Casablanca with the San Francisco Symphony

Last Friday night I attended a very special screening of "Casablanca with the San Francisco Symphony" at Davies Hall. Conductor Michael Francis led the orchestral accompaniment and a full house spent the evening in thrall to Warner Bros.' sublime 1942 film classic and composer Max Steiner's unforgettable score....

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Lyle Wheeler - Setting the Scene

Watercolor pre-production painting of Tara for Gone with the Wind (1939)by guest author Captain Gregg  The art director is one of the most important artists in the film industry for it is his talent and skill that bring a script to visual life. Lyle Wheeler was a master craftsman in this field of production...

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Jean Cocteau...born July 5, 1889...

Jean Cocteau, French filmmaker/poet/writer/artist and more (dramatist, boxing manager...), was born July on 5, 1889, into a prominent and bourgeois family in Maissones-Lafitte - a village not far from Paris. His father, an attorney and amateur artist, took his own life when the boy was just nine; young Cocteau...

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