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Long before the Disney/Fox merger of 2019 created 20th Century Studios, there was 20th Century Fox. One of the original big five studios, 20th Century Fox was founded as 20th Century Pictures in 1935 by Joseph Schenck and Darryl F. Zanuck. The latter of the two was a former Warner Bros. executive and noted pervert, who, as The Daily Beast has pointed out, was one of the chief architects of the notorious casting couch culture that produced so much of the murk in which golden age Hollywood operated. But despite what The New York Times has described as his "well documented" proclivity for flashing women, he also seemed to be pretty good at running a studio — at least for most of his career.

One particular aspect of his personality that helped in that regard was his attention to detail, as described in Scott Eyman's 2021 book "20th Century Fox -- Darryl F.

The 1970 war epic "Tora! Tora! Tora!" takes place from August 1939 to December 1941, dramatizing the wartime events that led up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The film alternately follows the American and the Japanese military during the same 29-month period, with the American sequences directed by Richard Fleischer and the Japanese sequences directed by Kinji Fukusaku (of "Battle Royale" fame) and Toshiro Masuda. 20th Century Fox ultra-producer Darryl F. Zanuck conceived of the project, as he wanted to give a proper telling of both sides of Pearl Harbor while also wanting to partially exonerate the American military (which had previously been blamed for its inability to prevent the attack).

Planning and shooting "Tora!" took an amazingly long amount of time. Pre-production wrangling lasted about three years, with principal photography taking an entire eight months. To make sure the Japanese segments would be handled by a master, Fox hired Akira Kurosawa to co-direct.

Dan Goozee, the acclaimed artist who created posters for such films as Clash of the Titans, Superman IV and the James Bond movies Moonraker, Octopussy and A View to a Kill, has died. He was 80.

Goozee died April 7 at West Hills Hospital & Medical Center of an age-related condition he had battled for two years, his son, Rob, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The unassuming Goozee spent years as a Walt Disney Imagineering theme park consultant, crafting conceptual artwork for Disneyland Paris and Tokyo DisneySea, for Splash Mountain and Big Thunder rides, for the Imagination Pavilion and Seas Pavilion at Epcot and for the Tree of Life attraction at Animal Kingdom.

He also handled effects work for Battlestar Galactica (1978) and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979).

Born in 1943 in Astoria, Oregon, Daniel Goozee worked on weekends at movie theaters that his father and uncle owned and operated in nearby Seaside, then graduated...

Lee Grant, the Oscar-winning actress (“Shampoo”) says she decided after her win to try to direct since good roles for older women were limited. It turns out that was about the halfway point of her 98 year (so far) life. What followed was a narrative feature (“Tell Me a Riddle”) and several documentaries, including “Down and Out in America,” which won an Oscar.

When we last ran our list of the oldest living feature film directors in late 2022, where Grant stood was a mystery. Since her breakout in William Wyler’s “The Detective Story” (1951), her first nomination, her year of birth was unclear. But recently she has clarified that that she was born in 1925. That makes her, to the best of our knowledge, older than any of her peers.

Below are listed the 25 oldest. Since our most recent list, Norman Lear, Robert M. Young (both of who briefly were the oldest...

The early 1970s marked a torrid time for legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa. Coming off the back of his first outright commercial failure with “Dodes'ka-den” (1970) and having been fired from the Hollywood project “Tora! Tora! Tora!” (1970), the director attempted to take his own life in 1971, miraculously surviving. However, the auteur's fortunes would take a turn the following year, as studio Mosfilm of the Soviet Union offered him the opportunity to adapt V.K. Arsenyev's 1923 memoir “Dersu Uzala”. Having wanted to work with the material earlier in his career, Kurosawa accepted, thus producing one of his most overlooked epics.

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The Russian language film follows Captain Vladimir Arsenyev (Yuriy Solomin), a soldier leading a group of men on a topography mission in Imperial Russia's vast Ussuri region. One night, his camp is visited by the nomad hunter, Dersu Uzala (Maksim Munzuk...

What a great way to encounter such an unusual masterpiece — Akira Kurosawa reenergized his creative career with this ambitious, uncompromised historical epic, filmed for Mosfilm on location in the wilds of far-East Siberia. A local woodsman becomes a guide for a Russian survey team, and a great friendship is formed. It’s like nothing Kurosawa made before or since — an adventure that stresses nature-friendly philosophy over action. The good extras are topped by Stuart Galbraith IV’s expert commentary, which includes three additional specialists to cover this film and its director in full fascinating detail.

Dersu Uzala

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 158

1975 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 142 min. / Street Date September 28, 2022 / Available from Imprint / aud 34.95

Starring: Yuriy Solomin, Maksim Munzuk, Mikhail Bychkov. Svetlana Danilchenko.

Cinematography: Asakazu Nakai, Fyodor Dobronravov, Yuriy Gantman

Production Designer: Yurily Raksha

Costume Design: Tatyana Lichmanova

Film Editor: Valentina Stepannova

Original Music: Isaac Schwarts

Written by Akira Kurosawa, Yuri Nagibin from the book Dersi okhotnikbyV.

Hard to believe, but Cinema Retro is entering its 18th season thanks to the consistent support among classic and cult movie lovers worldwide. The new season will begin with issue #52, which will ship in the UK and Europe during December and to all other sections of the globe in January. Throughout the new season, we have an exciting lineup of in-depth analysis from talented film scholars who will be providing highlights such as these:

"The Sand Pebbles"- director Robert Wise's acclaimed 1966 epic that saw Steve McQueen earn his only Oscar nomination Disney's "Dr. Syn: Alias the Scarecrow", the fascinating journey of the adventure TV episodes starring Patrick McGoohan and the subsequent feature film version. "Somewhere in Time", one of the most beloved and haunting romances ever filmed. Exclusive interview with director Jeannot Szwarc. "Lord Jim", director Richard Brooks' ambitious adaptation of Joseph Conrad's classic novel. The film...

As Disney quietly disappears huge swathes of film history into its vaults, I'm going to spend 2020 celebrating Twentieth Century Fox and the Fox Film Corporation's films, what one might call their output if only someone were putting it out.***Twentieth Century Fox didn't weather the 60s terribly well, but what American studio did? At least they hit the 70s running with M*A*S*H, which was more or less through luck (they execs were too busy having heart failure over the cost of Patton (1970) and Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) to bother Robert Altman, who then became a semi-regular director for them during the next decade).George Axelrod's The Secret Life of an American Wife (1968) pops out as an endearing oddity in an output mostly divided between the last gasps of formerly reliable or even inspired filmmakers (try Frank Tashlin's Doris Day spy caper Caprice [1967]), weird experiments and cheap...

With 10 Oscar overall nominations, Sam Mendes’ World War I epic “1917” is tied with “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” and “The Irishman” as the second-most nominated film at the 92nd Academy Awards (“Joker” leads with 11 bids). One of those bids is in Best Visual Effects for VFX supervisors Greg Butler, Guillaume Rocheran and Dominic Tuohy, where the movie competes alongside “Avengers: Endgame,” “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” “The Irishman” and “The Lion King.” It currently tops the predictions in Gold Derby’s combined Oscar odds, and here are four reasons why it should be topping yours as well.

SEENo female writer has won an Oscar in 12 years — and only 2 have a chance to do so this year

1. It’s a Best Picture nominee.

Since all branches of the academy vote for the winners in all categories at the Oscars, we typically see most races, above and below the line,...

Veteran director Richard Fleischer died on Saturday of natural causes at the Motion Picture And Television Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 89. The 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea movie-maker's death has sparked a flurry of tributes from Hollywood's finest - including California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who worked with Fleischer on 1984's Conan The Destroyer. Schwarzenegger says, "(He was) a true Hollywood legend. He was a man of great talent and an extraordinary director." Fleischer was born into a showbiz family - his father, Max Fleischer, was the animator behind Betty Boop and Popeye. Starting off making B-movies in the late 1940s, Fleischer quickly made a name for himself, going on to direct hits including Tora! Tora! Tora!, the Charles Bronson-starring Mr. Majestyk, and Doctor Dolittle with Rex Harrison - although he admitted the famously unpopular Harrison needed "a swift kick in the head." Fleischer is survived by his wife Mary, their three children and five grandchildren.

Director Richard Fleischer, a prolific filmmaker who helmed such movies as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Fantastic Voyage, and Soylent Green, died Saturday of natural causes in Los Angeles; he was 89. The son of pioneering animator Max Fleischer (one of the men behind famed characters Betty Boop and Popeye), Richard joined RKO's New York branch in the early 40s as a writer and producer for the studio's Flicker Flashbacks series and won an Oscar for the documentary Design for Death. By the end of the decade was ensconced in Hollywood, directing a number of low-budget noir thrillers, one of his most famous being the train-set The Narrow Margin, one of the first films to use a handheld camera and filmed in only 13 days; it was later remade in the 90s. In 1954, Fleischer got his big break courtesy of Walt Disney (his father's rival), who tapped him to direct the big-screen adaptation of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea starring Kirk Douglas and James Mason. Disney's first entire live-action movie made in the United States, it became one of the studio's most famous and well-known films, inspiring attractions at Disney's theme parks that utilized versions of the Nautilus submarine and the famed battle with a giant squid. Fleischer's career was marked by forays into numerous genres, with some of his more notable movies being The Vikings (1958), Fantastic Voyage (1966), The Boston Strangler (1968), Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970), Soylent Green (1973), and the Neil Diamond version of The Jazz Singer (1980). He also directed some of Hollywood's most well-known flops, including the Oscar-nominated musical Doctor Dolittle, the biopic Che! and the slave drama Mandingo. Throughout the 80s, Fleischer worked on a number of modern-day B movies, including cult faves Conan the Destroyer (starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Grace Jones) and Red Sonja. He is survived by his wife, Mary, three children and five grandchildren. --Prepared by IMDb staff...

Tora! Tora! Tora! star Keith Andes was found dead in his Santa Clarita, California home earlier this month. He was 85. The Los Angeles County coroner's office has ruled the actor's death was suicide by asphyxiation. His longtime friend Marshall LaPlante confirmed the New Jersey-born actor had been suffering from cancer of the bladder. The New Jersey-born actor launched his film career after Hollywood studio head Darryl F. Zanuck saw him performing in the Broadway, New York production of Winged Victory and offered him a role in the film version of the play in 1944. Andes spent four decades on the big screen, with roles as Marilyn Monroe's leading man in 1952's Clash By Night, The Farmer's Daughter in 1947 and Tora! Tora! Tora! in 1970. On the small screen, he starred opposite Glynis Johns in the 1963 Sitcom Glynis and police drama The Man Dawson. Andes is survived by his two sons Mark and Matt and his grandson Ryan.