Showbiz History: Ingmar Bergman's Rise and Vera-Ellen's Centennial
Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 9:38AM 6 random things that happed on this day, February 16th, in showbiz history
1938 Screwball classic Bringing Up Baby premieres in San Francisco with a release following two days later. It's one of the best films of 1938 or maybe even the best... but it was not appreciated in its day.
1957 The Seventh Seal premieres in Sweden and becomes the first of four consecutive Swedish Oscar submissions from Ingmar Bergman. Unfortunatly Oscar ignores it...
The Magicians followed in 1958 but was also not nominated. Both films arrive in the US theaters a year after their Oscar submissions and American audiences begin to catch on to Bergman's gift, setting up two consecutive foreign film wins at the Oscars with the next two Swedish Bergman submissions The Virgin Spring and Through a Glass Darkly.
1962 Chris Marker's influential time travelling sci-fi short La Jetée (which later influences multiple films and music videos but most famously Terry Gilliams 12 Monkeys) premieres in France.
2007 Ghost Rider hits movie theaters. This is before Marvel Studios regains the rights to almost all of their characters so how long until they remake this?
2014 The 67th annual BAFTAs are held with 12 Years a Slave winning Best Film and Best Actor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Gravity winning Best British Film. The two films will later dominate the Oscars as well.
2018 Black Panther starring Chadwick Boseman as T'Challa the King of Wakanda, opens in movie theaters earning massive box office returns and 11 months later becomes the first superhero movie to ever be nominated for the Best Picture Oscar.
Today's Birthday Suit
Happy Vera-Ellen Centennial. The dancer/actress was born 100 years ago today in Norwood Ohio and would achieve fame at 24 opposite Danny Kaye in Wonder Man (1945) and later dance with both Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly in movie musicals though her most-enduring film, White Christmas (1954), returned her to Danny Kaye's arms.
James Baskett receving his OscarOther showbiz birthdays today: Elizabeth Olsen (Martha Marcy May Marlene, WandaVision), Oscar winning director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy, Darling, Marathon Man), Oscar winner Mahershala Ali (Green Book, Moonlight), Christopher Eccleston (The Others, The Leftovers), LeVar Burton (Roots, Star Trek), Ice-T (New Jack City, Law & Order: SVU), Hazelle Goodman (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Hannibal), Japan's Ken Takakura (Black Rain, Railroad Man), William Katt (The Greatest American Hero, Carrie), Oscar nomineee Chester Morris (Alibi, The Divorcée), South Korea's Kim Soo-Hyun (Dream High, My Love From Another Star) Sarah Clarke (Bosch, Twilight), Faran Tahir (Iron Man, 12 Monkeys), Carlos Rivas (The King & I, Topaz), model/actress Agyness Deyn (Sunset Song, Her Smell) Eric Ladin (American Sniper, Bosch), Hunt Block (Knots Landing, Salt), Erana James (The Wilds, Playing for Keeps), Broadway actor John Tartaglia (Avenue Q, Happytime Murders), tennis legend John McEnroe, and music stars Sonny Bono and The Weeknd, and Honorary Oscar winner James Baskett (Song of the South)... yes, it's true. Both Disney and the Oscars pretend this didn't happen but he was given an Honorary Oscar for playing Uncle Remus in this animation/live-action hybrid).
Reader Comments (11)
Chiwetel was so amazing in 12 Years. My pick for the Oscar that year, and one of the best of the decade.
Here’s hoping he gets another role worthy of him soon.
Love the diversity of these history trivias. Starts with some of the best examples of cinema as an art form and then *boom* Ghost Rider! One of the things that makes this site so unique.
LOVE Bringing up Baby... absolutely hilarious screwball comedy
re: Ghost Rider...
one of the versions of the character appeared as recurrent role in Agents of SHIELD... And yes, there are intentions already to bring Ghost Rider back to screens... only I am unsure if it will be for the big or the small screen... probably the later... Marvel has already started thinking bigger and betting more on the Disney + service than in theaters... anyways, Marvel makes so much money from merchandising, that comics and screen are mostly a way to promote their brand... while recovering the investment
The way the post showed in my first overall glance was the "Bringing Up Baby" reference with the Bergman screenshot above it. That alone will likely keep a smile on my face much of the day.
Vera-Ellen is such an amazing dancer, supple and inventive. Too bad many of her films aren't in the top tier of those turned out during the Golden Age.
Being known mostly for White Christmas isn't a bad thing at all but there are other phenomenal performances she's given which are overlooked. Slaughter on Tenth Avenue which she and Gene Kelly performed in Words and Music (terrible story-great musical numbers) is breathtaking in its intricacies.
"La Jetée" premiered in '62, actually.
Jonathan --oops. just a slip of the finger
Vera-Ellen, Rita Hayworth, Cyd Charisse, Eleanor Powell, Leslie Caron, Ann Miller... There's nothing better to scare off bad mood and negativism than watch these beautiful and sexy women dancing.
Always thought Vera Ellen had such a tiny waist.
When pressed to name my favorite film, I always say La Jetée because it is not only the most beautiful piece of film essay but sublime cinema, period. I read Chris Marker's interview in Libération recently (also found in Film Comment) and he confessed to liking Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys but also commented how that one brief moment of movement in La Jetée was because he was able to borrow a movie camera for only one afternoon. But the still images are, to me, even more evocative of memory, immemory, and yes, that madeleine that Proust talked about.
Christopher Eccleston, like Lothaire Bluteau, remains frustratingly underrated.
I need to rewatch The Seveth Seal, it has been years. I love that film so much. As Jöns said: "If everything is imperfect in this world, love is perfect in its imperfection."