Poised for paw prints at TCM Classic Film Fest 2024: Jodie Foster

Film
Hollywood has special affection for kid actors. The best of them are survivors, and craftspeople for whom the presence of a a movie camera is nearly an extension of their own selves. And that well describes the natural way that Jodie Foster, grabbed attention at age ten in her first movie, Alice Doesn’t Live Here ...

Jeff Beck: Death of a great guitarist. Maiming of his marquee by Orpheum Theatre

Architecture & Design · Music
nov 6 2022 marquee photo courtesy jeff mantor ed. note: The heartbreaking and unwelcome news of the death of legendary rock guitarist, Jeff Beck, sent us careening to an earlier time and place. But for a theater full of his Los Angeles fans, that time and place was the Orpheum Theatre just two months ago, ...

Grauman’s Chinese Theatre buried in chazzerai at TCM Fest

Architecture & Design · Film
It’s still going, more or less. The quaint tradition begun by showman Sid Grauman at his Chinese Theatre (which by some miracle, still stands): hands, feet, and autographs plonked into a square of still-wet cement. The photo above was taken from across Hollywood Boulevard looking toward the footprint ceremony for Cicely Tyson at TCM Fest ...

Our critic’s game plan for TCM Fest 2014

Film
by 
Ramping up for the opening night of TCM Fest, we heard from our intrepid film critic Robert Koehler, who plans his festival as follows: I’m putting an emphasis on the world premiere restorations.The festival happens to slotting a few of these directly opposite each other on Saturday, when the vast majority of them are screening. ...

3-D Wizard of Oz at the Chinese 1

Film
We’re pleased to re-publish this wonderful essay by guest writer, Jan-Christopher Horak, Director of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, who first wrote it for his blog at the Archive. *         *         * Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd. is an iconic landmark of the studio era. Any day of the week you can find ...

Hollywood royalty, the Fonda family

Film
Concurrent to her own hand-and-foot print ceremony at the erstwhile Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, now called TCL Chinese Theatre, Jane Fonda and her brother Peter paid a visit to their Dad’s sidewalk square. Fonda père cemented his Hollywood legacy with an enduring note to the theme-theater’s original owner/developer: “To Sid, A Great Guy, Henry ...

Streisand’s “Funny Girl” on Grauman’s big screen 2

Fashion · Film
Director William Wyler’s “Funny Girl,” TCM Fest 2013‘s opening-night film, vividly restored and splashed across Grauman’s huge screen, proved a tour de force beyond our memory of it. In her motion picture debut, Barbra Streisand performs in every possible context: she’s sings in comic numbers and torch songs; she sings while dancing and amidst love ...

Something’s coming … tonight at Grauman’s Chinese Theater, “West Side Story” 50th birthday party

Dance · Film
1961 marquee In a great American pas de deux, George Chakiris partners Rita Moreno in “Dance at the Gym.” Co-choreographer Peter Gennero added sizzle to Robbins’s choreography in this number, so says dance-in-film historian Larry Billman. Jerome Robbins smiles.  Thank you Lynn Becker and Doc Macro for the WSS images.

Something’s comin’, I dunno what it is, but it is, gonna be great! 1

Dance · Film
arts·meme Facebook pal Marcus Galante shares this crazy capture of a gangland ballet class on the set of the film, West Side Story. The commandant, Jerome Robbins. Now, we’ve seen ballet instructors wielding sticks, batons, no, not clubs, but sometimes microphones. The bullhorn’s a new one. [Click photo for detail.] Looking forward to the  big ...

Please do not discriminate.

Film
Like “Gentlemen”? Read more: Girl power