Category Archives: Movies

Tweet Mike Nichols, on casting the role of Benjamin Braddock: “I interviewed hundreds, maybe thousands, of men. Robert [Redford] wanted the part. I said, ‘You can’t play it. You can never play a loser.’ And Redford said, ‘What do you mean? Of course I can play a loser.’ And I said, ‘O.K., have you ever […]

Also posted in Great Movies, Hollywood, Movie Posters, Quotes | Tagged Benjamin Braddock, Casting, Dustin Hoffman, Mike Nichols, Robert Redford | 4 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | February 2, 2017

Anna May Wong Dreams of Becoming a Hollywood Star

Tweet A girl dreamed of movie stardom. Literally dreamed, as she told it years later. “There is a man with short sleeves and a big horn in front of his mouth, shouting, ‘Anna May Wong, now you come downstairs and look like the prince was already approaching — we do a closeup of that!’ … […]

Also posted in Anna May Wong, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography | Tagged Anna May Wong, Hollywood, Richard Corliss | Leave a comment

By Robert J. Avrech | January 20, 2017

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

Also posted in Art, Barbara Stanwyck, Donald Trump, Elvis Presley, Fashion, Friday Fotos, Grace Kelly, Henry Fonda, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Jennifer Jones, Judaism, Marilyn Monroe, Melania Trump, Movie Posters, Painting, Quotes, Screenwriting, True Hollywood Confessions, Winston Churchill | Tagged Antoon Van Welie, David Gelernter, Dovima, Edgar Degas, Elvis Presley, Erwin Blumenfeld, Fei Fei Sun, George Krause, Grace Kelly, Jennifer Jones, Norton Simon, Omega, Petersen Automotive Museum, Rick McGinnis, Samuel Rothbort, Simeon Solomon, The Lady Eve, Tim Walker, Twilight Zone, Xiao Wen Ju | 8 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | January 13, 2017

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

Also posted in Art, Cary Grant, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Movie Posters, Painting, Photography, Photography, Signs, True Hollywood Confessions | Tagged Alvar Aalto, Blood Money, David Selznick, Edouard Boubat, Erwin Blumenfeld, Ferdinand Bol, Frances Dee, Frans van Mieris the Elder, Fred Stein, Harold Feinstein, Helen Lundeberg, Herbert Ponting, Jan Steen, Janet Leigh, Jennifer Jones, Joel Meyerowitz, Lauren Bacall, Moshe Zabari, Nicolas De Stael, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Rick McGinnis, Roman Vishniac, Steve Cohn, Vilhelm Hammershøi | 11 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | January 12, 2017

Hitchcock: The Primacy of Emotion

Tweet Francois Truffaut: Are you in favour of the teaching of cinema in universities? Alfred Hitchcock: Only on condition that they teach cinema since the era of Méliès and that the students learn how to make silent films, because there is no better form of training. Talking pictures often served merely to introduce the theatre […]

Also posted in Alfred Hitchcock, Art, Francois Truffaut, Hollywood | Tagged Alfred Hitchcock, Film School, Francois Truffaut, Helen G. Scott, Méliès | 3 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | January 5, 2017

How to End The Birds

Tweet Following the final attack of the birds, the Brenners escape the house—a key scene with the principals that remained to be shot. Hitchcock was still pondering the film’s ending. Should the birds keep up their attack? Why were the birds attacking? Why? The moron millions would want some answer, and he hated tidy answers.

Also posted in Alfred Hitchcock, Greatest Movies of the 1960s, Hollywood | Tagged Albert Whitlock, Evan Hunter, Movie Endings, Patrick McGilligan, The Birds, Tippi Hedren | 7 Responses

By Robert J. Avrech | December 23, 2016

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

Tweet I would be remiss if I did not link to a splendid Christmas or Chanukah gift. You have my personal guarantee that this item is awesome. Also available from the Apple iTunes store.

Also posted in Chanukah, Hollywood, Hollywood Stars, Hollywood Still Photography, Judaica, Judaism, Photography, True Hollywood Confessions | Tagged A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, Adam Tihany, Chanukah, Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-Lebrun, Gerard ter Borch, Harry Callahan, Hiroshi Watanabe, Joel Meyerowitz, John McLaughlin, Lawrence of Arabia, Miriam Hopkins, Nicholas Maes, Night of the Hunter, Peter O'Toole, Rick McGinnis, Ruth Chatterton, Shelly Winters, Shneur Zalman Mendelowitz, Tim Walker, Twilight Zone | 8 Responses

How I Married Karen

The new book
by Robert J. Avrech

Available in All Major Book Stores

Adobe Digital Edition's version is available through the Lulu store!
About Me
Robert J. Avrech
Los Angeles, California
I'm an Emmy Award winning screenwriter. I'm also an observant Jew, a religious Zionist, a conservative Republican, and a member of the NRA. I've been writing and producing in Hollywood for over twenty-five years. But the focus of my life is my family: my radiant wife, Karen—with whom I have been in love with since I was nine years-old—and my two daughters, who, thankfully, look like Karen. Not too long ago, we had three children. But our son, Ariel, died at the age of twenty-two from cancer. We miss him terribly. We think about him practically every minute of every day. People tell us that time heals, but Karen and I know this is not true. Time grinds away doing its terrible work. Ariel is gone. Yet absence becomes presence.

Ariel Chaim Avrech, ZT'L, May His Righteous Memory be a Blessing.
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Annual Ariel Avrech
Memorial Lectures
Young Israel of Century City

Fourteenth: June 11, 2016
Daniel Greenfield: “Fighting Anti-Semitism and Defending Israel in the Age of BDS.”

Blog Post
MP3 Audio Stereo (100 MB)

Thirteenth: May 22, 2016
Ben Shapiro: “How You Can Save Israel”

Blog Post
MP3 Audio Stereo (70 MB)

Twelfth: June 7, 2015
Larry Elder: “The New Black Anti-Semitism”

Blog Post
MP3 Audio Mono (50 MB) | Stereo (100 MB)

Eleventh: June 8, 2014
Michael Medved: “Shifting Alliances: Why Liberals No Longer Reliably Support Israel — And Conservatives Do.”

Blog Post | Audio (mp3 97MB)

Tenth: June 9, 2013
David Horowitz: “The War Against Judaism on the University Campus.”

Blog Post | Audio (mp3 16MB)

Ninth: June 3, 2012
Joel B. Pollak: “The Mainstream Media’s Betrayal of Israel.”

Blog Post | Audio (mp3 15MB)

Eighth: June 5, 2011
Yossi Klein Halevi: “What is Expected of a Survivor People: Lessons My Father Taught Me.”

Blog Post | Audio (mp3 18MB)

Seventh: June 13, 2010
Dennis Prager: “Happiness is a Mitzvah, Not an Emotion.”

Blog Post | Audio (mp3 80MB)

Sixth: June 21, 2009
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky: “Conformity in Jewish Life: Vice, Virtue or Affectation?”

Blog Post | Audio (mp3 64MB)

Fifth: June 15, 2008
Rabbi Dr. Gil S. Perl: “What Was the Rosh Yeshiva Reading: Intellectual Openness in 19th Century Lithuania.”

Blog Post | Audio (mp3 70MB)
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