Born on this day – Cecil B. DeMille:

 

Cecil B. DeMille

Director

Producer

Actor

August 12, 1881 – January 21, 1959

Credits:

A Night at the Movies: The Gigantic World of Epics (2009); A Romance of the Redwoods (1917); A Trip to Paramountown (1922); Adam's Rib (1923); After Five (1915); Air Force: The Radio Play (1943); All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace (2011); All-Time Movie Greats (1988); America in Color (2018); American Experience (1996); American Masters (1993); An Informal Conversation with Billy Wilder (2018); And the Oscar Goes to... (2014); Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life (1996); Betty to the Rescue (1917); Biography (2005); Braveheart (1925); Brewster's Millions (1914); Brother Can You Spare a Dime (1975); California's Golden Beginning (1948); Carmen (1915); Castles for Two (1917); Cecil B. DeMille: American Epic (2004); Central Casting (2000); Changing Husbands (1924); Charlton Heston, la démesure d'un géant (2023); Chicago (1927); Chimmie Fadden (1915); Chimmie Fadden Out West (1915); Cinépanorama (1957); Cleopatra (1934); Coming Attractions: The History of the Movie Trailer (2009); Compression (2023); Don't Change Your Husband (1919); Dynamite (1929); Estrellados (1930); Eve's Leaves (1926); Extraordinary Women (2011); Fascination: An Unauthorized Tribute to Marilyn Monroe (2011); Feet of Clay (1924); Fighting Love (1927); Fool's Paradise (1921); For Better, for Worse (1919); Forbidden Film: The Production Code Era (2009); Forbidden Fruit (1921); Forfaiture (1937); Four Frightened People (1934); Free and Easy (1930); Gladiateur, glaive et fantasmes (2018); Glamour Boy (1941); Going Hollywood: The '30s (1984); Her Man o' War (1926); History Brought to Life (1950); Hold 'Em Yale (1928); Hollywood (1923 / 1980); Hollywood Extra Girl (1935); Hollywood on Parade No. A-6 (1933); Hollywood on Parade No. A-9 (1933); Hollywood on Parade No. B-5 (1933); Hollywood Out-takes and Rare Footage (1983); Hollywood Without Make-Up (1963); Hooray for Hollywood (1982); Jens Mansson in America (1947); Joan the Woman (1916); John Ford: The Man Who Invented America (2019); Kindling (1915); KTLA Premiere (1947); Land of Liberty (1939); Les années Hollywood de François Chalais (2019); Les mille et une vies de Yul Brynner (2020); Let 'Er Go Gallegher (1927); Life in Hollywood No. 1 (1927); Life in Hollywood No. 4 (1927); Lord Chumley (1914); Lost and Won (1917); Madam Satan (1930); Made for Love (1926); Male and Female (1919); Manslaughter (1922); Maria Rosa (1916); Mary Pickford: The Muse of the Movies (2008); Nan of Music Mountain (1917); Nihon eiga no hyaku nen / Century of Cinema (1995); North West Mounted Police (1940); Old Wives for New (1918); Reap the Wild Wind (1942); Red Dice (1926); Rose of the Rancho (1914); Samson and Delilah (1949); Saturday Night (1922); Screen Snapshots Series 10, No. 6 (1931); Screen Snapshots Series 22, No 10 (1942); Screen Snapshots Series 25, No. 1: 25th Anniversary (1945); Screen Snapshots, Series 2, No. 1-F (1921); Screen Snapshots, Series 3, No. 1 (1922); Screen Snapshots, Series 3, No. 19 (1923); Screen Snapshots, Series 3, No. 23 (1923); Screen Snapshots, Series 4, No. 7 (1923); Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Night Life (1952); Screen Snapshots: The Great Director (1951); Sex at 24 Frames Per Second (2003); Showbiz Ballyhoo (1982); Silence (1926); Social Security in Action (1958–1968); Something to Think About (1920); Son of Paleface (1952); Spécial cinéma (1982); Star Spangled Rhythm (1942); Sunset Boulevard (1950); Surf and Sail (1929); Tal der Träumer (2004); Temptation (1915); The 25th Annual Academy Awards (1953); The Affairs of Anatol (1921); The Angel of Broadway (1927); The Arab (1915); The Best of Hollywood (1998); The Best of Hollywood (2017); The Bible According to Hollywood (1994); The Buccaneer (1938 / 1958); The Buster Keaton Story (1957); The Call of the North (1914); The Captive (1915); The Casting Couch (1995); The Cheat (1915); The Circus Man (1914); The ComicWeb: Old Time Radio Programs (2020); The Coming of Amos (1925); The Cruise of the Jasper B (1926); The Crusades (1935); The DeMille Dynasty (1998); The Devil-Stone (1917); The Dream Girl (1916); The Dressmaker from Paris (1925); The Ed Sullivan Show (1957); The Fallbrook Story (1952); The Fighting Eagle (1927); The Ghost Breaker (1914); The Girl of the Golden West (1915); The Godless Girl (1928); The Golden Bed (1925); The Golden Chance (1915); The Greatest Show on Earth (1952); The Heart of Nora Flynn (1916); The Heart of Show Business (1957); The Hollywood You Never See (1934); The Ken Murray Show (1952); The King of Kings (1927); The Little American (1917); The Lonely Gunfighter: The Legacy of Cheyenne (2006); The Lost City of Cecil B. DeMille (2016); The Love Mask (1916); The Man from Home (1914); The Man on the Box (1914); The Master Mind (1914); The Movies March On (1939); The Night Club (1925); The Only Son (1914); The Plainsman (1936); The Road to Yesterday (1925); The Secret Game (1917); The Secret Sin (1915); The Sign of the Cross (1932); The Squaw Man (1914 / 1918 / 1931); The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944); The Ten Commandments (1923 / 1956); The Ten Commandments: Making Miracles (2011); The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1916); The U.S. and the Holocaust (2022); The Unafraid (1915); The Virginian (1914); The Volga Boatman (1926); The War of the Worlds (1953); The Warrens of Virginia (1915); The Wedding Song (1925); The Whispering Chorus (1918); The Wild Goose Chase (1915); The Woman God Forgot (1917); The Yankee Clipper (1927); This Day and Age (1933); This Is Your Life (1957); Three Faces East (1926); Till I Come Back to You (1918); Triumph (1924); Unconquered (1947); Union Pacific (1939); V.I.P.-Schaukel (1973); Vanity (1927); Variety Girl (1947); Walking Back (1928); Walt Disney Academy Awards: 26th Annual, 1954 / The 26th Annual Academy Awards (1954); We Can't Have Everything (1918); What's His Name (1914); What's My Line? (1952); When Worlds Collide (1951); Whispering Smith (1926); White Gold (1927); Why Be Good? Sexuality & Censorship in Early Cinema (2007); Why Change Your Wife? (1920); Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Power of Women in Hollywood (2000); Young Romance (1915).

On this day in movie history - Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Sunset Boulevard

a.k.a. SUNSET BLVD.,

directed by Billy Wilder,

written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and D. M. Marshman Jr.,

was released in the United States on August 10, 1950.

Music by Franz Waxman.

Cast:

William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson, Fred Clark, Lloyd Gough, Jack Webb, Franklyn Farnum, Larry J. Blake, Charles Dayton, Cecil B. DeMille, Hedda Hopper, Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, H.B. Warner, Ray Evans, Jay Livingston, Fred Aldrich, Joel Allen, Gertrude Astor, Anne Bauchens, Edward Biby, Danny Borzage, Ken Christy, Ruth Clifford, John Cortay, Archie R. Dalzell, Eddie Dew, Peter Drynan, Julia Faye, Al Ferguson, Gerry Ganzer, Rudy Germane, Kenneth Gibson, Joe Gray, Sanford E. Greenwald, Creighton Hale, Chuck Hamilton, James Hawley, Len Hendry, E. Mason Hopper, Stan Johnson, Tiny Jones, Howard Joslin, Arthur Lane, Perc Launders, Alan Marston, William Meader, Gertrude Messinger, Harold Miller, John ‘Skins’ Miller, Lee Miller, Ralph Montgomery, Bert Moorhouse, Jay Morley, Bernice Mosk, Howard Negley, Ottola Nesmith, Eva Novak, Frank O’Connor, Robert Emmett O’Connor, Jack Perrin, Virginia L. Randolph, Bill Sheehan, Sidney Skolsky, Emmett Smith, Roy Thompson, Archie Twitchell, Yvette Vickers, Edward Wahrman, Jack Warden, Henry Wilcoxon.

Recommended reading:

Sunset Boulevard

by Billy Wilder.

Published by University of California Press.

Published 1999.

ISBN-10: 0520218558

ISBN-13: 978-0520218550

Description:

Sunset Boulevard (1950) is one of the most famous films in the history of Hollywood, and perhaps no film better represents Hollywood's vision of itself. Billy Wilder collaborated on the screenplay with the very able Charles Brackett, and with D. M. Marshman Jr., who later joined the team. Together they created a film both allusive and literate, with Hollywood's worst excesses and neuroses laid out for all to see. After viewing Sunset Boulevard Louis B. Mayer exclaimed: "We should throw this Wilder out of town!" The New York Times, however, gave the movie a rave review, praising "that rare blend of pungent writing, expert acting, masterly direction, and unobtrusively artistic photography." The film was nominated for Best Picture, and Wilder won an Academy Award for Best Story and Best Screenplay.

This facsimile edition of Sunset Boulevard makes it possible to get as much pleasure from reading the highly intelligent screenplay as from seeing the film. Jeffrey Meyers's introduction provides an intriguing array of background details about Wilder, the film's casting and production, and the lives of those connected to what has become a classic.

Sunset Boulevard

by Steven Cohan.

BFI Film Classics.

Published by British Film Institute.

Published 2022.

ISBN-10: 1839024089

ISBN-13: 978-1839024085

Description:

Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard was a critical and commercial success on its release in 1950 and remains a classic of film noir and one of the best-known Hollywood films about Hollywood. Both its opening, with William Holden as the screenwriter Joe Gillis floating face down in ageing star Norma Desmond's (Gloria Swanson) pool, and lines such as 'I am big, it's the pictures that got small' are some of the most memorable in Classical Hollywood cinema.

Steven Cohan's study of the film draws on original archival research to shed new light on the film's production history, and the contribution to the film's success and meanings of director Wilder, stars Holden and Swanson but also supporting actors Erich von Stroheim, Nancy Olson (who plays Betty Schaefer), Cecil B. DeMille, and Hedda Hopper, as well as costumier Edith Head, and composer Franz Waxman. Cohan considers the film both as a 'back studio' picture (a movie about Hollywood) and as a film noir, and in the context of McCarthyism, blacklisting and the Hollywood Ten.

Cohan explores how the film was marketed, its reception and afterlife, tracing how the film is at once a product of its own particular historical moment as the movie industry was transitioning out of the studio era, yet one that still speaks powerfully to contemporary audiences, and speculates on the reasons for its enduring appeal

On this day in movie history - The Battle Over Citizen Kane (1996)

The Battle Over Citizen Kane

documentary directed by Thomas Lennon and Michael Epstein,

written by Thomas Lennon and Richard Ben Cramer,

was released in the United States on January 29, 1996.

Episode from season 8 of the PBS documentary series American Experience.

Narrated by Richard Ben Cramer.

Music by Brian Keane.

Cast:

William Alland, Thomas Anderson, Peter Bogdanovich, Jimmy Breslin, Richard Ben Cramer, Marion Davies, Leonard de Paur, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Richard France, William Randolph Hearst, William Herz, Sam Leve, Norman Lloyd, Nancy Loe, Frank Mankiewicz, David McCullough, David Nasaw, Louetta Santucci, John Tebbel, Ruth Warrick, Orson Welles, Vern Whaley, Gloria Widelock, Robert Wise, Jack Carter, Charles Chaplin, Gary Cooper, Cecil B. DeMille, Maurice Ellis, Joan Fontaine, Myrna Loy, Louis B. Mayer, Louella Parsons, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers, Rosalind Russell, David O. Selznick, Norma Shearer.