Ben Hecht: The Shakespeare of Hollywood

On this date in 1894, one of my favorite screenwriters of all time was born. Ben Hecht was also a director, producer, playwright and a novelist.

Ben was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Original Screenplay, for the movie Underworld (1927).

The screenplays he wrote or worked on (many times uncredited) include the following:

Scarface (1932), The Front Page, Twentieth Century (1934), Barbary Coast (1935), Nothing Sacred (1937), Some Like It Hot, Gone with the Wind, Gunga Din, Wuthering Heights (all 1939), His Girl Friday (1940), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), Monkey Business, A Farewell to Arms (1957), Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), and Casino Royale (1967; released after Hecht's death in 1964).

He also provided story ideas for such films as Stagecoach (1939). In 1940, he wrote, produced, and directed Angels Over Broadway.

Six of his movie screenplays were nominated for Academy Awards; two won.

My personal favorite is His Girl Friday. If you've never seen it, try to get it from your library (or watch it online at IMDb). The rapid-fire dialogue is extraordinary. As a police officer, I worked with the media for 16 years, so this movie is even more endearing to me. It's quite evident in this film that Mr. Hecht had an extensive background in journalism.

When Hecht was living in New York in 1926, he received a telegram from a screenwriter friend who had recently moved to L.A. "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around." He traveled to Hollywood, and began his career by writing the screenplay for Underworld, as the sound era had ended.

We know where that landed him!

The 2012 Academy Awards

I'm thrilled that Woody Allen won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award for Midnight in Paris. I blogged about my admiration for the film on Women of Mystery in January.

How wonderful that Christopher Plummer finally gets to take home the Oscar. I loved his acceptance speech the most. Such class!

I'm glad I got to see The Artist, the Best Picture winner. I took my teenage daughter to see it ~ we absolutely loved it. After it ended, I asked her, "Well ~ what do you think for Best Picture? Midnight in Paris, Hugo, or The Artist?" since we had seen and loved all of them, and we knew it would be a tough decision. We were stumped.

A theatre patron on the way in as we were heading out asked if we liked it. Her hesitation, as I've heard from so many others, was that it was a "silent" film. We reassured her that she would enjoy it thoroughly. When you think about it, there is no other way to honor the silent film era but to make a silent film, and in black and white.

During the Oscar telecast, my husband keenly noticed a cameo of Jim Parsons, the extremely talented, multi-award-winning actor who portrays Dr. Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, during an extremely brief video clip of the winning Best Original Song, "Man or Muppet." If you're a fan of the show, you'll love the video -- it's awesome.

Available for a limited time, you can watch the Oscar-winning "Best Animated Short Film," The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. 

For a complete list of winners, click here.

Did you watch the Oscars? Did any of your favorites win? Didn't Angelina Jolie look ridiculous as she awkwardly stood with her right leg sticking out of the slit in her dress while presenting? It didn't take long for @AngiesRightLeg to pop up on Twitter (which currently has more than 13,000 followers).

Astoria/LIC Int'l Film Festival

Later this month, Astoria will host its first annual International Film Festival, from October 22-24, featuring "over 50 indie films from and about England, Hungary, Austrialia, China, Darfur, Ecuaror, Russia, Spain, Bhutan and Cape Town as well as best of every NYC borough's pick."

What a bargain, too; $10 gets you a full-length feature, a short and a supershort; a $75 Superpass gets you in all three days. Daypasses are $35. Events also include readings of screenplays and short stories.

The Discover New York blog lists the Astoria Film Festival as the #1 thing to do in NYC this fall.

All activities will be held at The Secret Theatre, 44-02 23rd St., Long Island City, NYC 11101.

I'm happy to announce that the New York/TriState Sisters in Crime (SinC) will have a session on Saturday, October 23, from 2-4 p.m., where several members will read their work. For information on tickets for that session, visit here. A special thank-you to fellow SinC member Lina Zeldovich for arranging this session with the Festival organizers. Lina has written an awesome article about the Astoria Film Festival at Woman Around Town, including a brief overview of the films. I'm excited to learn that Love in the Age of Dion by writer-filmmaker Phillip Cioffari is among them.

On Wednesday, October 6th, from 4 p.m. - 5:30 p.m., a press conference will be held at the LIC Market ~ (a French cafe with baking on the premises) 21-52 44th Drive. Enjoy a free tasting menu and trailers of festival films, plus an interview with the Film Festival Director Dennis Cieri and the director of The Secret Theatre, Robert Mazda.

For further information or to RSVP, please contact: info (at) astorialicff (dot) com. or visit www.astorialicff.com. If you are interested in helping out, the Festival is looking for volunteers.

The Festival is on Facebook & on Twitter @AstoriaLICff. For a listing of films and events, click here.

Come follow me on Twitter @katcop13.

LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov

On August 18, 1958, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov was published in the United States by G.P. Putnam & Sons. The controversial novel is included on Time's 100 best English language Novels from 1923 to 2005, and is fourth in Modern Library's 1998 list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century.

Nabokov wrote the novel from 1949 to 1955; it was published in France in 1955. It was banned in Paris from 1956-1958.

The review that appeared in September 1958 in The Atlantic Monthly can be found here.

The novel sold 100,000 copies in the first three weeks, the first novel to do so since Gone With the Wind.

Nabokov wrote the screenplay that Stanley Kubrick directed in 1962, starring James Mason as Humbert Humbert. Adrian Lyne directed an adaptation in 1997, starring Jeremy Irons.

Nabokov, who was born in 1899 in St. Petersburg, Russia, died in Switzerland in 1977.

Favorite Movie Dance Scenes

Molly and Andy over at the Bumbles Blog have a Monday Movie Meme, and today's theme is favorite dance scenes.

Play along -- either in your own blog, or leave a comment. Link back to the Bumbles Blog. What's your favorite dance scene?

I love the dance scenes in Saturday Night Fever, Flashdance, Dirty Dancing, but I'm going to list some of my faves that are a little off-beat, but oh-so-fun:

During a talent show at my kids junior high school a couple of years ago, a student recreated this dance from Napoleon Dynamite, and the crowd went wild. People still talk about it. Here's the original:

Pee Wee Herman being threatened in a biker bar, and his last request is a dance:

In order to fully appreciate this scene from 500 Days of Summer, you really should know that he just slept with his girlfriend the night before:

This is probably a popular favorite, but I can't omit it! John Travolta doing what he does best, in Pulp Fiction:

When considering dance scenes, I must slip in this television dance scene, one of my all-time favorites, when Ricky finds out he's going to become a father, in I Love Lucy: