November 30, 2007

Artists in Action #292


Abbas Kiarostami peers

The Art of Cinema #266


The Matrimonial Bed
(Michael Curtiz; 1930)

Seminal Image #754


Potomok Chingis-Khana
(Storm Over Asia)
(Vsevolod Pudovkin; 1928)

The Art of Jazz #49


Force: Sweet Mao - Suid Afrika '76
(Max Roach and Archie Shepp)
(Unitel Records; 1976)

Before and After #102: Charles Chaplin

Before


After

They Were Collaborators #398


Cream

Heroes of Animated Cinema #2


Mickey Mouse

November 28, 2007

Happy 250th Birthday, William Blake


William Blake (1757-1827)

Artists in Action #291


In this excerpt from the scabrous 1979 film, Derek and Clive Get the Horn
(directed by Russell Mulcahy), Peter Cook and Dudley Moore give
way to their growing animosity.

November 27, 2007

Before and After #101: Glenn Gould

Before


After

They Were Collaborators #397


The Firesign Theatre

The Native-Americana of Edward S. Curtis #9


East Mesa Girls (1922)

Seminal Image #753


Saraba natsu no hikari
(Farewell to the Summer Light)
(Yoshishige Yoshida; 1968)

November 26, 2007

Unwanted Image #13


An excised scene from Help!
(Richard Lester; 1965)

Old New York #14


Hudson Street (1865)

Sex Education #91


Laura Antonelli

The Art of American Fantasy #13

People Who Died #38


Sigmund Freud

The Art of Cinema #265


El Angel exterminador
(The Exterminating Angel)
(Luis Buñuel; 1962)

Artists in Action #290


Ayn Rand leans back seductively

November 24, 2007

The Cool Hall of Fame #102


John Osborne

The Art of Civil War #9

Artists in Action #289


Helen Hayes remembers a time of struggle

Seminal Image #752


Waterloo Bridge
(James Whale; 1931)

They Were Collaborators #396


Joseph Barbera, Gene Kelly and William Hanna

Friends and Family #15


Joe Adonis babysits

When Legends Gather #320


Mr. George Arliss, Marie Dressler, Norma Shearer and Lionel Barrymore

This is the City . . . #13


Hollywood and Vine (1958)

November 23, 2007

Artists in Action #288


Pier Angeli pays a visit to the dressing room of Joan Crawford, who was in the throes of making Torch Song.

Collect 'Em All #40


Robertson Hare
No. 25 in a series of 50 from Player's Navy Cut Cigarettes

Born in London on December 17th, 1891, J. Robertson Hare had no relations on the stage, and his parents were a little startled when at the age of nineteen he announced his decision of taking up a stage career. A few years later he was playing the title role of Grumpy on tour. Then came the War, but after the Armistice, he resumed his professional career, and was offered a role in one of the Aldwych farces in which he made his name. He is married to Rene Vivian, formerly an actress, and they have one daughter, Diana, aged ten. His latest films are A Cup of Kindness and Are You a Mason?

A Is For Arbus #45


The Transsexual Operation (April, 1967)

November 22, 2007

From The Playgoer and Society Illustrated #1


"Mr. Pottinger flirts with Rosie in Hillary's absence"
(from The Chaperon)
(by Jocelyn Brandon and Frederic Arthur; 1913)

The Art of Adolescence #8

They Were Collaborators #395


Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise

Great Madmen of the 20th Century #26


Gen. Douglas MacArthur

Before and After #100: Henry James

Before


After

The Art of Jazz #48


Kenny Burrell On View at The Five Spot Cafe
(Blue Note Records; 1959)

Tricky: Scenes from a Life #43


Tricky attempts to sway the Catholic vote (1960)

November 21, 2007

Seminal Image #751

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
The Indian Runner
(Sean Penn; 1991)

Artists in Action # 287

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Prince Vince aka Vincent Gallo

They Were Collaborators #394

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
The Timelords on BBC's Top of the Pops.
And following on from this post I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everybody that today is 'No Music Day' .

November 20, 2007

Seminal Image #750


Lola
(Rainer Werner Fassbinder; 1981)

When Legends Gather #319


Joe Louis and Fidel Castro

Old New York #13


Wall Street (1878)

The Art of Cinema #263


Il Tetto
(The Roof)
(Vittorio DeSica; 1956)

Politicians in Action #14


Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn (D-TX) is greeted by a colleague

P is for Pulp #22


Black Mask
(February, 1933)

November 19, 2007

Artists in Action #286


Keith Moon steps

The Cool Hall of Fame #101


Boris Karloff

Before and After #99: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Before


After

Ancient Voices #21


Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers

The Roots of Pop Art #13

Artists in Action #285


Billy Wilder searches for that shot

They Were an Item #24


Tiny Tim and Miss Vicky

They Were Collaborators #393


Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong and Jack Teagarden

Seminal Image #749


The French Connection
(William Friedkin; 1971)

the Art of Cinema #262


The Ipcress File
(Sidney J. Furie; 1965)

artists in action #284


Neil Diamond fences with his demons

November 18, 2007

Adventures in American Filmmaking #90


Today's Adventure: Our Gang director Robert F. McGowan introduces Bobby "Wheezer" Hutchins, Mary Ann Jackson and Harry Spear to the microphone.

The Ink & Paint Set #26


William Powell in Have You Got Any Castles?
(Frank Tashlin, Warner Bros., 1938)

Artifacts #3


John Logie Baird proudly shows off his first television device, built 80 years ago.

When Legends Gather #318


Peter Sellers confers with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

November 17, 2007

The Art of the Gig #12

Men of the West #13


Tom Mix

The Art of Cinema #261


All About Eve
(Joseph L. Mankiewicz; 1950)

November 16, 2007

A Who's Who of Swinging London #11


Robert Fraser

Where the Boys Are #4


Gregory Peck (1949)

The Art of Travel #12

November 15, 2007

Artists in Action #283


Dean Martin summarizes his aesthetic

This Week's Munch #11


Roulette Table (1903)

G is for Gedney #12


Nude model sitting on stool while photographer adjusts view camera (1972)

When Legends Gather #317


Richard Avedon, Gloria Vanderbilt and Sidney Lumet

The Art of Pop #10


Blame It on the Bossa Nova
(Eydie Gorme)
(Columbia Records; 1963)

November 14, 2007

Authors on Authors #9


"Detective work was by nature prosaic. File prowls, blown tails, attenuated stakeouts. Crime stories demanded near-continuous action. File prowls must yield revelation. Blown tails must provide climax. Stakeouts must further plot. Hammett knew this going in: crime fiction was preposterous melodrama with a gnat-sized reality base. Never had there been a single case rife with multiple shootouts, homicidal seductresses and wall-to-wall mayhem succinctly resolved at tale's end. Hammett had to fit social realism into a suffocatingly contrived form. He did it with language - densely spare exposition and multilayered dialogue. He gave us a spell-binding male discourse - The Manoeuvre as moral crusade, the job holders' aria and torch song. Hammett's male-speak is the gab of the grift, the scam, the dime hustle. It's the poke, the probe, the veiled query, the grab for advantage. It's the threat, the dim sanction, the offer of friendship cloaked in betrayal. Plot holes pop through Hammett's stories like speed bumps. The body count accretes with no more horror than pratfalls in farce. It doesn't matter. The language is always there."
-- James Ellroy

(Ellroy's essay on Dashiell Hammett can be found here)

Seminal Image #748


Un Poliziotto scomodo
(Convoy Busters)
(Stelvio Massi; 1978)

The Children of Lewis Hine #6


Ora Fugate, 10 years old, worming tobacco
(Hedges Station, Kentucky; 1916)

The Art of Jazz #47


Tenor Conclave
(The Prestige All Stars)
(Prestige Records; 1956)

(epic thanks and salutations to the great Pietro Meroni for this here image)

When Legends Gather #316


Marlene Dietrich and Elia Kazan

They Were Collaborators #392


Sidney Bechet and Claude Luter

They Were an Item #23


Edy Williams and Russ Meyer

Ancient Voices #20


Sippie Wallace

Before and After #98: Catherine Deneuve

Before


After

November 12, 2007

When Legends Gather #315


Carole Lombard and Sabu in 1938 on Sabu's first visit to America.

My thanks to Vincent Paterno who runs 'Carole & Co' for sending this image.

Through the Lens of Cyril Arapoff #15


This stall sold ornamental china and bric-a-brac. There were two classes of stall-holder - the 'cheap-jacks' who sold mostly junk, and the 'silver kings' whose stalls were spread with glittering displays of polished silver, much of it of doubtful ownership

The Art of the London Underground #27


Untitled by Fred Taylor; 1923

in the art deco style #4


Willy Herzig, 1000 Takte Tanz, band 10 1934

Adventures in American Filmmaking #89


Today's Adventure: On the set of Mister Roberts, John Ford withdraws (1955)

The Art of Cinema #261


Girls in Chains
(Edgar G. Ulmer; 1943)

They Were Collaborators #391


Anthony Quayle, Arthur Miller, Mary Ure and Peter Brook

Joints #4


The 500 Club

Before and After #97: Buster Keaton

Before/After

They Were Collaborators #390


Mamie Smith's Jazz Hounds

When Legends Gather #314


James Earl Jones and Muhammad Ali

The Art of the Centerfold #35


Hedy Scott (Miss June, 1965)

The Golden Age of Publicity #4


Robert Cummings and Claudette Colbert are shadowed in this publicity still
for the United Artists release, Sleep, My Love (1948)

November 10, 2007

Norman Mailer Dead at 84


When he was having a better-than-average day and the gods were on his side, for once, he could summon waves of prose that would, with their astonishing velocity, overwhelm even the most jaded reader. When nothing, not a thing in the world, was smiling upon him, he made of himself a rank public spectacle and (albeit rarely) wrote sentences of such blinding, overreaching awfulness that one could be excused a longing for the simpler enterprise of hackdom. As the oldest-living enfant terrible in human history, he gave American literature and the times in which he lived the best show it ever had or could ever want.

Norman Mailer -- author of The Deer Park and Why Are We in Vietnam?; auteur of Wild 90, Maidstone and Beyond the Law; fetishist of Henry Miller and Marilyn Monroe; amateur boxer, wife-stabber, Mayoral candidate, man of letters, part-time buffoon and full-time genius -- passed away early this morning at the age of 84.

For those who have need of such things, here are three accounts of the life and the death:

The Washington Post

BBC News

The Associated Press

Artists in Action #282


Arthur Kennedy and Tony Curtis carouse on the set of The Rawhide Years.

The Art of Cinema #260


Hellzapoppin'
(H.C. Potter; 1941)

The Ink & Paint Set #25


Bing Crosby in I've Got to Sing a Torch Song
(Tom Palmer; Warner Bros.; 1933)

November 09, 2007

Seminal Image #747


Pilgrimage
(Werner Herzog; 2001)

They Were Collaborators #389


John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands

The Art of Communism #18

Before and After #96: Akira Kurosawa

Before


After

Great Con Artists of the 20th Century #15


Jim Garrison

November 07, 2007

Ancient Voices #19


Hudson Whitaker (aka Tampa Red)

Artists in Action #281


John Updike stares into the middle distance

November 06, 2007

They Were Collaborators #388


James Cagney and Joan Blondell (1932)

The Art of Jazz #45


Jazz for the Jet Set
(Dave Pike)
(Atlantic records; 1966)

Seminal Image #746


Rebecca
(Alfred Hitchcock; 1940)

November 05, 2007

Friends and Family #14


Moe Dalitz accepts an award

Sex Education #90


Gloria Swanson

When Legends Gather #313


Vice President Henry Wallace, Rep. Vito Marcantonio and Paul Robeson

Seminal Image #745


Carry on, Sergeant
(Gerald Thomas; 1958)

Civic Portraiture #27


Rev. William Sloane Coffin

Artists in Action #280


Tennessee Williams chases birds

November 04, 2007

Adventures in American Filmmaking #88


Today's Adventure: the Technicolor camera looms over director Rouben Mamoulian and star Miriam Hopkins on the set of Becky Sharp.

El Cine Del Oro #38


El Fanfarron (a.k.a. Aqui llego el valenton)
(Fernando A. Rivero; 1943)

Artists in Action #279


Buster Keaton relies on the talents of the ladies of the chorus.

November 02, 2007

An Illustrated History of Vice #3


Prostitutes in Japan wait for clients (1947)

Adventures in American Filmmaking #87


Today's Adventure: Judy Garland has some questions for John Cassavetes on the set of A Child Is Waiting (1963).

Ziegfeld Girls #7


Gladys Glad