Tweet Gallery of Mastheads

I wish I could re-watch a Kiss From Mary Pickford. That was fun(ny).

I wish I could re-watch a Kiss From Mary Pickford. That was fun(ny).

Nyet, comrade. Subversive bourgeois imperialist propaganda.

Let's watch MISS MEND!

Let's watch MISS MEND!

Idealogically correct, comrade. No gulag for you.

[Mike Gebert]

Okay, from April Fool's Soviets, we go to the ultimate capitalist's girlfriend... Marion Davies.



There are lots of mentions of Davies here, here, here, here, and here, among many others; NitrateVillains certainly have no problem seeing past Hearst and Kane and recognizing Marion for the skilled performer and major star that she truly was, regardless of who was behind her career.

Finally, Marion Davies!

I think her silent films are probably better (as a whole) than her talkies but then she's quite charming in Marianne and The Florodora Girl, has a nice dramatic role in Five and Ten and turns in top performances in Going Hollywood and Peg o' My Heart.

And with as much attention as Constance Talmadge has gotten recently with the Kino DVD, I think no one tops Davies as a silent comedienne in the obvious films like Show People, The Red Mill and The Patsy, but in lesser knowns like The Fair Co-Ed, The Cardboard Lover, Beverly of Graustark, Tillie the Toiler, Lights of Old Broadway, and Quality Street.

Thanks for the masthead, Mike.

I never realized -- she had the same head and hairdo as Dietrich.

Bob

Why, everybody at NitrateVille is pixillated— except us."

Well, I blame the digital remastering . . .

[Mike Gebert]

We were just talking cowboys influenced by other cowboys, so here's Harry Carey Sr. and some green kid he's tryin' to teach a thing or two to. Actually this comes from The Shepherd of the Hills, and this Greenbriar Pictures Show post about it, but even though that's Henry Hathaway, this image seems like a little tribute to John Ford, featuring his earliest star and the guy who followed in his footsteps— and would, memorably, pay a little tribute to Carey in the last shot of The Searchers. Straight Shooting, with Harry Carey Sr., directed by John Ford, will play at Cinevent later in May.

My first reaction on seeing the new month's banner was "What movie was Karl Malden in with Dustin Hoffman?" Even once my eyes has stopped crossing and that was clearly Harry Carey, it took me a few seconds. That angle makes Wayne's nose look like Hoffman's.

Bob

[Mike Gebert]

Peter Lorre is a bigger reason that old movies are great than some entire studios, and I went looking for an unexpected picture of him, but couldn't resist this pairing with someone who would certainly warrant a masthead of his own as well, and should get one sometime, Erich von Stroheim. They appeared together in I Was an Adventuress (1940), of which I know nothing, but a few folks seem to like it at the IMDB...

UPDATE 3/11/11: So I started watching I Was an Adventuress on Fox Movie Channel the other night. Vera Zorina, Lorre and von Stroheim are cute con artists pulling unbelievably arch cons on rich guys, and the three of them were just so cute and adorable that I could only stand about 20 minutes before gagging and turning it off. We'll just consider them honored for their bodies of work as a whole...

"You're thinking of an adventurer. An Adventuress never travels on anything less thna a forty-foot yacht."



-- Preston Sturges THE PALM BEACH STORY

They appeared together in I Was an Adventuress (1940), of which I know nothing, but a few folks seem to like it at the IMDB...

I don't know much about this film either except that it is credited with getting Stroheim out of Europe, thereby saving him from being arrested by the Nazis, who did not particularly appreciate his portrayal of German soldiers in WWI films.

[Mike Gebert]

Obviously the most talked-about home video release here at the moment is Chicago, but before I knew it was going to come out on DVD, I used it in the masthead back in May of '09. So I figured maybe the way to note it a second time was by saluting its auteur and, indeed, one of the towering figures of cinema, Cecil B. DeMille. DeMille, like Capra or Hitchcock, has remained a brand name even into the amnesiac present (hey, who else of his time could get his name partway into a movie title today?) but his reputation had hardened by the 60s or 70s, or maybe even during his life, into "schlockmeister of epic Biblical hokum." It's the effort that has been put into restoring our view of the DeMille of the silent era-- including by folks here, such as David Shepard, who has released so much of his work, and Bob Birchard with his excellent book-- that has restored a fuller view of him as one of the savviest, and certainly the canniest commercially, observer/exploiter of American life and mores in the teens and 20s. The DeMille of The Cheat, The Whispering Chorus, The Affairs of Anatol, Why Change Your Wife?, The Golden Bed, Chicago, The Godless Girl and many other films is a much more interesting and rounded personality than the box office tycoon and plummy-voiced plutocrat of Samson and Delilah and The Ten Commandments-- and I say that as someone who loves The Ten Commandments unreservedly. Another DeMille book, a biography by Scott Eyman, is coming later this year, and promises to be another great treat and to broaden our view of him further.

So anyway, ready when you are C.B., have a month to yourself. That is, incidentally, the great cinematographer Karl Struss in the middle; I don't know who the guy running the camera for the European negative is, nor do I know what picture it's from (it could be anything from Something to Think About to Four Frightened People).

So anyway, ready when you are C.B., have a month to yourself. That is, incidentally, the great cinematographer Karl Struss in the middle; I don't know who the guy running the camera for the European negative is, nor do I know what picture it's from (it could be anything from Something to Think About to Four Frightened People).

Oh, very nice, thanks!

De Mille's da man!

[Mike Gebert]

Well, there's plenty of talk about Mary Miles Minter here, though talking about her work rather than her possible involvement in one of the great Hollywood scandals is difficult. Nevertheless, here she is, looking as innocent as can be... or is she? Do I detect a sinister secret behind those eyes, that smile?

To see what you think, the main discussion of her is here, with more here here and here.

I don't know about anybody else, but since I visit this site several times a day I must say that MMM is starting to creep me out. She can read my thoughts.

[silentfilm]

I don't know about anybody else, but since I visit this site several times a day I must say that MMM is starting to creep me out. She can read my thoughts.

My thoughts exactly! I wish she would stop staring at me.

I don't know about anybody else, but since I visit this site several times a day I must say that MMM is starting to creep me out. She can read my thoughts. :shock:

My thoughts exactly! I wish she would stop staring at me.

She knew that!

I don't know about anybody else, but since I visit this site several times a day I must say that MMM is starting to creep me out. She can read my thoughts.

My thoughts exactly! I wish she would stop staring at me.

She knew that!

She keeps watching me. I think she's evil.

I don't know about anybody else, but since I visit this site several times a day I must say that MMM is starting to creep me out. She can read my thoughts.

My thoughts exactly! I wish she would stop staring at me.

She knew that!

She keeps watching me. I think she's evil.

Why does looking at MMM make me think of The Omen?

Maybe Taylor's death was a bizarre suicide ("It's all for you Mary!") or one of those ... accidents.

[Mike Gebert]

There is a real 70s horror movie vibe to that picture now, isn't there? Minor key piano, shot of tree swing moving by itself... "Come play with me, NitrateVillains! For ever and ever and ever..."

Why does looking at MMM make me think of The Omen?

Maybe Taylor's death was a bizarre suicide ("It's all for you Mary!") or one of those ... accidents.

OMG! You're right! Damnation, now I have Carmina Burana as an earworm.....

MIKE -- MAKE IT STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

MMM had a lot of secrets... and a lot of hair!

By coincidence, I have an MMM item on my blog this week - http://brooksiescollection.tumblr.com/p ... -signature

Somewhat off topic - has anyone ever noticed that Mary seem to have two completely different autographs?

The first, smaller hand resembles the handwriting on the letter to William Desmond Taylor, as published in `A Cast of Killers':



The other is distinctively different, particularly the exaggeration of the first curve in each capital M:



You could put this down to one being a true secretarial signature (i.e. signed by a different person, rather than traced over a printed copy of a real signature) - but I have seen hand-signed correspondence of hers with both versions.

You also see the second signature printed on studio photographs, and it would make no sense to reproduce an inauthentic signature.

It got me thinking about the speculation towards the end of `A Cast of Killers', absurd though it is!

Is anyone besides me anxiously awaiting the next masthead for September? Poor Mary is really creeping me out.

Is anyone besides me anxiously awaiting the next masthead for September? Poor Mary is really creeping me out.

Let's hope for a less sinister masthead. Lon Chaney, perhaps.

For what it's worth, here's my nomination for friendlier Masthead in September: