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Mona Freeman
American actress Mona Freeman (1926-2014) was the perennially young bobbysoxer of post-war Paramount. She played teens long after she outgrew the roles, and it later stifled her adult career although...
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Rowan Atkinson
Funny English actor and screenwriter Rowan Atkinson (1955) is best known for his much-loved historical sitcom Blackadder (1983-1989) and for the series around the clumsy, face-pulling Mr. Bean...
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Louise Willy
French cabaret, theatre and silent film artist Louise Willy, also known as Loulou, was born around 1873 and died on an undetermined date after 1913. She is best known for having appeared in the first...
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David McCallum (1933-2023)
Last Monday, 25 September 2023, British actor David McCallum (1933) has died. He was 90. McCallum was known for two American TV series. He played U.N.C.L.E. agent Illya Kuryakin in the legendary hit...
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Fritz Kortner
Austrian-born stage and film actor and theatre director Fritz Kortner (1892–1970) was one of the best-known character actors of German silent cinema. His speciality was playing sinister and threatening...
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Charlie Sheen
American actor Charlie Sheen (1965) had his breakthrough with Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning epic Platoon (1986). Other hits were Wall Street (1987), Young Guns (1988), Major League (1989), Navy SEALs...
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My postcards from the 1980s and 1990s
Around 2007, Ivo and I started to collect vintage film postcards seriously. Before then, I sometimes bought postcards, but only rarely vintage cards. I did have a collection of film star postcards I...
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Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand (1942) began a successful recording career in the 1960s. In 1968, she made her film debut in the critically acclaimed Funny Girl, a reprise of her Broadway hit. She won both the...
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Vitali Konyaev (1937-2023)
Russian actor Vitali Konyayev(1937) passed away on 30 September 2023. He was honoured as a people’s artist of Russia. Next to his theatre work, he appeared in a dozen films and he also worked as a...
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Wolf Albach-Retty
Austrian-German actor Wolf Albach-Retty (1906-1967) is nowadays best known as the father of Romy Schneider, but during the 1930s he was a popular leading man of the German cinema, full of charm,...
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Diomira Jacobini
Diomira Jacobini (1899-1959) was one of the stars of the Italian silent cinema. She was the younger sister of film diva Maria Jacobini, in whose shadow she always stayed. Diomira appeared in some 55...
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Planet of the Apes (2001)
Next week, the exhibition 'The World of Tim Burton' makes its Italian debut at the Museo Nazionale del Cinema in Turin. One of our favourite directors in one of the most wonderful film museums in the...
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La Collectionneuse: Twin Sisters
This post is dedicated to several twin sisters who have appeared in movies. The Hilton Sisters and the Dionne Quintuplets were of course special cases. Their movie careers were intrinsically limited,...
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Carroll Baker
American film, stage and television actress Carroll Baker (1931) enjoyed popularity as both a serious dramatic actress and as a sex symbol. Cast in a wide range of roles during her heyday in the 1960s,...
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Directed by Julien Duvivier
Today starts Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, the 42nd Edition of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. We're in Italy and EFSP will post every day about the festival programme. The opening event is La...
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The early Western and the origins of the Western
The Western was enormously popular in the silent-film era (1894–1927). The genre is set in the American West, usually in the period from the 1850s to the end of the 19th century. In 2016, Richard Abel...
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Italia Vitaliani, Giuseppe Sterni and La madre (1917)
One of the films shown at the Pordenone Silent Film Festival 2023 is La Madre (1917) from the Eye Filmmuseum collection. Giuseppe Sterni directed this Italian film and also played the protagonist, a...
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Harry Piel
One of the highlights of this year's Pordenone Silent Film Festival is ‘dynamite’ Harry Piel (1892-1963). The German director, actor, producer and screenwriter made over 150 sensational films full of...
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Crosscurrents of American and European Slapstick
Steve Massa, author of 'Lame Brains and Lunatics' and 'Slapstick Divas: The Women of Silent Comedy' is one of the guest programmers at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto this year. In 'Crosscurrents of...
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Quo vadis?, Cabiria and the 'Archaeologists'
Today, 12 October 2023, the new book by Ivo Blom, 'Quo vadis?, Cabiria and the 'Archaeologists'' is presented at the Giornate del Cinema Muto, The Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Pordenone, Italy. In...
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