Seminal Image #341
The Cheat
(Cecil B. DeMille; 1915)
for the series:
Seminal Images
November 30, 2005
Seminal Image #340
Giu la testa
(Duck, You Sucker)
(Sergio Leone; 1971)
for the series:
Seminal Images
Adventures in American Filmmaking #47
Today's Adventure: In better days, Roscoe Arbuckle lines up a shot for an unknown film.
for the series:
Adventures in American Filmmaking
Seminal Image #339
He Walked By Night
(Alfred L. Werker, Anthony Mann; 1946)
for the series:
Seminal Images
Artists in Action #27
Sid Vicious feeds himself.
(believe me, for this guy such a prosaic act represented real achievement)
for the series:
Artists in Action
Adventures in European Filmmaking #11
Today's adventure: Federico Fellini clowns around on the set of 8 1/2 with Marcello Mastroianni and Anouk Aimee in 1963.
for the series:
Adventures in European Filmmaking
November 29, 2005
George Best Dead at 59
George Best, the titan of Manchester-United, the hard-living Joe DiMaggio of Footballers, has passed.
This obituary comes from the BBC
(extravagant thanks to Our Man in London, Richard Gibson, for this image)
for the series:
Obits
Adventures in American Filmmaking #46
Adventures in European Filmmaking #10
Today's Adventure: Josef von Sternberg explains inchoate longings on the set of
Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) (1930)
for the series:
Adventures in American Filmmaking,
Adventures in European Filmmaking
November 28, 2005
Constance Cummings Dies at 95
Constance Cummings. with Harold Lloyd in Movie Crazy. (1910-2005)
Whether in tragedy, farce, comedy or melodrama, Cummings, the daughter of a Seattle lawyer and a concert soprano, seldom failed to surprise. From being what a London critic, in 1934, called "a film star who can act", she learned, under her husband's direction, how to play (as James Agate put it) "anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter."Cummings had an astonishing early career in the pre-code days of Hollywood, appearing in the best of Harold Lloyd's sound pictures, Movie Crazy, as well as working with Frank Capra in American Madness and Howard Hawks in The Criminal Code. Celebrated at the time, but little-seen today, was her role in Broadway Through a Keyhole, a thinly disguised portrait of the marriage of Al Jolson and my fellow Dartmouthian, Ruby Keeler, starring Cummings and crooner Russ Columbo. Reportedly, Jolson was so outraged at the portrayal, he punched out its screenwriter Walter Winchell.
-from Constance Cummings' obit in The Guardian
for the series:
Obits
Faces From the Past #10
Clare Laking (1899-2005)
Clare Laking, the last of Canada's frontline First World War veterans, dies at 106.
for the series:
Faces from the Past
When Legends Gather #70
Jean Cocteau and Kon Ichikawa
(muchas gracias to Jeff Duncanson for this image)
for the series:
When Legends Gather
November 27, 2005
Seminal Image #335
The Fall of the House of Usher
(Roger Corman; 1960)
for the series:
Seminal Images
When Legends Gather #69
Chet Baker, Miles Davis and Rolf Ericson
for the series:
When Legends Gather
Seminal Image #334
Lot in Sodom
(Melville Webber and James Sibley Watson, jr; 1933)
for the series:
Seminal Images
They Were Collaborators #102
Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers
for the series:
They Were Collaborators
November 26, 2005
When Men Were Men #7
From The New Movie Album: An Autographed Who's Who of the Screen (1931)
"By birth I should have been a farmer, by early training a steel worker and by later inclination a lifeguard, for I was born in Kansas City, Missouri; educated in Pittsburgh, and now find that I would rather sit on a beach in the sun than anything else, except travel. And a great deal of money can be saved by just sitting in the sun.
I am an actor by design. It all came about very deliverately. For I have yet to win a beauty contest and my chance to be a film extra suddenly discovered by an alert casting director is past.
To become an actor, I went to New York, after a certain number of years spent in Pittsburgh, and entered the American Academy of Dramatic Art. My diploma from that impressively named school put me to work in 'The Ne'er Do Well,' at the Lyric Theatre. That was my first professional engagement.
Since that time there have been many of them, for I have played in stock in many cities. My first picture was 'Sherlock Holmes' with John Barrymore. That was in 1923. Since then, there have been many of them. My next will be 'New Morals,' made by Paramount, to home I long have been under contract."
-William Powell
(Note, although Paramount scheduled a film titled New Morals for release in the late '20s, it never surfaced as a finished production, although the plot put forward in promotional materials sounded very similar to that of another Paramount title, Breakfast at Sunrise, where a man and woman marry in order to spite the people that they are both truly in love with. By a weird coincidence, there is a film called New Morals for Old (1932) which stars the future Mrs. Nick Charles, Myrna Loy.)
for the series:
When Men Were Men
The Ink & Paint Set #6
Edna May Oliver & W.C. Fields in Porky's Road Race
(Frank Tashlin, 1937)
for the series:
The Ink and Paint Set
Tricky: Scenes from a Life #24
Tricky Relaxes Before Doing Some Owl Worshipping at Bohemian Grove (1970)
for the series:
Tricky: Scenes from a Life
November 25, 2005
November 24, 2005
Seminal Image #332
Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs
(Paul Leni, 1928)
for the series:
Seminal Images
Faces From the Past #9
Folk musicians (circa 1900)
I found this photo at an antique fair in Union, Maine (which also happens to be the birthplace of Moxie). Judging by the homemade balalaika on the right, I'm guessing that some, if not all, of these men are immigrants, who've come to Maine to work in the busy logging industry, but also came together to make music during their down time. Of course, I could be completely wrong (see the Preston Sturges/Howard Hughes photo), but it sounds like a good story.
for the series:
Faces from the Past
November 23, 2005
(Very) Relevant Quote #69
"When the heart grieves over what it has lost, the spirit can rejoice over what it has left."
-- Source Unknown
for the series:
Relevant Quotes
Artists in Action #25
Elvis Presley meets the press while Tina Louise looks on in reverence.
for the series:
Artists in Action
Seminal Image #331
Le Cercle rouge
(The Red Circle)
(Jean-Pierre Melville; 1970)
for the series:
Seminal Images
The Art of Cinema #97
A Bullet for Sandoval
(Julio Buchs, Lucio Fulci; 1969)
for the series:
Art of Cinema
November 22, 2005
They Were Collaborators #98
The Prisonaires
Just walking in the rain
Getting soaking wet
Torturing my heart by trying to forget
Just walking in the rain
So alone and blue
All because my heart still remembers you
People come to their windows,
They always stare at me
Shaking their heads in sorrow
Saying, Who can that fool be
Just walking in the rain
Thinking how we met
Knowing things have changed
Somehow I can't forget.
for the series:
They Were Collaborators
Seminal Image #330
Il Grande Silenzio
(The Great Silence)
(Sergio Corbucci; 1968)
for the series:
Seminal Images
The Golden Age of Prurience #28
Love Peddler
(by Joe Weiss)
(Beacon Books; 1957)
(muchas gracias to the inimitable Richard Gibson for this image)
for the series:
The Golden Age of Prurience
November 21, 2005
Link Wray: 1929-2005
He took the guitar and turned it into a tool of the devil. His instrumental Rumble was banned by radio stations for sounding "too menacing". He had a steely gaze and a mastery of twang. A giant among guitarists, Link Wray is dead. Please rise for a moment of feedback.
“If I could go back in time and see any band, it would be Link Wray and the Raymen.” - Neil Young
The Art of Songwriting #12
Over There
(Music and Lyrics by George M. Cohan)
(Leo Feist, Inc.; 1917)
for the series:
Art of Songwriting
They Were Collaborators #97
Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Bette Davis
for the series:
They Were Collaborators
November 20, 2005
November 19, 2005
Selling the Silents #22
From the Paramount 1927 release book.
Once again, just another week at the movies...
for the series:
Selling the Silents
Relevant Quote #68
"It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it."
-- Aristotle
for the series:
Relevant Quotes
