Robert is heartbroken but accepts the divorce. In the coming year, his loyal secretary, Ms. Bennett ( Madge Evans ), steps into his home life and acts as a surrogate mother to Bill. When Felix's mother ( May Robson ) starts yearning for a grandson she decides to use Ms. Bennett as a pawn to help her win custody of Robert's child.
The Age of Indiscretion was one of many films MGM released in the early to mid-1930s that dealt with divorce, a common practice among society's rich. Lenore Coffee's story paralleled that of a popular news item of the time involving the Vanderbilt family trust. Instead of a grasping grandmother, it was an aunt who instigated the proceedings of a custody battle for young Gloria Vanderbilt and the four-million dollar trust.
David Holt is also engaging as little Bill, even with his puzzling Southern accent. He was intended to be a male version of Shirley Temple but his career never reached such heights. Also in the cast are Shirley Ross, George Irving, and Minor Watson.
We want to wish all of you a very jolly Christmas day and here's hoping 2022 will be a year filled with happiness, good health, and prosperity for you!
Make sure you have a box of Lucky Strikes in your house because Joan Crawford just may stop by for Christmas dinner!
BACK TO GOD'S COUNTRY ( 1953 )
Perhaps this might not qualify as a western, but it takes place in the 1870s in snowy Alaska, so that's close enough for me. Rock Hudson plays an American sea captain who is taking a cargo of furs down to the states from Canada via dogsled. Contending with the weather is harrowing enough, but Rock also has a broken leg and two dangerous villains on his heels.
TRACK OF THE CAT ( 1954 )
Robert Mitchum stars in this visually striking western as the son of a ranching family who heads out into the snow to track down a panther who is killing the family's livestock. Diana Lynn and Teresa Wright co-star and yes, that's William Hopper Jr. with a beard. Director William Wellman's son stated that his father created the picture as a "black and white film shot in color" with specific pops of color adding a beautiful splash to the overall monochromatic look.
DAY OF THE OUTLAW ( 1959 )
"A day you'll never forget!" declares the poster to this Robert Ryan film. Unfortunately, I did forget most of this gritty western, but I do remember the winter landscape and Burl Ives cutting a powerful image on horseback. It's about a cattleman trying to save a small frontier town from Burl Ives and his gang of thugs.
This film starts off as a regular "sunny" western but about half way through we see the winter scenes. Will Penny ( Charlton Heston ) is an aging cowboy who gets a line camp job on a large cattle spread and finds that there is a woman ( Joan Hackett ) and her son already living in the cabin he is supposed to occupy by himself. He lets them stay over the winter and protects his "family" when the wicked Quint ( Donald Pleasance ) invades his home.
THE GREAT SILENCE ( 1968 )
Spaghetti westerns are one of those genres that you either love or hate. I could live without them - especially the brutal ones - but I had to include this film because it is set is a snow-covered Utah and is renowned for being one of the best spaghetti westerns ever made. It's about a mute gunfighter who takes it upon himself to defend a group of outlaws from a band of bloodthirsty bounty hunters. Jean-Louis Trintignant, a French actor who couldn't speak a word of English, starred as the mute gunslinger "Silence".
McCABE AND MRS. MILLER ( 1971 )
Warren Beatty and Julie Christie star as a gambler and a prostitute who become business partners in a brothel in a remote mining town. Their business trives until a major corporation comes to buy them out. This film is often cited as one of the first "anti-westerns" because it features no gunfights and no heroes but our purpose it can be classified as a western. McCabe and Mrs. Miller really captures the cold environment of winter and features some beautiful filming from director Robert Altman.
Robert Redford stars as mountain man Jeremiah Johnson in this outdoorsman's adventure set in the beautiful hills of Utah ( and filmed on Redford's recently acquired Sundance ski area ). Johnson is a Civil War veteran who abandons mankind and heads for the mountains of Utah to become a trapper. With the help of another grizzled mountain man ( Will Geer ), he learns to live of the land but must contend with hostile natives when he incurs the wrath of a Crow chief.
The Christmas season is upon us and, for many, that means attending Christmas Eve and Sunday mass services at church. No matter which church you attend, you will probably see a stained glass window somewhere in the building. Have you ever thought about how these windows are made?
As usual, we have a few suggested clips to watch if you enjoyed this one and we highly recommend checking them out. Cemented Stained Glass gives a preview of the new style of stained glass windows: cemented glass chunks instead of thin glass panels held by iron, while Stained Glass ( 1963 ) shows a more in-depth view of both of these methods.
Ready to watch Stained Glass Windows? Simply click on the link below:
Stained Glass Windows ( 1956 ) - 2:24 minutes
Similar British Pathé newsreels:Cemented Stained Glass ( 1956 ) - 2:28 minutes
Stained Glass ( 1963 ) - 2:55 minutes
From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store : http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures
As interesting as it was watching these ghouls perform, what I found even more exciting was learning that it came from a television series I never heard of before - The Entertainers. This one-hour variety show premiered September 25, 1964, and lasted only one season ( it was canceled March 27, 1965 ). The show was produced by Carol Burnett's husband Joe Hamilton ( The Garry Moore Show ) and Bob Banner ( The Carol Burnett Show ) with hosting duties rotating between Carol Burnett, Caterina Valente, and Bob Newhart. Quite a lineup!
The Entertainers had a great assortment of, well, entertainers, that ranged from singers and dancers to comedians, magicians, and actors. Some of the guest stars who appeared on the show were Phil Silvers, Peter Lawford, Imogene Coca, Buddy Ebsen, Chad and Jeremy, The Dave Clark Five, Vivian Vance, John Davidson, Thelma Ritter, Dom DeLuise, Rosemary Clooney, and Craig Stevens.
The Way of an Eagle by Ethel M. Dell.....hmmm, now what could this be? We've got a really tricky screenshot for this month's Impossibly Difficult puzzle, so we will be kind and offer a hint: it is from a British film. Now you'll have to put on your thinking caps and see if you can remember which British film you saw this scene in!
Three airline hostesses jet-set across Europe searching for handsome rich men to marry in the engaging 1963 MGM romantic comedy Come Fly With Me. Like How to Marry a Millionaire, all three women find themselves attached to men who are very much different than what they had in mind but they nevertheless have fun hunting and the audience has fun watching them on the prowl.
Dolores Hart stars as pretty Donna Stuart, a cynical girl who has her heart set on wearing sable. She meets the dashing Baron Franz von Elzingen ( Karl Boehm ) and believes she found her Prince Charming....until she realizes that he is using her to smuggle stolen diamonds between Paris and Vienna.
Carol Brewster ( Pamela Tiffin ) is more sensible and sets her eyes on the pilot ( Hugh O'Brian ). She thinks he is her knight in shining armor until she discovers he is having an affair with a married woman ( Dawn Addams ).
It's the lovely Hilda Bergstrom ( Lois Nettleton ) who ends up with the cream of the crop: Texas millionaire Walter Lucas ( Karl Malden ). She's a thrifty girl who wants her man to be saving his pennies as well, little does she know that he has $40 million dollars to spare. Like most good comedies of the 1960s, the film ends with each of the girls happy with their romantic choices.
Director Henry Levin keeps the pace of the film moving swiftly and the location scenery throughout Paris and Vienna is beautifully filmed by cinematographer Oswald Morris ( Moby Dick, Scrooge ). Interiors were shot at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios in Boreham Wood, England.
Please note, most of these films play on two dates each but, at the moment, we are only aware of one release date, so circle your calendar if something catches your fancy.
January 23rd - Casablanca - 80th Anniversary ( 1942 )
February 20th - Lady Sings the Blues 50th Anniversary ( 1972 )
March 13th - The Quiet Man 70th Anniversary ( 1952 )
April 10th - Singin' in the Rain 70th Anniversary ( 1952 )
May 29th - Smokey and the Bandit ( 1977 )
June 12 - Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? 60th Anniversary ( 1962 )
July 17th - Cabaret 50th Anniversary ( 1972 )
September 4th - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ( 1982 )
September 25th - Poltergeist 40th Anniversary ( 1982 )
October 16th - In the Heat of the Night ( 1967 )
November 13th - To Kill a Mockingbird 60th Anniversary ( 1962 )
December 18th - It's A Wonderful Life 75th Anniversary ( 1947 )
The lovely and leggy Chita Rivera made a marvelous guest appearance on The Hollywood Palace in November 1965 performing a peppy showstopper titled "Blue". I wasn't able to find out who wrote this piece but it certainly sounds like something penned from the hands of Jules Styne. Just a few months earlier, Chita had finished her run in the stage musical Bajour and would soon go on to play Jenny in the Threepenny Opera.
Chita returned to The Hollywood Palace in 1968 with a go-go dance but that performance did not suit her as well as this classy dance. Check it out for yourself right here! 
Jean Simmons and Paul Newman are enjoying the first blossoms of love in this beautiful photo from Until They Sail ( 1957 ), Robert Wise's disjointed adaptation of James Michener's novel of the same name about three sisters who fall in love with American soldiers in New Zealand.
From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store : http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures
During the Halloween season, several television stations ( and streaming channels ) have been broadcasting the classic Universal monster movies. These include The Mummy, Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon. These films are considered classics because they were responsible for launching the entire "horror" movie genre.....or at least, they made the genre popular at the box office. And unlike most films of the 1930s and 1940s, they were brought back to the theatres every decade to be re-introduced to new generations of fans.
During the 1950s and 1960s, most movie-going youngsters devored comic books, so in 1962 comic publisher Dell, hit on the brilliant idea of releasing a series of comics based on the Universal monster movie classics. They were issued under their "Movie Classics" series and featured some really top-notch cover art.
The comics are collectible today and luckily, not overly rare. They can be easily found on auction sites and at various vintage comic shops. We don't have any full issues to share with you, but we do have some great pics of the covers that you can enjoy!
Happy Halloween to our readers!
Whooooo could be playing spooky music on this old organ? Someone with super-smooth hands, that's who! See if you can guess what movie this screenshot was taken from and then share your guess in the comment box below. This is an easy one so don't overthink it!
As always, if you are not familiar with the rules of the game or the prize, simply click here.
GAME OVER.
Congratulations to DespinaV for correctly identifying this screenshot from William Castle's The Night Walker ( 1964 ). In this scene, a wax mannequin plays the organ as Barbara Stanwyck reluctantly heads down the aisle to marry her Dream Man.
Hold That Ghost was the fourth of 35 films that the comedy team of Abbott and Costello made during the 1940s and 1950s and it ranks as one of their best. It has all the spooktacular features you would want to see in a haunted house comedy plus the added bonus of a great cast. Scream-queen Evelyn Ankers joins the duo as one of the guests at the roadhouse, as does Richard Carlson and slapschtick sensation Joan Davis. Marc Lawrence, one of the most famous film gangsters of the era, plays Charlie Smith who turns up stiff. Also making appearances are Shemp Howard, Mischa Auer, Bobby Barber (who later played Stinky on The Abbott and Costello Show), and Ted Lewis and the Andrews Sisters.
"I was ready to leave when he put the key in the front door!" - Lou Costello
From its wonderful animated opening credits to its peppy closing number ("Aurora" sung by the Andrews Sisters ), Hold That Ghost never lets up on the laughs. Many of the routines that Abbott and Costello would perform in this film, such as the moving candle trick, were later reused in future films and television episodes.
The duo had skyrocketed to stardom after their first picture was released just a year earlier and it is amazing how quickly they had to be able to come up with comedy routines thereafter. Universal Studios had screenwriters penning scripts for them and the boys were busy filming month after month. In 1941 alone, four Abbott and Costello movies were released.
I first saw this ad in a graphic design book about 15 years ago and liked the mugs immediately. Every year when Halloween came around, I remembered the mugs and thought how nice it would be to find them at a second-hand store or rummage sale....but no such luck. So I finally searched for them on eBay and, again, came up with no results. That's when I decided to look at that graphic design book again and read the ad more closely. It appears that Mugmates were blank mugs that you could draw on. The ad was not promoting a set of Charles Addams mugs to purchase but rather giving you inspiration if you wanted to create your own matching coffee cups. "How interesting!" I thought. "I wonder what other famous artists created Mugmate designs?" That was another thought that led to a dead-end because I was not able to find other custom-designed Mugmates. But what I did discover was a very interesting radio broadcast from another curiousity-seeker that shared of the story of these Mugmates. Believe it or not, there was even a song written about them!
Check it out here!
The Mystery of Mugmates - https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-12-19/mystery-mugmates
It remains a mystery as to where these particular Charles Addams mugs reside today, but if I had to bet money I would say the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation have the set tucked away in a box in their archives.
Poor Larry Talbot, all he wanted was to enjoy himself at the gypsy fair with his newfound sweetheart. Instead, he got himself cursed and covered from head to toe with hair.....wolf's hair! In this publicity photo from The Wolf Man ( 1942 ), Lon Chaney Jr. dons the makeup of the wolfman and strikes this great pose with a bare tree.
From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store : http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures
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When I first arrived in Hollywood to make Laura all I had was a solitary suitcase in my hand. With me were my mother and Earnest, my French poodle. 20th Century-Fox had persuaded me to sign a contract. They liked a test they had made of me for a part in Laura. Otto Preminger, who had seen me in "Blithe Spirit" when it played in Los Angeles, had suggested the test. While he was finishing the script of Laura I was still on the road tour of "Blithe Spirit". Word reached me that I was needed at 20th to begin work on Laura.
Spring floods sweeping the Middle West disarranged all train schedules, and in the upset my six trunkfuls of wardrobe were lost en route. They caught up with me later, but in the meantime we settled in the house I had leased from Constance Bennett. It had twenty-two rooms, a tennis court, and a swimming pool.
When I decided to settle in Hollywood, I bought my own place - a Spanish-style home [ Author's note: This house was located at 1005 Rexford Drive and was once owned by Grace Moore. Webb claimed it was haunted by her but we'll cover that story in another post ]. Eventually, instead of building a new house, I set about changing the architecture and some of the interior. What I have achieved is rather a mystery as far as style goes - perhaps it has some relation to Georgian, but it is just what I wanted as bachelor quarters. A new house could hardly have cost more. However, I think I have managed to make my home the setting for a civilized life.
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| Clifton Webb's House - Image Courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library |
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| Portrait of Clifton Webb by George Bellows |
On the bench are three vases, treasured because they were once the property of my very good friend Syre Maugham, a woman of great taste who was at one time the wife of Somerset Maugham.
Many friends ask about a rather odd little chair with short legs that stands in the hall outside the living room. It's a Sixteenth-Century prie-dieu. It came from Hier, France, and those who have a knowledge of antiques have often tried to get it away from me.
My most treasured possessions are the dining room table and chairs which I first had in a home in London while playing in the theatre there. The dining room is Georgian with a chandelier of crystal - it is elaborate and I like it.
At times I wonder why I should have such a large house for just the two of us - or I should say four, Razor and Baci share it with us - they are two lovable French poodles ( Earnest has departed ). But, through my years in the theatre and films, I have gathered many things and I like to have them around. Many are housed in the playroom which opens onto the swimming pool. There is a fire chief's helmet given to me by Philadelphia's Poor Richard's Club. The Lamb's Club in New York sent me a baton used by the late John Philip Sousa. The walls are hung with autographed photos of many stage and screen stars.
The above article was reprinted from the 1952 issue of The New Film Show Annual.
Joanna Godden ( Googie Withers ) is a determined woman. After the death of her father, the townsfolk of Romney Marsh assumed that she would marry her childhood friend and neighbor-farmer Arthur ( John McCallum ), joining her father's farm with his to make it one of the largest in the county. Instead, she boldly declares that she does not wish to marry Arthur and, defying the conventions of the time, wants to run the farm by herself. Her farmhands are none too pleased with the notion of a single woman taking charge of the farm and Arthur is certainly disappointed to hear that she does not wish to marry him. If this wasn't news enough, she announces that she will take her father's pedigree sheep and crossbreed them. "She's a filly that's never been properly broke in, that's what she is!" the farmers exclaim.
The Loves of Joanna Godden may seem like just another British film about farming and shepherding but it is much more than that. It is the profile of a headstrong young Edwardian woman and the decisions - mainly regrettable ones - that she makes within a several-year span that leads to her growth as a woman. Joanna does indeed take control of the farm as she wanted, but she stubbornly refuses to listen to the admonitions of her neighbor farmers who warn her against crossbreeding sheep and soon regrets not heeding their warning. The new breed of sheep has a coat much too thin to brave the cold wind that blows on the marsh and many of them die. When she does choose to marry a man ( Derek Bond ) that turns out tragic as well.
H.E. Bates' screenplay condenses Sheila Kaye-Smith's 1921 novel into a concise 90-minute film without losing any of the major plot points or its biting dialogue. The Loves of Joanna Godden also features a sweeping score by Ralph Vaughn Williams and beautiful cinematography. Oscar-nominated cinematographer Douglas Slocombe ( Dead of Night, The Great Gatsby ) is often considered to be one of the best in the industry. Through his lens, we get to travel to Kent and see the beauty of Romney Marsh throughout the seasons.
Googie Withers gives a wonderful performance as the headstrong Joanna. She's a stubborn character and she could easily have been a dislikable woman but Googie lets the audience know that beneath Joanna's hard exterior is a soft and vulnerable woman. Arthur knows this already and that makes it painful for him to stand by and witness Joanna shun all help in her attempt to stand on her own feet when he would willingly work beside her.
Jean Kent, another popular leading lady in British films, has a supporting role as Joanna's sister Ellen. At first, Ellen is quite a charming young lady but she quickly becomes a conniving and spoiled brat and the cause of ruination for Arthur. Derek Bond gives a good performance as the young aristocrat Martin who sweeps Joanna off her feet, and Australian legend Chips Raffery has a small part as Joanna's looker ( shepherd ). Also in the cast are character actors Henry Mollison and Edward Rigby.
This post is our contribution to the 8th Annual Rule, Britannia blogathon being hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts. This is a jolly good event that allows bloggers to review British films from all eras, so if you want to explore some new-to-you titles, be sure to head on over to the event for a full listing of entries.