"1950"

Today there are certainly bigger stars in Hollywood than Bill Murray, but few if any command the cult-like devotion and fascination that he does from his fans.

Actress Shirley MacLaine once observed: “An actor has many lives and many people within him. I know there are lots of people inside me. No one ever said I'm dull.” That’s for sure. Over the years, this irrepressible lady has sparked considerable bafflement and controversy over her outspoken views on reincarnation, extraterrestrials, and other New Age thinking.

In 1947, a successful young radio actor named Richard Widmark arrived at Twentieth Century Fox in Hollywood to try out for his first film. His hope was to be cast in “Kiss of Death,” another in a series of dark crime dramas popular after the Second War which would eventually become known as “film noir.”

This once-famous name may be unfamiliar to millennials, but even those with the remotest interest in film should discover him and his astounding body of work. Among the top directors who have credited him as a direct influence on their work: Ingmar Bergman (who described him as “the best director in the world”), Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Elia Kazan, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, and Steven Spielberg.

By the age of thirty, Montgomery Clift seemed to have everything: youth, beauty, talent, and the prospect of a lucrative film career with limitless possibilities. Along with his friend and colleague Marlon Brando, Clift was the most visible and gifted of a new generation of movie star who’d been trained in “the Method” at Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio. The Studio’s fundamental goal was to help actors inhabit their characters more fully in order to achieve greater realism and intensity in their performances.

Up to now, I’ve always hesitated to do a piece on this enduring icon and casualty of Hollywood, simply because so much has already been written on her tragic life and tumultuous career — reportedly well over 500 books. Finally, I resolved to focus on the details of her early life which shaped the fragile, tortured person she’d become.

Tyrone Power: If ever a name sounded like the product of a studio publicity department, this was it. Yet this dark, impossibly handsome star (known to friends as “Ty”) used his own name, the same one carried by his actor father and his great-grandfather, also a famed actor in nineteenth-century Ireland.

Thomas Mitchell was one of the most admired and successful character actors of Hollywood’s Golden Age, but to most viewers today, his face is more familiar than his name. When you hear more about Mitchell’s amazing career, you’ll agree we should all know his name — and revere his memory.

Any serious student of film will recognize Japan’s outsize contribution to advancing this most vivid and powerful of art forms. Just consider the legacy of Ozu (“Tokyo Story”) and Kurosawa (“Rashomon”) for a start. Of course, over the years many lesser-known Japanese directors have also done brilliant work.Happily, that tradition of excellence has extended well into this century. Below are eight of my favorite Japanese entries made over the last fifteen years.  Each in their own way explores a vastly different culture from ours, while shedding light on human issues and emotions we all share.