by Lesley Gaspar | May 17, 2025 | 1950s, Academy Awards, Classic movies, Douglas Sirk, Women's Films
This is an entry for “Cry Me a River,” the CMBA 2025 Spring Blogathon. Note: If you’re new to Imitation of Life, you might want to start with a viewing or by reading some other more general pieces. I don’t want to spoil any of it for you. But...
by Lesley Gaspar | Jan 18, 2022 | 1960s, Academy Awards, Adolph Deutsch, Billy Wilder, Blogathons, Classic movies, Joseph LaShelle
Why do I watch The Apartment whenever it’s on, and why, after all these viewings, do I get a little bit excited every time it’s on the schedule? Same reason I watch a lot of movies the same way. I watch them the same way I listen to music I love, which is to say, not...
by Lesley Gaspar | Dec 5, 2020 | 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Academy Awards, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Blogathons, Classic movies, Mary Astor, Pre-Code films, Silent film, Women's Pictures
Mary Astor is almost one-stop shopping for a classic film buff. She started working in her teens and was the sole support of her greedy, abusive parents, whom she eventually had to sue for her independence, so she checks that box (see Jackie Coogan, Baby Peggy, Dickie...
by Lesley Gaspar | Nov 17, 2019 | 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, Academy Awards, Charles Coburn, Classic movies, Thomas Mitchell
He’s one of the preeminent character actors of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and, like Sydney Greenstreet and Marie Dressler, among the small club of performers who started hugely successful movie careers around age 60, which at the time was not “the new 50,” it was...
by Lesley Gaspar | Feb 17, 2019 | 1950s, Academy Awards, Arthur Kennedy, Blogathons, Classic movies, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Shirley MacLaine, Vincente Minnelli
This is about Kennedy’s performance in Some Came Running (1958), directed by Vincente Minnelli. Kennedy scored his fourth Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Frank Hirsh, the embodiment of small-town small-mindedness and hypocrisy. I am...
by Lesley Gaspar | Dec 16, 2018 | 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, Academy Awards, Blogathons, Charles Coburn, Charles Laughton, Classic movies, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Jean Arthur, John Barrymore, John Ford, John Wayne, Thomas Mitchell
“I didn’t know I was that good” ?what you said upon accepting your Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Stagecoach (1939) Dear Tom, or Dear Kid Dabb (Only Angels Have Wings, 1939) …Diz Moore (Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, 1939) …Doc Boone...
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