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William Holden was an Oscar-winning performer who starred in dozens of movies, remaining active until his untimely death in 1981. But how many of his titles remain classics? Let's take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born on April 17, 1918, Holden made his film debut with a starring role in the boxing drama "Golden Boy" (1939) when he was just 21 years old. Though his career lagged for the next decade, he came roaring back with Billy Wilder's Hollywood noir "Sunset Boulevard" (1950), playing a struggling screenwriter who becomes involved with a fading, delusional silent film star (Gloria Swanson). The role brought him his first Oscar nomination as Best Actor.

He joined the winner's circle just three years later with a Best Actor victory for Wilder's "Stalag 17" (1953), which cast him as a cynical American Pow who's suspected of being a German informant during WWII.

It took...

As one of the most narratively rich and visually impactful genres in cinema, war movies often resonate with viewers through impressive technical design, well-executed action and memorable characters. Moreover, the audience’s engagement through a war film’s complex characters oftentimes heightens the combat elements and the emotional facets. At the same time, the actors who bring these important characters to life do a wonderful job of capturing the narrative’s tone, where many of these stars can refer to similar military experiences.

As one of the most integral and deadly aspects of human history, war demonstrates the harsh realities of humanity and also reveals a sense of duty from the soldiers who aim to fight for a noble cause. In this instance, several Hollywood stars have joined the military, as well as served in war, and upon making the jump to acting, these performers have brought depth to a...

Martin Scorsese's 1990 crime masterpiece "Goodfellas" is one of the finest gangster movies ever made and has the award shelf to prove it. Still, despite its impressive six Academy Award nominations, the most esteemed awards of the industry largely avoided the mob epic -- except for one particular golden statuette.

Joe Pesci held the fort at the 1991 Academy Awards ceremony with his Best Actor in a Supporting Role Oscar win for his amazing turn as the volatile Tommy DeVito, the wildest card in a movie full of wild cards. He became an Oscar-winning actor with his signature cool intact. However, unlike his character -- who, as his iconic "I'm funny how?" scene shows, is extremely verbose at most times -- the actor chose to keep his speech short and sweet, uttering only five words as he took the stage to receive the golden statuette. "It's my privilege. Thank you," Pesci said before exiting the stage.

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, a prisoner of war is any person captured or interned by a belligerent power during war. In the strictest sense, it is applied only to members of regularly organized armed forces, but by broader definition, it has also included guerrillas, civilians who take up arms against an enemy openly, or noncombatants associated with a military force.

Prisoner of War films have consistently been a popular and acclaimed subgenre of war movies. In the 1950s and 1960s, Hollywood prisoner-of-war movies reached the apex of their popularity thanks to films such as Stalag 17, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and The Great Escape. Japanese auteurs such as Masaki Kobayashi and Nagisa Ōshima directed The Human Condition and Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, two iconic works within the prisoner-of-war genre. French filmmakers Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson made significant contributions to the prisoner-of-war genre through their films The Grand Illusion...

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In 1953, Billy Wilder scored a critical and commercial success with his film adaptation of Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski's stage play "Stalag 17" (one of his 14 best films according to /Film). Set in a World War II Pow camp behind Nazi enemy lines, the movie is a rambunctious account of how imprisoned soldiers misbehave and attempt to make their captors' lives miserable. They're also ever on the verge of hatching a new escape plan, though they wind up having a rat in their ranks who complicates their efforts.

Given that World War II was a desperately bloody affair on both the European and Pacific fronts as the Allies fought to save civilization from the clutches of genocidal vermin, you might not think it appropriate for artists to find humor anywhere within the conflict. But the ability to laugh when...

From Catch-22 to Good Morning, Vietnam, there are plenty of great movies that balance compelling character drama with incisive dark humor as effectively as Mash. Most war movies, like Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, and The Deer Hunter, offer bleak, harrowing accounts of the horrors of warfare and the devastating psychological toll it takes. But there are plenty of filmmakers who have used the inherent absurdity of warfare to satirize geopolitics and human nature, like Stanley Kubrick with his Cold War-era farce Dr. Strangelove or Ivan Reitman with his lighthearted buddy comedy Stripes.

Robert Altmans transgressive comedy blockbuster Mash and the ensuing hit TV adaptation both showed audiences how to laugh at the pain of war. Altmans film used its Korean War setting as a timely parallel to the then-ongoing Vietnam War, and the TV show used a workplace sitcom set in a war zone to depict triumphs of the...

“Slow Horses” star Gary Oldman is the frontrunner to win Best Drama Actor at the upcoming Emmys. Oldman earned his first and only Oscar six years ago for his portrayal of World War II-era British prime minister Winston Churchill in “Darkest Hour.” That win was sandwiched between two other lead bids for “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2012) and “Mank” (2021). His sole Emmy nomination to date came in 2001 for his guest appearance in the two-part seventh season finale of “Friends”; he lost to Derek Jacobi (“Frasier”).

On Apple TV+’s “Slow Horses,” which is based on a series of novels by Mick Herron, Oldman plays Jackson Lamb, a particularly uncouth MI5 officer saddled with the responsibility of supervising a group of service rejects. This constitutes his very first regular role on a continuing series and his first live action TV performance at all in over two decades.

Oldman would be the 12th...

Billy Wilder was the six-time Oscar winner who left behind a series of classically quotable features from Hollywood’s Golden Age, crafting sharp witted and darkly cynical stories that blended comedy and pathos in equal measure. Let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Wilder was born to a family of Austrian Jews in 1906. After working as a journalist, he developed an interest in filmmaking and collaborated on the silent feature “People on Sunday” (1929) with fellow rookies Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer. With the rise of Adolph Hitler, Wilder fled to Paris, where he co-directed the feature “Mauvaise Graine” (1934). Tragically, his mother, stepfather and grandmother all died in the Holocaust.

After moving to Hollywood, Wilder enjoyed a successful career as a screenwriter, earning Oscar nominations for penning 1939’s “Ninotchka” and 1941’s “Hold Back the Dawn” and “Ball of Fire.” He...

So, since we’re deep into the holiday season (the biggie is just ten days away), what better time to revisit some old friends? And it really has been a long stretch, actually more than twenty years. That’s quite a gap between sequels, especially in animation where franchises seem to abound almost annually. Yes, the decades set this flick apart, but also its style. It’s not drawn at the old “light-desk’ nor is fashioned from pixels via an army of computers. This piece would truly be considered “old school’ as it returns to the techniques of “stop-motion animation”, which has been a cinema staple for over a hundred years. These days it’s mainly employed in the service of “selling” in TV commercials or the occasional TV special. But these wacky “wizards of clay” at Aardman (the main characters are molded and sculpted) are masters of this time-consuming...

It's hard to believe it's been 70 years since Fred Zinneman's "From Here to Eternity" came out. Not that we were all there of course, but time has been really kind to the all-star, Best Picture-winning drama. Unlike many of the rah-rah war films emerging from America during and post-World War II, "From Here to Eternity" argues not that war is hell — since most of the movie takes place during peace time — but that men, even in the army, are subconsciously determined to make life hell whether there's a war on or not.

Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster, and Frank Sinatra star as soldiers stationed in Hawaii immediately prior to World War II, whose stubborn pride and barely contained insecurities lead directly to many avoidable tragedies. Clift plays Private Prewitt, a formerly promising boxer who refuses to box again after accidentally blinding a fellow soldier, and endures criminal abuse just because...

William Holden may have won his only Academy Award for Billy Wilder’s “Stalag 17,” but he wasn’t the first choice to play Sefton, the cynical sergeant who is a one-man black market at a German Pow camp. Originally, Charlton Heston was going to headline the film. Heston was red-hot at the time coming off his flashy starring role in Cecil B. DeMille’s Oscar winning 1952 circus epic “The Great Show on Earth.” But as Wilder and co-writer Edwin Blum were working on the script for the film, which premiered on July 1, 1953 in New York and two weeks later in Los Angeles, the character became darker and more disparaging; They realized Heston wasn’t right for the part

The AFI catalog noted that supposedly Wilder went to Kirk Douglas who had starred in Wilder’s 1951 “Ace in the Hole,” a masterpiece that flopped badly when released. After he turned...

Once again claiming a centerpiece slot at the Annecy Animation Festival, this year’s Netflix’s animation showcase teased upcoming title “Leo” with an intro from Adam Sandler, drew buzz for series like “Blue Eye Samurai” with a stirring display, and offered an extended behind the scenes peak at “Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget” with the creative team in tow.

Taking the stage to a warm welcome, Aardman co-founder Peter Lord, producer Leyla Hobart and the film’s director Sam Fell world premiered 12 minutes of fowl footage and shared technical details about a long-awaited sequel set to hatch on December 15 – the same end-of-year perch where Netflix placed “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.”

“Dawn of the Nugget” picks up twelve (screen) years after the first film, and in the intervening decade Ginger and Rocky (now voiced by Thandiwe Newton and Zachary Levi) have had Molly (Bella Ramsey). We meet the...

Since making his screen debut at age eight opposite his father, Lloyd Bridges, on TV’s “Sea Hunt,” Jeff Bridges has enjoyed an acting career that now spans a whopping 65 years. His resume mainly consists of film roles, but he has occasionally ventured back to the small screen, most recently as the star of “The Old Man.” Having already picked up Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for his performance on the FX series, he is naturally one of the strongest contenders for this year’s Best Drama Actor Emmy. If his likely bid results in a victory, the Best Actor Oscar winner will join a distinguished group of leading men who were lauded by the film and then TV academies.

Bridges earned his first and only Oscar 13 years ago for his portrayal of recovering alcoholic country singer Bad Blake in “Crazy Heart.” He had previously...

It’s no big deal these days when veteran film stars appear on the small screen such as Harrison Ford, who headlines two vastly different series this season, the hard-hitting Western “1923” on Paramount + and the Apple TV +’s comedy “Shrinking.” And two-time Oscar-winner Robert De Niro is set to star in his first TV series “Zero Day” on Netflix. But 50 years ago, it was major news when stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood took the plunge into the small screen waters.

Four-time Oscar-winning legend Katharine Hepburn made her TV debut in ABC’s acclaimed version of Tennessee Williams’ 1944 classi play “The Glass Menagerie.” The drama, which catapulted Williams to fame, reunited Kate with her “The Lion in Winter” director Anthony Harvey. She won an Oscar under his guidance for the 1968 “Lion,” and she earned an Emmy nomination for her haunting turn as Amanda in “Glass Menagerie.” The...

Having already won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for his portrayal of Elvis Presley in “Elvis,” Austin Butler is on a solid path to triumphing on his first Oscar nomination. His film, which covers the entirety of the titular rock star’s two-decade career, boasts a talented cast that includes past Oscar winner Tom Hanks, who collected back-to-back Best Actor trophies for “Philadelphia” (1994) and “Forrest Gump” (1995). He missed out on a supporting bid for “Elvis,” but if Butler clinches the lead award, Hanks will become the 15th man to have acted in a film that won the same Oscar he previously received.

Hanks has a total of five Best Actor nominations to his name, with the three unsuccessful ones having come for his work in “Big” (1989), “Saving Private Ryan” (1999), and “Cast Away” (2001). Until Butler was recognized for “Elvis,” Hanks had never appeared in a film for which someone...

Richard Burton was an Old Hollywood legend, and though he was nominated for many Oscars, he never actually won one. Burton was already an accomplished dramatist from his time in the theater when he made his feature film debut in 1949, and it was clear from the start that he had star power. Only three years after his big screen debut, Burton was nominated for his first Academy Award, and his illustrious career would see him rake in several Golden Globes and BAFTA Awards. Even in the theater, Burton was a star player, and he was rewarded with a Tony Award among other theatrical accolades.

Despite a career that put him at the top of Hollywood's upper echelon, the Academy Award eluded him over his five decades in the business. Though Burton wasn't the only Hollywood legend to never win an Oscar, his impressive body of work was shockingly unrecognized by the Academy,...

When it comes to prisoner of war stories, few are as remarkable as "The Great Escape." During World War II, the inmates of Stalag Luft III in modern-day Poland embarked on a grand plan to dig not just one but three tunnels out of the camp. The goal was to bust out over 200 men and cause disruption to the Nazi war effort by tying up as many resources as possible trying to recapture them. It was no easy task, however, as the camp was specially designed to be escape-proof: the huts were raised above the ground to deter digging and built on sandy earth to make any efforts to disperse hundred tons of soil excavated from the tunnels obvious to the guards.

Nevertheless, the team, overseen by "Big X" Roger Bushell and his escape committee, largely made up of British servicemen and others from around the Commonwealth, displayed remarkable ingenuity...

After a 15 months delay, the 74th annual Tony Awards honoring the best of Broadway will be held September 26 on CBS and Paramount +. And there a lot of familiar faces expected at the ceremony at the Winter Garden Theatre including six-time Tony winner Audra McDonald, who is nominated for the revival of “Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune”; Jane Alexander, who won her first Tony Award 52 years ago for “The Great White Hope” and contends for “Grand Horizons”; and 90-year-old Lois Smith, who made her Broadway debut nearly 70 years ago, is up for “The Inheritance.”

The Tony Awards first ceremony, held April 6 1947 at the Grand Ballroom of the famed Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City, was a vastly different affair. Awards were handed out in only eight categories. Producer, director and Tony founder Brock Pemberton was the host of the evening which was broadcast on Wor and Mutual Network radio stations.

The always delightful Doctor Z hangs with hosts Josh Olson and Joe Dante while discussing a few of his favorite monkey movies.

Dr. Z – Tmtmm Pod Mentions

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Planet of the Apes (1968) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Beneath The Planet of the Apes (1970) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Escape From The Planet of the Apes (1971)

Battle For The Planet of the Apes (1973) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

Every Which Way But Loose (1978)

Any Which Way You Can (1980)

The Godfather Part II (1974) – Katt Shea’s trailer commentary

Schindler’s List (1993)

Godzilla Vs. Kong (2021)

King Kong Vs. Godzilla (1962) – John Landis’s trailer commentary

King Kong (1933)

Conan The Barbarian (1982)

Godzilla (1954) – Don Coscarelli’s trailer commentary

Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

Stalag 17 (1953)

In The Heat Of The Night (1967) – Michael Schlesinger’s trailer commentary

King Kong Escapes (1967)

Murders In The Rue Morgue (1932)

The Sorrow And The Pity (1972)

My Octopus Teacher (2020)

It Came From Beneath The Sea...

Recently, short Best Actor-nominated performances have been scarce at the Oscars. The average screen time of the past decade’s nominees is over 80 minutes, and only a handful of them have not reached one hour. Still, performances that fall under 60 minutes make up nearly one third of the category’s nominees, with plenty boasting much less time. Here is a look at the 10 shortest of all (and here are the 10 shortest winners):

10. Humphrey Bogart (“The Caine Mutiny”)

28 minutes, 22 seconds (22.79% of the film)

Bogart’s third and final Best Actor nomination came in 1955 for his portrayal of tyrannical Naval commander Philip Queeg. Though he is absent from the first quarter of the film and appears on screen for less than 30 minutes, he was classified as a lead. In the decades since, several actors have also been placed in the lead category for relatively short villainous roles, including Michael Douglas (“Wall Street...

“These are not tablets from the mountain,” Paramount Pictures Chairman Jim Gianopulos told me earlier this morning in explaining how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences went about creating new standards of inclusion and representation for entry in to the Best Picture race. The controversial new requirements, set to take full effect in 2024, are actually the result he says of taking a wide-ranging pulse of the industry. “This was discussed with the industry specifically to get their input and to make sure people embraced them. And that meant all the studios, all the independent companies, all the guilds, all the players, all the stakeholders in the industry to have their input and to help them understand the intention which was to move from everybody’s best intentions to objectivity and progress.”

Gianopulos, who also serves as Treasurer of the Academy, co-chaired with producer DeVon Franklin the committee that...

John Ericson, a star of Hollywood’s Golden Age who appeared in multiple MGM films and in the 1960s TV show “Honey West,” died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of pneumonia on Sunday. He was 93.

Born Joseph Meibes in Dusseldorf, Germany, Ericson emigrated with his family to the United States to escape the Nazis as they rose to power. Ericson trained in acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York and soon appeared in the original production of “Stalag 17” in 1951.

Shortly after that, Ericson signed a contract with MGM and made his cinematic debut alongside Pier Angeli in “Teresa,” playing a World War II veteran struggling to cope with post-war life after marrying a woman he met in Italy. He continued to take on supporting roles in MGM films through the ’50s, starring alongside stars like Elizabeth Taylor in “Rhapsody,” Spencer Tracy in “Bad Day at Black Rock,...

John Ericson, who starred alongside Anne Francis on TV's Honey West and with Spencer Tracy in Bad Day at Black Rock and with Angela Lansbury in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, has died. He was 93.

Ericson died Sunday of pneumonia in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he had been living since the mid-1990s, a family spokesman said.

Ericson appeared on Broadway in the original production 1951 of Stalag 17, directed by José Ferrer, and he made his film debut in Teresa (1951), directed by Fred Zinnemann. Three years later, he starred with Elizabeth Taylor in Rhapsody (1954).

Ericson played "Man Friday" Sam ...

John Ericson, who starred alongside Anne Francis on TV's Honey West and with Spencer Tracy in Bad Day at Black Rock and with Angela Lansbury in Bedknobs and Broomsticks, has died. He was 93.

Ericson died Sunday of pneumonia in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he had been living since the mid-1990s, a family spokesman said.

Ericson appeared on Broadway in the original production 1951 of Stalag 17, directed by José Ferrer, and he made his film debut in Teresa (1951), directed by Fred Zinnemann. Three years later, he starred with Elizabeth Taylor in Rhapsody (1954).

Ericson played "Man Friday" Sam ...

A never ending mission to save the world featuring Ron Perlman, Peter Ramsey, James Adomian, Will Menaker, and Blaire Bercy from the Hollywood Food Coalition.

Please support the Hollywood Food Coalition. Text “Give” to 323.402.5704 or visit https://hofoco.org/donate!

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Karado: The Kung Fu Flash a.k.a. Karado: The Kung Fu Cat a.k.a. The Super Kung Fu Kid (1974)

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946)

Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (1939)

Nobody’s Fool (1994)

The Hustler (1961)

Elmer Gantry (1960)

Mean Dog Blues (1978)

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

Mona Lisa (1986)

The Crying Game (1992)

The Hairdresser’s Husband (1990)

Ridicule (1996)

Man on the Train (2002)

The Girl on the Bridge (1999)

Pale Flower (1964)

Out of the Past (1947)

The Lunchbox (2013)

Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

The Last Boy Scout (1991)

Raw Deal (1986)

Commando (1985)

The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

The Last Man On Earth (1964)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers...

For this week’s home media releases, we have killer superheroes, prehistoric creatures, Frankenstein by way of Hammer, Anjelica Huston as a witch, the final farewell to Rick Grimes, and more on tap. Kino Lorber is keeping busy this Tuesday with several new Blu-rays, including 4D Man, Dinosaurs! and Billy the Kid vs. Dracula, and Scream Factory is releasing the recent indie horror flick I Trapped the Devil and more Hammer genre goodness with Horror of Frankenstein as well. Another film I’m very excited to see hitting Blu is The Witches from the Warner Archive Collection, and William Friedkin’s Cruising is getting the special edition treatment from Arrow Video.

If you missed it in theaters, Brightburn will arrive on various formats this week, and for those of you who want to enjoy Rick Grimes’ final moments from this past season of The Walking Dead, you’ll get your...

Billy Wilder would’ve celebrated his 113th birthday on June 22, 2019. The six-time Oscar winner left behind a series of classically quotable features from Hollywood’s Golden Age, crafting sharp witted and darkly cynical stories that blended comedy and pathos in equal measure. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Wilder was born to a family of Austrian Jews in 1906. After working as a journalist, he developed an interest in filmmaking and collaborated on the silent feature “People on Sunday” (1929) with fellow rookies Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer. With the rise of Adolph Hitler, Wilder fled to Paris, where he co-directed the feature “Mauvaise Graine” (1934). Tragically, his mother, stepfather and grandmother all died in the Holocaust.

SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History

After moving to Hollywood, Wilder enjoyed a successful career as a screenwriter,...

William Holden would’ve celebrated his 101st birthday on April 17, 2019. The Oscar-winning performer starred in dozens of movies, remaining active until his untimely death in 1981. But how many of his titles remain classics? In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 15 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1918, Holden made his film debut with a starring role in the boxing drama “Golden Boy” (1939) when he was just 21 years old. Though his career lagged for the next decade, he came roaring back with Billy Wilder‘s Hollywood noir “Sunset Boulevard” (1950), playing a struggling screenwriter who becomes involved with a fading, delusional silent film star (Gloria Swanson). The role brought him his first Oscar nomination as Best Actor.

SEEOscar Best Actor Gallery: Every Winner in Academy Award History

He joined the winner’s circle just three years later with a Best Actor victory for Wilder...

Richard Erdman, known among classic film buffs for the war dramedy “Stalag 17” but remembered by millennials for his work on “Community” as Greendale’s smart-alecky Leonard Rodriguez, died Saturday. He was 93.

Film historian Alan K. Rode broke the news on Twitter Saturday, stating simply, “Goodbye pal. Dick Erdman 1925-2019.” No additional information on his passing were given.

Erdman won over a new generation with his debut in “Community”‘s fifth episode “Advanced Criminal Law.” During one of his custom end-of-episode speeches, Joel McHale’s Jeff Winger declared that everyone at Greendale was nuts, to which Leonard yelled from the school’s swimming pool, “Not me!”

Also Read: Jed Allan, 'Days of Our Lives' and 'Beverly Hills, 90210' Actor, Dies at 84

“Oh, come on, Leonard. If you’re gonna argue with me, put on a bathing suit,” said Jeff, to which Leonard only replied “Busted!”

Over the course of the series,...

Richard Erdman, a film and TV actor who made a long career as an affable sidekick and character actor, has died. He was 93 and no cause of death was given.

An Oklahoma native, Erdman was the consummate secondary player. His venues ranged from the original Twilight Zone, where he played a man with a timepiece that could freeze the world, to Fred Zinneman’s The Men, where he played an easy-going paralyzed veteran who helps Marlon Brando adjust to life as a paraplegic.

Other notable roles by Erdman included his stint as an alcoholic ex-Marine in Cry Danger, and Billy Wilder’s Stalag 17, where he played a barracks chief.

Erdman moved to Los Angeles in 1941, enrolling in Hollywood High School. He was offered a Warner Bros. contract and appeared in Mr. Skeffington and later as Scooper Nolan in Janie (1944). He made 30 films at Warners, including an appearance in The Time of Your Life...

Character actor Richard Erdman, known to contemporary audiences as perpetual student Leonard on “Community,” who also had significant roles for more than seven decades in movies and TV shows such as “The Twilight Zone” and “Stalag 17,” has died. He was 93.

His friend, film historian Alan K. Rode, reported his death on Twitter.

On “Community,” Erdman was one of a group of elderly students, known as the “Hipsters” for their hip replacements, who was often told to “Shut up, Leonard!”

“Community” star Joel McHale paid tribute to Erdman on Twitter. “Such a good & funny man. We’ll miss you ‘Leonard,'” he said.

Fellow “Community” actor Yvette Nicole Brown also took to Twitter, writing, “I knew the day we’d have to say goodbye to this lovely man would come sooner than any of us were ready. But knowing that doesn’t make it any easier. #RichardErdman was Joy walking.

Richard Erdman, the mirthful character actor who stood out on the big screen in The Men, Cry Danger and Stalag 17 and then on the sitcom "Community," has died. He was 93.

Erdman, who as a teenager so impressed legendary director Michael Curtiz that he was quickly signed to a contract at Warner Bros., died Saturday, film historian Alan K. Rode reported. No other details were immediately available.

The Oklahoma native also is known for starring as the loutish McNulty, who's given a timepiece that can freeze time, in the memorable 1963 The Twilight Zone episode "A Kind of a Stopwatch."

Erdman excelled ...

Richard Erdman, the mirthful character actor who stood out on the big screen in The Men, Cry Danger and Stalag 17 and then on the sitcom Community, has died. He was 93.

Erdman, who as a teenager so impressed legendary director Michael Curtiz that he was quickly signed to a contract at Warner Bros., died Saturday at an assisted living facility in West Hills, California, film historian Alan K. Rode told The Hollywood Reporter. He said Erdman had age-related dementia exacerbated by a recent fall.

The Oklahoma native also is known for starring as the loutish McNulty, who's given a timepiece that can freeze time,...

This article marks Part 4 of the Gold Derby series reflecting on films that contended for the Big Five Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted). With “A Star Is Born” this year on the cusp of joining this exclusive group of Oscar favorites, join us as we look back at the 43 extraordinary pictures that earned Academy Awards nominations in each of the Big Five categories, including the following six films that took home a trio of prizes among the top races.

With a total of 13 nominations, the most of any Oscar contender that year, “From Here to Eternity” (1953) towered over the 26th Academy Awards. At the ceremony, the Fred Zinnemann film dominated, earning eight prizes, including three in the Big Five categories. It earned Best Picture, plus Best Director honors for Zinnemann and Best Adapted Screenplay (Daniel Taradash). While Frank Sinatra and...

Our mini William Holden Centennial celebration continues with Eric Blume...

Picnic, the 1955 film version of William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, came two years after William Holden won his Best Actor Oscar for Stalag 17 and one year after his dashing role in Sabrina. Holden was at the height of his stardom when this film released, and he’s smartly front and center through most of the picture...

Reel-Important People is a monthly column that highlights those individuals in or related to the movies who have left us in recent weeks. Below you'll find names big and small and from all areas of the industry, though each was significant to the movies in his or her own way. Peter Baldwin (1931-2017) - Actor, Director. He appears in the movies Stalag 17, The Ten Commandments, I Married a Monster from Outer Space, The Mattei Affair,The Tin Star and in addition to directing mostly television he helmed the movie Meet Wally Sparks. He died on November 19. (THR) Peter Berling (1934-2017) - German Actor. He co-starred in the Werner Herzog movies Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde and Aguirre, the Wrath of God, as well as Martin...

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Tony Sokol Aug 4, 2019

Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard took the tinsel out of Tinseltown, the gild off the golden boy, and the cover off a forgotten murder.

Movie audiences in the naïve early days of film sometimes didn’t know that somebody had to sit down and write a movie. They thought the actors made it up as they went along. Sunset Boulevard, the 1950 film noir classic directed and co-written by Billy Wilder, did a lot to change that and other myths of old Hollywood--like the real-life murder at the heart of the story.

Sunset Boulevard told an old familiar story. William Holden’s Joe Gillis helps a timid soul named Norma Desmond cross a crowded street on Paramount's back lot. She turns out to be a multimillionaire silent screen icon played by the legendary Gloria Swanson and she leaves him all her money, which she’s already spent,...

(Billy Wilder, 1953; Eureka!, DVD/Blu-ray)

After the dissolution of his lengthy collaboration with producer Charles Brackett at Paramount Studios following one of their greatest successes with Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder became his own producer on what many regard as his finest film, that masterly piece of cynical Americana Ace in the Hole. It proved, however, to be a thundering box-office failure, and he was in urgent need of a popular success to restore his fortunes. He chose to film Stalag 17, a comedy-thriller by Donald Bevan and Edmund Trzcinski, then on its way to completing a triumphant run of 472 performances on Broadway.

Set in a German prisoner-of-war camp for air force sergeants (where the authors had themselves been interned), the play combines a deadly serious plot about a search for a German spy planted among the Americans with a knockabout tale of hungry, frustrated men digging escape tunnels, fighting among themselves,...

Ryan Lambie Dec 2, 2019

We take a look back at 1988's The Naked Gun, its timeless brand of comedy, and Leslie Nielsen's superb performance...

This article comes from Den of Geek UK.

Detective Frank Drebin's outside his Los Angeles police precinct, squeezing off shots into the receding backside of his own car.

How this came to happen almost defies description. Having driven his Ford Crown Victoria into a couple of bins outside the building, Drebin stumbles out, seemingly oblivious to the airbags going off inside. One airbag knocks the car into drive and off the vehicle goes, almost running Drebin over as it rumbles downhill.

As an orchestrated bit of comedy cinema, it's the knockabout equivalent of the famous scene in The Untouchables, where Brian De Palma expertly wrings every drop of suspense from a baby carriage thudding down a flight of stairs at a train station.

On the spur of the moment,...

We take a look back at 1988's The Naked Gun, its timeless brand of comedy, and Leslie Nielsen's superb performance...

Detective Frank Drebin's outside his Los Angeles police precinct, squeezing off shots into the receding backside of his own car.

How this came to happen almost defies description. Having driven his Ford Crown Victoria into a couple of bins outside the building, Drebin stumbles out, seemingly oblivious to the airbags going off inside. One airbag knocks the car into drive and off the vehicle goes, almost running Drebin over as it rumbles downhill.

As an orchestrated bit of comedy cinema, it's the knockabout equivalent of the famous scene in The Untouchables, where Brian De Palma expertly wrings every drop of suspense from a pram thudding down a flight of stairs at a train station.

On the spur of the moment, Drebin comes to the conclusion that there's a criminal...

It's a Criterion Christmas! I'll be using Meeting the Criterion as a convenient way of reminding you of many of the Criterion Collections great releases from the last year. Whether your Criterion Collection is organized by spine number, title or director there's a good chance you'll see some releases that are bound to end up on your must remember to get list. First up I'm looking at Riot in Cell Block 11. Made in 1954 this is a treasure trove for classic cinema lovers . You get performances by a large number of highly recognizable character actors. Neville Brand the heavy in countless westerns and film noires like D.O. A. (1950) and great classics like Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) and Stalag 17 (1953),  just shines here as the leader of...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

By Anjelica Oswald

Managing Editor

Oscar buzz continues to follow Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher after its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May and its screenings at various film festivals, including the Telluride, Toronto and New York film fests. The film is set to close AFI Fest Thursday and open in Theaters on Friday. Sony Pictures Classics will be pushing for three of its stars to land Oscar nominations: Channing Tatum and Steve Carell for lead actor and Mark Ruffalo for supporting. If the film was to score all three nominations, it would be one of 15 films to land that many actor nominations and the first film since 1991’s Bugsy.

The biographical crime drama about Benjamin Siegel, the infamous gangster known as Bugsy, landed Warren Beatty a lead actor nomination for his role as Bugsy and supporting actor nominations for Harvey Keitel and Ben Kingsley. None of the actors won.

As we continue with the list, we still see a lot of World War II, but throw in some World War I and Persian Gulf War, too. While some of the films in this portion of the list spin the war film into something a little more ingenious, it doesn’t completely rule out the idea of a patriotic call to arms film. We also see a few more foreign language films on the list, as well as some Oscar winners for their work. Without further ado, let’s light this candle.

courtesy of toutlecine.com

30. Black Book (2006)

Directed by: Paul Verhoeven

Conflict: World War II

In 2008, the Dutch public named it the greatest Dutch film ever made. Who am I to argue? A surprisingly complete film from a director who has Showgirls and Hollow Man under his belt (and Starship Troopers and Robocop…I can’t be too hard...

A resounding flop upon its release, which saw it recut and rereleased as The Big Carnival without any greater success, Criterion remasters Billy Wilder’s Ace in the Hole for Blu-ray with a beautifully packaged presentation. A darkly prophetic nightmare concerning the carnivalesque power of the media, the 1951 feature is decades ahead of its time, and received a resoundingly sour reception upon initial release. Hot off the success from his 1950 hit, Sunset Boulevard, it would take the box office return of 1953’s Stalag 17 to recuperate Wilder’s studio graces.

Alternating between cocksure aggression and derisive self-loathing, smarmy journalist Chuck Tatum (Kirk Douglas) struts into the office of Albuquerque’s local newspaper where he proceeds to demean a Native American employee and a ridicule the secretary fior her framed and self-embroidered mantra, “Tell the Truth.” It’s immediately clear that Tatum considers the local paper something akin to a cess...

Sabrina

Written by Billy Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor, and Ernest Lehman

Directed by Billy Wilder

USA, 1954

The past few weeks have been good for Humphrey Bogart on Blu-ray. The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen were recently rereleased and assembled for the Best of Bogart Collection, and now, Sabrina, one of the legendary star’s final films, has received its first American appearance on the format. Perhaps more importantly, if total number of titles available on Blu-ray is the basis for judgment, Sabrina also marks one of disappointingly few Billy Wilder titles available in the remastered form. That the film also stars the radiant Audrey Hepburn and the remarkably versatile William Holden confirms that the release is worth commending.

From about 1944, with Double Indemnity, to Irma la Douce in 1963, Wilder had an astonishing run in Hollywood, and Sabrina came roughly in the middle of that period.

Jean Kent: British film star and ‘Last of the Gainsborough Girls’ dead at 92 (photo: actress Jean Kent in ‘Madonna of the Seven Moons’) News outlets and tabloids — little difference these days — have been milking every little drop from the unexpected and violent death of The Fast and the Furious franchise actor Paul Walker, and his friend and business partner Roger Rodas this past Saturday, November 30, 2013. Unfortunately — and unsurprisingly — apart from a handful of British publications, the death of another film performer on that same day went mostly underreported. If you’re not "in" at this very moment, you may as well have never existed. Jean Kent, best known for her roles as scheming villainesses in British films of the 1940s and Gainsborough Pictures’ last surviving top star, died on November 30 at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds, England. The previous day, she had suffered a fall at her...

Laurence Anyways I do have a copy of this one and it's a film that just might make my top ten this year. I saw it at the Cannes Film Festival last year and it served as my introduction to writer/director Xavier Dolan and having now seen all four of his feature films I'd definitely say this is his best. I really hope more people find the opportunity to see not only this film, but everything else he has to offer.

Stalag 17 I can't remember when I watched Billy Wilder's Stalag 17, but I enjoyed it very much and would love to return to this black comedy meets action film centered in a WWII Pow camp. Starring the likes of William Holden and Otto Preminger, this flick won Holden the Best Actor Oscar in 1954 and is one I would recommend you check out. I don't have any details on this Blu-ray,...

In 1953, From Here to Eternity took the world by storm, going on to win eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. Not a bad haul for a film based on a book that was considered quite controversial at the time due to language and its painting of the military in a bad light. To celebrate its 60th anniversary, the film is being given an upgrade to Blu-Ray so that a whole new generation can continue enjoying it for years to come.

That being said, it’s rather curious to see how the film holds up nowadays. It’s been over ten years since I first saw it, with my vague memories of it being mostly positive, but was there a reason that I didn’t see it again for so long? Well, this brand new edition is the perfect opportunity to go back and revisit what...

As of last month, The Great Escape is now fifty years old. First released in 1963, John Sturges’ World War II epic depicted the escape of seventy six airmen from the Stalag Luft III prisoner of war camp in 1944.

Based loosely on Paul Brickhill’s book, which chronicled the actual happenings at the camp, the film garnered significant critical acclaim and earned three times its budget at the box office, and has since become the quintessential film in the prisoner-of-war genre (which includes other greats such as Stalag 17 and (for part of it at least) The Bridge on the River Kwai).

As the BBC gears up to produce a television dramatisation of the escape, let us have a nostalgic look back at several key elements of the film (which happens to be a favourite of mine, as well as Quentin Tarantino) over the next few pages. Be wary of spoilers,...

It's not a huge week for new DVD and Blu-ray releases, but Amazon has a couple deals going you may be interested in. First there is The Godfather Collection on Blu-ray for only $24.73 (buy it here) and The Twilight Zone: The Complete Series is also on sale on both DVD and Blu-ray, you can check out both right here. The Blu-ray set is 64% off at $143.99 and the DVD set is 62% off at $113.99. Finally, there are several Drewamworks animated titles on sale including Kung Fu Panda, Puss in Boots, How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek, Rise of the Guardians, Megamind and the Madagascar films. You can browse the selection right here. The deal with these is along with the purchase you get a $7.50 Hollywood Movie Money certificate to see Turbo. Other than that, here are today's new releases and the latest titles I've added to the DVD and Blu-ray release date calendar.