News

Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.

If a network is going to trace the history of film, Turner Classic Movies is the most appropriate one.

It's about to reaffirm that, as it nears its 20th anniversary, with a series -- and series of movies -- that will run for most of the rest of the year. The initiative is built around "The Story of Film: An Odyssey," a 15-part documentary to be offered in weekly chapters Mondays starting Sept. 2.

Director-writer-narrator Mark Cousins' retrospective goes decade by decade through movie history, starting in the era of 1902's "A Trip to the Moon" and going up to such recent (in TCM terms) releases as 2000's "Gladiator." Besides being excerpted in the documentary, many of those features will be shown in full on Mondays and Tuesdays, introduced by TCM staple Robert Osborne.

"It does give a basic history of film," Osborne tells Zap2it of the documentary, "and...

Nine of the world's 10 tallest buildings are now in Asia – and Hollywood wants to jump off all of them

Aerial shots over Manhattan's forest of skyscrapers. Yellow cabs crawling like ants through the city grid. The hero stands on a ledge 20 floors up, provoking a street theatre of police cordons, firetrucks, news crews and onlookers. Meanwhile, in a top-floor office, a corporate villain admires an architectural model of another shiny skyscraper. Elsewhere, an acrobatic thief hangs precariously in an elevator shaft, dropping a spanner that goes clanging down innumerable storeys to the ground. The ominous ping of an approaching elevator spells danger. The hero and villain finally meet for a climactic rooftop showdown.

These scenes could be from a hundred Hollywood movies or more, but in fact they're from just one: Man on a Ledge, an enjoyably silly new thriller that at least sets out its stall in the title.