All of us know that the heart of the Turner channels is the movie Gone With the Wind,  which Ted Turner acquired the rights to when he bought MGM’s film library in 1986. The movie shows up regularly on TCM, and its next scheduled viewing is for July 30. Like most classic movie lovers, I have not only watched GWTW several times but also the documentary The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind. I thought I knew most of the behind-the-scenes intrigue that made this movie such a difficult experience for the cast and the crew as well as its strengths as a work of popular art, but I was wrong.

Recently I signed on to fact-check an info-tainment book titled Armchair Reader: Hollywood, which is a fact-filled tome of Tinseltown trivia. The book includes quizzes, quotes, fun facts, lists, and articles about Hollywood and the movies. One of the articles chronicled the production of Gone With the Wind, and as I researched the topic to check the facts , I discovered a lot that I did not know. Much of it offered insight into film industry practices of the Golden Age.  Also interesting to me was the type of errors in the GTWT article; rather than mistaken dates or misspellings, the inaccuracies were in the form of age-old rumors and tall tales about the movie that are still circulating. As all of us who write about the movies know, accuracy is a problem when researching Hollywood. The fabric of film history is interwoven with publicity and promotion material, self-serving recollections, and tall tales that are too good to be true. The film historian in me fights to uncover the real story while the film fan deep inside revels in the legend.

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I want to thank Jeff, my fellow Morlock, for bestowing onto me a stack of 16mm trailer compilation reels. I usually slap one of these babies on before the feature presentations in my backyard, and they do a great job of setting the mood for the audience. To give readers a taste of the eclectic cinematic bazaar these things can be, here’s what was being pimped on Reel #14: READ MORE

I’m a sucker for any film starring Tuesday Weld. Ditto any high school/teen angst/juvenile delinquent flicks from the fifties and sixties. So there was no way I was going to miss BECAUSE THEY’RE YOUNG (1960) when TCM showed it recently. Another part of the attraction was the curiosity value of American radio and TV personality Dick Clark in his dramatic film debut and musical appearances by the “King of Twang” Duane Eddy and actor-turned-pop singer James Darren.

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I got an odd feeling last night watching news coverage of the sudden death of “King of Pop” Michael Jackson.  As statements from Jackson’s friends and colleagues were being read on air by the anchors, one was from John Landis, who directed Jackson in the groundbreaking THRILLER (1983) video.  For the sake of full disclosure, I should say I was never a Jackson fan.  John Landis was what brought me to THRILLER again and again.  Landis had scored big with the back-to-back successes of ANIMAL HOUSE (1978), THE BLUES BROTHERS (1980), AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981) and TRADING PLACES (1982).  At the time of their collaboration on THRILLER, Jackson was ascending to the pinnacle of his extraordinary career; the first allegations of pedophilia that would dog him through the remainder of his short life were still a decade away.  Landis, however, was in freefall.  In 1982, while filming an action scene for his contribution to TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE (1983), Landis inadvertently caused the deaths of veteran Hollywood actor Vic Morrow and child performers Renee Chen and Myca-Dinh Le when a helicopter rigged for a spectacular crash landed too close to the actors, killing them instantly.  Landis and others were tried for involuntary manslaughter.  Landis was acquitted of the more serious charge but settled out of court with the survivors of the victims when a civil court found him liable  for the deaths.  Though Michael Jackson was never actually charged in connection with the 1993 accusation of child molestation, a subsequent trial involving another minor ended in acquittal.  As Landis’ heartfelt words of condolence to Jackson’s family were read aloud, I struggled to keep my mind in the moment and not flash back on all that history. READ MORE

Reading Moira’s fantastic post about Errol Flynn, and watching the clip from the movie Thank Your Lucky Stars that she posted, got me thinking and searching around for favorite musical clips.  I always loved TYLS, and was so happy that YouTube has this other particularly excellent number from it.  It’s the very snappy, totally cool, and completely entertaining “Ice Cold Katie” featuring Hattie McDaniel, Willie Best, Jess Lee Brooks and Rita Christiani as the alluring Katie who spurns her soldier boyfriend, much to Hattie’s consternation.  The song was written by Arthur Schwartz and Frank Loesser.

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“Maybe all that I am in this world and all that I have been and done comes down to nothing more than being a touch of color in a prosaic world. Even that is something.” ~ Errol Flynn, writing in My Wicked, Wicked Ways

Well, no. It can’t be possible. Errol Flynn at 100 is unimaginable. Yet, as of Saturday, June 20th, the great swashbuckler of the sound era passed the one hundredth anniversary of his birth in 1909 in Tasmania. It may seem impossible that such a milestone has been reached without a bigger celebration in Flynn‘s adopted homeland of America. However, ask yourself: For true classic movie fans, haven’t we continued to celebrate and rediscover Errol Flynn and his evergreen films over and over in the years since he left this world?

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With Industrial Light & Magic’s Hasbro commercial set to dominate movie screens over the next few weeks, I thought I’d recommend some humble robotic counterprogramming. Michael Bay’s curated set of boffo explosions and finely tailored cutoff jeans offers the not unwelcome pleasures of a 2 1/2 hour lobotomy, but the following, more handcrafted metallic killers have a charm that the Transformers brand will never be able to match. So, below the fold, a few lesser-known robots worth a few minutes of your couch time.

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This week, Facets Multi-Media, where I work, is hosting the Chicago African Diaspora Film Festival, one of many festivals and series that our intrepid programmer, Charles Coleman, books each year.  Only a handful of venues around Chicago — or, around the country for that matter — can boast such diverse programming. Last Friday, I watched a documentary from Nigeria titled Glorious Exit, and this coming Tuesday, I plan to stay after work to catch a film about Haitian novelist Jacques Roumain.  Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to see an American independent film as part of the festival.  A small-scale drama with a big-name cast, Gospel Hill is struggling to find bookings in the theaters — any theater.

                Gospel Hill features an ensemble cast of major Hollywood faces, including Angela Bassett, Samuel L. Jackson, Danny Glover, Nia Long, and Julia Stiles, veteran character actors Giancarlo Esposito, Adam Baldwin, and Tom Bower, and newcomers Taylor Kitsch and RZA. Set in the South, the story involves the legacy of a civil rights leader murdered in 1968 and his impact on his small hometown of Julia, South Carolina. Like many small towns across America, Julia is economically depressed because local industries have dried up or moved away. The townspeople are divided over whether to destroy a historical district for the sake of a new development, or to hang onto land that has been owned by local families for a hundred years. Will it really bring jobs to the town, or will residents sacrifice their history for nothing as out-of-state developers take advantage of the low real estate prices?

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It’s Father’s Day today – so I’d like to thank my dad for all he did to contribute to my warped cinematic sensibilities. He didn’t know it at the time, but some of the films he took me to as a kid had a profound experience on me. Four immediately come to mind. READ MORE