ROSEMARY'S BABY...Roman Polanski's Horror Classic

A landmark film of the horror genre, Rosemary's Baby (1968) also marked Roman Polanski's directorial debut in the US. The film, a runaway hit on release, was the prototype that inspired the onslaught of big-budget "A" horror films that followed: The Exorcist, The Omen, etc.In the tradition of Hitchcock,...

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The House That Jack Built

  John Gilbert  Estate was Home to Hollywood Notables for 55 YearsIn the mid-1920s, when he was a top star at MGM, leading man John Gilbert built a house at 1400 Tower Grove Road in the Benedict Canyon area of Beverly Hills. A two-story Spanish-colonial with tennis court and swimming pool, the estate...

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Light, Shadow and Synergy ~ von Sternberg and Dietrich, Part III

Scroll down for Parts I and II of Light, Shadow and Synergy... In 1933, during a hiatus between studio contracts and filmmaking, Josef von Sternberg traveled to Germany to explore establishing Marlene Dietrich and himself at UFA, the studio where the two had made The Blue Angel three years earlier. Just as the...

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For a Liddypol Lad...

John Lennon would be turning 70 right about now...possibly a discomfiting thought for some baby-boomers, especially those who took to heart certain lyrics of the Who's "My Generation"..."I hope I die before I get old." As fate would have it, John Lennon did die before he got old - he had just turned 40 when he...

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Light, Shadow and Synergy ~ von Sternberg and Dietrich, Part II

1931 began spectacularly for director Josef von Sternberg and actress Marlene Dietrich. Their first two films together, Morocco and the English language version of The Blue Angel, had both just opened in the U.S., creating a sensation...and big box office.The 36-year-old von Sternberg, who during the silent era...

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