"doubt"

When producer Ross Hunter decided to make “Pillow Talk” early in 1959, many industry insiders doubted his judgment. After all, the golden era of romantic comedy was long past. William Powell had already retired, and Cary Grant had only a few films left, most of which were not romantic comedies.

If you don’t remember the face of this peerless British player, whose film career spanned from the forties through the eighties, his silky, mellifluous voice will surely be familiar.

It’s striking just how alike they were: both petite women with big personalities and talent who achieved overnight success in iconic movies at age 19; both immensely driven professionals who, in the face of personal challenges and misfortune, channeled their prodigious energies into their work.

I’ve always had a soft spot for Rosalind Russell. Watch her in most anything, and you sense she’s different from all the glamorous female stars of the day. She was a beautiful lady who did not trade on her looks but instead her brain, talent and spirit.

Ever since I first saw “The Awful Truth” on New Years’ Day, 1985 at New York’s Cinema Village Theater, I have been a vocal champion of this timeless screwball classic from 1937. Even with a crushing hangover, my (then-future) wife and I were convulsed, and I knew I had found a film I would return to for the rest of my life.

Rarely if ever has a collaboration between artist and muse yielded such rich cinematic treasure. Master director Akira Kurosawa and his favorite actor Toshiro Mifune worked together on sixteen films in as many years. Most of these titles achieve a very high level of quality and hold up beautifully, while a few are truly brilliant.

In 1910, the prestigious Fred Karno theatrical troupe in England got the chance to tour America.  Its star attraction, a twenty-one-year-old performer named Charles Chaplin, was on-board that first ship crossing the Atlantic.