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The highly acclaimed podcast The Funny Comics Fan Club is returning for a second season in January and starts by looking at one of Britain's most inventive comic books.

In each episode of The Funny Comics Fan Club the hosts - comedian John Dredge and academic Doctor Mark Hibbett - read through an issue of an old British weekly comic. The first season was named as Podcast Of The Week by The Radio Times and was one of its Top Ten recommended shows, between George Clooney's new series and "Threads"! It was also featured in The Sunday Times, BBC Radio London and topped the UK's Comedy Fiction podcast charts.

So far Mark and John have talked about The Beano, Krazy Comic, Whizzer & Chips, Topper, The Dandy, TV Comic and more. As well as dipping into the history of these series they've also ended up discussing Basil Brush's career as a landlord,...

[Editor’s Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by GospelStats. It’s exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame. Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts with new installments every week right here.]

Scroll down for this week’s Tubefilter Chart.

Individual creators like MrBeast (#2) and the Stokes Twins (#4) both saw strong viewership gains in this week’s U.S. Top 50, but the chart leader is still Toys and Colors. Thanks to some help from its partners at pocket.watch, the kid-friendly hub has become the regular #1 finisher among all U.S.-based YouTube channels.

How can chart-conscious creators keep up with these media company operations? There’s no easy way for one person to maintain a high chart position (though appealing to preschool-age viewers definitely helps), but a few creators have figured out some strategies that help them get millions...

Acclaimed animation director Vicky Jenson (Shrek) tackles tough themes of divorce and broken homes in Spellbound, a CGI adventure about a teenage princess, Ellian (Rachel Zegler), whose bickering royal parents have been transformed into unruly monsters. The new Netflix film cleverly uses fairy tale elements to address how children's feelings are often ignored when adult relationships are irrevocably broken. Reviews from conservative and far-right audiences have been slamming the film for its discussion of divorce. One user on Rotten Tomatoes called Spellbound, "a moronic ploy to help normalize divorce to children. Don't normalize divorce. It's not normal. Jenson pointedly responds:

It's so crazy, because you can kill a parent in an animated movie, but you can't say that maybe they won't end up together.

Basically: Grow up. "Everybody responded really well to the intentions of the movie [but] there was always sort of a nervousness about that ending," added Jenson. Spellbound...

Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! It’s been nearly four decades since everyone’s favorite bio-exorcist played by Michael Keaton erupted onto movie screens in 1988, and audiences have eagerly awaited his return ever since.

I recently caught part of another spirted film about mischievous ghosts, the Cary Grant classic “Topper” (1937), which is one I’ve enjoyed a few times over the years. I love a good ghost movie — scary, funny or even a little of both. With the 2024 release of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” I started thinking about the best Funny ghost movies — those that might offer a little bit of a scare, but are mostly about the inconveniences and embarrassing situations those who have trouble leaving this realm cause the earthly beings they haunt.

These aren’t film that reign supreme on Oscar night, although there are a few nominations and a couple of wins in the group. In 1946, “Blithe Spirit” took the statue for Best Visual Effects,...

Singer Chappell Roan has revealed she’s been diagnosed with severe depression and is in therapy, after receiving a backlash from some fans about her attitude towards her growing profile.

Roan currently has six songs in the US Hot 100, three in UK Top 40 music chart following the release of her debut album last year, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. She received this year’s award for Best New Artist at the MTV VMA Awards, but has received criticism for her complaints about her lack of privacy as she becomes ever more well-known.

She told The Guardian newspaper she now took twice-weekly therapy sessions, and was diagnosed last week with severe depression. She said:

“I went to a psychiatrist last week because I was like, I don’t know what’s going on. She diagnosed me with severe depression – which I didn’t think I had because I’m not actually sad.

Linda Gray wants to transform Southfork Ranch and produce a holiday movie for Dallas fans. The actress who played Sue Ellen Ewing is executive producing a holiday movie that will give her one more chance to revisit this special place. Most of all, she wants to also star in this movie along with one of her former castmates.

Here are all the details.

Used with permission by Lifetime Linda Gray Is Executive Producer Of Dallas-Inspired Holiday Movie

On Friday, Michael Fairman TV reported that “Dallas star Linda Gray signs on as executive producer of a proposed holiday-themed TV movie to shoot at Southfork.” The insider reports that Gray wants to return to Southfork to film a movie “with a major twist.” Describing this as a love letter” to the fans of the evening soap, this is a “lighthearted Christmas comedy.”

Co-starring with her would “potentially” be Patrick Duffy, who portrayed Bobby Ewing.

Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! It’s been nearly four decades since everyone’s favorite bio-exorcist played by Michael Keaton erupted onto movie screens in 1988, and audiences have eagerly awaited his return ever since.

I recently caught part of another spirted film about mischievous ghosts, the Cary Grant classic “Topper” (1937), which is one I’ve enjoyed a few times over the years. I love a good ghost movie — scary, funny or even a little of both. With the 2024 release of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” I started thinking about the best Funny ghost movies — those that might offer a little bit of a scare, but are mostly about the inconveniences and embarrassing situations those who have trouble leaving this realm cause the earthly beings they haunt.

These aren’t film that reign supreme on Oscar night, although there are a few nominations and a couple of wins in the group. In 1946, “Blithe Spirit” took the statue for Best Visual Effects,...

With a 54% Rotten Tomatoes score, Reese Witherspoons 2005 rom-com Just Like Heaven stands as a spiritual remake of one of Cary Grants early screwball films. Grant and Constance Bennett star in 1937s Topper as the ghostly Kerby couple who spend their afterlife trying to cheer up their strung-up boss Cosmo Topper. The films quick dialogue and sharp jokes are signature aspects of the screwball genre, and Just Like Heaven employs these techniques with a modern twist. Although not entirely identical from a plot standpoint, these two films share similar themes, characters, and ghost-centric comedy.

These films also fall quite low on Witherspoons and Grants respective career totem poles. Just Like Heaven was eventually revived to cult classic status, especially as a relic of early 2000s rom-coms. Likewise, Topper remains relatively unknown when compared to Grants more popular screwball work like Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, and The Philadelphia Story. Connecting...

Netflix’s new Hindi series, Tribhuvan Mishra CA Topper, is an emotional comedy-drama about an honest government employee and his desperation to provide for his family. The series addresses the often neglected topic of sexual desire in women; while that is a commendable attempt, it loses its path with too many characters and their backstories, resulting in a messy climax. The performances are top-notch, and overall it is an enjoyable watch.

CA topper, Tribhuvan Mishra, took pride in his honesty, as did his wife, Ashoklata. They were not concerned with the finer things in life, and as long as they had a roof above their heads and could provide food and education to their children, they were content. Tribhuvan’s perspective changed all of a sudden when his bank account was frozen after the bank was accused of being involved in a scam. Tribhuvan had committed to covering the costs...

With the announcement for the 76th Primetime Emmys set for July 17th, let’s travel back 70 years and revisit the winners of the 6th Emmy Awards held Feb. 11, 1954 at the venerable Hollywood Palladium and telecast on Khj. New categories introduced that year included best new program and supporting actor and actress in a TV series. Prior to 1954, performers were nominated as individuals, but this year the program for which they were nominated was also included. NBC was nominated for 36 Emmys, while CBS placed second with 30 and ABC trailing far behind with just three.

CBS’s cherished “I Love Lucy’ won its second Emmy for best comedy series, while Vivian Vance took home her only Emmy for the show for her supporting role as Ethel Mertz. The other nominees for comedy series were CBS’ “The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show,” NBC’s “Mr. Peepers,” CBS’ “Our Miss Brooks,” and CBS “Topper.

Distinguished by a golden-tipped cane and a black derby hat, Bat Masterson was a distinctive, sophisticated figure in the Wild West scene. Despite being canceled due to competition, Bat Masterson's unique visual appeal could captivate a modern, diverse audience. With a revival possible, Bat Masterson's concealed sword and stylish flair could bring a fresh spin to the Western genre today.

With the medium of television becoming a new and prominent feature in the household during the Golden Age of America, many different genres would suddenly have a turn in a more visual type of spotlight. For science fiction fans, there was Space Patrol, The Invisible Man, and, of course, The Twilight Zone. For those more inclined toward fantasy sitcoms, Adventures of Superman, starring George Reeves, and the lesser-known series Topper are some great picks. While similar in nature, family sitcoms quickly amassed audiences with titles like Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver,...

Imagine, if you will, a sleepy small town. The people who live there are hard-working, stubborn, and most of all, suspicious of outsiders. Enter one Bob Majors, a newspaperman from New York. Majors is a man of progress and change, but he's about to come up against a social wall the likes of which he's never seen. It's the kind of obstacle that can only be found in ... well, not "The Twilight Zone."

You might have read that description in the voice of famed "Twilight Zone" creator-narrator Rod Serling, but it's actually the premise of a totally different show in which Serling appeared — reportedly in his first non-narrator acting role — for just one episode in the early 1960s. The series was "Ichabod and Me," a poorly-received and short-lived series whose history is chronicled in David C. Tucker's book "Lost Laughs of '50s and '60s Television." The sitcom...

It's a Wonderful Life, originally released in black and white, was later re-released in color due to the popularity of colorized films. Director Frank Capra decided to colorize the movie after seeing the success of a colorized Cary Grant film, Topper. The film entered the public domain in the 1970s, leading to multiple studios releasing their own colorized versions, which sparked controversy among fans who preferred the original black-and-white version.

The classic version of It's a Wonderful Life is in black and white since that medium was the norm when the movie premiered in 1946. However, once colored pictures became easier to produce and more popular, the Christmas film was re-released in color. Now, audiences have the option of viewing the movie in black and white or in color. Most airings of It's a Wonderful Life typically stick to the original version of the holiday classic, though.

The cast of It's a Wonderful Life...

As far as recorded history goes, humanity's fascination with the afterlife has been longstanding. Every culture around the world has its unique perspectives on life after death. With the birth of cinema in the late 19th century, humanity could utilize the newfound medium to attempt to visualize their conceptions of the afterlife.

While most associate films about the afterlife with the horror genre, a subgenre of romance cinema encompasses narratives about the afterlife. Some of the world's greatest romance movies involve ghosts, angels, and the undead.

Related: 20 Most Heartbreaking Romance Movies

Corpse Bride (2005)

Directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton, Corpse Bride is a stop-motion animated musical fantasy romance about a shy groom who, while practicing his wedding vows, inadvertently brings back to life a deceased young bride. The groom, his fiancé, and the undead bride develop a love triangle.

Corpse Bride was a major critical and commercial success, earning...

Where to Watch Powered by Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson, stars of Charlie's Angels, reunited in a rare photo at Smith's son's wedding. Since leaving the show, Jackson continued acting until 2007. Smith has remained active in the industry, with recent appearances on The CW's All American and the 2019 Charlie's Angels movie.

Charlie's Angels stars Jaclyn Smith and Kate Jackson have reunited in a rare photo. The original Charlie's Angels series, which followed a trio of female private detectives, ran on ABC for five seasons from 1976 through 1981. Smith played Kelly Garrett on all five seasons while Jackson played Sabrina Duncan for the first three seasons before exiting the series and being replaced by Shelley Hack as Tiffany Welles in season 4.

On Instagram, Smith shared a video from the wedding of her son Gaston.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jaclyn Smith (@realjaclynsmith)

In the video, Smith can be seen posing with Jackson.

Exclusive: Mark O’Brien (Your Honor) will exec produce and star in the coming-of-age drama Topper from 1A Motion Pictures and Bad Lad Productions, which has wrapped production in Detroit. Others set for major roles include Paul Johansson (God Is a Bullet), Amanda Clayton (City on a Hill), and actor-comedians Jimmy Shubert (Entourage), Bryan Callen (Warrior) and Erik Griffin (Workaholics).

The first feature written and directed by actor Kevin McNamara (Why Women Kill) follows Topper (O’Brien), a hard-drinking middling comedian with a seemingly endless capacity for self-sabotage. Topper receives news that his estranged father (Johansson) is terminally ill and begrudgingly returns to Detroit to sell the family home, which was never much of a home to him.

While back in Detroit, the friends he left behind — Lucas (Callen), Cooper (Griffin) and Ray (Shubert) — aren’t shy about pointing out how far he has drifted off course, despite showing early promise as a young comic.

Back in 1953 CBS premiered “Topper,” a fun fantasy sitcom based on the 1937 film of the same name about a stuffy banker (Leo G. Carroll) who buys the former estate of a young couple (Robert Sterling and Anne Jeffreys). The two had died in an avalanche along with the St. Bernard who tried to save them. But no sooner does Carroll’s Topper move into the estate with his wife that he discovers the couple and the dog haunt the house and he happens to be the only one who can see and interact with the spirits. The series, which ran for two seasons (a young Stephen Sondheim wrote a few scripts) was Emmy nominated for Best Comedy Series in 1954. And “Topper” has lived on in syndication, DVD and now on streaming services ever since.

And nearly seven decades later, CBS returned to the paranormal last fall with another spirited fantasy comedy “Ghosts,...

To celebrate Variety’s 115th anniversary, we went to the archives to see how some of Hollywood’s biggest stars first landed in the pages of our magazine. Read more from the archives here.

In 1929, Variety hated the musical comedy “A Wonderful Night” at Broadway’s Majestic Theater (“remarkably dull … the outlook for this one is dreary”). However, there was praise for one of the stars, Archie Leach — who in a few years would change his name to Cary Grant and conquer Hollywood and the world. “Archie Leach makes a handsome leading man, but some of the lines of fearsome insipidity that he has to utter discounted most of his natural grace.”

Handsome, natural grace: Those words offer a hint of Leach/Grant’s appeal. Three years later, in 1932, Variety ran a two-sentence item: “Cary Grant, new leading man on the Paramount contract list, hails from vaudeville where his monicker was Archie Leach.

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.It was often said that women wanted to be with Cary Grant and men wanted to be Cary Grant, but perhaps no one was more consumed by the perception of Cary Grant—the handsome, unremittingly suave and stylish movie star—than Grant himself. “Even I want to be Cary Grant,” the actor once mused. Indeed, Grant’s public and on-screen persona was a carefully crafted, meticulously honed, and ultimately triumphant development, as much to suit the needs of his ascending celebrity as it was to shroud an unhappy childhood, a series of romantic passions and disappointments, and a latent dark side fostered by uncertainty and doubt. It was, however, and in any and all cases, resoundingly successful. Grant was the epitome of the movie star, a Hollywood icon and one of its most entertaining,...

"Wtf Value"

By Raymond Benson

Only serious film history aficionados and perhaps viewers of Turner Classic Movies will be aware that there was once a live-action version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland adapted by Hollywood in the early pre-code years. It was released in 1933 by Paramount and directed by Norman Z. McLeod, the guy who had helmed the Marx Brothers’ comedies Monkey Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932). McLeod would go on to make such titles as It’s a Gift (1934), Topper (1937), The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947), and The Paleface (1948).

The production of Alice in 1933 boasts a screenplay by none other than heavyweights Joseph L. Mankiewicz and William Cameron Menzies, the man behind Things to Come and a production designer whose hands were all over Hollywood and British productions over the next two decades. The script also borrows heavily from the popular and then-current stage production written by Eva La Gallienne and Florida Friebus,...

Frank Tuttle, the man who made a star of Alan Ladd with the twisted film noir This Gun for Hire (1942), began as a comedy specialist, churning out three or more films a year as vehicles for Eddie Cantor, Edgar Bergen and his knee-pal Charlie McCarthy, Burns & Allen et cetera. Pleasure Cruise (1933) is a pre-Code farce centered on improbably couple Roland Young and Genevieve Tobin.Young plays a penniless author working as house-husband to the gainfully employed Tobin, while seething with jealousy at the thought of the young blades romancing her in the office. In one of many unusual stylistic touches, we see her portrait come to life and watch as she mingles with the staff, none of whom looks to be under sixty, and they're not exactly silver foxes. The stage is set for a film mocking male paranoia and jealousy and questioning notions of fidelity, virtue, and honesty.Young is his usual self,...

They’re non-corporeal cut-ups, rich ghosts on the town with nothing better to do than spice up the love life of Roland Young’s harried, henpecked bank president. Hal Roach’s screwball hit did good things for everybody concerned, especially star Cary Grant and bit player Arthur Lake. But the show’s nostalgic heart is Billie Burke, of the tinkly-glass voice. Also starring platinum blonde Constance Bennett, Alan Mowbray and Eugene Pallette.

Topper

Blu-ray

Vci

1937 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 97 min. / Street Date October, 2017 / 20.99

Starring: Constance Bennett, Cary Grant, Roland Young, Billie Burke, Alan Mowbray, Eugene Pallette, Arthur Lake, Hedda Hopper, Virginia Sale, Theodore von Eltz, J. Farrell MacDonald, Elaine Shepard, Ward Bond, Hoagy Carmichael, Lana Turner, Russell Wade, Claire Windsor.

Cinematography: Norbert Brodine

Film Editor: William Terhune

Art Director: William Stevens

Original Music: Marvin Hatley

Written by Jack Jevne, Eric Hatch, Eddie Moran from a novel by Thorne Smith...

Leapin’ Lizards! The original cavemen vs. dinosaurs saga is a winner — if viewer involvement trumps visual effects, it’s got a narrow lead over the Hammer/Harryhausen remake. Victor Mature, Carole Landis and Lon Chaney Jr. all made career hay out of their weeks spent running in loincloths, out in the desert. And Vci’s new disc is a terrific UCLA Archive restoration.

One Million B.C.

Blu-ray

Vci

1940 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 80 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 /

Starring: Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Lon Chaney Jr., Conrad Nagel, John Hubbard, Nigel De Brulier, Mamo Clark, Jean Porter, Inez Palange, Edgar Edwards, Jacqueline Dalya, Mary Gale Fisher.

Cinematography: Norbert Brodine

Film Editor: Ray Snyder

Original Music: Werner R. Heymann

Visual Effects: Roy Seawright, Jack Shaw, Frank Young

Written by Mickell Novack, George Baker, Joseph Frickert

Produced and Directed by Hal Roach

In the late 1930s fantasy and science fiction movies were few and far between,...

Virginia Bruce: MGM actress ca. 1935. Virginia Bruce movies on TCM: Actress was the cherry on 'The Great Ziegfeld' wedding cake Unfortunately, Turner Classic Movies has chosen not to feature any non-Hollywood stars – or any out-and-out silent film stars – in its 2015 “Summer Under the Stars” series.* On the other hand, TCM has come up with several unusual inclusions, e.g., Lee J. Cobb, Warren Oates, Mae Clarke, and today, Aug. 25, Virginia Bruce. A second-rank MGM leading lady in the 1930s, the Minneapolis-born Virginia Bruce is little remembered today despite her more than 70 feature films in a career that spanned two decades, from the dawn of the talkie era to the dawn of the TV era, in addition to a handful of comebacks going all the way to 1981 – the dawn of the personal computer era. Career highlights were few and not all that bright. Examples range from playing the...

Harrison Ford injured in plane accident (image: Harrison Ford as Colonel Graff in 'Ender's Game') Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark actor Harrison Ford was supposed to be in critical condition – later reports have upgraded that to "fair" or "stable" condition – following an accident with a small airplane on Los Angeles' Westside. Earlier this afternoon (March 5, 2015), a vintage, one-engine two-seater crash landed at the Penmar Golf Course, located in the Los Angeles suburb of Venice, not far from the Pacific Ocean and just west of Santa Monica Airport. Its pilot, 72-year-old Harrison Ford, was found "seriously" injured. He was alone on the plane. There were no injuries on the ground. As explained in the Los Angeles Times, "fire officials would not identify the victim of the crash but said he was conscious and breathing when paramedics arrived." Ford was later transported to an unidentified hospital. Eleven...

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...

A Criterion Grab Bag! kicks off this week at Trailers from Hell, with director and Tfh creator Joe Dante introducing "I Married a Witch."A savvy satire of both political and sexual gamesmanship, I Married A Witch, based on an unfinished novel by Topper author Thorne Smith, would seem to be the perfect union between two brilliant moviemakers, Rene Clair and Preston Sturges (Clair directed, Sturges produced). It’s full of his stock company of character actors but Sturges left the production due to artistic differences. Despite having its concepts ripped off by lesser productions over the years, this remains a strikingly modern and hilarious movie that hopefully will find new audiences through Criterion’s stellar digital transfer.

A savvy satire of both political and sexual gamesmanship, I Married A Witch, based on an unfinished novel by Topper author Thorne Smith, would seem to be the perfect union between two brilliant moviemakers, Rene Clair and Preston Sturges (Clair directed, Sturges produced). It’s full of his stock company of character actors but Sturges left the production due to artistic differences. Despite having its concepts ripped off by lesser productions over the years, this remains a strikingly modern and hilarious movie that hopefully will find new audiences through Criterion’s stellar digital transfer.

The post I Married a Witch appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Miele is directed by Valeria Golino, best known to English-speaking audiences as Topper Harley’s sexy, exotic girlfriend in the popular Hot Shots duology. That description, however, might be a reductive summation of her talents, because two decades later, she demonstrates what must be a higher calling as a director of challenging, thought-provoking drama in a film that should surely have landed In Competition — instead appearing in the still-esteemed Un Certain Regard cachet — and is presently the film to beat of not just the festival but the entire year. Going by the pseudonym Miele, Irene (Jasmine Trinca) is an angel of death, helping to give the terminally ill a peaceful means to leave this world, usually with the assistance of a loved one. To perform these euthanisations, she typically travels from Italy to Mexico to procure a barbiturate used to put dogs down and then implores said patient to drink it with vodka. However...

As the Academy celebrates 85 years of great films at the Oscars on February 24th, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) is set to take movie fans on the ultimate studio tour with the 2013 edition of 31 Days Of Oscar®. Under the theme Oscar by Studio, the network will present a slate of more than 350 movies grouped according to the studios that produced or released them. And as always, every film presented during 31 Days Of Oscar is an Academy Award® nominee or winner, making this annual event one of the most anticipated on any movie lover’s calendar.

As part of the network’s month-long celebration, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has graciously provided the original Academy Awards® radio broadcasts from 1930-1952. Specially chosen clips from the radio archives will be featured throughout TCM’s 31 Days Of Oscar website.

Hollywood was built upon the studio system, which saw nearly ever aspect...

From Japanese ghost stories such as Ringu (1998) and Ju-on (2002, remade as The Grudge) to modern revisionist ghost stories such as Brad Anderson’s Session 9 (2001) and Ti West’s The Innkeepers (2011), cinematic specters have nearly always been evil, or at the very least, malicious. Scary movies have long held the belief that ghosts should frighten us, and Hollywood had lined their pockets with that notion, but is it possible to make a good movie about “good” ghosts? We think so, and here’s our proof… our Top Ten Movies About Friendly Ghosts.

10. Heart And Souls (1993)

Anything starring Robert Downey, Jr. is worth checking out in my book, but this comedy was surprisingly enjoyable. Downey plays a guy used by four ghosts to reconcile their lives before moving on into the afterlife. The catch is, Downey is less than enthusiastic, but finds himself the catalyst for something bigger than himself and goes along for the ride.

Don't be fooled by Madonna's chic spectre in pearls in W.E. Female ghosts are the most terrifying spooks on film

One of the daffiest aspects of W.E., Madonna's deeply daffy film about Wallis Simpson, is the way our heroine keeps popping up as a peculiarly soignée ghost. Clad in a little black dress and pearls, she dispenses fashion tips and lifestyle aperçus to her younger namesake, who's having a bit of a breakdown that coincides with her Simpson-fixation, in 1990s Manhattan. Murmured words of spectral wisdom include: "Attractive, my dear, is a polite way of saying a woman's made the most of what she's got," and, "The most important thing is your face. The other end you just sit on."

This is perhaps the battiest but also the most diverting element in the film, and one I wish Madonna had explored at more length, if only because the...

Robert Osborne is aware, arguably more than almost anyone, of today's (Wednesday, Jan. 18) significance birthday-wise.

Cary Grant (1904-86) was born on this day, and Turner Classic Movies -- of which veteran Hollywood columnist and historian Osborne is principal host -- is expectedly marking the occasion by showing several Grant films. "Topper," "Holiday" and "My Favorite Wife" are among the titles, and Osborne doesn't deem it an overstatement that Grant is one of the prime actors TCM was designed to showcase.

"I just think he was the best," Osborne tells Zap2it. "He was kind of the epitome of what it was all about. He had the talent, he had the glamor, he had the looks. He was there at the right time, working with all those great ladies, be it in the Katharine Hepburn era or the Grace Kelly era ... even Ingrid Bergman. I don't think there was anybody better.

At one point in the early 1930s, Constance Bennett was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. (In her early Warner Bros. movies, Bette Davis was clearly modeled after Bennett.) Following a series of risque — but generally dismal — tearjerkers, mostly at Rko, Bennett's stardom had all but fizzled out by 1935. Turner Classic Movies will be showing several of such Bennett vehicles on Friday early morning/afternoon, in addition to the comedies Topper, Merrily We Live, and Topper Takes a Trip, which revived the actress' career in the late '30s. Topper, which co-stars Cary Grant and Roland Young, is enjoyable, but it needed an Ernst Lubitsch to fully bring it to life. Topper Takes a Trip, though much inferior to the original, is harmless enough. What Price Hollywood? is the best one among the tearjerkers. Directed by George Cukor, this tale of a waitress who finds success and heartbreak in Hollywood was...

They can be harmful. They can be helpful. They can be annoying as all get-out. The film world has given us everything in the spectrum of ghost virtue from Bruce Willis to the creepy girl from Ringu. Today, in honor of The Lovely Bones, we salute the good guys, the friendly ghosts who ride high along with Casper in the act of moral solidarity.

10. Heart And Souls

Anything starring Robert Downey, Jr. is worth checking out in my book, but this comedy was surprisingly enjoyable. Downey plays a guy used by four ghosts to reconcile their lives before moving on into the afterlife. The catch is, Downey is less than enthusiastic, but finds himself the catalyst for something bigger than himself and goes along for the ride. The cast is comprised of several well-known actors making the film that much more enjoyable.

9. Truly, Madly, Deeply

The 1991 charming, English love story of a woman,...

The Birthday Boys and Girls of 11/11

1821 Fyodor Dostoevsky, legendary Russian author of Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov fame. So many movies inspired by his work. But he's not the legendary Russian author that'll be getting all the press this next couple of months. That'd be Leo Tolstoy, soon to be chattered about when The Last Station emerges as an Oscar contender.

1887 Roland Young, popular 30s and 40s character actor (Topper, The Philadelphia Story, Ruggles of Red Gap)

1898 René Clair, (pictured left), wonderful French writer/director. If you've never seen Le Million I urge you to rent it maintenant. His Oscar nominated films include The Gates of Paris (1957) and À nous la liberté (1931)

1899 Pat O'Brien --Ewwww, not that one people -- the actor! whose film career stretches alllllll the way from the 1931 classic The Front Page to 1981's Ragtime.

1901 Sam Spiegel, powerful producer. Boy was he on fire in...

Some months ago, Starlog contributor Gregory William Mank (along with Charles Heard & Bill Nelson) issued Hollywood’S Hellfire Club: The Misadventures Of John Barrymore, W.C. Fields, Errol Flynn & “The Bundy Drive Boys” (Feral House, tpb, $22.95). We’ve now bought and read it—and beyond its charming, dissolute Drew Friedman cover, it’s a joyful, wild party of a book, examining the alcohol-soaked misadventures of a coterie of hard-living actors and others in Hollywood’s 1930s and ’40s glory days.

In addition to those famed constant drinkers Barrymore, Fields and Flynn, the loose-knit Hellfire group included genre great John Carradine, Topper’s Roland Young, character actor star Thomas Mitchell (Stagecoach, Gone With The Wind), British thespian Alan Mowbray (the touring Shakespearean of My Darling Clementine), young Anthony Quinn, eccentric artist Sadakichi Hartmann and writers Ben Hecht and Gene Fowler. Near the tail end of the group’s existence, Vincent Price was also an ad hoc member.

'Everybody wants to be Cary Grant," the iconic actor is supposed to have once joked. "Even I want to be Cary Grant."

The suave Grant (1904-1986), born Archibald Leach in England, is the subject of a rare retrospective opening tonight at the Bam Rose Cinemas with one of his earliest leading-man assignments.

He's a playboy dallying with married woman Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's outrageous pre-code gem "Blonde Venus" (1932), which is best remembered for her appearance in a...

Blade Runner star Sean Young is urging George Clooney to help revive her stalled career - by remaking classic film Topper with her. The actress admits she has been attempting to get in touch with the movie hunk because she thinks he's the perfect choice to revive Cary Grant's role in a reworking of the cult 1937 comedy. Young is keen to remake the film, one of her favorites, with her in the role Constance Bennett played. She says, "I think our chemistry would match very well and I'd give him a run for his money... If he would just return my call and give me a shot, that could be really great."...

Variety reports that Disney has acquired the rights to the 1937 comedy Topper with an eye on turning the remake into a vehicle for Steve Martin. The original starred Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as a deceased couple who are determined to shake up the life of their friend Topper (Roland Young), a stuffy banker. Martin's Bringing Down the House director, Adam Shankman, is slated to produce; no word on if he will direct as well. Martin will shoot another remake, Cheaper By the Dozen, before moving onto Topper.