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Here’s Why Alfred Hitchcock Never Worked With Blonde Actress Marilyn Monroe (Photo Credit – Wikipedia)

Some directors leave a signature in every frame they shoot. Others are remembered for how they cast and shape their characters. Alfred Hitchcock, the so-called Master of Suspense and one of cinema’s most iconic directors, belonged firmly to the latter group. Among the various patterns that ran through his long career, his repeated choice to cast blonde women in key roles stands out the most. It became a signature of sorts that carried through his films, but more than a stylistic habit, it became something much deeper and, to be honest, more disturbing.

When Hitchcock’s Pattern Became A Habit

According to Far Out Magazine, this was not part of Hitchcock’s playbook from the very beginning. It happened when Madeleine Carroll took on the role of Pamela in The 39 Steps in 1935. The film marked a turning point,...

Arsenic and Old Lace

Blu-ray

Criterion

1941 / 1.33: 1 / 118 Min.

Starring Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane

Written by Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein

Directed by Frank Capra

Almost supernaturally handsome, Mortimer Brewster is quite the catch; a celebrated man about town and theater critic who saves his most acerbic reviews for matrimony, Mortimer’s latest bestseller is a typically curdled diatribe called Mind over Marriage. He’s a tough egg to crack but leave it to his childhood sweetheart, a pretty strawberry blonde named Elaine Harper, to cure Mortimer’s gamophobia—and what better time for a nervous bachelor to get hitched than Halloween?

Their honeymoon is just around the corner but first the newlyweds have family business in Brooklyn, home to Elaine and Mortimer’s childhood haunts. They don’t realize just how haunted; the cozy Brewster homestead has been transformed into a makeshift cemetery where bodies are stored away in...

Acclaimed stuntman and action director extraordinaire Jesse V. Johnson joins us to discuss the U.S. based action films and filmmakers that have influenced him the most.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

On The Waterfront (1954)

Fultah Fisher’s Boarding House (1922)

Undisputed (2002)

Undisputed II: Last Man Standing (2006)

Undisputed III: Redemption (2010)

Boyka: Undisputed (2016)

The Killer Elite (1975)

Convoy (1978)

The Osterman Weekend (1983)

Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Straw Dogs (1971)

The Wild Bunch (1969)

Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995)

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The Birdcage (1996)

Cross of Iron (1977)

Electra Glide in Blue (1973)

Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974)

Easy Rider (1969)

Fail Safe (1964)

The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Ride The High Country (1962)

Major Dundee (1965)

Jinxed! (1982)

Beowulf (2007)

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

The Girl Hunters (1963)

Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

Point Blank (1967)

Falling Down (1993)

M (1951)

M (1931)

The Black Vampire (1953)

The Roaring Twenties (1939)

Scum (1979)

Elephant (1989)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), possibly Joe’s favorite John Ford...

This is my seventh TCM Classic Film Festival. At a certain point, some things become routine – one learns to expect the exhaustion at the dawn of day three (of four), the constant negotiation between personal viewing whims and rare presentations, the way plots and aesthetic choices start to run together, and the suspicion that explaining the draw of such an event to those not immediately inclined to attend it may come across a touch insane. Film festivals are innately demanding experiences, but between the pleasure of its programming, the consolidation of the venues, and the brevity of most of its films’ running times, few make it so easy to watch four, five, six movies in a day. You tell your coworkers on Monday what you did all weekend, and it starts to not make a lot of sense. But somehow, in the midst of it all, the point of it couldn’t be clearer.

Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.

Raymond Massey ca. 1940. Raymond Massey movies: From Lincoln to Boris Karloff Though hardly remembered today, the Toronto-born Raymond Massey was a top supporting player – and sometime lead – in both British and American movies from the early '30s all the way to the early '60s. During that period, Massey was featured in nearly 50 films. Turner Classic Movies generally selects the same old MGM / Rko / Warner Bros. stars for its annual “Summer Under the Stars” series. For that reason, it's great to see someone like Raymond Massey – who was with Warners in the '40s – be the focus of a whole day: Sat., Aug. 8, '15. (See TCM's Raymond Massey movie schedule further below.) Admittedly, despite his prestige – his stage credits included the title role in the short-lived 1931 Broadway production of Hamlet – the quality of Massey's performances varied wildly. Sometimes he could be quite effective; most of the time, however, he was an unabashed scenery chewer,...

Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...

Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock heroine (image: Joseph Cotten about to strangle Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt') (See preceding article: "Teresa Wright Movies: Actress Made Oscar History.") After scoring with The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver, and The Pride of the Yankees, Teresa Wright was loaned to Universal – once initial choices Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland became unavailable – to play the small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. (Check out video below: Teresa Wright reminiscing about the making of Shadow of a Doubt.) Co-written by Thornton Wilder, whose Our Town had provided Wright with her first chance on Broadway and who had suggested her to Hitchcock; Meet Me in St. Louis and Junior Miss author Sally Benson; and Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, Shadow of a Doubt was based on "Uncle Charlie," a story outline by Gordon McDonell – itself based on actual events.

Amazon’s Gold Box Deal of the Day today is Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection Limited Edition Blu-ray for only $98.99, 67% off the $300 retail price. The Collection features 15 iconic films from the acclaimed director’s career including: Saboteur (Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings. 1942/b&w/109 min.), Shadow of a Doubt (Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright. 1943/b&w/108 min.), Rope […]

The post Geek Deal: 67% Off The Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection Limited Edition Blu-ray appeared first on /Film.

I have a curious habit, maybe you have it too, if you are a real movie geek, film fan, cinema addict, what have you.

A certain number of movies that I have seen and loved with all my heart were losers at the box office or were mercilessly slammed by critics, usually both. This doesn’t happen all the time, mind you. I know a bad movie when I see one. But several times I have seen a movie on opening day and loved it so much I was sure it would be a big hit and be loved by critics and film goers, nope, not all the time.

Here then is my own personal and highly eccentric top ten list, with some honorable mentions, of movies that lost out, yet I love them still, many of them desperately, hysterically, madly do I love these films, well anyway… let me tell you about it.

Alfred Hitchcock silent movies added to Unesco UK Memory of the World Register (photo: Ivor Novello in The Lodger) The nine Alfred Hitchcock-directed silent films recently restored by the British Film Institute have been added to the Unesco UK Memory of the World Register, "a list of documentary heritage which holds cultural significance specific to the UK." The nine Hitchcock movies are the following: The Pleasure Garden (1925), The Ring (1927), Downhill / When Boys Leave Home (1927), The Lodger (1927), Easy Virtue (1928), Champagne (1928), The Farmer’s Wife (1928), The Manxman (1929), and Blackmail (1929) — also released as a talkie, Britain’s first. Only one Hitchcock-directed silent remains lost, The Mountain Eagle / Fear o’ God (1926). Most of those movies have little in common with the suspense thrillers Hitchcock would crank out in Britain and later in Hollywood from the early ’30s on. But a handful of his silents already featured elements and themes that would recur in...

Doris Day today Doris Day, who turned 89 last April 24, was a special guest at the Nancy for Frank show — that’s Nancy Sinatra for Frank Sinatra — on SiriusXM Radio channel 71. The Doris Day photo above was posted on Nancy for Frank‘s Facebook page and on the Frank Sinatra Family Forum. (See also: Doris Day photo, with furry friend.) The Doris Day special was aired in two parts in late June 2013. The radio show consisted of Nancy Sinatra chatting with Day, in addition to musical interludes featuring Doris Day songs such as "I’ll String You Along with Me," "But Not for Me," "I’ll See You in My Dreams," and "Hooray for Hollywood," plus two versions of "I Didn’t Know What Time It Was" — one sang by Day, another sang by Frank Sinatra. Doris Day and Frank Sinatra made only movie together, Gordon Douglas’ 1954 musical drama Young at Heart,...

Son of a bitch! George Brent and other Warner Bros. stars forget their lines (photo: George Brent ca. 1940) The Warner Bros. outtakes from the studio’s 1939 and 1940 productions (see below) feature a whole array of movie stars and supporting players not getting things quite right while the cameras were rolling. Perhaps the biggest "star" — i.e., the one featured the most — in the montage is George Brent, who curses right and left after not getting his lines right in several scenes. But not to worry; "son of a bitch" is the strongest exclamation we get to hear. (I’m assuming stronger fare is to be found in the outtakes’ outtakes.) Besides George Brent, the Warner Bros. bloopers montage has Paul Muni joking around while forgetting his lines during the making of We Are Not Alone; Miriam Hopkins having her dramatic moment in The Old Maid ruined by a young maid...

Patty Andrews: Last Surviving member of The Andrews Sisters dead at 94 Patty Andrews, the lead vocalist and last surviving member of the Andrews Sisters musical trio, died of "natural causes" earlier today at her home in the Los Angeles suburb of Northridge, in the San Fernando Valley. Andrews, who was also the youngest sister, was 94. (Photo: The Andrews Sisters: Laverne Andrews, Patty Andrews, Maxene Andrews.) Born in Minnesota into a Greek-Norwegian family, the Andrews Sisters began their show business career in the early ’30s, while both Maxene and Patty were still teenagers. Their first big hit came out in 1938: the English version of the Yiddish song "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" (aka "Bei mir bist du schön"), with lyrics — "To me, you’re grand" — by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin. (The song made into the movies that same year, but Warner Bros. star Priscilla Lane is the one singing it in Love,...

Saboteur

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring Priscilla Lane, Robert Cummings, Norman Lloyd

Hitchcock at war began in earnest with this 1942 thriller, a film rushed like many into production by the proudly patriotic studios, horrified at the sneak attack of Pearl Harbour in December 1941, Saboteur was released a remarkably swift five months later – that’s the efficiency of the studio, assembly line system for you. Hitchcock had already devoted energies to the overseas propaganda effort with his 1940 film Foreign Correspondent, detailing American journalist Joel McCrea’s traversing of a quivering Europe on the cusp of conflict, uncovering a conspiracy of fifth columnists in Britain whose operations plunge the world into global conflict, it was one part Hitchcock learning the ropes of the Studio System with their vastly superior resources, technicians and urge to innovate – see this remarkable shot from the movie for example – as well as his desire to contribute to...

John Garfield on TCM: Humoresque, Four Daughters, We Were Strangers Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Four Daughters (1938) A small-town family's peaceful life is shattered when one daughter falls for a rebellious musician. Dir: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Priscilla Lane, Claude Rains, Jeffrey Lynn, John Garfield. Bw-90 mins. 7:45 Am Blackwell's Island (1939) A reporter gets himself sent to prison to expose a mobster. Dir: William McGann. Cast: John Garfield, Rosemary Lane, Dick Purcell. Bw-71 mins. 9:00 Am They Made Me A Criminal (1939) A young boxer flees to farming country when he thinks he's killed an opponent in the ring. Dir: Busby Berkeley. Cast: John Garfield, Claude Rains, Gloria Dickson. Bw-92 mins. 10:45 Am Dangerously They Live (1942) A doctor tries to rescue a young innocent from Nazi agents. Dir: Robert Florey. Cast: John Garfield, Nancy Coleman, Raymond Massey. Bw-77 mins. 12:15 Pm Pride Of The Marines (1945) A blinded...

John Garfield, Joan Crawford, Humoresque John Garfield is Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" star on Friday, August 5. TCM will be presenting twelve John Garfield movies, in addition to the 2003 documentary The John Garfield Story. There will be no TCM premieres — but don't blame TCM for that. Garfield was a Warner Bros. star and Warners' movies belong to the Time Warner library; in other words, his films are always available. In fact, I believe the only John Garfield movie that has never been shown on TCM is 20th Century Fox's 1950 drama Under My Skin. [John Garfield Movie Schedule.] Much like Warners' James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Errol Flynn, Garfield was a tough guy at a tough studio. Come to think of it, even Warners' women were tough: Bette Davis, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Joan Blondell, Aline MacMahon, Glenda Farrell, and, off screen, Olivia de Havilland and Joan Leslie (both of...

Joanne Siegel, the widow of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and the original model for the Man of Steel's love interest, Lois Lane, has died. Siegel passed away on Saturday, Feb. 12, in Santa Monica, Calif. She was 93. While still a teenager, Joanne (born Jolan Kovacs in Cleveland on Dec. 1, 1917) modeled for Siegel and his partner Joe Shuster. According to the New York Times obit, Lois Lane was inspired by the Torchy Blane character played on-screen mostly by Glenda Farrell in a series of B-movies at Warner Bros. in the late 1930s. Lola Lane, then a Warners contract player along with sisters Priscilla Lane and Rosemary Lane, played Torchy in one single 1938 entry, Torchy Blane in Panama. According to some sources, Lane's name was adopted for the comics' newspaperwoman Lois. The first Superman tales came out that same year. Now, if you look at Glenda Farrell, Lola Lane, or [...]...

Every Sunday, Film School Rejects presents a movie that was made before you were born and tells you why you should like it. This week, Old Ass Movies presents the story of two women who kill old men for charity, their nephew who wants to get married without being sent to prison, his brother who thinks he’s Teddy Roosevelt and his other brother who looks like Boris Karloff and has killed plenty of people himself. Insanity might run in the family, but it’s also the story of the bodies buried in the basement and the one still hanging around the living room. Yes. It’s a comedy. Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) Directed by: Frank Capra Starring: Cary Grant, Priscilla Lane, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, Josephine Hull, Jean Adair Arsenic and Old Lace proves one thing about classic era Hollywood: that a mainstream studio wasn’t always afraid to go a little off-kilter. There...

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A young man goes on the lam for supposed sabotage of an aircraft factory in California where he works during the Second World War. Some immediately judge him innocent, others guilty; though there is one point on which they all agree: to be a saboteur you must surely dress like one.

The ‘saboteur’ in question is Barry Kane (played by Robert Cummings). Kane spends the entire story chased from West Coast to East Coast by law enforcement officials and, eventually, those responsible for his predicament – the real saboteurs, a shadowy group of mostly high society types who dress in top hat and tails and have friends in very high places.

What makes Kane’s escapade interesting in a costume sense is how meaning is prescribed to his primary garment,...

Look up on that marquee. Whose name do you see? László Löwenstein! Then you shake your head and wonder, “Who is László Löwenstein?” To film audiences around the world and until the day he died, he was known as Peter Lorre, one of my favorite actors and sadly not enough people know him apart from the Looney Tunes caricature that, while pretty brilliant, doesn’t show a fraction of his acting ability.

Today is a special day because his birthday is June 26th and he would be a ripe 106 years old. So here at the Criterion Cast, I would like to share with you my top 10 Peter Lorre films that I just absolutely adore. This isn’t a definitive list, so if you have any suggestions yourself, please list them down below in the comments section.

10. The Raven (1963)/ The Comedy of Terrors (1964)

Are these great films? Not at all, to be honest.

The IMDb250. A list of the top 250 films, as ranked by the users of the biggest movie Internet site on the web. It is based upon the ratings provided by the users of The Internet Movie Database, which number into the millions. As such, it’s a perfect representation of the opinions of the movie masses, and arguably the most comprehensive ranking system on the Internet.

It’s because of this that we at HeyUGuys (and in this case, we, is myself and Barry) have decided to set ourselves a project. To watch and review all 250 movies on the list! We’ve frozen the list as of 1st January this year. It’s not as simple as it sounds, as we’ll be watching them in one year, 125 each.

This is our eighteenth update, a rundown of my next five movies watched for the project. Again another week of great...

Actor Norman Lloyd, 95, will discuss his lengthy film and stage career on Wednesday, May 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Hollywood Heritage Museum in the Lasky-DeMille Barn across from the Hollywood Bowl. The evening will include a screening of Matthew Sussman’s documentary Who Is Norman Lloyd?. Lloyd, seen above with Priscilla Lane in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1942 thriller Saboteur (in which Lloyd had the title role), worked with an array of top film and stage names, among them the aforementioned Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Charles Chaplin (Limelight), Jean Renoir (The Southerner), Lewis Milestone (A Walk in the Sun), John Houseman, Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society), and many others. On stage, Lloyd studied with legendary actress Eva Le Gallienne, and [...]...

What better way to start the New Year than by remembering the past? No, not war and assorted catastrophes, but beauty and romance. The clip above features a montage of about two dozen actresses from the studio era. See how many you can recognize. Here’s some assistance: Anne Baxter, Anne Shirley, Claire Bloom, Constance Bennett, Eleanor Parker, Frances Dee, Gail Russell, Janet Gaynor, Jean Arthur, Jean Peters, Joan Bennett, Kathryn Grayson, Laraine Day, Lilli Palmer, Linda Darnell, Lupe Velez, Madeleine Carroll, Margaret Sullavan, Maureen O’Sullivan, Miiko Taka, Norma Shearer, Patricia Neal, Paulette Goddard, Priscilla Lane, Sally Eilers, Teresa Wright. There’s also one I didn’t recognize, wearing a veil over her head. Colleen Gray? Among the included films are — some of those are [...]...

Jane Bryan, who played ingenues in several Warner Bros. productions of the late 1930s, died on April 8 at her home in Pebble Beach, California, following a long illness. She was 90. The Los Angeles-born (on June 11, 1918) Jane O’Brien had her name changed to Jane Bryan after landing a Warners contract in the mid ’30s. Bryan’s most notable role at the studio was as Paul Muni’s mistress in We Are Not Alone (1939), directed by Edmund Goulding. Apart from that, she was usually seen as forgettable sweet young things, supporting Bette Davis in Marked Woman (1937), Kid Galahad (1937), The Sisters (1938), and The Old Maid (1939); Edward G. Robinson in A Slight Case of Murder (1938); and Kay Francis in Confession (1937). Bryan also appeared in the popular B comedies Brother Rat (1938) and Brother Rat and a Baby (1940), playing opposite fellow contract players Priscilla Lane, Wayne Morris, Eddie Albert, Ronald Reagan, and Jane Wyman. Her...