During the Golden Age of Hollywood, director Cecil B. DeMille had a reputation for large-scale film productions with grand sets, elaborate costumes, impressive visual effects, and massive casts. For his 1952 film, The Greatest Show on Earth, DeMille pulled out all the stops to bring the dazzling and eye-popping spectacle of the traveling circus to…
Month: June 2023
How Clark Gable Almost Killed the Men’s Undershirt Industry
Prior to 1934, men in the United States wore white cotton undershirts beneath their shirts. Always. Since all men were socially obligated to wear undershirts, the industry thrived. That is, until Clark Gable almost put an end to the men’s undergarment industry after one scene in the 1934 romantic comedy, It Happened One Night. The…
Brains and Beauty Battle It Out in 1957’s “Funny Face”
Funny Face, the 1957 romantic musical comedy written by Leonard Gershe and Stanley Donen, stars the unlikely couple of Audrey Hepburn, a 28-year-old fresh-faced beauty, opposite Fred Astaire, a 58-year-old former Vaudeville dancer. An age gap like this might seem creepy today, but in the Golden Age of Hollywood, moviegoers were used to seeing on-screen…
The Innovative Special Effects of “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad”
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, a fantasy adventure film, was produced by Charles H. Schneer and directed by Nathan H. Juran. It was made by Columbia Pictures, released in 1958, and starred Kerwin Mathews, Kathryn Grant, and Richard Eyer. But it wasn’t the actors, the director, or the studio that made the fantasy adventure movie…
“Don’t Bother to Knock”: The Film in Which Marilyn Monroe Was Crazy Beautiful
Blonde bombshell Marilyn Monroe was often typecast as a glamorous sex symbol in the movies she appeared in. One notable exception, however, was the 1952 film noir, Don’t Bother to Knock. In this film, Monroe offers a glimpse into mental illness through her character, Nell Forbes, a troubled young woman with delusions and emotional instability….