Required Reading

The fall season is synonymous with the word new -- new entries in theatre and film,  television and of course, the September fashion issues that weigh more than Oliver, my Maine Coon cat. And it also means new books. Below are a few of my movie-related must reads and be sure and scroll down to Bookperk for a few book related goodies. Now turn off CSI or the Housewives of Beverly Hills and read a book. And don't forget to Tivo.

Movies From the Silent Classics of the Silver Screen to the Digital and 3-D Era
Phillip Kemp
Universe
October 4, 2011

1,000 stills can be found in this illustrated book making it the ultimate cinephile's delight (that would be me). The book traces the evolution of cinema from the Golden Age to film noir to 3-D and films of every genre. Can't wait to order here on Amazon.

Breakfast at Tiffany's: The Official 50th Anniversary Companion
Sarah Gristwood with foreword by Hubert de Givenchy
Rizzoli
September

Has it really been 50 years? And does it get any better than this? And will I ever hear Moon River or see Cat being tossed out of the cab without crying? Enough said.

This book has it all - behind the scenes photos, costumes, script, poster art and everything for the ultimate fan of this timeless classic. Available now on Amazon.

Then Again
Diane Keaton
Random House
November 15th

Not just the typical star biography, Diane Keaton's memoir includes the story of her loving yet complicated mother Dorothy Hall. The Academy Award winning actress of Annie Hall, Something's Gotta Give and Reds fame (just to name a few) culled through Dorothy's eighty five journals for a portrait of mom, daughter and an American family that spans four generations and the lessons learned. You can pre-order on Amazon here. And no word yet if she spills the beans on Woody Allen or Warren Beatty.

The Story of Hollywood: An Illustrated History
Gregory Paul Williams
BL Press
October 1st

800 vintage photographs from the author's personal collection accompany the stories of   stars and the land of broken dreams and how Hollywood transformed and revolutionized society with the entertainment business. Available on Amazon.

The Garner Files
James Garner and Jon Winokur
Simon & Schuster
November lst

For those of you too young to remember, James Garner was the Robert Pattinson of his generation. He shared the screen with everyone from Doris Day (Thrill of It All and Move Over Darling), Steve McQueen (The Great Escape), Julie Andrews (Victor, Victoria)  and enjoyed a long run on the small screen in Maverick and The Rockford Files. Devastatingly handsome, he was and is one of the nicest people in Hollywood. His bio is available on Amazon.

Spencer Tracy: A Biography
James Curtis
Knopf
October 1st

The bio of one of the cinema's most prolific actors covers his twenty six year partnership on and off the screen with Katherine Hepburn and his work from Broadway to Inherit the Wind, Boys Town, Woman of the Year, Captains Courageous and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Available on Amazon. And quite a cool cover.

Harry Potter: Page to Screen - The Compete Filmmaking Journey
Bob McCabe
Harper Design
October 25th

For those of us who cannot get enough of all the machinations of Hogwart's and everything Harry Potter, it's all here. Behind the scenes stories and the artistry of the making of the Harry Potter series is featured in this 500 plus page compendium. Many images are never before seen photographs from closed film sets. You can pre-order here on Amazon.

From the clever marketing department at Harper Collins (and my publisher I might add) comes Bookperk, a site that offers all sorts of books (many of them autographed) with perks in the form of merchandise and sold in a timely flash sale fashion. Below are a few of the items on sale:

What's Your Number? by Karyn Bosnak was made into a movie that premieres on Friday, September 30th. Purchase by October 4th and receive a free signed poster by actress Ana Farris.

In this economy, it may be the only/last Chanel bag you own/buy. Tote bag available with purchase of Justine Picardie's book Coco Chanel: The Legend and The Life. Available through October 3rd here.

Fans of Susan Lucci and/or mourners of the deceased soap All My Children will want to jump on this deal immediately -- an autographed copy of Susan Lucci's All My Life: A Memoir by La Lucci herself. The deal expires October 7th and you can purchase here.

You can sign up for Bookperks newsletter and see more deals at their website.
Happy Reading!

Photo Credits: Rizzoli, Harper Collins, Harper Design, Simon & Schuster, BL Press, Random House

Elle UK's Most Stylish Films

One of my guilty pleasures is reading foreign magazines and I am always intrigued by the trends they predict, determine and invent as well as their particular take on pop culture. Naturally the following article piqued my interest...

British Elle's 25th Anniversary issue (October 2010) asked a panel of fashion and film insiders to nominate their most stylish and influential films. While many of the usual suspects made the list such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, La Dolce Vita, Top Hat and The Graduate (Thomas Crown Affair was inexplicably left off), I thought I would cover a few of the more interesting and seldom seen choices:

Le Mepris aka Contempt (1964)

Nominated by Rachel Weisz, Actress

Jean Luc-Goddard's film was purely a  Brigitte Bardot vehicle (shown here in brunette wig and bathrobe) the focuses on the tensions between a writer and his wife as he attempts to make a Homer's The Odyssey into a commercial film. 

Bardot with actor Jack Palance

Gigi (1958)

Nominated by Leslie Sloane Zelnik, Film Publicist

20th century Paris is the setting for the directed -by- Vincent Minnelli  and songs-by-Alan Jay Lerner musical. Leslie Caron plays Gigi, a courtesan-in-training who enjoys a platonic turned romantic relationship with wealthy playboy Louis Jordan.

Caron and Jourdan in a 20th Century version of Cinderella

Leslie Caron

The Women (1939)

Nominated by Zandra Rhodes, Designer

The Women is George Cukor's classic saga of women and divorce in the thirties. The all star cast includes Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer and Rosalind Russell and was sadly remade a couple of years ago to horrible reviews. Like everything in life, stick to the original.

American Gigolo (1980)

Clothing takes front and center in this film starring Richard Gere (actually this may have been the vehicle to place him on the celestial map) as a male escort and Lauren Hutton as his suitor. Who can forget the classic scene as he sang Smokey Robinson's "More Love" and coordinated his ties and shirts? They had me at Armani.

About De Souffle aka Breathless (1960)
Nominated by Michael Winterbottom, Director


Actress Jean Seberg and her signature pixie haircut escape to Italy with petty thief Jean Paul Belmondo. One of the first films of the French New Wave genre, it was remade years later with Richard Gere and Valerie Kaprisky. Again, rent the original.

Jean Seberg

Darling (1963)
Nominated by Roland Mouret, Designer


Julie Christie took home the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal as a fashionably trendy Brit who seeks fame and fortune. And she has an affair with Laurence Harvey. The setting is mid-sixties Pop England and was considered quite controversial (in the states anyway) at the time.

Laurence Harvey, Julie Christie and Dirk Bogarde

Costume Sketch of Christie

Scarves as headgear were all the rage in the sixties and seventies

Quietes-Vous, Polly Magoo? (1966)
Nominated by Alexa Chung, TV Presenter

The film spoofs a supermodel on the Paris fashion runways and told in dizzying black and white, eyeliner and all. And all very sixties.

Mary Quant inspired models

Sabrina (1954)
Nominated by Cameron Crowe, Director


This film would always make my top ten. Audrey Hepburn as the chauffeur's daughter who flees to Paris to become chic and gain the attention of her father's employer's son only to fall in love with his brother...well you get the picture. Hepburn teams up with fashion designer  Givenchy and as fellow Sabrina actor Humprey Bogart would famously say in an earlier film "this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Hepburn with William Holden

Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
Nominated by Amanda Silverman, Publicist


This film would not be on my top ten list but it certainly was an emblem of New York in the eighties with its leather, safety pins, black lace, overgrown roots and all night clubbing. Roseanna Arquette as a bored housewife meets and emulates Susan (Madonna in her heyday) in this comedy.


And the winner is....


Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)


A great novel by Truman Capote, New York in the early sixties, Tiffany's, Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Cat and the quintessential little black dress and pearls. Enough said.

Photo Credits: Paramount, MGM, Jennifer's Blogspot


You can read more of Elle UK here.

Window Dressing

For those of you who were unable to attend Elle Decor's  Legends of La Cienega event that honored design in film and television, here are a few windows inspired by some of my favorite films and designed by some of LA's top set decorators and designers. Thanks go to my friend Victoria Amado for taking such good pictures! (Photo above s Peter Dunham's A Passage to India at Hollyhock).

Auntie Mame set at Baker  designed by Woodson & Rummerfield

Breakfast at Tiffany's by Richard Hallberg at Navona

Melissa Levander's tribute to the musical comedies of the fifties and sixties at Dragonette

Oliver Furth's interpretation of The Fountainhead at Bausman and Company

For more see Elle Decor's Sneak Peak video here.

Movie Art: Collecting Vintage Posters

While commercialism is often front and center in the design of a movie poster, the designs can also be works of art. Since the beginning of film, posters (also known as "one sheets") have been a primary marketing tool used to publicize a film and fill the seats. Vintage posters (along with stills and lobby cards) have become hot collector's items over the years and have been known to fetch anywhere from $500 to $20,000 or more at auction.

At a Christie's auction in London last November, a rare one of three Casablanca posters created for the American ad campaign drew $109,000 while Attack of the 50 ft. Woman sold for $23,900 and the Bond films such as From Russia with Love went for around $22,600. As with any collection, buy what you love and the older and more vintage, the better.

Whether classic or contemporary, the following have made many top lists for both design and popularity as a collectible:

With its iconic image of the little black dress and cigarette holder, the poster for Breakfast at Tiffany's is just as stylish today as it was in l961.

All About Eve (1950) depicts the film's wit and sardonic humor with this design...

Faye Dunaway's iconic image for the Chinatown (1974) poster became a classic...


as did the haunting face of Mia Farrow in Roman Polanski's 1968 horror Rosemary's Baby.

The design for The Graduate (1967) is one of the most instantly recognizable images in film....

while the simplicity and color of the design for Sullivan's Travels (1941) makes this a sought after poster.

Through film posters we can see traces of the styles of the times...

Orson Welles' The Lady From Shanghai was classic forties...


as was A Hard Day's Night in the sixties, Mahogany in the seventies and Moonstruck in the late eighties...

Experts recommend learning everything there is to know about the market and selecting a niche (for example, a genre such as film noir, etc.) and concentrating on that. Foreign posters tend to demand more (a German poster of Breakfast at Tiffany's went for $17,500). While vintage is certainly a hot area, consider how popular a recent release will be in the years to come. Posters can be found at auctions, ebay, and websites such as filmposters.com and emovieposter.com auctions.

Two of the best books on the subject is the Art of the Modern Movie Poster (Judith Salavetz, Chronicle, 2008) and A Century of Movie Posters: From Silent to Art House (Emily King, Barron's, 2003) Both are available on Amazon.

Four Legged Stars

While there is no discounting the cinema's power to make a star, we often forget our four legged friends have enjoyed their time on the big screen as well. From Lassie and Flicka to Babe, Beethoven and Benji, we have laughed, cried and given the spike in spotted dog adoptions after 101 Dalmations, we have been influenced as well.

Here are a few of the famous and infamous feline, canine, equine and dare I say swines to grace the silver screen:

Lassie Come Home (1943) Pardon the pun but the beloved baby boomer television show was on the tail of the hit book and films. This particular version starred a young Elizabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowell and a canine actor named Pal as Lassie.

My Friend Flicka (1943) and Flicka (2006). The original starred yet again Roddy McDowell and quite the tearjerker. Watch at your own risk.

Old Yeller (1957) Yet another four hanky tearjerker film with fifties/sixties television icons Fess Parker and Chuck Connors.

The Cat From Outer Space (1978) Another animal film starring Roddy McDowell (!!!) with only a script that Hollywood could dream up.

Asta in the Thin Man series: Wire haired terrier made famous (think pre-Frasier) in the Thin Man detective series with Myrna Loy and William Powell. Shown below is The Shadow of the Thin Man (1941).

That Darn Cat (1965 and remake 1997) Hayley Mills in the original and Christina Ricci in the remake (somehow McDowell must have slept through the casting call) star in this Disney romp about bank robbers and a "mischievous cat." Isn't that a redundant term?

Any cat in a James Bond movie -- A white cat is always seen being stroked in the lap of a villian (seen below is SPECTRE's chief Blofeld) as he plots Bond's demise. The cat never has a name and looks pretty miserable.

Cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) The infamous scene where Audrey Hepburn dumps him out of the taxi and into the night's rain would draw all sorts of ASPCA complaints today. Thankfully she came to her senses.

101 Dalmations (1996) Was there ever a better contrast to Cruella de Vil? The childhood book comes to life on the screen not once (1961) but three times (also 2003 when they go to London), sparking in an interest in not only dalmation puppies but anything with a black and white design. Glenn Close as Cruella practically steals the show.

Benji (1974-2004) The poodle, schnauzer and cocker spaniel mix became a television and film sensation, no doubt spawning millions of namesakes across the country. The story lines were pretty similar to Lassie as he was always helping someone overcome something.

For the Love of Benji (1977)

Beethoven (1992-2008) The slobbering St. Bernard named after famed composer Ludwig Beethoven was the focus of six films. Can't blame Hollywood for cashing in on a good concept.

Babe (1998) is the l995 Australian film about a cute little pig with an identity crisis who wants to become a sheep dog. I defy you to order bacon again after seeing this film.

Legally Blonde One and Two (2003): Her pomeranian Bruiser (played by Mooney) was as much a fashion accessory as well as beloved pet.

and last but not least, Marly and Me (2008): I am sure it was a cute movie but no way was I sitting through a movie where the animal has to be put to sleep. Thankfully for the producers book lovers and audiences felt differently and the story was a huge hit.

Owen Wilson, Jennifer Anniston and one of 22 Marley the dogs

used in the film

Dogs and horses (National Velvet, International Velvet, Phar Lap, Seabiscuit and the list goes on and on) seem to fare better in Hollywood than cats who are almost always cast as ominous (The Black Cat), fearful and hissing or even X-rated (remember Felix the Cat?) Perhaps it's a conspiracy or their personalities...ever try to get a cat to pose?

Many thanks to friend and designer Nora Marra for this week's blog suggestion and sorry I never got Binky an agent as I could have been a great stage door mom.

Photo Credits: Fox 2000, Paramount Pictures, MGM, ABC, Walt Disney Pictures and 20th Century Fox, Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design (Harper Collins).