Movies 'Til Dawn BLOG

BOGIE’S BOAT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeCU0uaMURE In addition to booze and cigarettes, Humphrey Bogart’s great passion was sailing his yacht which was named ‘Santana’. Much as city kid James Cagney yearned for the wide open spaces of country life (see yesterday’s post) city kid Bogie yearned for the open air of the sea. Both men

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THE LITTLE HOUSE OF JAMES CAGNEY

For many years James Cagney divided his time between a country-esque retreat in Coldwater Canyon, high above Beverly Hills, and a Martha’s Vineyard spread that is nothing if not wildly appealing. But, with a fervor that only a once poor city kid (Cagney grew up in the Yorkville section of New York

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WEEKEND STOOGEFEST

‘Even As I.O.U.’ (1942) was the 65th comedy short subject made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. It was photographed from Saturday, April 18th through Wednesday, April 22 1942 and was released on Friday, September 18th of that year (the 261st day on the Gregorian calendar). This top-notch Curly

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MINELLI MANOR; AN ARCHITECTURAL CREEPFEST

For many years I would drive by a large, dilapidated house that sits on the corner of Sunset Blvd. and Crescent Drive–the house is angled so as to be literally facing the Beverly Hills Hotel across the street–and wonder why the hell somebody didn’t buy it and fix it up.

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THE FOX LOGO; A VISUAL HISTORY

Here’s one of those weirdly mesmerizing ‘history of a logo’ videos that are a staple of a complete Youtube diet. This is the history of the 20th Century Fox logo over a 100 year period.  I knew that William Fox, an independent film distributor/producer, was the originator of things somehow

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WEEKEND STOOGEFEST

‘Healthy, Wealthy and Dumb’ (1938) is the 31st short comedy made by The Three Stooges for Columbia Pictures. The film was released on Friday, May 20th 1938 (the 140th day of the Gregorian Calendar). Dates of the actual shoot are for some reason missing but we can surmise it was

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HITCHCOCK TALKS ‘ROPE’

Continuing this week’s Leopold and Loeb theme, here’s a clip of Alfred Hitchcock on The Dick Cavett Show’ discussing, among other things, the long-take method of the movie that I described in yesterday’s post. Far from the forbidding figure we sometimes think of him as, Hitch is amusing, droll and

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‘ROPE’–THE CLIMAX!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ggnZ-2Ns54 Welcome bac;k to Leopold and Loeb week. On Monday I posted Henry Fonda’s tour de force performance as Clarence Darrow, the lawyer who successfully kept Leopold and Loeb from being executed. Yesterday we watched the trailer of the L&L inspired movie ‘Compulsion’. Today lets watch a very impressive long-take

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‘COMPULSION’–THE TRAILER!

Yesterday I posted about Meyer Levin’s novel ‘Compulsion’, based on the Leopold and Loeb murder case that rocked the world in 1924. The novel was turned into a play by Levin and then into a movie produced by Darryl Zanuck and directed by Richard Fleisher. Now I’m impatiently waiting for

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DARROW/FONDA/WELLES &…ELLROY?

What do Clarence Darrow, Henry Fonda, Orson Welles and James Ellroy have in common?The answer is ‘Compulsion’, the 1956 novel by Meyer Levin based on the infamous murder case of Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, who in 1924 killed a 14 year old boy named Bobby Franks simply for the

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