Category: Cinema Snacks

Announcing the What A Character! *10*th Annual Blogathon – Dec. 4, 2021

Just three of the many many delightful names below the title: Porter Hall, Juanita Moore, and Una Merkel

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

It’s the TENTH anniversary of the WHAT A CHARACTER! Blogathon A RIOT!

It all began with What A Character!, Turner Classic Movies (TCM)’s series of interstitial dedications that honor character actors. You have no doubt seen these informative and entertaining video tributes to Edna May Oliver, Beulah Bondi, William Demarest, Butterfly McQueen, among many other supporting players whose work stands the test of time.

Unable to resist those actors, Aurora, Kellee, and I decided to dedicate a blogging event in their honor, and the WHAT A CHARACTER! Blogathon was born. Now, for the 10th consecutive year, we continue the tradition.

Aurora of Once Upon a Screen and @CitizenScreen, Kellee of Outspoken & Freckled and @Irishjayhawk66, and myself, Paula of Paula’s Cinema Club, @Paula_Guthat, and @TCM_Party extend an invitation to the 2021 WHAT A CHARACTER! Blogathon to all bloggers who appreciate the laughter, the good taste, the double-takes, the heart, and the comfort that all the character actors have brought us through the years.

This announcement also serves as a heartfelt thank you to all who have participated in this event so graciously for nine years. The talent, enthusiasm, and passion with which you have approached our beloved character actors are beyond anything we could have imagined. We hope you join us again for this special celebration!

The 10th Annual WHAT A CHARACTER! Blogathon takes place on Saturday, December 4, 2021.

  • Let the hosts know which character actor you choose by leaving a comment below.
  • We prefer no repeats, i.e. previously published posts.
  • Character actors can be from any era of film or television.
  • Please include the name and URL of your blog and your Twitter handle if you have one to help us promote your work properly.
  • Publish your post on or before December 4, 2021.
  • Please include the event banner (designed by yours truly from an idea by Aurora) on your blog to help us promote this special event

HAVE FUN and spread the word!

Giveaways!

A tenth anniversary is a big deal, a fact recognized by both TCM and The University Press of Kentucky, who have offered books to give away to a lucky 10 U.S. and Canada WHAT A CHACRACTER! bloggers.

From the TCM Library, we have 5 copies of The Essentials: 52 Must-See Movies and Why They Matter by Jeremy Arnold with a foreword by Robert Osborne. A big thank you to Justin Gottlieb, Entertainment Marketing, Social Media Manager at Turner Classic Movies for securing these books for us.

While you may well be familiar with TCM, you may not know about The University Press of Kentucky, which has a wonderful array of film history-related biographies and analytical studies in its Screen Classics series. For our event, Director of Sales & Marketing Brooke Raby has offered a sampling of their offerings, one copy of each of the following titles:

Charles Boyer: The French Lover by John Baxter

Natalie Wood: A Life by Gavin Lambert

Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King by Foster Hirsch

Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood by Robert S. Birchard

Radical Innocence: A Critical Study of the Hollywood Ten by Bernard F. Dick

Thank you to Brooke for the terrific list of books.

One Last Thing: Much gratitude to my friends and co-hosts, Kellee and Aurora, without whom this blogathon would not exist, and both of whom were instrumental to the development of TCM Party. One decade down: forever to go. Happy WHAT A CHARACTER! Anniversary!

Chosen Actors and Participating Blogs

Felix Bressart – Taking Up Room

Jack Carson – Second Sight Cinema

Hans Conried – A Shroud of Thoughts

Elisha Cook, Jr. – Whimsically Classic

Wally Cox – Journeys in Classic Film

Diana Dors – Real Weegie Midget Reviews

Mildred Dunnock and Patricia Collinge – The Last Drive In

Hope Emerson – Shadows and Satin

William Frawley – By Rich Watson

Theresa Harris – Blog of the Darned

Kathleen Harrison – Caftan Woman

Edward Everett Horton – Silent Film Music

Jessie Royce Landis – Michele Price

Lured (1947) Supporting Cast – Paula’s Cinema Club

Lucille La Verne – The Classic Movie Muse

Cloris Leachman – Outspoken & Freckled

Doro Merande – Trivial History

Edna May Oliver – Once Upon a Screen

Eugene Pallette – Top 10 Film Lists

Lillian Randolph – Another Old Movie Blog

George Tobias – A Person in the Dark

Conrad Veidt – Lady Eve’s Reel Life

Ninth Annual What A Character Blogathon is Dec. 5 – Call for Entries

Borrowing a catchphrase from our favorite home of the classics, Turner Classic Movies, Kellee of Outspoken & Freckled / @IrishJayHawk66), Aurora, of Once Upon a Screen / @CitizenScreen), and myself Paula of Paula’s Cinema Club / @Paula_Guthat) dedicate a blogathon to character actors for the ninth! consecutive year. To the faces, the laughs, and the drama presented by these wonderful actors whose names all too often go unrecognized we dedicate WHAT A CHARACTER! 2020.

All the details plus Who’s Who in this graphic after the jump!
Continue reading “Ninth Annual What A Character Blogathon is Dec. 5 – Call for Entries” →

What A Character! 2019 – Day 3

Subsequent to Day 1 over at Outspoken and Freckled, and Day 2 at Once Upon A Screen, I am presenting Day 3 of our annual tribute to the names below the title, those scene-stealing supporting players who add immeasurably to our favorite films.

First up, Gary Pratt takes a good look — literally — at Donald Pleasance, particularly as half of a beautiful friendship in The Great Escape in a guest post on Outspoken and Freckled.

Lesley at Second Sight Cinema looks at late-blooming Charles Coburn, who nonetheless became “as indispensable to the movies as he had been to the American stage for nearly four decades.”

Aurora at Once Upon A Screen… profiles another late bloomer, the inimitable Majorie Main, whose “physical look, her mannerisms, dry wit, and that voice! all made a package that was not easy to forget.”

The Lady Eve shines the spotlight on Joyce Compton, declaring, “there’s more to [her] story than her turns as scatterbrained, Southern-fried blondes.”

Kellee at Outspoken & Freckled sheds some very deserved light on Frank McHugh’s life and career.

To be continued with more character actors to come…

This post is part of the What A Character! 2019 Blogathon.

Announcing the What A Character! 2019 Blogathon

It’s hard to believe we’ve been hosting this blogathon for eight years now! But perhaps it isn’t that shocking — after all, discussing those scene-stealing character actors is a crowd-pleasing pastime amongst cinephiles.

Year after year, it’s an event we all look forward to. Wise-cracking Eve Arden, nurturing Louise Beavers, sassy Thelma Ritter, double-take pro Edward Everett Horton, tart-tongued Edna May Oliver, gravelly-voiced Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, fatherly Charles Coburn, frazzled Franklin Pangborn, bullfrog voiced, barrel-chested Eugene Pallette, cigar-chomping Ned Sparks… these and so many more lovable character actors are who we look forward to seeing as our dearest ole chums. Couldn’t we all use a trusted sidekick? All the details after the jump.

Continue reading “Announcing the What A Character! 2019 Blogathon” →

THE GENTLEMEN looks decent

STX dropped the trailer for Guy Ritchie’s upcoming film, The Gentlemen, earlier today. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Henry Golding, Charlie Hunnam, and the almost unrecognizable Hugh Grant, who sounds as unlike himself as he can get. Seriously, I watched the trailer at least twice because I couldn’t believe it was him. This trailer represents a dollop of hope for those like myself who’ve been awaiting another RockNRolla, which I consider to be the apotheosis (so far) of the director’s patented crime/comedy hybrid. (RnR is now a shocking 11 years old, having been released in 2008.) The plot seems to be classic Ritchie (paraphrasing the synopsis): McConaughey is a pot kingpin who wants out. The others plot, scheme, bribe and blackmail in order to take over his piece of the action before he’s ready to leave. Will The Gentlemen measure up? We’ll all find out on January 24, 2020. Check out the trailer and pix below. PS: Looks like the film was formerly known as “Toff Guys,” which I prefer to the final title, but I understand that might not have translated on this side of the pond.

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Oscar Musings

We made it. As I type this, the 91st Academy Awards ceremony is happening. The Academy has a lot of work to do before the 92nd. There are three four tasks that, if completed, would save this august organization and revive its beleaguered ceremony…all is revealed after the jump.

The Oscars have always had their controversies and backstories. Gregory Peck, Sophia Loren, Joan Crawford (accepting for Anne Bancroft), and Maximillian Schell at the 1963 ceremony, held at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.
Continue reading “Oscar Musings” →

31 Days of Oscar 2019 – Day 3

While this year’s Academy Awards ceremony is officially host-less, the 31 Days of Oscar Blogathon has three! Kellee of Outspoken & Freckled, Aurora of Once Upon A Screen, and I, here at Paula’s Cinema Club have been celebrating the Oscars themselves and TCM”s tribute to same for the past seven years!

It’s almost a wrap on the third and final day, as I continue to collect the knowledge and opinions of our astute bloggers:

First up, Amanda at Old Hollywood Films focuses on Five Times the Academy Got It Right. Her picks include one of my favorites, George Sanders’ win for All About Eve; click for the rest.

Linda at Backstory: New Looks at Classic Films examines the life and career of “strikingly successful art director” Ward Ihnen.

Pale Writer analyzes Nat King Cole’s Best Song win for “Mona Lisa.”

Lê at Crítica Retrô reviews pre-sound films’ Oscar legacy in Golden Silence: Silent Films at the Oscars.

In the Good Old Days of Classic Hollywood recounts Olivia de Havilland’s second Oscar win for The Heiress.

Check back throughout the day for additional 31 Days posts!

Announcing the 31 Days of Oscar 2019 Blogathon!

Update

Day 1 posts are here.

From the time Douglas Fairbanks, then President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, hosted the first Awards dinner party for about 250 people on May 16, 1929, to this year’s host-free Oscars ceremony ninety years later, this iconic celebration honoring Hollywood’s finest continues to be just as spectacular and as riddled with both excellence and contentions as the films and filmmakers they honor.

February 23rd, 1939. Serial Oscar winner Bette Davis holding her Oscar for Jezebel as she talks to the film’s director, William Wyler. 11th Academy Awards, Los Angeles.
(Photo by Archive Photos/Getty Images)

If you take a look back at the many Oscar moments in these past 90 years of Oscars ceremonies, you’ll find numerous surprises, disappointments and controversies, which continue to spark debate to this day. That’s where we come in. For the seventh consecutive year, I am once again joining forces with Aurora of Once Upon A Screen aka @CitizenScreen and Kellee of Outspoken and Freckled aka @IrishJayhawk66 to bring you the 31 Days of Oscar Blogathon. We hope you’ll consider joining us to make this the best and brightest Oscar blogging event yet.

Continue reading “Announcing the 31 Days of Oscar 2019 Blogathon!” →

Day 3 of the 2018 What A Character! Blogathon

‘Tis the season to recognize the names below the title, as our yearly recognition of those supporting players whose faces you know (but names you might not) concludes today.

Check out Day 1 by Kellee at Outspoken and Freckled and Day 2 at Aurora‘s blog Once Upon a Screen. All the nitty-gritty blogathon details are in the Announcement post. Thanks to my partners in cinematic tribute for making this such a fun project and to Turner Classic Movies for the blogathon title and inspiration. And now on with the show…

Continue reading “Day 3 of the 2018 What A Character! Blogathon” →