True Classics Posted by on June 27, 2012

Her name may not be well-known to modern audiences, but her face is immediately recognizable to classic film fans. Throughout the 1930s and 40s, actress Helen Broderick appeared as the wisecracking pal of numerous Hollywood stars, always bringing a shot of well-timed droll humor to every role. In ma   read more

True Classics Posted by on June 25, 2012

Casablanca is my favorite film of all time. It’s one of those movies that I never tire of watching. In fact, one of my first dates with my husband was watching it while eating homemade pasta. Each year we have a tradition of watching this perfect film at least once together....   read more

True Classics Posted by on June 24, 2012

Early in the 1941 film The Little Foxes, there is a brief, exquisitely-crafted scene that tells us everything we need to know about these characters. The Hubbard family, having just finished dinner with a wealthy guest and potential business partner, has gathered in the parlor for a musical performa   read more

True Classics Posted by on June 22, 2012

Lord knows, I love me some Disney. I feel the need to state this upfront just to underscore how much I enjoy the Disney animated canon. I grew up with those films, watching them over and over again, singing the songs, pretending to be a princess (or one of the...   read more

True Classics Posted by on June 21, 2012

With the publication of his 1994 biography of Barbara Stanwyck, Axel Madsen infuriated a legion of the actress’ fans by claiming that Stanwyck had been bisexual, as evidenced–he says–by a lifelong friendship with her publicist, Helen Ferguson. Indeed, Madsen provides little evidenc   read more

True Classics Posted by on June 18, 2012

Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) was an American writer made popular by her heart-wrenching 1934 drama The Children’s Hour, which was inspired by a true story. Hellman is, by some accounts, a champion of female independence. The play tells the story of two women who work hard to make their dream of...   read more

True Classics Posted by on June 17, 2012

Betty Furness began her career as a movie starlet and ended it as an influential expert in consumer issues and a reporter for The Today Show. The story of how she got there is an interesting one, to say the least, marked by Furness’ self-professed inability to say “no” to any...   read more

True Classics Posted by on June 13, 2012

Alfred Borden (Walter Connolly) is having a bad day. His business is in trouble; his wife, Martha (Verree Teasdale), is cheating on him with another man; his son, Tim (Tim Holt), would rather play polo than work; and his daughter, Katherine (Kathryn Adams), is in love with Mike (James Ellison),...   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on June 12, 2012

News came late this evening that actress Ann Rutherford has passed away at the age of 91. Born in Canada in 1920, Rutherford got her start in Hollywood as a teenager, acting in weekly serials. She made her feature-length screen debut in 1935 in Waterfront Lady. In the early years...   read more

True Classics Posted by Sarah on June 11, 2012

Three Comrades (1938) is a love story about a boy and a girl … and their two friends. When I originally read the description for this movie–“A World War I veteran and his two partners love a doomed woman in 1920s Germany”–I assumed that this would be just another film...   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on June 10, 2012

Doris Davenport is not a name that is very familiar to movie fans, for she sadly did not have a very long-lasting career in Hollywood, having appeared in only a handful of films between 1934 and 1940. A beautiful actress who worked as a model to support herself in between...   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on June 8, 2012

In 1912, infant Dorothy Hunter (Miriam Hopkins) was orphaned when her parents drowned during the sinking of the Titanic. For years, her guardian, John Connors (Henry Stephenson), has shielded the young heiress from the glare of the media spotlight–few people even know what she looks like. Afte   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on June 6, 2012

One day, the Kimbell family of tiny Duck Creek, Connecticut, sits down for dinner after church. As patriarch Gordon (Robert Keith) says grace, they are interrupted by visitors. Wealthy Rick Belrow Livingston (Farley Granger) and his tap-dancing Broadway star girlfriend, Lisa Bellmount (Ann Miller),   read more

True Classics Posted by Sarah on June 4, 2012

I have always been intrigued by stories of self-sacrifice and characters who doom themselves by doing the so-called “right thing.” When watching movies, I find myself rooting for characters to follow their hearts, regardless of the consequences. Things that I would never approve of in the real world   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on June 3, 2012

One of the most prolific partnerships to emerge in the silent film era was the one between movie star Mary Pickford and screenwriter Frances Marion. Director Clarence Brown once referred to their working relationship as “spontaneous combustion,” an apt description of the women’s un   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on June 1, 2012

[Bonus points for naming the song whose lyrics we borrowed for this post's title. ] Well, another month has come and gone, and what a month it was! For instance: ~*~ As we kick off a new month, there is a lot of fun stuff on tap that we hope...   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on May 31, 2012

During my senior year of college at Mississippi University for Women, I took an independent study course under the supervision of my mentor, Dr. Bridget Smith Pieschel. The subject was Women’s Autobiography, and my job was to transcribe and notate the diary of a former student of the school, M   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on May 30, 2012

by Heather Dunn Schmitt My earliest memory of going to the movies is a foggy one, but it’s there. I was five years old, I think, and my dad piled all of us–my older sister, my younger brother, and me–into his 1966 Ford Mustang. We drove for what seemed to...   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on May 29, 2012

by Lara Fowler I can trace my love for classic film back to one person. Inhabiting a small house in a quiet neighborhood just north of the Santa Clara Valley, my grandparents, Julian and Frances Polon, were both Los Angeles transplants. My grandmother, born Canadian, had moved to Los Angeles...   read more

True Classics Posted by Brandie on May 28, 2012

by Carolyn Camper Mann I can’t remember the first movie I went to in the small town where I grew up. However, I do remember a movie that was very special. We lived in Omaha, Nebraska in the early 1960s. My husband, Harry, was on an Air Force “Bootstrap” assignment to...   read more