Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies' July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM presented five Colman star vehicles that should be popping up again in the not-too-distant future: A Tale of Two Cities, The Prisoner of Zenda, Kismet, Lucky Partners, and My Life with Caroline. The first two movies are among not only Colman's best, but also among Hollywood's best during its so-called Golden Age. Based on Charles Dickens' classic novel, Jack Conway's Academy Award-nominated A Tale of Two Cities (1936) is a rare Hollywood production indeed: it manages to effectively condense its sprawling source, it boasts first-rate production values, and it features a phenomenal central performance. Ah, it also shows its star without his trademark mustache – about as famous at the time as Clark Gable's. Perhaps...
- 7/21/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Mary Boland movies: Scene-stealing actress has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day on TCM Turner Classic Movies will dedicate the next 24 hours, Sunday, August 4, 2013, not to Lana Turner, Lauren Bacall, Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Esther Williams, or Bette Davis — TCM’s frequent Warner Bros., MGM, and/or Rko stars — but to the marvelous scene-stealer Mary Boland. A stage actress who was featured in a handful of movies in the 1910s, Boland came into her own as a stellar film supporting player in the early ’30s, initially at Paramount and later at most other Hollywood studios. First, the bad news: TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" Mary Boland Day will feature only two movies from Boland’s Paramount period: the 1935 Best Picture Academy Award nominee Ruggles of Red Gap, which TCM has shown before, and one TCM premiere. So, no rarities like Secrets of a Secretary, Mama Loves Papa, Melody in Spring,...
- 8/4/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Genuinely fascist films made in democratic countries are agreeably scarce, although Gregory La Cava's Gabriel Over the White House (1933)—or President Jesus Hitler as a friend dubbed it—could certainly qualify, even if it does veer around a lot, almost as if a Hollywood film were trying to avoid committing itself politically. Nominations for other fascist films will be gratefully considered.
Bulldog Drummond was featured in ten novels by a pseudonymous character called "Sapper," (to sap: to slug over the head, British slang). Drummond, an ex-soldier bored by civilian life, advertises for adventure and finds it, as detailed in 1929 Bulldog Drummond with Ronald Colman. This movie largely avoids the racism and jingoistic fervor of the source novels, and seems to play the more brutal moments for laughs, as when Colman exchanges sweet nothings with Joan Bennett while cheerfully throttling Lionel Atwill.
The books' biggest influence in an indirect one:...
Bulldog Drummond was featured in ten novels by a pseudonymous character called "Sapper," (to sap: to slug over the head, British slang). Drummond, an ex-soldier bored by civilian life, advertises for adventure and finds it, as detailed in 1929 Bulldog Drummond with Ronald Colman. This movie largely avoids the racism and jingoistic fervor of the source novels, and seems to play the more brutal moments for laughs, as when Colman exchanges sweet nothings with Joan Bennett while cheerfully throttling Lionel Atwill.
The books' biggest influence in an indirect one:...
- 4/25/2012
- MUBI
It’s a poor thing, to command in love.
Have you ever been to a Renaissance Faire? I’ve been to a few over the years, though I’m far from being a regular attender. The last Ren Faire I visited was when I took my family to one here in Michigan sometime in the early 2000s when The Lord of The Rings was at the zenith of its pop-culture ascendancy and my kids were into stuff like swords and magic and capes and gowns.
I figure most readers would know what I’m talking about, but for those who don’t… Ren Faires are public events where people who are into that sort of thing are employed or pay admission to dress up in the garb of various types of medieval personae, spending a day, a weekend or longer getting into the roles and habits of Europeans who lived around 500 years ago or so.
Have you ever been to a Renaissance Faire? I’ve been to a few over the years, though I’m far from being a regular attender. The last Ren Faire I visited was when I took my family to one here in Michigan sometime in the early 2000s when The Lord of The Rings was at the zenith of its pop-culture ascendancy and my kids were into stuff like swords and magic and capes and gowns.
I figure most readers would know what I’m talking about, but for those who don’t… Ren Faires are public events where people who are into that sort of thing are employed or pay admission to dress up in the garb of various types of medieval personae, spending a day, a weekend or longer getting into the roles and habits of Europeans who lived around 500 years ago or so.
- 9/21/2010
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
There’s a mixed bag waiting for Disney fans with Volume 5 of the Disney Classic Short Films collection. On one hand you have the unforgettable The Wind in the Willows with the awesome J. Thaddeus Toad and a genuinely touching version of The Ugly Duckling. But then you have four more cartoons all on the older spectrum making it hard to say whether or not the younger ones in your life will be able to sit still. This volume has the highest concentration of older cartoons as well as a newer cartoon that most kids won’t really latch onto – so I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that older children will get more out of this volume than the youngest ones.
The Wind in the Willows (1949)
Directed by James Algar & Jack Kinney, Written by Winston Hibler & Kenneth Grahame
God, what can really be said about this incredible classic.
The Wind in the Willows (1949)
Directed by James Algar & Jack Kinney, Written by Winston Hibler & Kenneth Grahame
God, what can really be said about this incredible classic.
- 5/17/2009
- by Lex Walker
- JustPressPlay.net
The sixth and final volume of the Disney Classic Short Films collection finally found a way to load a disc with cartoons of genuinely similar moral themes. While Mickey and the Beanstalk did well in that regard as far as plots are concerned, the cartoons accompanying The Reluctant Dragon all take a different stance on identity and what it means to measure expectations of who people think you should be against who you actually are. Each of the cartoons does this in its own way – some more deftly than others. While more consistently thematically, it’s also worth noting that the average age of the four cartoons in this set is noticeably lower than those in other volumes; where volumes 1-5 each had about 2-4 cartoons from the mid 1930s, this volume has but one – and its 1938 creation date gives it a stylistic leg up over its 1933/1934 brethren of past volumes.
- 5/17/2009
- by Lex Walker
- JustPressPlay.net
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