Errol Flynn Redux

After my holiday trip to Australia and New Zealand I wrote about Errol Flynn’s home town of Hobart, Tasmania and printed some photos of the newly-named Errol Flynn Reserve. But it seems I was under-informed about local interest in the swashbuckling star. Here’s an e-mail I received from Steve Randall:

“My wife Genene and I run the Errol Flynn Society of Tasmania and we still do tours of his haunts around Hobart whenever we can. We just love to share Errol with visitors; I drive a coach and whenever possible let the passengers know that Errol was born and raised here in Hobart and tell a few stories as we travel Tasmania. We started the society because Genene—

Continue Reading »

Leonard Maltin posted to Journal on March 18, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Gold Mine For Film Research

Like anyone who’s spent much of his life in libraries and archives, hearing a young person claim that you can find “everything you need” to do research online is upsetting, to put it mildly. One can easily find simple information, and misinformation, but if you’ve devoted hours and days digging through vintage film publications or studio production files you know that acres of primary research materials don’t exist on the Internet.
Even if you’re lucky enough to have access to great collections like the ones held by The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, or the New York Public Library in Manhattan, you’re limited to how many hours or days you can spend taking notes and making photocopies.

One dedicated film scholar and archivist is trying to change all that. David Pierce has initiated a privately-funded project called Media History Digital Library, which is described—

Continue Reading »

Leonard Maltin posted to Journal on March 17, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0)

dvd review—Forgotten Stars

The Norma Talmadge Collection (Kino)
The Constance Talmadge Collection (Kino)

Two of the most popular female stars of the 1920s are all but unknown today—sisters Norma and Constance Talmadge. In recent years some of their long-unseen features have been restored by the Library of Congress, using 35mm materials from the Rohauer collection, and now four of those films have been released on DVD by Kino. The Norma Talmadge disc includes Kiki (1926) and Within the Law (1923), while the Constance Talmadge disc features a pair of films costarring Ronald Colman, Her Night of Romance (1924) and Her Sister from Paris (1925).

Continue Reading »

Leonard Maltin posted to DVD Reviews on March 16, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (0)

film review - Green Zone

Director Paul Greengrass has an amazing gift for simulating documentary-style reality, as he’s proven in such notable films as Bloody Sunday and United 93. He’s also brought his shaky-cam and rapid-fire editing style to the Bourne series, with great success, although not every viewer appreciates his motion-sickness approach to visual storytelling. Now he has tackled an Iraqi war story set in 2003, at the very outset of America’s involvement. Matt Damon stars as a dedicated Army officer searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction and coming up empty-handed.

Continue Reading »

Leonard Maltin posted to Film Reviews on March 12, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (1)

A Tale of Two Critics

The fact that film critics are losing their jobs is no longer considered breaking news; rather, it’s become a protracted process of mourning over the last few years. But when Variety, the trade journal once known as “the Bible of show business,” fired Todd McCarthy on Monday, after thirty-one years, it sent shock waves through the film industry. Civilians who don’t read “the trades” may wonder what the fuss is all about. Todd was usually the first critic to voice his opinion of new movies in print (along with his counterpart at the Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt). His opinion had weight; it mattered.

Variety has played a big role in my life. I started reading the weekly edition of Variety when I was ten or eleven years old, because my father subscribed to it, and I found it fascinating. I didn’t care about overseas box-office grosses, but I was mesmerized by such exotica as its nightclub reviews and travel logs (“NY to LA,” “London to NY,” et al) that tracked the comings and goings of the show biz elite. I dwelled on the obit pages, which not only commemorated the passing of industry veterans but even the fathers and mothers of prominent people. I especially liked the self-promotional ads many entertainers placed in its pages. My most tactile memory of reading Variety in those days was how black my hands would get from its inky newsprint. I never thought I’d feel nostalgic about something so annoying.

Continue Reading »

Leonard Maltin posted to Journal on March 11, 2010 | Permalink | Comments (3)