I want to recommend a new film biography: Michael Sragow’s excellent and comprehensive book about the underrated Hollywood director Victor Fleming. Sragow’s Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master is a long overdue look at the man who gave us not only that amazing pair of 1939 milestones, The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the [...]

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January 22nd marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the delicious Ann Sothern (1909-2001), one of the big (and small) screen’s most beloved blond comediennes. Often cast in musicals in the 1930s, notably opposite Maurice Chevalier in Folies Bergere (1935), she spent most of the 40s wisecracking her way through the likable Maisie series [...]

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The Tall Target (1951), a wonderful period film noir from director Anthony Mann, is of particular interest as Barack Obama makes his way to his inauguration. In Mann’s film, Abraham Lincoln travels by train to Washington for his inauguration, thus setting into motion a superbly wrought nail-biter complete with a cast of compelling characters, many [...]

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On Wednesday, Ricardo Montalban passed away at the age of 88.  It’s a shame that most people still identify him best with Fantasy Island, his tacky 1970s hit television series, because Montalban was a more talented guy than he got credit for.  MGM primarily kept him busy in Esther Williams musicals and other pictures requiring [...]

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Remember when movie musicals were vehicles for artists who could wow you with their singing and/or dancing skills? That would have been the age of Astaire and Garland and Kelly. Or remember the age of vocal dubbing, when non-musical stars got leads in adaptations of Broadway musicals? This was often an unfortunate era but it [...]

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