Notícias

The Notebook is the North American home for Locarno Film Festival Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian's blog. Chatrian has been writing thoughtful blog entries in Italian on Locarno's website since he took over as Director in late 2012, and now you can find the English translations here on the Notebook as they're published. The Locarno Film Festival will be taking place August 2 - 12. We can begin with one of those anecdotes that are the stuff of Hollywood, marking the birth of a star and mapping out a whole career. Gene Tierney had already caught the eye of Anatole Litvak when aged only 17 and, after a happy period of study abroad (right here in Switzerland, in Lausanne), had been invited by a cousin to visit a Hollywood film set. But she took her father’s advice and turned down an offer from Warner Bros in favor of starting on the stage, on Broadway.

Marjorie Lord actress ca. early 1950s. Actress Marjorie Lord dead at 97: Best remembered for TV series 'Make Room for Daddy' Stage, film, and television actress Marjorie Lord, best remembered as Danny Thomas' second wife in Make Room for Daddy, died Nov. 28, '15, at her home in Beverly Hills. Lord (born Marjorie Wollenberg on July 26, 1918, in San Francisco) was 97. Marjorie Lord movies After moving with her family to New York, Marjorie Lord made her Broadway debut at age 17 in Zoe Akins' Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel The Old Maid (1935). Lord replaced Margaret Anderson in the role of Tina, played by Jane Bryan – as Bette Davis' out-of-wedlock daughter – in Warner Bros.' 1939 movie version directed by Edmund Goulding. Hollywood offers ensued, resulting in film appearances in a string of low-budget movies in the late 1930s and throughout much of the 1940s, initially (and...

Olivia de Havilland on Turner Classic Movies: Your chance to watch 'The Adventures of Robin Hood' for the 384th time Olivia de Havilland is Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” star today, Aug. 2, '15. The two-time Best Actress Oscar winner (To Each His Own, 1946; The Heiress, 1949) whose steely determination helped to change the way studios handled their contract players turned 99 last July 1. Unfortunately, TCM isn't showing any de Havilland movie rarities, e.g., Universal's cool thriller The Dark Mirror (1946), the Paramount comedy The Well-Groomed Bride (1947), or Terence Young's British-made That Lady (1955), with de Havilland as eye-patch-wearing Spanish princess Ana de Mendoza. On the other hand, you'll be able to catch for the 384th time a demure Olivia de Havilland being romanced by a dashing Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood, as TCM shows this 1938 period adventure classic just about every month. But who's complaining? One the...

Audrey Long, actress in B film noirs and Westerns, and widow of author Leslie Charteris, dead at 92 (photo: Audrey Long publicity shot ca. late '40s) Actress Audrey Long, a leading lady in mostly B crime dramas and Westerns of the '40s and early '50s, and the widow of The Saint creator Leslie Charteris, died "after a long illness" on September 19, 2014, in Virginia Water, Surrey, England. Long was 92. Her death was first reported by Ian Dickerson on the website LeslieCharteris.com. Born on April 14 (some sources claim April 12), 1922, in Orlando, Florida, Audrey Long was the daughter of an English-born Episcopal minister, who later became a U.S. Navy Chaplain. Her early years were spent moving about North America, in addition to some time in Honolulu. According to Dickerson's Audrey Long tribute on the Leslie Charteris site, following acting lessons with coach Dorothea Johnson, whose pupils had also included...

The last time busy Hollywood triple threat Ben Stiller (actor, writer, director) stepped behind the camera was way, waaaay back in 2008 for the Summer satirical comedy smash Tropic Thunder. So what work has inspired him to return to film making this winter? Why it’s a short story from James Thurber, himself something of a multiple threat (author, playwright, cartoonist) who passed away over fifty years ago. Now his work did make to the big and small screen during (and soon after) his lifetime. The Male Animal was a starring vehicle in the 40′s for Henry Fonda. His story “A Unicorn in the Garden” became an acclaimed Upa animated short subject in the 1950′s. And in 1970 his writings and drawings were the inspiration for an NBC sitcom in 1970 called “My World and Welcome to It” (a gem that lasted barely one season). Two years later those same works also inspired...

Hattie McDaniel: Best Supporting Actress Oscar competition and missing Academy Award plaque (See previous post: “Hattie McDaniel Oscar Speech.”) Besides Hattie McDaniel for Gone with the Wind, the 1939 Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominees were Geraldine Fitzgerald for Wuthering Heights, Edna May Oliver for Drums Along the Mohawk, Maria Ouspenskaya for Love Affair, and Olivia de Havilland for Gone with the Wind. It should be noted that de Havilland, who, according to some, was not at all happy at having lost the Oscar, had much more screen time than Hattie McDaniel. In fact, de Havilland had lobbied David O. Selznick to list her as a lead actress, alongside Vivien Leigh. Selznick, however, balked, fearing that de Havilland might steal away votes from her fellow Gone with the Wind player. In the next decade, Olivia de Havilland would receive four more Academy Award nominations, all in the Best Actress category, including...

Montgomery Clift, Olivia de Havilland in William Wyler‘s The Heiress Twelve Olivia de Havilland movies will be presented on Turner Classic Movies on Friday, Aug. 27, as part of TCM’s "Summer Under the Stars" series. [Olivia de Havilland schedule.] Nothing rare among the entries (e.g., The Charge of the Light Brigade, Dodge City, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Male Animal, etc.) For most of her career as a Hollywood star, de Havilland was a Warner Bros. contract player. (The de Havilland-Warners split was both highly acrimonious and highly influential.) Needless to say, Time Warner, which owns TCM, also owns the Warner Bros. library. Olivia de Havilland movies have been a TCM fixture since the cable channel was born over a decade ago. My chief Olivia de Havilland Day recommendation is The Heiress (1949), one of the relatively few pre-1950 Paramount productions widely available on cable/home video. "Not many film...