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
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ca. 1935. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was never as popular as his father, silent film superstar Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in one action-adventure blockbuster after another in the 1920s (The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Thief of Bagdad) and whose stardom dates back to the mid-1910s, when Fairbanks toplined a series of light, modern-day comedies in which he was cast as the embodiment of the enterprising, 20th century “all-American.” What this particular go-getter got was screen queen Mary Pickford as his wife and United Artists as his studio, which he co-founded with Pickford, D.W. Griffith, and Charles Chaplin. Now, although Jr. never had the following of Sr., he did enjoy a solid two-decade-plus movie career. In fact, he was one of the few children of major film stars – e.g., Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Angelina Jolie, Michael Douglas, Jamie Lee Curtis – who had successful film careers of their own.
- 8/16/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
In honor of the 2014 summer movie season, Team HitFix will be delivering a mini-series of articles flashing back to key summers from years past. There will be one each month, diving into the marquee events of the era, their impact on the writer and their implications on today's multiplex culture. We continue today with a look back at the summer of 1984. I turned 14 on May 26, 1984, just as the summer movie season was getting started. These days, the summer movie season seems to begin in mid-March, and I think it's because studios want real estate that they can own. And it feels like the appetite for event films is something the audience has year-round now, so if you're able to make something that excites the audience, why not find a place for it where it's not going head to head with all the other giant event films of the year? For the purposes of this piece,...
- 6/2/2014
- by Drew McWeeny
- Hitfix
Two of TV's greatest pranksters are bringing their highly unstable mix of anarchy and awkward to the big screen as they roll out the diamond carpet for "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie."
Comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim made a splash in 2004 with their Cartoon Network animated satire "Tom Goes to the Mayor," and continued to win a cult following on Adult Swim with "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" which featured bizarre infomercials, celebrity guests (Michael Cera, Paul Rudd, Ben Stiller) and characters that looked like they were plucked out of a methadone clinic.
Now "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie" finds the pair squandering a fortune on a terrible movie-within-a-movie starring a Johnny Depp lookalike. The psychotic billionaire who funded it wants his money back … in blood. The movie features guest cameos from Zach Galifianakis, John C. Reilly, Will Forte and Will Ferrell.
We chatted with...
Comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim made a splash in 2004 with their Cartoon Network animated satire "Tom Goes to the Mayor," and continued to win a cult following on Adult Swim with "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" which featured bizarre infomercials, celebrity guests (Michael Cera, Paul Rudd, Ben Stiller) and characters that looked like they were plucked out of a methadone clinic.
Now "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie" finds the pair squandering a fortune on a terrible movie-within-a-movie starring a Johnny Depp lookalike. The psychotic billionaire who funded it wants his money back … in blood. The movie features guest cameos from Zach Galifianakis, John C. Reilly, Will Forte and Will Ferrell.
We chatted with...
- 2/29/2012
- by Max Evry
- NextMovie
DVD Release Date: April 3, 2012
Price: DVD $19.95
Studio: Hen’s Tooth
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. let's his sword do the talking in The Corsican Brothers.
The 1941 action-adventure film The Corsican Brothers, adapted from the 1844 novella by Alexandre Dumas, stars the incomparable Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (The Mark of Zorro).
Hen’s Tooth’s DVD release marks the first time the Gregory Ratoff-directed movie has ever been issued on disc.
There’s plenty of swordplay and swashbuckling adventure in Dumas’ tale of identical twins Lucien and Mario, separated as infants, and raised unaware of each other’s existence. One becomes a Parisian gentleman, the other a country bandit.
When they are reunited as adults (both played by Fairbanks), they seek revenge on the evil Baron (Akim Tamiroff) who plundered their homestead and robbed them of their birthright. Complications arise when both fall in love with the same beautiful Countess (Ruth Warrick, Citizen Kane...
Price: DVD $19.95
Studio: Hen’s Tooth
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. let's his sword do the talking in The Corsican Brothers.
The 1941 action-adventure film The Corsican Brothers, adapted from the 1844 novella by Alexandre Dumas, stars the incomparable Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. (The Mark of Zorro).
Hen’s Tooth’s DVD release marks the first time the Gregory Ratoff-directed movie has ever been issued on disc.
There’s plenty of swordplay and swashbuckling adventure in Dumas’ tale of identical twins Lucien and Mario, separated as infants, and raised unaware of each other’s existence. One becomes a Parisian gentleman, the other a country bandit.
When they are reunited as adults (both played by Fairbanks), they seek revenge on the evil Baron (Akim Tamiroff) who plundered their homestead and robbed them of their birthright. Complications arise when both fall in love with the same beautiful Countess (Ruth Warrick, Citizen Kane...
- 1/10/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
I'm somewhat numb from all the high-end movie-related auctions this year, but one has caught my fancy in a way that Debbie Reynolds’ or even John Wayne’s hasn’t. Even the catalog for the September 13 event at Doyle Gallery in New York is a keeper, because it celebrates the life and often-overlooked career of Douglas Fairbanks Jr. A handsome and elegant man, and a much better actor than he’s given credit for (think of Gunga Din, The Prisoner of Zenda, The Corsican Brothers, or any number of early 1930s Warner Bros. films), Douglas Fairbanks Jr. lived in his famous father’s…...
- 9/1/2011
- Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy
From Twelfth Night to Danny Boyle's new production at the National Theatre, theatre adores twins and doppelgangers. What's really going on?
Danny Boyle's hotly anticipated production of Frankenstein, in a new version by Nick Dear, opens next week at the National theatre. The show's two leads, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, will be alternating the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, so, unless they can afford to go twice, audience members are going to have to choose which way round they want to see the casting. But is this doubling up just an astute marketing ploy? Or is it, perhaps, a broader commentary? Can the relationship of Frankenstein and the Creature tell us anything about the symbiotic relationship of stage and audience? Even about the theatre itself?
There is quite a history of doubling parts in the theatre. The renowned 19th-century actors William Macready and Samuel...
Danny Boyle's hotly anticipated production of Frankenstein, in a new version by Nick Dear, opens next week at the National theatre. The show's two leads, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, will be alternating the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, so, unless they can afford to go twice, audience members are going to have to choose which way round they want to see the casting. But is this doubling up just an astute marketing ploy? Or is it, perhaps, a broader commentary? Can the relationship of Frankenstein and the Creature tell us anything about the symbiotic relationship of stage and audience? Even about the theatre itself?
There is quite a history of doubling parts in the theatre. The renowned 19th-century actors William Macready and Samuel...
- 2/17/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
Actress Ruth Warrick, who made her film debut as the first wife of Orson Welles' titular character in Citizen Kane but became known to generations as daytime drama diva Phoebe Tyler of All My Children, died at her home in New York on Saturday of complications from pneumonia; she was 89. The actress had been in failing health for the past few years, but was well enough to make an appearance earlier this month at the 35th anniversary celebration for All My Children, albeit for a short period of time in a wheelchair. Born in St. Joseph, Missouri, the young actress made her way to New York after graduating from college, and found herself a place in Orson Welles' Mercury Theater. Welles later hand-picked her for her auspicious screen debut as Emily Norton Kane in 1941's Citizen Kane, citing her fresh-faced, non-Hollywood quality. Roles in 40s films such as The Corsican Brothers, Journey Into Fear, and Song Of The South followed, but by the end of the decade she had settled into supporting roles. However, Warrick found a career resurgence with the nascent medium of television soap operas, and played parts in such shows as Guiding Light, As The World Turns, and Peyton Place (for which she earned her first Emmy nomination). It was for a brand-new soap in 1970 that Warrick earned her place in television history when she originated the role of matriarch Phoebe Tyler Wallingford in All My Children; her scheming, sophisticated, over-the-top character earned her millions of fans as well as two Emmy nominations and a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award. After breaking her hip in 2001, she continued to make sporadic appearances on the show in a wheelchair, continuing her meddlesome ways. Warrick is survived by three children, a grandson and six great-grandchildren. --Prepared by IMDb staff...
- 1/18/2005
- WENN
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