As recounted in Stefan Kanfer’s fantastic history of animation, Serious Business (1997), early in 1933, Walt Disney gave a personal tour of the Disney animation studio to movie star Mary Pickford. Disney was considering making a live-action version of Alice in Wonderland with Pickford in the title role, and in fact shot some test footage of the actress…
Letty Strong (Loretta Young) is a single mother, having given birth to her son, Mickey (Jackie Kelk), in the back room of a bookstore at the age of fifteen. She and her son were thereafter taken in by “Fuzzy” (Henry Travers), the owner of the store, who views the pair as his own. Letty…
Before High Anxiety, Mel Brooks starred in and directed Silent Movie (1976). The ultimate silent movie, it’s a silent film about creating a silent film. Aided by his two loyal associates, Dom Bell (Dom DeLuise) and Marty Eggs (Marty Feldman), Mel Funn (Mel Brooks) takes a silent film script to Hollywood, where he was once revered.…
Blogathons, blogathons, blogathons! It seems like every classic movie blog on the web is hosting one in the next couple of months. And that is not a complaint–it’s fantastic to see the interest in classic films that such blogathons tend to generate and promote among movie fans. We told you about several upcoming events in our…
Last year, Brandie found a cheap collection of random classic musicals (mainly from the 1940s) and gave it to Carrie as part of her Christmas present. Though the collection features a number of well-known classic Hollywood stars, most of the films are relatively obscure, and the prints are admittedly not the best quality (considering all…
Last week, the True Classics crew–all four of us–gathered in Birmingham at the historic Alabama Theatre to see the 1962 classic To Kill a Mockingbird on the big screen. Seeing films at the Alabama is an experience. There really is no other word for it. Stepping into the lavishly redecorated lobby–restored to its early splendor in…
Oscar-winning actress Celeste Holm passed away this morning at the age of ninety-five. Though she only starred in just over two dozen movies throughout the course of her career, the beautiful and talented Holm had a long life in Hollywood, as those films spanned the course of eight decades. Holm spent her early years on…
Thursday night, as part of a nationwide event sponsored by TCM, NCM Fathom, and Warner Bros., I had the pleasure of seeing Singin’ in the Rain (1952) on the big screen. Although I am very familiar with one of the happiest songs ever produced, I had never before seen the musical that it inspired.…
