This Quarter in Film History
Frankly, Selznick Did Give a Damn
Why David O. Selznick feared a tombstone epitaph as the man who made Gone with the Wind (1939) is mysterious. This film was his Tara as much as it was Miss Scarlett’s. […]
This Quarter in Film History
This Quarter in Film History
Celebrity, Italian Style
La Dolce Vita. For 50 years, since the Federico Fellini movie was released in January 1960, those three words have been synonymous with delicious deca- dence among a jet-set mix of expatriate movie stars, high-society types and jaded Italian aristocrats based around Rome. […]
This Quarter in Film History
THIS MONTH IN FILM HISTORY: O Brothel, Where Art Thou?
Of all his creations, ‘The Apartment’ is Billy Wilder’s most influential and greatest film. […]
This Quarter in Film History
Lost in Translation
Roberto Rossellini’s Open City (Roma, Cittá Aperta), which premiered in Italy 65 years ago in September 1945, revolutionized the perception and marketing of foreign films in America when it opened in New York just five months later. […]
This Quarter in Film History
Eisenstein on the Breach
The Battleship Potemkin, or Potemkin as it is generally known, galvanized filmmakers around the world because of the audacity of its film editing––especially in the iconic Odessa Steps massacre. Its impact on editors and directors since its premiere in Moscow on Christmas Eve, 1925 is immeasurable. […]
This Quarter in Film History
Hitchcock Railway
The signature Alfred Hitchcock thriller frequently involves an innocent person accused of a politically motivated murder committed by twisted villains who are terrorists, Nazis, fascists or Communists. […]
This Quarter in Film History
This Quarter in Film History
‘Apocalypse’ Then
Rex Ingram put what became MGM on the map, but ironically, the studio he helped to create was also his undoing. […]
This Quarter in Film History
Brother, Can You Spare a Job?
F Scott Fitzgerald once wrote that there are no second acts to American lives––an odd statement because Americans have always sought new challenges and adventures. During the Depression, people lost their careers, their savings and their homes, and families were forced to discover new ways to survive. Three-quarters of a century later, the current generation is experiencing similar joblessness, foreclosures and bankruptcies, which have caused national anxiety. […]
Columns
The Reel Housewives of Post-War Suburbia
A Letter to Three Wives was a classic from the day it was released in January 1949. […]
