Movies: Old hollywood

Comedy special spotlighting Tracey Ullman’s larger than life character Ruby Romaine from HBO's “Tracey Takes On”. After an illustrious career, veteran Hollywood makeup artist Ruby has decided to call it quits. Or has she? In her makeup trailer, Ru...

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....

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

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 w...

When the ballerina star of a musical feature walks off in a huff, aided by the fit-throwing director, her understudy steps in and a star is born....

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

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 ...

Carter DeHaven announces that he will perform a series of "impressions." For each we see him applying makeup and changing the combing of his hair or putting on a wig. When he tilts his head down during each supposed makeover, up pops the actual celeb...

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 Joa...

Basically this is a commercial for Hollywood's Lido Lounge and for MGM contract players. The Lido is a large watering hole; we visit one afternoon with an orchestra playing, all sorts of stars and would-be stars sitting at tables near the pool alongs...

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....

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....

This short shows the entrances of the various Hollywood studios, then specifically visits Warner Bros. / First National Studios. We start at the casting office, then see Busby Berkeley and choreographer Bobby Connolly working with chorus girls on pro...

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 unde...

Comedian Lloyd Hamilton escorts a group of beauty contest winners to various Hollywood night spots....

The Californian sun, which lights up the city, lights up again every evening in cinemas all over the world". Guided by these words from Blaise Cendrars, L.A. L.A. END is a stroll through Los Angeles, among the remnants of Hollywood's Golden Age. Foll...

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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...

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....

Two musical stars from the golden age of Hollywood get a second chance at rekindling their love in the modern world....