Tag Archives: Marion Davies

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The Bootleg Files: Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood

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BOOTLEG FILES 716: “Hedda Hopper’s Hollywood” (1960 all-star TV special).

LAST SEEN: On YouTube.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No perceived commercial reissue value.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Not likely.

By the time 1960 rolled about, the film industry was in a very strange place. The studio system had mostly crumbled and many of the major Hollywood productions were being shot overseas. The movie studios learned to grudgingly live with television and a few figured out how to profit from the small screen medium.
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The Last Days of the Silent Films, Part 2

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In the second of a two-part episode, Lon Davis, author of the critically acclaimed “Silent Lives,” returns to “The Online Movie Show” to discuss the transition from silent films to the talkies, focusing on stars who made the leap into the new medium (including Garbo, Neil Hamilton and Laurel and Hardy) along with now-forgotten performers who did not (including Madame Olga Petrova, Karl Dane and Mary McLaren).

The episode can be heard here.

“The Online Movie Show” is produced at the Platinum Wolfe Studios.

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Marion Davies: A Second Look

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In this very special episode of “The Online Movie Show,” we offer a new appreciation of the much-maligned actress Marion Davies, who is now receiving a long overdue reconsideration thanks to the re-release of three of her long-unseen silent features on DVD and Blu-ray. Film historian and composer Ben Model joins us to celebrate the beauty and talent that Marion Davies brought to the silver screen.

The episode can be heard here.

“The Online Movie Show” is produced at the Platinum Wolfe Studios.

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When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922)

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Barely seen since its 1922 theatrical release, this silent epic is a major surprise: a charming, entertaining adventure that contradicts the long-held prejudices by film scholars against the costume dramas starring the much-maligned Marion Davies and produced by her lover, publishing mogul William Randolph Hearst.

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