Seasonal Pictorials: Merry Christmas from Old Hollywood

-


Esther Pressman, Kay Gordon, Bonita Barker, Dorothy Thompson and Dene Myles in a Christmas publicity shot for Paramount Pictures (December 1935). 

Boris Karloff and Ginger Rogers at a Christmas party in Los Angeles in December 1932.
 
Priscilla Lane besides a Christmas tree with a armful of presents (1941).
 
George Burns and Gracie Allen with their two adopted children, Ronnie and Sandra Jean, at home during Christmas (December 1939)
 
Cyd Charisse in a Christmas publicity shot (1947).
 
Butch Jenkins and Lassie in a Christmas publicity shot (December 1947).
 
Deanna Durbin decorating a Christmas tree (December 1944).
 
Mara Alba, Anna May Wong and Alga Baclanova at a Christmas party given by the Foreign Correspondents Association (December 1932).
 
A Christmas parade at the Hollywood Boulevard (December 1941).
 
 
Merry Christmas, everyone!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Golden Couples: Gary Cooper & Patricia Neal

-
Image
It was April 1948 when director King Vidor spotted 22-year-old Patricia Neal on the Warner Bros. studio lot. A drama graduate from Northwestern University, she had just arrived in Hollywood following a Tony Award-winning performance in Lillian Hellman's Another Part of the Forest . Impressed by Patricia's looks, Vidor approached the young actress and asked if she would be interested in doing a screen test for the female lead in his newest film, The Fountainhead (1949). Gary Cooper had already signed as the male protagonist, and the studio was then considering Lauren Bacall and Barbara Stanwyck to play his love interest.          Neal liked the script and about two months later, she met with the director for sound and photographic tests. Vidor was enthusiastic about Patricia, but her first audition was a complete disaster. Cooper was apparently watching her from off the set and he was so unimpressed by her performance that he commented, « What's that!? » He ...
Read more

The Classic Movie History Project Blogathon: Juvenile Delinquency in Mid-1950s Cinema

-
Image
During the eight-year presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower, at the height of the Cold War, the United States was the most influential economic power in the world. Despite constant threats of Communism and nuclear annihilation, it looked as though the «American Dream» was finally a reality. People across the country were comfortably complacent, indulging in new cars, suburban houses, television sets and all sorts of new consumer goods. For the nation's adults, who still remembered the hardships of the Great Depression, life had never been better. However, for their teenage children, who had grown up during World War II, shielded from the most worrying of its effects, life was flawed by powerful feelings of alienation and anger.   As the number of teens doubled in the wake of the post-war baby boom, young people began turning their backs on the conformist ideals promoted by adult society. Parents could no longer impress their value system on their children, who longed for greater exci...
Read more

Golden Couples: Clark Gable & Jean Harlow

-
Image
  At the 3rd Academy Awards ceremony, MGM's hugely successful prison drama The Big House (1930) earned writer Frances Marion an Oscar for Best Writing. Hoping that she would be inspired to repeat that accomplishment, Irving Thalberg, head of production at Metro, sent Marion to Chicago, Illinois to research story ideas. While flicking through the pages of The Saturday Evening Post , she found an article revealing that, in a city where people distrusted the police, a small group of leading citizens met in secret to arrange their own justice for criminals. Marion took inspiration from that story and wrote The Secret Six (1931), in which Wallace Beery and Lewis Stone, stars of The Big House , play two mobsters prosecuted by a half a dozen vigilantes. Thalberg was pleased with the leading roles Marion wrote for Beery and Stone, but asked if she could also fill out one of the minor leads for Clark Gable , a tall, dark and handsome 30-year-old actor whom Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had recen...
Read more