Life in Hollywood No. 3

Lauren Bacall, ombre et lumière

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.

Nearly fifty years after her death, Marilyn Monroe remains an absolute icon, the image of a superficial and sensual blonde forever etched in the collective imagination. But behind the legend lies a more complex reality: that of Norma Jeane Baker, a young woman abandoned by all who constantly lurched from euphoria to the depths of despair. Throughout her life, Marilyn attempted to free herself from her image and access her truth. You will discover the little-known episodes from the last years of the star's life. Why did she abandon Hollywood and move to New York under an assumed name in 1954? How did she end up locked away in a psychiatric clinic after filming "The Misfits"? What did her diaries contain? What was her relationship with her psychoanalyst? Finally, under what circumstances did this 36-year-old woman meet her death? Using numerous testimonies and archival material, the teams paint a portrait of a mysterious and tormented personality.

bettie page documentary

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

Irrésistible Gary Cooper

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.

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.

Featuring the vintage films, and pictures that made her a phenomenon, BETTIE PAGE, THE GIRL IN THE LEOPARD PRINT BIKINI, focuses on the life and times of the legendary model, the times in which she lived, and the impact her career had on the subsequent fifty years.

A legend of the Hollywood Golden Age, Gregory Peck (1916-2003) had an exemplary career, working under some of the greatest directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Elia Kazan, Raoul Walsh, Vincente Minnelli... Portrait of an actor with irresistible charm and strong political commitments.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Taking its title from Tod Browning’s classic film, this radical reframing of how characters with disabilities are represented looks at a century of Hollywood favorites with a fresh perspective. Disability activists imagine a cinematic landscape that takes people with disabilities seriously.

An MGM short promoting the studio's impact on fashion through film through their chief of costume design, Adrian; in rural America, a mother and daughter are shopping and observe a designer dress worn by Joan Crawford in a recent movie.

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?)

On June 29, 1967, Jayne Mansfield tragically died at the age of 34. Her stunning blue Buick Electra collided with and was crushed under a semi-trailer truck. With her voluptuous figure and baby-doll face, Hollywood's most photographed actress did everything to become a star, accepting every compromise, going from icon to object. While portraying the actress, this film offers a glimpse into the Hollywood dream factory through the lens of a casting call. Like Jayne herself, who went through countless auditions...

The story of Esther Williams is that of an improbable encounter. That of the glamorous Hollywood of the 1940s with a swimming champion. A meeting that gave birth to the most kitsch and flamboyant genre films in Technicolor: the Aqua-musicals! A dive into the troubled waters of post-war Hollywood, where only her qualities as an athlete allow an extraordinary actress to fight to emancipate herself and avoid the traps of the predators who lurk around her

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.