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On Dec. 25, 1950, Columbia unveiled the George Cukor-directed adaptation of Born Yesterday at its Los Angeles premiere. The film went on to nab five nominations at the 23rd Academy Awards, including for best picture, and won best actress for Judy Holliday’s turn as Billie Dawn. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:

Born Yesterday comes to the screen as the bright, infectious and delightful entertainment that it was when the play first took Broadway by storm several years ago. And for this feat of transforming what has become a stock and road show wheelhorse into 104 minutes of rollicking celluloid fun, the impresarios of Gower Street can begin drinking champagne from the dainty slipper of Judy Holliday. She’s only wonderful and without her triumphant performance of Billie Dawn, the honey-haired chorus girl who topples the power of a money-mad tycoon, Born Yesterday would be dead tomorrow.

In its...

Carla Balenda, who starred alongside Dana Andrews and Claude Rains in the Rko Pictures thriller Sealed Cargo and portrayed Mickey Rooney’s girlfriend on the NBC sitcom Hey Mulligan, has died. She was 98.

Balenda, billed at times as Sally Bliss, her birth name, died April 9 of natural causes at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, her grandson Jim Martin told The Hollywood Reporter.

She also played a nurse on the 1955-56 syndicated series The Adventures of Dr. Fu Manchu, starring Glen Gordon, and recurred as Miss Hazlitt, Timmy’s (Jon Provost) teacher, on CBS’ Lassie from 1958-63.

In Sealed Cargo (1951), Balenda portrayed a woman who is aboard a fishing trawler bound for Newfoundland when she and the skipper (Andrews) wind up tangling in the North Atlantic with Nazis led by Rains’ character. She often said it was her favorite role.

When Rooney took his first crack at television,...

Mike Hammer is in action again! Well, not exactly. Producer Victor Saville’s third go-round with Mickey Spillane’s famed character doesn’t do the franchise justice. Hammer-philes will be astounded by this thriller’s decidedly un-thrilling thrills: there’s little to connect the inexpressive nice guy Robert Bray with the super-popular, super-violent avenger of the books. Spillane’s original is abandoned in favor of a tame ‘who’s got the diamonds?’ storyline, with some compensation in a string of exciting ‘Hammer dames.’ I checked twice — Mike doesn’t shoot Any of them in the stomach.

My Gun Is Quick

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 / B&w / 1:85 widescreen / 91 min. / available through Kino Lorber / Street Date March 24, 2020 / 24.95

Starring: Robert Bray, Whitney Blake, Patricia Donahue, Donald Randolph, Pamela Duncan, Booth Coleman, Jan Chaney, Genie Coree, Richard Garland, Charles Boaz, Peter Mamakos, Claire Carleton, Phil Arnold, John Dennis, Terence de Marney, Ray Kellogg.

This ’50s drug epic is not about hopheads on dope, but working folk frying their brains on amphetamines. Peter Graves’ undercover narc seeks the source of deadly pills that are wreaking havoc in the trucking industry; the film’s wild card is an unhinged Chuck Connors — yes, that Chuck Connors — as a deranged pill-popper running amuck on the highways. Seat belts recommended.

Death in Small Doses

DVD

The Warner Archive Collection

1957 / B&W / 1:85 enhanced widescreen / 79 min. / Street Date January 8, 2013 / available through the WBshop / 17.99

Starring: Peter Graves, Mala Powers, Chuck Connors, Merry Anders, Roy, Roy Engel, Robert Williams, Harry Lauter, Claire Carleton, John Dierkes, Robert Shayne.

Cinematography: Carl Guthrie

Film Editor: William Austin

Original Music: Robert Wiley Miller, Emil Newman

Written by John McGreevy, from an article by Arthur L. Davis

Produced by Richard V. Heermance

Directed by Joseph M. Newman

The picture that crosses the forbidden territory… of Thrill Pills!

Doris Day movies: TCM’s ‘Summer Under the Stars 2013′ lineup continues (photo: Doris Day in ‘Calamity Jane’ publicity shot) Doris Day, who turned 89 last April 3, is Turner Classic Movies’ 2013 “Summer Under the Stars” star on Friday, August 2. (Doris Day, by the way, still looks great. Check out "Doris Day Today.") Doris Day movies, of course, are frequently shown on TCM. Why? Well, TCM is owned by the megaconglomerate Time Warner, which also happens to own (among myriad other things) the Warner Bros. film library, which includes not only the Doris Day movies made at Warners from 1948 to 1955, but also Day’s MGM films as well (and the overwhelming majority of MGM releases up to 1986). My point: Don’t expect any Doris Day movie rarity on Friday — in fact, I don’t think such a thing exists. Doris Day is ‘Calamity Jane’ If you haven’t watched David Butler’s musical...