The Total Filmmaker

MediCINE Man.

[atomic-raunch]

More Ghoulish glee than when they met Frankenstein!

[citizenscreen]

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN was fantastic. Great print, terrific thrills, lots of belly laughs, fun animation strewn thru, and enjoyable score make for the greatest comedy-horror ever made. #TCMFF

[culturevulturette]

Who's on first again?

[citizenscreen]

Kitty Carlisle and Groucho Marx in A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (Sam Wood, 1935)

[bygone-hollywood]

Harpo Marx in “A Night at the Opera” (1935)

[citizenscreen]

Director Sam Wood with the Marx Brothers on set of A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935).

The story goes:

An exasperated Sam Wood said to Groucho after a few flubs during filming, "I guess you just can't make an actor out of clay” to which Groucho responded, "Nor a director out of Wood."

[classichollywoodarchive]

THE MARX BROTHERS AND ALLAN JONES IN A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935)

images from imdb

(thank you to @zagreus for a correction on a previous post!)

[gusvanscant]

'Rumble Fish' (dir. by Francis Ford Coppola) [1983]

[ofimaginarybeings]

 You’re a Big Boy Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1966)

Peter Kastner and Tony Bill in You’re a Big Boy Now 

Cast: Peter Kastner, Elizabeth Hartman, Geraldine Page, Rip Torn, Tony Bill, Julie Harris, Karen Black, Dolph Sweet, Michael Dunn. Screenplay: Francis Ford Coppola, based on a novel by David Ignatius.  Cinematography: Andrew Laszlo. Art direction: Vasilis Fotopoulos. Film editing: Aram Avakian. Music: Robert Prince. 

Francis Ford Coppola's You’re a Big Boy Now, his master’s thesis project at UCLA, is a coming-of-age comedy in the larky mid-1960s manner of Richard Lester's A Hard Day’s Night (1964) and The Knack … and How to Get It (1965). It’s a manner that’s now a little dated, a sometimes too-frantic piling on of editing tricks and goofball antics, but Coppola handled it well with the help of a willing cast. Geraldine Page even earned an Oscar nomination as the smothering mother of Bernard Chanticleer (Peter Kastner), trying to make it on his own in the big city. 

[citizenscreen]

Sam Wood directing the Marx Bros in A NIGHT AT THE OPERA (1935)

[gregorygalloway]

A Night at the Opera was released on 15 November 1935.

It was the first film the Marx Brothers made for MGM after their departure from Paramount, and the first after the departure of Zeppo (who would go on to own the Marman Products Co. which would develop a number of machine parts for the US military, including the clamps that held the atomic bombs in place in the B-29 bombers).

Producer Irving Thalberg felt that the brothers were unsympathetic due to their anarchic style and sought to tame (or at least mute) their comedic "attacks" and direct them solely toward "villains." After 2 unsuccessful test screenings, Thalberg worked with George S. Kaufman to re-edit the film, eventually cutting about 9 minutes.

A Night at the Opera received positive reviews (while most considered it less successful than their Paramount films) and was a box office success (and one of MGM's biggest hits of 1935).

[bodybebangin]

AFI's 100 Greatest American Films Of All Time 85. A Night at the Opera (1935) dir. Sam Wood, Edmund Goulding

[coeurdeverre82]

harpo's solo in night at the opera

[boscofuller]

[donnahinkleystaceytroy]

[freddie-my-love]

“Fred Astaire told me that his biggest regret was giving up the license to the Fred Astaire Dance Studio. All his life, he was haunted by seeing his name on a bunch of dance studios he hated. He told me, “Never give up your name.” If our name is on something, then it’s wine that we personally like to drink, or food we like to eat, or places we like to stay. Your name is your word.”

– Francis Ford Coppola on the best advice he’s ever received, in an interview with Rolling Stone, 2019

[freddie-my-love]

Fred Astaire with co-star Petula Clark and director Francis Ford Coppola during a meeting for Finian’s Rainbow, 1968