CelluloidKid
-
Posts
9,693 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Never
Posts posted by CelluloidKid
-
-
Jules Dassin also directed "Reunion in France".........The film stars Joan Crawford, John Wayne, and Phillip Dorn, and is set in Paris at the beginning of World War II.
-
April 1, 2008
Dance, Fools, Dance. 4:30am. TCM.
April 3
It's A Great Feeling. 7:00am TCM.
April 25
The Gorgeous Hussy. 1:30pm. TCM.
Torch Song. 3:15pm. TCM.
April 28
Dancing Lady. 9:00pm TCM.
-
Some people are bitter!
-
OLDIES.COM: Save BIG on over 600 rare, out-of-print and hard-to-find DVDs from 20th Century Fox & MGM!
I bought the: Jayne Mansfield Collection (The Girl Can't Help It / The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw / Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?) at Costco for $15.99!
Also "Costco" had alot of "20th Century Fox Cinema Classics Collection" on sale for $9.99
incld:
Jane Eyre
Farewell to Arms
Stopover Tokyo
Von Ryan's Express
The Snows of Kilimanjaro
to name a few.....
-
Warner** has announced a July 22nd, 2008 release date for two musical dramas: "Blues in the Night" (1941) and "Pete Kelly's Blues" (1955). Each will retail for $19.98, but are available at Classicflix.com for only $14.49.
Bonus features are not yet known, but stars include Priscilla Lane, Betty Field, Richard Whorf, Lloyd Nolan, Jack Carson, Wallace Ford, Billy Halop, Jack Webb, Janet Leigh, Edmond O'Brien, Andy Devine, Lee Marvin, Ella Fitzgerald, Jayne Mansfield and a pre-directorial Elia Kazan.
-
AGAIN "I" POSTED THIS INFO ON: Mar 27, 2008
Fox has announced a July 29th, 2008 release date for The Tyrone Power Collection, Vol. 2. This spectacular five disc DVD set will feature 10 NEW TO DVD films and is a great bargain too retailing at $49.98. It is available at Classicflix.com for only $37.99, however, for 3 days only (until March 30th), we'll have it for the SPECIAL PRE-ORDER PRICE of $33.99. More details to follow...
Titles (Not Available as Singles):
Cafe Metropole (1937)
Girls Dormitory (1936)
Johnny Apollo (1940)
Daytime Wife (1939)
Luck of the Irish (1948)
I'll Never Forget You (1951)
That Wonderful Urge (1948)
Love is News (1937)
This Above All (1942)
Second Honeymoon (1937)
Stars include:
Tyrone Power, Loretta Young, Herbert Marshall, Don Ameche, Gene Tierney, Lloyd Nolan, Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Ann Blyth, Thomas Mitchell, Adolphe Menjou, Ruth Chatterton, Simone Simon, Warren William, Dorothy Lamour, Edward Arnold, Lionel Atwill, Joan Davis, Lee J. Cobb, Jayne Meadows, Joan Fontaine, Claire Trevor and Gladys Cooper.
-
News on a 45th Anniversary Edition of "The Sword in the Stone"
On June 17, 2008, Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will release a new 45th Anniversary Edition of the classic animated film, The Sword in the Stone.
It will street for $29.99 and will include:
"Music Magic: The Sherman Brothers" Featurette
"The Sword in the Stone Scrapbook" Featurette
"Knight For a Day" Short Film
"Brave Little Tailor" Short Film
"Merlin's Magical Academy" Interactive Game
"Disney Song Selection" Feature
And More!
-
Jules Dassin, the blacklisted American filmmaker who was a master of film noir, directing such classics as "Brute Force," "The Naked City" and "Rififi," died Monday in an Athens hospital. He was 96.
The cause of death was not made public. The Associated Press reported that he had been in the hospital for a couple of weeks.
Greece mourns the loss of a rare human being, a significant artist and true friend," Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said in a statement. "His passion, his relentless creative energy, his fighting spirit and his nobility will remain unforgettable."
Dassin, considered one of the leading American filmmakers of the postwar era, directed his most influential film, "Rififi," while living in France after being blacklisted as a communist in the early 1950s. "Rififi" earned him a best director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1955.
"Rififi" is the "benchmark all succeeding heist films have been measured against," Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan wrote in 2000 when the movie was re-released in the United States. The film was widely considered the prototype for films like "Ocean's Eleven" and "Mission: Impossible." Even Dassin himself made another film based on "Rififi," the 1964 "Topkapi," which also starred Melina Mercouri, whom he had worked with in the better-known English-language film "Never on Sunday," where she played a good-hearted prostitute. Dassin and Mercouri later married.
Turan noted that "Rififi's" influence "is hard to overstate." The critic wrote that one section of the film "a model of tension and precision." In the sequence, Dassin spends "a full 30 minutes on the actual robbery, a completely wordless half-hour (though it makes good use of sound effects) that racks the nerves and provides a master class in breaking and entering as well as filmmaking."
Dassin was born in Middletown, Conn., one of eight children of Russian Jewish immigrants. His father, a barber, moved the family to New York City, and Dassin graduated from high school in the Bronx.
He got into show business as an actor in New York's Yiddish theater in the mid-1930s. But upon discovering "that an actor I was not," he switched to directing, first on the New York stage and then in films.
In the early 1940s, Dassin went to Hollywood, eventually working for MGM, Universal and 20th Century Fox. His first feature film for MGM was "The Tell-Tale Heart" which was followed by "Nazi Agent," released in 1942. He did several other average films for MGM, including "The Canterville Ghost" (1944) and "A Letter for Evie" (1946).
But "Brute Force" (1947), the violent prison film starring Burt Lancaster and Hume Cronyn, marked a striking change in direction to grittier fare. That was followed by "Naked City" (1948), one of the first police dramas shot on location on the streets of New York; "Thieves' Highway" (1949), a gritty film about a World War II veteran who sets out to avenge his brother's death; and "Night and the City" (1950), a film noir starring Richard Widmark as a hustler in London who is caught up in his own schemes. Widmark died last week at 93.
But by the early 1950s, the hunt was on for Communist Party sympathizers in Hollywood, and Dassin's name joined countless others on the blacklist.
Dassin never denied that he had been a member of the Communist Party. As part of the New York theater scene in the 1930s while the Depression still deeply affected millions of Americans, he was among many who saw the Communist Party as a force of good for working people. He left the party in the late 1930s over its position on the Soviet alliance with Hitler and the party's downplaying of the outbreak of World War II.
In 1951, fellow directors Edward Dmytryk and Frank Tuttle offered Dassin's name to the House Un-American Activities Committee, saying Dassin was part of the Hollywood "Communist faction." Although Dassin was never called to testify before the committee, he could not find employment after their testimony, and in 1953 he moved his family to France.
His life wasn't easy in Europe. Initially, Dassin was unable to find work, but he was finally asked to write the screenplay for and direct "Rififi," based on a novel by Auguste le Breton. It concerns a group of jewel thieves who in the end have more to fear from one another than from the police. Dassin plays one of the thieves, Cesar, under the pseudonym Perlo Vita.
Dassin told National Public Radio's David D'Arcy in 2000, on the occasion of the U.S. re-release of "Rififi," that when making the film he remembered advice that Alfred Hitchcock once gave him: "Tell them what you're gonna do, and then make them worry about how you're going to do it."
The centerpiece of the film is the now-famous half-hour burglary sequence, which is done without music or dialogue -- only the sound of hammers and drills, plaster being chiseled, an occasional muffled cough. The scene is permeated with breathless tension.
"Few avant-garde films have demonstrated so skillfully how time and pace affect perception," film critic Michael Sragow wrote in 2000.
The late Francois Truffaut called "Rififi" "the best film noir I have ever seen" and said Dassin's luminous on-location shots on the cold and rainy streets of Paris revealed that city in a way that was new even to Frenchmen. Film critic Leonard Maltin labeled the film "the granddaddy of all caper/heist movies."
Much of "Rififi" feels familiar today because many filmmakers -- including Dassin himself -- have imitated it. His "Topkapi," about the theft of a jeweled dagger from an Istanbul museum, also proved influential.
The "Rififi"/"Topkapi"-style band of thieves, each with a specialty that is needed to pull off the big heist, is so closely "quoted" in Brian De Palma's 1996 "Mission: Impossible" that Dassin told the New York Times he felt "shocked."
Obviously it is a sad time for fans of Dassin's "Night and the City"; Richard Widmark, the actor who starred in that classic noir, died one week ago as well.
-
-
Abby Mann (1927-2008) - Oscar-winning screenwriter of: "Judgment of Nuremberg". He was also nominated for writing Stanley Kramer's "Ship of Fools". He also worked on Vittorio De Sica's "The Condemned of Altona", wrote John Cassavetes' "A Child is Waiting" and Gordon Douglas' "The Detective", which starred Frank Sinatra, and created the TV series "Kojak". He also appears in the documentary: "Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust". He died of heart failure March 25, in Beverly Hills. (Variety)
Art Aragon (1927-2008) - Professional boxer-turned-actor who appears as himself in the Bob Hope comedy: "Off Limits" and in Kur Neumann's film-noir "The Ring". He also appears in John Huston's boxing picture "Fat City" and in the WWII film: "To Hell and Back". He died of complications from a stroke March 25, in Northridge, California. (NY Times)
Paul Arthur (c.1948-2008) - Film historian, scholar and critic who taught English and film studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey. He was known for his writings on avant-garde and documentary cinemas and had made a number of short films, himself. He died of melanoma March 25, in White Plains, New York. (NY Times)
Neil Aspinall (1941-2008) - One of the few people to be considered a "fifth Beatle". Among his many roles, he was a producer of the film Let it Be and a music supervisor for That'll Be the Day, which featured Ringo Starr. He died of lung cancer March 23, in New York. (Variety)
Rafael Azcona (1926-2008) - Spanish novelist and screenwriter who wrote Fernando Trueba's Oscar-winning foreign film Belle Epoque. He also co-wrote Trueba's "The Girl of Your Dreams", starring Pen?lope Cruz, Jos? Luis Cuerda's "Butterfly" and Marco Ferreri's La Grande "Bouffe" (aka The Big Feast), and he also wrote Bigas Luna's "Sound of the Sea" and Luis Garc?a Berlanga's Oscar-nominated "Pl?cido". He died of lung cancer March 24, in Madrid. (AP)
Robert Bruning (1928-2008) - Australian actor and producer who appears in Tony Richardson's "Ned Kelly", which starred Mich Jagger in the title role, as well as "Sunday Too Far Away". He died of a heart attack March 4, in Wellington, New Zealand. (Variety)
Sofiko Chiaureli (1937-2008) - Georgian actress and daughter of Soviet propaganda filmmaker Mikheil Chiaureli and actress Veriko Andjaparidze. She was also the muse of censored Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov, starring in many of his films, including The Color of Pomegranates, The Confession, Ashug-Karibi and The Legend of the Suram Fortress. She died of cancer March 2, in Tbilisi, Georgia. (The Times)
Tony Church (1930-2008) - English actor who was a founding member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. He appears in "Krull" and Roman Polanski's "Tess". He died March 25 in London. (Backstage)
Sergio Corrieri (1939-2008) - Cuban actor who starred in: "I Am Cuba" and "Memories of Underdevelopment". He also appears in the 2005 documentary about I Am Cuba, titled I Am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth. He died of cancer February 29, in Havana. (Guardian)
Jules Dassin (1911-2008) - Oscar-nominated writer and director of: "Never on a Sunday". He also wrote and directed: "Rififi" and "Topkapi" and directed the classic noirs: "Night and the City", "The Naked City" and "Brute Force".
Roberta 'Ro' Gorski (1977-2008) - Former assistant to Jerry Bruckheimer, and credited as such on: "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl", "National Treasure", "Bad Boys II" and "King Arthur," who went on to be an associate producer on David Ayer's: "Harsh Times". She died of complications following a brain aneurysm March 13, in Los Angeles. (Variety)
William Neely (c.1931-2008) - Co-author of the novel: "Stand on It: A Novel by Stroker Ace", which was adapted by Hal Needham into the film "Stroker Ace", starring Burt Reynolds. He died after complications from surgery March 25, in North Carolina. (AutoWeek)
Dith Pran (1942-2008) - Journalist and human rights activist whose story was the subject of "The Killing Fields". In the film, he was portrayed by Haing S. Ngor, who won an Oscar for the performance. He died of pancreatic cancer March 30, in New Jersey. (Washington Post)
Hal Riney (1932-2008) - Oscar-nominated producer of the 1971 documentary short: Somebody Waiting. Better known for his work in advertising, he conceived famous campaigns for Bartles & Jaymes, Saturn and the 1984 re-election run of President Ronald Reagan. He died of cancer March 24, in San Francisco. (Advertising Age)
Chase Tatum (c.1974-2008) - WCW wrestler who recently appeared in Who's Your Caddy with Outkast, for whom he used to work as a personal assistant. As a baby, he also appeared in Creature from Black Lake, which featured his father, actor Roy Tatum, in the title role. He died of an apparent drug overdose March 23, in Buckhead, Georgia. (Variety)
Michael Van Dyke (1959-2008) - Construction foreman who worked on: "The Matrix Revolutions", "Crank", "Star Trek: Nemesis", "The Karate Kid Part II", "Dr. Doolittle 2" and Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" remake. He committed suicide by hanging himself March 19, at a home owned by Mel Gibson, in Agoura Hills, California. (Memory-Alpha)
Richard Widmark (1914-2008) - Oscar-nominated actor who played the legendary supporting role of "Tommy Udo" in Kiss of Death, his first film role. He went on to be a prominent figure in films noir, such as: "Night and the City", "The Street with No Name", "Road House", "Panic in the Streets", "Don't Bother to Knock" and "No Way Out" and grew to be a major film star of the 1950s and 1960s, playing lead roles in Sam Fuller's "Pickup on South Street", John Wayne's "The Alamo", Stanley Kramer's "Judgment at Nuremberg", John Ford's "Two Rode Together" and "Cheyenne Autumn", Otto Preminger's "Saint Joan" and Don Siegel's "Madigan", which spawned a TV series he starred in. He also appears in "Murder on the Orient Express", "How the West Was Won", "Coma", "The Swarm", "Against All Odds", "True Colors", and "The Bedford Incident", which he also produced. He also appears in the documentaries: "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and "Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust".
Justin Wright (1981-2008) - Animator and story artist at Pixar who worked on the end titles for "Ratatouille". He died of a heart attack March 18, in Emeryville, California. (Cartoon Brew)
Thanks,
Cinematical
Posted Mar 31st 2008
By Christopher Campbell
-
I'm a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan!! I took a "Alfred Hitchcock Appreciation" film class in Film school devoted entirely to Hitchcock and his films! Seen everything from the silents to the well-know films!
The 3 Hitchcock film's I didn't like were: "Topaz", "Torn Curtain" & "Family Plot"! Not his best work!
-
Thanks mcphoto1021!!!
-
Grreat Article..I read it this morning in the NY Times! Very interesting! Thanks for posting it!
-
TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: HITCHCOCK IN THE 60'S
All Times are (PT) Arizona Time...!!
05:00 The Birds
7:15pm Marnie
9:30pm Psycho
11:30pm Topaz
LOL!!
-
Soooooo has anyone gone yet??? Tell us your story!
-
-
Well you have a grrreeattt Sunday..take care of you..have an amazing day!!
-
An Academy Award-winning American film producer during the early years of motion pictures. He was called "The Boy Wonder" for his youth and his extraordinary ability to select the right scripts, choose the right actors, gather the best production staff, and make very profitable films.
Every single movie made at MGM between 1924 and 1932 was made under his guidance, among them: "Flesh and the Devil" (1926), "Red Dust" (1932), "The Big Parade" (1925), and "The Broadway Melody of 1929". I
In 1927 he married Norma Shearer, who was a very popular leading lady at MGM and whom he hoped to turn into the studio's biggest star. They were to become one of Hollywood's power couples!!
MGM suspended all of its productions for several days after he died at the age of thirty-seven and all of Hollywood shut down for five minutes of silence on the day of his funeral.
His name appeared on the screen in only two pictures. The credit for his final film, "The Good Earth" (1937) reads: "To the Memory of Irving Grant Thalberg his last greatest achievement we dedicate this picture." Another dedication to him appeared in the opening credits of: "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" (1939), a film that Thalberg set into motion, but never lived to see.
Mr. and Mrs. Irving Thalberg
Some of Irving's Filmography:
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
Merry-Go-Round (1923)
Foolish Wives (1922)
The Trap (1922)
The Dangerous Little Demon (1922 )
Reputation (1921)
Marie Antoinette (1938)
The Good Earth (1937)
Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937)
A Day at the Races (1937)
Maytime (1937)
Camille (1936)
Romeo and Juliet (1936)
Riffraff (1936)
A Night at the Opera (film) (1935)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935)
China Seas (1935)
No More Ladies (1935)
Biography of a Bachelor Girl (1935)
-
Dances on a table ...waves to DePalma ...Hellllooooo!
-
My Fav line in the whole film is:
Last time I saw you was someplace
very gay. I remember waving to you.
I was dancing on a table.
-
She was the greatest. You wouldn't
know. You are too young. In one
week she got seventeen thousand fan
letters. Men would bribe her mani-
curist to get clippings from her
fingernails. There was a Maharajah
who came all the way from Hyderabad
to get one of her stockings. Later,
he strangled himself with it.
-
Yes, this is Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles,California. It's about five o'clock in the morning. That's the Homicide Squad, complete with detectives and newspaper men.
A murder has been reported from one of those great big houses in the ten thousand block.
You'll read all about it in the late editions I'm sure. You'll get it over your radio, and see it on television -- because an old-time star is involved. One of the biggest. But before you hear it all distorted and blown out of proportion, before those Hollywood columnists get their hands on it,
maybe you'd like to hear the facts, the whole truth.........
-
Trivia for
Sunset Blvd.
William Haines, along with fellow silent screen veterans Buster Keaton and Anna Q. Nilsson, was approached to play one of Gloria Swanson's bridge partners. Swanson herself reportedly asked him to do it. Haines declined and fellow screen veteran H.B. Warner took the part.
Eugene Walter was a prolific Hollywood screenwriter of the 1920s and 1930s. 6350 Franklin Avenue was the address of the Alto Nido Apartments, where Walter lived, sometimes worked, and, ultimately died in 1941. As "Sunset Boulevard" opens, William Holden's character Joe Gillis describes himself as a Hollywood screenwriter "living in an apartment house above Frankin Avenue". As the camera cranes up into the apartment, we can see it's the Alto Nido.
The first name of the Joe Gillis character was Dan in an early draft of the screenplay.
The role of Norma Desmond was initially offered to Mae West (who rejected the part), Mary Pickford (who demanded too much project control), and Pola Negri (who, like Mae West, turned it down) before being accepted by Gloria Swanson.
Montgomery Clift, signed to play the part of Joe Gillis, broke his contract just two weeks prior to the start of shooting. Billy Wilder quickly offered the role to Fred MacMurray, who turned it down because he didn't want to play a gigolo. Marlon Brando was considered, but the producers thought he was too much of an unknown as a film actor. Gene Kelly was then approached, but MGM refused to loan him out. Reluctantly, Wilder met with William Holden, whose films to that time had not impressed Wilder. They eventually worked together on several films and became longtime friends.
The "Desmond mansion" had been built by a William Jenkins in 1924 at a cost of $250,000. Its second owner was Jean Paul Getty, who purchased it for his second wife. Mrs. Getty divorced her millionaire husband and received custody of the house; it was she who rented it to Paramount for the filming.
The photos of the young Norma Desmond that decorate the house are all genuine publicity photos from Gloria Swanson's heyday.
The writers feared that Hollywood would react unfavorably to such a damning portrait of the film industry, and so the film was code named 'A Can of Beans' while in production.
Despite the fact that Erich von Stroheim plays a butler/chauffeur, he could not drive in real life. During the scenes in which he drove, the car was towed by another car. In the scene in which he drives Norma Desmond to Paramount Pictures, it was rumoured he crashed into the famous Paramount gate. According to the DVD commentary by Wilder biographer Ed Sikov, this story was most likely invented/exaggerated by Billy Wilder.
The movie that Joe and Norma watch in the private screening room is Queen Kelly (1929). Filmed in 1928, the movie had not yet been released. It was directed by Erich von Stroheim, who plays the butler.
Cameo: [Cecil B. DeMille] at the studio during Norma's visit.
Cameo: [Hedda Hopper] at the top of the stairwell as Norma descends toward the cameras.
Cameo: [H.B. Warner] in the card game scene.
The movie that Cecil B. DeMille is shooting (in this movie and in real life) was Samson and Delilah (1949), being made at the same time as this film. As a final dig at Hollywood, the tragic ending music (by Franz Waxman) as Norma vanishes into the lens of a camera, segues into a full-blown orchestra version of the Paramount News Shorts' theme.
Cameo: [buster Keaton] in the card game scene
Cameo: [Anna Q. Nilsson] in the card game scene
Cecil B. DeMille had a pet name for Gloria Swanson - "Young Fella" - because he said she was braver than any man. He calls her this when he greets her (as Norma Desmond) at the door of the soundstage.
The last major Hollywood feature to be filmed on a nitrate negative.
The name Norma Desmond was most likely chosen from a combination of silent-film star Norma Talmadge and director William Desmond Taylor.
The "fee" for renting the Getty mansion was for Paramount to build the swimming pool, which features so memorably
Erich von Stroheim dismissed his participation in this film, referring to it as "that butler role."
Set non-holiday all time house record of $166,000 at Radio City Music Hall when it opened.
In a break from Billy Wilder's usual practice, this project began without a finished script. At one point, production was shut down so the script could be finished.
In 1989, the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress selected this film as one of twenty-five landmark films of all time.
In 1998, the American Film Institute selected this as the 12th greatest film of the 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.
In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #16 Greatest Movie of All Time.
In Cecil B. DeMille's introduction shot, his on-set cry of "Wilcoxon!" refers to long-time friend, actor, and associate producer Henry Wilcoxon.
The original nitrate negatives for the film have long disappeared. The only extant film elements were 35mm interpositives struck in 1952, which had undergone a great deal of decay. This interpositive was scanned at 2,000 lines of resolution and electronically restored for the 2002 DVD reissue. The restoration was performed at Lowry Digital by Barry Allen and Steve Elkin.
The directions made by the Paramount guard for Norma and Joe to go meet Cecil B. DeMille on "Stage 18" is accurate: this stage, one of the largest on the Paramount lot, was known for years as "The DeMille Stage", and now is called "The Star Trek Stage", as all the "Trek" movies and large elements of the TV shows have shot there.
It was George Cukor who suggested Gloria Swanson for the role of Norma Desmond. Wilder had worked on a script for a Swanson picture years earlier called Music in the Air (1934) and had forgotten about it.
The antique car used as Norma Desmond's limousine is an Isotta-Fraschini, and once belonged to 1920s socialite Peggy Hopkins Joyce. It was a gift from her lover, automobile magnate Walter Chrysler.
Mae West rejected the role of Norma Desmond because she felt she was too young to play a silent film star. Mary Pickford rejected it because she was afraid it would destroy her wholesome image.
Montgomery Clift quit the production because he was, like the character of Joe, having an affair with a much older woman, and was afraid of unflattering comparisons.
Darryl F. Zanuck, Olivia de Havilland, Tyrone Power and Samuel Goldwyn all refused to allow their names to be used in the film, but Billy Wilder decided to use Zanuck's and Power's names anyway. Oddly enough, the reclusive Greta Garbo granted permission to use her name, though when she saw the film itself she was sorry she had done so. She felt that Wilder used her name in a past-tense context, and she was offended.
Gloria Swanson almost considered rejecting the role of Norma Desmond after Billy Wilder requested she do a screen test for the role. Her friend George Cukor, who initially recommended her for the part, told her, "If they want you to do ten screen tests, do ten screen tests. If you don't, I will personally shoot you." Swanson agreed to the audition, and won the role.
The movie's line "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up" was voted as the #7 movie quote by the American Film Institute
The movie's line "All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." was voted as the #6 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
The movie's line "I am big. It's the pictures that got small." was voted as the #91 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
The movie's line "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces." was voted as the #13 of "The 100 Greatest Movie Lines" by Premiere in 2007.
The movie's line "I am big! It's the pictures that got small." was voted as the #24 movie quote by the American Film Institute (out of 100).
Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett met with Greta Garbo and tried to convince her to make a comeback for the role of Norma Desmond. Garbo declined the offer.
Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett's 17th and final screenplay collaboration. After a particularly virulent argument over the treatment of a montage sequence in the film, they vowed never to work with each other again.
Paramount were more than happy to be the subject of the film, and didn't ask for the studio to be disguised. In fact, such was the buzz about the film during production that the viewing of the daily rushes became one of the hottest tickets on the lot.
The character of Joe Gillis was very much in tune with William Holden's standing at the time. When he appeared in the 1939 film Golden Boy (1939), he was hailed as exactly that, but had seen his stock fall, largely through his problems with alcohol.
According to Gloria Swanson's daughter, her mother stayed in character throughout the entire shoot.
Upon seeing the film at a star-studded preview screening at Paramount, MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer screamed at director Billy Wilder that he should be tarred, feathered and horse-whipped for bringing his profession into such disrepute. Wilder's response was a terse, "**** you" (Mayer would find himself ousted from his position within the year by the new regime at MGM, headed by Dore Schary).
Billy Wilder originally wanted another silent star, Pola Negri, to take the part of Norma Desmond. Upon telephoning her, however, Wilder found that Negri's Polish accent, which had killed her career, was still too thick for such a dialog-heavy film.
Other actresses considered for Norma Desmond were Mae Murray and Mary Pickford. In fact, Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett even went to Pickfair to pitch the story to Pickford, but her horrified reaction as the story progressed made them stop halfway through and apologize to her.
Cecil B. DeMille agreed to do his cameo for a $10,000 fee and a brand-new Cadillac. When Billy Wilder went back to him later to secure a close-up, DeMille charged him another $10,000.
Gloria Swanson played her final descent down the staircase to the waiting authorities barefoot as the steps were so narrow, she was terrified of tripping up if she'd worn her high heels. She burst into tears upon completion of the scene.
Billy Wilder wanted a fresh face for the part of Betty Schaefer. The part was only Nancy Olson's second film appearance.
It was Erich von Stroheim's idea to show clips from Queen Kelly (1929) in the scene where Norma and Joe sit down to watch a movie.
There's a little dig in the scene when Cecil B. DeMille finds out that Paramount has been calling Norma Desmond because it wants to borrow her car for some Bing Crosby picture. The truth of the matter was that Crosby was one of the very few actors to whom Billy Wilder had objected, mainly because he had done the unthinkable during filming of The Emperor Waltz (1948) and rewritten some of Wilder's dialog.
As a practical joke, during the scene where William Holden and Nancy Olson kiss for the first time, Billy Wilder let them carry on for minutes without yelling cut (he'd already gotten the shot he needed on the first take). Eventually it wasn't Wilder who shouted "Cut!" but Holden's wife, who happened to be onset that day.
Billy Wilder was actually more friendly with the other leading gossip columnist of the day, Louella Parsons. However, he knew that her arch-rival Hedda Hopper had trained as an actress and would therefore be more convincing onscreen.
The first floor set of Norma Desmond's mansion can be seen in full color in Fancy Pants (1950).
Cecil B. DeMille was actually filming a scene from Samson and Delilah (1949) with the cast and crew of that film during Norma Desmond's "visit" to the studio. Henry Wilcoxon can be seen approaching Norma. The scene of DeMille filming a "period" film looks convincing because that's what he was really doing.
Near the end, when Norma Desmond is told that the newsreel cameras have arrived, as the light shines on her face and she gazes into the mirror, the score quotes the chord (the flutter in the strings) from the coda of the Dance of the Seven Veils from Richard Strauss' opera "Salome" (the subject, of course, of Norma's script); the same quote from Salome is used again as she starts down the stairs.
The script planned by Joe and Betty (the story of a couple, which is never together because of jobs with incompatible working time) exists: it was written by Billy Wilder and Max Kolp? for Blaue vom Himmel, Das (1932/I).
When Max is telling Joe about directing Madam's first pictures, there is a bad dub of the word "sixteen". After the 'Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle' trial and the subsequent establishment of the Hays Office to enforce the new Production Code, the producers were concerned that the original age of 14 would be considered child porn and had the line changed in post.
THANKS
Moviedata Base
-
I loved the ending of "The Mist" too!! It was shocking and thought-provoking which was a good thing!
The thing is if you now somebody who hasn't seen "The Mist"...Shhhhhhh..don't even think about giving the end away...let them experience for themselves.."THEN" & only then talk about the film!!!
TCM PRIME TIME FEATURE: HITCHCOCK IN THE 60'S APRIL 01, 2008!
in Hot Topics
Posted
Marnie Themes:
mother - Marnie and her mother
multiple personalities - who is Marnie?
the colour red - triggers Marnie's surpressed memories
the icy blonde - Marnie Edgar (Tippi Hedren)
the Hitchcock cameo - leaving a hotel
Topaz Themes:
the MacGuffin - the spy ring
the cultured baddie - Jacques Granville (Michel Piccoli)
the Hitchcock cameo - at the airport, sat in a wheelchair