Howard Hawks and "His Girl Friday"

Howard Hawks is one of the greatest American movie directors of all time. Adept at all film genres, Hawks excelled at fast-paced screwball comedies like Twentieth Century, Bringing up Baby, and His Girl Friday.

His Girl Friday was a reworking of the Ben Hecht Charles MacArthur classic The Front Page. By making Hildy Johnson a woman and the ex-wife of editor Walter Burns, Hawks thought the dialogue was funnier and added a dimension that The Front Page lacked. This was a pretty risky decision at the time, since The Front Page was considered a classic not to be messed with.

Hawks's risk paid off and the casting of Cary Grant as Walter Burns and Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson was inspired. In Grant's capable hands, Walter Burns is a more complex character than he was in the original. In The Front Page, Burns is a total cad. He wants to lure Hildy back to the newspaper business for completely selfish motives. In His Girl Friday, Walter wants Hildy back at the paper because she's a great reporter, but also because he's still in love with her. Russell's Hildy is the perfect Hawksian heroine: self-assured, smart, and independent. It's hard to believe that Russell was the eighth choice to play Hildy Johnson. Jean Arthur, Katherine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Irene Dunne, Margaret Sullivan, and Ginger Rogers all turned the role down. Hawks wanted Carole Lombard, who he directed to stardom in Twentieth Century, but she was too expensive, working as an independent actress. Joan Crawford was even considered for the role.

Russell was so put off by being eighth on the list (ninth if you count Crawford) that the first time she met Hawks, she showed up with wet hair. She soon discovered that Hawks wanted her to succeed in the role and after a few rough patches early in the shooting, she quickly gained confidence, going toe-to-toe with the more experienced Grant (His Girl Friday was his third film with Hawks).

As the story goes, Hildy quits the paper to marry dependable, but dull, insurance salesman Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy). Tired of being a "newspaperman," Hildy says she wants a normal life of domesticity, but Walter suspects she's fooling herself, so he plots to lure her back to the paper and into his arms.

Hawks was never one for depicting domestic married life on the screen, preferring to portray the chase and the buildup to marriage, and no one  showcased the chase better than Hawks. Since Hawks admired smart, funny women, his heroines are never given short shrift on film. From camera angles to screen time, Grant and Russell are treated equally. One of the reasons Hawks's films still seem so fresh and contemporary is due to his strong female characterizations.

Howard Hawks directed some of the greatest films of all time and His Girl Friday is one of his best.

His Girl Friday opened at Radio City Music Hall on January 11, 1940.

Every Cinderella has Her "Midnight"

Midnight, directed by Mitchell Leisen, with a script by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, and released by Paramount Pictures, is one of the great movies of 1939. It stars Claudette Colbert as a down-on-her-luck American showgirl in Paris and Don Ameche as a Hungarian cabdriver. Colbert offers to pay Ameche double his fare if he agrees to drive her around looking for work as a blues singer. After making the rounds of dozens of Paris nightspots, Colbert gives up and decides to go back to the train station to spend the night.

A smitten Ameche buys her dinner and offers her his apartment to rest in while he drives his cab all night. Although tempted, Colbert doesn't take Ameche up on his offer. Dressed in a glamorous evening gown (the only clothes she has, of course), Colbert escapes into the night. While walking by a Parisian mansion, Colbert is mistaken for a party guest and gains entrance to a society event using a pawn ticket as her invitation. The scam works and Colbert successfully mixes with the upper classes. To keep her scam going, Colbert impersonates a Hungarian countess, aided and abetted by the aristocratic John Barrymore.

Barrymore's wife, Mary Astor, thinks she's in love with playboy and champagne heir Francis Lederer. To help win his wife back, Barrymore enlist the help of the "countess." The plan is for Colbert to get Lederer to fall in love with her, keeping him out of Astor's arms.

The action really heats up at Barrymore and Astor's country mansion. Will Colbert's cover as a countess be exposed by a jealous Ameche? Will Barrymore be able to reconcile with Astor? The answers to all these questions explodes during one of the strangest breakfast meals in film history. The pace picks up  and the stories and aliases that Colbert and Barrymore cook up become wilder and more complicated...and more and more hilarious.

At this stage in his career, Barrymore refused to memorize scripts, so he read his lines from cue cards. It's impossible to tell that he's reading his lines and he steals every scene he's in. Colbert is in top form, her comic timing impeccable. Ameche, no slouch in the comedy department, holds his own as the lovesick cabbie. Astor and Lederer are also perfect in their respective roles.

Midnight is one of Leisen's best directorial efforts. The complicated mistaken identities, double entendres are classic Wilder. A screwball comedy with elegance and charm, Midnight deserves its place as one of the great films of 1939.

Yuko Ogura Wallpaper

Yuko Ogura Wallpaper

Yuko Ogura Wallpaper

Zhang Ziyi Wallpaper

Zhang Ziyi Wallpaper

Zhang Ziyi Wallpaper

Zooey Deschanel Wallpaper

Zooey Deschanel Wallpaper

Zooey Deschanel Wallpaper

Natalie Portman Collection

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman was born on June 9th, 1981 in Jerusalem, Israel, as the only child of a doctor father (from Israel) and an artist mother (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. She left Israel for Washington, DC, when she was still very young. After a few more moves, her family finally settled in New York, where she still lives to this day. She graduated with honors, and her academic achievements allowed her to attend Harvard.

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman

Leslie Louise Bibb images

Leslie Bibb

Leslie Louise Bibb was born in Bismarck, North Dakota, on November 17, 1974, and raised in Nelson County, Virginia. Later she and her mother, along with her three older sisters, moved to Richmond, where Leslie attended an all-girls Catholic high school, St. Gertrude's.

In 1990 "The Oprah Winfrey Show" (1986) and the Elite Agency held a nationwide modeling search; Leslie's mother took photos of her then 16-year-old daughter and sent them in. Although Leslie wasn't impressed with the photos, the judges--John Casablancas, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Iman--were, and they picked her as the winner.

Leslie Bibb

Leslie Bibb

Leslie Bibb

Leslie Bibb

Leslie Bibb

Forest Whitaker pictures

Forest Whitaker

Forest Whitaker has packaged a king-size talent into his hulking 6' 2", 220 lb frame. The athletically-inclined Whitaker initially found his way into college via a football scholarship. Later, however, he transferred to USC where he set his concentration on music and earned two more scholarships training as an operatic tenor. This, in turn, led to another scholarship at Berkeley with a renewed focus on acting and the performing stage.

Whitaker made his film debut at the age of 21 in the raucous comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) wherein he played, quite naturally, a footballer. He went on to play another student pigskin player in his second film Vision Quest (1985). He gain experience on TV as well with featured spots on such varied shows as "Diff'rent Strokes" (1978) and "Cagney & Lacey" (1982), not to mention the TV-movie Civil War epic "North and South" (1985) and its sequel, the movie that truly put him on the map The Color of Money (1986). His one big scene as a naive-looking pool player who out-hustles Paul Newman's Fast Eddie Felson was pure electricity. This led to more visible roles in the "A" class films Platoon (1986), Stakeout (1987), and Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), which culminated in his breakout lead portrayal of the tortured jazz icon 'Charlie "Bird' Parker' in Clint Eastwood's passion project Bird (1988), for which Whitaker won the Cannes Film Festival award for "best actor" and a Golden Globe nomination.

Forest Whitaker

Forest Whitaker

Forest Whitaker

Forest Whitaker

Forest Whitaker

Sela Ward

Sela Ward

Hallelujah for Sela. Everyone's favorite "Sister" was born Sela Ann Ward, on July 11, 1956, in Meridian, Mississippi. Sela's parents were Granberry Holland (an electrical engineer) and Annie Kate Ward; the 3 younger children in the family are Jenna (1957), Berry (1959) and Brock (1961). "Sela" is a Hebrew word that means "rock, boulder, cliff." Sela graduated from the University of Alabama in 1977, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in art and advertising; Sela was also a cheerleader for the Crimson Tide football team, a Homecoming Queen and a member of the Chi Omega sorority. Sela moved to New York to work for an advertising agency. Responding to a friend's suggestion that she was tall (5'7") and pretty enough to try modeling, Sela began a highly successful career with the Wilhelmina Agency. Sela's first gig was in the Pepsi advertising department, and her first commercial was for Maybelline. After appearing in 20 national TV commercials, Sela moved to L.A. and got her first TV role in "Emerald Point N.A.S." (1983); she dated tall costar Richard Dean Anderson for 3 years (which is much longer than the TV series lasted). Sela's movie break came by appearing with Burt Reynolds in the film The Man Who Loved Women (1983), and by now her acting career was established. But perhaps Sela is best known for starring in the TV series "Sisters" (1991), which ran for 6 seasons. The series was a big hit with women, and if the males in the audience stuck around after the steamy (literally) opening sauna sequence, they too would discover a series with fascinating writing and story plots, with Sela as "Teddy"-- in the fashion industry she began her first company, which she wanted to call Teddy Wear. In 1992 and 1994, Sela got the Golden Globe nomination for best lead actress in a drama series; in 1994, she won an Emmy Award and, in 1996, the Screen Actors Guild Award. During the series' run, Sela married Howard Sherman (May 23, 1992 - present). They had two children: Austin Ward (May 13, 1994), Anabella Raye (May 30, 1998). Still very much a pretty woman, Sela appeared in Runaway Bride (1999) as Pretty Bar Woman. In 2000, Sela won her 2nd Emmy award, this time for work in "Once and Again" (1999).

Sela Ward

Sela Ward

Sela Ward

Sela Ward

Sela Ward

Dylan Walsh

Dylan Walsh

Dylan Walsh atau Charles M. Walsh (lahir di Los Angeles, California, Amerika Serikat, 17 November 1963; umur 45 tahun) adalah seorang pemeran Amerika Serikat yang dikenal dalam perannya sebagai Sean McNamara dalam film seri Amerika Nip/Tuck. Karirnya dimulai pada acara FTV Soldier Boys serta serial Kate and Allie. Dylan juga akan bermain dalam film The Stepfather yang merupakan pembuatan ulang film yang sudah pernah dibuat. Film ini akan beredar pada tahun 2009.

Dylan Walsh

Dylan Walsh

Dylan Walsh

Dylan Walsh

Penn Badgley, Penn Badgley,

Penn Badgley,

Penn Badgley,

Penn Badgley,

Penn Badgley,

Penn Badgley,

Penn Badgley,

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Badgley split his childhood years between Richmond, Virginia. and Seattle, Washington. In Seattle he was involved in the Seattle Children's Theater and did voice-overs for a children's radio station. It was through these experiences that Badgley discovered his love of acting. This passion brought him one summer to Hollywood, where he landed an agent and his first big break guest-starring on "Will & Grace" (1998). After relocating with his mother to Los Angeles, Badgley secured several recurring roles on "The Young and the Restless" (1973), "The Brothers Garcia" (2000), and "Daddio" (2000).

Badgley currently lives in Los Angeles. At the age of 14, Penn completed his California High School Proficiency Exam and began attending Santa Monica City College. Also musically gifted, he enjoys singing, writing, and playing the guitar. In his spare time, Badgley likes to go surfing, skiing and snowboarding.

It's "Miracle on 34th Street" for the next "Meet Me at the Movies" event

The Prairie District Neighborhood Alliance (PDNA) invites you to "Meet Me at the Movies," Friday November 6, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. at Sherwood Conservatory recital hall, 1312 S. Michigan Ave.

Does Macy's tell Gimbels?

Miracle on 34th Street, starring Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Edmund Gwenn, and Natalie Wood is a true holiday classic. Released in 1947, the movie boasts some terrific location shots of New York City during the late 1940s, including interior and exteriors of the landmark Macy's department store located near Times Square.

Twentieth Century Fox film studios actually filmed the real Macy's Day Parade to lend authenticity to the production. O'Hara and Gwenn are right in the middle of all the action along the parade route which starts at 77th St. and Central Park West to Columbus Circle (59th St.), continues up Broadway to 34th St., turning at Macy's Herald Square, and ending at Seventh Ave. The Macy's Day Parade is a New York tradition that started in 1924.

Prince Charming was a rat!

The story centers around Doris Walker (O'Hara) as a busy Macy's executive and single mother trying to raise her young daughter, Susan (Wood). O'Hara believes in always being truthful with her daughter and considers myths like Santa Claus harmful. She thinks that filling up her daughter's head with a bunch of fairy stories paints an unrealistic portrait of life and leads to disappointment and heartache in adulthood. What Doris doesn't realize is that it's her own bitterness and disappointment that is driving most of her parenting decisions.

Enter an eager, young lawyer, Fred Gailey (Payne), who challenges Susan first and then Doris to believe in something bigger than themselves. When Fred finds himself proclaiming a kind, old gentleman (Gwenn) as the one and only Santa Claus in a New York City courtroom, the city and its colorful inhabitants get swept up in the spectacle.

Honored Classic

Winner of three Academy Awards, including one for Best Writing, Screenplay (George Seaton), Best Writing, Original Story (Valentine Davies), and Best Supporting Actor (Gwenn), Miracle on 34th Street is a classic for all seasons.
Click here to view the trailer.