Influencers & Inspiration

Influencers & Inspiration  This a Special Deluxe Version of Influencers & Inspiration to trace how the creation in one particular genre influenced and inspired not only the film, The Sun Also Rises (1957), but so many other works of art, in so many other genres, through-out the decades that followed.  It starts with a book… The Sun Also...

Influencers & Inspiration Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another… ‘The Boss’ (Akim Tamiroff) is more amused than frightened of either Dan McGinty’s (Brian Donlevy) bad sense of fashion or his big, meaty fist, in the Academy Award winning The Great McGinty (1940). Written and directed by Preston Sturges, The Great McGinty...

Influencers & Inspiration Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another… Nurse Lora Hart (Barbara Stanwyck) finally reaches her limit with neglectful and drunken mother, Mrs. Ritchie (Charlotte Merriam), in Night Nurse (1931). A 72 minute, pre-code, crime drama directed by William ‘Wild Bill’ Wellman. It was during the making of...

Influencers & Inspiration Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another… The iconic image of Sheriff Will Kane (Gary Cooper) standing tall and walking alone in High Noon (1952). A performance that earned Cooper his second Academy Award for Best Actor. High Noon (1952) is a western, tense and serious, shot...

Influencers & Inspiration Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another… Peter Warne (Clark Gable) and Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert), on the run and hungry in It Happened One Night (1934). What began as MGM Studios’ attempt to punish Clark Gable ended up making him immortal. MGM loaned the actor out...

Influencers & Inspiration Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another… Hollywood screenwriter, Harry Dawes (Humphrey Bogart), and the poor Spanish dancer, Maria Vargas, meet after her number is over in a nightclub in Madrid. Maria Vargas (Ava Gardner) a poor, stunningly beautiful, Spanish dancer is discovered by an American screenwriter,...

by JoAnn DiVerdi – February 2025 Influencers & Inspiration Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another… Pépé Le Moko (Charles Boyer) and the beautiful Gaby (Hedy Lamarr) obsessed with each other and with the glittering jewels to be found in Algiers (1938). Algiers (1938) tells the tale of French jewel...

Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another… Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Dr. Alec Harvey (Trevor Howard), two married strangers who experience an extraordinary love in the ultra-romantic, lushly photographed Brief Encounter (1945). Brief Encounter (1945) is an English film about two married strangers, Laura Jesson (Celia Johnson) and Dr. Alec...

INFLUENCERS & INSPIRATION Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else's film, inspires another... Kitty (Jean Harlow) and Dan Packard (Wallace Berry) battle it out before their Dinner at Eight (1933). Dinner at Eight (1933) revolves around an impending society dinner and the guests who grapple with scandal and secrets, high, low and sometimes...

INFLUENCERS & INSPIRATION Whereby the influence on set or in the theatre watching someone else’s film, inspires another… Ingrid Bergman During the filming of Notorious (1946), starring Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant, director Alfred Hitchcock had the opportunity to observe an interesting relationship. Bergman, when in Europe in 1945 following VE Day, met the dashing war photographer, Robert...