Posts

Some Like It Hot (1959)

-
Image
Jane Russell  was one of the biggest sex symbols of the 40s and 50s. She was at the center of a several-year spanning controversy concerning her first movie,  Howard Hughes '  The Outlaw  (1943), in which Hughes, at the height of the Production Code era, exploited her voluptuous figure on his film as much as he could. Appearing in some of the biggest box office hits of her time, she also worked with screen legends such as  Clark Gable ,  Frank Sinatra and Groucho Marx . Then, in 1953, she starred in  Howard Hawks '  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes , having as co-star a then relatively unknown newcomer called  Marilyn Monroe . The film went on to become a box office success, with both Russell and Monroe being praised for their performances, as well as immortalizing their handprints  in front of the prestigious  Grauman's Chinese Theatre  in Hollywood. As years went by, however, both the movie's notoriety and its top billed star's fame waned away, crushed under the
Post a Comment
Read more

Stagecoach (1939)

-
Image
What a year 1939 was for the movies! Not only did we get  both  David O. Selznick 's  Gone With The Wind  and  Victor Fleming 's  The Wizard of Oz  (which need no introduction), but also several other films that, despite not being as instantly recognizable, have nevertheless left their mark in cinema history -- well, at least for me.  William Dieterle 's  The Hunchback of Notre Dame , for instance, headed by a bravura performance by  Charles Laughton , remains to this day my favorite adaptation of Victor Hugo 's classic novel . The great Bette Davis  managed to give two spectacular performances that year, one for which she was awarded a nod as Best Actress (her Judith Traherne in  Edmund Goulding 's Dark Victory ), and other that, for me, remains one of the best in her career: the titular Virgin Queen in  The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex  by  Michael Curtiz  -- her farewell scene with her beloved Essex, played by the eternal  Robin Hood   Errol Flynn , ra
Post a Comment
Read more

Le Charme Discret de la Bourgeoisie (1972)

-
Image
Sociology is a subject that has always fascinated me, and, had I not been bitten by the Legend of Zelda bug as a child, I would certainly be in that line of work today. I often read about the topic, however, which, other than leading to bizarre conversations with friends deep into the night over a bottle of wine, has the side effect of triggering epiphanies for me in the most unexpected of places. For instance, a couple of months ago, my wife and I went for lunch to a small ramen shop near where we live, being sat next to a young married couple and their 5- or 6-years-old son, whom, we'd overheard, they had brought along for his first "official" taste of the dish. As we ate, we couldn't help paying attention to a particular advice they gave him about how to properly enjoy his food: "You must always make noise while slurping ramen," they said, "because the louder you are, the tastier it will be, and the happier the cook will become". My wif
Post a Comment
Read more

The Third Man (1949)

-
Image
I got married recently to a wonderful woman from Ibaraki called Satomi. Mozart buffs that we both are, there was no place we would rather marry than  Salzburg , his birthplace, and, since we would already be in Europe, we decided to travel around the continent for our honeymoon. Leaving Salzburg, our first stop was Vienna, a marvelous city in which, amidst all the beautiful, historical buildings, lavishing palaces and breathtaking cathedrals, a  small cinema  caught my attention, for prominently displayed by its entrance was a poster advertising a noir-looking movie called  The Third Man , featuring none other than  Orson "Citizen Kane" Welles  himself! Intrigued, I jokingly asked the ticket clerk (in my poor man's German) why such an old movie would be top-billed alongside this year's releases, to which he replied that that movie had been playing there even before he was born (!). "A great look into post-WWII Vienna", he said enthusiastically. Needless t
Post a Comment
Read more