Take yourselves back to 1941. Cary Grant’s star was very much on the rise but his reputation rested in Hollywood as much or more on the successful comedies he made such as The Awful Truth costarring Irene Dunne (sharing the photographic limelight with Grant and unnamed canine above) and Bringing Up Baby rather than on “serious roles.” In […]
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Month: November 2012
ALMA — Alfred Hitchcock’s Better Half
She was the most delightful woman. Charming, witty, fun to be with and an absolute necessity if one was to spend any time with her husband, the famed director. Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, back with more of Joe’s reminiscences of Alfred Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville. Joe worked with […]
Searching for the REAL Hitchcock
There are two films currently making the rounds about Alfred Hitchcock. One is HBO’s The Girl, about the famed director’s obsession with actress Tippi Hedren, star of 1963’s The Birds and Marnie, made the following year (and costarring Sean Connery). The other is Hitchcock, a feature starring Anthony Hopkins about the making of 1960’s Psycho. Do either […]
From The Reader Emailbag — Name That Mys
Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, a bit more chipper than usual today because we are engaging in one of our favorite pastimes — answering reader email. From Gwendolyn Lewis, we received the following head-scratcher: In 1966, I was around 7 or 8 years old. I saw a movie with a […]
Known to All — By EITHER Name
Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, announcing that it’s another Monday and time for yet another reader challenge. Today we’ve pictured four of Hollywood’s top stars of the golden age. They were so famous that their fans not only knew them […]
Liking LAWRENCE TIERNEY.
(He) was a big lug, broad-shouldered and handsome. But his eyes narrowed into slits when he started thinking. And his thin-lipped grin was one of the most purely rapacious sights on film … He was the only actor in Hollywood who posed for more mug shots than publicity photos. — Eddie Muller, Dark City: The Lost World […]
THANKSGIVING TURKEYS AT THE BOX OFFICE
It should come as no surprise that some of the biggest box office flops through the years have starred some of the biggest box office celebrities. Hello, everybody and Happy Thanksgiving to you from your classic movies guys, Joe Morella and Frank Segers. Thanksgiving, of course, is synonymous with turkey, which is not a positive adjective in […]
Gloria D. — Another Forgotten Beauty
Thinking of the brief career of Maggie McNamara (yesterday’s blog) brought to mind the beauty of an earlier era whose fate was similar, and in a way even more tragic. Hello Everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again. Gloria Dickson had made a sensational film debut in 1937’s They Won’t Forget (which also catapulted Lana Turner in a tight sweater to […]
ONCE A BRIGHT, SHINING STAR. Now A ‘Who
There were few in Hollywood who had burst to stardom so fast, then disappeared so completely as Maggie McNamara. Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers here to discuss The Moon is Blue and the actress who made her film debut in that “censored” film. We put the word censored in quotes because anyone who […]
STARS BY ANY NAME — Real or Reel.
Here are four more great stars of the past, so famous that most movie fans knew their real names as well as their professional monikers. We bet you do too. Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to introduce another reader […]