“I was thirteen, I lived in Inglewood, there were three movie theaters there. An old revival house was showing Cleopatra. Claudette was playing this woman [whose dress] had a strap this way, a strap that way. I saw things I never saw in my life.

“In the fifties, you thought all women’s breasts go outward to a point. Here, you see jiggle.

“Nothing hangs over the edge. the body is smooth and lovely.

“But Cleopatra’s handmaidens look period. They were from the Burlesque downtown.”

Nadoolman-Landis noted that although the film is shot in black and white, the costumes in Cleopatra were created in color. She said, “We have one dress that we’re putting in an upcoming display of Hollywood costume in London. It’s from the scene where Colbert is having her make-up done. It’s a heavy satin dress; it looks white, but it’s mint green.”

Mackie said that color was necessary for the actresses psychologically, even though it did not read in the final film.

“I worked in black-and-white television starting in 1963 with the Judy Garland show.”

Noodleman-Landis described Paramount’s gifted chief designer who was reknowned for dressing Mae West, Carole Lombard, Miriam Hopkins, and Marlene Dietrich: “His genius was apparent. People haven’t heard about him. If anyone wants to do a biography of him, now’s the time.”

Said Mackie, “When I first started designing for Cher, she didn’t want to look like anyone else. She wasn’t Sandra Dee. She was lean and long. She was a vamp.

“Recently, I went back and looked at Travis Banton’s fabulous Roman gowns for Cleopatra. And I thought, ‘I really knocked that movie off!’”

Travis Banton is a popular subject at arts·meme. Read more:

• Travis Banton turned tootsies into stars
• All hail Paramount costumer Travis Banton
• Travis Banton undresses Miriam Hopkins
• C.B.’s captivating “Cleopatra”
• Gaultier knocks off Bob Mackie’s thong for Cher

There’s a centralized ticket reservation website and it is here.

The 2012 edition of the Road to Hollywood tour includes:

New York City
The Ziegfeld Theatre
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)
World Theatrical Premiere Screening of 50th Anniversary Restoration hosted by Robert Osborne, with special guest Spike Lee
Thursday, March 1, tickets available February 15

Minneapolis
The Heights Theatre
MARNIE (1964) – hosted by Leonard Maltin, with special guest Tippi Hedren
Thursday, March 8, tickets available February 23

Houston
Museum of Fine Arts
ON THE WATERFRONT (1954) – hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, with special guest Eva Marie Saint
Wednesday, March 14, tickets available February 29

Philadelphia
Prince Music Theater
NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959) – hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, with special guest Eva Marie Saint
Thursday, March 15, tickets available March 1.

Miami
The Gusman Center for the Performing Arts
ELMER GANTRY (1960) – hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, with special guest Shirley Jones
Tuesday, March 20 , tickets available March 6

Atlanta
Richard H. Rich Theatre at Woodruff Arts Center
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS (1954) – hosted by Robert Osborne, with special guest Jane Powell
Thursday, March 22 , tickets available March 8

Chicago
Music Box Theatre
THE BIRDS (1963) – hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, with special guest Tippi Hedren
Tuesday, March 27, tickets available March 13

Toronto
TIFF Bell Lightbox
RIO BRAVO (1959) – hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, with special guest Angie Dickinson
Saturday, March 31 , tickets available March 16

Denver
The Mayan Theatre
SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS (1954) – Hosted by Leonard Maltin, with special guest Jane Powell
Tuesday, April 3, tickets available March 20

Portland
Whitsell Auditorium at the Portland Art Museum
MARTY (1955) – hosted by Ben Mankiewicz, with special guest Ernest Borgnine
Thursday, April 5, tickets available March 22

Like this? Read more:

• Chatting with Robert Osborne
• Hitchcock Stars Add Glamour to Film-Buff Cruise (The Huffington Post)
• TCM Classic Cruise thread 
• TCM Classic Film Festival 2011 thread 

I only can use a sound bite from him and, believe me, it’s going to be devoted to his memories of working for Jack Cole!

Read Chakiris’s stellar curriculum vitae …

He was one of the dancers in Marilyn Monroe‘s “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” number in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and appeared as a dancer alongside Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas (in the “Love, You Didn’t Do Right by Me” number). He can also be seen in the “Chop Suey” number in the musical film Flower Drum Song and the funeral dance in the MGM musical film Brigadoon.

{note: the “Flower Drum Song” credential is apparently incorrect. please read comment below.}

For the film West Side Story (1961), Chakiris won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Bernardo, leader of the “Sharks”. Prior to the film, he’d appeared as “Riff,” leader of the “Jets,” in the musical’s London production. He appeared alongside Gene Kelly in Jacques Demy‘s French musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967).

Chakiris is still very handsome and fit, lives in the Hollywood Hills, and makes exquisite hand-crafted jewelry. Will keep you posted.

Indeed d’Amboise’s name, well-known considering he’s “just” a dancer, buzzed around the Festival screening room when the credit scrolled at the end of “Seven Brides”: “Jacques d’Amboise, courtesy of New York City Ballet.”

D’Amboise is very young in the film, and they keep him quiet, possibly to mum up his huge Bronx accent. He’s surrounded by dance giants, among them Marc Platt and Tommy Rall, the latter who Academy of Dance on Film founder, Larry Billman, calls, “the best dancer — ever.”

At his book talk, D’Amboise tells a funny story about waiting between takes on the set, and Rall stands up and with no warmup or preparation whatsoever, rips off multiple triple tours en l’air. D’Amboise, half laughing, admits that to this day, he has no clue why Rall did it. Boredom, d’Amboise conjectures. Dancers spend gobs of time sitting around, waiting, when making movies.

In “Seven Brides,” it’s the tall lanky Jack Cole dancer, Matt Mattox, who captures my eye. What a dancer. He has that hard-core Jack Cole iron gut. He’s still around, in France. A beautiful dancer who went on to choreograph and be a seminal jazz-dance teacher.

SEVEN BRIDES FOR SEVEN BROTHERS

MGM, 1954, Color, 102 minutes

Produced by: Jack Cummings
Directed by: Stanley Donen
Assistant Director: Ridgeway Callow
Screen Play by: Albert Hackett & Frances Goodrich and Dorothy Kingsley
Musical Direction: Adolph Deutsch
Musical Supervision: Saul Chaplin
Lyrics by: Johnny Mercer
Music by: Gene DePaul
Orchestrations: Alexander Courage, Conrad Salinger and Leo Arnaud
Dances and Musical Numbers Staged by: Michael Kidd
Set Decorations: Edwin B. Willis, Hugh Hunt
Costumes Designed by: Walter Plunkett

Filmed in CinemaScope, Color by Ansco

Awards:
Academy Award for Best Score, Musical
Academy Award Nominations for Best Picture, Best Screenplay , Best Color Cinematography and Best Film Editing

Cast:
Howard Keel (Adam Pontipee),
Jane Powell (Milly),
Jeff Richards (Benjamin Pontipee),
Russ Tamblyn (Gideon Pontipee),
Nancy Kilgas (Alice),
Tommy Rall (Frank Pontipee),
Betty Carr (Sarah),
Marc Platt (Daniel Pontipee),
Virginia Gibson (Liza),
Matt Mattox (Caleb Pontipee),
Jacques d’Amboise (Ephraim Pontipee)

The occasion was the publishing of Mindy Aloff’s super book, “Hippo in a Tutu: Dancing in Disney Animation.”

Mindy, a dance critic and Barnard College professor, describes how, under [Walt's brother] Roy Disney’s influence, “dancing and music were given very high priority in terms of quality and in terms of refinement of technology” at Disney studios. Aloff then dons her severe dance critic’s hat, and notes that “Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse were both very good dancers.”

A separate CBS interview with Marge (please bear with the commercial), intimates how Disney artists extrapolated animation from Marge’s dancing:

Watch the full 34-minute “Pillow Talk” interview here.

The upcoming Turner Classic Film festival in Los Angeles will feature a tribute to Disney animation & music.

I'm very excited to see PETER PAN (1924), the delicious silent film offering of the Los Angeles Conservancy's annual summer film fest, Last Remaining Seats at the Orpheum Theatre Wednesday night. It's the film event of the summer.

The über-gorgeous Anna May Wong plays (an American Indian) Tiger Lily in this early version of the James M. Barrie tale.

An L.A. girl from her birth here in 1905 till her death in Santa Monica in 1961, Wong ranked among early cinema's top exotic beauties. Her screen persona was distinctive and, in retrospect, controversial.  

(To see Anna May Wong hanging out with Marlene Dietrich and German director Leni Reifenstahl, click here.)

In 1935 MGM refused to consider Wong for the leading role in THE GOOD EARTH, instead casting German-born actress Luise Rainer to play O-Lan in "yellow face." The lovely Luise was just honored at last month's TCM fest.

Anna May Wong's story is beautifully told in a documentary that aired in 2008 on Turner Classic Movies.

Another important Chinese-American artist contributing to "Peter Pan" is cinematographer James Wong Howe. We just saw Howe's gritty New York City location shooting in SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) at TCM Fest. I thought the camera work was the film's best element – and that's saying a lot in view of its hard-boiled Clifford Odets dialogue and great performances by its two leading men.

Leonard Maltin, who always does a fantastic job, will host the "Peter Pan" screening at the sumptuous and tasteful Orpheum. Organist Robert Israel will thump on the vintage theater's mighty (original) Wurlitzer.

This theater has 2,000 seats. Repeat: 2,000 seats. Wait till you see the throngs of Angelenos queuing outside this grand remnant of Broadway's prior glory, when the boulevard was home to eleven movie palaces.

Unbelievable kid-style fun for grown ups.

Peter Pan | Los Angeles Conservancy's "Last Remaining Seats" | Orpheum Theatre | Wednesday June 30

Like this?  Read more about Last Remaining Seats:

• Liza in CABARET
• Marilyn & Jane in GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES
  

Yes, arts•meme, when she isn’t kvelling over Mozart or Balanchine, likes a good western!

Film critic Leonard Maltin and actor Ernest Borgnine, the prodigious character actor who co-stars with Ford and Rod Steiger in the film, chatted after the screening. The feisty Borgnine is still in fine fettle.

“[JUBAL] was a wonderful shoot,” he stated. “The director, Delmer Daves, one of the least known men in Hollywood, was a gentleman of the first order and he made a beautiful picture.” These were Borgnine’s emphatic opening words, delivered unapologetically. “I’m so sorry to see westerns aren’t being made anymore.”

How did an Italian kid from Connecticut learn to be a movie cow hand?

“There were no lessons,”  he said. “You rode. You had to. For a job.  Everyone had to make westerns. We were happy to go out on location. You were just one of the group.”

He noted, “Glenn Ford was the most magnificent rider ever. He was a tremendous rider.”

Borgnine peppered the  conversation with good sound bites: Spencer Tracy? “An actor’s actor.” Lee Marvin: “That rascal!” JUBAL co-star Rod Steiger? “Rod Steiger was Rod Steiger, ” he said to great laughter.

Winningly calling movies “pictures,” he modestly ducked compliments on his outings in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY and THE WILD BUNCH. But when asked about his Academy Award-winning role in MARTY, Borgnine admitted: “I thought it was a good picture, too.”

The love story-turned-sour reminds us of the negative trajectory of Flaubert’s Madame Bovary or, frankly, of the many noir potboilers in which a gorgeous, scheming woman pulls down a good-hearted but naive man.

Cinematographer Leon Shamroy won an Oscar for the film’s picture-postcard tour of Taos, New Mexico, Warm Springs, Georgia, and Bar Harbor, Maine. Depicting a sumptuous bourgeois existence amidst the most beautiful landscapes the country has to offer, the film serves as a roadmap for American middle-class aspirations that would explode in the 1950s. Interestingly, it’s all about taming nature.

Gazing at the beautiful Ms. Tierney as she wafts through this film, we noted her striking resemblance to arts•meme‘s mother.

Or is it the other way around?

Former child actor Darryl Hickman, interviewed by genial TCM host Robert Osborne in a post-screening curtain talk, is seen here going down fast in an cold Maine lake while mademoiselle sits gripping the oars of the boat (see photo, above). According to Hickman, the scene took three weeks to complete and left him with zero good feelings toward either Ms. Tierney or the film’s director John M. Stahl. The lake drowning anticipates George Stevens’ better known, gender-reversed version for Monty Clift and Shelly Winters in A PLACE IN THE SUN (1951).

Yesterday at TCM Fest, I met a handsome, well dressed actor named Vincent DePaul who was still glowing after his luncheon with Luise Rainer.

The 100-year old German-born actress is being honored at today’s TCM Classic Film Fest screening of The Good Earth (1937).

Vincent shared this photo with me.