Posts Tagged ‘Errol Flynn’

Cineplex.com: Frankly, Scarlett: 10 things you might not know about GWTW.

GoneWiththeWind1From Cineplex.com: It was the first color film to win the Best Picture Oscar and is ranked as one of the greatest movie of all time by the American Film Institute. In its first four years of release the film sold 59.5 million tickets, a number equal to half the population of the United States in 1939 and according to Box Office Mojo it’s the highest grossing film of all time when adjusted for ticket price inflation.

This year Gone with the Wind celebrates its seventy-fifth anniversary as “the most iconic film of all time.”

Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War, the story of Southern Belle Scarlett O’Hara and her torrid affair with blockade runner Rhett Butler remains so popular it has motivated legions of fans, called Windies, to gather in period costume in author Margaret Mitchell’s hometown of Atlanta, Georgia… Read the whole thing HERE!

“Grand Hotel… always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.”

GrandBuda_2798049bBy Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

“Grand Hotel… always the same. People come, people go. Nothing ever happens.”

That famous line from the Greta Garbo film Grand Hotel is only half right. Hundreds of movies have used hotels as a backdrop for the action because people come, people go, but despite the quote’s assertion, there’s always something happening.

This weekend’s The Grand Budapest Hotel is a case in point. Starring Ralph Fiennes as a concierge at a European hotel between the world wars, it features an all-star cast, including Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Harvey Keitel and Edward Norton. They are all part of the fabric of the hotel’s history, which includes assassins, murder, riches and a mysterious painting.

Hollywood has always recognized that the transient nature of hotels makes for great drama.

New York City’s Plaza Hotel has played host to many famous movie scenes. Everything from Barefoot in the Park to Funny Girl to The Great Gatsby has used the iconic hotel as a backdrop, but it is probably best known as a location for North by Northwest. In the Alfred Hitchcock film Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for a government agent and kidnapped from the ornate lobby.

The opening shot of Goldfinger features a stunning aerial view of Miami’s Fontainebleau Hotel, which at the time was the most luxurious guesthouse on Miami Beach. Later in the film Bond Girl Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) dies of skin asphyxiation inside the hotel after henchman Oddjob (Harold Sakata) coats her whole body in gold paint.

In the 1920’s the Hotel del Coronado was a famous weekend getaway for Hollywood stars like Mae West, Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable and Errol Flynn but the Victorian wooden beach resort found fame as the setting for several scenes in Some Like it Hot. Located on San Diego Bay across from San Diego, the beachfront location was the scene of one of the film’s most famous lines. When Jerry (Jack Lemmon) first spies Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe) sashaying through the sand he says, “Look how she moves! It’s like Jell-O on springs.”

Stephen King was inspired to write The Shining after staying at the 140-room Stanley Hotel in Colorado. “I think a lot of things happened right here in this particular hotel over the years,” says Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers) in the film version. “And not all of ’em was good.”

The Stanley has been used as a location for Dumb and Dumber and other films, but Stanley Kubrick chose not to showcase the place in his 1980 adaptation of the novel. Instead, much to King’s disappointment, he used Oregon’s Timberline Lodge as a stand-in for the film’s fictional Overlook Hotel.

Drama of live TV a perfect fit for the big screen In Focus by Richard Crouse FOR METRO CANADA Published: November 12, 2010

peter-otoole-my-favorite-yearThere are no second chances or do-overs in live television. Just ask the cast of the Armchair Theatre play Underground who had to continue performing even though the star of the show, Gareth Jones, died during the live broadcast. The show, as they say, must go on whether your star drops dead, you have a wardrobe malfunction, or, as we see in this weekend’s Morning Glory, your co-hosts can’t stand one another.

The unpredictability of live television is exciting, so it’s not surprising that movies about TV have been around almost since the boob tube’s beginnings.

Just nine years after regular commercial network television programming began in the U.S. A Face in the Crowd, Andy Griffith’s 1957 film debut, showed the dangers of live television. The future Andy of Mayberry played Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, a charismatic television star whose career falls apart when an open microphone picks up a rant about his viewers—he calls them “idiots, morons, and guinea pigs”—during a live show.

That rant ruined Lonesome’s career but in Network the immediacy of a live tirade was used to much different effect. Peter Finch plays longtime news anchor Howard Beale who reignites his career with a series of angry diatribes and the catchphrase, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” The motto struck a chord with people and has since been referenced by everyone from Bill O’Reilly in his book Who’s Looking Out for You? to Samuel L. Jackson, who, in the television movie Un-broke encourages people to yell, “I’m broke as Hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

A very different slogan, inspired by the amiable goodbye Edward R. Murrow used to sign-off his broadcasts, served as the title of Good Night and Good and Good Luck. The story of Murrow’s battles against McCarthyism showed the power of early television, allowing Murrow to expose Communist hunter Joe McCarthy for what he was—a fear monger—live on air. “We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason,” he said.

Perhaps the best movie about live television is My Favorite Year, a fictionalized account of Errol Flynn’s appearance on the variety program Your Show of Shows. It’s a frenzied and very funny account that breathes new life into the saying “the show must go on.” Best line? “I’m not an actor, I’m a movie star!”