MGM in 1940 was just the movie factory to turn out a smart, compact version of the Jane Austen novel, with Greer Garson in fine form and Laurence Olivier possibly slumming but also contributing a flawless performance. Robert Z. Leonard’s direction is invisible but does no harm; adaptors Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin telescope events and concoct an even happier ending, all with great skill. Sorry, despite persistent rumors, the story hasn’t a single zombie.
Pride and Prejudice
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 118 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ann Rutherford, Frieda Inescort, Edmund Gwenn, Heather Angel, Marsha Hunt.
Cinematography: Karl Freund
Film Editor: Robert Kern
Original Music: Herbert Stothart
Written by Aldous Huxley, Jane Murfin from the book by Jane Austen
Produced by Hunt Stromberg
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
I...
Pride and Prejudice
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 118 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ann Rutherford, Frieda Inescort, Edmund Gwenn, Heather Angel, Marsha Hunt.
Cinematography: Karl Freund
Film Editor: Robert Kern
Original Music: Herbert Stothart
Written by Aldous Huxley, Jane Murfin from the book by Jane Austen
Produced by Hunt Stromberg
Directed by Robert Z. Leonard
I...
- 7/18/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
LibertyThe Locarno Festival, its host town pinned between lake and mountain, is likewise sandwiched each August between the two premiere hot-weather European film festivals of Cannes and Venice. Aside from the justifiably famous 8,000 seat capacity screenings in the city’s open-air Piazza Grande, Locarno wisely cedes both red carpet camera-seeking impulses as well as big-name openings to these more celebrity-focused institutions. In favor of pursuing a wide-ranging presentation of new films, the festival generally favors a smaller, more idiosyncratic side of art cinema that at its best can be greatly freeing and deeply engaged. The 71st edition promises several anticipated pictures, including a new feature by the delightful American “anti-animator” Jodie Mack, who usually works in short films, the fifth Hong Sang-soo movie in 18 months, the feature debut of María Alche—the lead actress from Lucrecia Martel’s The Holy Girl—and Argentine director Mariano Llinás’s long-awaited (and 13.5 hour!
- 8/8/2018
- MUBI
Considering everything that's been happening on the planet in the last several months, you'd have thought we're already in November or December – of 2117. But no. It's only June. 2017. And in some parts of the world, that's the month of brides, fathers, graduates, gays, and climate change denial. Beginning this evening, Thursday, June 1, Turner Classic Movies will be focusing on one of these June groups: Lgbt people, specifically those in the American film industry. Following the presentation of about 10 movies featuring Frank Morgan, who would have turned 127 years old today, TCM will set its cinematic sights on the likes of William Haines, James Whale, George Cukor, Mitchell Leisen, Dorothy Arzner, Patsy Kelly, and Ramon Novarro. In addition to, whether or not intentionally, Claudette Colbert, Colin Clive, Katharine Hepburn, Douglass Montgomery (a.k.a. Kent Douglass), Marjorie Main, and Billie Burke, among others. But this is ridiculous! Why should TCM present a...
- 6/2/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Really, I mean Preston Sturges' Hotel Haywire, because nobody's too interested in George Archainbaud, a Paramount contract director who had been directing for 20 years without helming a really memorable film (Thirteen Women, an uncomfortably racist pre-Code with Myrna Loy, is as exciting as it gets, and even that one is remembered chiefly for featuring the girl who threw herself off the Hollywood sign), He would continue for another 20, moving from B-westerns into TV westerns, without making anything else of particular note.Sturges wrote the script as part of his plan to get a long-term contract at Paramount. To particularly appeal to the suits there, he filled the story with roles for Paramount stars such as Mary Boland, Charles Ruggles, Fred MacMurray and Burns & Allen, none of whom were necessarily famous enough to carry a movie, but whose combined star-power might make an attractive investment for studio or future ticket-buyers.
- 5/11/2017
- MUBI
By Todd Garbarini
Robert Z. Leonard’s 1940 film Pride and Predjudice, which stars Lawrence Olivier, Edmund Gwenn, Marsha Hunt, Greer Garson, and Maureen O’Sullivan, will be screened at the The Royale Laemmle Theater in Los Angeles. Based upon the novel by Jane Austen, the 118-minute film will be screened on Tuesday, December 8th, 2015 at 7:00 pm.
Actress Marsha Hunt, who played Mary Bennet in the film, is scheduled to appear in-person to discuss the film and answer audience questions.
From the press release:
This lush, Oscar-winning film from the heyday of MGM is the most entertaining of the many screen adaptations of Jane Austen’s best-loved novel. Laurence Olivier plays Mr. Darcy, Greer Garson is Elizabeth Bennet, and they give definitive performances as the archetypal battling lovers who set the model for almost every rom-com of the future. The supporting cast includes Edmund Gwenn, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver,...
Robert Z. Leonard’s 1940 film Pride and Predjudice, which stars Lawrence Olivier, Edmund Gwenn, Marsha Hunt, Greer Garson, and Maureen O’Sullivan, will be screened at the The Royale Laemmle Theater in Los Angeles. Based upon the novel by Jane Austen, the 118-minute film will be screened on Tuesday, December 8th, 2015 at 7:00 pm.
Actress Marsha Hunt, who played Mary Bennet in the film, is scheduled to appear in-person to discuss the film and answer audience questions.
From the press release:
This lush, Oscar-winning film from the heyday of MGM is the most entertaining of the many screen adaptations of Jane Austen’s best-loved novel. Laurence Olivier plays Mr. Darcy, Greer Garson is Elizabeth Bennet, and they give definitive performances as the archetypal battling lovers who set the model for almost every rom-com of the future. The supporting cast includes Edmund Gwenn, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver,...
- 12/1/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Norma Shearer films Note: This article is being revised and expanded. Please check back later. Turner Classic Movies' Norma Shearer month comes to a close this evening, Nov. 24, '15, with the presentation of the last six films of Shearer's two-decade-plus career. Two of these are remarkably good; one is schizophrenic, a confused mix of high comedy and low drama; while the other three aren't the greatest. Yet all six are worth a look even if only because of Norma Shearer herself – though, really, they all have more to offer than just their top star. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the no-expense-spared Marie Antoinette (1938) – $2.9 million, making it one of the most expensive movies ever made up to that time – stars the Canadian-born Queen of MGM as the Austrian-born Queen of France. This was Shearer's first film in two years (following Romeo and Juliet) and her first release following husband Irving G.
- 11/25/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Norma Shearer films Note: This article is being revised and expanded. Please check back later. Turner Classic Movies' Norma Shearer month comes to a close this evening, Nov. 24, '15, with the presentation of the last six films of Shearer's two-decade-plus career. Two of these are remarkably good; one is schizophrenic, a confused mix of high comedy and low drama; while the other three aren't the greatest. Yet all six are worth a look even if only because of Norma Shearer herself – though, really, they all have more to offer than just their top star. Directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the no-expense-spared Marie Antoinette (1938) – $2.9 million, making it one of the most expensive movies ever made up to that time – stars the Canadian-born Queen of MGM as the Austrian-born Queen of France. This was Shearer's first film in two years (following Romeo and Juliet) and her first release following husband Irving G.
- 11/25/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...
- 8/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Crawford Movie Star Joan Crawford movies on TCM: Underrated actress, top star in several of her greatest roles If there was ever a professional who was utterly, completely, wholeheartedly dedicated to her work, Joan Crawford was it. Ambitious, driven, talented, smart, obsessive, calculating, she had whatever it took – and more – to reach the top and stay there. Nearly four decades after her death, Crawford, the star to end all stars, remains one of the iconic performers of the 20th century. Deservedly so, once you choose to bypass the Mommie Dearest inanity and focus on her film work. From the get-go, she was a capable actress; look for the hard-to-find silents The Understanding Heart (1927) and The Taxi Dancer (1927), and check her out in the more easily accessible The Unknown (1927) and Our Dancing Daughters (1928). By the early '30s, Joan Crawford had become a first-rate film actress, far more naturalistic than...
- 8/10/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
With such a definitive and spoiler-happy title as “He Married His Wife” (even with pronouns lending a level of mystery), plot quickly becomes unimportant. Even the contemporary micro-genre this 1940 film fills, the comedy of remarriage, immediately announces T.H. Randall’s (Joel McCrea) eventual reunion with estranged wife Valerie (Nancy Kelly). In order for the couple to come together, both actors must switch between clown and straight-man acts at screwball pace using the supporting cast as colorful props.This outline worked well for Howard Hawks’s Bringing Up Baby (1938) two years earlier, but that had the remarkable advantage of both Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, both known for versatility in anything their studio would throw at them. Conversely, 20th Century Fox put director Roy Del Ruth to the task of He Married His Wife as a workman director capable of identifying the strengths of a trending narrative style for economic opportunity.
- 5/6/2015
- by Zach Lewis
- MUBI
Cecil B. DeMille on the set of Four Frightened People. Image via Doctor Macro.Classical Hollywood director Cecil B. DeMille, subject of a recent retrospective at the UCLA Film & Television Archive, is charged in pages upon pages of film history and criticism with codifying modern Hollywood spectacle, often through the lens of Old Testament biblical narrative. However, bookended by his prolific (and oft revered) silent work, and his late career showmanship are a string of virtually un-regarded films that push the director’s ideology into something bordering Naturalism. Specifically, This Day and Age (1933), Four Frightened People (1934), and Reap the Wild Wind (1942) are wholly uninterested in the Christian mythology that defines his more canonical work (The Ten Commandments, 1923 and 1956, King of Kings [1927], Sign on the Cross [1932], etc.); instead they exploit DeMille's scale and sense of melodrama in order to attempt the rather lofty task of explaining the role of man in...
- 3/10/2015
- by Daniel Watkins
- MUBI
Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...
- 9/4/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Mary Boland movies: Scene-stealing actress has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day on TCM Turner Classic Movies will dedicate the next 24 hours, Sunday, August 4, 2013, not to Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Esther Williams, or Bette Davis — TCM’s frequent Warner Bros., MGM, and/or Rko stars — but to the marvelous scene-stealer Mary Boland. A stage actress who was featured in a handful of movies in the 1910s, Boland came into her own as a stellar film supporting player in the early ’30s, initially at Paramount and later at most other Hollywood studios. First, the bad news: TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" Mary Boland Day will feature only two movies from Boland’s Paramount period: the 1935 Best Picture Academy Award nominee Ruggles of Red Gap, which TCM has shown before, and one TCM premiere. So, no rarities like Secrets of a Secretary, Mama Loves Papa, Melody in Spring,...
- 8/4/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) ultimate movie star showcase – Summer Under the Stars – returns this August for its 11th year as TCM pays tribute to 31 different stars in 31 days.
Sixteen of this year’s stars are being celebrated for the first time duringSummer Under the Stars, including Oscar® winners Joan Fontaine (Aug. 6), Mickey Rooney (Aug. 13), Wallace Beery (Aug. 17), Hattie McDaniel (Aug. 20), Downton Abbey star Maggie Smith (Aug. 22), Charles Coburn (Aug. 24), Martin Balsam(Aug. 27), Shirley Jones (Aug. 28) and Rex Harrison (Aug. 31). Also featured for the first time will be silent heartthrob Ramón Novarro (Aug. 8); legendary French actressCatherine Deneuve (Aug. 12), whose day features six films making their TCM debuts; Ann Blyth (Aug. 16), whose marathon will air on her 85th birthday; and Mary Boland (Aug. 4) and Glenda Farrell (Aug. 29), two outstanding character actresses who never received the recognition they deserved. They will join 15 returning favorites, including Humphrey Bogart (Aug. 1), Doris Day (Aug. 2), Charlton Heston (Aug.
Sixteen of this year’s stars are being celebrated for the first time duringSummer Under the Stars, including Oscar® winners Joan Fontaine (Aug. 6), Mickey Rooney (Aug. 13), Wallace Beery (Aug. 17), Hattie McDaniel (Aug. 20), Downton Abbey star Maggie Smith (Aug. 22), Charles Coburn (Aug. 24), Martin Balsam(Aug. 27), Shirley Jones (Aug. 28) and Rex Harrison (Aug. 31). Also featured for the first time will be silent heartthrob Ramón Novarro (Aug. 8); legendary French actressCatherine Deneuve (Aug. 12), whose day features six films making their TCM debuts; Ann Blyth (Aug. 16), whose marathon will air on her 85th birthday; and Mary Boland (Aug. 4) and Glenda Farrell (Aug. 29), two outstanding character actresses who never received the recognition they deserved. They will join 15 returning favorites, including Humphrey Bogart (Aug. 1), Doris Day (Aug. 2), Charlton Heston (Aug.
- 7/11/2013
- by Melissa Thompson
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Paul Henreid: Actor was ‘dependable’ leading man to Hollywood actresses Paul Henreid, best known as the man who wins Ingrid Bergman’s body but not her heart in Casablanca, is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013. TCM will be showing a couple of dozen movies featuring Henreid, who, though never a top star, was a "dependable" — i.e., unexciting but available — leading man to a number of top Hollywood actresses of the ’40s, among them Bette Davis, Ida Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, Eleanor Parker, Joan Bennett, and Katharine Hepburn. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of Paul Henreid movies to be shown on Turner Classic Movies in July consists of Warner Bros. productions that are frequently broadcast all year long, no matter who is TCM’s Star of the Month. Just as unfortunately, TCM will not present any of Henreid’s little-seen supporting performances of the ’30s, e.
- 7/3/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Leo McCarey's 1935 Ruggles of Red Gap gets my vote for the most patriotic American movie ever made. It is purely, beautifully what it appears to be: a comedy about a man forced to take a crash course in American manners and principles who, in the way of many immigrants, gradually comes to love and appreciate the place more deeply than some natives. Ironically, this valentine to the U.S. has been available chiefly in a Region 2 import DVD with permanent French subtitles. But now a 35-millimeter print is getting a run at the Film Forum from April 4-10, ahead of its dual-format release by the U.K.'s Masters of Cinema.
The fish-out-of-water tale concerns valet Marmaduke Ruggles (Charles Laughton), whose employer, Lord Burnstead (Roland Young) loses him in a poker game to Egbert Floud (Charles Ruggles, in a cute coincidence). Floud is a brayingly rustic American millionaire whose...
The fish-out-of-water tale concerns valet Marmaduke Ruggles (Charles Laughton), whose employer, Lord Burnstead (Roland Young) loses him in a poker game to Egbert Floud (Charles Ruggles, in a cute coincidence). Floud is a brayingly rustic American millionaire whose...
- 4/4/2012
- MUBI
Paulette Goddard, Modern Times Paulette Goddard on TCM Part I: Modern Times, Reap The Wild Wind I've never watched Alexander Korda's British-made An Ideal Husband, a 1948 adaptation (by Lajos Biro) of Oscar Wilde's play, but it should be at least worth a look. The respectable cast includes Michael Wilding, Diana Wynyard, C. Aubrey Smith, Hugh Williams, Constance Collier, and Glynis Johns. George Cukor's film version of Clare Boothe Luce's hilarious The Women ("officially" adapted by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin) is definitely worth numerous looks; once or twice or even three times isn't/aren't enough to catch the machine-gun dialogue spewed forth by the likes of Goddard, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford, Mary Boland, Phyllis Povah, Lucile Watson, et al. A big hit at the time, The Women actually ended up in the red because of its high cost. Norma Shearer, aka The Widow Thalberg, was the nominal star; curiously,...
- 8/2/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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