My Best Dressed Moments in Film Vol. 5

Myrna Loy in "Love Crazy" (1941)

Marilyn Monroe in "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950)

Lady on a Train (1945)

Carole Lombard in Dolly Tree
in "The Gay Bride" (1934)

Myrna Loy in "Love Crazy" (1941)

#WomanEmpowermentWednesday Ruth Gordon

• To fix her bow-leggedness, checked into a Chicago hospital to have her legs broken then straightened.
• Nominated for 5 Academy Awards for best screenplay
• Adapted her own autobiographical play for the screen that chronicles her experience in telling her father she wanted to become an actress
• Never married stage producer Jed Harris, but still bore his child and living together 
• Wrote stage plays, books, and films during her five decades-long acting career
• Was signed to MGM for ten years before doing her first film in Greta Garbo's last film "Two-Faced Woman" (1941)

#ManCrushMonday 5 Times When David Niven was Precious AF

The Prisoner of Zenda (1937)

Bachelor Mother (1939)

The Moon is Blue (1953)

The Bishop's Wife (1947)

Bachelor Mother (1939)

Happy Easter: The Robe - The Crucifixion

"Demetrius and the Gladiators" (1954): The Successful "Easter" Sequel

Before Henry Koster wrapped on 1953's "The Robe," there was already talk to make a sequel at a time when cinematic sequels were a far more rarity. There were many remakes from silents to talkies, and even film characters reprised (i.e. Bing Crosby as Father O'Malley in both "Going My Way" (1944) and "The Bells of St. Mary's" (1945)), but never had there been a sequel made until now.  It was entirely a logical decision on Twentieth Century Fox's part based completely on convenience. The sets, costumes and props were already up and three of their cast members in Victor Mature, Michael Rennie, and Jay Robinson were already there with underdeveloped characters. It would also be easier to hype a sequel from a film already in theaters.

Although the two biblical movies were linked, the production schedules weren't. Delmer Davies became director and one of "The Robe"'s screenwriters Phillip Dunne came over to write "Demetrius" off of Lloyd C. Douglas's original characters. Instead of a similar score by Alfred Newman, the freshly Oscar award winning and in demand Franz Waxman came on to create a completely different score.

"Demetrius" picks up where "The Robe" left off. While at the funeral of the martyred Marcellus and Diana, it is Demetrius who is given the robe now. But while waiting to get it back and to put it somewhere safer, Demetrius is arrested for assaulting a Roman soldier and placed in a gladiator school for his fighting abilities. When he finds out the woman he loves had died at the hands of fellow gladiators, Demetrius officially loses his Christian faith and is forced by Caligula to completely denounce the new religion. He becomes a Tribune by the Emperor and starts having an affair with Caligula's uncle's wife. When he is ordered to hunt down the Christians and the robe full of a so-called "power of everlasting life," everything he has known and denounced for these months has been wrong.

Although "The Robe" made more in the box office with 17.5 million, "Demetrius and the Gladiators" ended up grossing 4.25 million in only theatrical rentals and overall 26 million in North America alone. The film ended up becoming the 4th highest grossing film of 1954 alongside "Rear Window" and "White Christmas." 

Interesting Links to Check Out:

01 Aug 1953 - STAGE AND SCREEN - Trove

#ManCrushMonday James Dean in "Giant" (1956)

Many have considered James Dean's Jett Rink to be his best, although unfortunately last, role. Rink is a rags to riches story, beginning on Reata ranch at Texas as a handyman then ending rich but an alcoholic and alone. When the ranch owner gets married, Rink is immediately infatuated with her and vice versa, so much so that Leslie gives him a piece of land on the ranch. It's full of oil and Rink makes his fortune. Still rejected by Leslie for over many years, he has become a source of fascination by her teenage daughter. It also does not help that Leslie's husband and Luz's father has spent even longer despising Rink. Dean's method acting comes out brilliantly, going as far as to be completely drunk in his last scenes but Nick Adams had to come in to overdub more incoherent mumbling.

#ManCrushMonday #MemorableSupportingActors Walter Huston

An established vaudevillian and stage actor before his film career, Walter Huston had a long career before his memorable role as Howard in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre." Having worked nonstop in the '30s and '40s and nominated three times for both supporting and lead actor, Huston's best contribution to film was his roles in son's, John Huston, directed films. In 1941 he would play an uncredited deliverer in "The Maltese Falcon," but it was Howard in "Sierra Madre" that solidified both Hustons.