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What would Greer Garson have done without Mrs. Miniver? Born in 1914 in Northern Ireland, Garson caught the eye of MGM boss Louis B. Mayer during her early days in the English theater. She signed on the dotted line, and made an effective cameo debut in 1939’s Goodbye Mr. Chips. Then came a string of […]
No question: it is one of the most effective propaganda films ever produced. Next question: is it a good film? We vote “yes” — in part because 1942’s Mrs.Miniver is such good agitprop. Winston Churchill famously said the movie did more for the Second World War effort than a flotilla of destroyers. That the movie was […]
Sergeant York was the mega hit of 1941. It was seen by over 35% of the people in the U.S. Think of it. That’s more than a third of the entire population at the time. And it’s not hard to see why. There’s the story: the biopic of perhaps America’s most decorated war hero in […]
When we think of classic films from the 1940s we think of Citizen Kane and Casablanca. The Maltese Falcon. It’s a Wonderful Life. And yet these films were not among the biggest hits of their era. What is a hit movie? Can box office receipts tell us. Well yes, and no. With inflation it isn’t […]
Today we want to share a few choice photos with you. The boy genius…. Then the film star… The pitchman… and the great director…. By the way, the first reader to communicate with us about that other Orson, Orson Bean, wins — our undying affection and gratitude. Thanks. Did you like this? Share it:Tweet
She was known for possessing the “saddest eyes in Hollywood.” She excelled at “victim parts” but tired of being asked to cry on cue. Sylvia Sidney also had an extraordinarily long career (nearly 70 years), a star in the Thirties and early Forties and then a reinvention as a successful character actress on tv thereafter. […]
In the 1930s she was name above the title. By the late 1940s she was considered box office poison. What happened in the interim? Well, Sylvia Sidney somehow got the reputation of being “difficult to work with.” It stuck, and damaged her career. Born Sophia Kosow in the Bronx of a Russian mother and Romanian […]
We make no bones about it: we are enormous Dan Duryea fans. No classic Hollywood star that we know of presented himself so convincingly onscreen as a sadistic villain, sleazy woman abuser and confirmed bad guy — and yet led his private offscreen life in more exemplary fashion. Explored in author Mike Peros’ welcome new […]
Alfred Hitchcock is justifiably renowned for his great movies — some 55 features made on both sides of the Atlantic from the early 1920’s until 1976, four years before the director’s death. He is invariably identified as the “master of suspense.” Yet no matter how suspenseful his titles, Hitchcock was generally not inclined to show […]
Unlike most classic Hollywood stars, he looked “recognizably American.” He often portrayed the principled father-husband, as he did so memorably in George Stevens’ 1953 western Shane, portraying the struggling homesteader — and faithful husband to Jean Arthur and loving and protective father to Brandon DeWilde. And there he is in Delmer Daves‘ 3:10 to Yuma, once again a good man placed in a dreadful […]