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Under normal circumstances, we like to think of sets as extremely controlled environments. People are trying to make a movie or a television show, of course, but there's also a considerable number of individuals working solely to keep everyone on set safe. But in spite of these protections that are in place on set -- now more than ever before in the history of cinema -- tragic accidents still happen. While stunt performers are still far more likely to die or be seriously injured on set, and we're still miles away from adequately protecting them in their dangerous work, there have been rare occasions where actors died while actively on a shoot. 

Whether this is the result of negligence, bad luck, or sadly unavoidable pre-existing health conditions, these sudden deaths leave both coworkers and fans profoundly shaken -- especially when there is a sense that something more could have been done to prevent them,...

Whenever a book becomes popular and a bestseller, it's only a matter of time before it becomes a movie or TV show. And when these books reach a certain level of popularity or relevance, they can receive multiple adaptations. Books like Pride and Prejudice, Stephen King's It or Carrie, or Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express are now classic books that have received multiple movie or TV show adaptations. But while these popular books have taken to the screen more than once, they aren't close to the many adaptations some of the most adapted books of all time have.

Everyone knows the story of Dracula, Frankenstein or Tarzan, but probably not everyone knows just how many adaptations these books have. Some of the most adapted books have over 100 adaptations between movies, TV and theater productions. One of these books has more than 500 different adaptations. Other books have become such...

Though most people are familiar with Disney's Tarzan and the 2016 film The Legend of Tarzan, the classic story has been adapted to film dozens of times. The character was conceived by writer Edgar Rice Burroughs, who published the first Tarzan novel in 1914. From there, he wrote several sequels, and it wasn't long before the first movie was made about the infant English lord raised by apes. From there, a new version of Tarzan appeared on the screen decade after decade, turning Burroughs' books into several movies.

In the classic story of Tarzan, which has been adapted in both live-action and animated films, an English lord and his wife, John and Alice Clayton, become stranded with their infant son after their shipwreck off the coast of Africa. After Alice and John die, their young son, John Clayton III, becomes abandoned. Fortunately, he is taken in by a female ape, who raises...

Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc. has partnered with LA’s Tarzana International Film Festival (Sep 29– Oct 1) to honor the author best known for creating the Tarzan and John Carter Of Mars characters.

Opening night festivities will include the screening of the 2017 documentary Tarzan: The Man Behind The Legend, followed by a Q&a with the director and cast.

The festival, which takes place at the Regal Cinemas in the Sherman Oaks Galleria, will bestow the inaugural Edgar Rice Burroughs Legacy Award at the closing night gala. The award will be presented to an “iconic industry writer known for their work in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, and adventure”.

This year, the event will also celebrate Warner Bros’ centennial with a screening of 2007 feature The Brothers Warner directed by Cass Warner Sperling, granddaughter of longtime studio head Jack Warner. The documentary chronicles the creation and rise of the first major Hollywood studio.

As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out. The great movie factories were so prolific, none of them have succeeded in making anything like all their major works available on the repertory circuit, home video, television, or streaming, but Fox now seems particularly indifferent to providing any access to their catalog, so focusing on them seems fair. I hope to illuminate the movies Fox ought to be proud of, and a few you couldn't blame them for wanting to hide under a rock.Oh, and we're doing it chronologically, so first up is a crummy kids' film from 1917.Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp is directed by workhorses Sidney and Chester M. Franklin, perhaps best remembered for the Dorothy Gish...

Review by Roger Carpenter

As so often has happened over the years, silent films have been lost to time, or survive only in very poor or often incomplete prints. Because these films weren’t thought of as “art” many were scrapped due to high storage costs, recycled for their silver content, or were destroyed by fire due to their high combustibility. Others were resold to budget distribution companies, recut and retitled, and released as totally different films. Thus was the fate of many Douglas Fairbanks movies from his time at Triangle Pictures. The Half-Breed is a classic case in point.

Based upon a short story and rewritten for the screen by its author in collaboration with Gentlemen Prefer Blondes novelist and pioneering screenwriter Anita Loos, The Half-Breed tells the story of a baby abandoned by his white father and Native American mother and raised by an elderly man who lives deep in the woods.

Susan Hayward. Susan Hayward movies: TCM Star of the Month Fiery redhead Susan Hayward it Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in Sept. 2015. The five-time Best Actress Oscar nominee – like Ida Lupino, a would-be Bette Davis that only sporadically landed roles to match the verve of her thespian prowess – was initially a minor Warner Bros. contract player who went on to become a Paramount second lead in the early '40s, a Universal leading lady in the late '40s, and a 20th Century Fox star in the early '50s. TCM will be presenting only three Susan Hayward premieres, all from her Fox era. Unfortunately, her Paramount and Universal work – e.g., Among the Living, Sis Hopkins, And Now Tomorrow, The Saxon Charm – which remains mostly unavailable (in quality prints), will remain unavailable this month. Highlights of the evening include: Adam Had Four Sons (1941), a sentimental but surprisingly...

Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 5, 2013

Price: DVD $39.99, Blu-ray $49.98

Studio: Cohen Media

D.W. Griffith's 1916 silent epic Intolerance

Just one year after the huge success of his Birth of a Nation, pioneering filmmaker D.W. Griffith was emboldened to prove his faith in the new medium of motion pictures with his historical silent epic Intolerance.

Four separate stories are interwoven: the fall of Babylon, the death of Christ, the massacre of the Huguenots, and a contemporary (early 20th Century) drama — all crosscut and building with enormous energy to a thrilling chase and finale. Through the juxtaposition of these well-known sagas, Griffith joyously makes clear his markedly deterministic view of history, namely that the suffering of innocents makes possible the salvation of the current generation, symbolized by the boy in the modern love story.

Many of the leading stars of the silent screen appear in the classic movie, including Griffith regular Lillian Gish (Broken Blossoms), Mae Marsh,...

Edgar Rice Burroughs's lord of the jungle has been through many incarnations in print and on screen in 100 years. What is the secret of his survival?

Just before the first world war, a penniless pencil-sharpener salesman from Chicago had one of those eureka moments that occasionally illuminate the Anglo-American literary landscape. Steeped in the trashy magazine culture of the age – "the pulps" – 35-year-old Edgar Burroughs decided that if he couldn't beat them, he'd join them.

"If people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines," he said later, "then I could write stories just as rotten. As a matter of fact, although I had never written a story, I knew absolutely that I could write stories just as entertaining and probably a lot more so."

At first, his imagination took him into outer space. The adventures of intergalactic explorer John Carter in Under the Moons of Mars,...

Kellan Lutz (photo), best known for playing Emmett Cullen in the Twilight movies, and Resident Evil actress Spencer Locke, will star in the performance-capture 3D movie Tarzan, adapted from Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic tale, and to be directed by Animals United’s producers / directors Reinhard Klooss and Holger Tappe. Needless to say, Lutz will bring Tarzan back to life, while Locke will play Jane. The screenplay was written by Klooss, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs‘ Yoni Brenner and Jessica Postigo, whose sole listed credit on the IMDb is Harald Zwart’s The Mortal Instruments, currently in pre-production. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it updates Burroughs’ story by having Tarzan’s parents killed in a plane crash, the CEO of Greystoke Energies as the film’s chief villain, and Jane as an environmentally conscious heroine. Come to think of it, the first "update" isn’t something really new: Boy’s...

Kellan Lutz will be swinging into action in his first major role away from the Twilight franchise after signing on to play Tarzan in a new 3D movie.

The actor made his name playing vampire Emmett Cullen in the hit bloodsucking film series, which is set to end later this year, and he will be back in action as the latest incarnation of the jungle-dwelling hero.

Actress Spencer Locke will play Tarzan's love interest Jane in the movie, which will be shot in 3D using performance-capture technology.

Elmo Lincoln, Johnny Weissmuller and Buster Crabbe have all previously played the vine-swinging hunk on the big screen.

Umgawa! Every generation has its own image of Tarzan, from beefy Elmo Lincoln in 1918 to Disney’s muscular animated incarnation of 1999, but for die-hard movie buffs, former Olympian Johnny Weissmuller remains the definitive Ape Man. What’s more, the films that cemented his image as Edgar Rice Burroughs’ lord of the jungle have retained a special fascination for anyone who grew up with them, when they were new in the 1930s or years later on television. Over the last two weeks two movie lovers, Oscar-winning visual effects artist Craig Barron and Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt, have presided over special…...

Fall down the rabbit hole and discover – or rediscover – wondrous adventures with the Alice in Wonderland: Classic Film Collection,a special collector’s set onDVD March 30 from Infinity Entertainment Group.

Lewis Carroll’s whimsical 1865 novel, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,was a cinematic favorite long before Johnny Depp “went Mad.” The first film (just eight minutes) was produced in 1903. With dozens of versions since for stage, film and TV, its beloved characters have been played by some of Hollywood’s most legendary actors.

Special collector’s set, with rare film, includes:

Alice in Wonderland (1915) — The first version near to the novel, this silent movie starred Viola Savoy. Though many believe the film to be lost in its entirety, includes all 52 minutes. Produced long before CGI, the creatures are costumed actors and the absence of dialogue creates a surreal, dreamlike quality. Also stars Elmo Lincoln, who went on to fame as the original Tarzan.