Classic Hollywood

October 20, 2010

Classic Hollywood: Restoring Chaplin gems

For the first half of the 20th century, Charlie Chaplin was the most famous movie comedian in the world thanks to his endearing Tramp character and the masterpieces he wrote and directed, including "The Gold Rush," "City Lights," "Modern Times" and "The Great Dictator." But every genius has to start somewhere, and for Chaplin that was with the Keystone Film Co., where he honed his craft and created his iconic character — the baggy-pants, bowler-hatted Tramp.

October 13, 2010

An epic restoration effort

There will be a lot of history on display Monday night when the American Cinematheque presents Cecil B. DeMille's 1956 epic "The Ten Commandments" starring Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul Brynner as the power-mad pharaoh, Rameses — and not just of the biblical kind.

October 6, 2010

Classic Hollywood: Marlo Thomas reminisces on a life of laughter

When Marlo Thomas was a teenager, she was always crazy about some boy.

June 10, 2009

Classic Hollywood: Tony Curtis' ever-hot career

Tony Curtis, the 1950s matinee idol who developed into an acclaimed actor in such classics as "Some Like It Hot," "Sweet Smell of Success" and "The Defiant Ones," was in a reflective mood recently.

September 29, 2010

Classic Hollywood: Piper Laurie

Piper Laurie has been reflecting on her career of late, a career that has careened from B-movie "bimbo" roles to Oscar nominations — not to mention that bag full of condoms she once scored as a budding starlet.

September 22, 2010

Classic Hollywood: Film academy marks centenary of composer Alex North

Though Alex North ushered in a completely new sound in American film music, he wasn't a Young Turk when he arrived in Hollywood 60 years ago to pen the groundbreaking jazz-influenced score for "A Streetcar Named Desire."

September 15, 2010

Classic Hollywood: Martin Landau finds love

Martin Landau has worked with some of cinema's most accomplished filmmakers, including Alfred Hitchcock ("North by Northwest"), Francis Ford Coppola ("Tucker: The Man and His Dream"), Woody Allen ("Crimes and Misdemeanors") and Tim Burton ("Ed Wood").

September 1, 2010

Classic Hollywood: Rare films on display at Cinecon 46

The Cinecon Classic Film Festival is not for movie softies. It's for hard-core film buffs and historians who don't want to see the usual vintage fare that pops up on Turner Classic Movies or at revival theaters. So if you're looking to see "Casablanca," "Citizen Kane" or " It's a Wonderful Life," Cinecon isn't the festival for you.

August 25, 2010

Classic Hollywood: Florence Henderson returns to the stage

Florence Henderson takes her acting very seriously, but that doesn't mean she doesn't like to fool around now and then.

July 14, 2010

Classic Hollywood: Buster Keaton's silents and some early talkies

"Steamboat Bill, Jr." was Buster Keaton's last independent feature before making, as he would later say, the biggest mistake of his career by giving up his own studio and signing with MGM.

June 16, 2010

Classic Hollywood: William Link on 'Columbo'

Considering he's one of the most iconic of TV characters, the brilliant, rumpled bed of a detective Lt. Columbo had quite an inauspicious start.

March 10, 2010

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

Jean Renoir retrospective at LACMA

Extraordinary French film director Jean Renoir found the inspiration for one of his seminal early talkies, 1932's "Boudu Saved From Drowning," from an unlikely source -- the family pooch.

March 3, 2010

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

Hugh Hefner helps present a Humphrey Bogart retrospective

Hugh Hefner has a confession.

February 24, 2010

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

The book 'Starstruck' is one man's dream collection of vintage movie posters

Movie memorabilia collector Ira Resnick has had the same dream for years.

February 17, 2010

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

Elia Kazan, an actor's director

Elia Kazan was one of the consummate filmmakers of the 20th century, directing such classics as 1951's "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1954's "On the Waterfront" and 1955's "East of Eden." He won three Oscars, five Tony Awards and four Golden Globes.

January 27, 2010

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

Noel Coward's blithe spirit lives on

Noel Coward once described himself as "an enormously talented man, and there's no use pretending that I'm not."

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD

Peter Graves succeeds in an impossible mission

When Peter Graves was honored last month at the Ojai Film Festival with a lifetime achievement award, the 83-year-old actor was hoping they would screen Billy Wilder's 1953 classic "Stalag 17" in which he played a Nazi spy placed among American POWs in a German camp. Instead the festival chose "Airplane!," the 1980 box office hit disaster spoof in which he played Capt. Clarence Oveur, a pilot with a penchant for little boys -- "Joey, do you like movies about gladiators? . . . Have you ever seen a grown man naked?"

September 30, 2009

Classic Hollywood: Marge Champion still has the dance moves

During the late 1940s and throughout the '50s, there was no hotter dance team than Marge Champion and her second husband, Gower Champion.