Actualités

Part of the Jerry Lewis tribute A Mubi Jerrython.Throughout his filmmaking career, Jerry Lewis would re-use food gags. A spoon too full forcefully inserted into an unprepared mouth, the exponential exhaustion faced at a meal never had, the exaggerated despair at food which is unsatisfactory: in these forms of jokes, the crux of Lewis’ relation to food is revealed. Using food consistently as a signifier of domestic comfort, Lewis would throughout his career take up food for emotional as well as comedic emphasis.As Herbert H. Heebert in The Ladies Man (1961), Lewis plays a youth terrified of women after finding his girlfriend has cheated on him. Ending up employed and living in an all-female boarding house, Helen Wellenmellen (Helen Traubel), the house’s owner, explains to her boarders how and why they must keep Herbert employed (a notoriously difficult hotel, they hope to keep him longer than other staff...

Merle Oberon films: From empress to duchess in 'Hotel.' Merle Oberon films: From starring to supporting roles Turner Classic Movies' Merle Oberon month comes to an end tonight, March 25, '16, with six movies: Désirée, Hotel, Deep in My Heart, Affectionately Yours, Berlin Express, and Night Song. Oberon's presence alone would have sufficed to make them all worth a look, but they have other qualities to recommend them as well. 'Désirée': First supporting role in two decades Directed by Henry Koster, best remembered for his Deanna Durbin musicals and the 1947 fantasy comedy The Bishop's Wife, Désirée (1954) is a sumptuous production that, thanks to its big-name cast, became a major box office hit upon its release. Marlon Brando is laughably miscast as Napoleon Bonaparte, while Jean Simmons plays the title role, the Corsican Conqueror's one-time fiancée Désirée Clary (later Queen of Sweden and Norway). In a supporting role – her...

The gaudy MGM musical bio gets one last go-round, gathering an all-star cast to illustrate the songbook of composer Sigmund Romberg. Gene Kelly dances with his brother Fred, and Cyd Charisse does a hot number with James Mitchell, while star José Ferrer goes on stage to perform with his wife Rosemary Clooney. Deep in My Heart Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1954 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 132 min. / Street Date November 10, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 17.95 Starring José Ferrer, Merle Oberon, Helen Traubel, Doe Avedon, Walter Pidgeon, Jim Backus, Rosemary Clooney, Gene Kelly, Fred Kelly, Jane Powell, Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse, Howard Keel, Vic Damone, Tony Martin, Joan Weldon, Fred Kelly, Russ Tamblyn. Susan Luckey, Robert Easton, Barrie Chase, Douglas Fowley. Cinematography George J. Folsey Film Editor Adrienne Fazan Original Music Alexander Courage, Adolph Deutsch Written by Leonard Spigelgass from a book by Elliott Arnold Produced by Roger Edens Directed by Stanley Donen

Reviewed...

Observed from afar, the opera world looks like a strange, turbulent planet populated by tantrum-throwing, bouquet-catching, window-shattering creatures called divas. Zoom in closer, though, and it’s clear that those mythic singers are thin on the ground. Once, they were essential to opera’s mystique and economic health. Operagoers revered them, and even non-operagoers knew their names, thanks to a media machine obsessed not only with glamour but also with prestige. Time magazine put Marian Anderson, Nellie Melba, Helen Traubel, Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Beverly Sills, and Luciano Pavarotti on its cover (back when Time’s cover also had immense glamour and prestige). Compared to their forebears, today’s divas are dwarf stars, still capable of musical miracles but not of quickening a paparazzo’s pulse or even of reliably selling out a house. The entertainment world has diversified and fragmented, shoving an art form full of potboilers and tearjerkers...

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.