For Holocaust Rememberance Day: Alfred Hitchcock's Documentary on the Nazi Holocaust

In April 1945, British and American camera crews with their respective armies entered the Nazi death camps to film the atrocities. One of the filmmakers was Alfred Hitchcock. The footage was stored away and the documentary remained unfinished for decades; the British government deemed it at the time to be too grisly to show the public after WWII. What you are about to watch is the completed film. The footage of what the Germans did to the Jews in concentration camps is harrowing. Viewer discretion advised.

Shortest Oscar-nominated Performances

The briefest performances ever nominated for an Oscar. The screen times provided were gathered from other sources and have not been independently verified:

02:32 Hermione Baddeley ("Room at the Top," 1959) for best supporting actress
05:00 Claire Trevor ("Dead End", 1937) for best supporting actress
05:40 Beatrice Straight ("Network," 1976) for best supporting actress WON
06:00 Ned Beatty ("Network," 1976) for best supporting actor
06:00 Sylvia Miles ("Midnight Cowboy," 1969) for best supporting actress
06:05 Carolyn Jones ("The Bachelor Party," 1957) for best supporting actress
06:10 Diane Cilento ("Tom Jones," 1963) for best supporting actress
06:50 Thelma Ritter ("Pillow Talk," 1959) for best supporting actress
07:10 Geraldine Page ("The Pope of Greenwich Village," 1984) for best supporting actress
07:30 Maximilian Schell ("Julia," 1977) for best supporting actor
08:00 Jane Alexander ("All the President's Men," 1976) for best supporting actress
08:00 Judi Dench ("Shakespeare in Love," 1998) for best supporting actress WON
08:00 Charles Durning ("The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," 1982) for best supporting actor
08:00 John Lithgow ("Terms of Endearment," 1983) for best supporting actor
08:00 Sylvia Miles ("Farewell, My Lovely," 1975) for best supporting actress
08:00 Michael Shannon ("Revolutionary Road," 2008) for best supporting actor
08:30 Gladys Cooper ("My Fair Lady," 1964) for best supporting actress
08:30 Anthony Quinn ("Lust for Life," 1956) for best supporting actor WON
09:00 William Hurt ("A History of Violence," 2006) for best supporting actor
09:50 Piper Laurie ("Children of a Lesser God," 1986) for best supporting actress
10:00 Ruby Dee ("American Gangster," 2007) for best supporting actress
12:00 Viola Davis ("Doubt," 2008) for best supporting actress
14:00 Ed Harris ("The Hours," 2002) for best supporting actor
15:38 David Niven ("Separate Tables", 1958) for Best Actor WON
16:00 Anthony Hopkins ("The Silence of the Lambs," 1991) for best actor WON

Leslie Howard to be Honored in Spain with WW2 Monument

April 18 2009 - the Associated Press reported that a Spanish historical association based in Madrid plans to erect a monument near where Leslie Howard's plane was shot down by Nazi fighter pilots duringn WW2. The Royal Green Jackets association and author Jose Rey Ximena will unveil the propeller-shaped sculpture in July 2009 near Cedeira bearing the names of Howard and the others who died aboard the commercial flight from Portugal to Britain in 1943. Association President Manuel Santiago Arenas Roca says the London-born Howard joined the Allies and campaigned hard against the Axis powers. Ximena said Saturday that Germany's government at the time apparently was worried about the negative impact the high-profile actor-director's anti-Nazi publicity was having on its cause.

One of Leslie Howard's greatest films was the Oscar-winning, pro-British, anti-Nazi film "The 49th Parallel" co-starring Lawrence Olivier and Glynis Johns.

Leslie Howard (1893-1943) is best known for playing Ashley Wilkes in Gone With the Wind. He was nominated for Best Actor for 1938's Pygmalion as Profession Higgins. He also starred in "The Petrified Forest" and "The Invaders/49th Parallel". For more about Leslie Howard, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Howard_(actor)

Dames (1934)

Regular Busby Berkeley cast members Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler star.

It features some good songs and musical numbers, most notably "I Only Have Eyes For You", which comes at the very end.

The film takes a long time to get going.

The silly plot about a millionaire's inheritance and a theater troupe isn't very remarkable.

Not one of Busby Berkeley's best, in my opinion; not as good as "Gold Diggers of 1933" and "Footlight Parade".

About the cast:

Ruby Keeler (1910-1993) often was paired with Dick Powell in Warner Bros musicals in the 1930s. She was married to legendary singer Al Jolsen. She retired from acting in the 1940s but returned to Broadway in 1971. Her most famous roles were in "42nd Street" and "Gold Diggers of 1933".

Dick Powell (1904-1963)was a fresh-faced and energetic star in many comedies and musicals in the 1930s and 40s. Most notably in many of Busby Berkeley's films, as well as "Christmas in July" and "Bad and the Beautiful". He died of lymphoma in 1963 at the age of 58.

Joan Blondell (1906-1979) was a character actress who played wisecracking blondes in many films of the 1930s, providing comedy relief in "The Public Enemy" and "The Perfect Specimen". Her most famous role perhaps was in "The Gold Diggers of 1933" with her scene-stealing performance. She was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in "The Blue Veil" (1951) which starred Jane Wyman.

The Ghost Breakers (1940)

Before there were Ghostbusters, there were Ghost Breakers, paranormal investigators in George Steven's 1940 comedy, played by Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard.

In this comedy, Hope plays Lawrence L. Lawerence, an actor who only plays a P.I. on the radio. He gets mixed up in a scheme involving a haunted mansion in Cuba, and becomes a "ghost Breaker" by accident.

Co-starring Anthony Quinn and Willie Best, who plays Hope's assistant. There are so many zombies in the haunted mansion that Hope and Co. start calling them "Zom". It inspired both the 1970s television show "The Ghostbusters" as well as Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis when they wrote the 1984 film "Ghostbusters". Another note of trivia: Bob Hope starred in a radio version of "The Ghost Breakers" the same year the film came out.

The Search (1949)

Fred Zinnemann's The Search begins with a bombing of a eastern European village during WW2.

Among the displaced persons is a young boy who hides in the rubble until the bombing ceases.

One day, the hungry orphan emerges from the ruins of the town and stumbles upon an American GI (Montgomery Clift) eating a sandwich in his jeep.

Clift adopts the boy until he finds an orphanage for him, and the majority of the film focuses on their bond. We learn more about the boy's background gradually because the boy, in such shock, refuses to speak.

The film is intertwined with scenes of his mother as she tries to find him. Montgomery Clift was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.

- Read more about the film from another blogger at B Noir Detour

Fallen Angel (1946)

A good film noir starring Linda Darnell (one of her first films) and Alice Faye. Dana Andrews is a drifter who finds himself in a remote California beach town near San Francisco. He's a con man who starts his act almost from the moment he gets off the greyhound. But as the film progresses, he actually becomes the one to bring justice to the town.

Supporting performances by Anne Revere as Faye's overprotective sister, Charles Bickford as a lawman, and John Carradine as the strange fortune teller who comes passing through town -- he and Dana Andrews try to out-con each other, followed by a strange seance that exposes the fortune teller for the fraud he is.

This was Alice Faye's last film appearance for 16 years. She retired from films and divided her time between her radio show with husband Phil Harris and raising their family.

More reviews at other blogs here:

Film Noir Archive: Review of Fallen Angel

Classic Movies Digest: Review of Fallen Angel

Laura's Misc Musings: Review of Fallen Angel

Arbor Day Commercial / Plant A Tree! Listen to a 1995 radio ad w/ classic stars

I remember first hearing this on the radio years ago, and loved hearing these stars' voices: Charlton Heston, Eddie Albert, John Denver, and Lloyd Bridges. Who knew some of them were environmentalists? Sadly, they are all gone now. But the trees live on.

I love when Lloyd Bridges when he says, "Is there anything as marvelous as trees?"

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