“God must be a derivative of good somewhere way back. It’s the magic of the world: How does a pine tree know how to be a pine tree, how does the maple learn to be a maple? It’s what’s awe-inspiring. It’s the greatest magic there is. It’s what makes everything be alive.” – Quoted in [...]
Archive for the ‘Film’ Category
Jean Arthur on God
Posted in Film, Religion on April 11, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Mae Busch by Clarence Sinclair Bull
Posted in Film, Photography on March 18, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
In her long and varied film career, Mae Busch played Erich Von Stroheim’s mistress, Lon Chaney’s girlfriend and Oliver Hardy’s wife. And legend has it that her dalliance with Mack Sennett ended his engagement to actress Mabel Normand when Miss Normand surprised Busch and Sennett in a pose that suggested intimacy. In the ensuing discussion, [...]
Anel Sudekevich
Posted in Film, Photography, Postcards on March 12, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Circa 1927, a postcard of Anel Sudakevich, born in Kiev to a Russian father and Swedish mother. Samuel Goldwyn wanted to make her a star in America, as Anna Sten, but she was not to be the next Garbo. There’s a nice bio here.
Jean Arthur and Fu Manchu
Posted in Art, Film, Photography on February 11, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
My mother loved tea, chocolate, mysteries and Jean Arthur, and I inherited all of that. In particular, I’m a fan of Sax Rohmer and Fu Manchu, and much to my delight I recently found Jean Arthur played Lia Eltham, a young damsel threatened by Fu Manchu (Warner Oland), and saved by Jack Petrie (Neil Hamilton) [...]
Perfect
Posted in Dogs, Film, Photography on January 4, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
I love William Powell and dachshunds, and here they are.
Olive Thomas
Posted in Art, Film, Photography on December 26, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
Olive Thomas, who died, tragically, of an accidental poisoning in Paris at the age of 25.
Billie Burke
Posted in Film, Photography on December 26, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
So many people remember Billie Burke only as Glinda the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz, but she had a fabulous stage and film career. I will always love her as Mrs. Cosmo Topper in Topper Returns, but this photo by Alfred Cheney Johnston tells us of the young woman she was on the [...]
The Big Screen
Posted in Film on September 3, 2011 | 2 Comments »
My fear of giants dates from 1952, when my mother took my brother and me to see Jack and the Beanstalk with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. I was five years old and did not see all of the film, because every time the giant could be heard approaching, I ducked out of sight. We [...]
Marion Davies
Posted in Film on August 28, 2011 | 1 Comment »
Saw this picture of Marion Davies today, and it reminded me that after a visit to Hearst Castle in San Simeon in October of 2001, I wrote this about her: “Marion Davies was a Ziegfeld Girl who Hearst loved and sought, successfully, to make into a film star. A gifted comic actress, she has never [...]
Jean-Léon Gérôme and Ridley Scott
Posted in Art, Film on August 5, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
“Pollice Verso” (“With a turned thumb”) (1872) is a painting by French artist Jean-Léon Gérôme, featuring the famed Roman gesture to winning gladiators. The producers of Gladiator (2000) showed director Ridley Scott this painting before he read the film’s script, and he later said, “That image spoke to me of the Roman Empire in all [...]
