback. It’s the definitive biography of one of Europe’s most visionary and mercurial filmmakers of the past 40 years, so check out both Vivre sa Vie and Everything is Cinema in our store above.

• I recently had the pleasure of reading Michael Sragow’s wonderful biography, Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master.  If there is a forgotten man in the history of cinema, it’s clearly Fleming.  All Fleming did was direct Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz (in the same year, Hollywood’s Annus mirabilis of 1939), while shaping the careers of such stars as Clark Gable, Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, Clara Bow, Douglas Fairbanks – in countless box-office smashes like Red Dust, Captains Courageous, Bombshell, The Virginian, The Rough Riders … where does one begin?

Jean Harlow, in Victor Fleming's "Bombshell."

Sragow’s meticulously researched book challenged my assumption that John Ford, Frank Capra and Howard Hawks were the undisputed masters of mid-century American movies.  I now have the sense that Fleming may have been the greatest of them all.  Fleming was absolutely instrumental in developing the ‘man’s-man,’ Hemingway-esque persona of such stars as Fairbanks, Gable and Cooper – yet he was a gifted director of women as well … something aided by the fact that he was also one of Hollywood’s reigning lotharios (i.e., he knew his subject).

I will likely do a full review of Sragow’s biography down the line, but let me simply remind everyone out there who’s so impressed with Avatar‘s box office total that Fleming’s Gone With the Wind in 2010 dollars would have grossed $1.6 billion domestically.  And this was by no means unusual for Fleming’s career; Fleming produced box-office smash after box-office smash – big, emotional, humanistic films that were popular around the world to a degree unrivaled except when speaking of Walt Disney’s films.  Disney, Cecil DeMille and possibly Steven Spielberg are Fleming’s only rivals in terms of producing huge popular hits over a long period of time.  [Funny footnote: Fleming urged Louis Mayer to sign the unknown Disney when Disney was shopping his “Steamboat Willy”/Mickey Mouse series around Hollywood; Mayer refused, thinking American housewives would never enjoy watching a rodent on screen.]

How compelling and emotional and universal was the appeal of Fleming’s filmmaking?  It’s said that Stalin himself wept when he saw Fleming’s The Great Waltz, and refused to give-out medals to Soviet directors until they could match Fleming’s style.   [Oh … and did I mention that Fleming was an ardent anti-communist?] Continue reading Classic Movie Update, 5/23

Classic Cinema Obsession: SCANDAL SHEET (Phil Karlson, 1952)

[Editor’s note: this is the first of a new LFM series of ‘visual essays’ for classic movie fans, called “Classic Cinema Obsession” by Jennifer Baldwin.]

By Jennifer Baldwin.

This Week’s Classic Cinema Obsession: SCANDAL SHEET (Phil Karlson, 1952)

Why do so many old movie obsessives (myself included) love Film Noir? Maybe it’s because so many films noir feature characters who are also, one way or another, obsessives themselves. Obsessed with money, with power, with justice, with a member of the opposite sex. The old movie obsessive can identify with these characters; we know what it’s like to have a passion that is all-consuming, which takes over our lives.

But classic film buffs like me love Noir for another reason too: Film Noir satisfies our obsessions. Beneath the surface of these B-movie programmers with their tightly woven plots and genre thrills, old movie obsessives can find complex, multi-layered themes and characters; hidden, coded messages about society and the human psyche; and a wealth of stylistic touches that make these films an endless source of study and analysis for the dedicated cinephile. In less than 90 minutes, your average film noir can provide an old movie obsessive with hours, days, years of film geek fun.


That’s what we’ve got with SCANDAL SHEET, a well-written, gritty and cynical little crime flick from director Phil Karlson, starring Broderick Crawford, John Derek, and Donna Reed, and based on a novel by Samuel Fuller (yeah, that Sam Fuller). It aired on TCM May 19, 2010 (2:00 AM EST) as part of their Star of the Month tribute to Ms. Reed and it’s my Classic Cinema Obsession of the Week. Continue reading Classic Cinema Obsession: SCANDAL SHEET (Phil Karlson, 1952)

Capucine

Capucine: the essence of glamour and elegance.

This past March was the twentieth anniversary of the death of Germaine Lefebvre (1931-1990), better known as Capucine (French for nasturtium). Cinéastes will remember the particular feline charm she brought to Henry Hathaway’s North to Alaska (1960) and Blake Edward’s The Pink Panther (1963).

She was the inamorata of Darryl F. Zanuck, Peter Sellers, and William Holden, and the dear friend and Lausanne neighbor of Audrey Hepburn, whom she met while modeling during the early 1950s. The sight of the two impossible beauties strolling arm in arm down the spring boulevard must have seemed to passersby a mirage or beatific vision. Tormented by chronic depression, Capucine threw herself from her eight-floor penthouse in Lausanne.

If her film career was minor, she herself was the embodiment of Europe in its last stage of cosmopolitan glamour and elegance – the Europe of Maxim’s, and Givenchy, and Ophüls, of all that was swept away in 1968. Here’s a tribute to a lost age.