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by Cláudio Alves

I don't know about you, but I love to find which people share the same birthday as me. That's especially true of artists who I admire. It's not like sharing a birthday means a whole lot, but it's nice to know that there's something in common between you and one of your idols. In my case, birthday twins include the cinematic genius Wong Kar-Wai, the fabulously talented Diahann Carroll, the eternal gangster James Cagney, Weekend star Tom Cullen, Best Supporting Actress nominee Barbara O'Neil, Sibyl director Justine Triet, and, of course, this piece's focus, the great Donald Sutherland. Our special day was just yesterday.

Despite never having been nominated for a competitive Oscar (he received an honorary in 2018), Donald Sutherland can be counted among Hollywood's most respected thespians. With a career spanning from the 1960s to now, full of memorable hits and influential classics, complex performances, and scene-stealing turns,...

(See previous post: Fourth of July Movies: Escapism During a Weird Year.) On the evening of the Fourth of July, besides fireworks, fire hazards, and Yankee Doodle Dandy, if you're watching TCM in the U.S. and Canada, there's the following: Peter H. Hunt's 1776 (1972), a largely forgotten film musical based on the Broadway hit with music by Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, who was recently on TCM talking about 1776 and a couple of other movies (A Thousand Clowns, Dodsworth), has one of the key roles as John Adams. Howard Da Silva, blacklisted for over a decade after being named a communist during the House Un-American Committee hearings of the early 1950s (Robert Taylor was one who mentioned him in his testimony), plays Benjamin Franklin. Ken Howard is Thomas Jefferson, a role he would reprise in John Huston's 1976 short Independence. (In the short, Pat Hingle was cast as John Adams; Eli Wallach was Benjamin Franklin.) Warner...

Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...

'Jurassic World' velociraptor kicks Iron Man ass at worldwide box office. 'Jurassic World' officially surpasses 'The Avengers' at worldwide box office Directed by Colin Trevorrow; starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Vincent D'Onofrio; and co-executive-produced by Steven Spielberg, Jurassic World has officially become the third biggest worldwide box office hit in history. The Jurassic Park sequel – or reboot, as it's basically the same story with a slightly different twist – has surpassed Marvel's Joss Whedon-directed all-star superhero flick The Avengers, which broke box office records back in 2012. Of course, "officially" just ain't what it used to be – like, in the days before The Fall. So you wisely ask, "But which movie has actually sold the most tickets?" After all, that's the true measure of a film's popularity. Well, that's a tough one to answer without the studios providing accurate, precise numbers. And that's not about to happen. It always...

Teresa Wright-Samuel Goldwyn association comes to a nasty end (See preceding post: "Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock Heroine in His Favorite Film.") Whether or not because she was aware that Enchantment wasn't going to be the hit she needed – or perhaps some other disagreement with Samuel Goldwyn or personal issue with husband Niven Busch – Teresa Wright, claiming illness, refused to go to New York City to promote the film. (Top image: Teresa Wright in a publicity shot for The Men.) Goldwyn had previously announced that Wright, whose contract still had another four and half years to run, was to star in a film version of J.D. Salinger's 1948 short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut." Instead, he unceremoniously – and quite publicly – fired her.[1] The Goldwyn organization issued a statement, explaining that besides refusing the assignment to travel to New York to help generate pre-opening publicity for Enchantment,...

Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, made into a 1940 Academy Award-winning movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is getting the movie-remake treatment: see my previous post, Alfred Hitchcock/Rebecca Remake Announced. Many will surely be accusing Hollywood of having no imagination whatsoever, ignoring the fact that movie remakes have been around for as long as movies have been around. [Photo: Daphne Du Maurier.] Now, even less well-known in most circles is that Du Maurier's Rebecca bears an uncanny resemblance to another novel. No, not Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (made into a 1944 movie directed by Mary Poppins' Robert Stevenson, and starring Rebecca's Joan Fontaine and Orson Welles), or even, more distantly, to Rachel Field's All This, and Heaven Too, itself based on actual events and made into a 1940 Academy Award-nominated movie by Anatole Litvak, starring Bette Davis and Charles Boyer (in addition to the Oscar-nominated Barbara O'Neil as Boyer's insane wife). The Rebecca...