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Cora Sue Collins, the charming child actress of the 1930s and ’40s who worked alongside such legends as Greta Garbo, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Irene Dunne and Merle Oberon during her brief but sensational career, has died. She was 98.

Collins died Sunday at her home in Beverly Hills of complications from a stroke, her daughter, Susie Krieser, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Collins played younger versions of Colbert in Torch Singer (1933), Frances Dee in The Strange Case of Clara Deane (1932) and Keep ‘Em Rolling (1934), Loretta Young in Caravan (1934), Oberon in The Dark Angel (1935) and Lynn Bari in Blood and Sand (1941).

“I must have the most common face in the world,” she said in a 2019 interview. “I played either the most famous actresses of the ’30s as a child or their child. They made me up to look like everybody.”

The MGM contract player also was William Powell and Myrna Loy’s...

The Golden Age of Hollywood was a pinnacle time for iconic duos such as Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, and William Powell and Myrna Loy. While there are countless cinematic couples, Errol Flynn and two-time Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland effortlessly stole the hearts of audiences with their genuine real-life friendship and flirtatious on-screen chemistry. Ultimately, these two cemented themselves as one of the most alluring and complex on-screen duos in Hollywood history.

The Best Picture Oscar nominees of 1936 contained a few stone-cold classics and a large handful of duds. The Academy nominated 10 films for Best Picture that year, with the top honor going to Robert Z. Leonard's three-hour glitzy musical biopic "The Great Ziegfeld". "The Great Ziegfeld" is visually spectacular but kind of mushy as a melodrama, serving more as a fond farewell to its subject (who died in 1932) than a legitimately great film.

The legit bangers nominated that year included Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," one of the master director's more notable comedies. Also pretty good were William Dieterle's "The Story of Lois Pasteur" starring Paul Muni, and Jack Conway's delightful screwball film "Libeled Lady" with Powell and Myrna Loy. Conway also directed a serviceable adaptation of "A Tale of Two Cities," which many readers may have watched in their junior high school classrooms.

But...

The Golden Age of Hollywood gave moviegoers some of the most iconic on-screen duos, such as John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, William Powell and Myrna Loy, and Olivia De Havilland and Errol Flynn. Although they reign as favorites among many classic movie fans, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are one pair in particular who simply captivated audiences both on and off the big screen.

Until Hulu did the lord's work and brought back Glenn Gordon Caron's "Moonlighting" last year, the series that launched Bruce Willis' career and solidified Cybill Shepherd's had been languishing for seemingly ages in a digital netherworld where its fans could not access it and potential newcomers had zero chance of discovering it. This would've been unthinkable during the show's 1985-1987 heyday, when the live-wire romantic chemistry of its leads and the inventive mystery plotting of Caron and his writers -- who once plunged their "Moonlighting" protagonists into a Shakespearian reverie -- made it must-see television. "Moonlighting" was hilarious, smart and ridiculously sexy.

And just as fast as it peaked, it was gone.

While the rerelease of "Moonlighting" on Hulu confirmed that it was every bit as fresh and funny as we remembered, bringing it all back meant revisiting its untimely demise. How could a show with two dynamic...

Myrna Loy and William Powell were two of the biggest stars during Hollywood's Golden Age. Throughout their careers, they starred in thirteen movies together, including Manhattan Melodrama, The Great Ziegfeld, and Libeled Lady. While a majority of their films are beloved classics, Loy and Powell are best known for their roles as Nick and Nora Charles in the murder mystery The Thin Man comedies. The Thin Man movies were among some of the most popular films at the time, and the uncanny chemistry between Loy and Powell convinced audiences that they were actually married in real life. In reality, the two were very good friends and starred in six films as the adored Nick and Nora Charles.

How You Know Mercury Is in Retrograde I recently filled an online shopping cart with four hundred dollars worth of trading cards, and I don’t have the four hundred dollars to purchase them, so that’s one way. More to the point, astrology has seen a resurgence in popularity over the past decade or so, and I’m far from the first person to tell you. Daily horoscopes, in particular, seem to crop up everywhere, as do zodiac sign assignments to all manner of subjects, no matter how niche. Want to know what Neopet you are based on your sign? It’s out there. At some point, things like Mercury retrograde became part of today’s zeitgeist, and whether you intended to or not, you’ve heard about it. Things to do: Subscribe to The Hollywood Insider’s YouTube Channel, by clicking here. Limited Time Offer – Free Subscription to...

“Beverly Hills Cop” and its young exuberant star Eddie Murphy were dominant forces on the cultural landscape as soon as the action comedy opened Dec. 5, 1984 on 1,532 screens, earning over $15 million in its first five days of release. “Beverly Hills Cop” garnered nearly $235 million domestically and another $81.6 million internationally.

The comedy even earned an Oscar nomination for its screenplay while Murphy hit superstar status thanks to his dazzling comedic turn as Axel Foley, a freewheeling Detroit cop who is the ultimate fish out of water when a murder investigation leads him to the by-the-book Beverly Hills police department. And the soundtrack album featuring the film’s composer Harold Faltermeyer’s hit “Axel F,” as well as the Pointer Sisters‘ “Neutron Dance” and Glenn Frey’s “The Heat is On,” hit No. 1 on the Billboard chart.

Three years later, Murphy returned in “Beverly Hills Cop II,” which made close to $300 million worldwide...

Eddie Murphy's Axel Foley, the main character of the "Beverly Hills Cop" film franchise, might be one of the most endearing movie characters of the 1980s. Axel is witty, charming, loyal, fun-loving, fantastic at his job, willing to buck the system when necessary, he trusts his gut, and he's overall great company. He's the type of guy everyone who watches these films would want to go on adventure with.

Martin Brest's original 1987 movie follows a Detroit police officer as he travels from Michigan to Beverly Hills to get justice for his murdered childhood friend. Murphy absolutely dominates the film with his perfect blend of comedic timing, dramatic chops, and physicality. Axel's superpower is being able to read people and situations at a glance, and instantly improvising his way through those situations to get what he needs, often in highly entertaining fashion. His demeanor and joie de vivre gives the movie a buoyancy,...

Pondering Will Smith’s recent triumph at a local Cinemark and Donald Trump’s post-conviction surge, I got to thinking about “movie-think.”

You know, the way we’ve become accustomed, after watching hundreds and hundreds of mainstream films, to thinking the way the movies do. The real villain is someone in power. Anyone too pretty, male or female, is suspect. Things will get worse, much worse, before they get better. Our hero is almost always an outsider — someone who is knocked off a pedestal, beaten down, and kicked around, all the way to the bottom of the second act, before rising in triumph or existential martyrdom (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) to win our hearts and minds forever.

From our heroes, real or cinematic, we forgive and even expect transgression — a misbegotten slap, a tawdry liaison and all that comes with it. In movie-think, we honor the renegades,...

On May 25, 1934, “The Thin Man” was released to rave reviews and big box office returns. The popularity of husband-and-wife sleuths Nick and Nora Charles set the standard for romantic comedies with a dash of thrill and mystery, and cemented actors William Powell and Myrna Loy as one of the greatest film teams of all time. Read on for more about “The Thin Man” 90th anniversary.

Dashiell Hammett was a well-known writer of hardboiled detective novels, but he added a light touch to his novel “The Thin Man,” and MGM quickly snatched up the film rights. Nick Charles (Powell) is a retired detective who enjoys the high life with his wealthy socialite wife Nora (Loy) and their spoiled pooch Asta (Skippy). Nick is lured back to his mystery-solving days by the disappearance of his old acquaintance, Clyde (Edward Ellis), whose daughter Dorothy (Maureen O’Sullivan) begs Nick to find out what happened to her father.

The cherished screen team of William Powell and Myrna Loy met “cute” on their first film together, the gritty 1934 “Manhattan Melodrama.” According to TCM.com, first scene in the film required her to run out a building, maneuver through a crowd of people and jump into a car. The film’s director W.S. “Woody” Van Dyke, who was nicknamed “One Take Woody” because of his efficiency, didn’t bother to introduce the actress to Powell. So, when Van Dyke called “action “Loy recalled jumping into the car and landing “smack on William Powell’s lap. He looked up nonchalantly: Miss Loy, I presume?” I said, Mr. Powell? That’s how I met the man who would be my partner in 14 films.”

It was their next film, the smart screwball comedy/mystery “The Thin Man,” which opened May 25, 1934, transformed the couple into top stars at MGM. Directed by Van Dyke...

The preview opening of the new exhibit Meet the Stars: 100 Years of MGM Studios and the Golden Age of Hollywood on Thursday night was a crowded, buzzing affair. Held at the Hollywood Heritage Museum in the historic Lasky DeMille Barn across from the Hollywood Bowl, the event showcased the items of over 20 movie collectors. Memorabilia hunters, dressed in fedoras and flirty ’40s dresses, gabbed about their latest finds with others who have a similar passion.

The highlight of the night was when the crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to former MGM child star Cora Sue Collins (who played a little Greta Garbo in 1933’s Queen Christina), the last surviving MGM contract player from the 1930s. Sitting at a tableau that recreated a party thrown for her by MGM in 1935, Collins elegantly thanked everyone for their well wishes. Actor George Chakiris was also in attendance, and he posed next to a costume...

Throughout the 96-year history of the Academy Awards, the amount of acting lineups consisting only of first-time nominees has reached 37, or about 10% of the overall total. While that number may not seem high in a general sense, these cases actually outnumber those exclusively involving veteran contenders by a ratio of three to one. However, although this list expanded as recently as 2023, rookie-only acting lineups are gradually becoming less common than veteran-only ones, the amount of which has nearly doubled within the last dozen years.

Whereas 75% of veteran-only acting quintets have involved lead performers rather than supporting ones, almost the exact opposite is true of lineups full of newcomers. For instance, only one existing case of the former kind concerns supporting actresses, whereas the same category has produced 15 rookie-only rosters. The last such group consisted of 2000 winner Angelina Jolie and nominees Toni Collette (“The Sixth Sense”), Catherine Keener (“Being John Malkovich...

Hollywood's Golden Age produced legendary acting duos, known for their star power and incredible dynamics. From classic comedy pairings to musical duos and on-screen husband and wife, these duos left a lasting impact. Their collaborations revolutionized genres, shaped contemporary comedy, and showcased the power of on-screen chemistry.

Hollywood’s Golden Age, which lasted from approximately 1927 to 1960, produced some of the greatest acting duos the world of moviemaking had ever seen. Taking place amid the Hollywood studio system, where films were written, produced, and released at a rapid rate, the most marketable thing about a movie was its star power, and nothing drew audiences in more than a beloved pairing. Occasionally surrounded by gossip of lurid affairs, some partnerships had real-life romantic backstories, while others represented incredible dynamics of true friendship and strong working relationships.

Some of the greatest duos from Hollywood’s Golden Age are made up of classic comedy pairings,...

Dashiell Hammett didn't invent detective fiction, he just perfected it — partially because he knew good and goddamn well of what he wrote. The high school dropout landed a gig with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and evidently saw the worst side of the profession when his employer got fat off industrial cash by assigning their operatives to muscle, if not kill labor organizers. Years later, he laced his first published novel, "Red Harvest," with the bitter conscience of a man who witnessed evil but out of self-preservation did nothing.

Much of Hammett's work stings like a day drunk's swallow of rotgut whiskey, a belt they absorb over and over again to escape the awfulness of a world they cannot change in any meaningful way. The Continental Op eradicating a cluster of cold-blooded thugs with the 20-steps-ahead cool of a chess grandmaster in "Red Harvest" is so satisfying it's provided the foundation for several brilliant films.

The 1935 Best Actor lineup at the Academy Awards featured three Oscar newcomers in the forms of Clark Gable, Frank Morgan (“The Affair of Cellini”), and William Powell (“The Thin Man”), with Gable winning. Then came an 88-year gap. It wasn’t until earlier this year that voters nominated another lineup in this category made entirely out of first-time nominees. That list consisted of winner Brendan Fraser (“The Whale”) plus Austin Butler (“Elvis”), Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”), Bill Nighy (“Living”), and Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”).

Could history repeat itself quick time, like two delayed London buses arriving at the same time for passengers waiting in the sodden rain of Blighty? According to our Oscars odds chart for Best Actor, Cillian Murphy (“Oppenheimer”) Bradley Cooper (“Maestro”), Leonardo DiCaprio (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Paul Giamatti (“The Holdovers”), and Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”) are set to be nominated. Of those names, only...

There are films you watched every time they pop up on TCM or streaming services. It’s like visiting an old friend. These movies put a smile on your face and a song in your heart. And one such film is “Charade,” which celebrates its 60th anniversary on Dec. 5. Deftly directed by Stanley Donen from a fun and thrilling Peter Stone screenplay, “Charade” stars Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn who exude a William Powell/Myrna Loy style chemistry that leaps off the screen. And let’s not forget that gorgeous Henry Mancini score, the romantic Oscar-nominated title tune “Charade,” with lyrics by Johnny Mercer and the pulsating Saul Bass title sequence.

I saw “Charade” when it was released, and I’ve probably seen it at least 15 more times. And each time seems like the first. Not many films have that kind of power. A 2010 Criterion Collection article by film historian...

Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment are in talks to co-produce a remake of classic 1934 comedy mystery The Thin Man.

Based on the novel of the same name by Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man starred William Powell and Myrna Loy as a husband and wife who team up to solve a murder and host a dinner party attended by all the suspects. The film was a huge success upon release, even scoring several Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Five sequels followed, including After the Thin Man, Another Thin Man, Shadow of the Thin Man, The Thin Man Goes Home, and Song of the Thin Man.

The third star of The Thin Man and its sequel was Asta, the couple’s Wire Fox Terrier. At the time, the breed wasn’t overly popular in the United States, but the films quickly...

Two celebrity-led production companies — Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap and Brad Pitt’s Plan B — are in talks to co-produce a remake of the classic 1934 comedy mystery “The Thin Man.”

LuckyChap and Plan B have not engaged in any discussions yet about casting due to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. However, according to sources, both companies have been intent on securing exclusive rights to the significant film series since before the WGA strike, which started in May. The two companies would produce jointly.

The rights to “The Thin Man” series just recently became available. Previously, Rob Marshall and Johnny Depp were set to direct and star, respectively, in a remake. However, Warner Brothers said at the time that the project was never greenlit and was scrapped back in 2012.

Based on the Dashiell Hammett crime novel, “The Thin Man” is a murder mystery about a husband and wife who partner up to find a missing acquaintance,...

Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap Entertainment and Brad Pitt’s Plan B shingle are in talks to obtain the remake rights of the comedy-crime movie “The Thin Man,” TheWrap has learned.

According to insiders with knowledge of the project, the rights to “The Thin Man” only recently became available. LuckyChap and Plan B had been eyeing this for some time prior to the strikes. No discussions of who will star are happening in respect to the SAG-AFTRA strike; however both companies would produce together.

“The Thin Man” is a 1934 hardboiled detective novel by author Dashiell Hammett, featuring the characters of Nick and Nora Charles. It was adapted into a successful film series starring William Powell and Myrna Loy that ran from the 1930s to the 1940s.

The remake would be a modern-day retelling of the Hammett stories. Warner Brothers previously owned rights through the original movies. There had been several...

Following an extensive auction, LuckyChap and Plan B Entertainment are in exclusive talks to acquire rights to the classic Thin Man series. The rights recently became available and LuckyChap and Plan B had been eyeing this for some time pre-wga strike. No discussions of starring roles are happening out of respect to the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike. Both companies would produce together.

The popular film series began with the 1934 film that starred William Powell and Myrna Loy as former detective Nick Charles and his wife Nora, who decide to solve a murder for the fun of it. Five sequels would follow and Hollywood has since being trying to reboot the series; Johnny Depp and Rob Marshall at one point eyed a remake at Warner Bros that never came to fruition.

Once a deal closes, the next step would be to attach a writer.

LuckyChap is coming off its smash hit Barbie,...

From left: Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther Strikes Again (Keystone/Getty Images), Angela Lansbury in The Mirror Crack’d (YouTube screenshot), Albert Finney in Murder On The Orient Express (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images), Denzel Washington in Devil In A Blue Dress (D Stevens/Tri Star/Kobal/Shutterstock), Daniel Craig...

The last Academy Awards, which saw “Everything Everywhere All at Once” win Best Picture, featured a history-making lineup in the Best Actor category. All five of the nominees were newcomers: Brendan Fraser won for “The Whale” while Austin Butler (“Elvis”), Paul Mescal (“Aftersun”), Bill Nighy (“Living”), and Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) all reaped their first bids.

That was the first time this happened since 1935 when there were only three Best Actor nominees: Clark Gable (“It Happened One Night”), Frank Morgan (“The Affairs of Cellini”), and William Powell (“The Thin Man”); Gable won. But after such a long gap between those two records, could we have a case of London buses and see another Best Actor lineup full of newcomers again at this year’s Oscars? Let’s take a look.

Currently, we are predicting that the following five fellows will be nominated for Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio (“Killers of the Flower Moon...

Screwball comedy is a subgenre of romantic comedy that saw its classic period run from the mid-1930s until the mid-1940s. Directors such as Frank Capra, Preston Sturges, and Howard Hawks, along with stars such as Cary Grant, Carole Lombard, William Powell, and Katharine Hepburn, all helped shape the foundation of the genre.

Screwball comedies are distinguishable from stereotypical romantic comedies because screwballs typically spoof notions of love rather than emphasize romantic ideals. Common elements found in screwball comedies are rapid-fire overlapping dialogue, zany slapstick antics, mistaken identities, and a battle of the sexes narrative. Many of cinema's classic screwball comedies rank among Hollywood's funniest films.

Related: 10 Rom-Coms Critics Loved But Audiences Hated

The Awful Truth (1937)

Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth is a screwball comedy starring Cary Grant and Irene Dunne as a wealthy couple who decide to divorce but end up trying to sabotage each other's subsequent romantic conquests.

A good franchise is hard to kill. Bad ones, like the seven-film torture device Police Academy, can be even harder to exterminate. But sometimes doomed series are finally put out of their misery. Up on the shelf they go, doomed to a future of languishing on lists like this one.

The murder weapon is usually money. More specifically, the lack thereof. A big enough failure means a franchise won’t get another chance to pull their act together, and the most spectacular bombs get to live on as warnings to future film students. Even more interesting are the ones that aren’t total flops, the movies that maybe made a profit, but one so small or negligible that their studios decided to put that old franchise to bed, anyway. Here are 15 movies that killed their respective franchises for good.

Song of the Thin Man (1947)

Nick and Nora Charles are murder mystery elites,...

Experience the perfect blend of mystery and comedy in the world of “Thin Man” movies. In this blog post, we will guide you through the franchise chronologically and explain why these films achieved classic status during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Related: 10 Best Comedies of All Time, Ranked by Viewers

“The Thin Man” series follows the charming couple Nick Charles and Nora Charles, played by the incomparable William Powell and Myrna Loy, as they solve murders and crimes with a side of hilarity.

Whether you’re a longtime fan or a newcomer to these films, you’ll soon understand why they’ve remained so beloved. So sit back, grab a martini, and let’s dive into the world of the “Thin Man” franchise.

A List of All ‘Thin Man’ Movies In Order The Thin Man (1934) After the Thin Man (1936) Another Thin Man (1939) Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) The Thin Man Goes Home...

It's been 22 years since Rob Cohen directed a shameless knockoff of Kathryn Bigelow's "Point Break," starring Paul Walker instead of Keanu Reeves, Vin Diesel instead of Patrick Swayze, and street racing instead of surfing and sky diving. And while at the time, the success of the film "The Fast and the Furious" seemed only vaguely remarkable, over the course of the last two decades it has ballooned into a multi-billion dollar franchise, full of epic car stunts, ludicrous storylines, and endless ruminations about the meaning of "family."

Yes, "Fast and Furious" has become a household name, perhaps permanently associated with the blockbuster vehicular nonsense films of Vin Diesel and company. But it was not always this way. The common expression "fast and furious" has been used many times in Hollywood, for films about race car driving, funny murder mysteries, beloved Looney Tunes adventures, and low-budget crime thrillers.

Some of...

A young crew of protesters come together to destroy a Texas oil pipeline in Daniel Goldhaber’s fiercely watchable film

Here is a fiercely watchable thriller which had me biting my nails down to the wrists. It is inspired partly by Andreas Malm’s radical eco-activist manifesto of the same title, and partly – in fact, almost pedantically – by the heist classic Reservoir Dogs. A young crew of protesters, each individually getting a backstory flashback which sometimes jumps into the drama at a cliffhanger moment, come together for the big job, knowing each other as little as Tarantino’s colour-coded bad guys and having similar issues around gunshot wound injury and possible disloyalty.

Director and co-screenwriter Daniel Goldhaber applies a fictional imagination to the first two words in the title of Malm’s book, which argues for direct-action property destruction but is not actually a “how to” bomb-making guide like William Powell...

Warner Bros. has already celebrated its centennial with a segment during the Academy Awards, the publication of a studio-supported book (Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling) and, most recently, a barrage of festivities emanating from Turner Classic Movies. TCM’s programming for all of April is being devoted to Warners films, and at the 14th annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood, running April 13-16, many studio masterpieces, some recently restored and remastered, will be shown on big screens around town. Here are 10 that this THR Hollywood history buff highly recommends.

Footlight Parade (1933)

Ninety years ago, during the depths of the Great Depression, Americans sought escape from their troubles with light movies like this backstage musical. Directed by Lloyd Bacon, starring James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler and highlighted by some of choreographer Busby Berkeley’s most kaleidoscopic dance numbers, it was a giant hit at the box office.

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Directed by David Lynch

On the occasion of the home video and streaming release of the newly remastered Inland Empire (for which we were lucky enough to chat with the man himself), Criterion has put together a fine tribute to David Lynch, also featuring Eraserhead (1977), Dune (1984), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Lost Highway (1997), and Mulholland Dr. (2001). Don’t sleep on the bonus features, including a new conversation between Laura Dern and Kyle Maclachlan. Also, set to arrive on April 1 is The Elephant Man (1980).

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Eric Rohmer’s Tales of the Four Seasons

French New Wave master Eric Rohmer’s 1990s project was Tales of the Four Seasons, all of which have now received new restorations. Following...

You would have a hard time defending the limp plotting, the bland action-adventure set pieces or the Agatha Christie-light whodunit twists of the first “Murder Mystery.” And, yet, it was kind of good.

“Murder Mystery,” one of Netflix’s most-streamed films, was chock full of exotic settings and mysterious murders. But the only thing that mattered, really, was the banter between Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. Though “Murder Mystery” could be said to epitomize that very modern kind of passive and painless viewing experience on streaming platforms, their married couple was a throwback to a long-ago movie era. Audrey and Nick Spitz, a pair of working-class New Yorkers turned semi-amateur detectives, might as well be Nick and Nora Charles, the 1930s cocktail-swilling crime solvers.

“Murder Mystery” and its new sequel don’t have anywhere near the sparkle of the “The Thin Man” movies, with William Powell, Myrna Loy and their wire fox terrier Asta.

When the 2023 Oscar nominations were announced last Tuesday the 24th, an interesting thing happened. Sixteen of the 20 acting nomination slots were held down by first-time nominees, including all five for Best Actor: Austin Butler for “Elvis,” Colin Farrell for “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Brendan Fraser for “The Whale,” Paul Mescal for “Aftersun” and Bill Nighy for “Living.” It was a somewhat stunning development given that all five in the category last year were returnees: Will Smith (“King Richard”), Javier Bardem (“Being the Ricardos”), Benedict Cumberbatch (“The Power of the Dog”), Andrew Garfield and Denzel Washington (“The Tragedy of Macbeth”).

If you’re wondering when happened to be the last time that all of the nominees in the lead actor category were first-timers, try 1935, in the midst of The Great Depression. Franklin Roosevelt was President of the United States. Parker Brothers marketed the board game Monopoly for the first time. A...

Tuesday’s Oscar nominations brought the jaw-droppers many expected. Some met with joy, and others with heartbreak.

Social media and awards pundit circles have been touting Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s “Everything Everywhere All at Once” as an undisputed front-runner for most of the awards season. With a leading 11 nominations, it’s in an excellent position to win the best picture statuette for distributor A24, the same studio that pulled off the memorable “Moonlight” upset over “La La Land” at the 2017 show. A24 led the day for studios with a resounding 18 nominations, with Netflix in second with 16.

The multiverse flick landed expected noms for acting — Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis and Stephanie Hsu — but flexed in the artisan races like costume design, original score and original song. However, holding the title of the “one to beat” can bring the claws out of other studios and strategists...

Tollywood hitmaker S.S. Rajamouli has won the best director award from the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) for his epic adventure film ‘Rrr’, reports ‘Variety’. The awards are seen as the bellwether for the upcoming Hollywood awards season.

Although ‘Rrr’ wasn’t selected to represent India in the international feature category of the Academy Awards, Variance Films has mounted a substantial campaign to have the film recognised in the general categories, including best picture. And as ‘Variety’ puts it, it looks like it could be paying off. Rajamouli’s win has been described as ‘one of the jaw-droppers’ of the evening.

NYFCC’s winner for best film has typically had a strong correlation with the Academy Awards’ best picture category. Since the expansion to nominees in 2009, only ‘Carol’ (2015) and ‘First Cow’ (2020) have missed Oscar recognition. The latter was the first film that has won New York’s top prize...

Do you know when the first movie premiere in Hollywood history was held?

On Oct. 18. 1922 Sid Grauman opened his movie palace the Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. with superstar Douglas Fairbank’s latest swashbuckler “Robin Hood.” The red carpet was rolled out for Fairbanks, his wife Mary Pickford and their good friend (and partner in United Artists) Charlie Chaplin. It cost 5 to attend the premiere. And the movie, which was the top box office draw, played there exclusively for several months. The Egyptian cost 800,000 to build and took 18 months to complete for Grauman and real estate developer Charles E. Toberman. It is currently being renovated by Netflix in cooperation with the American Cinematheque.

“Robin Hood,” directed by Allan Dwan, was one of the most expensive movies of the silent era, costing just under 1 million. The castle was the biggest set ever made for a silent movie. Some scenes feature over 1,200 extras.

Still Photography on the set of “Ticket To Paradise”

Hmmm, now this is something pretty rare. The two films I’m reviewing for this weekend have a few things in common, “subject-wise”. This too concerns an estranged couple reuniting for a non-holiday event. With Raymond & Ray, it’s about two stepbrothers having to travel to their dad’s funeral, while this new release is about an estranged (long-divorced) parents having to travel to their daughter’s wedding. And it’s not a two-hour car trip, but a rather long flight to an exotic island. Oh, and the former marrieds are played by Oscar-winning Hollywood royalty, or about as close as you can get to that. Plus it’s their fourth flick acting opposite each other (fifth if you count when he directed her). So lots of moviegoers are hoping that their chemistry is still potent as they go to their multiplex box office,...

Warners Bros. Discovery continue developing a feature remake of the detective mystery "The Thin Man", by author Dashiell Hammett, previously adapted into a successful series of MGM features, starring actors William Powell, Myrna Loy and 'Asta', a wire fox terrier:

"...set in Prohibition-era New York City, former 2-fisted private detective 'Nick Charles' and his elegant wife 'Nora', a wealthy socialite, spend most of their time cheerfully getting drunk in hotel rooms and speakeasies. Nick and Nora have no children, but own a clever dog named 'Asta'.

"Enjoying his carefree life...

"...Nick is drawn, mostly against his will, into investigating a crime...

"...bringing him into contact with grotesque 'Clyde Wynant', the 'Thin Man' of the title..." 

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "The Thin Man"...

Jean-Louis Trintignant, the thoughtful French actor who headlined such art house classics as A Man and a Woman, My Night at Maud’s, The Conformist, Three Colors: Red and Amour, has died. He was 91.

Trintignant died Friday at his home in the Gard region of southern France, his wife, Marianne, and agent told the Agence France-Presse.

Trintignant received a number of accolades throughout his 60-plus-year career, including the best actor prize from Cannes in 1969 for Costa-Gavras’ political thriller Z and a Cesar Award in 2013 for Michael Haneke’s Amour, which also won the Oscar for best foreign-language film.

With more than 130 screen and 50-plus stage credits to his name, Trintignant was a highly prolific and respected talent who could perform anything from Shakespeare to commercial French comedies, from art house favorites by Bertolucci, Kieślowski and Truffaut to popular romances and sci-fi flicks — as...

To lose ourselves in a world of winks and wisecracks from quick-witted showgirls, ditzy heiresses and fast-talking career women may seem like a borderline irresponsible choice in These Troubled Times. But the blast of pure pleasure that is the Berlin Film Festival’s 27-movie tribute to Mae West, Rosalind Russell and Carole Lombard is an act of cinematic self-care with a precedent. The “No Angels” Retrospective, which co-ordinator Annika Haupts says was conceived as “mood-lightening” counter-programming during Germany’s first corona lockdown, comprises comedies that were themselves developed during America’s Great Depression. Spanning 1932 to 1943, there are ordained classics like “My Man Godfrey,” “His Girl Friday,” “Twentieth Century,” “To Be or Not to Be” and “The Women.” But there’s also a trove of less well-known treasures, united by irreverence and leading ladies whose charisma transforms the contrivances of Hayes Code-era Hollywood into escapism so effervescent it froths the blues away.

In the two dozen years since Paul Thomas Anderson first became an Oscar nominee, he has received seven more bids across four categories, the two most recent of which came in 2018 for “Phantom Thread” (Best Picture; Best Director). He has also directed nine nominated performances that span three of the four acting categories; to date, no Anderson film has ever figured in a Best Actress lineup. But now, Alana Haim (“Licorice Pizza”) could make history as the first to do so.

Haim, whose performance in “Licorice Pizza” marks her film debut, ranks ninth in our Best Actress odds but that should change based on her surprise BAFTA bid. Those running ahead of her are four women snubbed by the BAFTAs — Olivia Colman (“The Lost Daughter”), Nicole Kidman (“Being the Ricardos”), Jessica Chastain (“The Eyes of Tammy Faye”) and Kristen Stewart (“Spencer”) — plus Lady Gaga (“House of Gucci”), Penélope Cruz (“Parallel Mothers...

“Nick, we’re going home and I’m not tucking you into bed, I’m tying you in.”

William Powell and Myrna Loy in Song Of The Thin Man (1947) will be available on Blu-ray January 18th from Warner Archive

At a charity gambling benefit aboard the S.S. Fortune, the tables are hot, the jazz is hotter and before you know it, a bandleader’s body is growing cold. They’re playing your song, Nick and Nora Charles! William Powell and Myrna Loy return for the sixth and final time as the married sleuths, rousting suspects out of bed for 4 a.m. interrogations while trying to fathom the bebop argot of ‘40s jazz jive. Speaking of their renowned screen chemistry, Loy once said, “It wasn’t a conscious thing. If you heard us talking in a room, you’d hear the same thing. He’d tease me, and there was...

Warners continues developing a remake of the detective mystery "The Thin Man", by author Dashiell Hammett, previously adapted into a successful series of MGM features, starring actors William Powell, Myrna Loy and 'Asta', a wire fox terrier:

"...set in Prohibition-era New York City, former 2-fisted private detective 'Nick Charles' and his elegant wife 'Nora', a wealthy socialite, spend most of their time cheerfully getting drunk in hotel rooms and speakeasies. Nick and Nora have no children, but own a clever dog named 'Asta'.

"Enjoying his carefree life...

"...Nick is drawn, mostly against his will, into investigating a crime...

"...bringing him into contact with grotesque 'Clyde Wynant', the 'Thin Man' of the title..." 

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "The Thin Man"...

“Oh, Nicky, you’re driving me crazy. This case is serious and all you do is fuddle around and guzzle cider.”

William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man Goes Home (1944) will be available on Blu-ray November 23rd from Warner Archive

William Powell and Myrna Loy reunite as amateur sleuths Nick and Nora Charles in this penultimate 5th entry to the beloved, long-running series of mystery comedies that began a decade earlier. Outlaws come and go in Nick and Nora’s lives. Now it’s time to meet the in-laws. The debonair sleuths leave little Nicky Jr. at boarding school, grab Asta and head to Nick’s boyhood home of Sycamore Springs. Of course, wherever they go, murder has a way of showing up on the doorstep – a point proven in delightful classic. Nick can show off his gumshoe talents for his parents (Harry Davenport and Lucile Watson) when an artist is killed.

“You got all the luck. What’d you do? Swallow a horseshoe?”

William Powell and Myrna Loy in Shadow Of The Thin Man (1941) will be available on Blu-ray August 17th From Warner Archive.

A jockey who threw a race is murdered in the locker room. With that, she and hubby Nick are off to the races on another case of murder, mirth and perfect martinis. Red herrings abound.

Nick and Nora’s hopes for a pleasant afternoon at the local race track are dashed when a jockey is found shot dead in the locker room. Nick’s friend Lt. Abrams wants him to help out but Nick is enjoying the good life too much to get involved. However, he is subsequently approached by Major Scully to look into corruption and the role of organized crime in gambling. Others are killed but in the end, Nick gathers all of the suspects...

Years in the making! The glory of MGM on parade! Enough studio resources to film twenty pictures were expended on this paean to showman Florenz Ziegfeld. It’s really Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s Technicolor valentine to itself, showing off the studio’s enormous stable of musical talent, along with various of its comic performers. Arthur Freed and Louis B. Mayer’s notion of ‘something for everyone’ results in weird stack of grandiose musical numbers and mostly weak comedy. The biggest draw is the incredible color cinematography that peeks through in three or four jaw-droppingly elaborate musical spectacles. The picture is a workout to find the artistic limits of the Technicolor system.

Ziegfeld Follies

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1945 / Color / 1:37 Academy / 117 110 min. / Street Date June 15, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: (alphabetically): Fred Astaire, Lucille Ball, Lucille Bremer, Fanny Brice, Judy Garland, Kathryn Grayson, Lena Horne, Gene Kelly, Victor Moore, Red Skelton, Esther Williams. Also...

Clark Gable did not intend to see action when World War II came to America. Which is not to say he ignored the war. Gable was there that day in 1940 when President Franklin Roosevelt gave his famous “Arsenal of Democracy” speech from the Oval Office. And, indeed, the first thing the movie star did when he heard about the Pearl Harbor attack was cable Fdr to offer his full support—and, tellingly, the besieged president promptly answered right back.

But then in the 1930s and early ‘40s, Gable was “the King of Hollywood;” the reigning movie star who could sell more tickets than anybody this side of Shirley Temple, and he didn’t have to sing or dance to do it either. He was a mustachioed and muscular alpha who appealed to everybody, even presidents, and was one of the few leading men who would tell Louis B. Mayer no...

Warners Bros is developing a remake of the detective mystery "The Thin Man", by author Dashiell Hammett, previously adapted into a successful series of MGM features, starring actors William Powell, Myrna Loy and 'Asta', a wire fox terrier:

"...set in Prohibition-era New York City, former 2-fisted private detective 'Nick Charles' and his elegant wife 'Nora', a wealthy socialite, spend most of their time cheerfully getting drunk in hotel rooms and speakeasies. Nick and Nora have no children, but own a clever dog named 'Asta'.

"Enjoying his carefree life...

"...Nick is drawn, mostly against his will, into investigating a crime...

"...bringing him into contact with grotesque 'Clyde Wynant', the 'Thin Man' of the title..." 

Click the images to enlarge and Sneak Peek "The Thin Man"...

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“More Sleuthing, More Drinking”

By Raymond Benson

The Thin Man, released in 1934, was such a success (and Oscar nominee) that Hollywood decided to make a sequel. After the Thin Man, released in 1936, reunited stars William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, the Wire Fox Terrier-actor Skippy as “Asta,” director W. S. Van Dyke, writer Dashiell Hammett (who wrote the original novel and supplied story ideas for the sequels), and screenwriters Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich. The result is a thoroughly enjoyable follow-up, if not quite as brilliant as the original (sequels seldom are).

One of the more striking elements of After the Thin Man is the presence of a young James Stewart in a supporting role. It is one of his earliest screen appearances, and he displays the charisma that would suit him well for the next several decades.

The...

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.Speaking after her tragic death at the age of 33, President Franklin D. Roosevelt testified to the legacy of Carole Lombard. “She is and always will be a star,” he stated in 1942, “one that we shall never forget, nor cease to be grateful to.” Although the president’s words were at least in part influenced by Lombard’s recent patriotic zeal (she died in a plane crash after traveling to sell war bonds), his comments resonated throughout the country, especially Hollywood, where the actress’s impact had been progressively pronounced for years. Her films were like a breath of fresh air to Depression-era audiences, adding silver screen levity to individuals seeking a brief reprieve from day-to-day hardship. By contrast, Lombard’s cinematic sphere was often one of glamour, romance, and, above all,...