Revisiting these films and their glorious woman stars was a good time. Unlocked article: wsj.com/arts-culture/b…

"What kind of a movie is this?" said Billy Wilder. "Ten minutes in, and I'm crying. And I'm not an easy audience--I laugh at Hamlet.

"Although the men I have known have had many virtues and have taken me to live in many places I have come to love, they have never been John Wayne, and they have never taken me to the bend in the river where the cottonwoods grow."-- Joan Didion

Wow--must be the first time a Frenchman has ever been slapped by his wife.

That scene in DESTINATION TOKYO where the submariners listen to the record made by their deceased shipmate's wife-- damn--

Sad tidings. Some years back, Leslie came to Brandeis and did a Q&A after CASABLANCA with Noah Isenberg He brought his father Philip's Oscar--made not of brass (because of WWII metal shortage) but painted plaster. A wonderful, warm, gracious man.

Jeffrey Hunter helped engineer what was perhaps the most moving episode of the consistently tear-jerking show THIS IS YOUR LIFE, on May 27, 1953, devoted to the life of Holocaust survivor Hanna Bloch Kohner. Hunter set her up—she thought the show was going to be about his life.

New piece for @cineaste_mag: a conversation with one of the best filmmakers of our time, Alain Guiraudie, about his latest film, Misericordia – possibly my favorite film from last year!

The Summer edition is now available! conta.cc/4ju7fMv

Barbara Stanwyck and Billy Wilder notwithstanding, I don't think anyone ever referred to the telephone as "the Ameche."

Joe Breen really pushed back against SMASH-UP (1947), basically the distaff version of THE LOST WEEKEND. It was one thing to see a drunken man, but a drunken woman would be intrinsically objectionable. But he couldn't find a way, under the Code, to deny it a seal. #TCMparty

DVR on stun for the telecast on CNN tonight of George Clooney’s GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK, about Edward R. Murrow’s SEE IT NOW broadcast on March 9, 1954. Here’s the New York Times ad, paid for by Murrow and producer Fred W. Friendly, when CBS refused to advertise it.

Let the arguments begin.

--and motion picture exhibitors in NYC noticed their houses were empty on Tuesday nights.

Great picture. When Garfield, just 39, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1952, a grieving Odets wrote a moving tribute to him in the NYT, blaming his friend’s premature death in part on the “witch hunters searching his closets.” “Julie, death friend, I shall always love you.”

Is AI writing for the NYT? "The release of the Steven Spielberg film in 1975 haunted the reputation of sharks." Huh?

The sketch was "so exhilarating strange that many remember sitting and listening, open-mouthed, when Danny presented it at the Monday writers' meeting. Nobody felt jealous because they couldn't imagine writing anything remotely like it."--from Hill and Weingrad's SATURDAY NIGHT.

Not least: Stuart was a dedicated member of the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League in the 1930s.

When Gary Cooper recited Gehrig's speech, which he reenacted in PRIDE OF THE YANKEES, in USO shows during WWII, he would leave hardened combat vets in tears.

Don't know anything about THIS SIDE OF THE LAW (1950), now on TCM's noir alley, but Variety says, "film opens with Kent Smith in an abandoned cistern, narrating how he came to be in the predicament," which is teaser enough for me.