WEIRDLAND

Friday, December 23, 2011

Christmas Eve at home with Joan Crawford and her children & stills of "Humoresque"

Stills of Joan Crawford and John Garfield in "Humoresque" (1946) directed by Jean Negulesco


1949 radio show "Christmas Eve at home with Joan Crawford and her children"

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Ida Lupino ("Dearly Beloved") video


Ida Lupino video featuring stills and scenes from "High Sierra" with Humphrey Bogart; "On Dangerous Ground" and "Beware, My Lovely" with Robert Ryan; "Out of the Fog" and "The Sea Wolf" with John Garfield.

Still of Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart in "They Drive By Night" (1940) directed by Raoul Walsh

Songs "Dearly Beloved" by Glenn Miller Orchestra and "You don't need to be more than yourself" by Elliott Murphy

Jake Gyllenhaal will be member of jury for Berlin Film Festival

Jake Gyllenhaal attending 'The Good Girl' at Sundance Film Festival

Jake Gyllenhaal will serve as a member of the jury for this year’s Berlin Film Festival!

The 31-year-old actor will join director Anton Corbijn, Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi, French-Brit actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, French director Francois Ozon, and more, Deadline reports. Director Mike Leigh (Secrets & Lies, Another Year) will serve as president of the jury. The Berlin Film Festival will take place from February 9-19. Source: www.deadline.com

"Jake Gyllenhaal celebrated his 31st birthday with a SoulCycle spin class in Union Square on Monday morning and dinner with friends at Peter Luger in Brooklyn. The “Source Code” star and his actress sister, Maggie, “Love and Other Drugs” co-star Oliver Platt and a handful of close friends shared a low-key meal at the steakhouse. A spy said a “lumberjack chic” Gyllenhaal hung out at the bar and then enjoyed a cake that his mother, Naomi Foner, brought to the restaurant". Source: www.nypost.com


"JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE and KANYE WEST have been named among the Most Stylish Men of 2011 in a new InStyle magazine poll. Editors have compiled a group of the 20 best-dressed guys and singer/actor Timberlake and rapper West, who recently launched his own fashion line, have made the cut.
Also, recognized: Zac Efron, Twilight hunk Robert Pattinson, soccer ace David Beckham, Jennifer Aniston's boyfriend Justin Theroux and actor Jake Gyllenhaal". Source: www.abc2news.com

Happy Christmas Holidays 2011!

Bérénice Bejo as Peppy Miller in "The Artist" (2011) directed by Michel Hazanavicius

Anita Page holding her Christmas wreath

Helen Mack hanging the wreath in Christmas

Joan Crawford on the chimney as Santa in 1925

Irene Dunne in front of a Christmas tree

Virginia Grey on a chimney in 1940's

Barbara Stanwyck as Elizabeth in "Christmas in Connecticut" (1945)

A very handsome Robert Ryan, circa 1948

Suzy Parker wearing Tiger Lil Christmas lingerie on the cover of LIFE, on 3rd December 1951, photo by Sharland for Life Magazine

Debbie Reynolds posing inside a Christmas present

Julie Christie besides a Christmas tree in 1965


Robert Pattinson, photographed by Annie Leibovitz, Styled by Jessica Diehl, from Vanity Fair’s Year 2011

Emmy Rossum as Laura Chapman and Jake Gyllenhaal as Sam Hall in "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004)

Jake Gyllenhaal (when he smiles he can melt a whole winter season, and he always warms my heart!)

Emmy Rossum in Zooey magazine - January 2012

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Happy 93rd Birthday, Audrey Totter!

Happy 93rd Birthday Audrey Totter, born on 20th December 1918.

Among the certified classics she participated in were "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946) in which she had a small role as John Garfield's blonde floozie pick-up.

Things brightened up considerably with "The Lady in the Lake" (1947) co-starring Robert Montgomery as detective Philip Marlowe. The film was not well received and is now better remembered for its interesting subjective camera technique. Audrey's first hit as a femme fatale co-star came on loanout to Warner Bros. In "The Unsuspected" (1947), she cemented her dubious reputation in "B" noir as a trampy, gold-digging niece married to alcoholic Hurd Hatfield.

She then went on a truly enviable roll with "High Wall" (1947), as a psychiatrist to patient Robert Taylor, "The Saxon Charm" (1948) with Montgomery (again) and Susan Hayward, "Alias Nick Beal" (1949) as a loosely-moraled "Girl Friday" to Ray Milland, in the boxing film "The Set-Up" (1949) as the beleaguered wife of washed-up boxer Robert Ryan, "Any Number Can Play" (1949) with Clark Gable and as a two-timing spouse in "Tension" (1949) with Richard Basehart.

Audrey Totter and Robert Ryan in "The Set-Up" (1949) directed by Robert Wise

Richard Basehart and Audrey Totter in "Tension" (1949) directed by John Berry

-James Bowden: Some people assumed you'd marry Clark Gable because the two of you used to go out together.

-Audrey Totter: I never did. I knew him since "Adventure." Then we made "Any Number Can Play" (1949). Yes, we dated. He was a tremendous guy, very witty, with a huge romantic aura. But all the girls he dated looked a little like his late wife Carole Lombard. He was still in love with her. So we settled for being great friends.

Although the studio groomed Audrey to become a top star, it was not to be. Perhaps because she was too good at being bad. The 1950s film scene softened considerably and MGM began focusing on family-styled comedy and drama. Audrey's tough-talking dames were no longer a commodity and MGM soon dropped her in 1951. She signed for a time with Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox as well but her era had come and gone. Film offers began to evaporate. At around this time she married Leo Fred, a doctor, and instead began focusing on marriage and family. TV gave her career a slight boost in the 1960s and 1970s, including regular roles in "Cimarron City" (1958) and "Our Man Higgins" (1962) as a suburban mom opposite Stanley Holloway's British butler.

Monday, December 19, 2011

Happy 31st Birthday, Jake Gyllenhaal!!

Jake Gyllenhaal, here in Weirdland we hope your #31 birthday is filled with joy in company of your most beloved ones and friends!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Jake Gyllenhaal running errands pre-birthday

Actor Jake Gyllenhaal spotted out running some errands in West Hollywood, CA. (December 16, 2011)

The ever adorable Jake Gyllenhaal will celebrate his 31st birthday on Monday and continues to be busier than ever. He is currently working on a crime drama film End Of Watch with America Ferrera and Michael Pena.
Gyllenhaal looks great in a casual pair of green khaki cargo pants, a navy blue sweat shirt and a growing beard.

John Garfield (You don't need to be more than yourself) video




John Garfield (You don't need to be more than yourself) video featuring pictures, stills and scenes starring John Garfield: "Four Daughters" with Priscilla Lane, "They Made Me A Criminal" with Gloria Dickson, "Castle On The Hudson" with Ann Sheridan, "The Sea Wolf" with Ida Lupino, "The Postman Always Rings Twice" with Lana Turner, "Body & Soul" with Lilli Palmer, "We Were Strangers" with Jennifer Jones, "Pride of The Marines" with Eleanor Parker, "Humoresque" with Joan Crawford, "The Breaking Point" with Patricia Neal, etc.

Songs "All American Boy" by Bobby Bare, "California Stars" by Wilco & Billy Bragg, and "You don't need to be more than yourself" by Elliott Murphy


John Garfield video. Actress Lee Grant defined Garfield as "smoldering, somber, troubled street-guy kind of presence".

Soundtrack: Hymne à l'Amour Jeff Buckley & Gary Lucas

Friday, December 16, 2011

"Pulp Fiction" in chronological order & boxing dramas (The Set-Up, Body & Soul)



The legendary movie "Pulp Fiction" (1994), directed by Quentin Tarantino (starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman) placed into chronological order.

“Tarantino works with trash, and by analyzing, criticizing, and formalizing it, he emerges with something new, just as Godard made a lyrical work of art in 'Breathless' out of his memories of casually crappy American B-movies. Of course Godard was, and is, a Swiss-Parisian intellectual…. 'Pulp Fiction', by contrast, displays an entertainer’s talent for luridness.” -David Denby, New York

The complex narrative organization of 'Pulp Fiction' plays with temporal sequence, so that it is difficult to understand the causal connection between events. Most jarringly, Vincent, a leading character, is killed halfway through, only to reappear and play a significant role later in the film—but earlier in the temporal sequence of events.

Robert Ryan as Stoker Thompson in "The Set-Up" (1949) directed by Robert Wise. Like many noir protagonists, Stoker is looking for the decisive lucky break that'll put him in the big time. But he's doomed without knowing it. His manager, who expects him to lose anyway, has agreed for him to take a dive in the third round. He just hasn't told Stoker. "Yeah, top spot. And I'm just one punch away" -Stoker Thompson.

John Garfield as Charley Davis in "Body & Soul" (1947) directed by Robert Rossen

There can hardly ever have been a face so perfectly suited to the compromise, suffering and hard-won understanding at the heart of the big-screen boxing lesson than the star of ‘Body and Soul’, John Garfield. While Paul Newman looked plaintive and martyred in ‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ (1956) and Robert Ryan skulked, complicit, through ‘The Set-Up’ (1949), Garfield’s fallen-angel countenance offers a far more complete portrait of hope and frustration.

Garfield’s performance alone is enough to elevate it into the highest echelons of sporting dramas. Its few, brutal fight scenes are a clear inspiration for the purgatorial pummelings of ‘Raging Bull’, and Garfield’s eventual predicament even foreshadows that of Bruce Willis’s wilful slugger in ‘Pulp Fiction’. A poem that has no time for poetry and a parable with little taste for allegory, ‘Body and Soul’ forgoes the butterfly for the bee every time, yet still soars. Source: www.timeout.com

Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in "On The Waterfront" (1954) directed by Elia Kazan

After the war, "Body and Soul" returned Americans to the issues posed in "Golden Boy" and developed them with renewed eloquence in the noir style. "On the Waterfront" (1954) featured a retired boxer, haunted by his fall.

'Pulp Fiction' (Quentin Tarantino; Miramax, 1994) Written by Quentin Tarantino; cinematography by Andrzej Sekula; Starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Bruce Willis, Ving Rhames, Uma Thurman, Rosanna Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel, Quentin Tarantino

"Body and Soul" (1947) and "The Set-Up" (1949), both feature a boxer who is under the influence of shady organizations that operate in the underworld of boxing world. But in general, boxing became a common profession for the noir loner, as seen in films like "The Killers" (1946) directed by Robert Siodmak and "Killer’s Kiss" (1955) directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Butch the boxer and Julius the hit man in 'Pulp Fiction' (1994) strive to escape from death in the underworld, but the ironic play of pop culture toys with the earnestness of their quest. These films engage with the body and soul conflict, offering up fresh perspectives that bear witness to the fertility of the genre in addressing the deepest concerns of its audience.