Notícias

Alfred Hitchcock was known as the Master and Suspense for the brilliant way he weaved insightful mysteries. The greatest Hitchcock mysteries included movies he made in Britian and America. Hitchcock's best mysteries included his acclaimed collaborations with actors like Cary Grant, James Stewart, and Grace Kelly.

Director Alfred Hitchcock was responsible for some of the greatest mystery movies ever made, as his skill for creating tension, portraying intricate plots, and developing complex characters made him the undisputed Master of Suspense. From slow-moving stories of lies and deceit to over-the-top action adventures categorized by mistaken identity and espionage, Hitchcock laid the groundwork for much of the modern movie landscape concerning mysteries and thrillers. With a filmmaking career that spanned over 50 years, Hitchcock kept audiences on the edge of their seats as he delivered one iconic mystery after another.

From acclaimed collaborations with actors like James Stewart and Carry Grant, Hitchcocks greatest...

Alfred Hitchcock's murder mysteries challenge traditional norms, with complex characters and unexpected twists. Hitchcock's films explore themes of voyeurism and subconscious desires, creating thrilling and captivating narratives. From the classic to the avant-garde, Hitchcock's murder mysteries continue to captivate audiences with their depth and intrigue.

Alfred Hitchcock was known as the "Master of Suspense," and his best murder mystery movies make it clear why he earned this title. The British director was an accomplished horror and thriller director, but many of his most memorable films focus on murderers and detectives. He influenced the genre in countless ways, and he was constantly crafting boundary-pushing murder mysteries.

Alfred Hitchcock changed the landscape of cinema, particularly the genres that he loved most. He questioned the rules of traditional murder mysteries repeatedly, and he often told stories from unusual angles. Owing to his fascination with the subject of voyeurism, many of his...

The United States had been at war a little over a year when the 15th Academy Awards were presented on March 4, 1943. It was the last year that the awards were celebrated at a lavish banquet; they would be moved to a theater setting in the ensuing years. The impact of World War II can be seen in the films honored, as well as the ceremony itself.

Popular musical star Jeannette MacDonald sang the National Anthem, and newly enlisted military privates Tyrone Power and Alan Ladd unfurled a flag that listed over 25,000 film industry members who had joined the armed forces. Bob Hope hosted the event, which saw one big winner, numerous patriotic choices and the first win for one of the industry’s biggest record-makers. Let’s flashback 80 years to the Oscars ceremony of 1943.

SEEOscar hosts: Performers who have hosted the Academy Awards

Ten movies made the cut for a Best Picture nomination.

Oscar-winning Eddie Redmayne (“The Theory of Everything”) has been testing out his darker side of late. The baby-faced 40-year-old British actor has made a name for playing nice, often complex guys. But last year, he turned that persona on its ear in London’s West End playing the smarmy and decadent Emcee in the revival of the musical “Cabaret.” He won the prestigious Olivier Award for his performance.

And now he’s giving a killer of a performance as a serial murderer in Netflix’s fact-based thriller “The Good Nurse.” Redmayne’s hospital nurse Charlie is friendly and sweet with a great bedside manner. But beneath this caring visage lurks a vicious mind who killed at least 400 patients at various hospitals over the years.

Doing a 180 from his usual fare, recalls Robert Montgomery’s shift with 1937’s “Night Must Fall.” Best known these days as the father of Elizabeth Montgomery of “Bewitched” fame,...

All five of the upcoming movies for the next Supporting Actress Smackdowns are rentable or free to stream (if so we've indicated where) so play along at home, won'cha? The Smackdowns are popular but they're more fun if You participate and watch and vote.

Tyrone Power and Alice Brady in "In Old Chicago"

Smackdown 1937 -Sunday, October 3rd, 2021

★ Alice Brady in In Old Chicago -a family drama, disaster epic, and sort-of musical Andrea Leeds in Stage Door - a boarding house dramedy which is an absolute must-see for actressexuals since everyone is in it! Anne Shirley in Stella Dallas (Amazon Prime) - a Stanwyck weepie Claire Trevor in Dead End (Amazon Prime) - a Bogart noir May Whitty in Night Must Fall - a mystery starring Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell

Between them these movies scored 18 nominations and 2 Oscar wins with In Old Chicago, Stage Door, and Dead End also vying for Best Picture.

When the 2020 Oscar nominations were announced, Scarlett Johansson attracted attention by earning two for acting. With inclusions in both the Best Actress (“Marriage Story”) and Best Supporting Actress (“Jojo Rabbit”) categories, she was the first actor in 12 years who had a chance at winning two acting Academy Awards on the same night. She ultimately lost both bids, but the feat placed her in the rare company of only 11 others who have achieved it since the supporting categories were introduced at the Oscars in 1937.

Here is a screen-time based analysis of all of them, from earliest to most recent. We note the names and screen time of key rival nominees and the winners in each race as well.

Fay Bainter (1939)

Best Actress nominee for “White Banners”

Best Supporting Actress winner for “Jezebel”

Combined: 1 hour, 15 minutes, 57 seconds

Just four years after beginning her film acting career, Bainter earned her first two Oscar nominations in the same year,...

“Marriage Story” looks like the only Oscar contender this season with a plausible shot at earning nominations in all four acting races, in large part because it’s one of the few films in the conversation with male and female co-leads. Only 15 other movies have accomplished that feat, which would make “Marriage” the 16th. But it’s even more impressive when you consider that it has only happened twice in the last 37 years.

According to the combined predictions of Gold Derby users, “Marriage Story” is a reasonably safe bet for Best Actress (Scarlett Johansson as an actress filing for divorce), Best Actor (Adam Driver as her husband fighting to retain custody of their son) and Best Supporting Actress (Laura Dern as Johansson’s lawyer). That leaves Best Supporting Actor, where Alan Alda is a contender for playing Driver’s kindly but out-of-his-depth attorney, but he’s an underdog according to...

Since the supporting acting awards were introduced at the 9th Oscars in 1937, 34 films have pitted two featured actresses against each other. The latest of these is “The Favourite,” with both Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz vying for Best Supporting Actress at the 2019 Academy Awards. Both women already have Oscars on their mantles. Weisz won this same category 13 years ago for “The Constant Gardener” while Stone collected the Best Actress prize for “La La Land” two years ago.

Weisz has the edge over Stone in that she is coming off a win at the BAFTA Awards. However, to collect her bookend Oscar, she will have to get past Regina King (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) who has led this race all awards season long. That made her snub by the BAFTAs even more of a puzzle.

If either Weisz or Stone prevail they will be defying not just this year’s odds but Oscar history.

While it is a common complaint that there aren’t enough good roles for women in films nowadays, “The Favourite” had the reverse problem in that it had almost too many good roles for actresses. The film offers Oscar caliber roles for three performers as it tells the tale of Queen Anne and two women who compete to be her “favourite.” The film inspired a lot of debate in the early days of the Oscar derby as to what categories the film would campaign its three actresses. Ultimately it was decided to place Olivia Colman in Best Actress and Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz in Best Supporting Actress. All three were nominated, thus placing Stone and Weisz in direct competition with each other. In taking a look back on Oscar history since the supporting categories were introduced at the 9th ceremony, are Stone and Weisz in danger of splitting the vote?...

It’s the dream of most actors and actresses to receive an Oscar nomination and, if they’re lucky, to win. But what happens when you’re up against a co-star from the same movie? Does one triumph or do they split the vote? Click through our photo gallery above of all the times this has happened throughout Academy Awards history.

Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson both scored Best Supporting Actor nominations for their work in “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” It has been 26 years since Harvey Keitel and Ben Kingsley were both nominated for “Bugsy” (1991). Unfortunately for the duo they split their support and Jack Palance won for “City Slickers,” ironically a former victim of vote-splitting against his “Shane” co-star Brandon De Wilde (they lost to Frank Sinatra, “From Here to Eternity”).

See 2018 Oscar Best Picture predictions by experts: ‘Three Billboards’ pulls into tie with ‘The Shape of Water’ as voting ends Feb.

Presenting the Supporting Actresses of '44. A low class maid, a French baroness, a patriotic nurse, a weary shop-owner and a "Chinese" village woman battled it out for Oscar gold. We're here to re-judge that contest. 

The Nominees 

from left to right: Barrymore, Jones, Lansbury, MacMahon, Moorehead

Oscar was still besotted with recent nominees Jennifer Jones & Agnes Moorehead (both on their quick second nominations) but joining the party were two veterans who'd never been honored (Ethel Barrymore & Aline MacMahon) and one very fresh face who would go on to an enviably long cross-platform showbiz career, now in its 73rd year (!) -- Angela Lansbury in her film debut! 

Notable supporting roles for women that the Academy passed over in 1944 were Mary Astor (Meet Me in St Louis), Shirley Temple (Since You Went Away), Dame May Whitty (Gaslight), and Joseph Hull & Jean Adair (Arsenic & Old Lace). Can you think of any others?...

It's Father's Day. Happy Father's Day. It's also Juneteenth. The day in which the nation commemorates the end of slavery in the mid 1860s (though like most holidays the actual timeline involves several days and months and years and lots of political manuevering -- see Lincoln and be reminded what a mess governing and policy making and constitutional debates always are). June 19th has another history civil rights event in 1964 with the passing of the Civil Rights Act (see Selma) so exercize your right to vote in November. People are always trying to deny people that right, and if everyone voted, we'd be in such better shape. Now on to cinema...

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

Good god, woman. Let it go.1865 Dame May Whitty, two time Oscar nominee is born in Liverpool. Remember her all caps obsession with winning that damn flower contest in Mrs Miniver?...

Alfred Hitchcock assembles all the right elements for this respected mystery thriller. Joan Fontaine is concerned that her new hubby Cary Grant plans to murder her. But Hitch wasn't able to use the twist ending that attracted him to the story in the first place! Suspicion Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1941 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 99 min. / Street Date , 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Joan Fontaine, Cary Grant, Cedric Hardwicke, Nigel Bruce, Dame May Whitty, Auriol Lee, Leo G. Carroll Cinematography Harry Stradling Art Direction Van Nest Polglase Film Editor William Hamilton Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Samson Raphaelson, Joan Harrison, Alma Reville from the novel Before the Fact by Francis Iles (Anthony Berkeley) Produced and Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Some movies don't get better as time goes on. Alfred Hitchcock got himself painted into a corner on this one, perhaps not realizing that in America,...

Hal Roach looks on as technicians install Vitaphone equipment in his studio screening room, ca. 1928. (Click on the image to enlarge it.) 'A Century of Sound': Q&A with former UCLA Preservation Officer Robert Gitt about the evolution of film sound technology Long before multi-track Dolby stereo and digital sound technology, there were the Kinetophone and the Vitaphone systems – not to mention organ and piano players at movie houses. Much of that is discussed in A Century of Sound, which chronicles the evolution of film sound from the late 19th century to the mid-1970s. A Century of Sound has been split into two parts, with a third installment currently in the planning stages. They are: Vol. 1, “The Beginning, 1876-1932,” which came out on DVD in 2007. Vol. 2, “The Sound of Movies: 1933-1975,” which came out on Blu-ray in 2015. The third installment will bring the presentation into the 21st century.

Alfred Hitchcock, Cary Grant, and Ingrid Bergman: The 'Notorious' British (Hitchcock, Grant) and Swedish (Bergman) talent. British actors and directors in Hollywood; Hollywood actors and directors in Britain: Anthony Slide's 'A Special Relationship.' 'A Special Relationship' Q&A: Britain in Hollywood and Hollywood in Britain First of all, what made you think of a book on “the special relationship” between the American and British film industries – particularly on the British side? I was aware of a couple of books on the British in Hollywood, but I wanted to move beyond that somewhat limited discussion and document the whole British/American relationship as it applied to filmmaking. Growing up in England, I had always been interested in the history of the British cinema, but generally my writing on film history has been concentrated on America. I suppose to a certain extent I wanted to go back into my archives,...

'Saint Joan': Constance Cummings as the George Bernard Shaw heroine. Constance Cummings on stage: From sex-change farce and Emma Bovary to Juliet and 'Saint Joan' (See previous post: “Constance Cummings: Frank Capra, Mae West and Columbia Lawsuit.”) In the mid-1930s, Constance Cummings landed the title roles in two of husband Benn W. Levy's stage adaptations: Levy and Hubert Griffith's Young Madame Conti (1936), starring Cummings as a demimondaine who falls in love with a villainous character. She ends up killing him – or does she? Adapted from Bruno Frank's German-language original, Young Madame Conti was presented on both sides of the Atlantic; on Broadway, it had a brief run in spring 1937 at the Music Box Theatre. Based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, the Theatre Guild-produced Madame Bovary (1937) was staged in late fall at Broadway's Broadhurst Theatre. Referring to the London production of Young Madame Conti, The...

Ingrid Bergman ca. early 1940s. Ingrid Bergman movies on TCM: From the artificial 'Gaslight' to the magisterial 'Autumn Sonata' Two days ago, Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” series highlighted the film career of Greta Garbo. Today, Aug. 28, '15, TCM is focusing on another Swedish actress, three-time Academy Award winner Ingrid Bergman, who would have turned 100 years old tomorrow. TCM has likely aired most of Bergman's Hollywood films, and at least some of her early Swedish work. As a result, today's only premiere is Fielder Cook's little-seen and little-remembered From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1973), about two bored kids (Sally Prager, Johnny Doran) who run away from home and end up at New York City's Metropolitan Museum. Obviously, this is no A Night at the Museum – and that's a major plus. Bergman plays an elderly art lover who takes an interest in them; her...

Robert Walker: Actor in MGM films of the '40s. Robert Walker: Actor who conveyed boy-next-door charms, psychoses At least on screen, I've always found the underrated actor Robert Walker to be everything his fellow – and more famous – MGM contract player James Stewart only pretended to be: shy, amiable, naive. The one thing that made Walker look less like an idealized “Average Joe” than Stewart was that the former did not have a vacuous look. Walker's intelligence shone clearly through his bright (in black and white) grey eyes. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” programming, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating today, Aug. 9, '15, to Robert Walker, who was featured in 20 films between 1943 and his untimely death at age 32 in 1951. Time Warner (via Ted Turner) owns the pre-1986 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library (and almost got to buy the studio outright in 2009), so most of Walker's movies have...

Teresa Wright ca. 1945. Teresa Wright movies on TCM: 'The Little Foxes,' 'The Pride of the Yankees' Pretty, talented Teresa Wright made a relatively small number of movies: 28 in all, over the course of more than half a century. Most of her films have already been shown on Turner Classic Movies, so it's more than a little disappointing that TCM will not be presenting Teresa Wright rarities such as The Imperfect Lady and The Trouble with Women – two 1947 releases co-starring Ray Milland – on Aug. 4, '15, a "Summer Under the Stars" day dedicated to the only performer to date to have been shortlisted for Academy Awards for their first three film roles. TCM's Teresa Wright day would also have benefited from a presentation of The Search for Bridey Murphy (1956), an unusual entry – parapsychology, reincarnation – in the Wright movie canon and/or Roseland (1977), a little-remembered entry in James Ivory's canon.

Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...

'Father of the Bride': Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams. Top Five Father's Day Movies? From giant Gregory Peck to tyrant John Gielgud What would be the Top Five Father's Day movies ever made? Well, there have been countless films about fathers and/or featuring fathers of various sizes, shapes, and inclinations. In terms of quality, these range from the amusing – e.g., the 1950 version of Cheaper by the Dozen; the Oscar-nominated The Grandfather – to the nauseating – e.g., the 1950 version of Father of the Bride; its atrocious sequel, Father's Little Dividend. Although I'm unable to come up with the absolute Top Five Father's Day Movies – or rather, just plain Father Movies – ever made, below are the first five (actually six, including a remake) "quality" patriarch-centered films that come to mind. Now, the fathers portrayed in these films aren't all heroic, loving, and/or saintly paternal figures. Several are...

'San Andreas' movie with Dwayne Johnson. 'San Andreas' movie box office: $100 million domestic milestone today As the old saying (sort of) goes: If you build it, they will come. Warner Bros. built a gigantic video game, called it San Andreas, and They have come to check out Dwayne Johnson perform miraculous deeds not seen since ... George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road, released two weeks earlier. Embraced by moviegoers, hungry for quality, original storylines and well-delineated characters – and with the assistance of 3D surcharges – the San Andreas movie debuted with $54.58 million from 3,777 theaters on its first weekend out (May 29-31) in North America. Down a perfectly acceptable 52 percent on its second weekend (June 5-7), the special effects-laden actioner collected an extra $25.83 million, trailing only the Melissa McCarthy-Jason Statham comedy Spy, (with $29.08 million) as found at Box Office Mojo.* And that's how this original movie – it's not officially a remake,...

Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...

1. The term "gaslight." The Ingrid Bergman thriller "Gaslight" -- released 70 years ago this week, on May 4, 1944, wasn't the original use of the title. There was Patrick Hamilton's 1938 play "Gas Light," retitled "Angel Street" when it came to Broadway a couple years later. And there was a British film version in 1939, starring Anton Walbrook (later the cruel impresario in "The Red Shoes") and Diana Wynyard.

Still, the glossy 1944 MGM version remains the best-known telling of the tale, with the title an apparent reference to the flickering Victorian lamps that are part of Gregory's (Charles Boyer) scheme to make wife Paula (Bergman) think she's seeing things that aren't there, thus deliberately undermining her sanity in order to have her institutionalized so that he'll be free to ransack the ancestral home to find the missing family jewels.

This version of Hamilton's tale was so popular that it made the word "gaslight"into a verb,...

We seek out some of the best films available to watch for free online. This week: Hitchcock's 1938 tale of mystery, espionage and a disappearing governess

My favourite Hitchcock: The Lady Vanishes

Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) is a young British tourist travelling through central Europe. On boarding a train that will take her home to get married, she's befriended by Miss Froy (May Whitty), an amiable governess, who promptly disappears in extremely mysterious circumstances. Her fellow passengers insist that Miss Froy never existed and that Iris is suffering delusions but she teams up with fellow-Brit Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), a charming-yet-vexacious musicologist, and the pair of them set about getting to the bottom of what's going on.

Happy birthday to the glamorous Kim Novak, who is 81 today. It’s impossible to think of Novak without remembering her shock blonde super-coif in Vertigo (not to mention the way she werrrrrked Edith Head‘s form-sucking pencil skirts), and thus, it’s impossible to think of Novak without remembering the great female roles in Hitchcock movies. Here are my picks for the 10 best.

10. Miss Froy in The Lady Vanishes (Dame May Whitty)

This is sort of a gonzo first pick, but give it up: The Lady Vanishes rules and Dame May Whitty, with all her grandmotherly charms, is just a subversive ol’ hoot as the bad-ass spy who sets up the intrigue of the story. This is the kind of role Margaret Rutherford would win an Oscar for. You underestimate the depth of how much she kicks ass.

9. Marnie in Marnie (Tippi Hedren)

Is it wild? Oh, yes. Is it sometimes a little embarrassing?...

Lana Turner movies: Scandal and more scandal Lana Turner is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, Saturday, August 10, 2013. I’m a little — or rather, a lot — late in the game posting this article, but there are still three Lana Turner movies left. You can see Turner get herself embroiled in scandal right now, in Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life (1959), both the director and the star’s biggest box-office hit. More scandal follows in Mark Robson’s Peyton Place (1957), the movie that earned Lana Turner her one and only Academy Award nomination. And wrapping things up is George Sidney’s lively The Three Musketeers (1948), with Turner as the ruthless, heartless, remorseless — but quite elegant — Lady de Winter. Based on Fannie Hurst’s novel and a remake of John M. Stahl’s 1934 melodrama about mother love, class disparities, racism, and good cooking, Imitation of Life was shown on...

Joan Fontaine movies: ‘This Above All,’ ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’ (photo: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine in ‘Suspicion’ publicity image) (See previous post: “Joan Fontaine Today.”) Also tonight on Turner Classic Movies, Joan Fontaine can be seen in today’s lone TCM premiere, the flag-waving 20th Century Fox release The Above All (1942), with Fontaine as an aristocratic (but socially conscious) English Rose named Prudence Cathaway (Fontaine was born to British parents in Japan) and Fox’s top male star, Tyrone Power, as her Awol romantic interest. This Above All was directed by Anatole Litvak, who would guide Olivia de Havilland in the major box-office hit The Snake Pit (1948), which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nod. In Max Ophüls’ darkly romantic Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Fontaine delivers not only what is probably the greatest performance of her career, but also one of the greatest movie performances ever. Letter from an Unknown Woman...

Paul Henreid: Actor was ‘dependable’ leading man to Hollywood actresses Paul Henreid, best known as the man who wins Ingrid Bergman’s body but not her heart in Casablanca, is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of July 2013. TCM will be showing a couple of dozen movies featuring Henreid, who, though never a top star, was a "dependable" — i.e., unexciting but available — leading man to a number of top Hollywood actresses of the ’40s, among them Bette Davis, Ida Lupino, Olivia de Havilland, Eleanor Parker, Joan Bennett, and Katharine Hepburn. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of Paul Henreid movies to be shown on Turner Classic Movies in July consists of Warner Bros. productions that are frequently broadcast all year long, no matter who is TCM’s Star of the Month. Just as unfortunately, TCM will not present any of Henreid’s little-seen supporting performances of the ’30s, e.

The 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival continues to expand, with newly added appearances by legendary stars at screenings of some of their most memorable films, including Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Marvin Kaplan, Barrie Chase, Polly Bergen,Coleen Gray, Theodore Bikel and Norman Lloyd, as well as producer Stanley Rubin, Clara Bow biographer David Stenn, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) film collections manager Katie Trainor and director Nicholas Ray’s widow, Susan Ray. In addition, TCM’s Essentials Jr. host and Saturday Night Live star Bill Hader will present screenings of Shane (1953) and The Ladykillers(1955).

And The Film Forum’s Bruce Goldstein will present a special screening of Frank Capra’s The Donovan Affair (1929), complete with live voice actors and sound effects to replace the film’s long-lost soundtrack.Mel Brooks is slated to talk about his comedy The Twelve Chairs (1970). Carl Reiner, Mickey Rooney, Jonathan Winters, Marvin Kaplan...

Ethel White's 1936 novel "The Wheel Spins" was adapted to film by an early career Alfred Hitchcock as "The Lady Vanishes." Now the BBC is giving that source material another whirl with Diarmuid Lawrence ("Little Dorrit") directing and Fiona Seres writing the adaptation. Tuppence Middleton ("Chatroom") will play socialite Iris Carr, the role played by Margaret Lockwood in Hitchcock's film, while Selina Cadell will take on the May Whitty role of Miss Froy and Tom Hughes will take on the role of Iris' fellow travel and sole ally, played in the earlier film by Michael Redgrave. Keeley Hawes, Gemma Jones, Stephanie Cole and Julian Rhind-Tutt will also appear in the 90-minute thriller. Read More: 'Vertigo' Replaces 'Citizen Kane' On Top of Sight & Sound List & Some Analysis In adapting the story, Seres looks to be keeping closer to the original source material than...

On top of a mesmerising plot, perfect casting and the greatest comic duo in British cinema, this comedy thriller derives special urgency from the troubled times in which it was made

Hitchcock and railways go together like a locomotive and tender. He loved them, they figure significantly in his work and never more so than in The Lady Vanishes. Much of what happens could only take place on a railway line – passengers delayed together by an avalanche; classes compartmentalised; strangers trapped together as they're transported across a continent; an engine driver killed in crossfire; a carriage disconnected and shunted on to a branch line; an intrepid hero struggling from one carriage to another outside a fast-moving train as other locomotives rush by; clues in the form of a name traced in the steam on a window, and the label on a tea packet briefly adhering to another window; and above...

Walter Huston, Ruth Chatterton, Dodsworth William Wyler: Record-Setting Oscar Director for Actors Pt.1 Ah, William Wyler also happens to be the director with the most Academy Award nominations: twelve in all. For the record, those are: Dodsworth, 1936; Wuthering Heights, 1939; The Letter, 1940; The Little Foxes, 1941; Mrs. Miniver, 1942; The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946; The Heiress, 1949; Detective Story, 1951; Roman Holiday, 1953; Friendly Persuasion, 1956; Ben-Hur, 1959; and The Collector, 1965. He won the Best Director Oscar for three films — none of which is among his best: Mrs. Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Ben-Hur. Considering the changes that have taken place in the American film industry following the demise of the studio system, barring a miracle Wyler will remain the Oscars' top director for actors for as long as there are Oscars. (See full list below.) William Wyler died of a heart attack in July 1981 in Los Angeles. William Wyler-directed movies: thirty-six acting nominations; fourteen wins.

Hollywood has been running out of ideas since filmmakers started making movies in Hollywood. Even the first "official" movie made in Hollywood proper, Cecil B. DeMille's 1914 Western The Squaw Man, wasn't an original story. DeMille's Western was based on Edwin Milton Royle's play. And prior to that, there had been movie shorts with titles such as The Squaw and the Man (1910), Cow-boy and the Squaw (1910), and The Squaw Man's Sweetheart (1912). So, no one should be too surprised that remakes, adaptations, and reboots have been Hollywood staples for decades. And here's another remake in the works: DreamWorks and Working Title Films are to revisit (or reboot, as the case may be) Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 Best Picture Oscar winner Rebecca, which starred Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine. As per Variety, Eastern Promises' screenwriter Steven Knight will use Daphne Du Maurier's novel as the source for the project, sort...

Chicago – Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” isn’t one of his most heralded films. You don’t hear it mentioned on most lists of the best works of arguably the most influential director who ever lived. And yet it was the third film chosen for The Criterion Collection and has now been given the upgrade and joined the esteemed Blu-ray ranks of the most important collection in the history of home entertainment. If you’re unfamiliar with this witty, delightful gem of a thriller, there’s no other way to experience it for the first time. And if you’re a fan of Hitchcock’s more famous films, do yourself a favor by checking out one of his earliest.

Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0

“The Lady Vanishes” had actually been in production with a different director when Alfred Hitchcock came on board mostly to satisfy his British contract before heading to the States.

DVD Playhouse—December 2011

By Allen Gardner

The Rules Of The Game (Criterion) Jean Renoir’s classic from 1939 was met with a riot at its premiere and was severely cut by its distributor, available only in truncated form for two decades until it was restored to the grandeur for which it is celebrated today. A biting comedy of manners set in the upstairs and downstairs of a French country estate, the film bitterly vivisects the bourgeoisie with a gentle ferocity that will tickle the laughter in your throat. Renoir co-stars as Octave. Also available on Blu-ray disc. Bonuses: Introduction to the film by Renoir; Commentary written by scholar Alexander Sesonske and read by Peter Bogdanovich; Comparison of the film’s two endings; Selected scene analysis by Renoir scholar Chris Faulkner; Featurettes and vintage film clips; Part one of David Thomson’s “Jean Renoir” BBC documentary; Video essay; Interviews with Renoir, crew members,...

An almost spectral-looking 2011 portrait by artist Rich Bernal of Vincent Price as he appeared in The Raven. Commissioned for the St. Louis Vincentennial.

2011 is the birthday centennial for Vincent Price, and the anniversary was celebrated by various magazines, blogs, film screenings and other events that honored the late actor. It was most memorably observed in Price’s hometown of St. Louis, where the Vincentennial was marked by a series of events organized primarily by Price fan Tom Stockman. Local newspaper reporter Raymond Castile and I attended many of the screenings, interviews, museum and gallery events in the more-than-month-long observance of the multifaceted man many think of as the “King of Horror.”

Raymond talked with a number of fans from around the world about their love of Price (including myself), and their encounters with him in life or on the screen. I later talked with a number of Vincent Price’s...

Edmund Goulding's The Constant Nymph, a 1943 romantic drama starring Oscar nominee Joan Fontaine, Charles Boyer, and Alexis Smith, will be shown tonight on Turner Classic Movies at 5 p.m. Pt as part of TCM's tribute to the Library of Congress Film Archive. Tied up in legal complications for decades, The Constant Nymph will have its TCM premiere tonight. [In August 2010, The Constant Nymph had a rare screening at the Library of Congress' Packard Campus.] According to Matthew Kennedy's Edmund Goulding biography Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory, Jack Warner initially considered Errol Flynn for the role of the British music teacher. Goulding wanted either Robert Donat or Leslie Howard for the part, but eventually gave up on the British-ness of the music teacher and settled on by then two-time Best Actor Oscar nominee Charles Boyer. Joan Fontaine's role was initially supposed to have gone to Joan Leslie, but Goulding wasn't happy with that choice. Through then-husband Brian Aherne, who had played the music teacher in the 1934 version,...

Release Date: Dec. 6, 2011

Price: Blu-ray $39.95

Studio: Criterion

Michael Redgrave (l.) and Margaret Lockwood do some investigating in The Lady Vanishes.

It’s great to see Alfred Hitchcock’s (Psycho) quick-witted and devilish 1938 comedy-thriller The Lady Vanishes get the Criterion treatment.

In the movie, beautiful Margaret Lockwood (Night Train to Munich) is traveling across Europe by train when she meets a charming spinster (Dame May Whitty, Suspicion), who then seems to disappear into thin air. The younger woman turns investigator and finds herself drawn into a complex web of mystery, adventure and even some romance.

Co-starring Michael Redgrave (The Browning Version) and Paul Lukas (The Ghost Breakers), The Lady Vanishes remains an audience favorite and one of the great filmmaker’s purest delights.

Criterion’s Blu-ray edition offers a high-definition digital restoration of the classic film with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack.

There are a number of bonus features on the Blu-ray...

William Wyler's propaganda-laden wartime drama abounds in the kind of defiant hominess Fellowes has down to a fine art

He is an Oscar-winning screenwriter for Gosford Park, a bestselling author with his novels Snobs and Past Imperfect, and now Julian Fellowes rules the small screen unchallenged thanks to his barnstormingly successful period costume drama Downton Abbey. This crackingly enjoyable TV show is the most successful of its sort since 1981's Brideshead Revisited and has been swiftly recommissioned, with the first series DVD edition poised to catapult off the shelves in time for Christmas. It perfectly demonstrates Fellowes's skills as a writer: he is clever, vigorous, prolific; he has a storyteller's gusto, a killer instinct for a narrative chicane and an uncool interest in the intricacies of the English caste and class system.

The only tiny speck of grit in the vaseline for Mr Fellowes must have been the complaints...

One of Hitchcock's best films, available online for free? What are you waiting for? Alfred Hitchcock made The Lady Vanishes in 1938, and it was widely considered to be the culmination of all his work up to that point. It uses a unique blend of comedy and suspense, and the two elements are playfully, masterfully mixed and intertwined to enhance one another, such as a lengthy scuffle with a suspect in the baggage car. It creates nervous laughter.

Iris (Margaret Lockwood) is an independent young lady traveler, who is about to embark on the last leg of her journey, returning to England to marry. Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) is a happy-go-lucky musicologist who annoys everyone with the noise from his hotel room. Gilibert and Iris hate each other at first, which pretty much assures that they will fall in love. On her way to the train, Iris gets bonked on the head,...

Dame May Whitty, Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave in The Lady Vanishes (top); Robert Donat in The 39 Steps (bottom) On Nov. 27-28, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will present the last four films in its "Hitchcock: The British Thrillers" series. They are: The 39 Steps (1935), starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll; Number 17 (1932), featuring the now-forgotten John Stuart and Anne Grey; The Lady Vanishes (1938), starring Michael Redgrave, Margaret Lockwood, Dame May Whitty, and a cast of first-rate supporting players, including future Oscar winner Paul Lukas; Young and Innocent (1937), with Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney. The 39 Steps is the film that turned Alfred Hitchcock into an internationally acclaimed filmmaker. The film goes from one situation [...]...