Old Hollywood

Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Lang (upper right), & crew on the...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 17:50:12 -0500

Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Lang (upper right), & crew on the set of Metropolis (1927, Fritz Lang) (via)

Cary Grant receiving an Academy Honorary Award in 1970 (online...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 17:20:00 -0500

Cary Grant receiving an Academy Honorary Award in 1970 (online here)

“Years ago, when Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon were getting divorced, a perhaps apocryphal story appeared in the scandal sheets: As an example of Grant’s supposed irrationality, Cannon cited to the judge Cary’s yearly habit of sitting in front of his television and sardonically abusing all the participants. This item, true or not, must have amused nearly everyone in Hollywood, since nearly everyone in Hollywood does pretty much the same thing.

The funny thing is that from all accounts, when the Academy Awards began in 1939, they were conducted in a similar spirit of irreverence, something that has practically disappeared from the event itself. “They used to have it down at the old Coconut Grove,” Jimmy Stewart told me in the late 70s. “You’d have dinner and alawta drinks - the whole thing was…it was just…it was a party. Nobody took it all that seriously. I mean, it was swell if ya won because your friends were givin’ it to you, but it didn’t mean anything at the bawx office or anything. It was just alawta friends gettin’ together and tellin’ some jokes and gettin’ loaded and givin’ out some little prizes. My gawsh, it was..there was no pressure or anything like that.”

Cary Grant corroborated this to me: ”It was a private affair, you see - no television, no radio, even - just a group of friends giving each other a party. Because, you know, there is something a little embarrassing about all these wealthy people publicly congratulating each other. When it began, we kidded ourselves: ‘All right, Freddie March,’ we’d say, ‘we know you’re making a million dollars - now come up and get your little medal for it!’”

-excerpted from Peter Bogdanovich’s Who the Hell’s In It

Elmer Bernstein - Main Title (To Kill A Mockingbird: Original...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 17:15:13 -0500

Elmer Bernstein - Main Title (To Kill A Mockingbird: Original Motion Picture Score)

Cary Grant in None but the Lonely Heart (1944, dir. Clifford...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:50:13 -0500

Cary Grant in None but the Lonely Heart (1944, dir. Clifford Odets)

“When Grant was awarded his honorary Oscar, he requested that a clip from None but the Lonely Heart be included in his film composite. Gregory Peck, who was going to leave the scene out of the assemblage, says: ‘…Cary cried on the screen, and he wanted that in. I didn’t think it was one of his greatest moments. But he insisted. He said, ‘Well, I didn’t do much of that kind of emotion, but I think that was rather good.’

Grant: ‘I thought the picture showed a successful bit of acting. I was usually cast as a well-dressed, sophisticated chap.This time I was an embittered cockney. In many ways the part seemed to fit my nature better than the light-hearted fellows I was used to playing.’”

(via)

Ennio Morricone - The Ecstasy Of Gold (The Good, the Bad, &...

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 16:15:42 -0500

Ennio Morricone - The Ecstasy Of Gold (The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Vocals: Edda Dell’Orso

“’How does a film-maker make sure his music is heard? Let me give you an example. If someone has not been invited to a party, but wants to go, what does he do?’ [Ennio] Morricone acts out some noisy Italian bonhomie: ‘Hello everybody, hello.’

He pauses.

‘He doesn’t do this. He knocks at the door, asks for permission to come in, enters the house and then starts meeting people. The music in a film must enter politely, very slowly. The composer does not have to write music at the actual moment a character enters a room - it might be too much. So there is this slow, delicate entry, with a simple sound that allows the film-maker to lower the other, naturalistic sounds.

The human ear can distinguish no more than two sounds of different quality at the same time. Some very nice music doesn’t work because of that: if it is too strong, it can become an element that disturbs the film, rather than giving something to it. Yet in some cases the music must be very, very strong, when it is necessary to give a particular dynamic to the storytelling course of the film, rather than, say, a person’s feelings.”

-excerpted from Guardian Morricone profile, “Screen Saver” (via)

Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931, dir. Rouben...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 16:50:20 -0500

Fredric March in Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931, dir. Rouben Mamoulian) (via)

Katharine Hepburn in Mary of Scotland (1936, dir. John Ford)...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 15:05:00 -0500

Katharine Hepburn in Mary of Scotland (1936, dir. John Ford) (via)

Nat King Cole - Happy New Year (Judy Garland version here)

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:35:00 -0500

Nat King Cole - Happy New Year

(Judy Garland version here)

“On a microscopic piece of sand that floats through space...

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:20:00 -0500

“On a microscopic piece of sand that floats through space is a fragment of a man’s life. Left to rust is the place he lived in and the machines he used. Without use, they will disintegrate from the wind and the sand and the years that act upon them. All of Mr. Corry’s machines - including the one made in his image, kept alive by love, but now obsolete - in the Twilight Zone.”

-Rod Serling, “The Lonely”, The Twilight Zone (1959)

It’s that time again - ride out your hangover with the New Year’s Eve/Day Syfy TZ marathon (schedule here)

Ella Fitzgerald - What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 22:25:00 -0500

Ella Fitzgerald - What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?

Eheferien (1927, dir. Victor Janson) (via)

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 21:00:00 -0500

Eheferien (1927, dir. Victor Janson) (via)

Richard Rodney Bennett - Overture and Kidnapping (Murder on the...

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:30:24 -0500

Richard Rodney Bennett - Overture and Kidnapping (Murder on the Orient Express: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

“I felt very strongly that the opening of the film, the main titles, should give one the sense of excitement and anticipation that one felt at the theatre, as a child, before the curtain went up. I remember saying to [Orient Express director] Sidney Lumet, ‘No one’s frightened by Agatha Christie, in 1974. We have to give them the feeling that they’re about to see a terrific entertainment.’

There was a certain amount of moaning from train aficionados over the fact that the sounds of the train were minimal because of all this music, and a loud cry from Bernard Herrmann [regarding including a waltz in the film]—‘Bennett got it all wrong! This is the TRAIN OF DEATH!’”

-Bennett, on his score for Murder on the Orient Express

Henry Fonda in The Long Night (1947, dir. Anatole Litvak)...

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 20:20:00 -0500

Henry Fonda in The Long Night (1947, dir. Anatole Litvak) Photographer: Alexander Kahle

Vince Guaraldi - Greensleeves (A Charlie Brown Christmas:...

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:25:17 -0500

Vince Guaraldi - Greensleeves (A Charlie Brown Christmas: Original Soundtrack Recording of the CBS Television Special)

Dwight Frye in Frankenstein (1931, dir. James Whale) Set design...

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 20:10:43 -0500

Dwight Frye in Frankenstein (1931, dir. James Whale) Set design by Herman Rosse & Charles D. Hall (via)

Otis Redding - White Christmas

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 19:40:25 -0500

Otis Redding - White Christmas

Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits (1961, dir. John...

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 16:05:27 -0500

Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits (1961, dir. John Huston) (via)

Photo by Eve Arnold.

Julie London - I’d Like You For Christmas

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 14:28:46 -0500

Julie London - I’d Like You For Christmas

”Love affairs, adventures - these become less important and your...

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 14:25:00 -0500

”Love affairs, adventures - these become less important and your work takes on greater meaning because it gives you the illusion of still being young. So you have a growing sense of security there - and less in life, where I am increasingly insecure. The public says bravo, but those close to you say, ‘You’re past 60 and you still have the brain of a 10-year-old. How is it possible? How else could it be? The Madonna, when I was born, said, ‘That one, he’s to remain forever a baby and become an actor.’

I work overtime with my fantasies and always have. Fellini said that when we got past 60, there’d be less trouble, more peace. Women are beautiful, but they complicate life. At night, you don’t sleep, you talk, you argue, you make love at 5 in the morning, then drag yourself off to the studio - a madhouse! But now, there’s still no peace, it’s even worse.

Sunday morning, at the beach at Ostia, I see these pretty girls in bathing suits and I go crazy. With my fantasies, it’ll never end, even at 100! Women see more clearly - too clearly sometimes, especially for an actor who does everything to make real something which, in reality, does not exist. In the theater, you turn a lie, a fiction, into a truth, an illusion into a reality. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been attracted to actresses. They understand this.”

-Marcello Mastroianni (NY Times interview, Sept. 1987) (photo via)

Duke Ellington Orchestra - Jingle Bells

Tue, 25 Dec 2012 13:30:00 -0500

Duke Ellington Orchestra - Jingle Bells