Hooray for the ‘Discoveries’: lesser-known gems of TCM Fest 2024

Film
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When the TCM Classic Film Festival opens its 15th year in Hollywood this week, you may well choose to see some of the high-profile events at the festival—the star-studded opening night screening of Pulp Fiction, Lady Sings the Blues with co-star Billy Dee Williams in person, North by Northwest introduced by filmmaker Nancy Meyers, or ...

Marilyn could play comedy, or drama, according to her directors

Film
Henry Hathaway, on MM and high drama: I think her whole life might have changed in Darryl Zanuck would have let her  … I wanted to do Of Human Bondage with Marilyn and Jimmy Dean way back then … because after I did that picture with her [Niagra] I found her marvelous to work with, ...

Bullock’s Wilshire former retail glory @ Art Deco Society talk & screening 1

Architecture & Design · Film
A beacon of Art Deco wonderment, the iconic Bullock’s Wilshire Department Store still stands on Wilshire Boulevard. Designed by Parkinson and Parkinson in 1928, the legendary building is considered a preservation success story; it is now repurposed as the Southwestern School of Law’s law library. Eh. Okay. They dare not tear it down because among ...

Jack Cole’s pinnacle, “Ladies in Waiting” 3

Dance · Film
Mitzi Gaynor, at right above, in a sotto voce-hiss to Kay Kendall in Jack Cole‘s brilliant “Ladies in Waiting” dance sequence from LES GIRLS (MGM, 1957), delivers bad news. Their friend, Angele (Taina Elg) will soon be exposed to her fiancé and his proper family as a tawdry chorus girl. The number, full of drama ...

Oh la la! Jack Cole’s “Les Girls” from “Les Girls” (1957) 1

Dance · Film
The (by then) hugely experienced dance-on-film man Jack Cole choreographed the brilliant dance sequences in “Les Girls,” a movie musical directed by George Cukor in 1957. “Les Girls” is included in the upcoming TCM broadcast “Choreography by Jack Cole” on Turner Classic Movies September 10, 2012. I will co-host the evening with Robert Osborne. “Les ...