#lemmon production

[luckypluckychair]

The Apartment | 1960

Director: Billy Wilder

Production designer: Alexandre Trauner / Set decorator: Edward G. Boyle

[citizenscreen]

Jack Lemmon serving himself coffee at the Columbia Studios commissary during production of his first major picture, George Cukor’s IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU (1954) starring Judy Holliday.

[hotvintagepoll]

this is a poll for a movie that doesn't exist.

it is vintage times. the powers that be have decided it is time to remake the classic vampire novel Dracula for the big screen once more. in an amazing show of inter-studio solidarity, all of hollywood's hottest elite are up for the starring roles. they know whoever is cast will greatly impact the quality and tone of the finished production, so they are turning to their wisest voice for guidance.

you are the new casting director for this star-studded epic. choose your players wisely.

Previously cast:

Jonathan Harker—Jimmy Stewart

The Old Woman—Martita Hunt

Count Dracula—Gloria Holden

Mina Murray—Setsuko Hara

Lucy Westenra—Judy Garland

The Three Voluptuous Women—Betty Grable, Marilyn Monroe, and Lauren Bacall

[monkeyssalad-blog]

Virna Lisi by Truus, Bob & Jan too! Via Flickr: Italian postcard by Rotalcolor / Rotalfoto, Milano, no. N 63. Seductive Italian actress Virna Lisi (1936-2014) appeared in more than 100 film and TV productions and was internationally best known as a tempting blue-eyed blonde in Hollywood productions of the 1960s. But she proved to be more than a pretty face. Later she had a career Renaissance with three-dimensional character parts in various Italian and French. A triumph was her portrayal of a malevolent Catherine de Medici in La Reine Margot (1994) for which she won both the David di Donatello and the César awards. Virna Lisi was born as Virna Lisa Pieralisi in Ancona, Italy in 1936. Her brother, Ubaldo, later became a talent agent. Her sister was actress Esperia Pieralisi. Virna began her film career as a teenager. Two Neapolitan producers (Antonio Ferrigno and Ettore Pesce) discovered her in Paris. Her debut was in La corda d'acciaio/The Line of Steel (Carlo Borghesio, 1953-1958). Initially, she did musical films, like in E Napoli canta/Napoli Sings (Armando Grottini, 1953) and the successful four-episode film Questa è la vita/Such is Life (Luigi Zampa a.o., 1954), with the popular Totò. Her looks were more valued than her talent in some of her early films, like in Le diciottenni/Eighteen Year Olds (Mario Mattoli, 1955) with Marisa Allasio, and Lo scapolo/The Bachelor (Antonio Pietrangeli, 1955) with Alberto Sordi. She incarnated more demanding roles in Il cardinale Lambertini/Cardinal Lambertini (Giorgio Pastina, 1954) opposite Gino Cervi, La Donna del Giorno/The Doll That Took the Town (Francesco Maselli, 1956), the Peplum Romolo e Remo/Duel of the Titans (Sergio Corbucci, 1961) featuring musclemen Steve Reeves and Gordon Scott as the two legendary brothers, and Eva/Eve (Joseph Losey, 1962) starring Jeanne Moreau. In the late 1950s, Lisi played on stage at the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, and appeared in 'I giacobini' by Federico Zardi, under the direction of Giorgio Strehler. During the 1960s, Lisi played in stage comedies and she also participated in some very popular dramatic television productions. On TV, she also promoted a toothpaste brand, with a slogan which would become a catchphrase amongst the Italians: "con quella bocca può dire ciò che vuole" (with such a mouth, she can say whatever she wants). In the 1960s, Hollywood producers were looking for a successor to Marilyn Monroe and so Virna Lisi made a dent in Hollywood comedies as a tempting blue-eyed blonde. She first starred opposite Jack Lemmon in George Axelrod’s satirical How to Murder Your Wife (Richard Quine, 1965). At IMDb, reviewer Mdantonio takes his hat off for her performance: “What most everyone fails to mention in the comments is the incredible skill of Virna Lisi. She is a natural mixing it up with Lemmon, (Claire) Trevor and the other veterans like she had been making movies for years. I have watched many movies in my day and I must say that Virna Lisi is right at the top, not only in beauty and sexuality but in carrying her role as good as anyone else could have. Ms. Lisi, my hat is off to you.” She also gained attention with the March 1965 cover of Esquire magazine on which she was shaving her face. The following year she appeared in another comedy, Not with My Wife, You Don't! (Norman Panama, 1966), now with Tony Curtis. She also starred with Frank Sinatra in Assault on a Queen (Jack Donohue. 1966), with Rod Steiger in La Ragazza e il Generale/The Girl and the General (Pasquale Festa Campanile, 1967), and twice with Anthony Quinn, in the war drama La vingt-cinquième heure/The 25th Hour (Henri Verneuil, 1967), and The Secret of Santa Vittoria (Stanley Kramer, 1969). To overcome her typecasting as a sexy, seductive woman, Lisi sought new types of roles and found these in such Italian comedies as Le bambole/Four Kinds of Love (Dino Risi a.o., 1965), Signore & signori/The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (Pietro Germi, 1966) and Le dolci signore/Anyone Can Play (Luigi Zampa, 1968), and Roma bene (Carlo Lizzani, 1971) with Senta Berger. At AllMovie, Robert Firsching reviews Signore & signori: “Pietro Germi's funny anthology combines the standard sex comedy format with some unexpectedly subtle observations about village life. The film centers on three stories exposing the sexual secrets of the Italian town of Treviso. (...) Signore e Signori won the Best Film award at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.” In the early 1970s, Virna Lisi decided to focus on her family, husband Franco Pesci and her son Corrado, born in 1962. In the later 1970s, she had a career renaissance with a series of major Italian films, including the Nietzsche biography Al di là del bene e del male/Beyond Good and Evil (Liliana Cavani, 1977) starring Dominique Sanda, Ernesto (Salvatore Samperi, 1979), La cicala/The Cricket (Alberto Lattuada, 1980), and I ragazzi di via Panisperna/The Boys of the Via Panisperna (Gianni Amelio, 1989) with Andrea Prodan and Mario Adorf. Prodan’s brother Luca is the singer of an Argentinean band, which later made a song for Lisi. A Brazilian rock band, Virna Lisi, is even named after her. Her greatest triumph was the French film La Reine Margot (Patrice Chéreau, 1994) in which Lisi played a malevolent Catherine de Medici, ordering assaults, poisonings, and instigations of incest. Karl Williams writes at AllMovie about the film: “The historical novel by Alexandre Dumas was adapted for the screen with this lavish French epic, winner of 5 Césars and a pair of awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Isabelle Adjani stars as Marguerite de Valois, better known as Margot, daughter of scheming Catholic power player Catherine de Medici (Virna Lisi).” For her magnificent portrayal, Lisi won not only the César and Best Actress award in Cannes but also the David di Donatello award, the Italian equivalent of the Oscar. From the late 1990s on, she did several successful dramatic TV productions, including L'onore e il rispetto/Honour and Respect (Salvatore Samperi, 2006) with Gabriel Garko and Giancarlo Giannini. In 2002, Lisi starred in Il più bel giorno della mia vita/The Best Day of My Life (Cristina Comencini, and her final film was Latin Lover (Cristina Comencini, 2015), which was posthumously released. In 2014, she passed away in Rome at the age of 78. Virna Lisi was married to architect Franco Pesci and they had three grandchildren: Franco, Federico and Riccardo. Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Gary Brumburgh (IMDb), Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb. And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

[byneddiedingo]

Twelve Angry Men (William Friedkin, 1997)

Cast: Courtney B. Vance, Ossie Davis, George C. Scott, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Dorian Harewood, James Gandolfini, Tony Danza, Jack Lemmon, Hume Cronyn, Mykelti Williamson, Edward James Olmos, William Petersen, Mary McDonnell. Screenplay: Reginald Rose. Cinematography: Fred Schuler. Production design: Bill Malley. Film editing: Augie Hess. 

William Friedkin's Twelve Angry Men, which was made for cable television, is not so easily dismissed as an unnecessary remake of Sidney Lumet's classic 1957 film, itself a remake of Reginald Rose's 1954 television drama. Forty years of change have taken place, and although such a jury today would almost certainly have women on it, at least Friedkin's version includes four Black men. One of them, strikingly, is the most virulent racist on the panel: a former Nation of Islam follower played by Mykelti Williamson, who delivers a vicious diatribe against Latinos. Which incidentally brings up another anomaly: There are no Latinos on this jury, even though it is impaneled in New York City, which certainly has a significant Latino population. Oddly, one of the actors, Edward James Olmos, is Latino, but he plays an Eastern European immigrant. The rant of the juror played by Williamson has perhaps even more significance today than it did in 1997, after an election campaign tainted by racist taunts against immigrants: The speech sounds like it might have been delivered at Donald Trump's infamous Madison Square Garden rally. As for the film itself, it retains the 1954 movie's power to entertain, if only the pleasure of watching 12 good actors at peak performance (and in George C. Scott's case, a bit over the peak). It also retains the tendency to preachiness, like a dramatized civics lesson, though maybe we need that more than ever.  

[rwby-is-the-best]

i bet corporations in the rwby universe have a list of like 20 colors that every product has to come in otherwise everyone shopping will think "oh this microwave is really nice but it doesn't come in dark green. what am i supposed to do, get the teal one?? that's my dad's color!!" or parents shopping for school supplies with their kids and sure maybe one brand of backpack has really good back support but it doesn't come in yellow and little Amarillo Sunflower Lemmone is going to cry in aisle 12

[lazzarella]

Top 10 Things

For some reason, I've decided to compile lists of my various top ten things, a completely pointless venture because I highly doubt anyone will read it, and I already know what they are, but I'm doing it anyway! lol

(I've included: bands; solo artists; albums; books; poems; graphic novels/comics; tv shows; BL series; murder mystery shows; movies; actors; actresses; directors; musicals)

BANDS

The Beatles

ABBA

Belle and Sebastian

Led Zeppelin

The Raveonettes

The Decemberists

Ramones

Blondie

Sparks

Judas Priest

SOLO ARTISTS

John Grant

Rufus Wainwright

Connie Francis

Kylie Minogue

Angel Olsen

Prince

Sufjan Stevens

Kate Bush

David Bowie

Keaton Henson

ALBUMS

Queen of Denmark by John Grant

69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel

Rubber Soul by The Beatles

Picaresque by The Decemberists

Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin

You Could Have It So Much Better by Franz Ferdinand

Purple Rain by Prince

Transformer by Lou Reed

If You're Feeling Sinister by Belle and Sebastian

BOOKS

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Grief is the Thing With Feathers by Max Porter

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

The Charioteer by Mary Renault

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

POEMS

Having a Coke With You by Frank O'Hara

Every poem in Crush by Richard Siken

The Second Coming by WB Yeats (alternatively, The Mermaid)

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot

Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

Love Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond by e.e. cummings

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

Tired by Langston Hughes

Perhaps the World Ends Here by Joy Harjo

GRAPHIC NOVELS/COMICS

Paper Girls

Ghost World

Persepolis

Bandette series

Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant + sequels

The Fade Out

The Case of the Missing Men

The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal

It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken

Nimona

TV SHOWS (that are not BLs or murder mysteries XD)

Spaced

Supernatural

The Hour

Buffy

Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes

This is England 86/88/90

I Love Lucy

Pushing Daisies

Dark

In the Flesh OR The Young Ones OR Xena (I was going to choose but meh)

(A full list of my favourite TV shows on Serializd)

BL SERIES (MASTERLIST HERE)

Moonlight Chicken

My Personal Weatherman

KinnPorsche

Cherry Magic (Thailand)

Century of Love

Wandee Goodday

Old Fashion Cupcake

A Tale of Thousand Stars

Only Friends

Jack O'Frost

(I have a feeling Kidnap is going to take the place of one of these though)

MURDER MYSTERY SHOWS

Poirot

Marple

Rosemary and Thyme

Twin Peaks (it counts XD)

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Endeavour

Beyond Evil

Murder, She Wrote

Jonathan Creek

George Gently

MOVIES

(if I do subcategories for this, we'd be here all day! But ftr my favourite genres are film noir, musicals, rom-coms, horror—mostly slashers and gialli, 50s/60s sci-fi...)

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Clue

Strictly Ballroom

Charade

Velvet Goldmine

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Call Me By Your Name

God's Own Country

Secretary

That Thing You Do!

(A full list of my favourite films on Letterboxd)

ACTORS

Robert Redford

Colin Farrell

James Spader

Keanu Reeves

Danny Kaye

Humphrey Bogart

Dirk Bogarde

Frank Sinatra

Jack Lemmon

Ben Whishaw

ACTRESSES

(only separating by gender to get more in XD)

Doris Day

Audrey Hepburn

Amy Adams

Lucille Ball

Jane Fonda

Kirsten Dunst

Marilyn Monroe

Nicole Kidman

Michelle Williams

Cate Blanchett

DIRECTORS

Gregg Araki

Alfred Hitchcock

John Waters

Sofia Coppola

Agnès Varda

Wes Anderson

Billy Wilder

Pedro Almodóvar

Stanley Donen

Dario Argento

MUSICALS

(only counting ones I've seen productions of myself)

The Rocky Horror Show

Little Shop of Horrors

Aladdin

Matilda

Cats

Chicago

Hairspray

Wicked

Singin' in the Rain

9 to 5 tied with Priscilla: Queen of the Desert

[usafphantom2]

U.S. Navy awards Boeing $1.3 billion contract for 17 new F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets to help address strike fighter shortfall.

The deal also includes a technical data package vital for sustaining the Super Hornet fleet well into the 2040s.

"Data package necessary for operational readiness & post-production sustainment" - Rear Adm. John Lemmon, PEO Tac Air.

Undefinitized contract action now, with the plan to definitize the terms in the next few months using Congressional funding.

Deliveries of the new Block III Super Hornets are scheduled from winter 2026 through spring 2027.

"Ensures our warfighters have resources to defend the nation & return home safely" - Capt. Michael Burks, F/A-18 Program Manager.

The purchase sustains Boeing's F/A-18E/F production line as Navy bridges to next-generation fighters like the F-35C and F/A-XX.

#USNavy #USA

@Defence_IDA via X

[oscarupsets]

Hello, 1960s! New decade, new vibes.

Widely acclaimed Best Picture winner The Apartment left me upset-less for this year. While critics are lukewarm about the other nominees, one source did hint towards another fan-favorite: Psycho.

I will not hide it, I LOVE The Apartment. I think it's the humor that gets to me. There's also something Jack Lemmon brings to his characters that is just SO good. He's quirky, he's funny, I just can't explain it. Caught between Lemmon and past-Upset star Fred MacMurray, Shirley MacLaine delivers an equally endearing performance.

Released 20 years after his Best Picture winner Rebecca, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is one of his many later films that missed out a Best Picture nomination.

In 1960, Psycho was groundbreaking in terms of violence and sex in film. The violence in question is some stabbing that doesn't actually produce wounds, while the sex is two unmarried people sharing a bed. Not knocking it, just interesting how far we've come from 1960.

The production also felt groundbreaking for the time, especially the camera angles. They were all over the place and super fun, especially the really low shots and the birds-eye-like staircase shots.

Alfred Hitchcock implemented strict standards during the showings of Psycho. People were not allowed to be admitted into the theater once the film had begun, and even pay-per-view equivalent televisions would not allow viewers to start a showing after the start time.

The Apartment was the most nominated and awarded film of the night at the 33rd Academy Awards. And while the actors missed out on wins at the Oscars, they were thankfully recognized previously at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs. Psycho's one major award for the season came from the Golden Globes for Janet Leigh.

Psycho was not named as a Top 10 Film by the National Board of Review in 1960, but has been recognized alongside The Apartment in many other, more recent lists.

Unofficial Review: I enjoyed both very much, but I still prefer The Apartment. This should not, however, dismiss the impact Psycho had on film!

[pepperbag76]

“ Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon on the studio lot during production of Some Like It Hot (1959) “

Source: tooldhollywoodandbeyond

[citizenscreen]

Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon during production of Billy Wilder’s IRMA LA DOUCE (1963)

[illustraction]

The GREAT RACE (1965) - PETER FALK POSTERS (Part 9/10)

By 1962 PETER FALK was a famous name in Hollywood having had two Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor in 1961 and 1962.

This allowed him to get second Top billing in the big production movie she was cast on such as the whacky race comedy directed by Blake Edwards in which he plays Jack Lemmon's evil sidekick Maximilian Meen which directly inspired Hanna and Barbera to create Dastardly and Muttley in the Wacky Races animated series.

Above are original movie posters from Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy and Japan (click on each image for details).

Director: Blake Edwards Actors: Peter Falk, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood

ALL OUR PETER FALK POSTERS ARE HERE

If you like this entry, check the other 9 parts of this week’s Blog as well as our Blog Archives

All our NEW POSTERS are here All our ON SALE posters are here

The posters above courtesy of ILLUSTRACTION GALLERY

[thishadoscarbuzz]

290 - The Front Page (w/ Roxana Hadadi) (70s Spectacular - 1974)

1974 brings us to one of the final films of Billy Wilder, which also reunited a screen duo beloved by both Oscar and audiences, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Vulture writer Roxana Hadadi is back to the show to talk about The Front Page, an oft-adapted farce about newspapermen getting wrapped up in the case of an escaped convict. Most famously retold in a gender swapped version in His Girl Friday, this version stumbles to deliver the best of this director-star trio and missed Oscar's good graces despite multiple nominations in the decade for Mathau and Lemmon, including Lemmon's win the previous year.

This episode, we talk about the victory lap made by Francis Ford Coppola with The Godfather Part II and The Conversation both earning Oscar love. We also talk about the film's apoliticism was atypical of the moment, our love for Ingrid Bergman's Supporting Actress speech, and the hubbub over the acceptance speech for Best Documentary Feature Hearts and Minds.

Topics also include disaster movies becoming the splashy Hollywood product, The Godfather Part II Supporting Actor nominations, and Anderson Cooper talking about his mom hooking up with Marlon Brando.

The 1974 Academy Awards

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[byneddiedingo]

Good Neighbor Sam (David Swift, 1964)

Cast: Jack Lemmon, Romy Schneider, Dorothy Provine, Mike Connors, Edward G. Robinson, Edward Andrews, Louis Nye, Robert Q. Lewis, Charles Lane, Linda Watkins, Joyce Jameson. Screenplay: James Fritzell, Everett Greenbaum, David Swift, based on a novel by Jack Finney. Cinematography: Burnett Guffey. Production design: Dale Hennesy. Film editing: Charles Nelson. Music: Frank De Vol. 

[kickmag]

R.I.P Ellen Holly

Ellen Holly, the first Black soap opera star, has died at age 92. Holly changed television with her role on the daytime soap One Life To Live. The New York City native came from a family of achievers; her paternal great-grandmother, Susan Smith McKinney Steward, was the first African-American woman to earn a medical doctorate in New York and the third in the country. Her great-aunt, Minsarah Smith Thompson, was the first Black woman principal of a New York City school. She was a graduate of Hunter College and had pledged to the Delta Theta Sigma Sorority Inc. while she was there.

Holly started her acting career in New York City and Boston. She made her Broadway debut in Too Late the Phalarope in 1956 and went on to have starring roles in other Broadway productions, including Face Of A Hero, Tiger Tiger Burning Bright, and A Hand Is On The Gate. From the late '50s until the early '70s, she led several Joseph Papp New York Shakespeare Festival Productions. During this time, she worked with prominent actors of the day, such as Roscoe Lee Browne, James Earl Jones, Jack Lemmon, Barry Sullivan, and Cicely Tyson. Holly also studied with dance pioneer Katherine Dunham and discovered her passion for dance and its richness within African-American culture. 

Holly's first television roles were in The Big Story, The Defenders, Sam Benedict, Dr Kildare, and The Doctors and the Nurses. She took on the groundbreaking role of Carla Gray on ABC's One Life To Live from 1968 until 1980 and from 1983 to 1985. Television producer Agnes Nixon handpicked her for the role after reading an opinion piece Holly wrote for the New York Times titled, How Black Do You Have To Be," which aired her challenges finding work as a light-skinned Black woman. It was the first time a Black person starred in a soap opera, and Holly was written about in the pages of Ebony, Soap Opera Digest, TV Guide, and the New York Times. Her moment led to stories about Black life on All My Children and General Hospital. Holly made history with her high-profile role, but she later revealed that she and others like her still encountered racism when it came to their pay and other forms of disrespect. 

In the late '80s, she had a recurring role as a judge on The Guiding Light. She also appeared on the television shows In The Heat Of The Night and the made-for-TV movie 10,000 Black Men Named George alongside Andre Braugher and Marion Van Pebbles. Holly was a regular contributor to the New York Times, and her autobiography, One Life: The Autobiography of an African-American Actress, was published in 1996. She also became a librarian before the decade was over. 

Holly wanted family, friends, and fans to make donations to The Obama Presidential Center or St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in lieu of a funeral. 

[70s80sandbeyond]

Jack Lemmon, Natalie Wood, Tony Curtis on location in Paris during production of Blake Edwards’s The Great Race (1965)