Proud Olivia

Ms. de Havilland is back... In the nineteen-fifties, Olivia de Havilland was married and living in Paris with her husband and two children, but she still made films now and then. In 1958 she starred in The Proud Rebel opposite Alan Ladd. A somewhat gentle story for a western, the film follows a Confederate veteran as …

Stage To Screen: Gigi

The 1958 film, Gigi, is commonly thought to herald the end of the Golden Age of Musicals. Before that, however, it was a Broadway hit. Before that, it was a French film. And even before that, it was a novella by Colette. The story of wandering eyes and changing impressions is as light and airy …

Page to Screen: The Diary of Anne Frank

If she had lived, Anne Frank would be ninety-one this year. Her diary, technically known in English as Anne Frank: The Diary of A Young Girl, was first published in the Netherlands in 1947. The diary has been translated into sixty-five languages, sold over thirty-five million copies and is one of the most widely-read books outside …

The Terrible Miss Dove

Today is my son's last day of seventh grade. One more year and he'll be in high school. He's over the moon about it (and about summer vacation, of course), but I'm not ready for this. My kid is growing up too fast. Wow. Wow. Wow. In that spirit, I thought it would be cool …

Lucky Lindy

Seven years from now will be the one-hundredth anniversary of Charles Lindbergh's transatlantic flight. Isn't that amazing? It used to be that people could barely move while planes were in the air because of ballast, and now commercial flights have wifi and comfy seats with lots of legroom, not to mention weirdly catchy safety videos. …

Finding Answers With Ben-Hur

Time to hit the books... Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ is quite the novel and quite the enticing story for filmmakers. Every time it's been brought to the screen it takes people's breath away with the emotion, the politics, and the relationships, all woven together with the life and ministry of Jesus. Its author, …

Page To Screen: A Night To Remember

The late Walter Lord is kind of a legend among Titanic buffs and historians. When he wrote A Night To Remember, which was published in 1955, he basically inspired the public fascination with the ship that continues today. Pretty much every book written about the Titanic uses Walter Lord's work as a source because he's that OG. How did Lord …

Fatima In Hollywood

Bom dia... The fifties are somewhere we've all been to in terms of Hollywood movies, and we know it was an interesting time in the film industry. Big bad television and blacklisting made the studios rather nervous, and subjects that were once avoided now seemed safe. Religion was one of those, and Christian-centered films of …

Shamedown #9: Touch of Evil

Well, lookee what we have here...another Shamedown. Anyone who's new to the blog and is wondering what the heck this is all about, please visit Cinema Shame. Orson Welles's relationship with Hollywood was always a contentious one, but by the late nineteen-fifties, a few things were changing. A lot of the old guard executives had …

Shelley Makes A Statement

And here's Ms. Winters... I don't know about everyone else, but when I think of Shelley Winters, I think of a funny lady who also looks like she could pop someone, like a cross between Lucille Ball and Betty Hutton. When Winters played Petronella van Daan in 1959's The Diary of Anne Frank, it combined everything the …

Stage To Screen: Mister Roberts

They say that truth is stranger than fiction, and some life experiences beg to be made into stories. Mister Roberts is one of those. Originally a novel by Thomas Heggen, it was published in 1946, premiered as a play in 1948, and released as a film in 1955. The story takes place very late in the war. …

Private Diva

Hello, Ms. Russell... Rosalind Russell was nothing if not versatile, and like a lot of stars during the petering out of the studio era, went free agent. Along with her husband, Fredrick Brisson, she even produced a few films for her own studio, Independent Artists, such as 1953's Never Wave At A WAC. Shot at Walt Disney …

My Five Favorite 50s Films

Happy National Classic Movie Day! Every year, Rick of Rick's Film and TV Cafe poses a question to the blogging world, and it's always a good surprise. Usually, but not exclusively, the number five figures into things somewhere, and this is one of those times. This year, Rick wants to know which films of the …