Ivanhoe, Reviewed on Film Review Central

Ivanhoe made more money for MGM than any other movie in 1952 and was nominated for three Academy Awards. Now reviewed on Film Review Central: Ivanhoe – Film Review Central

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The Beast of the City (1932), Reviewed on Film Review Central

It culminates in a scene of such astonishing and bleak bloodshed that MGM decided to not promote The Beast of the City and instead bury it in their theater release schedule.

Read my review on Film Review Central: The Beast of the City – Film Review Central

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On the Set of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

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How the West Was Won

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Recently Read: The Love of the Last Tycoon: A Western

This Cambridge Edition, edited by the most important Fitzgerald scholar, Matthew J. Bruccoli, is the ultimate resource for Fitzgerald's last and unfinished novel.

The partly ironically titled book tells the story of a Hollywood producer, Monroe Stahr, based on Fitzgerald's observations and meetings with MGM second-in-command Irving Thalberg, as well as many other Hollywood denizens. Like the three novels he wrote before it, it's a tragic love story.

The novel, what we can read of it, is structurally flawed (i.e., and regrettably, a mess). Like The Great Gatsby to an much lesser extent, The Last Tycoon suffers from problems of viewpoint, relating scenes which the narrator didn't witness or is awkwardly retelling from having talked to other sources. Fitzgerald's then editor, Maxwell Perkins, believed Fitzgerald would have solved these problems before completion, but I don't see how. To make the matter more convoluted, Fitzgerald's notes indicate he considered having Monroe Stahr's story told three levels deep: that is, told by someone else, whose story is then told by someone else.

I don't know why Fitzgerald had such difficulties in this regard because his writing is, in so many other respects, exquisite. He captures the feel, the atmosphere, the backstage chaos and absurdities and the simpler business methods of Hollywood in the '30s. His descriptions in the novel are as fine as his best work. Those interested in film history (and, especially, the history of MGM) will find much to enjoy here.

This edition features seventy pages of photocopies of Fitzgerald's notes, his letters from the time period, a history of the novel's publication and much more.

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Stars In Heaven: An MGM Blog

An unashamed plug for another of my blogs, Stars in Heaven: An MGM Blog, where I'm in the process of reviewing every MGM feature film made from 1924 to 1959 which still exists.

Just reviewed: Rudolph Valentino in The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Coming this week: Scaramouche, starring Ramon Novarro.

Check out, bookmark and follow the site here: http://anmgmblog.blogspot.com/

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Psychedelic Lassie

Lassie art colored at last weekend's Zoom children's film festival at the Wexner Center, where we watched a gorgeous 35mm print of the 1943 MGM tearjerker Lassie Come Home.

The Wex offered button-making, coloring and other cool activities for kids - and adults who are still growing up.

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