Ed Maverick is making the saddest song on Peso Pluma’s Génesis even sadder. On Thursday, the Mexican indie singer-songwriter released a cover of “Lagunas,” Peso’s track with Jasiel Nuñez about forcing himself to stay away from someone he loves so that he can heal.
“Perhaps in another galaxy things were different,” sings Maverick in his distinct melancholic voice. “Perhaps there we’d have what we always had wanted.”
“Lagunas” was the second-to-last track on Génesis and hears Peso and Nuñez introspecting following the conclusion of a relationship backed by soft guitars and requinto.
“Perhaps in another galaxy things were different,” sings Maverick in his distinct melancholic voice. “Perhaps there we’d have what we always had wanted.”
“Lagunas” was the second-to-last track on Génesis and hears Peso and Nuñez introspecting following the conclusion of a relationship backed by soft guitars and requinto.
- 12/22/2023
- by Tomás Mier
- Rollingstone.com
She received five Academy Award nominations in ten years, winning for Best Actress twice. She was the spunky heroine to Errol Flynn’s dashing adventurer. She was Melanie, the sweet, compassionate counterpart to the spoiled, passionate Scarlett. And she became one of the oldest-living survivors of the Golden Age of Hollywood until her death at age 104 in 2020.
Olivia de Havilland was born July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to British parents. Her sister, actress Joan Fontaine, was born 15 months later. Her parents divorced when the girls were young, and her mother eventually settled in California with her two daughters. Growing up, de Havilland enjoyed performing in amateur stage productions. Although she originally planned to become a teacher, a role in one of those amateur productions, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, changed her fate. She was discovered, eventually cast in the Hollywood Bowl production of that play, and then in the 1935 film adaptation.
Although...
Olivia de Havilland was born July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to British parents. Her sister, actress Joan Fontaine, was born 15 months later. Her parents divorced when the girls were young, and her mother eventually settled in California with her two daughters. Growing up, de Havilland enjoyed performing in amateur stage productions. Although she originally planned to become a teacher, a role in one of those amateur productions, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, changed her fate. She was discovered, eventually cast in the Hollywood Bowl production of that play, and then in the 1935 film adaptation.
Although...
- 6/24/2023
- by Susan Pennington, Misty Holland and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Billy Wilder was the six-time Oscar winner who left behind a series of classically quotable features from Hollywood’s Golden Age, crafting sharp witted and darkly cynical stories that blended comedy and pathos in equal measure. Let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Wilder was born to a family of Austrian Jews in 1906. After working as a journalist, he developed an interest in filmmaking and collaborated on the silent feature “People on Sunday” (1929) with fellow rookies Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer. With the rise of Adolph Hitler, Wilder fled to Paris, where he co-directed the feature “Mauvaise Graine” (1934). Tragically, his mother, stepfather and grandmother all died in the Holocaust.
After moving to Hollywood, Wilder enjoyed a successful career as a screenwriter, earning Oscar nominations for penning 1939’s “Ninotchka” and 1941’s “Hold Back the Dawn” and “Ball of Fire.” He...
Wilder was born to a family of Austrian Jews in 1906. After working as a journalist, he developed an interest in filmmaking and collaborated on the silent feature “People on Sunday” (1929) with fellow rookies Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer. With the rise of Adolph Hitler, Wilder fled to Paris, where he co-directed the feature “Mauvaise Graine” (1934). Tragically, his mother, stepfather and grandmother all died in the Holocaust.
After moving to Hollywood, Wilder enjoyed a successful career as a screenwriter, earning Oscar nominations for penning 1939’s “Ninotchka” and 1941’s “Hold Back the Dawn” and “Ball of Fire.” He...
- 6/17/2023
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Olivia de Havilland was an iconic figure in the history of film. Her performances spanned over an incredible four decades, and she consistently displayed a timeless elegance and grace on-screen. A four-time Academy Award winner as well as recipient of numerous other awards and accolades, her acting remains some of the most iconic of all time.
In this post, we will explore the life and career of this legendary actress. We will take a look at some of her most memorable performances, as well as discuss how she influenced the course of film history. We will also discuss why de Havilland’s legacy endures to this day, and why her work continues to inspire actors and filmmakers around the world.
So join us as we honor Olivia de Havilland’s incredible career, her timeless style and grace, and her immense contributions to the movie industry.
A Star Is Born: Olivia...
In this post, we will explore the life and career of this legendary actress. We will take a look at some of her most memorable performances, as well as discuss how she influenced the course of film history. We will also discuss why de Havilland’s legacy endures to this day, and why her work continues to inspire actors and filmmakers around the world.
So join us as we honor Olivia de Havilland’s incredible career, her timeless style and grace, and her immense contributions to the movie industry.
A Star Is Born: Olivia...
- 5/11/2023
- by Movies Martin Cid Magazine
- Martin Cid Magazine - Movies
If you read our Gold Derby combined odds for Oscar Best Picture, you see that the race is over and “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is about to be crowned at the Academy Awards on March 12. But the favorite doesn’t always win the horserace. Upsets happen. The longshot comes in. Jaws drop. Calculations go awry. Something that no one could see coming winds up coming in. Chaos reigns.
And we love it.
If there is anything we’ve learned, it’s that there are no guarantees. Films that the majority think should have won, don’t. That’s particularly true in hindsight. “Citizen Kane,” widely regarded as the finest film of the 20th century, lost. So did the film many consider to be Martin Scorsese’s best, “Raging Bull.” “Moonlight” beat “La La Land.” “Crash” upset “Brokeback Mountain.” “Shakespeare in Love” upended “Saving Private Ryan.” “Chariots of Fire” snared the trophy over “Reds.
And we love it.
If there is anything we’ve learned, it’s that there are no guarantees. Films that the majority think should have won, don’t. That’s particularly true in hindsight. “Citizen Kane,” widely regarded as the finest film of the 20th century, lost. So did the film many consider to be Martin Scorsese’s best, “Raging Bull.” “Moonlight” beat “La La Land.” “Crash” upset “Brokeback Mountain.” “Shakespeare in Love” upended “Saving Private Ryan.” “Chariots of Fire” snared the trophy over “Reds.
- 2/25/2023
- by Ray Richmond
- Gold Derby
May on the Criterion Channel will be good to the auteurs. In fact they’re giving Richard Linklater better treatment than the distributor of his last film, with a 13-title retrospective mixing usual suspects—the Before trilogy, Boyhood, Slacker—with some truly off the beaten track. There’s a few shorts I haven’t seen but most intriguing is Heads I Win/Tails You Lose, the only available description of which calls it a four-hour (!) piece “edited together by Richard Linklater in 1991 from film countdowns and tail leaders from films submitted to the Austin Film Society in Austin, Texas from 1987 to 1990. It is Linklater’s tribute to the film countdown, used by many projectionists over the years to cue one reel of film after another when switching to another reel on another projector during projection.” Pair that with 2008’s Inning by Inning: A Portrait of a Coach and your completionism will be on-track.
- 4/21/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
For almost 100 years, the motion picture academy has honored the best in film, but many times the winners aren’t always the best remembered, or the films that go on to become classics. At the 14th ceremony, “How Green Was My Valley” famously won Best Picture over “Citizen Kane,” now considered by most filmmakers, historians and cinephiles as the greatest movie ever made – and even those who disagree acknowledge its profound influence on the industry. Additionally, there were quite a few now-classic films and performances that either didn’t win, or were snubbed altogether. Let’s flashback 80 years ago to the 1942 Oscars ceremony.
SEE15 biggest Oscar Best Picture upsets, ranked
Hosted by Bob Hope, the ceremony took place on February 26, less than three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and a month after beloved actress Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash – while returning home after selling war bonds.
SEE15 biggest Oscar Best Picture upsets, ranked
Hosted by Bob Hope, the ceremony took place on February 26, less than three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and a month after beloved actress Carole Lombard was killed in a plane crash – while returning home after selling war bonds.
- 1/27/2022
- by Susan Pennington
- Gold Derby
Auteur! Auteur! Four of this year’s Best Director Oscar nominees — Chloe Zhao (“Nomadland”), Emerald Fennell (“Promising Young Woman”), Lee Isaac Chung (“Minari”) and Thomas Vinterberg (“Another Round”) — have a writing credit on their films. Zhao, Fennell and Chung reaped bids for their scripting efforts.
Over the past decade, the majority of the Oscar-winning directors were also nominated for their screenplays. Last year, Boon Joon-Ho won Best Director and shared in the Original Screenplay award with Han Jan for their work on the Best Picture champ “Parasite.”
Though writer/directors getting Oscar love is the norm these days, that wasn’t always the case. When nominations were announced for the first Academy Awards, Charlie Chaplin was cited for both Best Actor and Comedy Direction for his 1928 masterpiece “The Circus,” which he also wrote and produced. But the academy decided to withdraw his name from the competitive classes and decided “that...
Over the past decade, the majority of the Oscar-winning directors were also nominated for their screenplays. Last year, Boon Joon-Ho won Best Director and shared in the Original Screenplay award with Han Jan for their work on the Best Picture champ “Parasite.”
Though writer/directors getting Oscar love is the norm these days, that wasn’t always the case. When nominations were announced for the first Academy Awards, Charlie Chaplin was cited for both Best Actor and Comedy Direction for his 1928 masterpiece “The Circus,” which he also wrote and produced. But the academy decided to withdraw his name from the competitive classes and decided “that...
- 3/28/2021
- by Susan King
- Gold Derby
Daniel Walber's series on Production Design. Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.
Olivia de Havilland was in nine films that were nominated for the Oscar for Best Production Design. It’s not the record, but it’s quite something. I’ve covered three of them: Hold Back the Dawn, My Cousin Rachel and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. But none of those actually won the award, so I still have some work to do. I haven’t got time for Gone with the Wind, and The Adventures of Robin Hood can wait a few weeks until our 1938 celebration, so I dove into The Heiress.
I hope you’re ready to think deeply about embroidery.
Granted, I’m not entirely sure director William Wyler was thinking deeply about his protagonist’s favorite pastime. The emphasis on Catherine Sloper’s (de Havilland) stitching can feel like little more than shorthand for “spinster” status.
Olivia de Havilland was in nine films that were nominated for the Oscar for Best Production Design. It’s not the record, but it’s quite something. I’ve covered three of them: Hold Back the Dawn, My Cousin Rachel and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. But none of those actually won the award, so I still have some work to do. I haven’t got time for Gone with the Wind, and The Adventures of Robin Hood can wait a few weeks until our 1938 celebration, so I dove into The Heiress.
I hope you’re ready to think deeply about embroidery.
Granted, I’m not entirely sure director William Wyler was thinking deeply about his protagonist’s favorite pastime. The emphasis on Catherine Sloper’s (de Havilland) stitching can feel like little more than shorthand for “spinster” status.
- 7/29/2020
- by Daniel Walber
- FilmExperience
Von Babasin had a memorable summer job in 1976.
The then 21-year old worked on craft services for “Airport ’77,” a disaster movie with a cast that included Oscar-winners and legends such as Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, George Kennedy, and James Stewart. But the Grande Dame on set was Olivia de Havilland, who despite her stature, spent most of the production soldiering through one grueling scene after another.
“She spent long days, soaking wet, crashing around the plane as we emptied the dump tanks through the fuselage, got the shot, and set it all back to first position to do it all over again,” Babasin remembers. “And, she was a trooper through it all.”
“Airport ’77” was a big box office hit in its day, but it has largely faded from memory, as have many of de Havilland’s films, a consequence of being a centenarian in a business that is...
The then 21-year old worked on craft services for “Airport ’77,” a disaster movie with a cast that included Oscar-winners and legends such as Jack Lemmon, Lee Grant, George Kennedy, and James Stewart. But the Grande Dame on set was Olivia de Havilland, who despite her stature, spent most of the production soldiering through one grueling scene after another.
“She spent long days, soaking wet, crashing around the plane as we emptied the dump tanks through the fuselage, got the shot, and set it all back to first position to do it all over again,” Babasin remembers. “And, she was a trooper through it all.”
“Airport ’77” was a big box office hit in its day, but it has largely faded from memory, as have many of de Havilland’s films, a consequence of being a centenarian in a business that is...
- 7/27/2020
- by Brent Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Olivia de Havilland, one of the last remaining actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age and the last surviving star of Gone With the Wind, died July 26 of natural causes at her residence in Paris, where she lived for more than six decades, according to Variety. De Havilland was 104.
De Havilland turned 104 on July 1. She was the older sister of Joan Fontaine, who died in 2013 at 96. The two Academy Award-winning actresses were estranged for most of their lives. Olivia Mary de Havilland was born in Tokyo on July 1, 1916. Her parents, Walter de Havilland, an English professor, and actress Lilian Fontaine, were British. De Havilland and her sister grew up in Saratoga, California, with their mother. Her father married the family’s housekeeper and remained in Tokyo. Havilland’s first performance was in a school production of Alice in Wonderland.
She made her stage debut in Max Reinhardt’s production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
De Havilland turned 104 on July 1. She was the older sister of Joan Fontaine, who died in 2013 at 96. The two Academy Award-winning actresses were estranged for most of their lives. Olivia Mary de Havilland was born in Tokyo on July 1, 1916. Her parents, Walter de Havilland, an English professor, and actress Lilian Fontaine, were British. De Havilland and her sister grew up in Saratoga, California, with their mother. Her father married the family’s housekeeper and remained in Tokyo. Havilland’s first performance was in a school production of Alice in Wonderland.
She made her stage debut in Max Reinhardt’s production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
- 7/27/2020
- by Alec Bojalad
- Den of Geek
Olivia de Havilland in the 1946 film “To Each His Own,” for which she won her first Oscar©.
(Reuters) – “Gone With the Wind” star Olivia de Havilland, considered the last surviving actress of the Golden Age of Hollywood, died on Sunday at the age of 104, the Hollywood Reporter said.
She died of natural causes at her home in Paris, where she had lived for more than 60 years, it said, citing her publicist.
De Havilland’s acting career included two Academy Awards, a victory over Hollywood’s studio system and a long-running feud with sister Joan Fontaine that was worthy of a screenplay.
She first drew attention by playing opposite swashbuckling Errol Flynn in a series of films starting in the 1930s and made an enduring impression as the demure Southern belle Melanie in “Gone With the Wind” in 1939.
Later she would have to fight to get more challenging roles – a battle...
(Reuters) – “Gone With the Wind” star Olivia de Havilland, considered the last surviving actress of the Golden Age of Hollywood, died on Sunday at the age of 104, the Hollywood Reporter said.
She died of natural causes at her home in Paris, where she had lived for more than 60 years, it said, citing her publicist.
De Havilland’s acting career included two Academy Awards, a victory over Hollywood’s studio system and a long-running feud with sister Joan Fontaine that was worthy of a screenplay.
She first drew attention by playing opposite swashbuckling Errol Flynn in a series of films starting in the 1930s and made an enduring impression as the demure Southern belle Melanie in “Gone With the Wind” in 1939.
Later she would have to fight to get more challenging roles – a battle...
- 7/26/2020
- by Michelle Hannett
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Talent, awards, tempestuous relationship with sister Joan Fontaine, and legal wrangles with Warner Bros.
Olivia de Havilland, the double Oscar winner and one of the last icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age who starred in Gone With The Wind, has died from natural causes at her home in Paris. She was 104.
de Havilland lived in France for more than 60 years and enjoyed a peaceful life away from the screen in the last 30 years.
In demand throughout the early stages of her career ever since she came to the attention of Hollywood in the 1935 version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, de...
Olivia de Havilland, the double Oscar winner and one of the last icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age who starred in Gone With The Wind, has died from natural causes at her home in Paris. She was 104.
de Havilland lived in France for more than 60 years and enjoyed a peaceful life away from the screen in the last 30 years.
In demand throughout the early stages of her career ever since she came to the attention of Hollywood in the 1935 version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, de...
- 7/26/2020
- by 14¦Screen staff¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
Olivia de Havilland, the two-time Oscar-winning actress who starred in films like Gone With the Wind and The Snake Pit, has died at the age of 104.
The actress’ publicist confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that de Havilland died Sunday of natural causes in Paris, France, where she lived for the past 60 years.
The last surviving star of Hollywood’s Golden Age, de Havilland won Best Actress Academy Awards for her roles in 1946’s To Each His Own and 1949’s The Heiress. de Havilland was nominated for three other Oscars, including...
The actress’ publicist confirmed to the Hollywood Reporter that de Havilland died Sunday of natural causes in Paris, France, where she lived for the past 60 years.
The last surviving star of Hollywood’s Golden Age, de Havilland won Best Actress Academy Awards for her roles in 1946’s To Each His Own and 1949’s The Heiress. de Havilland was nominated for three other Oscars, including...
- 7/26/2020
- by Daniel Kreps
- Rollingstone.com
Olivia de Havilland, an Oscar-winning actress best known for her role as the timid but strong Melanie in the 1939 classic “Gone With the Wind,” died Sunday of natural causes. She was 104.
The news of De Havilland’s passing in her Paris home was announced by her publicist, Lisa Goldberg.
In addition to her breakout role in “Gone With the Wind,” de Havilland earned Oscar nominations for 1941’s “Hold Back the Dawn,” 1946’s “To Each His Own” and 1948’s “The Snake Pit” and the 1949 William Wyler drama “The Heiress.” She won gold for “To Each His Own” and “The Heiress.”
Throughout her career, De Havilland had a reputation for standing up for herself. In 1943, she famously went to court when Warner Bros. tried to add time to her completed contract. Her legal victory led to what’s still known as the “De Havilland Law,” a section of the California Labor Code...
The news of De Havilland’s passing in her Paris home was announced by her publicist, Lisa Goldberg.
In addition to her breakout role in “Gone With the Wind,” de Havilland earned Oscar nominations for 1941’s “Hold Back the Dawn,” 1946’s “To Each His Own” and 1948’s “The Snake Pit” and the 1949 William Wyler drama “The Heiress.” She won gold for “To Each His Own” and “The Heiress.”
Throughout her career, De Havilland had a reputation for standing up for herself. In 1943, she famously went to court when Warner Bros. tried to add time to her completed contract. Her legal victory led to what’s still known as the “De Havilland Law,” a section of the California Labor Code...
- 7/26/2020
- by Rosemary Rossi
- The Wrap
Olivia de Havilland, one of the last remaining actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age, two-time Academy Award winner and star of “Gone With the Wind,” has died. She was 104.
Her publicist Lisa Goldberg confirmed the news to Variety, saying de Havilland died from natural causes on Sunday at her residence in Paris.
De Havilland’s former lawyer Suzelle M. Smith said, “Last night, the world lost an international treasure, and I lost a dear friend and beloved client. She died peacefully in Paris.”
Numerous Hollywood figures paid tribute to de Havilland upon the news of her death. SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris extended her sympathies, saying, “Olivia de Havilland was not only beautiful and talented, she was a courageous visionary and an inspiration to generations. She was a marvel and a legend. Rest in peace.”
The striking brunette won best actress Oscars for “The Heiress” and “To Each His Own” in the late 1940s,...
Her publicist Lisa Goldberg confirmed the news to Variety, saying de Havilland died from natural causes on Sunday at her residence in Paris.
De Havilland’s former lawyer Suzelle M. Smith said, “Last night, the world lost an international treasure, and I lost a dear friend and beloved client. She died peacefully in Paris.”
Numerous Hollywood figures paid tribute to de Havilland upon the news of her death. SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris extended her sympathies, saying, “Olivia de Havilland was not only beautiful and talented, she was a courageous visionary and an inspiration to generations. She was a marvel and a legend. Rest in peace.”
The striking brunette won best actress Oscars for “The Heiress” and “To Each His Own” in the late 1940s,...
- 7/26/2020
- by Tim Gray
- Variety Film + TV
Two Classic Hollywood giants celebrated big birthdays today. The legendary two time Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland turned 104 this morning and Gigi herself, Leslie Caron turned 89 years young. We thought it was time to update our Oldest Living Oscar People list. Pick a few of these giants in 2020 and watch a couple of their movies to appreciate their gift or learn about it for the first time. Our very best wishes of good health and happiness to the following actors, directors and craftsmen who nabbed at least one Oscar honor in their career...
100 Oldest Living Oscar Nominees/Winners
To see a less Oscar-specific list, here's a bigger 'oldest living actors' list
104 Years Young
Olivia de Havilland (7/1/1916) Oscar stats: 5 nominations | 2 wins
This incredible actress won Oscar's top acting prize twice by the time she was 33 for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). She also received Best Actress nominations for The Snake Pit...
100 Oldest Living Oscar Nominees/Winners
To see a less Oscar-specific list, here's a bigger 'oldest living actors' list
104 Years Young
Olivia de Havilland (7/1/1916) Oscar stats: 5 nominations | 2 wins
This incredible actress won Oscar's top acting prize twice by the time she was 33 for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). She also received Best Actress nominations for The Snake Pit...
- 7/1/2020
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Ginger Rogers in The Major And The Minor will be available on Blu-ray September 24th From Arrow Academy
From one of Hollywood s most acclaimed auteurs, Billy Wilder, comes the charming comedy classic The Major and the Minor.
Legendary actress and dancer Ginger Rogers (Monkey Business) stars as Susan Applegate, a struggling young woman who pretends to be an 11-year old girl in order to buy a half-price train ticket. Fleeing the conductors, she hides in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby. The Major believes Susan is a child and takes her under his wing, but when they arrive at the military academy where Kirby teaches, his fiancée (Rita Johnson) grows suspicious of Susan’s ruse…
Co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett (Hold Back the Dawn), The Major and the Minor assumes the guise of a light romance narrative in order to cleverly explore themes of identity and deception. Wilder...
From one of Hollywood s most acclaimed auteurs, Billy Wilder, comes the charming comedy classic The Major and the Minor.
Legendary actress and dancer Ginger Rogers (Monkey Business) stars as Susan Applegate, a struggling young woman who pretends to be an 11-year old girl in order to buy a half-price train ticket. Fleeing the conductors, she hides in the compartment of Major Philip Kirby. The Major believes Susan is a child and takes her under his wing, but when they arrive at the military academy where Kirby teaches, his fiancée (Rita Johnson) grows suspicious of Susan’s ruse…
Co-written by Wilder and Charles Brackett (Hold Back the Dawn), The Major and the Minor assumes the guise of a light romance narrative in order to cleverly explore themes of identity and deception. Wilder...
- 8/22/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
All hail Olivia de Havilland, America’s longest living movie star. The more de Havilland pictures we see, the more we admire her taste and judgment in roles… or is that better expressed as, the more we admire her ability to guide a near-perfect career, going so far as to defy the studios in court. This 1941 drama has director Mitchell Leisen in fine form, a smart script by Brackett & Wilder, and a central topic that’s currently quite hot: illegal immigration.
Hold Back the Dawn
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 116 min. / Street Date July 16, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Victor Francen, Walter Abel, Curt Bois, Rosemary DeCamp, Nestor Paiva, Eva Puig, Micheline Cheirel, Madeleine Lebeau, Mikhail Rasumny, Charles Arnt, Mitchell Leisen, Brian Donlevy, Kitty Kelly, Veronica Lake, Carlos Villarías, Richard Webb.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Film Editor: Doane Harrison
Original Music: Victor Young
Written by Charles Brackett,...
Hold Back the Dawn
Blu-ray
Arrow Academy
1941 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 116 min. / Street Date July 16, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Charles Boyer, Olivia de Havilland, Paulette Goddard, Victor Francen, Walter Abel, Curt Bois, Rosemary DeCamp, Nestor Paiva, Eva Puig, Micheline Cheirel, Madeleine Lebeau, Mikhail Rasumny, Charles Arnt, Mitchell Leisen, Brian Donlevy, Kitty Kelly, Veronica Lake, Carlos Villarías, Richard Webb.
Cinematography: Leo Tover
Film Editor: Doane Harrison
Original Music: Victor Young
Written by Charles Brackett,...
- 7/6/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Celebrate Olivia de Havilland’s 103rd birthday by ordering the new blu-ray of one of her best films. Hold Back The Dawn (1941) will be available on Blu-ray July 16th From Arrow Academy
From one of the most underrated directors of Hollywood’s golden era, Mitchell Leisen (Remember the Night), comes the heart-rending romantic drama Hold Back the Dawn…
Charles Boyer (Gaslight) gives an enthralling performance as Georges Iscovescu, a Romanian-born gigolo who arrives at a Mexican border town seeking entry to the Us. Faced with a waiting period of eight years, George is encouraged by his former dancing partner Anita to marry an American girl and desert her once safely across the border. He successfully targets visiting school teacher Emmy Brown, but his plan is compromised by a pursuing immigration officer, and blossoming feelings of genuine love for Emmy.
A moving and thoughtful film with a wonderful script (co-written by...
From one of the most underrated directors of Hollywood’s golden era, Mitchell Leisen (Remember the Night), comes the heart-rending romantic drama Hold Back the Dawn…
Charles Boyer (Gaslight) gives an enthralling performance as Georges Iscovescu, a Romanian-born gigolo who arrives at a Mexican border town seeking entry to the Us. Faced with a waiting period of eight years, George is encouraged by his former dancing partner Anita to marry an American girl and desert her once safely across the border. He successfully targets visiting school teacher Emmy Brown, but his plan is compromised by a pursuing immigration officer, and blossoming feelings of genuine love for Emmy.
A moving and thoughtful film with a wonderful script (co-written by...
- 7/1/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
She received five Academy Award nominations in ten years, winning for Best Actress twice. She was the spunky heroine to Errol Flynn’s dashing adventurer. She was Melanie, the sweet, compassionate counterpart to the spoiled, passionate Scarlett. And she is now is the oldest-living survivor of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to British parents. Her sister, actress Joan Fontaine, was born 15 months later. Her parents divorced when the girls were young, and her mother eventually settled in California with her two daughters. Growing up, de Havilland enjoyed performing in amateur stage productions. Although she originally planned to become a teacher, a role in one of those amateur productions, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, changed her fate. She was discovered, eventually cast in the Hollywood Bowl production of that play, and then in the 1935 film adaptation.
SEEErrol Flynn movies: 20 greatest films...
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born July 1, 1916, in Tokyo, Japan, to British parents. Her sister, actress Joan Fontaine, was born 15 months later. Her parents divorced when the girls were young, and her mother eventually settled in California with her two daughters. Growing up, de Havilland enjoyed performing in amateur stage productions. Although she originally planned to become a teacher, a role in one of those amateur productions, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, changed her fate. She was discovered, eventually cast in the Hollywood Bowl production of that play, and then in the 1935 film adaptation.
SEEErrol Flynn movies: 20 greatest films...
- 7/1/2019
- by Susan Pennington and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Billy Wilder would’ve celebrated his 113th birthday on June 22, 2019. The six-time Oscar winner left behind a series of classically quotable features from Hollywood’s Golden Age, crafting sharp witted and darkly cynical stories that blended comedy and pathos in equal measure. In honor of his birthday, let’s take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Wilder was born to a family of Austrian Jews in 1906. After working as a journalist, he developed an interest in filmmaking and collaborated on the silent feature “People on Sunday” (1929) with fellow rookies Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer. With the rise of Adolph Hitler, Wilder fled to Paris, where he co-directed the feature “Mauvaise Graine” (1934). Tragically, his mother, stepfather and grandmother all died in the Holocaust.
SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History
After moving to Hollywood, Wilder enjoyed a successful career as a screenwriter,...
Wilder was born to a family of Austrian Jews in 1906. After working as a journalist, he developed an interest in filmmaking and collaborated on the silent feature “People on Sunday” (1929) with fellow rookies Fred Zinnemann, Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer. With the rise of Adolph Hitler, Wilder fled to Paris, where he co-directed the feature “Mauvaise Graine” (1934). Tragically, his mother, stepfather and grandmother all died in the Holocaust.
SEEOscar Best Director Gallery: Every Winner In Academy Award History
After moving to Hollywood, Wilder enjoyed a successful career as a screenwriter,...
- 6/22/2019
- by Zach Laws and Chris Beachum
- Gold Derby
Exclusive: Nine days after Olivia de Havilland turned 102, the California Supreme Court has rejected the two-time Oscar winner’s desire to have them review her feud with FX Networks and Ryan Murphy over her depiction in the Emmy winning 2017 Feud: Bette and Joan anthology.
“It is a sad day for Miss de Havilland and for the legal system,” said the Hold Back The Dawn actress’ primary lawyer Suzelle M. Smith bluntly to Deadline today.
While a blow, the terse and unexplained “petition denied” from the Golden State’s highest court yesterday hasn’t completely Tko’d the Hollywood legend’s aim to see the matter ultimately go to a jury trial. The action could be revived if de Havilland successfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take on the case. Putting together such paperwork to the Scotus is being evaluated by de Havilland’s team, but no decision has...
“It is a sad day for Miss de Havilland and for the legal system,” said the Hold Back The Dawn actress’ primary lawyer Suzelle M. Smith bluntly to Deadline today.
While a blow, the terse and unexplained “petition denied” from the Golden State’s highest court yesterday hasn’t completely Tko’d the Hollywood legend’s aim to see the matter ultimately go to a jury trial. The action could be revived if de Havilland successfully petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to take on the case. Putting together such paperwork to the Scotus is being evaluated by de Havilland’s team, but no decision has...
- 7/12/2018
- by Dominic Patten
- Deadline Film + TV
Can we have a random break for applause for Daniel Walber's The Furniture column. It was Daniel's birthday this weekend so he has the day off. He's already 69 episodes in to this incredible series which has been filled with sharp insights, a keen eye, and rich Hollywood anecdotes. Here's everything he's covered thus far. Please show your love in the comments if you look forward to these each Monday.
The Forties and Fifties
• Hold Back the Dawn (1941) Bored at the border
• How Green Was My Valley (1941) Designing dignity
• That Hamilton Woman (1941) High ceilings
• Captain of the Clouds (1942) A Canadian air show
• The Magnificent Andersons (1942) Victorian Palace / Manifest Destiny
• My Gal Sal (1942) Nonsense Gay Nineties
• The Shanghai Gesture (1942) Appropriating Chinese design
• Black Narcissus (1947) Mad for matte paintings
• David and Bathsheba (1951) A humble palace of moral struggle
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Decorative madness
• My Cousin Rachel (1952) Ghosts of property
• Lust for Life...
The Forties and Fifties
• Hold Back the Dawn (1941) Bored at the border
• How Green Was My Valley (1941) Designing dignity
• That Hamilton Woman (1941) High ceilings
• Captain of the Clouds (1942) A Canadian air show
• The Magnificent Andersons (1942) Victorian Palace / Manifest Destiny
• My Gal Sal (1942) Nonsense Gay Nineties
• The Shanghai Gesture (1942) Appropriating Chinese design
• Black Narcissus (1947) Mad for matte paintings
• David and Bathsheba (1951) A humble palace of moral struggle
• A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) Decorative madness
• My Cousin Rachel (1952) Ghosts of property
• Lust for Life...
- 7/31/2017
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
The Last Emperor composers David Byrne and Ryuichi Sakamoto had a Forbidden Colors conversation at the Quad Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the Quad Cinema - Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise; Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth; Mitchell Leisen's Hold Back The Dawn; Elia Kazan's America, America; Werner Herzog's Stroszek; Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America, Slava Tsukerman's Liquid Sky with Anne Carlisle become Immigrant Songs. Retrospectives for Goldie Hawn, Frank Perry & Eleanor Perry, Bertrand Tavernier and Ryuichi Sakamoto; a Rainer Werner Fassbinder Lola First Encounter with Sandra Bernhard, Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear and a drop of Nathan Silver's Thirst Street come up in my conversation with Director of Programming C Mason Wells.
Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor at China: Through The Looking Glass Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Grandmaster director Wong Kar Wai chose a clip from...
At the Quad Cinema - Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise; Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth; Mitchell Leisen's Hold Back The Dawn; Elia Kazan's America, America; Werner Herzog's Stroszek; Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America, Slava Tsukerman's Liquid Sky with Anne Carlisle become Immigrant Songs. Retrospectives for Goldie Hawn, Frank Perry & Eleanor Perry, Bertrand Tavernier and Ryuichi Sakamoto; a Rainer Werner Fassbinder Lola First Encounter with Sandra Bernhard, Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear and a drop of Nathan Silver's Thirst Street come up in my conversation with Director of Programming C Mason Wells.
Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor at China: Through The Looking Glass Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
The Grandmaster director Wong Kar Wai chose a clip from...
- 5/25/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Just because a movie or a celebrity wins an Oscar, that doesn't mean the win was deserved. While the Academy Awards are seen as the capstone to awards season -- and one of the highest honors in the business -- we all know that stars and movies get snubbed or overlooked all the time.
What's worse is when we look back at what did win, and shake our heads in confusion and disbelief. So, with the 89th Academy Awards just around the corner, let's take a look back over the show's illustrious history at a few times the Academy voters clearly made a mistake.
Watch: 2017 Oscar Awards Nominees: 'La La Land' Leads With 14 Nominations
1. How Green Was My Valley wins Best Picture at the 14th Academy Awards in 1942
20th Century Fox
Beat Out: Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Blossoms in the Dust, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, [link...
What's worse is when we look back at what did win, and shake our heads in confusion and disbelief. So, with the 89th Academy Awards just around the corner, let's take a look back over the show's illustrious history at a few times the Academy voters clearly made a mistake.
Watch: 2017 Oscar Awards Nominees: 'La La Land' Leads With 14 Nominations
1. How Green Was My Valley wins Best Picture at the 14th Academy Awards in 1942
20th Century Fox
Beat Out: Citizen Kane, The Maltese Falcon, Blossoms in the Dust, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Hold Back the Dawn, The Little Foxes, [link...
- 2/24/2017
- Entertainment Tonight
World War, a solemn vow, and a promise betrayed lead to a ‘night of the living war dead’ – all cooked up by the director of Napoleon, Abel Gance. The early, famed pacifist fantasy is back in near-perfect condition and restored to its full length. It’s a reworking, not a remake, of Gance’s 1919 silent classic.
J’accuse
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1938 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 120 min. / That They May Live; J’accuse: Fresque tragique des temps modernes vue et Réalisée par Abel Gance / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98
Starring Victor Francen, Line Noro, Marie Lou, Jean-Max, Paul Amiot, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Delaitre, Renée Devillers, Romuald Joubé, André Nox, Georges Rollin, Georges Saillard.
Cinematography Roger Hubert
Film Editor Madeleine Crétoile
Original Music Henri Verdun
Written by Abel Gance, Steve Passeur
Produced & Directed by Abel Gance
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Around 1973, UCLA film school professor Bob Epstein...
J’accuse
Blu-ray
Olive Films
1938 / B&W / 1:37 flat full frame / 120 min. / That They May Live; J’accuse: Fresque tragique des temps modernes vue et Réalisée par Abel Gance / Street Date November 15, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98
Starring Victor Francen, Line Noro, Marie Lou, Jean-Max, Paul Amiot, Jean-Louis Barrault, Marcel Delaitre, Renée Devillers, Romuald Joubé, André Nox, Georges Rollin, Georges Saillard.
Cinematography Roger Hubert
Film Editor Madeleine Crétoile
Original Music Henri Verdun
Written by Abel Gance, Steve Passeur
Produced & Directed by Abel Gance
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Around 1973, UCLA film school professor Bob Epstein...
- 11/19/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Savant uncovers the true, hidden ending to this Fritz Lang masterpiece. The moral outrage of Lang's searing attack on lynch terror hasn't dimmed a bit -- with his first American picture the director nails one of our primary social evils. MGM imposed some re-cutting and re-shooting, but it's still the most emotionally powerful film on the subject. Fury DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1936 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 min. / Street Date August 2, 2016, 2016 / available through the WB Shop / 17.99 Starring Sylvia Sidney, Spencer Tracy, Walter Abel, Bruce Cabot, Edward Ellis, Walter Brennan, Frank Albertson, George Walcott, Arthur Stone, Morgan Wallace, George Chandler, Roger Gray, Edwin Maxwell, Howard C. Hickman, Jonathan Hale, Leila Bennett, Esther Dale, Helen Flint. Cinematography Joseph Ruttenberg Film Editor Frank Sullivan Original Music Franz Waxman Written by Bartlett Cormack, Fritz Lang story by Norman Krasna Produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz Directed by Fritz Lang
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Just...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Just...
- 10/1/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
"The Furniture" our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber
Today marks the 75th anniversary of the release of Hold Back the Dawn, the film for which Olivia de Havilland received her first Best Actress nomination. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t we have a whole month of de Havilland back in June, in the lead-up to her 100th birthday? Yes, we did. But I am here to inform you that celebrating this two-time Oscar-winner isn’t an occasional thing. It's an essential part of life.
Besides, the film is great. It’s a smart, cynical melodrama about a Romanian playboy named Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer), biding his time in a small Mexican town while he waits to be granted entry into the United States. It’ll be years, thanks to the National Origins Formula. Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder’s script was adapted from a story by Ketti Frings,...
Today marks the 75th anniversary of the release of Hold Back the Dawn, the film for which Olivia de Havilland received her first Best Actress nomination. Now, I know what you’re thinking. Didn’t we have a whole month of de Havilland back in June, in the lead-up to her 100th birthday? Yes, we did. But I am here to inform you that celebrating this two-time Oscar-winner isn’t an occasional thing. It's an essential part of life.
Besides, the film is great. It’s a smart, cynical melodrama about a Romanian playboy named Georges Iscovescu (Charles Boyer), biding his time in a small Mexican town while he waits to be granted entry into the United States. It’ll be years, thanks to the National Origins Formula. Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder’s script was adapted from a story by Ketti Frings,...
- 9/26/2016
- by Daniel Walber
- FilmExperience
For most of her career, two-time Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland was embroiled in a rivalrous feud with younger sister Joan Fontaine. Now, the woman who celebrated her 100th birthday last Friday opens up to People about their prolonged estrangement, as she describes Fontaine as "brilliant and very gifted," but essentially flawed. "She was a brilliant person, very gifted and, alas, [had] an astigmatism in her perception of both people and situations, which could cause and did cause great distress in others," she tells People of Fontaine, who died in Dec. 2013 at the age of 96. "I was among those and...
- 7/6/2016
- by Peter Mikelbank
- PEOPLE.com
For most of her career, two-time Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland was embroiled in a rivalrous feud with younger sister Joan Fontaine. Now, the woman who celebrated her 100th birthday last Friday opens up to People about their prolonged estrangement, as she describes Fontaine as "brilliant and very gifted," but essentially flawed. "She was a brilliant person, very gifted and, alas, [had] an astigmatism in her perception of both people and situations, which could cause and did cause great distress in others," she tells People of Fontaine, who died in Dec. 2013 at the age of 96. "I was among those and...
- 7/6/2016
- by Peter Mikelbank
- PEOPLE.com
Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...
- 9/16/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Theodore Bikel. Theodore Bikel dead at 91: Oscar-nominated actor and folk singer best known for stage musicals 'The Sound of Music,' 'Fiddler on the Roof' Folk singer, social and union activist, and stage, film, and television actor Theodore Bikel, best remembered for starring in the Broadway musical The Sound of Music and, throughout the U.S., in Fiddler on the Roof, died Monday morning (July 20, '15) of "natural causes" at the UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles. The Austrian-born Bikel – as Theodore Meir Bikel on May 2, 1924, in Vienna, to Yiddish-speaking Eastern European parents – was 91. Fled Hitler Thanks to his well-connected Zionist father, six months after the German annexation of Austria in March 1938 ("they were greeted with jubilation by the local populace," he would recall in 2012), the 14-year-old Bikel and his family fled to Palestine, at the time a British protectorate. While there, the teenager began acting on stage,...
- 7/23/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Olivia de Havilland picture U.S. labor history-making 'Gone with the Wind' star and two-time Best Actress winner Olivia de Havilland turns 99 (This Olivia de Havilland article is currently being revised and expanded.) Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Olivia de Havilland, the only surviving major Gone with the Wind cast member and oldest surviving Oscar winner, is turning 99 years old today, July 1.[1] Also known for her widely publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine and for her eight movies with Errol Flynn, de Havilland should be remembered as well for having made Hollywood labor history. This particular history has nothing to do with de Havilland's films, her two Oscars, Gone with the Wind, Joan Fontaine, or Errol Flynn. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: after winning a lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the mid-'40s, Olivia de Havilland put an end to treacherous...
- 7/2/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'To Each His Own' movie with Olivia de Havilland and John Lund 'To Each His Own' movie review: Best Actress Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland stars in Mother Love tearjerker Olivia de Havilland, who had starred in the 1941 melodrama Hold Back the Dawn, returns to the wartime milieu in To Each His Own (1946), once again under the direction of Mitchell Leisen, who guides the proceedings with his characteristic sincerity while cleverly skirting the Production Code's restrictive guidelines. In To Each His Own, de Havilland plays Jody Norris, a small-town woman who falls quickly in love – much like her character in Hold Back the Dawn – but this time during World War I, when Jody's brief liaison with daredevil flying ace Captain Cosgrove (John Lund) results in an out-of-wedlock child. When Cosgrove is killed in battle, the young mother anonymously gives up her baby to a childless couple in her hometown, remaining...
- 5/7/2015
- by Doug Johnson
- Alt Film Guide
'Hold Back the Dawn': Olivia de Havilland behind Charles Boyer and Paulette Goddard 'Hold Back the Dawn' 1941 movie: Olivia de Havilland steals show as small-town teacher in love Olivia de Havilland shines in Mitchell Leisen's melodrama Hold Back the Dawn, a sort of opening bracket for the director's World War II-era films. Adapted by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett from Ketti Frings' semi-autobiographical story, Hold Back the Dawn stars Charles Boyer as George Iscovescu, a Romanian dancer unable to enter the U.S. from Mexico due to immigration quotas imposed at the onset of the European conflict. Paulette Goddard is his scheming former partner, Anita, who marries an American to gain entry into the country only to immediately leave the duped husband. George adopts the idea – a naïve small-town schoolteacher visiting a Mexican border town is his prey. As the unsuspecting teacher, Olivia de Havilland radiates understanding and sympathy.
- 5/7/2015
- by Doug Johnson
- Alt Film Guide
Teresa Wright: Later years (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright: From Marlon Brando to Matt Damon.") Teresa Wright and Robert Anderson were divorced in 1978. They would remain friends in the ensuing years.[1] Wright spent most of the last decade of her life in Connecticut, making only sporadic public appearances. In 1998, she could be seen with her grandson, film producer Jonah Smith, at New York's Yankee Stadium, where she threw the ceremonial first pitch.[2] Wright also became involved in the Greater New York chapter of the Als Association. (The Pride of the Yankees subject, Lou Gehrig, died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1941.) The week she turned 82 in October 2000, Wright attended the 20th anniversary celebration of Somewhere in Time, where she posed for pictures with Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour. In March 2003, she was a guest at the 75th Academy Awards, in the segment showcasing Oscar-winning actors of the past. Two years later,...
- 3/15/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
I normally publish this list on Luise Rainer's birthday but having lost her just as 2014 ended after a year already marked by the loss of several screen giants including Mickey Rooney, Peter O'Toole and Joan Fontaine, we needed some positivity to kick off the new calendar!
Olivia de Havilland, two time best actress. She's still defiantly with us!
This semi-annual list of living Oscar-vets was never intended to be a morbid countdown list as a stray commenter or three has complained. Not at all! It's a way for us to honor people while they're still conscious of our appreciation for their indelible contributions to our favorite artform. Your assignment: pick six players here and during the year, rent a key film from each so that they can receive your telepathic waves of appreciation in 2015! (That's only 1 film every other month. You can do it!)
So our very best wishes...
Olivia de Havilland, two time best actress. She's still defiantly with us!
This semi-annual list of living Oscar-vets was never intended to be a morbid countdown list as a stray commenter or three has complained. Not at all! It's a way for us to honor people while they're still conscious of our appreciation for their indelible contributions to our favorite artform. Your assignment: pick six players here and during the year, rent a key film from each so that they can receive your telepathic waves of appreciation in 2015! (That's only 1 film every other month. You can do it!)
So our very best wishes...
- 1/1/2015
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Fontaine, who died aged 96 only hours after Peter O'Toole, was the prototype 'Hitchcock blonde' – attractive, malleable, neurotic
On a sad weekend for the film world, the news of the death of Lawrence of Arabia star Peter O'Toole was swiftly followed by that of the passing away of a leading light of an earlier generation: Joan Fontaine. Fontaine, perhaps best remembered as the prototype of the "Hitchcock blonde" – attractive, malleable, neurotic – died only a few hours after O'Toole, at the age of 96 on Sunday morning at home in Carmel in California.
Fontaine's most notable role was arguably that of the "second Mrs de Winter" in Rebecca, the 1940 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's gothic novel that marked Alfred Hitchcock's Hollywood debut. he would go on to gain an Oscar nomination for the role in 1940 – and actually win the best actress award a year later for a second Hitchcock film, Suspicion.
On a sad weekend for the film world, the news of the death of Lawrence of Arabia star Peter O'Toole was swiftly followed by that of the passing away of a leading light of an earlier generation: Joan Fontaine. Fontaine, perhaps best remembered as the prototype of the "Hitchcock blonde" – attractive, malleable, neurotic – died only a few hours after O'Toole, at the age of 96 on Sunday morning at home in Carmel in California.
Fontaine's most notable role was arguably that of the "second Mrs de Winter" in Rebecca, the 1940 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's gothic novel that marked Alfred Hitchcock's Hollywood debut. he would go on to gain an Oscar nomination for the role in 1940 – and actually win the best actress award a year later for a second Hitchcock film, Suspicion.
- 12/17/2013
- by Andrew Pulver
- The Guardian - Film News
With the back-to-back departures of Peter O'Toole and Joan Fontaine I've been really bummed about losing great artists from Hollywood's Golden Age. The Golden Age is roughly considered to be from Hollywood's 1930s through the 1950s. I still hadn't recovered from the loss of Eleanor Parker, an underappreciated actress I had honestly planned a retrospective of but never got around to.
This morning in my movie grief I inadvertently killed dozens of people off on twitter by claiming there were only six stars of the Golden Age still living. So consider this list my penance. In the past I've published a semi-annual list of all living Oscar-vets in any capacity. It ws never meant to be a morbid countdown list but a way for us to honor people while they're still theoretically conscious of our appreciation for their indelible contributions. So though I normally publish such a list on Ms.
This morning in my movie grief I inadvertently killed dozens of people off on twitter by claiming there were only six stars of the Golden Age still living. So consider this list my penance. In the past I've published a semi-annual list of all living Oscar-vets in any capacity. It ws never meant to be a morbid countdown list but a way for us to honor people while they're still theoretically conscious of our appreciation for their indelible contributions. So though I normally publish such a list on Ms.
- 12/17/2013
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Oscar-winning actor who played threatened heroines for Alfred Hitchcock in Rebecca and Suspicion
It was hard to cast the lead in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939. The female fans of the bestseller were very protective of the naive woman whom the widower Max de Winter marries and transports to his ancestral home of Manderley. None of the contenders – including Vivien Leigh, Anne Baxter and Loretta Young – felt right for the second Mrs de Winter, who was every lending-library reader's dream self.
To play opposite Laurence Olivier in the film, the producer David O Selznick suggested instead a 21-year-old actor with whom he was smitten: Joan Fontaine. The prolonged casting process made Fontaine anxious. Vulnerability was central to the part, and you can see that vulnerability, that inability to trust her own judgment, in every frame of the film. The performance brought Fontaine, who has died...
It was hard to cast the lead in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939. The female fans of the bestseller were very protective of the naive woman whom the widower Max de Winter marries and transports to his ancestral home of Manderley. None of the contenders – including Vivien Leigh, Anne Baxter and Loretta Young – felt right for the second Mrs de Winter, who was every lending-library reader's dream self.
To play opposite Laurence Olivier in the film, the producer David O Selznick suggested instead a 21-year-old actor with whom he was smitten: Joan Fontaine. The prolonged casting process made Fontaine anxious. Vulnerability was central to the part, and you can see that vulnerability, that inability to trust her own judgment, in every frame of the film. The performance brought Fontaine, who has died...
- 12/16/2013
- by Veronica Horwell
- The Guardian - Film News
Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine has died, per the AP and multiple news reports. She was 97. Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland to British parents in Japan, Fontaine began her film career under contract with Rko in films like The Man Who Found Himself (1937), her official onscreen “introduction,” A Damsel in Distress (1937) opposite Fred Astaire, and George Cukor’s The Women (1939). A year after leaving Rko, Fontaine starred in the gothic thriller Rebecca as a woman haunted by her new husband’s (Laurence Olivier) dead wife. The film, Alfred Hitchcock‘s American debut, was nominated for 11 Oscars and won two including Best Picture. Fontaine earned her first Best Actress nod and reteamed with Hitch the following year for another domestic thriller, Suspicion, which won her the Academy Award over sister Olivia de Havilland, who was herself nominated for Hold Back The Dawn. Fontaine’s third Best Actress nomination was awarded for 1943′s The Constant Nymph.
- 12/16/2013
- by THE DEADLINE TEAM
- Deadline TV
Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine, the leading lady known for her string of roles as demure, well-mannered and often well-bred heroines in the 1940s, and the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland, died today at her home in Carmel, California; she was 96.
Known best for her back-to-back roles in two Alfred Hitchcock thrillers -- the 1940 Best Picture winner Rebecca and the 1941 film Suspicion, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar, making her the ony actor in a Hitchcock film to receive an Academy Award -- she and her sister were enshrined in Hollywood lore as intense rivals, and their rivalry reached a peak of sorts when Fontaine beat de Havilland for the 1941 Best Actress Oscar.
Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in 1917 in Tokyo, Japan, Fontaine suffered from recurring ailments throughout her childhood, resulting in her mother moving both her and Olivia to California. While her mother, stage actress Lillian Fontaine, desired for both her daughters to be actresses, it was only Olivia who initially pursued an acting career, as Fontaine returned to Japan for two years when she was 15 years old to live with her father, who divorced Lillian in 1919. Upon returning to the states, Fontaine found that Olivia was already becoming an established actress, and began to embark on her own career. Starting out in theater, Joan initially changed her name to Joan Burfield, then Joan Fontaine (so as to avoid confusion with her sister), and soon found herself in moderately noteworthy parts in such films as You Can't Beat Love (1937), A Damsel in Distress (1937, opposite Fred Astaire) and Gunga Din (1939, alongside Cary Grant, her future leading man in Suspicion). Though she garnered more notice in 1939 in the supporting part of naive newlywed Peggy Day in the classic comedy The Women, she was far eclipsed in fame and reputation by her sister, who had already starred along Errol Flynn in a number of romance adventures, and who received her first Oscar nomination for the blockbuster Gone With the Wind.
It was the same man who cast de Havilland in Gone With the Wind who would make Fontaine into a major star. Looking to follow up the monstrous success of Gone With the Wind with another noteworthy literary adapation, producer David O. Selnick snapped up the rights to the Daphne du Maurier bestseller Rebecca, in which an unnamed, demure heroine -- known only as "the second Mrs. de Winter" -- is taunted by the memory of her husband's first wife, the beautiful and seductive title character. Selznick brought director Alfred Hitchcock over for his first American production, cast matinee idol and rising star Laurence Olivier as moody, mysterious husband Maxim de Winter, and embarked on a Scarlett O'Hara-style talent search for his leading lady. Rejecting Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Vivian Leigh (then Olivier's wife), and a then-unknown Anne Baxter along with hundreds of other actresses, Selznick decided on Fontaine, who though not an established star projected the right mix of beauty, insecurity, and tenacity needed for the part. Fontaine's insecurity, however, was heightened by Olivier's sometimes cruel treatment of her on set, as he had lobbied aggressively for Leigh to get the role, and Hitchcock capitalized on her inferiority complex to shape her performance. The resulting film, released in 1940, was an unqualified critical and financial success, catapulting Fontaine into the tier of top Hollywood leading ladies, establishing Hitchcock firmly in the United States, and nabbing the film 11 Academy Award nominations, includine ones for both Fontaine and Olivier; it would go on to win Best Picture.
Selznick, pleased with the combination of Hitchcock and Fontaine, signed the two on for a follow-up about a demure heiress who begins to suspect that her playboy husband is out to murder her for her money. Initially titled Before the Fact, it would later be retitled Suspicion, and Cary Grant was cast as the charming but caddish husband. Though the final ending of the film was tinkered with -- studio heads thought making Grant guilty would be bad for box office, and insisted on a twist to make him actually heroic -- it was another success, earning three Oscar nominations, including Fontaine's second Best Actress nod. It was at the 1941 Academy Awards that Fontaine, once considered the also-ran to her movie star sister, beat Olivia de Havilland for the Best Actress Oscar (de Havilland had been nominated for Hold Back the Dawn). In what became part of Hollywood and Academy Award legend, Fontaine coolly rejected her sister's efforts at congratulations, and What had always been a fractious relationship since childhood became officially estranged. Hollywood wags often reported that because de Havilland lost to her sister, she would retaliate by winning two Oscars -- in 1946 for To Each His Own and 1949 for The Heiress -- in order to top Fontaine. The two would officially stop speaking to one another in 1975.
Fontaine received a third Oscar nomination in 1943, for the music melodrama The Constant Nymph, and that same year essayed the title role in the commercially successful if moderately well-regarded version of Jane Eyre opposite Orson Welles. She remained a star throughout the 1940s, appearing in the comedy The Affairs of Susan (1945), the thriller Ivy (1947), and opposite Bing Crosby in The Emperor Waltz (1948). Fontaine also gave what many consider to be her best performance in 1948's Letters from an Unknown Woman, Max Ophuls' romantic drama opposite Louis Jourdan. In 1945 she divorced her first husband, actor Brian Aherne, and in 1946 married producer William Dozier, whom she would divorce in 1951. Two years later, she was embroiled in a bitter custody battle with him over their daughter, Debbie, and the ongoing lawsuit would prevent Fontaine from accepting the role of frustrated military wife Karen Holmes in the Oscar-winning drama From Here to Eternity -- Deborah Kerr was instead cast, and received an Oscar nomination for the part.
Though she continued to work throughout the 1950s, most notably in the lavish Technicolor adaptation of Ivanhoe (1952), Ida Lupino's film noir The Bigamist (1953), and in the pioneering if often campy racial drama Island in the Sun (1957), her work in both film and television lessened, and her last film appearance was in Hammer Films horror movie The Devil's Own (1966). Television work followed in the 1970s and 1980s, and Fontaine received a Daytime Emmy nomination for the soap opera Ryan's Hope. She published an autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978, and after the television film Good King Wenceslas (1994), retired officially to her home in Carmel, California.
Fontaine is survived by her daughter, Debbie Dozier.
Known best for her back-to-back roles in two Alfred Hitchcock thrillers -- the 1940 Best Picture winner Rebecca and the 1941 film Suspicion, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar, making her the ony actor in a Hitchcock film to receive an Academy Award -- she and her sister were enshrined in Hollywood lore as intense rivals, and their rivalry reached a peak of sorts when Fontaine beat de Havilland for the 1941 Best Actress Oscar.
Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in 1917 in Tokyo, Japan, Fontaine suffered from recurring ailments throughout her childhood, resulting in her mother moving both her and Olivia to California. While her mother, stage actress Lillian Fontaine, desired for both her daughters to be actresses, it was only Olivia who initially pursued an acting career, as Fontaine returned to Japan for two years when she was 15 years old to live with her father, who divorced Lillian in 1919. Upon returning to the states, Fontaine found that Olivia was already becoming an established actress, and began to embark on her own career. Starting out in theater, Joan initially changed her name to Joan Burfield, then Joan Fontaine (so as to avoid confusion with her sister), and soon found herself in moderately noteworthy parts in such films as You Can't Beat Love (1937), A Damsel in Distress (1937, opposite Fred Astaire) and Gunga Din (1939, alongside Cary Grant, her future leading man in Suspicion). Though she garnered more notice in 1939 in the supporting part of naive newlywed Peggy Day in the classic comedy The Women, she was far eclipsed in fame and reputation by her sister, who had already starred along Errol Flynn in a number of romance adventures, and who received her first Oscar nomination for the blockbuster Gone With the Wind.
It was the same man who cast de Havilland in Gone With the Wind who would make Fontaine into a major star. Looking to follow up the monstrous success of Gone With the Wind with another noteworthy literary adapation, producer David O. Selnick snapped up the rights to the Daphne du Maurier bestseller Rebecca, in which an unnamed, demure heroine -- known only as "the second Mrs. de Winter" -- is taunted by the memory of her husband's first wife, the beautiful and seductive title character. Selznick brought director Alfred Hitchcock over for his first American production, cast matinee idol and rising star Laurence Olivier as moody, mysterious husband Maxim de Winter, and embarked on a Scarlett O'Hara-style talent search for his leading lady. Rejecting Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Vivian Leigh (then Olivier's wife), and a then-unknown Anne Baxter along with hundreds of other actresses, Selznick decided on Fontaine, who though not an established star projected the right mix of beauty, insecurity, and tenacity needed for the part. Fontaine's insecurity, however, was heightened by Olivier's sometimes cruel treatment of her on set, as he had lobbied aggressively for Leigh to get the role, and Hitchcock capitalized on her inferiority complex to shape her performance. The resulting film, released in 1940, was an unqualified critical and financial success, catapulting Fontaine into the tier of top Hollywood leading ladies, establishing Hitchcock firmly in the United States, and nabbing the film 11 Academy Award nominations, includine ones for both Fontaine and Olivier; it would go on to win Best Picture.
Selznick, pleased with the combination of Hitchcock and Fontaine, signed the two on for a follow-up about a demure heiress who begins to suspect that her playboy husband is out to murder her for her money. Initially titled Before the Fact, it would later be retitled Suspicion, and Cary Grant was cast as the charming but caddish husband. Though the final ending of the film was tinkered with -- studio heads thought making Grant guilty would be bad for box office, and insisted on a twist to make him actually heroic -- it was another success, earning three Oscar nominations, including Fontaine's second Best Actress nod. It was at the 1941 Academy Awards that Fontaine, once considered the also-ran to her movie star sister, beat Olivia de Havilland for the Best Actress Oscar (de Havilland had been nominated for Hold Back the Dawn). In what became part of Hollywood and Academy Award legend, Fontaine coolly rejected her sister's efforts at congratulations, and What had always been a fractious relationship since childhood became officially estranged. Hollywood wags often reported that because de Havilland lost to her sister, she would retaliate by winning two Oscars -- in 1946 for To Each His Own and 1949 for The Heiress -- in order to top Fontaine. The two would officially stop speaking to one another in 1975.
Fontaine received a third Oscar nomination in 1943, for the music melodrama The Constant Nymph, and that same year essayed the title role in the commercially successful if moderately well-regarded version of Jane Eyre opposite Orson Welles. She remained a star throughout the 1940s, appearing in the comedy The Affairs of Susan (1945), the thriller Ivy (1947), and opposite Bing Crosby in The Emperor Waltz (1948). Fontaine also gave what many consider to be her best performance in 1948's Letters from an Unknown Woman, Max Ophuls' romantic drama opposite Louis Jourdan. In 1945 she divorced her first husband, actor Brian Aherne, and in 1946 married producer William Dozier, whom she would divorce in 1951. Two years later, she was embroiled in a bitter custody battle with him over their daughter, Debbie, and the ongoing lawsuit would prevent Fontaine from accepting the role of frustrated military wife Karen Holmes in the Oscar-winning drama From Here to Eternity -- Deborah Kerr was instead cast, and received an Oscar nomination for the part.
Though she continued to work throughout the 1950s, most notably in the lavish Technicolor adaptation of Ivanhoe (1952), Ida Lupino's film noir The Bigamist (1953), and in the pioneering if often campy racial drama Island in the Sun (1957), her work in both film and television lessened, and her last film appearance was in Hammer Films horror movie The Devil's Own (1966). Television work followed in the 1970s and 1980s, and Fontaine received a Daytime Emmy nomination for the soap opera Ryan's Hope. She published an autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978, and after the television film Good King Wenceslas (1994), retired officially to her home in Carmel, California.
Fontaine is survived by her daughter, Debbie Dozier.
- 12/16/2013
- by Mark Englehart
- IMDb News
Hollywood Golden Age star Joan Fontaine has died of natural causes at her home in Carmel, California at age 96. My favorite Fontaine role is the one she won an Oscar for, in Alfred Hitchcock's "Suspicion," opposite Cary Grant, along with her nominated breakthrough performance in Hitchcock's 1940 Daphne Du Maurier classic "Rebecca," opposite Laurence Olivier. In both parts this gorgeous Hollywood actress was able to persuade audiences that she was a real woman like the rest of us, not nearly as beautiful and confident as she should be. Fontaine's older sister was also her greatest rival, Hollywood star Olivia de Havilland, who lost the Oscar for "Hold Back the Dawn" to Fontaine in 1942. Fontaine was also nominated as Best Actress in 1943 for Edmund Goulding's "The Constant Nymph."...
- 12/16/2013
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
Hollywood stalwart Joan Fontaine, best known for her roles in director Alfred Hitchcock's 1939 Rebecca and her Best Actress Oscar-winning role in his 1940 film Suspicion, died Sunday at her northern California home, according to several reports. She was 96. Details of her death were not immediately available. In addition to playing a mousey spouse in both the Hitchcock films, first alongside Laurence Olivier and then to Cary Grant, Fontaine's other well-known movies included 1943's The Constant Nymph, which got her a third Oscar nomination, 1944's Jane Eyre with Orson Welles, 1952's Ivanhoe with Robert Taylor, and 1957's controversial Island in the Sun with Harry Belafonte.
- 12/16/2013
- by Stephen M. Silverman
- PEOPLE.com
Joan Fontaine, the Oscar-winning actress who was one of the last remaining links to Hollywood’s golden age of the 1930s and ’40s, has died at age 96, her assistant confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter.
In her most famous films — Rebecca, for which she was Oscar-nominated, and Suspicion, for which she won — Fontaine came across as appealingly passive-aggressive. She could seem radiantly shy, believably insecure, gazing into the middle distance with a hesitancy that drew you immediately to her side. Yet she fashioned a movie career out of willpower and, quite possibly, large reservoirs of spite.
The younger sister of Olivia De Havilland,...
In her most famous films — Rebecca, for which she was Oscar-nominated, and Suspicion, for which she won — Fontaine came across as appealingly passive-aggressive. She could seem radiantly shy, believably insecure, gazing into the middle distance with a hesitancy that drew you immediately to her side. Yet she fashioned a movie career out of willpower and, quite possibly, large reservoirs of spite.
The younger sister of Olivia De Havilland,...
- 12/16/2013
- by EW staff
- EW - Inside Movies
Joan Fontaine today: One of the best actresses of the studio era has her ‘Summer Under the Stars’ day Joan Fontaine, one of the few surviving stars of the 1930s, is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" star today, Tuesday, August 6, 2013. I’m posting this a little late in the game: TCM has already shown six Joan Fontaine movies, including the first-rate medieval adventure Ivanhoe and the curious marital drama The Bigamist, directed by and co-starring Ida Lupino, and written by Collier Young — husband of both Fontaine and Lupino (at different times). Anyhow, TCM has quite a few more Joan Fontaine movies in store. (Photo: Joan Fontaine publicity shot ca. 1950.) (TCM schedule: Joan Fontaine movies.) As far as I’m concerned, Joan Fontaine was one of the best actresses of the studio era. She didn’t star in nearly as many movies as sister Olivia de Havilland, perhaps because...
- 8/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Author Slide to discuss the history of Hollywood extras at historical Lasky-DeMille Barn Film historian Anthony Slide, author of dozens of books on Hollywood history, will be discussing his most recent work, Hollywood Unknowns: A History of Extras, Bit Players and Stand-Ins, at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 10, at the Hollywood Heritage Museum, located at a Hollywood historical landmark: the Lasky-DeMille Barn, right across the street from the Hollywood Bowl. (Check out: "The History of Hollywood Extras, Bit Players and Stand-Ins: Interview with Author and Film Historian Anthony Slide.") Pictured Above are Olivia de Havilland and her The Charge of the Light Brigade stand-in, Ann Robinson, circa 1936. As per the Barn's press release, "Mr. Slide will discuss the lives and work of extras, including the harsh conditions, sexual harassment, scandals and tragedies." Besides, he'll also talk about Central Casting and the Hollywood Studio Club, the residence of a number of up-and-coming actresses,...
- 4/4/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Olivia de Havilland picture Olivia de Havilland made Hollywood history in the 1940s. That "history" has nothing to do with de Havilland’s films, her two Best Actress Oscars, or her much-publicized feud with sister Joan Fontaine. Instead, history was made as a result of a legal fight: in the mid-’40s, Olivia de Havilland radically altered labor practices between Hollywood studios and their contract players after she won a lawsuit against Warner Bros. Born on July 1, 1916, to English parents living in Japan, Olivia de Havilland became a Warners leading lady in 1935. That year, in addition to run-of-the-mill fare such as Alibi Ike and The Irish in Us, de Havilland was cast in two Best Picture Oscar nominees: Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Michael Curtiz’s Captain Blood, her first pairing with Errol Flynn. In the ensuing years, de Havilland and Flynn would...
- 6/6/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Joan Fontaine in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion Joan Fontaine, who turned 94 last October 22, shines on Turner Classic Movies' tonight. TCM will be showing five Fontaine movies: Jane Eyre (1944), The Constant Nymph (1943), Born to Be Bad (1950), Suspicion (1941), and Ivanhoe (1952). I've yet to check out The Constant Nymph, which had been unavailable for decades until TCM presented it a few months ago. In the film, 26-year-old Fontaine plays a 14-year-old infatuated with a composer (Charles Boyer) married to her older cousin (Alexis Smith). Edmund Goulding directed. Enough members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences must have found Fontaine quite believable as a lovestruck teen, for The Constant Nymph earned her her third (and final) Best Actress nomination. Jane Eyre has been made and remade about a zillion times in the last century or so. Fontaine's version, directed by Robert Stevenson (later of Mary Poppins fame) and co-starring Orson Welles as Rochester,...
- 1/31/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.