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We continue our series honoring old Hollywood stars who passed away in 2014 with the remarkable Shirley Temple.  Shirley Temple's bright smile and sunny optimism brought joy to millions of Americans during the the Great Depression. Temple was the biggest movie star in the world throughout read more

Cocktail Party Vintage Hollywood Style Recipes "The Garbo cocktail will make you act like a star? One of Hollywood's little Bing Crosby likes the Bogey best worries just now is that bartenders, without permission, are naming innumerable drinks for motion picture stars.  "The Garbo cocktail read more

Due to such high traffic on the site from Peter Lorre related searches, this week’s episode of The Bogart Film Affair podcast highlights the life and career of Peter Lorre and all five films he collaborated on with Bogart! Check it out on iTunes here. or podomatic.com here! Have a great week! read more

I come from a long line of bad cooks. My mother was way ahead of her peers with the natural foods craze, but, like a new vegan, she never learned to substitute anything for the bacon grease she’d been raised with; everything she made was bland. When we visited my maternal grandmother’s, all of our read more

I’ve already mentioned on more than one occasion that it was Thomas Edison’s studio that brought many a classic piece of literature to the screen for, if not the first, one of the first times. Here’s a very brief and very early filmic rendition of one of my favorite all-time storie read more

I come from a long line of bad cooks. My mother was way ahead of her peers with the natural foods craze, but, like a new vegan, she never learned to substitute anything for the bacon grease she’d been raised with; everything she made was bland. When we visited my maternal grandmother’s, all of our read more

Wintertime Film Funks Buster Keaton Here's something I never thought would happen in a million years: it's the holiday season and I'm in a classic film funk. I know, right?! How is this possible?! God is probably up there on a cloud shaking his head in bewilderment at me right now. My poor read more

By Fritzi Kramer on December 7, 2014 in Blog, Feature, Silent Movie Review William S. Hart is the proprietor of a successful gambling house. Some clown gets the brilliant idea of robbing him at gunpoint. This goes over about as well as you might expect. The problem? The dead man’s innocent and penn read more

This is a short film you’ve likely seen by now. I lost count of how many times I saw it in film school. It may not be my favorite, but it is a textbook example of structuring a short and building a tale visually. Enjoy! read more

  Nevermore! Eclair and Essanay Pursue ‘The Raven’ As recent as 2012, Edgar Allan Poe has been portrayed in a medium which he never lived to see. His works and his life have provided ample material for film. In fact, his work has inspired two notable studios in the early days of fil read more

By Fritzi Kramer on December 3, 2014 in Blog, Feature, Silent Movie Review William S. Hart’s first feature film is also a real corker. He plays a bandit who decides to trade it all in for an honest life but who soon realizes that going straight is a lot harder than it looks. After some misadv read more

  Reboots and Reels: Remakes and the Early Days of Film Remakes, reboots, and reimaginings seem to have flooded the film industry in recent years. Superhero and comic book-based films seem to be most susceptible to most reimaginings and reboots, but everything from dramas to horror films have b read more

Sunday, December 7th THE HISTORY OF FASHION IN FILM NOIR 1:00 pm - 2:30 pmGuest speakerSkirball Cultural CenterLos Angeles, CAWartime America bore witness to shortages of common fashion materials ranging from silk to rubber.  Even with rationing and restrictions imposed on the entire cou read more

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Not too much to write this week since I’m still sleeping off my tryptophan overdose, but enjoy this week’s installment of ‘The Bogart Film Affair’ podcast as we dive into Beat the Devil! It’s a cult classic for sure, and if you enjoyed our read more

By Fritzi Kramer on November 30, 2014 in Blog, Feature, Silent Movie Review The Phantom of the Opera was a movie that no one really wanted to make. Its production was troubled from the very beginning. From professional spats to last-minute recuts and reshoots, it had disaster written across it. So read more

I believe in nothing before its time, which is why even though I’ve seen it, and it’s already quite popular on YouTube; I am only posting this holiday-themed film from Burberry now. While I have discussed in the past that commercial-films can be artful (See example one and two). This one read more

For the last five years, the Cafe's staff has offered its recommendations for holiday gift ideas for your favorite classic film and television fan. This year, we're doing something a little different--it's our first video post, hosted by regular Cafe contributor Toto. If you can't view the embedded read more

By Fritzi Kramer on November 23, 2014 in Blog, Feature, Silent Movie Review One of the most famous silent films ever made, one that gets shown time and again in art history classes. Yet, most of us have never seen it in its original form. Decades of censorship, re-editing and other tinkering have r read more

This post is my hopelessly late contribution to the excellent British Empire in Film Blogathon (thank you, crippling four-day migraine). Go check out some of the other fine entries! When you’re done reading this one, of course. George More O’Ferrall’s The Heart of the Matter is an read more

This is an important short film on a number of levels: In no particular order: it was added to the National Film Registry in 1998, it’s topical yet again and always has been; and it’s a Chaplin film that works as a great intro to his work as an actor, writer and director just to name a f read more