Around the Blogosphere This Week

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

...Coming next week: AVA GARDNER: THE SECRET CONVERSATIONS, based on interviews with the late writer Peter Evans. According to Vanity Fair, the conversations were for a planned memoir which was dropped, as Gardner became gunshy when she learned Evans had had a legal tangle with Frank Sinatra years earlier. She later published AVA: MY STORY with another writer. Evans obtained the permission of the Gardner Estate to publish the interviews prior to his own passing in August 2012.

..."36 Reasons to Love London." (Via Viv and Larry.) My daughter particularly appreciated Nos. 6, 7, and 9 during her months in London, where she became addicted to Indian food!

...Among the DVDs coming this August from Criterion: TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1942) and THE EARRINGS OF MADAME DE... (1953). And coming in September: THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965).

...Hollywood has convinced the powers-that-be to remove most of the green bicycle lane paint which was making location filming in Downtown Los Angeles problematic.

...Raquel reviewed Robert Montgomery in SO THIS IS COLLEGE (1929) for "Warner Archive Wednesday" at Out of the Past. Since it stars one of my favorite actors and is set at my daughter's alma mater, USC, this is one I have to see!

...I enjoy perusing the annual Books for the Beach list compiled by Virginia Hume (daughter of newsman Brit Hume). CITIZENS OF LONDON by Lynne Olson, on the nonfiction list, is now on my "to read" list, as I've always been interested in the London Blitz.

...Among recent posts at Greenbriar Picture Shows: Robert Taylor in THE LAST HUNT (1956) -- John McElwee writes that Taylor "registers darker than dark and ramps Old West noir to level of heavy-lidded menace few stars of his stature would have dared" -- and a story on Harold Lloyd and SAFETY LAST! (1923).

...Coming in October: VIVIEN LEIGH: AN INTIMATE PORTRAIT by Kendra Bean of Viv and Larry. Kendra is a Californian now living in London.

...Some Warner Archive reviews of interest by Glenn Erickson at DVD Savant: Forbidden Hollywood Collection Volume 7, THE MASK OF DIMITRIOS (1944), and I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE FBI (1951).

...POWDER RIVER (1953), a recent Fox Cinema Archives DVD release, receives an enthusiastic review from Toby at 50 Westerns From the 50s. You've got to love a Western with a supporting cast including John Dehner, Frank Ferguson, and Robert J. Wilke, just for starters. Those were the days!

...I've had good luck with the print quality of '40s Fox Cinema Archives releases. I'm very interested in the new release PARIS AFTER DARK (1943) starring George Sanders and Brenda Marshall.

...I've recently come across some interesting BELL TELEPHONE HOUR DVDs, such as Howard Keel with guests Ann Blyth and Sally Ann Howes, John Raitt with guest Rise Stevens, Gordon MacRae with Sheila MacRae, and Carol Lawrence with Robert Goulet, Howard Keel, Larry Kert, and Matt Mattox. I'm going to have to check some of these TV concerts out!

...Back in print in August: a 60th Anniversary Edition of the children's classic LITTLE WITCH by Anna Elizabeth Bennett.

...Kristen reviews the 2002 biography Pier Angeli: A Fragile Life at Journeys in Classic Film. It was written by Jane Allen and published by McFarland.

...Notable Passing: Sad news this week with the passing of James Gandolfini at the too-early age of 51. His funeral will be Thursday. The film credits of the SOPRANOS star included last year's ZERO DARK THIRTY (2012).

Have a great week!