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No one can dispute that 2001:A Space Odyssey was a breakthrough film. Even today, almost 50 years later, Stanley Kubrick‘s sci-fi classic rates as a movie worth watching. Especially if you’re stoned. The fantastic visuals, the color, the use of classical music and the dissonant chords of composer Gyorgy Ligeti combine to make it one […]
The 60s was the era of hallucegenic drugs, marijuana, LSD, peyote, magic mushrooms. And leading the way were the folks in Hollywood. A young British writer turned film director John Boorman encountered Lee Marvin, then at the height of his career (an Oscar for Cat Ballou, a huge box office hit with The Dirty Dozen), […]
With the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and medically approved marijuana in many other states, we thought we’d spend this week highlighting some classic films that people might want to watch while, well, high. Today we feature one of the best films about ballet, The Red Shoes, which was produced in Britain, almost 70 years ago. It […]
Last week we began showing photos from the collection of Sgt Norman Plemons, who during the Korean War wrote to some of the popular stars at the time and requested photos he could hang in his locker, or on his barrack’s walls. Nancy Wiman, the late Marine’s sister, is sharing these photos with us and […]
By our definition “a working actor” is an actor or actress who, while he may never achieve stardom, has a long and productive career, earns a better than decent living, and has the admiration of his peers. Back in the Golden age of Hollywood there were many such beings. Margaret Hamilton comes to mind. So does Harry Davenport. You’ll […]
Dying at the height of one’s movie career usually assures a certain popularity. Just ask James Dean. And so it is to some degree with French matinee idol of the 40s and 50s, Gerard Philipe. Although he only made 34 films between 1943 and his death in 1959, and although all were in French, he […]
She was a great actress. Nominated for the Oscar three times. Won many awards. Always received billing above the title. Played opposite all of Hollywood’s top leading men: Clark Gable, John Garfield, Glenn Ford, Charlton Heston, Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, Frank Sinatra. And yet there aren’t many people who would contend that Eleanor Parker is a movie star. Why? […]
Although he hadn’t made a film in decades, we still remember Dickie Moore. He was one of the most engaging child stars of the 1930s, and then skillfully made a transition to adult roles in the 1940s. He died last week in Connecticut after a long illness a bit shy of his 90th birthday. […]
Recently we heard from one of our readers, Nancy Wiman, who’d discovered our site and loved the idea that we shared photos of classic film stars of Hollywood’s Golden Era. Nancy told us that her late brother, Sgt. Norman Plemons, had started a collection of photos while he served in Korea in the early 1950s. […]
Not long ago, Joe sprung on Frank a photo of Judy Garland, Jackie Cooper and a third person, a winsome young woman Frank could not identify. When Frank admitted that he was stumped and pleaded ignorance, Joe commanded — “Bonita Granville. Look her up!” A stunned Frank responded that he didn’t need to. “I once […]