Above is another trailer for Filmex, this one from 1971 (scroll down to see the ’72 trailer I posted yesterday). Filmex was a dramatically cool LA event of the 70s and, according to a comment left by the AFI fest (who posted the video) it was then ‘the largest film
In 1971 Los Angeles became host to its own hometown film festival called Filmex. When I was a kid growing up in LA the posters hung around town in advance of Filmex were, to me, like announcements that the circus was coming to town (even though I didn’t care for
Here’s a documentary that I never knew about. ‘Last Of The Independents’ is an hour-long doc on director Don Siegel (‘Dirty Harry’, ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ etc.) which features a long interview with Siegel himself. This alone makes it an interesting find as Siegel was not a particularly visible
This post marks the return of my 14 year old weblog (much nicer word than the tired, early 21st century sounding ‘blog’) ‘Movies Til Dawn’, a collection of writings about videos (all provided via Youtube, natch) of all things film/music/junk culture-centric. Thanks to the lame-ass folks at Blogger, the site
A pleasant fellow with an accent that sounds like it’s right out of Mayberry has made a little video tour of the filming locations of ‘The Andy Griffith Show’, the result of a meticulously researched trip he made to Los Angeles. I was rather surprised to find out that the
Before there was that pile of stiffs who introduce classic films on TCM, there were local hosts who performed the same function in individual markets (cable not having yet been invented…sort of). If you were growing up in LA in the 70s and 80s and you loved classic films, you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFvVeu8LQXAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghwQT4bKWCk Those of us who follow the NFL (which, for those of you who don’t, stands for the National Football League) have heard a lot in recent years about the effects of repeated bashings on the head, which often leads to a disease called Chronic Traumatic Encephalopity (or CTE if
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHf_DtcxhpE The wonderful and wildly prolific writer Harlan Ellison died this past week at the age of 84 (click here for his fascinating NY Times obit). In 2006 my producing partner David Zellerford and I had the pleasure of interviewing him at his home in the hills above the San Fernando Valley
Here’s one of those before/after looks at LA in the 30s (and earlier) as seen in Hal Roach comedies and the same exact locations now. In this case it’s not movie locations themselves that we’re seeing but the site of the Hal Roach studio. The main building is a handsome
Above I’ve posted a short clip of Nicholas Ray describing how the ending of ‘In A Lonely Place’ developed, going from a nice, neatly tied-up thriller ending (Frank Lovejoy bursts in and arrests Dixon Steele) and instead becoming the ambivalent, unsettlingly unanswered ending that leaves us wondering what will happen