Life in Hollywood No. 3

An intimate portrait and saga of four film pioneers--Harry, Albert, Sam and Jack who rose from immigrant poverty through personal tragedies persevering to create a major studio with a social conscience.

Declassified FBI and CIA documents help director Paul Davids unravel the puzzle of Marilyn Monroe's demise, which was officially ruled a "probable suicide," while providing detailed evidence supporting the conclusion that Marilyn was murdered.

Martin Scorsese is among those paying tribute to Gene Tierney, the Academy Award-nominated American actress who was a leading lady in Hollywood throughout the 1940s and '50s.

For the first time one of Hollywood's greatest stars tells his own story, in his own words. From a childhood of poverty to global fame, Cary Grant, the ultimate self-made star, explores his own screen image and what it took to create it.

The life of Frank Sinatra, as an actor and singer and the steps along the way that led him to become such an icon.

This documentary recounts the difficult choice actress Mary Astor had to make after learning her personal, very intimate, diaries had been stolen. The film tells the story of Astor's 1936 child custody case.

Photographer and make-up artist François Nars reveals his visually stunning inner world in this feature-length documentary by filmmaker Lisa Immordino Vreeland. Mr. Nars takes us on a tour of the fashions, designers and models of '70s Paris, the underground of '90s New York, and the timeless world of cinema, filled with actors, actresses, and directors who have shaped his visual aesthetics.

Lauren Bacall, ombre et lumière

In 1988, German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff sat down with legendary director Billy Wilder (1906-2002) at his office in Beverly Hills, California, and turned on his camera for a series of filmed interviews. (A recut of the 1992 TV miniseries Billy, How Did You Do It?)

This short promotes the premise that movies often create a demand for the fashions seen in them. It starts with a vignette in rural America. A mother and daughter go to town to buy a new dress. In the dress shop window is a designer dress worn by Joan Crawford in a recent movie. We then go to Hollywood and visit Adrian, MGM's chief of costume design, and see how multiple copies of a single clothing pattern are produced. The film ends with short segments of several MGM features.

A compilation of early-day silent films that serves as a glimpse back to the formative days of the movie industry as a salute to Hollywood's Golden Year, so proclaimed by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce as 1953.

The definitive documentary on the history of nudity in feature films from the early silent days to the present, studying the changes in morality that led to the use of nudity in films while emphasizing the political, sociological and artistic changes that shaped that history. Skin will also study the gender inequality in presenting nude images in motion pictures and will follow the revolution that has created nude gender equality in feature films today.

An in-depth documentary built around never-before-heard audio tapes of Day responding to letters from fans. Day dictated her responses over the phone to her longtime assistant, Judy Ruby (who lived far from Day’s home in Carmel, CA); Ruby then transcribed the tapes and sent them back for revision and signature before the letters were mailed to fans. Ruby shared the recordings with Dunlap after Day’s passing in 2019 at the age of 97.

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) caused a great impression on the lives of most of the American artists of that era, so many movies were made in Hollywood about it. The final defeat of the Spanish Republic left an open wound in the hearts of those who sympathized with its cause. The eventful life of screenwriter Alvah Bessie (1904-1985), one of the Hollywood Ten, serves to analyze this sadness, the tragedy of Spain and its consequences.

In 1933, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, two audacious and visionary directors, dared to create a motion picture that eclipsed everything seen until then: when King Kong was released, it was celebrated as an artistic and technical revolution and became the first myth created by the young cinematic art.

The astonishing story of the genesis, production, worldwide success, and legacy of King Kong (1933), directed by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, a landmark of cinema, one of the most influential motion pictures in history.

A promotional short to hype the production of A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935).

The whole world knows him. Burlesque comedy genius, popular actor, author, director, producer, composer, choreographer, Charlie Chaplin (1899-1977) used his talent to serve an ideal of justice and freedom. But his best scenario was his own destiny, a story written into the political and artistic history of the 20th century.

Leslie Caron, beloved star of Gigi and An American in Paris, is one of the last witnesses to the golden age of American cinema of the mid 20th century. Discovered by Gene Kelly when she was a teenager, she became one of the great talents in the worlds of film, dance, and theatre, still performing to this day! The film reveals a story told through the prism of a living legend who reveals secrets of her work and life- a world of contradictions, ambitions and dreams, lived by one of its most luminous personalities.

The private Joan Crawford fought as hard to create a normal family life as she did to establish her career. She forged her own path and to that end became a single parent, eventually adopting and raising four children. Like many parents, she picked up a 16mm camera and began filming both the special and the ordinary events of her family’s life. These home movies (ca. 1940–42) present that which one rarely gets to see: a larger-than-life personality at home, unadorned, just being herself—and often in color, at a time when her feature films were black and white. Crawford filmed most of the home movies herself; when she is on camera, it is unclear who is behind it.