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Yvette Mimieux was found dead this morning, a rep for her family confirmed. She had just turned 80 on January 10, and she passed away in her sleep of natural causes.

Mimieux was a prolific actress who is best remembered for starring opposite Rod Taylor in the 1960 George Pal-directed film version of the H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine at MGM where she was soon put under a long term contract. Another big hit came months after in Where The Boys Are. Among her other credits around that time were Platinum High School, Mr. Lucky, Where the Boys Are, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Light in the Piazza. The latter garnered her strong reviews for playing a mentally disabled girl and the time she said, “I supposed I have a soulful quality. I was often cast as a wounded person, the ‘sensitive’ role.

She would take a detour and guest...

'The Pink Panther' with Peter Sellers: Blake Edwards' 1963 comedy hit and its many sequels revolve around one of the most iconic film characters of the 20th century: clueless, thick-accented Inspector Clouseau – in some quarters surely deemed politically incorrect, or 'insensitive,' despite the lack of brown face make-up à la Sellers' clueless Indian guest in Edwards' 'The Party.' 'The Pink Panther' movies [1] There were a total of eight big-screen Pink Panther movies co-written and directed by Blake Edwards, most of them starring Peter Sellers – even after his death in 1980. Edwards was also one of the producers of every (direct) Pink Panther sequel, from A Shot in the Dark to Curse of the Pink Panther. Despite its iconic lead character, the last three movies in the Pink Panther franchise were box office bombs. Two of these, The Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther, were co-written by Edwards' son,...

William Cameron Menzies. William Cameron Menzies movies on TCM: Murderous Joan Fontaine, deadly Nazi Communists Best known as an art director/production designer, William Cameron Menzies was a jack-of-all-trades. It seems like the only things Menzies didn't do was act and tap dance in front of the camera. He designed and/or wrote, directed, produced, etc., dozens of films – titles ranged from The Thief of Bagdad to Invaders from Mars – from the late 1910s all the way to the mid-1950s. Among Menzies' most notable efforts as an art director/production designer are: Ernst Lubitsch's first Hollywood movie, the Mary Pickford star vehicle Rosita (1923). Herbert Brenon's British-set father-son drama Sorrell and Son (1927). David O. Selznick's mammoth production of Gone with the Wind, which earned Menzies an Honorary Oscar. The Sam Wood movies Our Town (1940), Kings Row (1942), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). H.C. Potter's Mr. Lucky...

Cary Grant movies: 'An Affair to Remember' does justice to its title (photo: Cary Grant ca. late 1940s) Cary Grant excelled at playing Cary Grant. This evening, fans of the charming, sophisticated, debonair actor -- not to be confused with the Bristol-born Archibald Leach -- can rejoice, as no less than eight Cary Grant movies are being shown on Turner Classic Movies, including a handful of his most successful and best-remembered star vehicles from the late '30s to the late '50s. (See also: "Cary Grant Classic Movies" and "Cary Grant and Randolph Scott: Gay Lovers?") The evening begins with what may well be Cary Grant's best-known film, An Affair to Remember. This 1957 romantic comedy-melodrama is unusual in that it's an even more successful remake of a previous critical and box-office hit -- the Academy Award-nominated 1939 release Love Affair -- and that it was directed...

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By Harvey Chartrand

Mr. Lucky: The Complete Series is now available for the first time ever as a 4-dvd box set from Timeless Media Group… all 34 episodes, with a running time of about 840 minutes. Mr. Lucky– created by writer/director Blake Edwards (Peter Gunn) – ran for only one season (from 1959 to 1960), even though it was a hit with viewers.

This adventure/crime drama is a sort of Peter Gunn Lite, featuring a lush, organ-powered theme song by Henry Mancini (a bonus CD of Mr. Lucky’s soundtrack is included in the set), an assortment of shady characters aboard a floating casino, and competent acting by series regulars John Vivyan (as suave professional gambler Mr. Lucky), Ross Martin (as his sidekick and business partner Andamo), Pippa Scott (as Mr. Lucky’s girlfriend Maggie Shank-Rutherford) and Tom Brown (as Lieutenant Rovacs, Mr. Lucky’s...

“If I could do it all over again…”

How many times have you thought that, or dreamt it, or talked about it? I think everybody does. It’s in our natures, y’know?

“If I knew then what I know now…”

What would you do?

I wouldn’t be a nurse.

I’d go to film school. UCLA or Nyu. I’d aim to be a film editor.

I love movies. So, in keeping with Mike Gold and John Ostrander’s columns about the movies, I thought I would list some of my favorite movies and why I love them. In no particular order. Because every time I pick one as my “all-time fave,” I remember another and hastily move that one to the top spot.

Casablanca: Two men. The woman they both love. And Nazis. Who doesn’t love this move? Humphrey Bogart. Ingrid Bergman. Claude Raines. Sydney Greenstreet.

If you like Cary Grant as much as I do, then it doesn’t matter that 1943’s romantic World War II home-front drama, Mr. Lucky (available on DVD), is neither a great movie, nor a film from an interesting though flawed director, nor even featuring an unusually fine screenplay. It is, though, a terrific vehicle for Cary Grant, who might therefore be called the picture’s auteur by default. Contributing to the “happy accident” status of the movie is excellent black-and-white lighting by veteran ace cinematographer George Barnes (Oscar for Hitchcock’s Rebecca); extremely effective “production design”—-which certainly must have included many camera…...

Warner Bros. this week launched the Warner Archive Collection, an on-demand DVD service that USA Today described this way: [F]ans eventually will be able to order any of the 6,800 theatrical features in the studio's library not available on disc and receive a custom-made DVD within a week for $20. Only about 1,200 films in the Warner library have been released on DVD, large part because of space constraints at retail.... [The collection launched] with an initial slate of 150 films that have never been on DVD, such as 1943's Mr. Lucky, with Cary Grant and Laraine Day, and 1962's All Fall Down with Warren Beatty and Eva Marie Saint. The oldest film in this first wave is the 1923 silent scorcher Souls for Sale; the newest is 1986's Wisdom, with Demi Moore and Emilio Estevez. Plans call for 20 or more classic films and TV shows to be added each month, Feltenstein says. To order films, consumers go to the website,...

Have you heard the news that Warner Bros has opened up their vaults? Seems at least one of the major studios has realized that those who truly love the cinema love the entire history of it. They'd like to see more of that history.

Norma Shearer and Robert Montgomery live Private Lives but they

still want to show off their brand new DVD collections!

There's a reason that some former mega stars (Norma Shearer is a good example) fade in the public consciousness quicker than others. Actually there are many reasons: changing tastes, mediocre filmographies, undramatic personal lives -- especially if they don't end tragically, pop culture's rapid "who's next?" star meat grinder, lack of gay appeal (think about it: fascinating the gays insures a long shelf life for entertainers. I don't think I need to cite examples... they've probably popped into your head just reading that sentence). But I'm...

Warner Bros have announced plans to make 6,800 movies from the vaults available to film fans. The initial launch of the Warner Archive Collection features 150 movies which have never been available on DVD, from 1943 Cary Grant movie Mr. Lucky to 1986's Wisdom, starring Demi Moore and Emilio Estevez. Under current plans, 20 more films and TV shows will be added every month until the whole vault is available, USA Today reports. Executive George Feltenstein (more)...