by Lesley Gaspar | Nov 14, 2015 | 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, Actors, Barbara Stanwyck, Blogathons, Child stars, Classic movies, Dickie Moore, Ernst Lubitsch, film noir, Howard Hawks, Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich, Pre-Code films, Shirley Temple
Where all parents are strong and wise and capable, and all children are happy and beloved? ?H.I.,?Raising Arizona It?s an intense little face. The Cupid?s Bow mouth and tiny, turned-up nose sit beneath large, dark, deeply?serious eyes. Dickie wasn?t just cute, he was...
by Lesley Gaspar | Sep 24, 2015 | 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, Classic movies, Dickie Moore, Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich, Pre-Code films, Shirley Temple
TCM?s tribute to Dickie Moore starts this morning at 6:15 a.m. Dickie Moore?was one of those very rare people you can watch grow up onscreen, starting when he was 11 months old. That?s when he made his screen debut, playing John Barrymore as a baby in?Beloved...
by Lesley Gaspar | Sep 14, 2015 | 1930s, Blogathons, Classic movies, Pre-Code films, William Wellman
William Wellman directed five movies in 1931, and?Safe in Hell?was the last of them. The movie was made under the same conditions as the other four, pretty much the same as several hundred others released that year by Hollywood studios. The mass production methods...
by Lesley Gaspar | Jun 27, 2015 | Blogathons, Busby Berkeley, Classic movies, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Louis B. Mayer, Newsreels, Pre-Code films, Upton Sinclair, William Randolph Hearst
Real life and entertainment, politics and policy. The Bonus Army?Herbert Hoover, FDR, and William Randolph Hearst,?Gabriel Over the White House;?Busby Berkeley and ?Remember My Forgotten Man? in?Gold Diggers of 1933 The movie industry?s successful smear campaign...
by Lesley Gaspar | Apr 4, 2015 | 1930s, Blogathons, Classic movies, Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich, Pre-Code films
Part II Deceit, Desire, and Survival: Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg?s?Shanghai Express(1932) and?The Scarlet Empress?(1934) A missionary wins the heart of a poetic warlord, a woman of mystery wins back her untrusting lover, and a promiscuous princess wins...
by Lesley Gaspar | Apr 3, 2015 | 1930s, Barbara Stanwyck, Blogathons, Classic movies, Frank Capra, Josef von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich, Pre-Code films
Here are three pre-Code films about women from the West who find themselves in dangerous situations in exotic lands (China in two, Russia in the other). The women are thrown upon their own resources, their ability to adapt and survive, with little or no support or...
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