Beyond The Rocks

"That, after all, was supposed to be the great virtue of pictures - that they would last forever." Gloria Swanson naively wrote in her 1980 autobiography. But she had to admit that there was no remaining copy of her 1922 film Beyond The Rocks, in which she starred with legendary Rudolph Valentino (or Rodolph as he was called then).Two stars of such magnitude at the time just did not appear together in a film because their contracts usually prevented...

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The Paradine Case

Alfred Hitchcock came to America to work for Selznick in 1939 when the latter was involved in the production of his masterpiece, Gone With The Wind. Yet their first completed project together was Rebecca, a great success which won the Best Picture Oscar the year later. Hitchcock's filmography shows that his producer then loaned his services to other studios (RKO, Universal, Fox...) while a frustrated Hitchcock still received the same weekly payment...

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Lizabeth Scott

In her autobiography, Lauren Bacall explained how, after making the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, she was discovered by Howard Hawks and put under contract by Warner Brothers in a legendary film where she met her husband Humphrey Bogart: To Have and Have Not.You may not remember her, but a few years later, a young lady with very similar characteristics was launched by Paramountin a Hal Wallis production. Since the vamp at her studio was Veronica Lake,...

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