Earlier this week, IndieWire exclusively debuted a video of Steven Spielberg sharing his inaugural picks as an advisor to TCM: five films he chose from the beloved network’s September 2023 lineup. Now his fellow advisors Martin Scorsese and Paul Thomas Anderson have gotten in on the action too. Watch the video of Scorsese recommending one of TCM’s September titles above: it’s about Arthur Crabtree’s “Madonna of the Seven Moons,” a melodrama produced by Gainsborough Pictures in 1945.
Gainsborough Pictures was a U.K. studio renowned for a series of highly-charged melodramas in the 1940s built around actors like James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, and Dennis Price. None of the films are connected plot-wise, but they do share many of the same creatives in front and behind the camera as well as a similar mood.
In the video above, Scorsese says of “Madonna of the Seven Moons,” which airs September 20 at 2:00pm Et,...
Gainsborough Pictures was a U.K. studio renowned for a series of highly-charged melodramas in the 1940s built around actors like James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, and Dennis Price. None of the films are connected plot-wise, but they do share many of the same creatives in front and behind the camera as well as a similar mood.
In the video above, Scorsese says of “Madonna of the Seven Moons,” which airs September 20 at 2:00pm Et,...
- 8/31/2023
- by Christian Blauvelt
- Indiewire
Stars: Mandy Miller, Phyllis Calvert, Jack Hawkins, Terence Morgan, Godfrey Tearle, Marjorie Fielding, Nancy Price, Edward Chapman, Patricia Plunkett, Eleanor Summerfield, Colin Gordon | Written by Nigel Balchin, Jack Whittingham | Directed by Alexander Mackendrick
When you watch Mandy, you can’t help but feel it was a film ahead of its time. The story of a deaf girl unable to speak, the new Blu-ray is the perfect chance to watch the movie again.
When Mandy’s (Mandy Miller) parents discover that their child is deaf, they struggle to help her communicate not only with the outside world, but with themselves too. When Christine (Phyllis Calvert), the mother, decides to take Mandy to a school for deaf children, her husband’s reluctance to allow this puts a strain on their marriage.
What is impressive about Mandy is that it doesn’t over dramatise the story of a little girl trapped in her own little world,...
When you watch Mandy, you can’t help but feel it was a film ahead of its time. The story of a deaf girl unable to speak, the new Blu-ray is the perfect chance to watch the movie again.
When Mandy’s (Mandy Miller) parents discover that their child is deaf, they struggle to help her communicate not only with the outside world, but with themselves too. When Christine (Phyllis Calvert), the mother, decides to take Mandy to a school for deaf children, her husband’s reluctance to allow this puts a strain on their marriage.
What is impressive about Mandy is that it doesn’t over dramatise the story of a little girl trapped in her own little world,...
- 6/15/2017
- by Paul Metcalf
- Nerdly
Author: Competitions
To mark the release of Mandy on 12th June, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on Blu-ray.
Six-year-old Mandy Garland (Mandy Miller) was born deaf. With concerns for her future, Christine (Phyllis Calvert: Twisted Nerve, Mr Denning Drives North) and Harry Garland (Terence Morgan: Sir Francis Drake) try to work out the best scenario for their daughter’s education, but before long their constant quarreling puts a strain on their relationship. Against Harry’s wishes, Mandy is enrolled in a special school under the guidance of headmaster Dick Searle (Jack Hawkins: The Cruel Sea, The Fallen Idol), whose unconventional teaching methods are questioned by some of the adults. But Christine forms a strong friendship with Mr Searle, who ultimately has the child’s best interests at heart and eventually helps Mandy to find her voice.
Boasting an all star cast and a breakout performance from Mandy Miller,...
To mark the release of Mandy on 12th June, we’ve been given 3 copies to give away on Blu-ray.
Six-year-old Mandy Garland (Mandy Miller) was born deaf. With concerns for her future, Christine (Phyllis Calvert: Twisted Nerve, Mr Denning Drives North) and Harry Garland (Terence Morgan: Sir Francis Drake) try to work out the best scenario for their daughter’s education, but before long their constant quarreling puts a strain on their relationship. Against Harry’s wishes, Mandy is enrolled in a special school under the guidance of headmaster Dick Searle (Jack Hawkins: The Cruel Sea, The Fallen Idol), whose unconventional teaching methods are questioned by some of the adults. But Christine forms a strong friendship with Mr Searle, who ultimately has the child’s best interests at heart and eventually helps Mandy to find her voice.
Boasting an all star cast and a breakout performance from Mandy Miller,...
- 6/5/2017
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
A pure-gold Savant favorite, Sir Richard Attenborough's first feature as director is a stylized pacifist epic of the insane tragedy of WW1, told through contemporary songs, with the irreverent lyrics given them by the soldiers themselves. And one will not want to miss a young Maggie Smith's music hall performance -- luring young conscripts to doom in the trenches. It's the strangest pacifist film ever, done in high style. Oh! What a Lovely War DVD The Warner Archive Collection 1969 / Color / 2:35 enhanced widescreen / 144 min. / Street Date September 22, 2015 / available through the WBshop / 16.99 Starring: Too many to name, see below. Cinematography Gerry Turpin Production Design Donald M. Ashton Art Direction Harry White Choreography Eleanor Fazan Film Editor Kevin Connor Original Music Alfred Ralston Written by Len Deighton from the musical play by Joan Littlewood from the radio play by Charles Chilton Produced by Richard Attenborough, Brian Duffy, Len Deighton Directed...
- 2/23/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Maureen O'Hara: Queen of Technicolor. Maureen O'Hara movies: TCM tribute Veteran actress and Honorary Oscar recipient Maureen O'Hara, who died at age 95 on Oct. 24, '15, in Boise, Idaho, will be remembered by Turner Classic Movies with a 24-hour film tribute on Friday, Nov. 20. At one point known as “The Queen of Technicolor” – alongside “Eastern” star Maria Montez – the red-headed O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons on Aug. 17, 1920, in Ranelagh, County Dublin) was featured in more than 50 movies from 1938 to 1971 – in addition to one brief 1991 comeback (Chris Columbus' Only the Lonely). Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne Setting any hint of modesty aside, Maureen O'Hara wrote in her 2004 autobiography (with John Nicoletti), 'Tis Herself, that “I was the only leading lady big enough and tough enough for John Wayne.” Wayne, for his part, once said (as quoted in 'Tis Herself): There's only one woman who has been my friend over the...
- 10/29/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
This podcast focuses on Criterion’s Eclipse Series of DVDs. Hosts David Blakeslee and Trevor Berrett give an overview of each box and offer their perspectives on the unique treasures they find inside. In this episode, David and Trevor discuss Eclipse Series 36: Three Wicked Melodramas from Gainsborough Pictures.
About the films:
During the 1940s, realism reigned in British cinema—but not at Gainsborough Pictures. The studio, which had been around since the twenties, found new success with a series of pleasurably preposterous costume melodramas. Audiences ate up these overheated films, which featured a stable of charismatic stars, including James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, Stewart Granger, and Phyllis Calvert. Though the movies were immensely profitable in wartime and immediately after, Gainsborough did not outlive the decade. This set brings together a trio of the studio’s most popular films from this era—florid, visceral tales of secret identities, multiple personalities, and romantic betrayals.
About the films:
During the 1940s, realism reigned in British cinema—but not at Gainsborough Pictures. The studio, which had been around since the twenties, found new success with a series of pleasurably preposterous costume melodramas. Audiences ate up these overheated films, which featured a stable of charismatic stars, including James Mason, Margaret Lockwood, Stewart Granger, and Phyllis Calvert. Though the movies were immensely profitable in wartime and immediately after, Gainsborough did not outlive the decade. This set brings together a trio of the studio’s most popular films from this era—florid, visceral tales of secret identities, multiple personalities, and romantic betrayals.
- 8/19/2015
- by David Blakeslee
- CriterionCast
Robert Walker: Actor in MGM films of the '40s. Robert Walker: Actor who conveyed boy-next-door charms, psychoses At least on screen, I've always found the underrated actor Robert Walker to be everything his fellow – and more famous – MGM contract player James Stewart only pretended to be: shy, amiable, naive. The one thing that made Walker look less like an idealized “Average Joe” than Stewart was that the former did not have a vacuous look. Walker's intelligence shone clearly through his bright (in black and white) grey eyes. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” programming, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating today, Aug. 9, '15, to Robert Walker, who was featured in 20 films between 1943 and his untimely death at age 32 in 1951. Time Warner (via Ted Turner) owns the pre-1986 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library (and almost got to buy the studio outright in 2009), so most of Walker's movies have...
- 8/9/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Henry V' Movie Actress Renée Asherson dead at 99: Laurence Olivier leading lady in acclaimed 1944 film (image: Renée Asherson and Laurence Olivier in 'Henry V') Renée Asherson, a British stage actress featured in London productions of A Streetcar Named Desire and Three Sisters, but best known internationally as Laurence Olivier's leading lady in the 1944 film version of Henry V, died on October 30, 2014. Asherson was 99 years old. The exact cause of death hasn't been specified. She was born Dorothy Renée Ascherson (she would drop the "c" some time after becoming an actress) on May 19, 1915, in Kensington, London, to Jewish parents: businessman Charles Ascherson and his second wife, Dorothy Wiseman -- both of whom narrowly escaped spending their honeymoon aboard the Titanic. (Ascherson cancelled the voyage after suffering an attack of appendicitis.) According to Michael Coveney's The Guardian obit for the actress, Renée Asherson was "scantly...
- 11/5/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...
- 9/4/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Jean Kent: British film star and ‘Last of the Gainsborough Girls’ dead at 92 (photo: actress Jean Kent in ‘Madonna of the Seven Moons’) News outlets and tabloids — little difference these days — have been milking every little drop from the unexpected and violent death of The Fast and the Furious franchise actor Paul Walker, and his friend and business partner Roger Rodas this past Saturday, November 30, 2013. Unfortunately — and unsurprisingly — apart from a handful of British publications, the death of another film performer on that same day went mostly underreported. If you’re not "in" at this very moment, you may as well have never existed. Jean Kent, best known for her roles as scheming villainesses in British films of the 1940s and Gainsborough Pictures’ last surviving top star, died on November 30 at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds, England. The previous day, she had suffered a fall at her...
- 12/4/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Popular stalwart of film classics such as The Browning Version and Fanny By Gaslight
Jean Kent, the fiery, sexy, red-haired bad girl of British movies in the 1940s, who has died aged 92, was a fine actor, and clearly enjoyed life, her work and – while it lasted – her cinema fame. While never a top star, she gained a considerable following, and from the 1960s appeared regularly on television. Her film breakthrough came as a result of stage work: after the revue Apple Sauce, starring Vera Lynn and Max Miller, reached the London Palladium in 1941, she was offered a long-term contract, and the first of her Gainsborough Pictures appearances came in It's That Man Again (1943), with another wartime entertainer, the radio comic Tommy Handley.
It took another four films for her to make her first real mark as Lucy, the friend of Phyllis Calvert in the title role of the melodrama Fanny By Gaslight,...
Jean Kent, the fiery, sexy, red-haired bad girl of British movies in the 1940s, who has died aged 92, was a fine actor, and clearly enjoyed life, her work and – while it lasted – her cinema fame. While never a top star, she gained a considerable following, and from the 1960s appeared regularly on television. Her film breakthrough came as a result of stage work: after the revue Apple Sauce, starring Vera Lynn and Max Miller, reached the London Palladium in 1941, she was offered a long-term contract, and the first of her Gainsborough Pictures appearances came in It's That Man Again (1943), with another wartime entertainer, the radio comic Tommy Handley.
It took another four films for her to make her first real mark as Lucy, the friend of Phyllis Calvert in the title role of the melodrama Fanny By Gaslight,...
- 12/2/2013
- by Sheila Whitaker
- The Guardian - Film News
Decades of rainy-Sunday screenings have blinded us to the true nature of postwar British cinema – freedom, naughtiness and a very black humour indeed
It begins with a parrot and a gaucho band. We're in South America – or a tiny patch of it, conjured some 60 years ago on a sound stage in London. The customers wear fur wraps and hair cream. The Atlantic stands, suspiciously immobile, beyond the window. And here is Alec Guinness, a British robber in rich retirement, sitting at a table, grinning a complacent grin and declaring his attachment to the Latin high life in that thin, high, gurgling voice. He is a prototypical Ronnie Biggs – and he's prepared to put his money where his mouth is.
When a conspicuously privileged middle-aged woman stops to talk, Guinness presses a roll of banknotes into her outstretched hands – a donation for the "victims of the revolution". A waiter receives a similarly thick wad of beneficence.
It begins with a parrot and a gaucho band. We're in South America – or a tiny patch of it, conjured some 60 years ago on a sound stage in London. The customers wear fur wraps and hair cream. The Atlantic stands, suspiciously immobile, beyond the window. And here is Alec Guinness, a British robber in rich retirement, sitting at a table, grinning a complacent grin and declaring his attachment to the Latin high life in that thin, high, gurgling voice. He is a prototypical Ronnie Biggs – and he's prepared to put his money where his mouth is.
When a conspicuously privileged middle-aged woman stops to talk, Guinness presses a roll of banknotes into her outstretched hands – a donation for the "victims of the revolution". A waiter receives a similarly thick wad of beneficence.
- 7/21/2011
- by Matthew Sweet
- The Guardian - Film News
Actor whose 1940s heyday featured two films as co-star to James Mason
The 1940s was a ripe period for women in British films, when stars such as Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert, Valerie Hobson and Jean Simmons had a chance to shine. Although Joyce Howard, who has died aged 88, was never in their league, she had her moments of glory in a relatively short career which lasted from 1941 to 1950. Howard's high spots were the two films in which she co-starred with the up-and-coming matinee idol James Mason: The Night Has Eyes (1942) and They Met in the Dark (1943).
Howard was the ideal foil for the saturnine Mason. In the former film, she is the vulnerable, repressed heroine whose passions are aroused by Mason's brooding, secretive composer, the kind of relationship so beloved of wartime British melodramas. The film, directed by Leslie Arliss, creates a pervasive sense of danger, with the characters...
The 1940s was a ripe period for women in British films, when stars such as Margaret Lockwood, Phyllis Calvert, Valerie Hobson and Jean Simmons had a chance to shine. Although Joyce Howard, who has died aged 88, was never in their league, she had her moments of glory in a relatively short career which lasted from 1941 to 1950. Howard's high spots were the two films in which she co-starred with the up-and-coming matinee idol James Mason: The Night Has Eyes (1942) and They Met in the Dark (1943).
Howard was the ideal foil for the saturnine Mason. In the former film, she is the vulnerable, repressed heroine whose passions are aroused by Mason's brooding, secretive composer, the kind of relationship so beloved of wartime British melodramas. The film, directed by Leslie Arliss, creates a pervasive sense of danger, with the characters...
- 12/30/2010
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
It is hard to avoid a certain nostalgia while watching Stephen Frears' new film, Tamara Drewe (adapted from the Posy Simmonds graphic novel.) The British film industry hasn't been making this kind of bucolic comedy since the days of Kay Kendall, Kenneth More and Genevieve (1953). Admittedly, there is much more sex in Tamara Drewe than in most of the films made by the Rank Organisation in the 1950s. Tamara (Gemma Arterton) is promiscuous in a way that Phyllis Calvert and Patricia Roc characters in Fifties melodramas never were. However, Frears' characters are types who haven't been much seen on British screens in recent years – middle-class folk who have Aga ovens in their kitchens and listen to Radio 4.
- 7/1/2010
- The Independent - Film
In honor of Quentin Tarantino week here at Wamg, this column will tackle the 1968 British psycho-thriller Twisted Nerve. A music highlight of Tarantino’s first Kill Bill film in 2003 occurs during the scene when Darryl Hannah’s eye-patched Elle Driver is walking down the hospital corridors intending to dispatch Uma Thurman and she’s whistling this haunting tune that is at the same time both childlike and threatening. Curious, I read the closing credits and the strange song was identified as the theme from the movie Twisted Nerve composed by Bernard Herrmann. That title was familiar as I had its cool psychedelic U.S. one-sheet in my collection but I’d never seen the film and immediately became determined to track it down. I was able to secure a British Pal import of the film and was pleased to find Twisted Nerve an excellent, nasty little forgotten thriller about a warped young psychopath.
- 8/19/2009
- by Travis
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.