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    As we all know Louis B. Mayer was head of MGM studies from 1925—when the company was founded—until 1951 when he was forced out by the Nick Schneck, President of Loews Inc. MGM’s parent company. Mayer was not a picture maker. He knew how to run a studio which meant that he managed…

    Let me just say this from the beginning. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY is not one of my favorite films. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a great confection—a film in which style far outweighs content.  But first my history with the film. Truth is I don’t remember when I first saw it. It…

I am of the generation who first saw the WIZARD OF OZ on TV in 1956 when it was shown on CBS for the first time. As we did not have a color TV—for me—the movie was in B&W from beginning to end. Despite that I found the film to be magic and thinking back…

    LAWRENCE is number 2 on my all-time favorites list. But this happened over time. As I was too young to travel into the city on my own I was not able to see LAWRENCE after it premiered on December 16th 1962 at the Criterion as a 70MM Super Panavision Roadshow. This was during…

PART ONE: THE FILM         1939 Release /Astor & Capital 1947 Re-Release /Criterian 1954 Re-Release /Loew’s State I first saw GWTW (as its producer David Selznick liked to call it) with my mother in 1954 ( and the first film I remember seeing) and then on my own in 1961 at the…

Every frame of THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD is a painting.  It is without question one of the most beautiful movies ever made.  These are frame enlargements that were used to promote the DVD a number of years ago.  Consequently, the color is a off – a tad too much red while on the blue-ray the color is perfect – but…

THE PREMIERE                                                           THE SOUVENIER PROGRAM                                          …

George Stevens was producing THE GREATEST STROY EVER TOLD through “The George Stevens Company.”  Initially, he was to release through 20th Century Fox as the company had just released THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK.   As it was an immense production, eventually, due to the  overages on CLEOPATRA, Fox had to withdraw.  Stevens then set up financing…

    When George Steven’s massive roadshow production The Greatest Story Ever Told premiered at the Warner Cinerama in February 15, 1965 it was met with mixed reviews and, eventually, less than satisfactory box office. Filmed over an 8 month period from October 1962 through August 1963, it was an extremely troubled production that went…

Last New Years I was watching the Vienna State Orchestra playing Strauss Waltzes on PBS including Tale Of The Vienna Woods.   the performance was terrible and it was terrible because I am a big fan of the 1938 MGM film THE GREAT WALTZ ever since I first saw it on the WCBS Late Show in…