Joan Crawford's long road to Oscar

by Cláudio Alves

I make no secret that I'm a Joan Crawford fan. After all, I've already waxed poetic about the star's stellar 1947 and her turn in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?. However, I've never written about Crawford's career pre-Oscar win. Since we're celebrating 75 years since that victory, it feels like an appropriate time to examine the actress' long road to Oscar, the misconceptions about her legacy, the complexities of her contemporary popularity. If you want to read more about the 18th Academy Awards, check out Baby Clyde's wonderful overview of the ceremony and the race for gold. Now, it's time to focus solely on that year's Best Actress champion…

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75th Anniversary: The 1945 Oscars Revisited

by Baby Clyde

Bob Hope and the 1945 winners

The war was over and finally Hollywood could get around to more important matters like giving Joan Crawford an Oscar.

It had been a pared down ceremony for the preceding few years with tuxes and ballgowns discouraged. Even the statuette itself had been made from plaster rather than gold plated bronze but at the 18th Academy Awards, which took place at Graumann’s Chinese Theatre 75 years ago today, the glamour was back and there was no one more glamorous in town than 20 year veteran Joan. She skipped the ceremony...

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Joan Crawford on Criterion

Please welcome guest contributor David Rush...

Our Dancing Daughters

If an actress is to remain a star for six decades, she must expect some fluctuations in her career trajectory. This was most certainly the case for Joan Crawford, whose cinematic legacy – rather overshadowed in the years after her death for reasons we are all more than aware of – is currently showcased on The Criterion Channel.

The first two decades of Crawford’s stardom saw her go from strength to strength: her breakthrough role opposite Lon Chaney in The Unknown (1927); a series of flapper delights in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), Our Modern Maidens (1929) and Our Blushing Brides (1930); a key supporting role in Best Picture winner Grand Hotel (1932); her numerous popular collaborations with Clark Gable; and most importantly, the rags-to-riches vehicles that held particular appeal for aspirant young women during the Great Depression...

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Showbiz History: 'Let's Get Physical' with Mildred Pierce

9 random things that happened on this day, September 28th, in showbiz history: 

1935 Comic actor Stan Laurel marries his second wife Virginia Ruth Rogers who will also become his fourth wife. Old Hollywood stars sure did get married and divorced and remarried a lot! The recent underseen biopic Stan & Ollie (2018) looked at Laurel & Hardy's final years after the heyday of their fame, with Steven Coogan as Stan Laurel and Nina Arianda giving yet another great supporting performance as Laurel's fifth and final wife Ida. When is Nina Arianda going to get her due in Hollywood? 

1945 Seventy-five years ago today, noir classic Mildred Pierce starring Joan Crawford opened, reviving her career and winning her the Oscar. (The movie was nominated for 5 additional Oscars including Best Picture). It's a must-see.

Gregg Toland, Martin & Lewis, and Olivia Newton-John after the jump...

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Interview: Ed Lachman on the Exquisite "Carol" and Dancing with Todd Haynes

It's our last Carol interview, he announced with a catch in his throat, attempting to let the best film of 2015 go for awhile. Our subject today is one of the great cinematographers, Edward Lachman. His filmography is loaded with essential mavericks of independent cinema like Sofia Coppola, Robert Altman, Steve Soderbergh, Todd Solondz and European auteurs, too. But his most fruitful collaboration has been with Todd Haynes. Carol marks their fourth and arguably best collaboration and brough him his long overdue second Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography.   

The New Jersey native started in Studio Arts like painting and art history and viewed them as more creative outlet than profession. Eventually he found he could earn a living as a cinematographer and a rich succession of images have flooded out of him ever since -- think of the golden ragged warmth of Erin Brockovich, the supremely stylized Sirkian homage of Far From Heaven, and the hazy mystery of The Virgin Suicides. And that's just three titles.

I was eager to get on the phone with the man behind so many beautiful films and share a personal way his work affected me at the beginning of my cinephilia. But first I had to gush over Carol and how much it rewards repeat viewings. He joked that Carol obsessives have seen the movie more times than he has... and he shot it!

NATHANIEL: I began all my Carol interviews this season with "Why are you such a genius?" 

ED LACHMAN: Someone once wrote that I'm a 'near genius'. I feel like more of a near genius.

NATHANIEL: [Laughs] Stop qualifying. The movie is exquisitely beautiful

LACHMAN: Thank you. A lot of it has to do with our director Todd Haynes. I'm a conduit to his vision. I interpret it through the images but what's so beautiful about Todd is how he references his stories through conceptual ideas. For me, images aren't just about the aesthetics but the gravity of the content and what the images represent.

More after the jump

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