Book Review: The Elephants of Shanghai (2013)

Jack Hunter made a name for himself as “Action Jack,” star of a series of adventure flicks in the 1930s. But by 1942, the world is at war, he’s retired from the screen, and he’s living on a ranch with his fellow survivors from a previous jungle adventure: his wife, Max; her nephew, Tyler, and…

Tragic Love in the Latin Quarter: Lillian Gish and La Bohème

Giacomo Puccini’s 1896 Italian opera La bohème has seen many forms in the century since its first performance in Turin. The story–itself borrowed from Henri Murger’s 1851 collection Scènes de la vie de bohème–has been retold in many forms, with and without the music. It’s been made into films, produced in countless venues featuring storied performers like…

Orson Welles, Mary Wickes, and Too Much Johnson

You know how sometimes you read something, and then something tangentially related to what you’ve only recently finished reading pops up somewhere, and you think, “My, that’s an odd coincidence?” That was the feeling I had earlier when I caught sight of an LA Times article entitled, “Long-lost early Orson Welles film ‘Too Much Johnson’ recovered.” A…

Big Screenings: Lawrence of Arabia at The Fox

On Sunday afternoon, I was excited to join Jill Blake–owner of Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence–and her husband, Thomas, for a screening of the 1962 David Lean epic Lawrence of Arabia at the “Fabulous” Fox Theatre in Atlanta. True Classics’ own Sarah, an Atlanta native, has posted about her love for the Fox before, when she reported…