Charles Brackett ca. 1945: Hollywood diarist and Billy Wilder's co-screenwriter (1936–1949) and producer (1945–1949). Q&A with 'Charles Brackett Diaries' editor Anthony Slide: Billy Wilder's screenwriter-producer partner in his own words Six-time Academy Award winner Billy Wilder is a film legend. He is renowned for classics such as The Major and the Minor, Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment. The fact that Wilder was not the sole creator of these movies is all but irrelevant to graduates from the Auteur School of Film History. Wilder directed, co-wrote, and at times produced his films. That should suffice. For auteurists, perhaps. But not for those interested in the whole story. That's one key reason why the Charles Brackett diaries are such a great read. Through Brackett's vantage point, they offer a welcome – and unique – glimpse into the collaborative efforts that resulted in...
- 9/25/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Rudolph Valentino, Agnes Ayres in George Melford's The Sheik Long before they became Hollywood's favorite terrorists, Arabs were generally portrayed as lusty, uncouth, infantile beings in myriad Hollywood movies. Turner Classic Movies returns this month with their annual "Race & Hollywood" film series. The "race" this time around: Arabs. Frank Lloyd's long but generally entertaining 1924 epic The Sea Hawk is almost over. TCM has shown this one before a few times; long-thought lost, The Sea Hawk was restored about a decade ago. Popular leading man Milton Sills stars. Next are two silents starring movie idols of the 1920s: The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Sheik (1921). One of Douglas Fairbanks' biggest hits, The Thief of Bagdad was directed by Raoul Walsh; this Arabian Nights romp is probably Fairbanks' most enjoyable vehicle of that era. Quite possibly, it's Fairbanks best movie, period. Starring Rudolph Valentino, who set as many hearts aflutter as Justin Bieber,...
- 7/6/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Milton Sills in The Sea Hawk (top); William Farnum in A Tale of Two Cities (bottom) Frank Lloyd Intro I: Two-Time Oscar Winner Unlike George Cukor, Henry Hathaway, Howard Hawks, William Wyler, or even John Ford, Frank Lloyd specialized in one movie genre: melodrama. From A Tale of Two Cities to Cavalcade, from The Sea Hawk to The Howards of Virginia, from Black Oxen to Blood on the Sun, the vast majority of Lloyd’s movies were supposed to make you leave the theater at least a little shaken up after having suffered for a couple of hours with Pauline Frederick, Norma Talmadge, Milton Sills, Clara Bow, Richard Barthelmess, Ann Harding, Claudette Colbert, Cary Grant, or James [...]...
- 1/6/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Like many other Hollywood filmmakers of the studio era, Frank Lloyd (1886-1960) is hardly remembered today despite his numerous box-office successes — e.g., The Sea Hawk (1924), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Wells Fargo (1937) — and no less than two Best Director Academy Awards, for The Divine Lady (1929) and Cavalcade (1933). With Frank Lloyd: Master of Screen Melodrama (BearManor Media, 2009), author and film historian Anthony Slide rectifies that matter. In his book, which focuses on Lloyd’s most important screen efforts, Tony (we’ve been friends for years) makes it clear that by disregarding Frank Lloyd’s body of work film historians are doing a disservice to Hollywood’s past. In addition to his two Best Director wins, Lloyd directed two [...]...
- 1/6/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Speaking as a member of Film Preservation Associates, the team that brought King Vidor's Bardelys the Magnificent (1926) "back to life" after it's having been believed lost for 70 years, David Shepard historicized that the film was based on a novel by Rafael Sabatini, a prolific author whose other work includes Scaramouche, The Sea Hawk and Captain Blood. MGM bought the story rights to Bardelys the Magnficent for 10 years and produced the successful filmic adaptation Bardelys the Magnificent.
By contract, in 1936 MGM had to either repurchase the rights for an additional charm or destroy the film. As nothing could have been deader than a silent film in 1936, MGM elected to duly destroy the negative (although MGM actually renewed the copyright for the movie in 1953). Except for a short fragment included in another Vidor film Show People (1928), nothing of Bardelys was thought to remain until 2007 when Shepard's French film partners...
By contract, in 1936 MGM had to either repurchase the rights for an additional charm or destroy the film. As nothing could have been deader than a silent film in 1936, MGM elected to duly destroy the negative (although MGM actually renewed the copyright for the movie in 1953). Except for a short fragment included in another Vidor film Show People (1928), nothing of Bardelys was thought to remain until 2007 when Shepard's French film partners...
- 7/14/2009
- by Michael Guillen
- Screen Anarchy
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