Oscar History
Film Bitch History
Welcome

The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)

Follow TFE on Substackd

Powered by Squarespace
Keep TFE Strong

We're looking for 500... no 390 SubscribersIf you read us daily, please be one.  

I ♥ The Film Experience

THANKS IN ADVANCE

What'cha Looking For?
Subscribe

Entries in Rita Hayworth (17)

Friday
Sep072018

Showbiz History: Rita & Orson, Keira's Karenina, and an Emmy boycott

6 random things that happened on this day, September 7th, in showbiz history

1940 Dario Argento is born in Rome. He goes on to fame as the director of stylish thrillers and horror movies, and to father actress/director Asia Argento. We're about to get the remake of his best known feature Suspiria.

←  1943 Movie stars Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles marry (though various internet sources seem to disagree on the date, sometimes September 9th is cited). They're both fresh stars in their twenties at the time having broken out in 1941 with The Strawberry Blonde and Citizen Kane respectively. The marriage will last for five years. I've urged you many times over the years to see the trans documentary Prodigal Sons which has an amazing connection to Welles & Hayworth...

Click to read more ...

Friday
Jul202018

Vintage '43

Let's soak in some 1943 since the Smackdown is but one week ago. Here's a look into what was hot hot hot that year in many fields and categories for context...

This is the Army (1943)

Great Big Box Office Hits 

  1. For Whom the Bell Tolls
  2. This is the Army
  3. The Song of Bernadette
  4. Thousands Cheer
  5. Star Spangled Rhythm
  6. Casablanca
  7. Air Force
  8. Destination Tokyo
  9. A Guy Named Joe
  10. Coney Island

Oscar's Best Picture List  

Click to read more ...

Monday
May012017

The Furniture: My Gal Sal's Nonsense Gay Nineties

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail. Here's Daniel Walber...

My Gal Sal is a pack of lies. The 1942 musical, ostensibly a biopic of songwriter Paul Dresser, is almost entirely fabricated. Of course, that hardly matters. Accuracy is no prerequisite for the Best Production Design Oscar, which Richard Day, Joseph C. Wright and Thomas Little won for the picture. No one will be mad if some details are fudged in musical numbers like “Me and My Fella and a Big Umbrella.”

That said, My Gal Sal is interesting because it’s all nonsense. It’s a window into the way Hollywood projects itself onto the past, a compendium of historical kitsch.

Dresser (Victor Mature) begins the film in a strict, Indiana home. His minister father objects to his music, so he runs away and gets a job with a medicine show. 

Eventually he meets Sally Elliott (Rita Hayworth), an established Broadway star. They don’t hit it off right away, but he meets her again in New York City. Their on-again-off-again romance, troubled by his sudden success, drives the rest of the plot...

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Jan292017

28 Days Until Oscar

Today's number is 28. I trust you know that Gloria Swanson was ALWAYS ready for her close-up. 

She's best remembered for Sunset Blvd (1950) but that movie couldn't have existed, at least not in the perfect form it does, were it not for her earlier silent screen stardom.  Her first Oscar nomination came for Sadie Thompson (1928) in the very first year of the Oscars. The movie was also nominated for Best Cinematography but both the DP and Swanson lost the Oscars to Janet Gaynor and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, respectively. Swanson wasn't the only female superstar to play Sadie...

Click to read more ...

Friday
Jul082016

Good Morning from Rita and Me. 

I'm not as peppy as Rita Hayworth here* -- yesterday was so disheartening on so many levels -- but the coffee is helping. While I struggle to get my day going with a smile, tell us about yours -- any big movie plans this weekend?

*Coffee cup via Alejandro Mogolla's shop. He's a great illustrator and also a reader of The Film Experience!