tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2577593185169669552024-10-04T20:15:34.510-07:00The glorious days of Classic Hollywood. The stars, the movies, the directors and the sheer glamour and razamatazz of the Golden Age. The glorious Golden Age will never come back - but we can still enjoy it.gunsockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15764108093861629236noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-257759318516966955.post-33107979678415304962016-08-24T07:35:00.002-07:002016-08-24T08:57:21.569-07:00

Edith Head became the most famous dress designer in Hollywood. Her creations adorned the top actresses of the Golden Age and she won  a record eight Academy Awards for Best Costume Design. Edith Head She was born  in San Bernardino, California on October 28, 1897 and studied first at Los Angeles High School and then to the University of California and

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Greer Garson was one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood during the 1940’s and holds the record, with Betty Davis, of consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She received five nominations between 1941 and 1945 including winning in 1942 for her performance in the title role of ‘Mrs Miniver', her best known movie. She was famous for her grace, her elegant acting and

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Describing a movie as one of the greatest ever made is giving it quite a burdensome reputation to live up to, but 'The Best Years of Our Lives' justly deserves every jot of praise it gets. Directed by William Wyler in 1946, and starring Myrna Loy, Fredric March and Dana Andrews, the movie vividly depicts the difficulties faced by ex-servicemen returning to their loved ones and a

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The Hollywood Oscars Award Ceremony is a star-studded occasion which has become the pinnacle of the film awards season. It is one of the most glamorous media events in the world, pushing performers and film-makers into the media spotlight. To win an Hollywood Oscar is a dream come true, a marketing goldmine for the film industry, generating huge sales and profits for the stars, the studios and

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Lauren Bacall was one of the top movie actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age. She is perhaps best remembered for her partnership with Humphrey Bogart but her stardom did not end when Bogart died. In her own right she was one of the most important players in post war Hollywood particularly in the film noir genre, and she is ranked by the American Film Institute at number 20 in their listings of

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Joe Mankiewicz There are few Hollywood directors with a better artistic reputation than Joseph L. Mankiewicz. He was a brilliant scriptwriter and producer before becoming one of the most skilful and successful directors in movie history. After learning his trade in the 1930’s and 1940’s, working with some of the most influential directors of the time, such as George Cukor, Fritz Lang and Frank

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‘The Bandwagon’ is a wonderfully happy movie with a top class cast. As well as Fred Astaire, it stars Nanette Fabray, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant and Jack Buchanan, all seasoned, proven perfomers and all ideally suited to blend expertly with the sizzling, brilliant dancing of the master, Astaire. The music of ‘The Bandwagon’ is brilliant. The song “That’s Entertainment” has become a standard and

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Dana Andrews has the sort of face that audiences find familiar but cannot put a name to. He started his career always in secondary roles but in high quality movies such as 'The Westerner' in 1940 and 'The Ox-Bow Incident' in 1943. then in 1944 he was given his first starring role, with Gene Tierney in the hit movie 'Laura', followed by his best known role as the returning soldier, Fred Derry, in

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Although Frank Borsage is a less well known director than some of his contemporaries, such as Alfred Hitchcock or George Cukor, he was exceptionally successful in the era spanning the end of the Silents and beginning of the Talkies. The very first Oscar for Directing was won by Borsage in 1927 for his 'Seventh Heaven' starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell, and he soon won a second Oscar

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'Gentleman's Agreement' is a brilliant and powerful, ground-breaking film made in 1947, directed by Elia Kazan, dealing directly with the hitherto unspoken subject of anti-Semitism. It starred Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield and Celeste Holm and was based on the novel of the same name by Laura Hobson which was actually published at the same time as the film was released. The

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Most of us are familiar with the novel "Little Women" by Louis May Allcott. It is a moving and entertaining account of the March family- the mother and four daughters-and their lives whilst the father is away on Civil War service. The story is timeless and heartwarming and recounts events in the life of each sister, with the emphasis on Jo, played by Katharine Hepburn, as they grow, and

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Judy Holliday had a genius IQ of 172 but, ironically, made her name playing dumb blondes, and doing it very well. She made her name in 1949 in the role of Doris Attinger in the highly successful George Cukor movie 'Adam's Rib', starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. She then won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1951 for her performance as  'Billie' Dawn in 'Born Yesterday'.

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Sidney Greenstreet was as unforgettable as he was unmistakeable. His large frame seemed to threaten to take over any scene in which he appeared and underlined the menace and authority which many of his roles demanded. Born in Kent in South East England in 1879, Greenstreet left home when he was eighteen to seek his fortune as a tea planter in Ceylon, but was forced to return home within a

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'The King and I' is pure entertainment, a musical film full of wonderful songs and memorable dancing. It was made in 1956 and stars Yul Brynner, Deborah Kerr and Rita Moreno. It is based on Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1951 smash Broadway musical hit of the same name, which, in turn, is based on Margaret Landon's book "Anna and the King of Siam". Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr   &

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Eleanor Powell was an American film actress and a graceful and nimble-footed dancer who became famous during the 1930's and 1940's,for her creative, quick-fire, solo tap dancing routines and became known as the ”Queen of Tap Dancing”. She  featured in several Broadway revues, and her first movie appearance was in George White's 'Scandals of 1935'.  When she appeared in '

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Who can forget the grizzled bewhiskered face, that throaty voice or those wonderful 'yer durn tootin' and 'young whipper snapper' expressions of Gabby Hayes. He became famous in the early years of Talkies during the 1930's and 1940's as sidekick to stars like Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. He became so popular that he was consistently featured in the top ten polls of favorite

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Made in 1955 and the only film to be directed by Charles Laughton, 'The Night of the Hunter' is a masterpiece of a movie, a haunting and frightening Biblical tale of greed, corruption, seduction and innocence. It stars Robert Mitchum, a vastly underrated actor, as one of Hollywood's most unforgettable villains, "Reverend" Harry Powell, dressed in clerical black and white  and with the words

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'Sweater girls' was a term coined in the late 1940's and 1950's to describe movie star sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe, Lana Turner and Jayne Mansfield who introduced the popular fashion for wearing tight sweaters and blouses with cone shaped bras called 'bullet bras' which had pointed tips, and which showed off their breasts to great effect. The bullet bra was also known as a torpedo or cone

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Anita Ekberg was Sweden's answer to Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield combined. For a while during the 1950's she was one of the most famous film stars in the world and certainly one of the sexiest. She loved to show off her curvy, voluptuous body with enormous breasts. They got plenty of exposure. In 1952, Anita was a cover girl for Look magazine and by January 1956, she was on the cover of

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For anyone who wonders why James Cagney stands in the very top echelon of Hollywood movie stars, take a look at 'Yankee Doodle Dandy', made in 1942.It would be terribly easy from a postmodern, politically correct, and sophisticatead perspective to regard the movie as jingoistic wartime propaganda. Indeed, this flag-waving musical extravaganza biopic, detailing the life of patriotic |Irish

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Douglas Fairbanks was the laughing daredevil of the silent screen in swashbuckling roles in adventure movies such as 'The Thief of Bagdad', 'Robin Hood', and 'The Mark of Zorro'. He invented the slyly self-parodic action hero, setting the tone for a line of successors from Errol Flynn to Bruce Willis.Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman in Denver, Colorado on May 23, 1883. He moved to

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'The Man from Laramie' was the last of a run of outstanding Westerns made by Anthony Mann, shortly to graduate to bigger (perhaps less interesting) projects like 'El Cid' in 1961, and James Stewart, whose angst-driven cowboys of the 1950's run parallel with his self-doubting Hitchcock heroes. The plot hook is almost noirish, prefiguring 1971's 'Get Carter', as Will Lockhart (Stewart) investigates

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Gregory Peck entered movies in brooding, handsome, troubled roles, and emerged as one of Hollywood's most treasured movie stars, representing decency, conviction, intelligence and moral fortitude. He wowed audiences with his strong physique and suave good looks, and, with four Oscar nominations and one Oscar win, the critical establishment did not fail to acknowledge his talents as an actor. He

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Jayne Mansfield was a pneumatic Blonde bombshell whose few substantial film roles tended to use her as a living cartoon. Below Marilyn Monroe and Kim Novak but above Sheree North and Mamie van Doren in the 1950's pinup pecking order, Mansfield was a limited but likable screen performer, lucky enough to feature in one bona fide movie classic, Frank Tashlin's rock'n'roll-packed exercise in visual

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Born of Cuban parents in New York City, Cesar Romero started out as a ballroom dancer before he appeared in the 1927 production of 'Lady Do' on Broadway. His screen debut was in 'The Shadow Laughs' in 1933, and he played various Latin hoods and gigolos in movies such as 'The Thin Man' in 1934 and 'Hold 'Em Yale' the following year. After playing sidekick in 'Return of the Cisco Kid' in 1939, ;he

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