Tweet Gallery of Mastheads

He was terrific in RICH AND STRANGE, and I absolutely loved him inTHE 39 STEPS. He had a suspenseful scene unknowingly delivering a live bomb aboard a city bus in SABOTAGE.....and then he BLEW UP! And then there was his creepy portrayal of an overly zealous housekeeper in REBECCA, not to mention his involvement with that wild airplane-ditching-into-the-ocean scene from FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT. And who could forget his toppling from the Statue of Liberty in SABOTEUR?

You're right! El Brendel made some great films...

Interesting masthead. Kelly looks like Lee Remick and the scene in the binoculars never happened in the film.

Oh I just went back and ready your intro.... great graphic.

[Mike Gebert]

Yeah, it was from a Spanish poster (from that Spanish poster site that seems to be gone now) and is not the best painting of human hands ever done, either. Here's another version of it (that shows, predictably, Miss Torso in his view).

It's great! A very inventive change that makes it fit Nitrateville very well.

Rick

[Mike Gebert]

With Cinecon coming up, I thought it might be nice to honor the Daughters of Naldi with a month devoted to their preceptress, Nita Naldi, vamp of Blood and Sand and other overheated classics:



I got this relatively restrained Naldi portrait off the Facebook page of somebody, presumably someone here, apologies in advance for forgetting where...

With Cinecon coming up, I thought it might be nice to honor the Daughters of Naldi with a month devoted to their preceptress, Nita Naldi, vamp of Blood and Sand and other overheated classics:



I got this relatively restrained Naldi portrait off the Facebook page of somebody, presumably someone here, apologies in advance for forgetting where...

Sweet!

This DoN salutes you.

With Cinecon coming up, I thought it might be nice to honor the Daughters of Naldi with a month devoted to their preceptress, Nita Naldi, vamp of Blood and Sand and other overheated classics:



I got this relatively restrained Naldi portrait off the Facebook page of somebody, presumably someone here, apologies in advance for forgetting where...

WOOT! You are getting such a head-bonk from the bejeweled feline!

My grape festooned hat is all a-twitter!

Hooray for the glorious Nita!

My grape festooned hat is all a-twitter!

Hooray for the glorious Nita!

Absinthe for everybody!

[Mike Gebert]

70 years ago, the greatest movie ever made came out. At least, the movie that the most critics have ever agreed on as the greatest movie ever made, Citizen Kane. (It's merely #38 at the IMDB, well below the sentimental prison yarn which, quite inexplicably to me, has ruled that list for some time.)



Well, I don't think that it's the greatest movie ever made (my theory on how it came to be is here) and if truth be told, I'm a bit weary of the whole Welles mythology and have seen most of his finished work as much as I need to (though I'd love a good DVD of Chimes at Midnight). These days I'm more interested in less-remembered figures like Borzage. Even so, Kane's anniversary deserves remembering because— with its silent-inspired emphasis on visuals, with its first-person storytelling, with the smart-set irony that, for a certain class of moviegoer, bracingly cut through all the Hollywood humbug— it is undoubtedly one of the most influential movies ever made, first on all those noirs, then two decades later, on every film school director who saw the camera as his equivalent, personal expression-wise, of Holden Caulfield's pen or Bob Dylan's guitar. You can decide if that was a good influence or a bad influence, but influence it was.

Some Welles threads:
The Other Side of the Wind
When Did The Orson Welles Joke Begin?
Genius of Murder?
How Kane Became the Greatest Movie Ever Made

Yes. No such thing as Greatest Movie Ever (nor "Greatest anything", for that matter...) but I can definitely agree with 'one of the most influential movies'.

It's merely #38 at the IMDB, well below the sentimental prison yarn which, quite inexplicably to me, has ruled that list for some time.)

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION??? I've never actually seen that list before. It is surprising, to say the least.

After last month's Nita another extremely good-looking masthead. It's a joy every time I call up the page. Thanks, Mike.

After last month's Nita another extremely good-looking masthead. It's a joy every time I call up the page. Thanks, Mike.

I miss Nita already (sniff) but will grudgingly admit, this one's good, too.

On the whole, I like best Welles's radio work on the Campbell Playhouse 1938-40, and the earlier 7-part LES MISERABLES from 1937. But say "radio and Orson Welles" and most people will think of WAR OF THE WORLDS. Understood - but other broadcasts such as DRACULA, GREEN GODDESS, and SHOW BOAT (with Edna Ferber herself playing Parthy) really showed off his imagination. CITIZEN KANE always suggested to me that as a film maker, Welles was more worried about boring his audience than anything else. He 's always doing something that seems to say, "Hey, look at this!" The linchpin of the story relies on the viewer caring about Kane and what happens to him. If you don't particularly care for the guy, the film falls flat. That said, I like the masthead!

[Mike Gebert]

He's got a book out, he's one of the few silent stars everyone can agree on (he's swell)... it's time to honor the most popular dog of the silent era, Rin Tin Tin. There's more about him in the threads listed below, and in this exclusive interview with Susan Orlean, author of his new biography.

Rin Tin Tin: Any Fans Out There?
New book on 'Rin Tin Tin' by Susan Orlean
Rin Tin Tin
Rin Tin Tin and imitators

I love Rinty! Great choice!

Woof.

Bob

The best masthead yet. Here's an alternate take on what appears to be the same photo shoot. Here Rinty is showing his Barrymore profile:

The best masthead yet. Here's an alternate take on what appears to be the same photo shoot. Here Rinty is showing his Barrymore profile:

What a handsome masthead! Rinty didn't have a bad side, did he? Photogenic from all angles.

Love the Rin Tin Tin masthead!

[Mike Gebert]

A major motion picture is on the way with Georges Melies as a major character, which is certainly a reason to honor the most beloved figure of film's forgotten earliest years this month. But Melies remains a potent artistic figure, his elaborately staged yet strangely real fantasies best summed up in Godard's words: "Melies made documentaries and the Lumieres made fiction films." I put a recent TCM broadcast of his films on for my 10-year-old a few weeks ago and he wound up not only watching them through twice, but wanting to make a movie like Melies did— by making fake things really happen in front of a camera.

Some Melies threads:

George Melies (favorite films)
A Trip to the Moon-- The Book
Melies Encore problem

Melies films are like peanuts -- every time I sit down to watch one or two, I end up watching a handful, they're so much fun. But that looks like Clarence Wilson as the man in the moon on this month's masthead . . .

I figured the man in the moon was Georges but he resembles Adolphe Menjou.

Nice masthead though!

I much prefer Melies' world to this one.

Bob

I bow to your photoshop skills. I've been trying to do this same thing with a Valentino photo, failing miserably, too!

Who's the one-eyed, potatoe-nosed, sour-mouthed guy on the right side of the moon?

Jim

Who's the one-eyed, potatoe-nosed, sour-mouthed guy on the right side of the moon?

Jim

I guess nobody sees what I'm seeing. Let me try again.

Look at the very edge of the right side of the moon. There's a crater with a pock in its centre, looking like an eye with a pupil in it. Right below it is a round bump that looks like a nose. And directly under the nose is a deep crease that looks like a downturned mouth.

Mike, when you inserted the Melies half-face into the centre of the moon, did you push the right half of the Man In the Moon's face over to the side? Is that what I'm seeing? Or is this wine much more potent than I think it is?

Jim

[Mike Gebert]

Ah, I know what you mean now.

It's just a quirk of the image, visible in the original.