Today I watched one of Anthony Mann's first films, Tall Target , I don't know why I expected a film noir but what I got was a historical crime drama with Dick Powell and Adolphe Menjou. Some of it was a little predictable but it was very enjoyable, I don't know whether it is based on a true story o...

Cooper gave a lot of heart felt performances in films which, on first look, he seemed to be shunted to the sidelines. Vidor's THE WEDDING NIGHT comes to mind. The main focus of the film is Anna Sten and her desire to break free from her restrictive, close-minded immigrant Polish family. Cooper's idl...

Hawks claims MGM took the film away from him and re-cut it. Then he ran into more studio interference on VIVA VILLA (1934) and quit (or was fired), and made a point of never working for MGM again. As for the film itself, it's everything that the posters above described, but I still find the film ver...

It seemed almost every film from the Thirties moved like greased lightning - Get in, get out, leave everyone satisfied (hopefully...). Those big budget lumbering Broadway musical adaptions of the 1960's could of all used a good half hour lobbed off of their running time. Instead they chased away the...

But he had such a short life - choking on food at the age of 37.

I feel like a ghoul but whenever I look at these photo's everyone posts I immediately look at their life span and if they don't survive out of their 50's I feel sad.

Well Miss G, I did not have any one poster in mind when I wrote my retort, mostly because I can never keep everyone's aliases straight but, BOY! I have to say that I find BALL OF FIRE to be one of the great comedies of all time and Cooper is hilarious in it. We definitely do not share the same mind-...

The reason SHOULDER ARMS is a short is just what you stated - that it clocks in at 40 min. Shorts had to be defined with an arbitrary number and that seems to be it. And it could of been a feature since, as I'm sure you know, Chaplin had filmed a prologue of the tramps home life before being drafted...

Fonda's biggest splash in television seems to had been when he signed on as a spokesperson for GAF products. I remember that there was a big flap at the time that a Hollywood legend would openly endorse a product with a series of commercials - not just one. Fonda shrugged and said, "I'm an acto...

Right I after I wrote my suggestions I started thinking that maybe you are familiar with all of Lloyd's films and there are some that just don't appeal to you. I understand that. I get a partial enjoyment from Will Hay's comedies of the 30's but I would never go out of my way to watch one. And I get...

Then give THE KID BROTHER (27) a try. It's Lloyd's take on Cinderella - with no cocky traits at all. Or Hot Water (24) , where he plays a harried married man trying to cope. In fact, Lloyd was savvy enough to alternate different aspects of his personae with each film, in the same way that Keaton wou...

I find it hard to believe that S.J. Perelman contributed to the script and I only laughed out loud once (something to do with Fogg's card playing obsession). Read Perelman's account on the making of that film - now that's 3 hours of pure pleasure!

Keaton's attitude toward his love interest in COLLEGE pretty much follows his template of his other features. Chaplin would openly woo his romantic interests. Langdon would gain sympathy from his girls just by his unique, comic strangeness, while Keaton is always working hard to impress the girl (th...

I have often thought this about Bing Crosby. I wonder if he used films to push his religion. It's quite the opposite. McCarey had to talk Crosby into doing GOING MY WAY because Bing was afraid the public wouldn't accept a singer playing a priest. That movie was such a monster hit that it opened the...

If you had just finished working the past two years on a couple of classic comedies ( THE GENERAL, STEAMBOAT BILL ) only to be be dismayed to learn that the movie-going public was slightly less than inclined to flock to them, and then you were told to make your next film on a much lower budget and m...

It seems every major Hollywood actress from the silents right up to the 1960's had to face the same exact dilemma that Loretta Young had to go through. Many believe that Katharine Hepburn's niece was actually Kate's own daughter who she allowed her sister to raise. That sound like one of Warner's Be...