87 years ago today... Katharine Hepburn & the Academy began their one-sided romance.

On this day, March 16th in 1934, the 6th annual Academy Awards were held honoring the films of 1933. The event was little like it is today, not yet televised, and with only 13 categories (3 of them for short films). There were only six acting nominees. Cavalcade won Best Picture and it shared the "most nominations" stat, four in total, with the war drama A Farewell To Arms and the Capra comedy Lady for a Day...

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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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Today in Oscar History: Mrs Miniver, Shape of Water, John Garfield

On this day, March 4th, in Oscar history only...

1937 The 9th Academy Awards are held honoring the best of 1936. Historical epic Anthony Adverse wins the most Oscars (4) but showbiz biopic The Great Ziegfeld takes Best Picture. Some interesting things about this Oscar year: This was the first ceremony with the Supporting acting categories; My Man Godfrey became the first film nominated in all four acting categories and it remains the only film to achieve that without a parallel Best Picture nomination; The Story of Louis Pasteur earned the very weird now impossible distinction of being named both "Best Original Story" AND "Best Adaptation"... the "Best Original Screenplay" category was not yet invented and it did not technically replace "Best Story" as they ran parallel for the first 16 years of Best Original Screenplay...

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Almost There: Marlene Dietrich in "Shanghai Express"

by Cláudio Alves

A cabaret performer and silent film actress during the Weimar years, Marlene Dietrich left Berlin at the dawn of the 1930s. She abandoned Germany, traveling to Hollywood with director Josef von Sternberg who'd go on to make Dietrich into Tinseltown's most glamorous star. The pair of creative partners and off-screen lovers shot seven films together, all of them classics whose sensuous allure and grotesque opulence make for some of the weirdest pictures to come out of Hollywood at the time. Theirs was a cinema of provocation, hedonistic spectacles that overwhelmed the senses even as they moved at a lethargic pace as if the films themselves are bodies recuperating in the aftermath of an orgasm. As an avowed fan of Marlene Dietrich, this septet represents some of my favorite flicks, their dreams of celluloid working as siren songs that never fail to seduce and enchant.

The Criterion Channel is now streaming these seven glistening gems, so it's a good time to explore a Sternberg-directed Dietrich performance that came palpably close to an Oscar nomination. Let's talk Lily in Shanghai Express…

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Showbiz History: DGA's prophecies, In Old Chicago's run, and Beckinsale's franchise

9 random things that happened on this day, January 6th, in showbiz history

1938 In Old Chicago released in movie theaters. The 20th Century Fox Tyrone Power and Alice Faye drama was big at the box office and at the Oscars... its relevant at the moment because it competed for the 1937 Oscars even though it was released in January of 1938 (with no qualifying run in '37). Why? Well, that year had a longer than the calendar year eligibility period which is what we're going through right now again. Films released through February 2021 will be eligible for the Oscars honoring the films of 2020 this time around. We prefer the clean lines of the calendar year but you can't always (or even often) get what you want.

1943 Hitler's Children, an American propaganda film is released, depicting the brutalities of the Hitler Youth.  Bonita Granville co-starred...

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