Peter Bogdanovich

Hawthorn

Peter Bogdanovich — Sat, 12 May 2012 22:15:02 GMT

Hawthorn (also known as Whitethorn, May Tree, Haw-tree, Thorn-apple, Red Haw or Hog-apple) is a large genus of the Rose Family which flowers at this time with white (in some species, red or pink)...

Two by Lang: 'The Woman in the Window' & 'While the City Sleeps'

Peter Bogdanovich — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:20:44 GMT

When Alfred Hitchcock made his first thrillers in the mid-1920s, he was often praised as “an English Fritz Lang,” Lang then being world famous for making nightmarish German crime pictures...

Make Way for Tomorrow

Peter Bogdanovich — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:51:05 GMT

Until a short while ago when the invaluable Criterion Collection made it part of their series of classics, one of the hardest-to-see, most personal, least commercial and least known of quality...

To Be Or Not To Be

Peter Bogdanovich — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:02:22 GMT

Perhaps the first modern black comedy is the one the incomparable Ernst Lubitsch made a couple of years after his most heartwarmingly human film The Shop Around the Corner (1940); I’m referring...

Willow & Blackthorn

Peter Bogdanovich — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 17:18:45 GMT

V. WILLOW The Tree of Enchantment APRIL 15 - MAY 12 Willow is a tree that has been sacred in numerous religious beliefs and rituals dating back to the Old Stone Age, from which were...

Easter Parade

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 16:30:52 GMT

If you want to see an Easter-related picture, you don’t have much choice: The monopoly is held by the 1948 Fred Astaire-Judy Garland-Irving Berlin charmer, EASTER PARADE (available on...

The Crowd Roars

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 16:16:02 GMT

When he was sixteen, and until he was about twenty-one, Howard Hawks helped build racing cars and drove them to earn a living, getting to know the sort of men drawn to this highly dangerous...

Rebecca

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 16:04:29 GMT

Alfred Hitchcock’s first American film was originally going to be about the sinking of the Titanic. When he arrived at the Port of New York in 1939, the producer David O. Selznick (who had...

Alder

Peter Bogdanovich — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:35:23 GMT

IV. ALDER The Tree of Fire MARCH 18 - APRIL 14 Sun in Pisces, the Fish to Mar 20; Sun in Aries the Ram, Mar 21- Apr 19 The Tree of Saturday, Day of Peace and Repose ...

Sullivan's Travels

Sat, 03 Mar 2012 20:51:36 GMT

In 1941, the same extraordinary vintage year that saw the release of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley, Howard Hawks’ Sergeant York and Ball of Fire,...

Ash

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 16:39:11 GMT

III. ASH The Tree of Sea-Power FEBRUARY 19 - MARCH 17 Sun in Aquarius the Water-bearer, to Feb 19; Sun in Pisces the Fish, Feb 20 - Mar 20 ...

Red River & My Darling Clementine

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:16:26 GMT

In 1960, when author, producer, distributor and exhibitor Daniel Talbot opened the now-legendary (and long gone) New Yorker Theater on upper Broadway, his novel idea was to program predominantly...

The Big Sleep

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:20:43 GMT

The two Humphrey Bogart movies that are quintessentially Bogart—in which that line between a star actor’s screen persona and a specific character he’s playing is most thoroughly and...

A Double Life & The Actress

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 16:59:16 GMT

Since New York City-born (1899-1983) George Cukor’s first love was the theatre—-he was smitten quite young, right from his initial exposure to a Broadway show, and decided he would be a...

A Year and a Day Calender: Rowan

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 20:57:28 GMT

Rowan is a native of Eurasia, a member of the Rose Family which has been naturalized across Alaska and Canada, and From Maine to California. The word “Rowan” comes from an old...

Sands of Iwo Jima

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:33:34 GMT

One of Billy Wilder’s first jobs in the German film business, he told me once, was an assignment in the mid-1920s to show around Berlin a famous and respected American film director and his...

The Lost Films of Laurel and Hardy

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 00:48:32 GMT

The most popular and successful comedy team in entertainment history was Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, the timid thin one and the bossy fat one, who made an unbroken string of shorts (20 minutes...

A YEAR AND A DAY CALENDAR

Peter Bogdanovich — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 14:52:55 GMT

TABLE OF CONTENTS 1) A First Word About The Calendar and Me 2) Foreword: The Day of Wisdom 3) Introduction: The Tree Calendar of the Unicorn 4) The Extra Day: Silver...

The Golden Age of American Talkies: 1932

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:30:58 GMT

Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch) Scarface (Howard Hawks) One Hour with You (Ernst Lubitsch) Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg) Tiger Shark (Howard Hawks) Blonde Venus (Josef...

The Student Prince (In Old Heidelberg)

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:30:02 GMT

Since for me the Polish-German master Ernst Lubitsch (1892-1947), once internationally famous for his “Lubitsch Touch,” is high among the ten best and most influential picture-makers of...

Hail the Conquering Hero

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:37:41 GMT

As questions of morality, ethics and honor in our society become ever more ambiguous, it might be salutary to see an American comedy of the highest order dealing with these troubling issues, made...

Comanche Station

Peter Bogdanovich — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 16:06:42 GMT

Among hip Western connoisseurs both here and abroad, there have been four really memorable, artistically consistent director-star series in the genre’s sound era: eight John Ford-John Wayne...

Sadie Thompson

Peter Bogdanovich — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 14:28:50 GMT

James Cagney once told me he had worked with eighty directors in his career, “But there’s only five I’d call a real director.” Which was what? “A real director is a guy...

B-Movies

Peter Bogdanovich — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:06:49 GMT

Back in the early 1970s, in my monthly Esquire column, I did a piece on B-Movies, focusing mainly on the low-budget but personal films directed by Samuel Fuller, Don Siegel, and Budd Boetticher. I...

The Sopranos

Peter Bogdanovich — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 08:24:54 GMT

About ten years ago, I was talking with critic Matt Zoller Seitz, and he said that one of the things he thought which made the HBO series THE SOPRANOS (all six seasons available on DVD) such an...