Movies 'Til Dawn BLOG

RICKLES/EASTWOOD ETC.

What was the purpose of this wonderful clip of Don Rickles roasting Clint Eastwood on the set of ‘Kelly’s Heroes’? Was it for TV? For the wrap party perhaps? (I prefer to think the latter). Rickles actually makes Clint double over with laughter at one point–something never previously seen before,

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PROFESSOR HITCH

Here’s a five minute clip (made for TV I guess?) of Alfred Hitchcock giving us a little lesson in ‘cinematics’. The interviewer is Fletcher Markle who was largely known as a prestige dramatic radio producer/director of the 1940s. Hitch comes across as the hip professor who all the kids in

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NOTORIOUS/HITCHCOCK etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Nu93kB-Y0 Here’s a very well-done tribute-doc to my favorite Hitchcock film ‘Notorious’ (I know I’m far from alone in this opinion–it’s the one that, in my opinion, is much more emotional, better scripted and capable of being revisited than many others). Misleadingly titled ‘The Making Of…’ it’s more of a

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SUSPICION/HITCHCOCK ETC.

Here’s a nifty little doc about Alfred Hitchcock’s 1941 semi-masterwork ‘Suspicion’ starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine who won an Oscar for her role as the deeply suspicious wife who suspects her husband of planning on murdering her. Much has been made over the years about the ending of this

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FURTHER JELLO THOUGHTS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7Gh7zs2RGI Here’s a Jello commercial from 1979. Plot: a family reunion briefly turns sour when the hostess says she hasn’t made dessert. But things change when she adds that she made Jello! Out comes a frightening round mass of red goo molded into the shape of a pie. People are

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JELLO CARSON

Johnny Carson’s longtime comedy hero was Jack Benny. And while their styles were entirely different, they did share one very specific thing. Jello was Benny’s signature advertiser through the 1930s and early 1940s and somehow Carson wound up doing a Jello commercial on a 1957 program he hosted. Here, Johnny

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‘CLEOPATRA’–BEHIND THE SCENES

Here’s 50 seconds of black and white footage of the ‘Cleopatra’ set, specifically the moment where Liz Taylor is carried down from the Sphinx thingy. It looks awfully scary and shaky but Liz seems sanguine, posed regally and most likely heavily sedated. I have no clue as to how this

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‘CLEOPATRA; A ROUBEN MAMOULIAN JOINT?

I knew that the beginnings of the 1963 Burton and Taylor ‘Cleopatra’ were a bit more murky than the famously catastrophic shoot itself (the making of the ill-fated behemoth has been well documented over the years in any of a number of books about Burton/Taylor/Mankiewicz/Zanuck/Fox etc.) It’s common knowledge (in

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I DIG TECHNICOLOR (pt. 3)

Behold a four minute clip of the restored Technicolor ‘Rhapsody In Blue’ sequence from 1930s ‘King Of Jazz’, a gigantic musical revue (they were all the rage in Hollywood at the time) featuring Paul Whiteman and his orchestra. This immaculate restoration shows us for the first time what audiences saw

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I DIG TECHNICOLOR (Pt. 2)

Here’s a truly precious piece of footage. It’s a Technicolor screen test featuring Katherine Hepburn playing Joan of Arc. We know from the slate that it was photographed on May 22nd, 1934 on Stage 5 at RKO. The cameraman was Ray Rennahan. No director is listed–did Hepburn self-direct? Evern more

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