News

There are so many big sells for the 1955 musical It’s Always Fair Weather. Firstly, the golden pairing of Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen is the key factor. The musical maestros behind such great heavy hitters such as Singing in the Rain (1952) and On the Town (1949) return for another outing, promising an exquisite smorgasbord of dancing and colour.

The other interest in this musical is that it is an MGM musical. That means all the scintillating scenes of the spectrum on the screen. A nouvelle advancement here is It’s Always Fair Weather is shot in CinemaScope and, instead of Technicolor, it is filmed in brilliant Eastmancolor.

Plus, seeing the original 1955 print, as the filmmakers intended, thanks to the BFI Film on Film festival made It’s Always Fair Weather a must-see outing.

So, one heads into It’s Always Fair Weather with all this in mind and comes away with one name – Dolores Gray…...

Royal fans are remembering Queen Elizabeth II’s musical taste following her death at 96.

Tributes have been pouring in from around the world after Her Majesty passed away in Balmoral on Thursday.

The days after her death have seen well-wishers look at some of the things in life that brought her great joy - and music was among them.

The Queen was a big musical theatre fan and, perhaps surprisingly, she even enjoyed some Gary Barlow.

In 2016, the Queen’s cousin Lady Elizabeth Anson said that the monarch was “a fantastic dancer” with “great rhythm”.

Speaking on BBC Radio documentary Our Queen: 90 Musical Years, she explained: “The Queen loves the theatre and musicals like Showboat, Oklahoma! and Annie Get Your Gun.

“These were the tunes that remained in one’s head and were very danceable to.”

Others told the documentary that her taste was “mainstream”, with “no airs and graces...

This CinemaScope musical remake of 1939’s The Women is highly watchable, especially in this flawless digital remaster. The actresses that bare their claws, compete for husbands and just plain cat-fight are a choice batch, with favorites from the ’50s the ’40s the ’30s — plus a few wildflowers that bloomed cinematically for only a few years (Dolores Gray) and one that somehow managed immortality (Joan Collins). It’s highly watchable despite, or maybe because of, its criminally outdated recipe for marital bliss. Did women really go for this fantasy — did anybody ever really live like this?

The Opposite Sex

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1956 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 116 min. / Street Date October 27, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller, Leslie Nielsen, Jeff Richards, Agnes Moorehead, Charlotte Greenwood, Joan Blondell, Sam Levene, Alice Pearce, Barbara Jo Allen, Sandy Descher, Carolyn Jones, Jerry Antes, Harry James, Art Mooney,...

MGM wasn’t the most current studio in 1957, as can be seen by this throwback to another era, a semi-screwball romantic comedy with big stars and directed in high style by Vincente Minnelli. Gregory Peck and Lauren Bacall party like it’s 1939, and with the musical-comedy help of the irrepressible Dolores Gray, almost pull it off.

Designing Woman

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 117 min. / Street Date June 19, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, Dolores Gray, Sam Levene, Tom Helmore, Mickey Shaughnessy, Jesse White, Chuck Connors, Alvy Moore.

Cinematography: John Alton

Film Editor: Adrienne Fazan

Art Direction: E. Preston Ames, William A. Horning

Original Music: André Previn

Written by George Wells

Produced by Dore Schary, George Wells

Directed by Vincente Minnelli

1957 was definitely the end of an era at MGM. With next to nobody on the payroll, it could no longer claim to possess All the Stars in Heaven.

When MGM was almost a ghost town, the Arthur Freed unit hit one last 'special' factory musical out of the park with this strangely melancholy ode to faded ambitions. Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd put in great, memorable work, while the glorious Dolores Gray is practically a living Tex Avery cartoon. And it's designed in wide, wide CinemaScope. It's Always Fair Weather Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 102 min. / Street Date November, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Gene Kelly, Dan Dailey, Cyd Charisse, Dolores Gray, Michael Kidd Cinematography Robert Bronner Art Direction Cedric Gibbons, Arthur Lonergan Film Editor Adrienne Fazan Original Music André Previn Written by Betty Comden & Adolph Green Produced by Arthur Freed, Roger Edens Directed & Choreographed by Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Back in the late 1980s, I first became aware of the future of home video when Criterion introduced...

Joan Collins in 'The Bitch': Sex tale based on younger sister Jackie Collins' novel. Author Jackie Collins dead at 77: Surprisingly few film and TV adaptations of her bestselling novels Jackie Collins, best known for a series of bestsellers about the dysfunctional sex lives of the rich and famous and for being the younger sister of film and TV star Joan Collins, died of breast cancer on Sept. 19, '15, in Los Angeles. The London-born (Oct. 4, 1937) Collins was 77. Collins' tawdry, female-centered novels – much like those of Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz – were/are immensely popular. According to her website, they have sold more than 500 million copies in 40 countries. And if the increasingly tabloidy BBC is to be believed (nowadays, Wikipedia has become a key source, apparently), every single one of them – 32 in all – appeared on the New York Times' bestseller list. (Collins' own site claims that a mere 30 were included.) Sex...

Joan Crawford Movie Star Joan Crawford movies on TCM: Underrated actress, top star in several of her greatest roles If there was ever a professional who was utterly, completely, wholeheartedly dedicated to her work, Joan Crawford was it. Ambitious, driven, talented, smart, obsessive, calculating, she had whatever it took – and more – to reach the top and stay there. Nearly four decades after her death, Crawford, the star to end all stars, remains one of the iconic performers of the 20th century. Deservedly so, once you choose to bypass the Mommie Dearest inanity and focus on her film work. From the get-go, she was a capable actress; look for the hard-to-find silents The Understanding Heart (1927) and The Taxi Dancer (1927), and check her out in the more easily accessible The Unknown (1927) and Our Dancing Daughters (1928). By the early '30s, Joan Crawford had become a first-rate film actress, far more naturalistic than...

Ann Blyth movies: TCM schedule on August 16, 2013 (photo: ‘Our Very Own’ stars Ann Blyth and Farley Granger) See previous post: "Ann Blyth Today: Light Singing and Heavy Drama on TCM." 3:00 Am One Minute To Zero (1952). Director: Tay Garnett. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ann Blyth, William Talman. Bw-106 mins. 5:00 Am All The Brothers Were Valiant (1953). Director: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Ann Blyth. C-95 mins. 6:45 Am The King’S Thief (1955). Director: Robert Z. Leonard. Cast: Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, David Niven. C-79 mins. Letterbox Format. 8:15 Am Rose Marie (1954). Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas. C-104 mins. Letterbox Format. 10:00 Am The Great Caruso (1951). Director: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Mario Lanza, Ann Blyth, Dorothy Kirsten, Jarmila Novotna, Richard Hageman, Carl Benton Reid, Eduard Franz, Ludwig Donath, Alan Napier, Pál Jávor, Carl Milletaire, Shepard Menken, Vincent Renno, Nestor Paiva, Peter Price, Mario Siletti, Angela Clarke,...

Gregory Peck from ‘Duel in the Sun’ to ‘How the West Was Won’: TCM schedule (Pt) on August 15 (photo: Gregory Peck in ‘Duel in the Sun’) See previous post: “Gregory Peck Movies: Memorable Miscasting Tonight on Turner Classic Movies.” 3:00 Am Days Of Glory (1944). Director: Jacques Tourneur. Cast: Gregory Peck, Lowell Gilmore, Maria Palmer. Bw-86 mins. 4:30 Am Pork Chop Hill (1959). Director: Lewis Milestone. Cast: Gregory Peck, Harry Guardino, Rip Torn. Bw-98 mins. Letterbox Format. 6:15 Am The Valley Of Decision (1945). Director: Tay Garnett. Cast: Greer Garson, Gregory Peck, Donald Crisp. Bw-119 mins. 8:15 Am Spellbound (1945). Director: Alfred Hitchcock. Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck, Michael Chekhov, Leo G. Carroll, Rhonda Fleming, Bill Goodwin, Norman Lloyd, Steve Geray, John Emery, Donald Curtis, Art Baker, Wallace Ford, Regis Toomey, Paul Harvey, Jean Acker, Irving Bacon, Jacqueline deWit, Edward Fielding, Matt Moore, Addison Richards, Erskine Sanford, Constance Purdy. Bw-111 mins. 10:15 Am Designing Woman (1957). Director: Vincente Minnelli.

Deanna Durbin: Highest-paid actress in the world [See previous post: "Deanna Durbin in the '40s: From Wholesome Musicals to Film Noir Sex Worker."] Despite several missteps in the handling of her career, David Shipman states that Deanna Durbin was Hollywood’s (and the world’s) highest-paid actress in both 1945 and 1947. In 1946, Durbin’s earnings of $323,477 trailed only Bette Davis’ $328,000 at Warner Bros. Those are impressive rankings (and wages), but ironically Durbin’s high earnings ultimately harmed her career. By the mid-’40s, her domestic box-office allure was beginning to fade, a situation surely worsened by World War II closing off most of Hollywood’s top international markets. As a result, Universal, since 1947 a new entity known as Universal-International, was unwilling to spend extra money in their star’s already costly vehicles. That’s a similar predicament to the one faced by silent-era superstar John Gilbert at MGM in the early ’30s: the studio had to pay Gilbert an exorbitant salary that made his movies much...

Ann Blyth on TCM: Kismet, Rose Marie, Our Very Own 8:00 Pm Mildred Pierce (1945). A woman turns herself into a business tycoon to win her selfish daughter a place in society. Dir: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, Zachary Scott, Ann Blyth, Eve Arden, Bruce Bennett. Bw-111 mins. 10:00 Pm Kismet (1955). In this Arabian Nights musical, the "king of the beggars" infiltrates high society when his daughter is wooed by a handsome prince. Dir: Vincente Minnelli. Cast: Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, Dolores Gray. C-113 mins. Letterbox Format. 12:00 Am All The Brothers Were Valiant (1953). Brothers on a whaling schooner become romantic rivals. Dir: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Ann Blyth. C-95 mins. 2:00 Am Our Very Own (1950). The discovery that she's adopted shakes a young girl's sense of security. Dir: Dave Miller. Cast: Ann Blyth, Farley Granger, Joan Evans, Jane Wyatt. Bw-93 mins. 4:00 Am Rose Marie...

Howard Keel on TCM Pt.2: Rose Marie, Pagan Love Song, Callaway Went Thataway Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Desperate Search (1953) A man fights to find his children after their plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. Dir: Joseph Lewis. Cast: Howard Keel, Jane Greer, Patricia Medina. Bw-71 mins. 7:15 Am Fast Company (1953) The heiress to a racing stable uncovers underhanded dealings. Dir: John Sturges. Cast: Howard Keel, Polly Bergen, Marjorie Main. Bw-68 mins. 8:30 Am Kismet (1955) In this Arabian Nights musical "king of the beggars" infiltrates high society when his daughter is wooed by a handsome prince. Dir: Vincente Minnelli. Cast: Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, Dolores Gray. C-113 mins, Letterbox Format. 10:30 Am Rose Marie (1954) A trapper's daughter is torn between the Mountie who wants to civilize her and a dashing prospector. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas, Bert Lahr, Marjorie Main.

Who is John Epperson? He’s an American drag artist, actor, pianist, vocalist and writer who is mainly known for creating the glamorous and hilarious drag character Lypsinka. Lypsinka was born in late 1988 when Epperson’s act was a late-night addition to the bill of Charles Busch’s Vampire Lesbians of Sodom at the Provincetown Playhouse in New York. His acts have since consisted of lip-synching to meticulously edited show-length soundtracks created from snippets of outrageous 20th-century female performances in movies and song. Ever since Epperson has appeared in full-length solo shows Off-Broadway, including The Boxed Set and As I Lay Lip-Synching. According to Epperson, the prototype for Lypsinka is stage actress Dolores Gray but other actresses who have influenced his work includes Ann-Margret, Charles Pierce, and Charles Ludlam.

Epperson has stated on various occasions that he preferred to be seen as an outsider saying, “When I see [gay] people who...

The British Board of Film Classification has cleared a trailer for a forthcoming double DVD release of Revenge of the Cybermen and Silver Nemesis.

Revenge of the Cybermen is a fourth Doctor story first shown in 1975. As well as Tom Baker it stars Elisabeth Sladen as Sarah Jane Smith and Ian Marter as Harry Sullivan. Written by Gerry Davis, the co-creator of the Cybermen, and Robert Holmes, the story is set on Nerva Beacon and on Voga the fabled planet of gold. It was the first story for the Cybermen since they appeared in the 1968 second Doctor story The Invasion and their last until Earthshock in 1982. Other cast members include Ronald Leigh-Hunt, Christopher Robbie, Jeremy Wilkin, William Marlowe, Michael Wisher, Kevin Stoney and David Collings. This story was the first Doctor Who story to be released on VHS in October 1983 with a retail price of £39.99.

Silver Nemesis was a seventh Doctor story,...