Seraphic Secret

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

Laurence Olivier

Friday Photos: True Hollywood Confessions

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Your inner life means an awful lot, too. If you’re unhappy or bitter or jealous, it shows in your face. And I’m sure it’s true, love keeps you pretty.” —Ingrid Bergman
“Your inner life means an awful lot, too. If you’re unhappy or bitter or jealous, it shows in your face. And I’m sure it’s true, love keeps you pretty.”
—Ingrid Bergman

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Hollywood: Cheek to Cheek

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John Barrymore and Dolores Costello were married for a few turbulent years. Costello was one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen. Sadly, her fair skin was badly damaged by the harsh make-up in use during the silent film period. Barrymore, a drunk and serial philanderer, drank himself to death.
John Barrymore and Dolores Costello were married for a few turbulent years. Costello was one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the silver screen. Sadly, her fair skin was badly damaged by the harsh make-up in use during the silent film period. Barrymore, an alcoholic and serial adulterer, drank himself to death.

Commenting on yesterday’s Cheek to Cheek post, a faithful Seraphic Secret reader privately wrote that the lovely pictures saddened her. “Romance is gone,” she mused. “There are no contemporary Hollywood stars who can be photographed with such loving conviction.”

Very true. Ever since movie stars first sat down with Johnny Carson and revealed themselves to be ordinary mortals, the glamorous Hollywood star has devolved into vulgar celebrity. Today, there is no difference between Kim Kardashian and Angelina Jolie. They both occupy the same space in the public’s mind. It’s beside the point that Jolie is a skilled actress. To a celebrity-hungry culture, where reality stars reign supreme as public gladiators of ghastly humiliations, talent no longer matters. In fact, Kardashian’s notorious rise—let’s not forget that her celebrity was ignited by a self-made sex tape—is an awesome success story. The collective public thinks: “If no-talents like Kim and her sisters can earn 40 million a year, why can’t I?”

But the power and majesty of romance will never die, and Seraphic Secret suspects that images—and, of course, the movies—from Hollywood’s Golden Age, would, if given half a chance, exert a magical influence on even the most jaded and cynical of today’s media drenched generation.

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Movie Posters: Hollywood’s Golden Age

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Fantastic poster for a 1931 film that hints at menace in the form of a mysterious yellow ticket. What the poster doesn't tell you is the ticket was a pass issued to Jewish women allowing them to travel out of the Pale of Settlement where the Jews were confined by order of the Jew-hating Tzar. But only prostitutes were eligible. An obscure film starring Laurence Olivier, Lionel Barrymore and Elissa Landry.

Have you looked at a movie poster recently and said to yourself: I really have to see that film.

Doubtful.

In the digital era movie posters are barely there, a minor and frequently mediocre—tedious star shots dominate—element in the white-noise media that is dominated by an ever-shifting social media.

There was a time, however, when movie posters were the dominant element by which audiences were lured to the movies.

Here are just a few samples of ordinary posters cranked out by the Hollywood studios; all are characterized by bold graphics and unusual fonts. These are posters that artfully promise action, mystery and romance.

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