It took three days to shoot the scene in which Judy Garland performs Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin’s haunting and highly unusual (in form) torch song ‘The Man That Got Away’, for the 1954 version of ‘A Star Is Born’. Above is a nifty split screen demonstrating two of the
The famous (in her day) nightclub hostess/chanteuse Texas Guinan was captured on film on several occasions, the most elaborate of which was a feature she starred in called ‘Queen Of The Nightclubs’. Shot in 1928, it was likely the best and most detailed view of the true look, tone and
Yesterday I posted Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s screen tests for ‘The Godfather’, in which we also got a view of the young, then-fatso Francis Coppola directing. Today we move backwards thirty-five or so years for a glimpse of Paulette Goddard’s test for the role of Scarlett O’Hara in…oh,
This is a fascinating little fragment of footage showing Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s screen tests for ‘The Godfather’. Pacino got the role of Sonny–we see Coppola giving him some direction as well–and De Niro was passed up for Sonny in favor of James Caan. In my not so
“The April Fools” (1969) may not have left any mark on cinema history but it did bring to life two of Burt Bacharach’s best songs, one of which is the title song. The film stars a very Jack Lemmony Jack Lemmon and an absurdly gorgeous Catherine Deneuve as two people
Yesterday I posted about the Steve McQueen 1971 race car epic ‘LeMans’. But before that film was made there was John Frankenheimer’s ‘Grand Prix’ (1966), a movie that from the looks of the trailer is better than the McQueen movie. Having said that, I should know better to base an
I began last week by confidently stating in the first of several posts about race-car driving that I found Motorsports the silliest sport next to tractor-pulls known to man. I’ve never done a 180 on a subject as quickly as I have on race-car driving over the past week. I
I hereby nominate the above rendition of “Ol’ Man River” as performed by Frank Sinatra as the single most wince-inducing racist musical number ever filmed–and that’s saying a lot given the unfortunate preponderance of blackface minstral numbers on view throughout 1930s and 40s movie musicals. This is the climax to
We close this weeks peculiar byway into the world of competitive race car driving with the silliest bit of stock car racing footage you’ll ever see. It’s a French attempt at the sport and while it sort of looks, acts and sounds like a car race it’s actually a very
Here’s a terrific look at the auto races of the 1920s. There’s a wipe out that’s awfully similar to the terrifying one I posted yesterday which occurred this past weekend, a mere one-hundred years later from the one in today’s video. Aside from the automobiles, the race looks pretty much