Monthly Archives: November, 2015
TINTYPE TUESDAY: The Cuddly Side of Boris Karloff
Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY, bringing you wonderful movie photos every week! Shooting the terrifying lake scene in Frankenstein was going to be emotionally fraught enough. But before filming even began, director James Whale faced another problem: Boris Karloff’s makeup required hours to apply, so he needed to be fully “monsterized” by the time …
STREAMING SATURDAY! LADIES IN LOVE: A Dream Cast Enlivens a Fun Film
Welcome to another edition of Streaming Saturdays, where we embed a free movie for you to watch right here every weekend! Is it ever enough just to be fabulous? Yeah, sometimes it is. Which brings us to this week’s movie. Ladies in Love isn’t a great film, but it has a crazy-good cast, brought into beautiful focus by …
The Topperesque Adventures of Roland Young
Roland Young almost became Cosmo Topper. Not in the movies—he did that in spades, all rubber limbs and befuddlement—but in real life. The manor-born, well-educated young man came thisclose to toiling out his days soberly and sensibly in some handsome, wood-paneled office. Young’s father Keith was the most prominent architect in London, and young Roland was being fast-tracked to …
TINTYPE TUESDAY: Bette Davis’s Unrequited Love Affair—With Dogs
Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY! In December 1930, Bette Davis stepped off the Twentieth Century Limited and swanned into Union Station all set to conquer Hollywood, with her mother by her side and her wire-haired terrier, Boojum, in her arms. A rep from Warner Bros. was supposed to meet the happy trio, but no …
STREAMING SATURDAY: I’LL BE SEEING YOU Finds Christmas in None of the Old Familiar Places
Welcome to another edition of Streaming Saturdays, where we embed free, fabulous movies for you to watch right here! When people talk about “beautifully told” stories, they usually mean ones that are a bit too beautiful to be real. This one is beautiful and real. William Dieterle’s I’ll Be Seeing You is the story of …
Four Extraordinary Heroes, One Regiment: Basil Rathbone, Ronald Colman, Claude Rains and Herbert Marshall in World War I
Basil Rathbone conceived an almost certain suicide mission—and carried it off disguised as a tree. Herbert Marshall, who lost a leg to a sniper’s bullet, downplayed his sacrifice, saying his most salient memories of the trenches were numbness and boredom. Claude Rains lost almost half his sight to a poison gas attack. And Ronald Colman …
TINTYPE TUESDAY: Keaton, Valentino and Nazimova, Ready for Their Arthur Rice Close-Ups
Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY! When you think of classic-film portraits, who pops to mind? George Hurrell, Clarence Bull, Ruth Harriett Louise? What about Arthur Rice? When it comes to recognition, Rice seems to have been left largely on the cutting-room floor. But his work was nothing short of stunning, capturing in still life …
Of Dads, Dreams and the Damn World Series
Watching the final game of the World Series, as our home team was ground to bits by a baseball machine known as the Royals, one classic film kept running through my mind. I’m guessing you know which one. The Royals were the best team in baseball this year. If you’d plugged all the variables into some fancy …
Sister Celluloid 
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