News

Few figures in Hollywood can match Clint Eastwood's towering legacy as an actor and director with nearly 70 years in the industry. From his 1955 debut in Revenge of the Creature to 73 different acting roles and 45 directorial efforts, Eastwood transformed from Sergio Leone's stoic Western hero to the iconic Dirty Harry before emerging as one of cinema's most accomplished filmmakers. His instantly recognizable delivery of lines like "Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?" helped cement his status as a cultural icon. But his versatility allowed him to inhabit roles across every conceivable genre.

Behind the camera, Eastwood developed a distinctive minimalist style marked by patient film noir-inspired cinematography and understated dramatic tension. This approach, favoring action over dialogue and subtle character development over exposition, has earned him numerous accolades, including Academy Awards for Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby, and Oscars nominations for Mystic River, Letters from Iwo Jima, and American Sniper.

“To ask ‘Whatever happened to Tab Hunter?'” a reporter for The New York Times once wrote, “is to ask ‘Whatever happened to America?'”

As we remember Hunter — the Hollywood heartthrob who died this week a few days shy of his 87th birthday — it’s clear that his own career and personal path follows America’s (and Hollywood’s) arc of understanding homosexuality in the post-wwii era. A performer who was once deeply closeted in the industry could, in his later years, make two outrageous comedies in which his romantic co-lead was played by legendary drag queen Divine.

Born Arthur Gelien, Tab Hunter was one of a stable of performers groomed for stardom by agent Henry Willson, who gave the neophyte performer his name and his first forays onto the big screen.

Hunter made his big-screen debut in 1950 and would become one of the decade’s biggest stars, both...

What's the right thing to say about a closeted movie career in an industry that feeds on gossip? There's plenty to say, if you're Tab Hunter. The '50s heartthrob breaks his silence with a remarkably candid and positive account of his astonishing, unique Hollywood experience. Tab Hunter Confidential Blu-ray FilmRise 2015 / Color / 1:78 widescreen / 90 min. / Street Date August 23, 2016 / 19.95 Starring Tab Hunter, Allan Glaser, Clint Eastwood, Connie Stevens, Portia de Rossi, Robert Wagner, Debbie Reynolds, Lainie Kazan, George Takei, Noah Wyle, John Waters, Liz Torres, Tab Hunter, Dolores Hart, Terry Moore, Don Murray, Robert Osborne, Darryl Hickman, William Wellman Jr., Rae Allen, Rona Barrett, Venetia Stevenson, Rex Reed, Etchika Choureau, Marilyn Erskine, Henry Willson, Shannon Bolin, Eddie Muller, Ronnie Robertson, Gary Giddins, Tamara Asseyev, Neal Noorlag, Marilyn Gevirtz, Jo-An Cox Bunton, Lou Simon, Evelyn Kramer. Cinematography Nancy Schreiber Film Editor Jeffrey Schwarz Original Music Michael Cudahy Produced by Allan Glaser, Neil Koenigsberg,...

Tab Hunter Confidential now screens Monday, April 27th at 7pm at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar) as part of this year’s QFest St. Louis. For ticket information, go Here

Hollywood can destroy people. For every survivor of the Hollywood system, whether from years ago or any current actors, there are dozens of actors and other artists who crashed and burned, had serious substance abuse issues, committed suicide or never made it at all.

Just from memory I can name Barbara Payton, Jayne Mansfield, Jeanne Eagles, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Diana Sands and Montgomery Clift. For a complete rundown you can’t do much better than Kenneth Anger’s incredible book Hollywood Babylon and it’s even more depressing sequel Hollywood Babylon Part Two. Vincent Price called Hollywood “the most evil place on Earth!” And Vincent Price would know something about evil!

A few short years ago I read Tab Hunter...

Tab Hunter Confidential screens Monday, April 20th at 7pm at Landmark’s Tivoli Theater (6350 Delmar) as part if this year’s QFest St. Louis. For ticket information, go Here

Hollywood can destroy people. For every survivor of the Hollywood system, whether from years ago or any current actors, there are dozens of actors and other artists who crashed and burned, had serious substance abuse issues, committed suicide or never made it at all.

Just from memory I can name Barbara Payton, Jayne Mansfield, Jeanne Eagles, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Diana Sands and Montgomery Clift. For a complete rundown you can’t do much better than Kenneth Anger’s incredible book Hollywood Babylon and it’s even more depressing sequel Hollywood Babylon Part Two. Vincent Price called Hollywood “the most evil place on Earth!” And Vincent Price would know something about evil!

A few short years ago I read Tab Hunter...

Prepare for some spectacular aerial combat in George Lucas' long-in-the-making passion project, Red Tails. Here's Ron's review of a great WWII adventure...

For most men, war is hell. For the men of the Red Tails, an all-black fighter squadron in a segregated United States Army during World War II, war is boring as hell. Despite their training, all the men of the Tuskegee experiment get to do are boring patrols and mop-up work while all the real fighting, flying, and dying is for whites only. Fortunately, as the bombers continue to get shot down as their escort fighters go off chasing German fighters, the Army Air Corps gets increasingly desperate.

Enter the Tuskegee Airmen, known for the red nose and tail paint patterns on their airplanes. The movie's focus is on one squadron of the group, led by Easy (Nate Parker) and composed of, at various times, Lightning (David Oyelowo...

James Franco’s performance in 127 Hours was rightly praised, but what of his earlier, less prominent roles? Ti takes a look back…

James Franco has just been nominated for Best Actor for his role as Aron Ralston in 127 Hours, a film for which he is receiving high praise. Not just that, but he's co-hosting the Academy Awards ceremony (alongside Anne Hathaway) and is rapidly becoming Hollywood's leading man of choice, thanks to his comedic and dramatic acting chops.

He will soon be seen in Your Highness ("Handle your shit, Fabius, please.") and Rise Of The Apes, all while finishing a PhD in English Literature at Yale.

Clearly, his star wattage is at its zenith, but it wasn't always so.

Fresh off his success as Harry Osborn in the Spider-man movies, Franco was cast as the lead in a number of films, many of which failed spectacularly at the box office...

As happens every year around this time, the cable spectrum has been heavily laced with programming throughout the week commemorating Veterans Day. HBO trundled out its full epic and brutal miniseries The Pacific for a one-day re-run broken up by the debut of the James Gandolfini-hosted documentary War Torn 1861-2010, a disturbing look at the psychological scars America’s soldiers have suffered in every conflict since The Civil War; The History Channel ran an all-day marathon of Ww II in HD, sprinkling its commercial breaks for the week with commemorative spots; AMC ran a day of war movies like The Enemy Below (1957) and A Few Good Men (1992) under the umbrella, “Vets Best” ; and so on.

The bulk of memorializing programming focused on World War II – unsurprising, in that it remains, to this day, America’s greatest, defining, and least morally problematic war. Even 65 years later, despite a half-century of...

Jody McCrea, the son of Joel McCrea, passed away earlier this month. He was primarily known for his roles in cult films. In this excerpt from his book, Cinema Retro columnist pays tribute to McCrea's career.

.

Normal 0 false false false En-us X-none X-none MicrosoftInternetExplorer4

Tall, strapping, square-jawed Jody McCrea who became a favorite of teenage audiences during the Sixties for his amusing performances as “Deadhead” in the series of Beach Party (1963) movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello passed away on April 4 of this year. As the dumb surfer in the bunch, Deadhead could be counted on to say something idiotic in his slow drawl. Though McCrea was always assured a laugh based on how the role was written, it is to his credit that Deadhead came off as sweetly naïve rather than a complete moron.

Jody McCrea was born on September 6, 1934 in Los Angeles. His father was western star...