Old Hollywood
Cinema
1900-1979
Nostalgia is a seductive liar - George Wildman Ball

Bernard Herrmann - Concerto Macabre For Piano & Orchestra (composed for the 1945 film noir Hangover Square)

Performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra with Sara Davis [F/K/A David] Buechner on piano

“Not long after the film’s release Herrmann received an enthusiastic letter from a New York music student praising the concerto. Herrmann responded with a gracious thank you letter to 15-year-old Stephen Sondheim. Recalled Sondheim in 1986, “I can still play the opening eight bars, since they were glimpsed briefly on (Hangover Square’s lead actor) Laird Cregar’s piano during the course of the film, and I dutifully memorized them by sitting through the picture twice.” Herrmann’s influence can be heard in Sondheim’s musical thriller Sweeney Todd, an English melodrama rich in brooding thematic material and dark psychology.”

-excerpted from A Heart at Fire’s Center: The Life and Music of Bernard Herrmann by Steven Smith

Conrad Veidt & Lil Dagover in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, dir. Robert Wiene) “The scenes in the steep, dark, crooked alleyways belonged to him. Even when he was not in front of the camera, he would prowl around the studio and startle us.” -Lil Dagover on Veidt (via)

Conrad Veidt & Lil Dagover in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, dir. Robert Wiene)

“The scenes in the steep, dark, crooked alleyways belonged to him. Even when he was not in front of the camera, he would prowl around the studio and startle us.”

-Lil Dagover on Veidt

(via)

Maurice Jarre - The Collector (The Collector: Original Soundtrack Recording)

Elizabeth Taylor in Secret Ceremony (1968, dir. Joseph Losey)

Elizabeth Taylor in Secret Ceremony (1968, dir. Joseph Losey)

The lighting of the Olympic torch in Olympia (1938, dir. Leni Riefenstahl) (via)

The lighting of the Olympic torch in Olympia (1938, dir. Leni Riefenstahl)

(via)

John Barry - You Only Live Twice (You Only Live Twice: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

June Duprez in And Then There Were None (1945, dir. René Clair) Full film online at Internet Archive “Relief possessed Vera - enormous exquisite relief. At last it was over.There was no more fear - no more steeling of her nerves. She was alone on the island, alone with nine dead bodies. But what did that matter? She was alive. She sat there - exquisitely happy - exquisitely at peace. No more fear. She had come now to the door of her room. She opened the door. She gave a gasp… What was that - hanging from the hook in the ceiling? A rope with a noose all ready? And a chair to stand upon - a chair that could be kicked away. And of course that was the last line of the rhyme. ‘He went and hanged himself and then there were none…’” Like an automaton Vera moved forward. This was the end. -Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None (1939)

June Duprez in And Then There Were None (1945, dir. René Clair) Full film online at Internet Archive

“Relief possessed Vera - enormous exquisite relief. At last it was over.There was no more fear - no more steeling of her nerves. She was alone on the island, alone with nine dead bodies.

But what did that matter? She was alive. She sat there - exquisitely happy - exquisitely at peace. No more fear.

She had come now to the door of her room. She opened the door.

She gave a gasp…

What was that - hanging from the hook in the ceiling? A rope with a noose all ready? And a chair to stand upon - a chair that could be kicked away.

And of course that was the last line of the rhyme.

‘He went and hanged himself and then there were none…’”

Like an automaton Vera moved forward. This was the end.

-Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None (1939)

On the Lolita set, Stanley Kubrick cranes his neck behind Sue Lyon’s back to watch James Mason’s performance from the same angle as the camera (1961, via) “The perfect novel from which to make a movie is, I think, not the novel of action but, on the contrary, the novel which is mainly concerned with the inner life of its characters. It will give the adaptor an absolute compass bearing, as it were, on what a character is thinking or feeling at any given moment of the story. And from this he can invent action which will be an objective correlative of the book’s psychological content, will accurately dramatise this in an implicit, off-the-nose way without resorting to having the actors deliver literal statements of meaning. …People have asked me how it is possible to make a film out of Lolita when so much of the quality of the book depends on Nabokov’s prose style. But to take the prose style as any more than just a part of a great book is simply misunderstanding just what a great book is. Of course, the quality of the writing is one of the elements that make a novel great. But this quality is a result of the quality of the writer’s obsession with his subject, with a theme and a concept and a view of life and an understanding of character. Style is what an artist uses to fascinate the beholder in order to convey to him his feelings and emotions and thoughts. These are what have to be dramatised, not the style. The dramatising has to find a style of its own, as it will do if it really grasps the content.” -excerpted from Kubrick’s essay “Words and Movies” (Sight & Sound, 1960-61)

On the Lolita set, Stanley Kubrick cranes his neck behind Sue Lyon’s back to watch James Mason’s performance from the same angle as the camera (1961, via)

“The perfect novel from which to make a movie is, I think, not the novel of action but, on the contrary, the novel which is mainly concerned with the inner life of its characters. It will give the adaptor an absolute compass bearing, as it were, on what a character is thinking or feeling at any given moment of the story. And from this he can invent action which will be an objective correlative of the book’s psychological content, will accurately dramatise this in an implicit, off-the-nose way without resorting to having the actors deliver literal statements of meaning.

…People have asked me how it is possible to make a film out of Lolita when so much of the quality of the book depends on Nabokov’s prose style. But to take the prose style as any more than just a part of a great book is simply misunderstanding just what a great book is. Of course, the quality of the writing is one of the elements that make a novel great. But this quality is a result of the quality of the writer’s obsession with his subject, with a theme and a concept and a view of life and an understanding of character.

Style is what an artist uses to fascinate the beholder in order to convey to him his feelings and emotions and thoughts. These are what have to be dramatised, not the style. The dramatising has to find a style of its own, as it will do if it really grasps the content.”

-excerpted from Kubrick’s essay “Words and Movies” (Sight & Sound, 1960-61)

Glynis Johns in Miranda (1948, dir. Ken Annakin)

Glynis Johns in Miranda (1948, dir. Ken Annakin)

Privilege (1967, dir. Peter Watkins) “American novelist Norman Bognor and I adapted the script, which we retitled Privilege, to emphasize the significance of [fictional pop star] Steven Shorter as an allegory for the manner in which national states, working via religion, the mass media, sports, Popular Culture, etc., divert a potential political challenge by young people. In case this theme appears exaggerated, it is important to keep in mind that it was set in the ‘swinging Britain’ of the 1960s, and was prescient of the way that Popular Culture and the media in the US commercialized the anti-war and counter-culture movement in that country as well.” -Watkins on Privilege

Privilege (1967, dir. Peter Watkins)

“American novelist Norman Bognor and I adapted the script, which we retitled Privilege, to emphasize the significance of [fictional pop star] Steven Shorter as an allegory for the manner in which national states, working via religion, the mass media, sports, Popular Culture, etc., divert a potential political challenge by young people.

In case this theme appears exaggerated, it is important to keep in mind that it was set in the ‘swinging Britain’ of the 1960s, and was prescient of the way that Popular Culture and the media in the US commercialized the anti-war and counter-culture movement in that country as well.”

-Watkins on Privilege

Patti Smith - Privilege (Set Me Free)

From Smith’s liner notes for the album Easter:

“the title track from the john hayman-peter watkins production of the film privilege. a movie that merged the rock martyr (paul jones) with all the sacristal images of the sixties…the cross..the christ..the whip and the lashes that served to veil velvet weeping balls-the eyes of jean shrimpton”


Pamela Devis & Jerry Verno in The Perfect Woman (1949, dir. Bernard Knowles)

Pamela Devis & Jerry Verno in The Perfect Woman (1949, dir. Bernard Knowles)

Rififi (1955, dir. Jules Dassin)

Rififi (1955, dir. Jules Dassin)

Larry Adler & Philippe-Gérard - Du rififi chez les hommes (Rififi: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Mia Farrow on the set of Rosemary’s Baby (1968, dir. Roman Polanski) “[Polanski] had the idea that I should absentmindedly walk across the street into the moving traffic, not looking right or left. ‘Nobody will hit a pregnant woman,’ he laughed, referring to my padded stomach. He had to operate the hand-held camera himself, since nobody else would. I took a deep breath. An almost giddy, euphoric feeling came over me. Together Roman & I marched right in front of the oncoming cars - with Roman on the far side, so I would’ve been hit first. ‘There are 127 varieties of nuts,” he told a journalist. ‘Mia is 116 of them.’ I’ll take a compliment any way it comes. I appeared in every single scene of the film, except when, during [the impregnated with Satan’s spawn sequence] a body double was used in my place. But I didn’t entirely miss out on the scene - one day I found myself - me from convent school, who prayed with outstretched arms in the predawn light - tied to the four corners of a bed, ringed by elderly, chanting witches, while a perfect stranger with bad skin and vertical pupils was grinding away on top of me. I didn’t dare think. After finishing that scene the actor climbed off me and said politely, in all seriousness, ‘Miss Farrow, I just want to say, it’s a real pleasure to have worked with you.’” -excerpted from Mia Farrow’s What Falls Away

Mia Farrow on the set of Rosemary’s Baby (1968, dir. Roman Polanski)

“[Polanski] had the idea that I should absentmindedly walk across the street into the moving traffic, not looking right or left. ‘Nobody will hit a pregnant woman,’ he laughed, referring to my padded stomach. He had to operate the hand-held camera himself, since nobody else would. I took a deep breath. An almost giddy, euphoric feeling came over me. Together Roman & I marched right in front of the oncoming cars - with Roman on the far side, so I would’ve been hit first. ‘There are 127 varieties of nuts,” he told a journalist. ‘Mia is 116 of them.’ I’ll take a compliment any way it comes.

I appeared in every single scene of the film, except when, during [the impregnated with Satan’s spawn sequence] a body double was used in my place. But I didn’t entirely miss out on the scene - one day I found myself - me from convent school, who prayed with outstretched arms in the predawn light - tied to the four corners of a bed, ringed by elderly, chanting witches, while a perfect stranger with bad skin and vertical pupils was grinding away on top of me. I didn’t dare think. After finishing that scene the actor climbed off me and said politely, in all seriousness, ‘Miss Farrow, I just want to say, it’s a real pleasure to have worked with you.’”

-excerpted from Mia Farrow’s What Falls Away