Seraphic Secret

Robert J. Avrech: Emmy Award winning screenwriter. Movie fanatic. Helplessly and hopelessly in love with my wife since age nine.

Kirk Douglas

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

by 9 Comments

“Acting is like sex: you either do it and don’t talk about it, or you talk about it and don’t do it. That’s why I’m always suspicious of people who talk too much about either.“
—Humphrey Bogart

[Read more…] about Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

by 7 Comments

“How many women do we know who were continually kissed by Clark Gable, William Powell, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy and Fredric March? Only one: Myrna Loy… And to meet whom did Franklin D. Roosevelt find himself tempted to call off the Yalta Conference? Myrna Loy. And to see what lady in what picture did John Dillinger risk coming out of hiding to meet his bullet-ridden death in an alley in Chicago? Myrna Loy, in Manhattan Melodrama.”
—Lauren Bacall on the greatness of Myrna Loy

[Read more…] about Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

Hidden Hollywood: Seven Obscure Jewish Films

by 4 Comments

What’s a Jewish film? My definition is quite simple. It is a film that deals with Jewish subject matter. Thus, Woody Allen does not make Jewish films. In truth, Hollywood movies that do deal with Judaism are quite rare. Take a look at the subject headings in Netflix. There is no category for Jewish films.

However, there are now quite a few interesting indie films on Amazon Prime and Netflix that deal seriously or humorously with Jewish subject matter. But those movies will be the subject of a future blog post. I’m also planning a blog post about Yiddish films, a fascinating genre.

For now, I’d like to bring your attention to a few obscure Jewish Hollywood films that can usually be found on TCM. And if you’re lucky, some may show up on You Tube.

[Read more…] about Hidden Hollywood: Seven Obscure Jewish Films

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

by 8 Comments

“I was never beautiful like Miss Hayworth or Miss Lamarr. I was known as ‘the little brown wren’. Who’d want to get me at the end of the picture? I thought I was the plainest, most unattractive thing ever, and glamour was something I felt was far beyond my grasp. But—and isn’t it funny?—now when I look at my old movies I think I was the most gorgeous creature—simply divine!”
—Bette Davis, 1973

[Read more…] about Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

Hidden Hollywood: Issur Danielovitch AKA Kirk Douglas Can’t Get a Prom Date

by 12 Comments

Kirk Douglas as a high school senior.

In the beginning of his legendary career, Kirk Douglas (1916 – ) b. Issur Danielovitch, was almost typecast as a well-meaning but ineffectual husband in two fine films, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, 1946, and A Letter to Three Wives, 1949.  But his career ascended into mega-stardom when he played cynical heroes motivated by rage: Champion, 1949, Ace in the Hole, 1951, The Bad and the Beautiful, 1952, Paths of Glory, 1957, Spartacus, 1960, and his favorite picture, Lonely Are the Brave, 1962,

Douglas was never a conventional leading man. Though handsome as a fairy tale prince, he wielded his masculine beauty like a weapon. There was none of the gruff, working class charm that made Gable the King. Douglas was not an urbane gentleman like William Powell, nor a witty charmer like Cary Grant.

Kirk Douglas excelled at playing, in his own words, “sons of bitches.”

[Read more…] about Hidden Hollywood: Issur Danielovitch AKA Kirk Douglas Can’t Get a Prom Date