#newspaper films

[twittercomfrnklin2001-blog]

Five Star Final

Edward G. Robinson had one of his best roles as the muckraking newspaper editor in Mervyn LeRoy’s FIVE STAR FINAL (1931, TCM), one of the films that established Warner Bros.’ hard-hitting house style. He’s been trying to elevate his paper’s news coverage, but when circulation slips, his venal publisher (Oscar Apfel) orders him to revive a sensational 20-year-old murder case, with disastrous results. LeRoy directs with a rapid pace and a creative use of sound, from the opening titles played over news vendors’ cries and whirring presses rather than music to a tense scene scored to jazzy music playing on a radio. And though some of the actors are still stuck in dated styles that suggest their inability to adjust stage-trained acting to the camera (as the murderer trying to escape her past, Frances Starr has a tendency to sing her lines), there’s a lot of good honest work in the film, particularly from Boris Karloff as a reporter given to posing as a clergyman, Ona Munson as a female reporter with ice water in her veins, H. B. Warner as Starr’s husband, Marian Marsh as her daughter and particularly Aline MacMahon, in her film debut, as Robinson’s critical yet adoring secretary. Her drunk scene is a study in how to play against inebriation and a later scene with Robinson in a speakeasy is a feast of good acting. But it’s really Robinson who’s the whole show. Like most of Warners’ top stars, he was a master of fast-paced dialogue. But he also has an expressiveness about the eyes that pulls you in. When he discovers what his coverage of the story has led to, he manages to communicate his growing sense of guilt even while barking out orders on how to cover the latest development. This is a master working at the height of his powers.  The film was remade as TWO AGAINST THE WORLD (1936) with Humphrey Bogart in the lead and as a live television broadcast in 1954 with Edmond O’Brien as the editor and Joanne Woodward as the daughter.

[bibliophileramblings]

(via Pin page)

[nickdewolfarchive]

new york city summer 1978

newsstand, times square

photograph by nick dewolf https://www.flickr.com/photos/dboo/50559214627

[frodopotter7]

I am sad, that all this passion and in all this great times of film making it has come to this. All that we get is reproductions of a reproduction and another merchandise series. If a film maker dares to make something unique and extraordinary, it is taken away too soon immediately. I feel like those big streaming platforms and the average viewer never sees the amount of poor and talented souls who suffer from that.

[humanoidhistory]

Maurice Evans as Dr. Zaius on the set of Planet of the Apes.

[garadinervi]

Dorothy Counts, fifteen year old, walks into her first day at then all-white Harry Harding High School, Charlotte, NC, September 4, 1957 [Photo: © Don Sturkey / «Charlotte Observer»]

«That's when I saw the photograph. On every newspaper kiosk on that wide, tree-shaped boulevard in Paris were photographs of 15-year-old Dorothy Counts being reviled and spat upon by the mob as she was making her way to school in Charlotte, N.C. There was unutterable pride, tension and anguish in that girl's face as she approached the halls of learning with history jeering at her back. It made me furious. It filled me with both hatred and pity, and it made me ashamed. Some one of us should have been there with her.» ― I Am Not Your Negro, (2016, documentary, 93min), Directed by Raoul Peck, from text by James Baldwin, Velvet Film

[simply-sharon-tate]

Sharon Tate, photographed in July 1959 with her fellow contestants prior to the August 1959 Miss Richland pageant which took place during the Atomic Frontier Days celebration in Washington State.

Sharon won the pageant, but was forced to abdicate the title when her father was transferred by the US Army a few days later. Patti Stewart was then awarded the title. The Tate family briefly returned to Texas while her father received additional training before they moved to Italy. It was while doing film extra work in Italy that Sharon met Richard Beymer, who suggested that she move to Hollywood after graduating from high school.

Photo 1: Tri-City Herald (July 21st, 1959)

Photo 2: The Spokesman-Review (July 25th, 1959)

Photo 3: Tri-City Herald (August 3rd, 1959)

[asiaphotostudio]

Weizhou Island, 2000 Weizhou Island, beihai, Guangxi, China. 中国 広西 北海市 涠洲岛 Photography by Michitaka Kurata

[friendlessghoul]

Buster Keaton and 'Invention' Here Miniature Pile Driver Turns Out to Be Cigaret Lighter

The San Francisco Examiner - May 11, 1940

[davidhudson]

Sans Jane.

[omercifulheaves]

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

[iveseenitinmovies]

this is your reminder to stay hydrated!

[humanoidhistory]

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

[pinkeoni]

film bro byers is so real to me

[lisamarie-vee]

[transpondster]

On the set of Eyes Wide Shut