By Movie StarAlfred HitchcockAudrey HepburnAva GardnerBarbara StanwyckBasil RathboneBette DavisBilly WilderBob HopeBoris KarloffBurt LancasterBuster KeatonCarole LombardCary GrantCharlie ChaplinClara BowClark GableClaudette ColbertDana AndrewsDeanna DurbinDebbie ReynoldsDoris DayElizabeth TaylorErnst LubitschErrol FlynnEsther WilliamsFranchot ToneFred AstaireFred MacMurrayGary CooperGene KellyGeorge CukorGinger RogersGloria SwansonGrace KellyGreer GarsonGregory PeckGreta GarboHarold LloydHedy LamarrHenry FondaHoward HawksHumphrey BogartIda LupinoIngrid BergmanIrene DunneJack BennyJack LemmonJames CagneyJames StewartJane RussellJean ArthurJean HarlowJeanette MacDonaldJeanne CrainJoan CrawfordJoan FontaineJohn FordJohn WayneJudy GarlandKatharine HepburnKay FrancisKirk DouglasLana TurnerLauren BacallLillian GishLon ChaneyLoretta YoungLouise BrooksMae WestMarilyn MonroeMarion DaviesMarlene DietrichMary AstorMary PickfordMickey RooneyMiriam HopkinsMyrna LoyNatalie WoodNorma ShearerOlivia de HavillandOrson WellesPaul NewmanPaulette GoddardPreston SturgesRichard WidmarkRita HayworthRobert MitchumRudolph ValentinoShirley TempleSidney PoitierSpencer TracySteve McQueenTeresa WrightTyrone PowerVincent PriceVivien LeighWilliam HoldenWilliam PowellWilliam WylerWoody Allen By HolidayNew Year's DayPresident's DayValentine's DayEasterMother's DayFather's DayMemorial DayJuly 4thLabor DayColumbus DayHalloweenThanksgivingChristmasBlack History MonthWomen's History Month All Blogs4 Star Films (3510)50 Most Influential Disney Animators (58)A Person in the Dark (367)All Good Things (815)Backlots (412)Caf? Muscato (572)Caftan Woman (904)Carole & Co. (3081)Cary Grant Won't Eat You (495)Cinema Crossroads (42)Cinematic Catharsis (936)Cinematically Insane (268)CineMaven's Essays from the Couch (152)Classic Cinema Gold (319)Classic Film & TV Cafe (1290)Classic Film Review (14)Classic Movie Hub Blog (1976)Classic Movie Man (986)Classic Movies (3247)Classic Reel Girl (95)Comet Over Hollywood (1350)Creme de la Creme (32)Criterion Blues (770)Critica Retro (1472)Curtains (58)Durnmoose Movie Musings (1105)Film Reviews and Anything Else I Get Inspired by (27)Finding Franchot: Exploring the Life and Career of Franchot Tone (161)Flickers in Time (2221)GlamAmor (587)Hitchcock Master (147)Hollywood Revue (532)Hometowns to Hollywood (870)How Sweet It Was (86)In The Good Old Days Of Classic Hollywood (154)Lady Eve's Reel Life (733)Le Mot du Cinephiliaque (945)Love Letters to Old Hollywood (150)MacGuffin Movies (362)Movies Silently (1029)Noir and Chick Flicks (1998)Noirish (1273)Once Upon a Screen (420)Outspoken and Freckled (140)Phantom Empires (60)Pop Culture ImagineMDD (103)Serendipitous Anachronisms (82)Shadows and Satin (1018)Silver Scenes - A Blog for Classic Film Lovers (1946)Smum County (115)Stardust and Shadows (120)Studies in Cinema (118)The Baz (164)The Blonde At The Film (331)The Bogie Film Blog (147)The Cinema Dilettante (110)The Giddy Blog (152)The Great Katharine Hepburn (240)The Hitless Wonder Movie Blog (1785)The Jeanette MacDonald Blog (94)The Man on the Flying Trapeze (643)The Old Hollywood Garden (465)The Timothy Carey Experience (1181)The Vintage Cameo (134)The Wonderful World of Cinema (639)Timeless Hollywood (73)True Classics (573)Virtual Virago (1635)Where Danger Lives (136)Wolffianclassicmoviesdigest (640)

Silver Screen Standards: The Devil Doll (1936) There’s nothing standard about the wild plot of the 1936 horror film, The Devil Doll, with its miniaturized zombie killers, mad scientists, use of drag as part of an elaborate scheme for revenge, and extensive special effects work showcasing its titu read more

California Gold Country Western Locations From Iverson Ranch to Lone Pine, Moab to Kanab, Corriganville to Pioneertown, I love visiting Western movie locations! This spring a road trip took us to California’s “Gold Country.”  St. James, Sonora We spent a day in the little towns read more

Georges Méliès Amongst The Stars Mankind dreamed of going to the moon and flying through the stars long before the actual rocket ships were invented. And at the turn of the 20th century, these dreams had a distinct tinge of Victorian whimsy. Poetry, fantasy stories, and the popular stage traditio read more

Stranger than Fiction – Part 2(Leon Ames and Ruth Roman) “Truth is stranger than fiction,” Mark Twain once informed us, “but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.”  This month’s Noir Nook serves up the next installment in my series that looks read more

The “national day” trend of recent years can be fun. National Doughnut Day (June 5) is something I celebrate every day, but I do take advantage of doughnut specials offered for this day. National Go Barefoot Day (June 1) is a big no for me (I always wear my socks), but you can go ahead and take read more

Courage and Cowardice in High Noon (1952) They say good help is hard to find, but Gary Cooper’s frontier marshal in High Noon (1952) experiences a life and death example of how difficult it is to get people to show up for you, even when it’s in their own best interest to do so. The iconic Western read more

Final Resting Places It’s time for another of my periodic tributes to Western filmmakers through sharing visits to their final resting places. This is one of the ways I reflect on what each person’s work has contributed to the Western genre, giving all of us many happy hours of entertainment. read more

A Closer Look At The Wind (1928) Lillian Gish, The Wind In 1927, cinema was famously experiencing a time of transition from the silent to talkies, kickstarted by the popularity of Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer (1927). Directors and stars would soon be faced with a decision, whether deliberate read more

Oh, the horrors of 1950s B-movies. And I’m not talking scary good, but scary bad. So many of the creative ideas for monsters were never realized because of low budgets and ridiculously short shooting schedules. Viewers accept that the creatures in these films might look cheap and even laughable, read more

Veda’s Villainy – Mildred’s Fault? One of my many favorite podcasts is Front Row Classics – the host, Brandon Davis, covers a wide variety of classic films, with a spate of first-rate guests, and in such interesting ways. An episode I heard recently centered on villains in classic films, read more

Classic Movie Travels: James Shigeta James Shigeta James Saburo Shigeta was born in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, on June 17, 1929, to Satoko Tamura Shigeta and Howard Koichi Shigeta. His father was a contractor who immigrated from Japan. Shigeta was a third-generation Japanese American, g read more

Love and Language in Ball of Fire (1941) With a title like Ball of Fire, you expect real fireworks, and this 1941 screwball comedy delivers them with spectacular energy and skill. There’s so much to love about the film that it’s hard to know where to start, much less how to boil it down to a read more

Classic Movie Travels: Vera-Ellen Vera-Ellen Vera-Ellen was born Vera-Ellen Rohe on February 16, 1921, in Norwood, Ohio, to Alma Westemeier and Martin Rohe. Her father worked as a piano tuner. Both parents were of German descent. Her mother wished to one day have a girl named Vera-Ellen, i read more

Cowboy Museums Over the last few months two prominent Southern California museums have featured exhibits on cowboys. To varying degrees, the exhibits included memorabilia about Western movies and movie cowboys.  In this month’s column I’ll be sharing photos from my visits. In Decem read more

Buster Keaton’s Motion Picture Debut: The First Five Films From our 21st century perspective, Buster Keaton’s upbringing was certainly unusual. Born to parents who made a modest living performing in travelling medicine shows, he became a performer himself at a very young age. Arguably a child read more

Noir Nook: Ripped from the HeadlinesShadow of a Doubt (1943) If you know your Alfred Hitchcock, you might be aware that of all the movies he directed between 1925 and 1976, he considered his favorite to be Shadow of a Doubt (1943), starring Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten. What you might not read more

Silver Screen Standards: The Mirror Crack’d (1980) While it’s not actually a film from the Golden Age of Hollywood, the 1980 Miss Marple whodunnit, The Mirror Crack’d, is set in 1953 and boasts a cast of powerhouse classic stars from that era, including Angela Lansbury as Agatha Christie’s read more

Just because we love classic horror – especially low-budget B-movies – doesn’t mean we have to watch bad prints of the films that we’re used to seeing online or in a public domain version. While searching for new video releases of old horror films to add to my collection, I was surpr read more

Walk the Proud Land (1956) Every year or so I like to review a new-to-me Audie Murphy film in my Western RoundUp column.  My previous Murphy review, Apache Rifles (1964), was published last April.  This year I’ve watched one of Murphy’s more unusual Western films, Walk the Proud read more

Silent Superstars: Rudolph Valentino, The Ultimate Screen Idol Rudolph Valentino How fortunate it was that a young Italian movie actor christened Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguella settled on the elegant “Rudolph Valentino” for his screen name. read more