Classic Hollywood

“I have lived a most wonderful life, being given an extremely rare privilege, a forty-five-year ride on the magical carpet of Film!” So writes Frank Capra in “The Name Above the Title”, his voluminous autobiography published in 1971, 20 years before his death at age 94. In it he reminds the reader that he “helped create the golden era of films,” along Hollywood filmmakers of the thirties and forties, “who thrilled the world with their own works, creative giants in love with their medium, fiercely proud of it, fiercely jealous of it.

By 1995, Samuel Fuller was back in his Hollywood Hills house at 7628 Woodrow Wilson Drive, after a 13-year self-imposed exile in Paris. At 83, he had just survived a debilitating stroke.

By 1995, Samuel Fuller was back in his Hollywood Hills house at 7628 Woodrow Wilson Drive, after a 13-year self-imposed exile in Paris. At 83, he had just survived a debilitating stroke.

At the mention of Joe Pasternak, only the most hardcore cinephiles will probably recognize the name as one the most prolific producers of Hollywood’s Golden Age, with 105 films to his credit, in a 40-year long career that started in 1929. So, it is a treat to discover “Easy the Hard Way”, his breezy autobiography published in 1956, when he was still very active before retiring from the movie business 12 years later.

Anna May Wong was the first Chinese-American to become a movie star in Hollywood. Born in Chinatown, Los Angeles, in 1905 as Wong Liu Tsong, she worked in film, stage, and television and entered the film industry at a time of deep racism, when Caucasian actresses were cast as Chinese characters in yellowface.

“(The) only amazing thing about my career in Hollywood is that I ever had one at all. ”This is the bittersweet confession made by Preston Sturges, midway through his unfinished autobiography, published in 1990, 31 years after his death.

Last week's billion-dollar signing by Warner Brothers of producer-directors JJ Abrams and John Wells to production deals may well be the culmination of the long struggle for actors and directors to earn a share of studio profits. Nowhere before in history have art and commerce melded together like in cinema.

At one time they were the biggest names in the industry, among the world’s the most popular actors, but whatever happened to…Marie Dressler?  Dressler was a matronly character actress, winner of the Academy Award in 1931. She was the antithesis of Hollywood glamor, but in 1932 and 1933 she was America’s most popular star.

There are still many unknowns about the Disney-Fox deal, but the acquisition of Fox by the Burbank Behemoth, which diminishes the historic major studios from six to five, promises to be epochal in many ways for the movie industry and the City of Angels. While we wait to learn its practical effects on everything from the feature production slate to city traffic, HFPA member and ex-president Phil Berk has this remembrance of a studio which will forever be part of filmdom history.

The TCM Classic Film Festival, launched in 2010, was held for the eighth year in Hollywood, April 6 to 9, 2017. Crowds of movie lovers of all ages lined up to watch their favorites films on the big screen at the Chinese, Egyptian and Arclight theaters and they gathered for social events at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.