Over the next several weeks a retrospective of the work of the great American director George Stevens is taking place at Film Forum here in New York City. This past Sunday I was able to attend the opening day’s film which was a superb documentary about Stevens made by his
To finish up our week of Gloria Swanson immersion, here’s Gloria’s appearance on Ralph Edwards ‘This Is Your Life’ from 1957. If you’ve never heard of the program the format takes some explaining. The subject was invariably a celebrity of the past and people from the persons distant life were
Today I offer two views of this week’s subject Gloria Swanson in the late 1920s/early 1930s. Above is a little reel that jams together a few obscure but interesting snippets of film–it’s a bit of a hodgepodge but I thought worth including in our loose and free-wheeling survey of La
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_XcR8noJZk The real Gloria Swanson is so different from Norma Desmond, the character she famously portrayed in ‘Sunset Blvd.’, that I’ve constructed an alternate universe explaining the discrepancy. In my alt-reality, Norma Desmond and her younger sister Gloria Desmond were a sister act in Vaudeville and came to Hollywood in
Apropos of yesterday’s post featuring a 1965 interview with Gloria Swanson, here’s a nifty little 22 minute doc about the making of Billy Wilder’s masterpiece. I’ll let the film speak for itself. The only thing missing is a discussion of the film’s original opening, shot but cut after a bad
I just found this interview with the then 66 year old Gloria Swanson, made for French television in 1965. In many ways its real value is to show what a truly deep character actress she was. I say this because the real Swanson could not be less like Norma Desmond,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Roptw1AGp8 I never knew there was a black and white version of ‘The Flintstones’. That’s no doubt because when the show aired in syndication in the 1970s (which is when I saw it) black and white was felt to be undesirable to the children who were watching the show. Far
Above is from a 1965 ‘Flintstones’ episode wherein the children of the Flintstones and Rubbles–Pebbles and Bam-Bam–have their moment in the singer/celebrity spotlight. The song that was chosen for them, ‘Open Up Your Heart (and Let the Sunshine In)’ has a curious history. It was written in 1954 by Stuart
Compare and contrast the animated Ann-Margaret as shown in yesterday’s Flinstone’s clip with the real deal. Above is the opening pre-credit A-M number from ‘The Swinger’ (1966), a film that delivers so much less than its title (and title sequence) promises that, if it were a vaudeville show, it would
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXCiS2FpmIc Apropos of yesterday’s ‘Flintstones’ musical moment, here is the hottest cartoon character ever drawn–save for, perhaps, Jessica Rabbit. (Or Petunia Pig, if the BBW world is more your cup of darjeeling). Ann-Margret was square in the middle of her ‘Viva Las Vegas’ fame when this tribute was drawn by