News

Director Roland West is largely forgotten today by all but the most devoted classic film buffs, but in his time, he was popular enough to be prominently featured in advertising for movies like “The Bat Whispers,” which showcased West’s name above the title on the poster.

That 1930 talkie was a remake of a movie West had directed only four years earlier called “The Bat,” and both films had a profound impact on comic book artist Bob Kane; he saw them as a child, and their imagery — especially a bat shadow cast on walls like a signal — informed his most beloved and enduring creation, Batman.

West would be worthy of serious study regardless of his influence on Kane’s iconic superhero; he was a gifted director of crime films and thrillers whose expressive visual style looked forward less to DC comics than to the golden age of film noir. He...

You’ve never seen Hollywood quite like the way it’s portrayed in “Babylon,” the new film from Oscar-winning “La La Land” and “First Man” filmmaker Damien Chazelle. This three-hour epic takes place in the late 1920s and opens in a debauchery-filled Hollywood in the heyday of silent films, as it then chronicles a trio of characters through the transition to talkies. Chazelle assembled an all-star cast for the film, including Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt, and holds nothing back in this R-rated drama that has drawn more than a few comparisons to Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Boogie Nights.”

So if “Babylon” is the film you’re looking to watch over the holiday break, you may be wondering how and where to see it. All your questions answered below.

Also Read:

Watch How ‘Babylon’ Production Designer Florencia Martin Re-Created Old Hollywood in the Desert (Exclusive Video) When Did “Babylon” Come Out?...

In Hollywood’s long and illustrious history, thousands of young starlets have arrived with big dreams and plans. Some make it, establishing successful careers that last so long we’re duped into believing they’ll be with us forever. Who didn’t believe Betty White would make it to 100? How many of us were stunned when she died 18 days before that landmark birthday? Sadly, some don’t get that many years, and stun the world when they die suddenly at the height of their fame. Then there are those who die young and tragically when their careers have just begun, and are remembered more for their manners of death than their work. In more than 100 years of Hollywood history, there have been several deaths that have made the headlines.

SEE30 music legends tragic deaths; remembering Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Selena and more

One of the earliest Hollywood scandals involved the...

In Hollywood’s long and illustrious history, thousands of young starlets have arrived with big dreams and plans. Some make it, establishing successful careers that last so long we’re duped into believing they’ll be with us forever. Who didn’t believe Betty White would make it to 100? How many of us were stunned when she died 18 days before that landmark birthday? Sadly, some don’t get that many years, and stun the world when they die suddenly at the height of their fame. Then there are those who die young and tragically when their careers have just begun, and are remembered more for their manners of death than their work. In more than 100 years of Hollywood history, there have been several deaths that have made the headlines.

One of the earliest Hollywood scandals involved the sudden death of a young actress. In 1921, 26-year-old Virginia Rappe died from a...

“She’s not eating. No dinner last night. A cup of black coffee and three cigarettes for breakfast.”

Kay Francis and Lyle Talbot in Mary Stevens, M.D. (1933) will be available on Blu-ray October 26th from Warner Archive. The first-ever Home Video release in any format!

New doctors Mary Stevens (Kay Francis) and Don Andrews (Lyle Talbot) launch their practices in the same medical building, where Mary dedicates herself to her patients while facing constant prejudice for being a woman. Despite Mary’s love for him, Don falls for Lois Rising (Thelma Todd), the daughter of a powerful politician, and the two eventually marry, leaving a brokenhearted Mary to move on and focus on her work. As Mary becomes a successful pediatrician, Don’s marriage deteriorates, driving him to drink and eventually threatening his career. Escaping to a resort, he unexpectedly runs into Mary, and the two rekindle their old love.

For “Drunk History” co-creator and host Derek Waters, it’s pretty bittersweet to still be campaigning for an Emmy now that his show has been canceled. Comedy Central, which is mostly getting out of the live-action comedy business, announced earlier this month that it had rescinded a Season 7 order for “Drunk History,” and Waters admits it still isn’t clear what happens next.

“It sounds a little dramatic, but it’s like a funeral without any music,” he told Variety‘s Awards HQ. “I would love to finish what I started. It would just be nice to end on your own terms, to say goodbye and not just be like, ‘that’s it.'”

Waters, who created the show with fellow executive producer Jeremy Konner, said he still hasn’t been given an “actual answer why it happened … no one’s called me. I have no idea. I have no verification of it.

Movies to watch when you’re staying in for a while, featuring recommendations from Dana Gould, Daniel Waters, Scott Alexander, and Allison Anders.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Destroy All Monsters (1969)

Planet Of The Apes (1968)

Beneath The Planet of the Apes (1970)

Escape From The Planet Of The Apes (1971)

Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes (1972)

Battle For The Planet Of The Apes (1973)

Suparpie

The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Hello Down There (1969)

Koyaanisqatsi (1982)

Thirteen Days (2000)

Stalker (1979)

Last Year At Marienbad (1961)

No Exit (1962)

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

Sleeper (1973)

The Tenant (1976)

Final Cut: Ladies And Gentlemen (2012)

The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990)

La classe américaine (1993)

The Sex Adventures of a Single Man a.k.a. The 24 Hour Lover (1968)

The Omega Man (1971)

Soylent Green (1973)

Knives Out (2019)

The Hunt (2020)

Banana Split (2020)

The Cocoanuts (1929)

Animal Crackers (1930)

Monkey Business (1931)

Horse Feathers (1932)

Duck Soup (1933)

A Night At The Opera (1935)

The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant (1971)

Susan Slade (1961)

My Blood Runs Cold...

As the Cyndi Lauper song catchily blared, girls just want to have fun. And one of them — writer-director Augustine Frizzell — wants girls to have their own Texas-baked, Linklater-smoked-and-exhaled female buddy romp. That comes in “Never Goin’ Back,” her geographically constricted, misadventure indie-comedy that is as likely to tickle chemically-altered after-party crowds as to scare the living daylights out of after-school church groups.

Frizzell’s unrepentantly filthy, frisky celebration of lipsticked bestie-dom in the face of desperation and humiliation won’t win any awards for comic originality: The bad-day-genre standbys of “oops” drug intake, dumb schemes, and digestive mishaps are all present and accounted for. But “Never Goin’ Back,” which Frizzell has admitted is in ways an honest, personal reckoning with incidents in her own fumbling adolescence, has something many comedies simply fail to care about: a spark-filled joie de vivre about the stupidity of youth that lifts it above many...

Vintage ’30s comedy returns, with a beautiful blonde, a sassy brunette and elaborate location filming in a bygone Los Angeles. Hal Roach found a good match for his ‘female Laurel & Hardy’ comedy team in gorgeous Thelma Todd and the smart-mouthed Patsy Kelly.

The Complete Hal Roach Thelma Todd Patsy Kelly Comedy Collection

DVD

1933-1936 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 445 min. / Silver Series / Street Date June 26 2018, 2018 / available through Classic Flix / 39.99

Starring: Thelma Todd & Patsy Kelly.

Produced by Hal Roach

Directed by Gus Meins, William Terhune, James Parrott, Nick Grinde, others

Hal Roach made the movie game pay big even back in the ‘teens, when Los Angeles used zoning laws to force moviemakers away from downtown, into the remote ‘suburbs’ of Hollywood and Culver City. Taking a choice piece of Culver City real estate, Hal built a veritable empire of comedy, mostly with short subjects. He helped launch the great Harold Lloyd, invented and...

Seven Footprints to Satan (1929) was the middle of three spooky house films made by Danish director Benjamin Christensen, who's best known for the satanic documentary Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages. The other films are lost, though the music and sound effects discs that once accompanied The Haunted House (1928) can be heard on YouTube: lots of whistling wind and hooting owls. You might want to imagine those sounds as you experience Seven Footprints, whose original score and FX are lost. Maybe you'd even like to play them together and see if they sync up, even though they're different films? Christensen came over at the same time as Garbo, and for a while looked to be making a go of it in Hollywood, directing successful films at MGM and Warner Bros. His very weird sensibility seems surreal now, but apparently fitted into the commercial cinema of the day. Seven Footprints is...

Growing up in the suburbs of Los Angeles provided fertile inspiration for Michelle Morgan, director of the recent iTunes New Filmmaker Spotlight “It Happened in L.A.” (Click here to watch the film)

“I’m born and raised in La, so it’s a world that I know pretty well,” she said. “I lived in the city when I was a child and then I spent most of my young-adult years in the suburbs, so the city was always this mythical thing to us in the suburbs.”

“It Happened in L.A.” follows thirtysomething Annette (Morgan), her boyfriend, Elliot (Jorma Taccone), and her Bff, Baker (Dree Hemingway), as they navigate the perils of the bleak dating scene in Los Angeles. Is there such a thing as a perfect couple, or is that an urban myth?

“It Happened in L.A.,” which was Morgan’s feature directorial debut, premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival...

The recent box office success of The Boss firmly establishes Melissa McCarthy as the current queen of movie comedies (Amy Schumer could be a new contender after an impressive debut last Summer with Trainwreck), but let us think back about those other funny ladies of filmdom. So while we’re enjoying the female reboot/re-imagining of Ghostbusters and those Bad Moms, here’s a top ten list that will hopefully inspire lots of laughter and cause you to search out some classic comedies. It’s tough to narrow them down to ten, but we’ll do our best, beginning with… 10. Eve Arden The droll Ms. Arden represents the comic sidekicks who will attempt to puncture the pomposity of the leading ladies with a well-placed wisecrack (see also the great Thelma Ritter in Rear Window). Her career began in the early 1930’s with great bit roles in Stage Door and Dancing Lady.

This new comedy questions an old adage, since it ponders whether you truly cannot “go home again”. It further wonders if you can party “hearty” back at said home. Then you could put another spin on a saying by staggering and weaving down “the road not taken”. The protagonists of this film are not middle-aged “lost boys” usually played by the likes of Will Ferrell, Seth Rogen, and Adam Sandler. They flail about in flick after flick as stumbling, bumbling examples of the “man-child”, often with wives mortified at their antics. But what about flipping that comic trope? Can’t these farces feature a “women-child”, or two? Ladies regressing back to simpler times? Well, here’s two actresses that are more than ready for this challenge. Hard to believe that over seven years has passed since they were an on-screen team in Baby Mama. But happily they’ve been deflating...

Donald Trump vs. Starbucks' War on Christmas. The War on Christmas: The movies that come to mind We're still in November, but the War on Christmas – according to online buzz, a second cousin once removed of the War on Cops – has begun. Weeping and gritting of teeth has seized certain population segments in the U.S.A. (and perhaps other countries as well) after Fox News, that beacon of intellectual freedom at the end of the cable news tunnel, announced that … Starbucks' holiday season cups are a) red b) devoid of Christmas decorations. Could it be a satanic conspiracy disguised as politically correct inclusiveness? The result of a communist takeover at the Seattle-headquartered company? Cruel and unusual Christian persecution in the form of paper cups? Your guess is as good as mine. Far-right Republican icon, U.S. presidential candidate, and 2015 political circus ringmaster Donald Trump seems to think that Starbucks...

Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.

Michelle Morgan's latest book "The Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd," chronicles the tumultuous life and tragic death of Thelma Todd, one of the few Golden Age stars who made the successful transition from the silent film era to the "talkies." Having just started her own restaurant, Todd's life seemed on the rise when she was unexpectedly found dead in a garage. "The Ice Cream Blonde" offers up fresh new evidence on the mysterious death, long suspected but never proven to be a murder. Morgan's authoritative biography coincides with the 80th anniversary of Todd's death and provides a compelling new theory for what may have actually happened to her. "The Ice Cream Blonde: The Whirlwind Life and Mysterious Death of Screwball Comedienne Thelma Todd" will be released on November 1 by Chicago Review Press and is available for pre-order on Amazon. Check out an exclusive full excerpt.

Groucho Marx in 'Duck Soup.' Groucho Marx movies: 'Duck Soup,' 'The Story of Mankind' and romancing Margaret Dumont on TCM Grouch Marx, the bespectacled, (painted) mustached, cigar-chomping Marx brother, is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 14, '15. Marx Brothers fans will be delighted, as TCM is presenting no less than 11 of their comedies, in addition to a brotherly reunion in the 1957 all-star fantasy The Story of Mankind. Non-Marx Brothers fans should be delighted as well – as long as they're fans of Kay Francis, Thelma Todd, Ann Miller, Lucille Ball, Eve Arden, Allan Jones, affectionate, long-tongued giraffes, and/or that great, scene-stealing dowager, Margaret Dumont. Right now, TCM is showing Robert Florey and Joseph Santley's The Cocoanuts (1929), an early talkie notable as the first movie featuring the four Marx Brothers – Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Zeppo. Based on their hit Broadway...

Talk about a calm before the storm. This is one of those rare weekends where there are no new wide releases hitting multiplexes, but that means there are a lot of specialty films taking advantage of that fact and sneaking into area theaters. You can see all of this week's new releases below, but first we'll take a look at some of the unique repertory screenings booked around town over the next week. 

The Austin Film Society is starting a three-week series turning the spotlight on comedian Jerry Lewis. It begins tonight at the Marchesa with one of his biggest hits, 1963's The Nutty Professor. Screening from a Dcp (digital print), it also plays again on Sunday evening. On Wednesday, they'll feature Rodrigo Reyes' Purgatorio for Doc Nights. The Afs website describes it as a "lyrical meditation on the border between the Us and Mexico." Thursday night brings another...

I always find it surreal to drive on Pacific Coast Highway and pass the attractive building that once housed Thelma Todd’s Café. It looks just the same as it does in postcards from the 1930s. For years it has been home to Paulist Productions, the company that produced Father “Bud” Kieser’s Insight television show. Now it’s up for sale, the price just shy of eight million dollars. If Thelma Todd is remembered at all—except by diehard movie buffs—it’s because her untimely death in 1935 remains on every roster of Hollywood scandals and unsolved mysteries. I prefer to remember her as one of movies’ most delightful comediennes. The blonde beauty was a mainstay at the...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]...

Amber Tamblyn has signed with Harper Perennial for a new book of poetry, her third. Video: Jimmy Kimmel Grills Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Titled Dark Sparkler, it will be a haunting and provocative collection of poetry -- some personally inflected -- about the lives and untimely deaths of well-known actresses, including Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Frances Farmer, Sharon Tate, Thelma Todd and Brittany Murphy. Less familiar subjects include In the Heat of the Night's Quentin Dean, Poltergeist's Heather O'Rourke and Anissa Jones from Family Affair. The book will also include specially commissioned art from David Lynch, Marilyn Manson and her father,

read more...

Way back in October of 2011 was when we first told you about the upcoming found footage spooker 1666. Here we are several years later, and we finally have some artwork for you to tear into and more.

Below you'll find the international artwork via Indican Pictures, who'll be distributing the film everywhere but here. Stateside it will be coming from Lionsgate.

The story centers on four friends in their early 20’s who last year on the night before Halloween decided to go on a self-made tour of famous Hollywood murders and celebrity haunted houses. The tour led them to a house known as "1666". They have been missing ever since.

We’ve all done this as teenagers - we’ve all heard stories of a local haunted hot spot. In most cases we’ve gotten into a packed car with a bunch of our friends to go to the location and check it out for ourselves.

Lon Chaney didn't speak during early childhood, as his parents were deaf and mute, and he communicated with them via sign language. When silent movies came along, he was a natural. And at the end of his life, stricken with throat cancer, he lost his voice and again relied on pantomime to make himself understood. He came from silence and went back to silence.

Chaney was a unique kind of movie star, in that his success rested more on variety than reliability: if his audiences had any expectations going into a Chaney film, surely they must have been expectations of surprise, perhaps of an encounter with the unfamiliar and bizarre.

Outside the Law (1920) was Chaney's second film for director Tod Browning, whose concerns seemed to merge with his own in a particularly conducive way: separately and apart, both men pursued stories of humiliation, disfigurement, and revenge, featuring bizarre, displaced menageries and elaborate and uncomfortable disguises.

If I had to choose an all-time favorite movie studio, it would be Hal Roach’s, where comedy was king in the 1920s and ‘30s. Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy, Our Gang, Charley Chase, and Thelma Todd were among his brightest stars. They were surrounded by directors, writers, cameramen, prop men, and other specialists who knew comedy inside and out. Professor Richard L. Ward examined the business history of this enterprise in his 2006 book A History of the Hal Roach Studios, and decades ago William K. Everson wrote an eloquent monograph for the Museum of Modern Art on the movies themselves. Now, silent comedy expert Richard M. Roberts has undertaken the formidable task of exploring all...

[[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]...

Chicago – To answer the musical question, “Baby, if you ever wondered, wondered whatever became of me?” there is the sublime Loni Anderson, who portrayed Jennifer Marlowe on the popular 1970s sitcom, “Wkrp in Cincinnati.” Anderson was an attendee of “The Hollywood Show,” which comes to Chicago again on September 7th and 8th, 2013.

Loni Anderson is much like her character on Wkrp – luminous, intelligent and with a unique perspective. She climbed the show business ladder herself, after having a first marriage and a child in her teens. After that marriage ended before her 21st birthday, she finished college at the University of Minnesota and started an acting career, taking roles on stage and in local and national commercials. After moving to Los Angeles in 1975, she dyed her jet black hair to blonde, and began a series of high profile appearances on familiar dramas and comedies of the era, including “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Police Woman.

Remember how 2011's "Bridesmaids" was supposed to usher in a new era of female buddy comedies? Didn't really happen, did it? Aside from the new cop caper "The Heat" (starring Sandra Bullock and "Bridesmaids" alumna Melissa McCarthy), there haven't been too many female buddy comedies lately.

But then, that's always been the case. The female duo or ensemble drama is rare enough, but comedies centering on two or more prominent women are rarer still. Even in the early years of film, male comedy teams like Laurel and Hardy or Abbott and Costello flourished, while female teams like Thelma Todd and Patsy Kelly (who made many shorts together) languished and were forgotten. There's never been a shortage of funny female teams on TV (from Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance to Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams, to the "Golden Girls" and "Sex and the City" casts), but seldom do movies find room...

One of the Most Amazing Silent Movies (or Movies of Any Era, Period) Ever Made Tops the List of Best of Movies Released in 1921 Rex Ingram’s The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Metro Pictures' film version of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez’s epic novel -- from a scenario by the immensely powerful writer-producer June Mathis -- catapulted Mathis’ protégé, the until then little known Rudolph Valentino (photo, left), to worldwide superstardom, as The Four Horsemen became one of the biggest box-office hits of the silent era. Ingram’s wife, the invariably excellent Alice Terry (right, dark-haired in real life; a light-haired in her many movies), played Valentino's love interest. Ninety-two years after its initial launch, the Four Horsemen remains a monumental achievement. Released by MGM, Vincente Minnelli's 1962 remake of this Metro Pictures production featured an all-star cast: Glenn Ford, Ingrid Thulin (dubbed by Angela Lansbury), Charles Boyer, Lee J. Cobb,...

On the long list of buxom blonde beauties throughout TV history, Loni Anderson has rightfully earned her spot. Widely-known for her role as receptionist Jennifer Marlowe on "Wkrp in Cincinnati," playing iconic screen sirens Jayne Mansfield and Thelma Todd and a tumultuous marriage to Burt Reynolds, Anderson knew exactly how to put her good looks (and talents) to use.

And while the St. Paul, Minnesota-native is a natural brunette, it's no doubt that Anderson's blinding bouffant propelled her into superstardom. From a super teased, soap opera coiff to a Farrah Fawcett-inspired feathered haircut, the 67-year-old actress has a heavy hand on the holding hairspray.

Though her hair has consistently remained big and blonde, we've decided to take a look back at Anderson's many hairstyles over the years. Vote on all her 'dos (and don'ts) in the slideshow below.

Meanwhile, find out what products to use to maintain blonde hair.

This is a trailer for the indie film 1666. I am a scary movie junkie and this movie looks like it will be right up my alley. Here is the info that the director, Chris, sent to us here at Gt.

Based on ‘found footage,’ the story centers on four friends in their early 20’s.

Last year on the night before Halloween, they decided to go on a self made tour of famous Hollywood murders and celebrity haunted houses. The tour led them to a house known as 1666. They have been missing ever since.

We’ve all done this, as teenagers - we’ve all heard stories of a local haunted hot spot. In most cases, we’ve gotten into a packed car with a bunch of our friends to go to the location and check it out for ourselves. And more often than not, we ended up having a story...

Sometimes it's best to just leave well enough alone. You don't really expect to visit the scenes of horrible murders, lay in the exact spots bodies were found, while laughing about how it was better them than you, without stirring up some bad mojo, do you?

A new found footage flick has found its way on our radar entitled simply 1666, and we have the trailer for you right here.

The story centers on four friends in their early 20’s who last year on the night before Halloween decided to go on a self-made tour of famous Hollywood murders and celebrity haunted houses. The tour led them to a house known as "1666". They have been missing ever since.

We’ve all done this as teenagers - we’ve all heard stories of a local haunted hot spot. In most cases we’ve gotten into a packed car with a bunch of...

ZaSu Pitts and Thelma Todd, Hal Roach’s distaff comedy duo. I never thought I would own copies of rare Hal Roach comedies of the 1920s and 30s in a series of meticulously-produced DVDs…and I certainly never expected the source to be a German film archive! Filmmuseum of Munich has crafted two notable collections of silent and sound comedies, one featuring Roach’s female comedy stars (Anita Garvin & Marion Byron, from the silent period, and Thelma Todd with partners ZaSu Pitts and Patsy Kelly, from the sound era) and the other spotlighting long-neglected comedian Max Davidson. The Davidson two-reelers are rare,…...

Katharine Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Errol Flynn, Thelma Todd: Packard Campus Sept. ’10 Schedule and film synopses from the Packard Campus press release. Thursday, Sept. 9, 7:30 p.m. “Some Like it Hot” (United Artists, 1959) When two Roaring 20s musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in. This classic comedy was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1989. Directed by Billy Wilder, “Some Like it Hot” stars Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. Friday, Sept. 10, 7:30 p.m. “The Adventures of Robin Hood” (Warner Bros., 1938) The bandit king of Sherwood Forest leads his merry men in a battle against the corrupt Prince John. Directed by Michael Curtiz, this action-adventure film was named to the National Film Registry in 1995. “The Adventures of Robin Hood” stars Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland and Basil Rathbone. Saturday, Sept. [...]...

Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn in George Cukor‘s Adam’s Rib (top) Home movies of scary folk such as Alfred Hitchcock and Richard Nixon (and of some non-scary celebrities and non-celebrities as well), in addition to film classics and/or rarities starring Marilyn Monroe, Thelma Todd, Ken Maynard, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Dustin Farnum, Diane Lane, Judy Holliday, Michael Paré, Olivia de Havilland, and Errol Flynn will be screened at the Library of Congress Packard Campus for Audio Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Va., in September. [Packard Campus Sept. 2010 Schedule.] Packard Campus highlights include both the obvious — Michael Curtiz and William Keighley‘s masterful The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), George Cukor‘s delightful comedy Adam’s Rib (1949), Billy Wilder‘s entertaining, gender-bending Some Like It Hot (1959) — and the obscure: two Thelma Todd features, two Ken Maynard oaters, and one silent featuring Dustin Farnum (no relation to Dustin Hoffman, but close [...]...

Groucho Marx, Thelma Todd in Norman Z. McLeod‘s Monkey Business Thelma Todd on TCM: The Maltese Falcon Schedule (Pt) and synopses from the TCM website: 3:00 Am Broadminded (1931) A rejected suitor leaves town and gets mixed up in an international chase. Cast: Joe E. Brown, Ona Munson, Bela Lugosi. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. Bw-72 mins. 4:15 Am Son Of A Sailor (1933) A lovesick fool bumbles into espionage and finds a stolen plane. Cast: Joe E. Brown, Jean Muir, Thelma Todd. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. Bw-73 mins. 5:30 Am Real McCoy, The (1930) Charlie pretends to be a hillbilly to impress country girl Thelma Todd in hopes of making her his girlfriend. Cast: Charley Chase, Thelma Todd Dir: Warren Doane Bw-21 mins. 6:00 Am Short Film: Whispering Whoopee (1930) Charley hires three "party girls" to help him land a business deal. Cast: Charley Chase, Thelma Todd Dir: James W. Horne Bw-21 mins. 6:30 [...]...

It’s Thelma Todd day on Turner Classic Movies. As part of TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" series, about a dozen Thelma Todd shorts are being shown this afternoon, in addition to six features this evening. [Thelma Todd schedule.] I’m unfamiliar with Todd’s film career. I’ve seen her in a few supporting roles (Roy Del Ruth‘s The Maltese Falcon, the Marx Brothers‘ Monkey Business) and that’s about it. Anyhow, since either ZaSu Pitts or Patsy Kelly can be found in most of the Thelma Todd shorts, they must be worth a look. As for this evening, the one definite recommendation I have is The Maltese Falcon / Dangerous Female (1931), which I find infinitely more entertaining than John Huston‘s celebrated 1941 remake. Pretty much everyone else will disagree, I’m sure, but that’s how it goes… Best of all is Ricardo Cortez‘s spot-on Sam Spade. Unlike Humphrey Bogart‘s tough-talking gumshoe,...

Thelma Todd and her screen partner ZaSu Pitts. I’ve been in love with Thelma Todd for a long, long time, and I know a number of old-movie buffs who feel the same way about the beautiful blond comedienne. But I never dreamed that she would be spotlighted on Turner Classic Movies’ Summer Under the Stars series alongside such heavyweights as Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor. (For a complete schedule, click here: www.tcm.com.

HollywoodNews.com: The dog days of summer are the best time of the year for movie fans as they turn on the air conditioning and park themselves on the couch for the latest edition of Turner Classic Movies’ (TCM) ultimate movie star showcase: Summer Under The Stars.

Now in its eighth year, the August festival dedicates each of its 31 days to one of Hollywood’s most enduring actors and actresses. This year’s roster is set to include such stars as Steve McQueen (Aug. 3), Ingrid Bergman (Aug. 6), Errol Flynn (Aug. 7), Bob Hope (Aug. 8), Walter Matthau (Aug. 11), Maureen O’Hara (on her 90th birthday, Aug. 17), Katharine Hepburn (Aug. 20), Paul Newman (Aug. 21), Lauren Bacall (Aug. 25), Olivia de Havilland (Aug. 27), Peter O’Toole (Aug. 28), Henry Fonda (Aug. 29) and Clint Eastwood (Aug. 31). Assembled from the network’s library of more than 5,000 films, this one-of-a-kind festival is an opportunity for viewers to enjoy a varied...