Movies Til Dawn

It's Raymond's birthday and we're about midway through shooting, so Raymond has no time to blog today. Never fear, as his trusty assistants will post on his behalf. Not too much to say, just a few photos of our beloved leader Ray. Eating birthday cake on set, overlooking Central Park (and thinking of Anthony Mann?) Surrounded by his team, taking in a luxurious location at the end of the day. Holding his mini-monitor, guiding the  action during a busy street shoot.  HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAYMOND!

The first official picture of Richard Dreyfuss and Blythe Danner playing Bernie and Ruth Madoff was released by ABC yesterday and was quickly splashed all over the digital print world--Deadline, The Wrap, New York Daily News and--most importantly for me-- Vanity Fair Online.  Why are they most important? Because...come back to find out...   Subscribe in a reader

Yesterday a quite exceptional moment in the field of film studies occurred spontaneously and quite innocently. I posted an interview with Sara Montiel, former wife of director Anthony Mann, and expressed my frustration at not being able to understand her Spanish. Within moments of tweeting my post, film historian and critic Farran Smith Nehme had retweeted it with a 'calling all cars' alert to her many followers, asking for help with the translation. And within the hour, students of the work of one of our finest (and continually underrated) filmmakers had a whole new set of building blocks to play with. This could only happen at this time, in this century, deeply embedded as we are in the connectivity of all cultures. A major thank you to all who participated! It turns out that Anthony Mann was not a violent man as I'd feared was being implied. Indeed, he was apparently gentle, caring and more than a little haunted. The person who helpfully stepped up with the necessa...

Above I've posted a thirty minute documentary about the relationship between Spanish actress/chanteuse Sarita Montiel (Sara Montiel to Hollywood--or is it the other way around?) and her relationship with various lovers, primarily director Anthony Mann (who I posted a very rare interview clip of a week or so ago). Unfortunately, the interview is conducted in Spanish, a language I have absolutely no knowledge of despite taking it in 7th grade. This is beyond frustrating as I have no idea what the hell she's talking about . I've watched it a few times, looking for clues as to the story she's telling. From other sources I've garnered the following info; they met on the movie 'Serenade', a Mario Lanza comeback flop that Mann directed in 1956. They fell in love and Mann, in full fifty-year-old mid-life crisis mode, left his wife for the sultry Montiel (who was twenty-two years younger than him). They married and were together for about seven years when the marri...

Guest bloggers Sam & Kristina here! We are Raymond's assistants on MADOFF, an ABC miniseries about the rise & fall of Bernard L. Madoff. Research on this kind of project is a major undertaking. There is always more to know about the Madoff fraud, always another story. The victims of this enormous Ponzi Scheme are an incredibly varied group, from famous actors like Kevin Bacon and John Malkovich, to nurses in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Each story is as unique as it is heartbreaking. We'll share their stories and other findings from our research in the coming days. For now we'll with start on a relatively light note with... MADOFF IN AMERICA: AN ORIGINAL RAP-DISCO DRAMA Ellen Bernfeld's family was invested with Madoff. We first encountered Ellen through reading her eloquent essay about the failures of the SEC and SIPC in THE CLUB NO ONE WANTED TO JOIN: MADOFF VICTIMS IN THEIR OWN WORDS . Ellen is also a Singer/Songwriter/Performer, creating original mu...

Look what I found. A very rare interview with legendary western/film noir/epic filmmaker Anthony Mann. I didn't know any footage existed of Mann speaking and his manner is not at all what I imagined. Something about his look in photographs (and the fact that his real name was Anton Bundsmann) gave me the impression that he was soft-spoken, a little European in sensibility, conniving in a subtle, continental sort of way. What the hell was I thinking? In spite of the name, he's a real old-school, tough-guy, machismo-styled guy, with a sharp delivery and a smokers voice. This interview was shot in England for a program called 'The Movies' (boy, they put their heads together on that title, didn't they...). It took place after he finished The Heroes Of Telemark' and Mann speaks of wanting to make a film that takes place 'in rooms'--in other words, not 'El Cid' or 'Fall Of The Roman Empire'. He started to make 'A Dandy In Aspic'--the...