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Eugene Levy and his son Dan Levy continue to make Emmy history. Four years ago, their comedy series “Schitt’s Creek” won a staggering nine Emmys including best comedy series, actor, actress, supporting actors, writing and directing. Even before “Schitt’s Creek,” Eugene was no stranger to the Emmy universe, winning statutes in 1982 and 1983 as a writer on the beloved “Sctv.” In fact, Dan was just a month old when his dad received his second honor.

Eugene’s nominated this year for the 14th time for outstanding hosted nonfiction series or special for Apple TV +’ “The Reluctant Traveler with Eugene Levy.” Now Eugene and Dan will be the first father and son to host the Emmys airing Sept. 15 on ABC. And here’s bit more history: the 77-year-old Eugene is the oldest Emmy host ever.

Having two hosts is nothing new for the Emmys. Back in 1952, the Emmys were hosted by the...

The Garden of Allah. The Cocoanut Grove. The Brown Derby and The Luau. They were the hottest places to see and be seen during the Golden Age of Hollywood, from the 1930s to the 1960s. Anyone who dined at these glamorous venues or wishes they had will thrill to the Out With the Stars exhibit, opening Saturday at the Hollywood Heritage Museum. The exhibition showcases these starry restaurants and much more from the 20th century in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and New York, with a special room devoted to World War II’s Hollywood Canteen.

Most of these atmospheric spots are long gone now, except a few stalwarts like Musso and Frank, the Tam O’Shanter and the Smokehouse. But in the days before social media and TMZ, making the scene at one of Hollywood’s swanky nightspots was the best way to boost your career, explains entertainment manager Darin Barnes,...

Glynis Johns, remembered by movie audiences as Mrs. Banks from Mary Poppins and by Broadway devotees as the first person to sing Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” on a national stage, died Thursday of natural causes at an assisted living home in Los Angeles. She was 100.

Her death was announced by her manager and publicist Mitch Clem. “Today’s a sad day for Hollywood,” Clem said in a statement. “She is the last of the last of old Hollywood.”

A Tony winner (Best Actress/Musical) for her performance as Desiree Armfeldt in the original 1973 Broadway cast of the Sondheim-Hugh Wheeler A Little Night Music, Johns both debuted and, due to her widespread acclaim, helped popularize what would become perhaps Sondheim’s most beloved and well-known songs with “Send in the Clowns.”

Born in Pretoria, South Africa, the Welsh Johns made her West End debut in 1931 at age...

Glynis Johns, the upbeat leading lady with the British charm who starred as the spirited feminist mother Winifred Banks in Mary Poppins, has died. She was 100.

Johns lived in West Hollywood and died Thursday of natural causes at an assisted living facility in the area, her manager, Mitch Clem, told The Hollywood Reporter.

A multitalented actress, dancer, pianist and singer, Johns earned a best supporting actress Oscar nomination for playing the widowed saloon and hotel owner Mrs. Firth in Fred Zinnemann’s Australia-set The Sundowners (1960).

Plus, she memorably sang “Send in the Clowns,” which Stephen Sondheim wrote just for her, in her Tony Award-winning performance as Desiree Armfeldt in the original 1973 production of A Little Night Music.

The husky voiced Johns was nominated for a Golden Globe for portraying a daffy older socialite who is stirred by the young stud she meets on the beach in a then-controversial film about sex,...

Perry Cross, who served as Johnny Carson’s first producer on The Tonight Show before he exited to run an ABC program hosted by Jerry Lewis that came and went after 13 episodes, has died. He was 95.

Cross died March 9 of kidney cancer at a hospital in Los Angeles, his son, Larry Cross, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Cross started out producing Ernie Kovacs’ CBS weekday morning show in 1952 and also worked on The Red Skelton Hour, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, The Dinah Shore Chevy Show, The Soupy Sales Show, Life With Linkletter, The Garry Moore Show and several Jonathan Winters live specials during his career.

Cross had been producing The Tonight Show in the immediate aftermath of host Jack Paar’s departure on March 30, 1962, guiding the NBC program in Hollywood and New York that featured guest hosts for six months until Carson took over.

NBC wanted Cross to be Carson’s producer,...

Cate Blanchett has received a symphony of praise from critics for her starring role in Todd Fields’ “Tar”and as a strong-willed orchestra conductor. Lydia Tar speaks her mind whether making a fool out of a conducting student at Juilliard or threatening a young girl bullying her daughter at school. But Tar’s diva-tude has nothing on the Sir Alfred de Carter (Rex Harrison) the famed conductor with an ego as big as the Ritz in writer/director/producer Preston Sturges’ hilarious dark 1948 comedy “Unfaithfully Yours.”

Sturges had had an incredible run at Paramount with his brilliant comedies: 1940’s “The Great McGinty,” for which he won the original screenplay Oscar and “Christmas in July”; 1941’s “The Lady Eve” and “Sullivan’s Travels”; 1942’s “The Palm Beach Story”; and 1944’s “The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek” and “Hail the Conquering Hero.” But then came many clashes with Paramount executives, the 1944 critical...

Budd Friedman, the comedy club pioneer who founded the original Improv in New York in 1963 and gave early career breaks to the likes of Jay Leno, Robert Klein, Bette Midler, Richard Pryor and Andy Kaufman, has died. He was 90.

Friedman died Saturday of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his wife, Alix, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Three years after Johnny Carson and The Tonight Show departed Manhattan for Burbank, Friedman opened a Hollywood outpost of the Improv on Melrose Avenue in 1975 in his first expansion of the brand.

There were 22 Improvs across 12 states in February 2018 when Friedman and partner Mark Lonow sold the company to Levity Entertainment Group, whose investors included Irving Azoff.

At his flagship New York hotspot, located at West 44th Street and Ninth Avenue in Hell’s Kitchen, Friedman also employed Rodney Dangerfield as an Mc, Elayne Boosler...

Director Sacha Jenkins does the most important thing he could do in “Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues”: He lets Louis Armstrong be messy.

Armstrong is one of those legends about whom people have had strong, polarized opinions. He’s either the greatest artist of the 20th century, in the esteem of Robert Christgau or Wynton Marsalis. Or he’s an Uncle Tom, someone who sold out and pandered to white audiences, as Sammy Davis Jr. once thought. And of course there’s the third path of corporate America, to sand the edges of someone like Armstrong down until he’s a cuddly teddy bear whose “What a Wonderful World” stands ready to accompany any commercial.

Jenkins’ new documentary for Apple TV+ avoids those absolutes. He’s interested in the man who was Armstrong, and that means a more complete, nuanced picture — a portrait of a human not so easy to categorize.

Click here to read the full article.

Maureen Arthur, who starred on Broadway and the big screen as the ambitious mistress and secretary Hedy La Rue in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, has died. She was 88.

Arthur died Wednesday of natural causes at her home in Beverly Hills after a long bout with Alzheimer’s disease, her brother Gerald told The Hollywood Reporter.

The vivacious Arthur also portrayed a nudie-magazine cover girl opposite Don Knotts and Edmond O’Brien in The Love God? (1969), a divorced woman who romances Bob Hope in How to Commit Marriage (1969) and an office tramp alongside John Phillip Law in The Love Machine (1971), based on a Jacqueline Susann novel.

Arthur played the bubble-headed Hedy in the national touring company of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, which had opened on Broadway in October 1961 en route to a spectacular run of more than 1,400 performances,...

Rhonda Fleming, star of the 1940s and ’50s who was dubbed the “Queen of Technicolor” and appeared in “Out of the Past” and “Spellbound,” died Wednesday in Santa Monica, Calif., according to her secretary Carla Sapon. She was 97.

Fleming appeared in more than 40 films and worked with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock on “Spellbound,” Jacques Tourneur on “Out of the Past” and Robert Siodmak on “The Spiral Staircase.”

Later in life, she became a philanthropist and supporter of numerous organizations fighting cancer, homelessness and child abuse.

Her starring roles include classics such as the 1948 musical fantasy “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” alongside Bing Crosby, 1957 Western “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” and the noir “Slightly Scarlet” alongside John Payne.

Her co-stars over the years included Kirk Douglas, Glenn Ford, Burt Lancaster, Bob Hope, Rock Hudson and Ronald Reagan, with whom she made four films. Other notable roles included Fritz Lang...

There are so many categories for the Emmy Awards that the Television Academy hands out the statuettes during three very long ceremonies. But that wasn’t the case with the first Emmy Awards on Jan. 25, 1949. In fact, there were less than a million TV sets in the U.S. at the time.

The Emmys took place at the Hollywood Athletic Club. Rudy Vallee was slated to host the event but had to leave town. So, radio star Walter O’Keefe emceed the proceedings. Tickets were $5. Six awards were handed out including a special award for Louis McManus who designed the Emmy. The ceremony was broadcast on the local L.A. station Ktsl, which is now Kcbs. -TV.

Back in 1998 I talked to three of the winners of the 1st Emmy Awards for the L.A. Times.

Then 22-year-old ventriloquist Shirley Dinsdale — who appeared on Ktla with her puppet Judy Splinters-she...

Back in the early 1970s I was crazy about Depression-Era Warner Bros. movies, that weren’t being shown on TV or anywhere else. In that climate of deprivation, a documentary that used movie film clips from the period felt extremely fresh and new. Philippe Mora’s picture sees 1930s America through the movies, through music, and the evasions of official newsreels. Franklin Delano Roosevelt preaches prosperity while James Cagney slugs his way through the decade as a smart-tongued everyman — in a dozen different roles. This was a new kind of documentary info-tainment formula: applying old film footage to new purposes.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime

Blu-ray

The Sprocket Vault / Vci

1975 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 106 min.

Street Date October 1, 2019 / 24.95

Film Editor: Jeremy Thomas

Research by Michael Barlow, Jennifer E. Ryan, Susan Winslow

Produced by Sanford Lieberson, David Puttnam

Directed by Philippe Mora

Philippe Mora was an accomplished artist and documentary...

Mubi's series Screwball Now & Then is showing November 21–December 21, 2019 in the United Kingdom.Preston Sturges was a writer and director who could pass muster as a percussionist; his deliciously black-hearted screwball comedies of the forties moved at a clip that would tongue-tie most screen performers today. Rhythm is integral to Sturges’ comedies and his characters move and speak so quickly they can get away with all kinds of things. In his beloved series of films of that decade—The Lady Eve (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek and Hail the Conquering Hero (both 1944), among others—Sturges would help to perfect a very particular form of romantic comedy. That venerated form, known as screwball, reached its apotheosis in the late 1930s and early ‘40s, characterized by sharp verbal sparring, chaotic plot twists, and snappy pacing that veered from witticism to pratfalling as it pleased. In The Palm Beach Story,...

The Three Stooges Collection –

Volumes 1 and 2

Blu ray

Mill Creek Entertainment

1941-1965 / 1:33, 1:85 / Street Date April 21, 2015

Starring Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Joe DeRita

Cinematography by Franz Planer, Scotty Welbourne, William P. Whitley

Written by Raphael Hayes, Norman Maurer

Directed by Sidney Salkow, Edward Bernds, Norman Maurer

A frenetic mix of baggy-pants vaudeville and the Spanish Inquisition, the eye-poking exploits of The Three Stooges have appalled faint-hearted sophisticates and overprotective mothers for close to a century.

The team’s lowdown influence still lingers – not in the brutal roughhousing demonstrated by the lads in their most frantic moments but in their low class assault on upper class sensibilities – from the semen-sculpted hair-do of the Farrelly Brothers’s There’s Something About Mary to Johnny Knoxville’s Jackass to the mortifying contagion of diarrhea suffered by Paul Feig’s Bridesmaids, the Stooge abides.

And then there’s the Farrelly’s ode to brainlessness,...

(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...

It’s 1930s America as seen in the movies, through music, and the evasions of newsreels. Franklin Delano Roosevelt preaches prosperity while James Cagney slugs out the decade as a smart-tongued everyman — in a dozen different roles. Director Philippe Mora investigates what was then a new kind of revisionist info-tainment formula: applying old film footage to new purposes.

Brother Can You Spare a Dime

DVD

The Sprocket Vault

1975 / B&W / 1:33 flat full frame / 106 min. / Street Date ?, 2017 / available through The Sprocket Vault / 14.99 (also available in Blu-ray)

Film Editor: Jeremy Thomas

Research by Michael Barlow, Jennifer E. Ryan, Susan Winslow

Produced by Sanford Lieberson, David Puttnam

Directed by Philippe Mora

Years before he was briefly sidetracked into sequels for The Howling, Philippe Mora was an accomplished artist and documentary filmmaker. Backed by producers Sanford Lieberson and David Puttnam, his 1974 documentary Swastika pulled a controversial switch on the usual historical fare about...

Broadway’s delightful — but wickedly accurate — satire of big business was brought to movie screens almost intact, with the story, the stars, the styles and dances kept as they were in the long-running show that won a Pulitzer Prize. This is the place to see Robert Morse and Michele Lee at their best — it’s one of the best, and least appreciated movie musicals of the 1960s.

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1967 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 121 min. / Street Date March 14, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Robert Morse, Michele Lee, Rudy Vallee, Anthony Teague, Maureen Arthur, Sammy Smith, Robert Q. Lewis, Carol Worthington, Kathryn Reynolds, Ruth Kobart, George Fennemann, Tucker Smith, David Swift.

Cinematography: Burnett Guffey

Film Editor: Allan Jacobs, Ralph E. Winters

Original Music: Nelson Riddle

Art Direction: Robert Boyle

Visual Gags: Virgil Partch

From the play written by Frank Loesser, Abe Burrows,...

"Have you ever heard Rudy Vallee's version of 'As Time Goes By'?" asks Mike Mills. He's been trying to pin down the vibe of his new movie, and after a few false starts, the 50-year-old filmmaker thinks he may have found it. "So play that song in your head for a second." He waits for a few moments, so the sound of the old-timey crooner's 1943 take on the American standard can echo through his listener's skull. "Ok, now switch over to the Buzzcocks' 'Why Can't I Touch It?'" he says,...

Constance Cummings: Actress in minor Hollywood movies became major London stage star. Constance Cummings: Actress went from Harold Lloyd and Frank Capra to Noël Coward and Eugene O'Neill Actress Constance Cummings, whose career spanned more than six decades on stage, in films, and on television in both the U.S. and the U.K., died ten years ago on Nov. 23. Unlike other Broadway imports such as Ann Harding, Katharine Hepburn, Miriam Hopkins, and Claudette Colbert, the pretty, elegant Cummings – who could have been turned into a less edgy Constance Bennett had she landed at Rko or Paramount instead of Columbia – never became a Hollywood star. In fact, her most acclaimed work, whether in films or – more frequently – on stage, was almost invariably found in British productions. That's most likely why the name Constance Cummings – despite the DVD availability of several of her best-received performances – is all but forgotten.

He's back and he's funnier than ever. The mischievous, cagey entertainer William Claude Dukenfield starred in some of the best comedies ever. This five-disc DVD set contains eighteen of his best, all the way from Million Dollar Legs in 1932 to Never Give a Sucker an Even Break in 1941. And we get to see all sides of W.C's talent -- he was a top-rank juggler, of just about anything. W.C. Fields Comedy Essentials Collection DVD Universal Studios Home Entertainment 1932-1941 / B&W / 1:37 Academy 1316 minutes (21 hours, 46 min) Street Date October 13, 2015 / 99.98 Starring Larson E. Whipsnade, T. Frothinghill Bellows, Egbert Sousé, Eustace P. McGargle, Harold Bissonette, Professor Quail, Augustus Winterbottom, Mr. Stubbins, Sam Bisbee, Ambrose Wolfinger, Cuthbert J. Twillie, Humpty-Dumpty. Written by Charles Bogle, Mahatma Kane Jeeves, Otis Criblecoblis

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

In the late 1960s there were these things called Head Shops, see, where various hippie consumer goods were sold.

Charles Brackett ca. 1945: Hollywood diarist and Billy Wilder's co-screenwriter (1936–1949) and producer (1945–1949). Q&A with 'Charles Brackett Diaries' editor Anthony Slide: Billy Wilder's screenwriter-producer partner in his own words Six-time Academy Award winner Billy Wilder is a film legend. He is renowned for classics such as The Major and the Minor, Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Witness for the Prosecution, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment. The fact that Wilder was not the sole creator of these movies is all but irrelevant to graduates from the Auteur School of Film History. Wilder directed, co-wrote, and at times produced his films. That should suffice. For auteurists, perhaps. But not for those interested in the whole story. That's one key reason why the Charles Brackett diaries are such a great read. Through Brackett's vantage point, they offer a welcome – and unique – glimpse into the collaborative efforts that resulted in...

One of the greatest, wildest comedies ever made, Preston Sturges's 1942 classic The Palm Beach Story, hits Criterion today in a beautiful new edition packed with extras. The story of a husband and wife (Joel McCrea and Claudette Colbert) who, having hit a rough financial patch, agree to separate but then are thrust back together after she heads to Florida and begins to romance a wealthy playboy (Rudy Vallee), the film is remarkable for its inventive, freewheeling story line; it's the kind of movie that can digress into a 20-minute tangent about a gun-happy hunting club wreaking havoc on a passenger train without batting an eye. One of the most intriguing extras on Criterion's edition features SNL's Bill Hader, who is a huge Preston Sturges fan, discussing what makes the film so special and even reading through parts of the script. We spoke to him about his love of...

I recognized the greatness of Preston Sturges when I first saw The Lady Eve (1941). Sturges realizes the absurdity of his stories and he owns those absurdities for the sake of entertainment rather than attempting to twist them into something they aren't. In the case of romantic comedies, today's attempts at the genre find filmmakers over looking their absurdity and to do so, as a filmmaker, is to make a movie that's too heavy-handed, ignoring the necessary tone of such a film. How many times have you been watching a romantic comedy and things are bouncing along -- a joke here, a sexual escapade there -- all leading up to the inevitable misunderstanding or break-up of the central characters you knew was comingc At this point our minds have pretty much been trained to expect these moments and all that comes after them. We know the characters are going to get...

"The phones have been ringing off the hook!" Robert Morse exclaims, which isn't surprising given the 83-year-old actor's turn in the Mad Men split-season finale last Sunday night. (Here there be spoilers, so anyone who has not yet seen the episode, you may want to turn back now. Seriously.) Having played Sterling Cooper & Partners' co-founder and resident Zen philosopher/Japanaphile Bertrand Cooper on the show for seven seasons, Morse saw his character shuffle off this mortal coil right after his character witnessed Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Viewers learn...

Probably the single most influential piece of film criticism in my life is Manny Farber's piece on Preston Sturges, and in particular his paean to the Sturges stock company ~

"They all appear to be too perfectly adjusted to life to require minds, and, in place of hearts, they seem to contain an old scratch sheet, a glob of tobacco juice, or a brown banana. The reason their faces--each of which is a succulent worm's festival, bulbous with sheer living--seem to have nothing in common with the rest of the human race is precisely because they are so eternally, agelessly human, oversocialized to the point where any normal animal component has vanished. They seem to be made up not of features but a collage of spare parts, most of them as useless as the vermiform appendix."

There are things I don't love about Farber—his insistence upon virility as a...

Rex Harrison hat on TCM: ‘My Fair Lady,’ ‘Anna and the King of Siam’ Rex Harrison is Turner Classic Movies’ final "Summer Under the Stars" star today, August 31, 2013. TCM is currently showing George Cukor’s lavish My Fair Lady (1964), an Academy Award-winning musical that has (in my humble opinion) unfairly lost quite a bit of its prestige in the last several decades. Rex Harrison, invariably a major ham whether playing Saladin, the King of Siam, Julius Caesar, the ghost of a dead sea captain, or Richard Burton’s lover, is for once flawlessly cast as Professor Henry Higgins, who on stage transformed Julie Andrews from cockney duckling to diction-master swan and who in the movie version does the same for Audrey Hepburn. Harrison, by the way, was the year’s Best Actor Oscar winner. (See also: "Audrey Hepburn vs. Julie Andrews: Biggest Oscar Snubs.") Following My Fair Lady, Rex Harrison...

Ann Blyth movies: TCM schedule on August 16, 2013 (photo: ‘Our Very Own’ stars Ann Blyth and Farley Granger) See previous post: "Ann Blyth Today: Light Singing and Heavy Drama on TCM." 3:00 Am One Minute To Zero (1952). Director: Tay Garnett. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ann Blyth, William Talman. Bw-106 mins. 5:00 Am All The Brothers Were Valiant (1953). Director: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Ann Blyth. C-95 mins. 6:45 Am The King’S Thief (1955). Director: Robert Z. Leonard. Cast: Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, David Niven. C-79 mins. Letterbox Format. 8:15 Am Rose Marie (1954). Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas. C-104 mins. Letterbox Format. 10:00 Am The Great Caruso (1951). Director: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Mario Lanza, Ann Blyth, Dorothy Kirsten, Jarmila Novotna, Richard Hageman, Carl Benton Reid, Eduard Franz, Ludwig Donath, Alan Napier, Pál Jávor, Carl Milletaire, Shepard Menken, Vincent Renno, Nestor Paiva, Peter Price, Mario Siletti, Angela Clarke,...

Male impersonator Kitty Doner According to the Encyclopedia of Vaudeville press release, you interviewed a number of vaudeville stars. Could you share a couple of anecdotes? [See previous post: The Encyclopedia Of Vaudeville Q&A with Anthony Slide: Vaudeville History.] I had the good fortune to talk with a number of vaudevillians: Milton Berle, George Burns, Fifi D’Orsay, May Foy (of the Seven Little Foys), Nick Lucas, Ken Murray, Fayard Nicholas (of the Nicholas Brothers), Al Rinker (of the Rhythm Boys), Rose Marie, Virginia Sale, Joe Smith (of Smith and Dale), Arthur Tracy, Rudy Vallee, Nancy Welford, and the brilliant Senor Wences (photo). I was [...]...

Harvey Studio 54, NY

Anyone of the mindset that Harvey is a creaky, old piece of theater that should be happily left behind in a bygone era when caricatures and stiff, unnatural dialog ruled the American boards need go no further than the current revival at Studio 54 to find irrefutable proof for this argument. Given a push into the theatrical grave that it didn't need by some dreadful directing, this piece was dead on arrival despite the concerted efforts of some good actors.

Written in a time when publicly addressing the issue of alcoholism, even in a comical manner, was edgy, Harvey has long since outlived any daring it may have once danced around and is left primarily with the character of Elwood P. Dowd. Elwood is a character that is most commonly associated with Jimmy Stewart's portrayal in the 1950 film version, making for a tough act to follow, but...

La-La Land Records has released a new 2-cd set of the soundtrack for Steven Spielberg’s 1979 movie 1941. The album includes the remastered and expanded score composed by John Williams. The soundtrack is expanded by more than 70 minutes of previously unreleased music and also includes the content of the original 1979 soundtrack album. For audio clips and the full soundtrack details, visit La-La Land Records’ website. 1941 starring Dan Aykroyd, Ned Beatty, John Belushi and Warren Oates was Spielberg’s and Williams’ fourth collaboration on a theatrical feature project following Sugarland Express, Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The movie has received three Academy Award nominations for Cinematography, Visual Effects and Sound.

Here’s the album track list:

Disc 1

The Film Score

1 “1941” Main Title 1:36

2 Chrissie Takes Another Swim** 4:38

3 Sub Commander / Wild Bill Kelso** 3:44

4 Donna’s Obsession / Birkhead’s Pitch** 2:59

5 Poppa’s Got a Gun* 1:13

6 You Have Been Chosen / You,...

Ann Dvorak, Rudy Vallee, Sweet Music Ann Dvorak Pt.2: Film Career, Private Life Ann Dvorak's best-remembered film is probably the 1932 Scarface, starring Paul Muni, directed by Howard Hawks, produced by Howard Hughes, and released by United Artists. What was that experience like for her? Making Scarface must have been a very exciting experience for Ann. I don't think a lot of people realize this was Ann's first real acting role and that she had just turned twenty when she made it. At the time she was signed to play Cesca Camonte, Ann had been working at MGM for over two years in the chorus and as an assistant choreographer to Sammy Lee. Despite being championed by Joan Crawford for more substantial parts, MGM did nothing more with Ann than give her extra work. It must have been a thrill for her to land a challenging role in such a significant film.

Bette Davis, Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Three on a Match Ann Dvorak on TCM Part I: Scarface, I Was An American Spy Another cool Ann Dvorak performance is her drug addict in Mervyn LeRoy's Three on a Match (1932), which features a great cast that includes Warren William, Joan Blondell, and a pre-stardom Bette Davis. Never, ever light three cigarettes using the same match, or you'll end up like Ann Dvorak, delivering a harrowing performance without getting an Academy Award nomination for your efforts. As Three on a Match's young Ann Dvorak, future Oscar nominee Anne Shirley is billed as Dawn O'Day. (And for those who believe that remakes is something new: Three on a Mach was remade a mere six years later as Broadway Musketeers: John Farrow directed; Ann Sheridan, Marie Wilson, and Margaret Lindsay starred.) I've never watched David Miller's family drama Our Very Own...

After the death of Elizabeth Taylor, press agent Harry Clein dug up his 1968 interview with Tiny Tim, in which the ukelele-playing actor (who was always a tad strange) recalls his early fan crush on the actress and how he met her when they were both teenagers. In 1968, I was working as a journalist. One of my first interviews was with Tiny Tim. Mr. Tiny, as he liked to be called, was then 36, looked like a genial Halloween witch, and was at the beginning of his “Tiptoe Through the Tulips" fame. He strummed his ukulele to accompany his riffs on his newfound success, his music, Rudy Vallee and Bob Dylan, his growing up in the tenements of New York, s-e-x – he never ...

Houston hip-hop mastermind Bun B has a new album coming out on August 3 called Trill O.G., and like his best work (both as a solo artist and as one half of Ugk), it's full of rugged rhymes, glossy production (courtesy of the likes of Boi-1da, DJ Khalil, the Neptunes and others) and some razor-sharp guest appearances by Young Jeezy, Drake, Raekwon and T-Pain. The latter provides the hook on the just-released single "Trillionaire," on which Bun brags about being "a self-made trillionaire."

In bragging about such incredible wealth, Bun B has left the middling economy in the dust and kicked the inflation level way, way up. To our knowledge, nobody has ever touted being worth one trillion dollars, which is the sort of money that even Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey have to dream about. So until somebody comes along and brands himself a quadrillionaire or a quintillionaire,...

"When I tell people I do singing telegrams for a living," said Gina Bacon of Artistic Singing Telegrams, "the first thing they always say is, 'People still do that?!'" People send musical messages all right, but today's telegrams are a far cry from their paper-printed predecessors. According to Wikipedia, singing telegrams were first created in 1933 when Western Union operator Lucille Lipps was asked to sing a birthday greeting over the phone to singing star Rudy Vallee. As most telegrams were delivered in person, the popular image of a singin'-and-tap-dancin' telegram delivery quickly took hold. Though Western Union discontinued the service in 1974, independent operators—often in costume—have kept the practice alive. Today, a web search reveals that singing telegrams are available nearly everywhere in the United States. Some are national agencies with a network of affiliated entertainers; some are individual performers who only perform locally. Customers have a wide...

Optimum, £15.99

Excellent screen version (directed by David Swift) of the Broadway musical, a satire on the world of big business, by the Guys and Dolls team of Abe Burrows (book) and Frank Loesser (music and lyrics). The original stage version won the 1962 Pulitzer prize for drama. Robert Morse recreates his stage role as the nebbish who uses the eponymous "How to" book to promote himself from window-cleaner to the president of a Manhattan corporation. The interwar crooner Rudy Vallee repeats his Broadway part as the eccentric boss.

Essentially it's a lite version of Billy Wilder's The Apartment. Superbly photographed by veteran Burnett Guffey (Oscar winner for From Here to Eternity and Bonnie and Clyde), it's furnished wall to wall with witty, melodic songs by Loesser, master of the monosyllabic lyric (eg, the song "A Secretary Is not a Toy" features the couplet: "Her pad is to write in/ Not...

Can Harry Potter sing? That's something we'll find out come December, when Daniel Radcliffe heads a reading of the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying." Again, it's just a reading, not an actual production of the 1961 show, but this could determine whether or not it's a good idea to progress further with a new revival.

Radcliffe previously came to Broadway for the non-musical "Equus," infamous for having the former child actor appear completely nude on stage. If he's back in front of an audience for "Business," there won't be as many "scandalous" headlines, but there would still likely be plenty of "Harry Potter" fans in the audience.

The soon-to-be-former boy wizard will be reading for the part of J. Pierrepont Finch, a window cleaner who in only a few days moves up through the ranks of a corporation, from the mail room to the executive offices, thanks...

Mickey Carroll, the last surviving actor who played a Munchkin in the Judy Garland classic The Wizard of Oz, has passed away. He was 89 and died after a period of declining health, a BBC report said.

In keeping with Carroll's own background, his was a multi-talented resident of Munchkinland. He was a Munchkinland town crier, a Munchkin soldier and a Munchkin Fiddler. It was as the last of these that Carroll earned recognition for saying the famous line, "Follow the yellow brick road".

The Wizard of Oz (1939) was the second and last film that Carroll is credited with appearing in. The other movie was the 1938 Warner Brother's musical Gold Diggers in Paris that starred Rudy Vallee, Rosemary Lane and was directed by Busby Berkeley.

Mickey Carroll was born on July 8, 1919 to Italian immigrant parents. As a child he took dance lessons at the St. Louis Fox Theater. He later worked...

In anticipation of the release of his 33rd album, Together Through Life, Bob Dylan sat down with rock critic and MTV producer Bill Flanagan for a rare and unusually candid conversation. The first three portions of their meeting can be read at bobdylan.com, and the fourth installment can be read here on the Huffington Post). In the fifth installment, published below, Dylan reveals his favorite songwriters, discusses whether he's a cult figure, and gives his thoughts on trading on nostalgia and if he's a mainstream artist (to view a slide show of Dylan's favorite's, click here). Bill Flanagan: Going back to that song you wrote for the movie that you mentioned earlier, "Life is Hard," has the formality of an old Rudy Vallee or Nelson Eddy ballad right down to the middle eight ("Ever since the day..."). Do you...