Around the Blogosphere This Week

Miscellaneous bits of news and fun stuff from around the Internet...

...Our family gives a thumbs up to A Very She & Him Christmas, featuring M. Ward and actress-singer Zooey Deschanel (500 DAYS OF SUMMER). My favorite track is Deschanel singing a simple version of "Blue Christmas," accompanied only by a ukelele.

...Karen pays tribute to the great Lloyd Nolan at Shadows and Satin. It's a lengthy, detailed post with some wonderful biographical info. Be sure to check it out.

...Classic Movies Digest continues this month's look at Christmas films with a review of Bob Hope in THE LEMON DROP KID (1951)...which coincidentally costars Lloyd Nolan. This film is the source for one of my very favorite Christmas songs, "Silver Bells."

...Don't miss the fabulous '40s publicity stills for 20th Century-Fox stars posted by Cliff at Immortal Ephemera. Wonderful stuff.

...Raquelle has an excellent gift guide for classic film fans at Out of the Past. I'd really like to get the coffee table book on Saul Bass, who designed extraordinary opening titles sequences for countless films.

...There's great news at 50 Westerns From the 50s: Joel McCrea films coming to DVD, including the movie that made me fall in love with him when I was growing up, SADDLE TRAMP (1950).

...Over at Jim Lane's Cinedrome, there's an interesting post on DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS (1949), directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Richard Widmark. He shares a great deal of interesting info about the film.

...Another Widmark film is the focus of a post at Riding the High Country, where Colin recently wrote about Richard Widmark and Robert Taylor in THE LAW AND JAKE WADE (1958). And congratulations again on the blog's fourth anniversary!

...Aurora, who regularly comments here, has a new film blog titled Once Upon a Screen.

...At Where Danger Lives, I just caught up with Mark's interesting post on TIME TABLE (1956), which was produced, directed, and starred in by Mark Stevens.

...Ed Asner will appear on the new HAWAII FIVE-0 series reprising a guest character he played on the original series back in 1975. The new show will incorporate footage of Asner's performance 36 years ago. Pretty neat!

...John Greco reviews MAN'S FAVORITE SPORT? (1964) at Twenty Four Frames. I was somewhat disappointed with this film when I saw it a few years ago, but having become a fan of Paula Prentiss, in films such as WHERE THE BOYS ARE (1960) and THE HONEYMOON MACHINE (1961), I should take a fresh look at it, as I remember very little about her in the film.

...Mondo 70 reviews the Warren William pre-Codes UNDER EIGHTEEN (1932), BEAUTY AND THE BOSS (1932), and more.

...Robby's latest post at Dear Old Hollywood takes a close look at the L.A. locations, then and now, of DOWN THREE DARK STREETS (1954) starring Broderick Crawford.

...It was announced today that two long-missing 1960s episodes of DOCTOR WHO have been found thanks to an engineer who had copies at home. Sadly, most of the old black and white episodes were destroyed by the BBC long ago.

...Tales of the Easily Distracted reviews HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951). I love Dorian's screen cap captions! I found a lot to love about this film, although I strongly disliked the sadism of the last half hour or so.

...Clara has discovered the very fun Deanna Durbin Christmas noir LADY ON A TRAIN (1945) and shares her comments at Via Margutta 51.

...There's high praise for the new James Curtis biography of Spencer Tracy at Greenbriar Picture Shows. As noted here recently, Leonard Maltin loved it too. UCLA plans a Tracy tribute beginning in January, so I hope to attend a film or two and have the chance to have Curtis sign a copy of the book.

...Harrison Ford is a candidate to play Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey in an upcoming film on Jackie Robinson, titled 42.

.../Film reports on a new theater in Washington which will allow and encourage texting during performances. No, thank you!! Let's hope that's a trend that doesn't catch on, or encourage others to text when they shouldn't. Glowing phone screens in a dark theater are a distraction to others.

...Notable Passing: Lloyd "Tommy" Doss, who succeeded Bob Nolan in the Sons of the Pioneers, has passed away at the age of 91. Doss can be heard on the soundtracks of John Ford's RIO GRANDE (1950), WAGON MASTER (1950), and THE SEARCHERS (1956); a clip from the last film is here. When I was growing up I also loved to listen to recordings of the Pioneers' Lucky U Ranch radio show.

Have a great week!