Around the Blogosphere This Week

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

...Ann Blyth celebrated her 86th birthday yesterday! Here is my 2012 birthday tribute, which has been updated with additional review links and links to coverage of her appearances at the 2013 TCM Classic Film Festival.

...For more on Ann, Another Old Movie Blog is the place to be this year! This week Jacqueline took a look at an imperfect yet enjoyable film, ALL THE BROTHERS WERE VALIANT (1953) costarring Robert Taylor and Stewart Granger. I loved this quote from Ann about her costars: "Who wouldn’t be happy with those two good-looking men around you? It was just lovely. They were both so sure of who they were, there was never an issue of one fighting for more attention than the other. The feeling on the set was terrific."

...And a very happy birthday today to Maureen O'Hara! She turns 94 today, August 17th. Here are my tributes from 2013 and 2010.

...Leonard Maltin's review of the new "foodie" movie THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY (2014) makes it sound quite appealing. Helen Mirren stars.

...At Comet Over Hollywood Jessica tells the story of the "First Lady of Baseball," actress Laraine Day.

...Good news for those of us who had already purchased Seasons 1 and 2 of HILL STREET BLUES and thus didn't need to purchase the complete series released earlier this year: Shout! Factory is also going to release single-season sets. Season 3 will be released on DVD November 4, 2014.

...Some of the classic film reviews I've recently enjoyed: Kristina on MY DARLING CLEMENTINE (1946) at Speakeasy...Ivan on WENT THE DAY WELL? (1942) at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear...KC on THE COUNTERFEIT PLAN (1957) and SLANDER (1957) at A Classic Movie Blog...The Blonde at the Film on CALAMITY JANE (1953)...and Toby on DRUM BEAT (1954) and other recent Alan Ladd Western releases at 50 Westerns From the 50s.

...Speaking of Toby, he's got a new blog, The Hannibal 8, where he plans to discuss non-Western films of the '50s, '60s, and '70s.

...Toby also shared with me terrific news from Julie Adams' official Facebook page: This Thursday evening, August 21st, Julie will throw out the first pitch to Tommy Davis at the L.A. Dodgers game.

...New book: PACIFIC OCEAN PARK: THE RISE AND FALL OF LOS ANGELES' SPACE-AGE NAUTICAL PLEASURE PIER by Christopher Merritt and Dominic Priore.

...At Cinematically Insane Will McKinley reviews a 1955 TV production of THE PETRIFIED FOREST starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Henry Fonda.

...And Nora, the Nitrate Diva, remembers "The Noirish Brilliance of Lauren Bacall." It's a terrific piece.

...Those of us of a certain age may occasionally miss the clackety-clack of a manual typewriter. Tom Hanks to the rescue! He's created a free iPad app, the Hanx Writer, which will let you type on your iPad with typewriter sound effects. You can even turn off your delete key and make strikeovers! (Retyping messy pages is definitely something I don't miss from the typewriter era...)

...At Once Upon a Screen Aurora shares interesting information about Lupita Tovar, star of Mexico's first talking picture, SANTA (1932). I had no idea there was a second Spanish-language version of DRACULA (1931) filmed by Universal concurrently with the Lugosi version. Tovar costarred in a George O'Brien Western I watched a year ago, THE FIGHTING GRINGO (1939). She just turned 104!

...Coming from Synergy on August 19th: A 50-episode set of the TV series MR. AND MRS. NORTH, starring Barbara Britton and Richard Denning. If anyone sees a review of what the print quality is like I'm very interested!

...Notable Passing: As I mentioned in Friday night's review of THE MAN FROM GALVESTON (1963), actor Ed Nelson, seen here at the right, passed away last weekend at the age of 85. I saw him costarring with Eve Arden in a Long Beach stage production of CRITIC'S CHOICE circa 1980. The New Orleans Times-Picayune interviewed one of Nelson's six children, who shared some lovely memories of her father.

Have a great week!