BORN ON THIS DAY: EDDIE CANTOR

It is amazing - but Eddie Cantor is now 120 years old. Many younger people do not appreciate the talent of Cantor and how popular he was in the 1930s. The lack of recognition for him could be because of the blackface routine he incorporated into many of his numbers, or it could be the songs and musical numbers themselves that may seem dated to audiences in 2012. Cantor, like Al Jolson, was a masterful entertainer that could truly capitivate crowds.

Cantor was born Edward Israel Iskowitz on January 31, 1892 in New York City, the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Meta and Mechel Iskowitz. His mother died in childbirth one year after his birth, and his father died of pneumonia when Eddie was two, leaving him to be raised by his beloved grandmother, Esther Kantrowitz. As a child, he attended Surprise Lake Camp. A misunderstanding when signing her grandson for school gave him her last name of Kantrowitz (shortened by the clerk to Kanter). Esther died on January 29, 1917, two days before he signed a long-term contract with Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. to appear in his Follies.

He had adopted the first name "Eddie" when he met his future wife Ida Tobias in 1903, because she felt that "Izzy" wasn't the right name for an actor. Cantor married Ida in 1914. They (famously) had five daughters, Marjorie, Natalie, Edna, Marilyn and Janet, who provided comic fodder for Cantor's longtime running gag, especially on radio, about his five unmarriageable daughters. Several radio historians, including Gerald Nachman (Raised on Radio), have said that this gag did not always sit well with the girls.

He was the second president of the Screen Actors Guild, serving from 1933-1935. He invented the title "The March of Dimes" for the donation campaigns of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which was organized to combat polio. It was a play on the March of Time newsreels popular at the time. He began the first campaign on his own radio show in January 1938, asking people to mail a dime to the nation's most famous assumed polio victim, President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Other entertainers joined in the appeal via their own shows, and the White House mail room was deluged with 2,680,000 dimes.

Following the death of daughter Marjorie at the age of 44, both Eddie's and Ida's health declined rapidly. Ida died in August 1962 of "cardiac insufficiency". On October 10, 1964 in Beverly Hills, California, Eddie Cantor suffered another heart attack and died, aged 72. He is buried in Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery. Cantor was awarded an honorary Academy Award the year of his death, for distinguished service to the film industry...

CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER: TALKING OSCAR

Christopher Plummer: Talking Oscar and Aging in Hollywood
By Cindy Pearlman

Raindrops on roses. Whiskers on kittens.

Bah humbug, says Christopher Plummer.

Of course, he has the inside track on silver white winters that melt into springs – but Captain Von Trapp himself has always had "an issue" with the screen classic.

At age 82, he's tired of being stalked.

By a movie.

"I don't hate that film, but it follows me around. That's the problem," he confides.

On a sunny winter afternoon, the Oscar nominee for "Beginners" is talking about his screen classic "The Sound of Music" where he famously played Captain Von Trapp.

"There's nothing I detest about it," he says. "I mean, it's a very well made film.

"But a musical is not always my cup of tea. It always brings the house down when I say those words," he says. "Sure, I may say a few other off color remarks every now and then about 'Sound of Music,' too.

"When I went on Oprah, she said, 'There's got to be a naughty guy around to look at the bad side of things when it comes to that musical.' I said, 'You got him,'" he says with glee.

Plummer is determined, even at his age, to make sure there is alternatives to watching him harmonize across the alps.

He stars in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo: where he plays Henrik Vanger.

Then there is the matter of awards season. He just won a Golden Globe for a movie you might have missed. In the must rent film "Beginners," he plays Hal, a man in his 70s who has harbored a lifelong secret that he tells once his wife of several decades passes away. Hal is gay.

A few years before dying of terminal cancer, Hal comes out to his grown son (Ewan McGregor) and enjoys his last moments with great gusto and truth.

"What drew me to this role was that the character was so present and real," Plummer says. "This is a man without any self pity. And there was no message about being gay or being straight.

"The message of the movie is that a person can become enthusiastic at the end of his or her life rather than regretful," Plummer says.

"I thought there is great hope in that way of thinking," he says.

AGING ON SCREEN

Plummer says that his age means that most scripts sent his way have the inevitable wrenching death scene.

"They always want the old guy to die miserably," he whoops. "But in 'Beginners,' I found that it was such a hopeful way to die. The idea is that you can actually die happily and achieve what you're put on earth to do."

"I think that's a miracle," he says.

Ask him about his evergreen sex symbol status and he seems stunned. "Oh please, I don't know about that, but that's a very nice idea. I'll work on it. It will be a goal for my 90s."

Self-involved young stars? Don't run them by this screen legend.

"Dammit, I don't want the world to ever see me or know me as a star," he cries.

"What's so wonderful about me? That's what I tell younger actors. I say, 'Lose yourself in the role. Don't even show me anything about you. What's so wonderful about you?'"

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE

Born in 1929, Plummer grew up in Toronto and Quebec. He is the great grandson of former Canadian Prime Minister Sir John Abbott.

As a young boy and teenager, he concentrated on being a concert pianist.

He was a contract player for 20th Century Fox and made his small screen debut in 1953 in the series "Studio One in Hollywood." He concentrated on TV work until making his screen debut in 1958 in "Stage Stuck" and then played Commodus in "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964).

Plummer starred opposite Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" (1965). Despite everything he has already said, he has a soft place for the movie.

"I'm grateful to the movie. It made me well known," he says.

As for Oscar nominations, he says, "I truly think being nominated as one of the best four or five performances of a year is the win," he says. "But it's not the reason most of us are in the business. If awards come, they come."

When he's not working, Plummer and his wife Elaine live with their dogs on a 30-acre estate in Weston, Connecticut.

He doesn't sit in his den fretting about aging.

"We're supposed to be a lot younger now than the number dictate," he says. "I hear that 80 is really the new 60. But many of my 60 year old friends look like they're 80."

"Why do I say these things?" he interjects with a hearty laugh.

As for keeping strong, he says, "I walk. I never run. I play tennis and workout about twice a week.

"That's about it," she says. "Doing the job is what really keeps me in shape."

He might work with a few of them because he plans to never retire.

In fact, that's a dirty word to him. "We don't do that in our business," he says

"I never want to stop acting. It keeps me feeling young and it certainly ain't a chore.

"I also need the money. We all need the money these days, dammit," he says, laughing.

But he has another reason why he will never leave acting. "I've always thought of acting as the most romantic of escapes," he says.

SOURCE

MOVIE REVIEW: CITY LIGHTS

Only Charlie Chaplin could be bold enough to film a silent movie during the heyday of sound in the early 1930s. By 1931, audiences wanted to hear Al Jolson sing in a movie or hear Boris Karloff groan as Frankenstein's monster. Although "talking" pictures were on the rise since 1928, City Lights was immediately popular. Today, it is thought of as one of the highest accomplishments of Chaplin's prolific career. Although classified as a comedy, City Lights has an ending widely regarded as one of the most moving in cinema history.

As in other Chaplin movies, each scene has an element of slapstick in it, using the comic scenes in a symbolic way. The opening scene uses funny sounds to depict the important mayor and his wife who are smiling and talking emphatically before the crowd. The revelation of the monument before the acting crowd, is actually the revelation of the tramp, the well-known Charlie Chaplin, before the movie-going crowd.

The Tramp, in every scene, barely escapes disaster of which he is completely unaware. Via the comic scenes, the Tramp is shown to be short, dirty and sloppy. His life is contrasted with good food, clean clothing, a large house, and comfortable and clean chairs, couches and beds. He is shown to be fearful of looking at or even dreaming of a better life.

In each encounter with the blind girl, played superbly by Virginia Cherrill (1908-1996), she unknowingly manages to bash the Tramp, throwing water in his face, dropping a flower pot on his head etc. He also shows the hardships and many times unbearable conditions of the lower class, via comedy, when the Tramp chooses to sweep the streets or sets himself up in the boxing ring. In the final scene, he happens to look in to the flower store, in a clear analogy to part of the opening scene where he is afraid to peer at the model doll of a woman in a dress shop.

Slapstick is also used to show how the Tramp unknowingly insults and sometimes openly attacks various institutions and people, from mocking the mayor and police to bashing the stuck up butler or the snoopy neighbor.

Chaplin's feature The Circus, released in 1928, was his last film before the motion picture industry embraced sound recording and brought the silent movie era to a close. As his own producer and distributor (part owner of United Artists), Chaplin could still conceive City Lights as a silent film. Technically the film was a crossover, as its soundtrack had synchronized music, sound effects, and some unintelligible sounds that copied speech pattern films. The dialogue was presented on intertitles.

As a filmmaker, Chaplin was known for being a perfectionist; he was notable for doing many more "takes" than other directors at the time. At one point he fired Virginia Cherrill and began re-filming with Georgia Hale, Chaplin's co-star in The Gold Rush. This proved too expensive, so he re-hired Cherrill to finish City Lights. (Approximately seven minutes of test footage of Hale survives and is included on the DVD release; excerpts were first seen in the documentary Unknown Chaplin along with an unused opening sequence from the film.)

When Chaplin completed the film, silent films had become generally unpopular but City Lights was one of the great financial and artistic successes of Chaplin's career, and it was his personal favorite of his films. Especially fond of the final scene, he said, "[I]n City Lights just the last scene … I’m not acting …. Almost apologetic, standing outside myself and looking … It’s a beautiful scene, beautiful, and because it isn’t over-acted."

Some interesting trivia about the film: Charles Chaplin re-shot the scene in which the Little Tramp buys a flower from the blind flower-girl 342 times, as he could not find a satisfactory way of showing that the blind flower-girl thought that the mute tramp was wealthy. In terms of years, this film was Charles Chaplin's longest undertaking. It was in production from 31 December 1927 - 22 January 1931, over three years. It shot for only 180 days, though. At the beginning of the film, a town official and a woman dedicating the statue can be heard uttering nondescript words by way of a paper reed mouth instrument. The sounds were made by Charles Chaplin and this was the first time that his voice was heard on film.

On a personal note, it is one of my favorite Chaplin movies, and I recommend it to any young person wanting to experience a silent film. The key to a great silent movie is for it to draw the audience in to such an extent that one forgets they are watching a silent movie. City Lights is just that type of a movie...

my rating: 10 out of 10

25 THINGS YOU DID NOT KNOW ABOUT HEPBURN AND TRACY

25 Things You Didn't Know About The Katharine Hepburn And Spencer Tracy Movies
by Gary Susman

Fans of classic movies know that "Woman of the Year" marks the beginning of the 25-year partnership, on- and off-screen, between one of film's most beloved and enduring couples: Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

Released 70 years ago this month, "Woman of the Year" came to define combustible romantic chemistry, thanks to the two fiery, evenly-matched leads. It launched a partnership that lasted until Tracy's death in 1967, a quarter-century union that resulted in nine films and an extramarital affair that was Hollywood's worst kept secret.

What fans may not know is how the partnership came to be, who the real-life inspirations were for Hepburn's high-minded columnist and Tracy's earthy sportswriter, or the forgotten screen pairing of the two stars that came four years earlier. Read on for the untold story of "Woman of the Year" and its long afterlife in the realms of Broadway, TV, and magazines.

1. "Woman of the Year" was not actually Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn's first on-screen pairing. That forgotten milestone occurred when they were both cartoon caricatures who were pictured together in the Silly Symphony cartoon "Mother Goose Goes Hollywood" in 1938.

2. The screenwriters had Clark Gable in mind for the male lead of "Woman of the Year," but then MGM player Spencer Tracy became available. He'd been committed to a production of "The Yearling" that suddenly fell through. (It would be made a few years later, with Gregory Peck in the lead.)

3. Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who was producing the movie, introduced the two stars on the MGM lot. In her memoir, Hepburn recalled that she was wearing high heels at the time and said, "I'm afraid I'm a bit too tall for you, Mr. Tracy." Mankiewicz replied, "Don't worry, Kate, he'll cut you down to size."

4. Hepburn had been a Hollywood star for a decade, yet "Woman of the Year" was one of the first movies to play up her sex appeal, thanks to the MGM team of Adrian (costumes), Sydney Guilaroff (hair) and Jack Dawn (makeup).

5. Actor/director/playwright Garson Kanin came up with the initial story idea, but in 1941, he was drafted into the Army, so he farmed out the screnwriting duties to his younger brother, Michael Kanin, and fellow screenwriter Ring Lardner, Jr.

6. The inspiration for foreign affairs columnist Tess Harding was real-life journalist Dorothy Thompson, well known to Americans as a columnist and radio pundit, and generally considered the second most-respected woman in America at the time -- after Eleanor Roosevelt.

7. The apparent inspiration for Sam Craig was Lardner's father, Ring Lardner Sr., who had been a nationally syndicated sportswriter, one who is still famous today for his short stories.

8. With the help of Hepburn (a friend of Garson Kanin's), Michael Kanin and Lardner sold their screenplay to MGM in a record-breaking deal, for $211,000. $100,000 of that was for the screenplay, another $100,000 was for Hepburn's services as star. Hepburn took another $10,000 for her agent and pocketed the last $1,000 for her expenses.

9. Much was made at the time of the screenwriters' relative youth. Lardner was just 26. Kanin was 31.

10. Hepburn suggested MGM borrow George Stevens from rival studio RKO to direct. He'd already directed her twice, in 1935's "Alice Adams" and 1937's "Quality Street."

11. The movie initially ended with the couple trying to reconcile by walking a mile in each other's shoes: she tries to cover a boxing match, while he tries to learn French and Spanish. The ending was scrapped after a test screening. There was a sense that Tess didn't get enough of a come-uppance, though whether that sense came from viewers or from MGM brass taken aback by such a strong proto-feminist character, Lardner never knew. The revised ending, in which Tess tries to cook Sam a breakfast but proves hopelessly inept in the kitchen, certainly seemed to put Tess in her place; Lardner grumbled that the new ending undid all the effort the rest of the movie had made in establishing Tess as a confident, competent, and independent woman.

12. The film marked the first major screen roles of frequent TV character actor Dan Tobin (Tess' annoying assistant, Gerald Howe) and "Life of Riley" star William Bendix (bartender Pinkie Peters).

13. MGM publicity materials for the movie called Hepburn "Kate the Great," a nickname that stuck for the rest of her career.

14. The movie was nominated for two Oscars. Hepburn earned a nod for Best Actress, while Lardner and Kanin won the Academy Award for their screenplay.

15. Tracy and Hepburn reprised their roles in a half-hour radio drama version in 1943, on "Screen Guild Theatre." It was their only joint radio appearance.

16. Michael Kanin went on to earn another Oscar nomination, along with wife Fay Kanin, for the original screenplay of 1958's "Teacher's Pet," in which Kanin finally got to write a part for Gable.

17. Garson Kanin had been in love with Hepburn when he came up with the story idea for "Woman of the Year" that he passed along to his brother. He had even wanted to marry the actress, though she seems not to have shared his feelings. A few months after the movie's release, Kanin married writer and future Oscar-winning actress Ruth Gordon. The couple went on to write two movies for Tracy and Hepburn: "Adam's Rib" (1949) and "Pat and Mike" (1952). In 1971, Kanin wrote a book about working with the couple, "Tracy and Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir." He and Gordon were married nearly 43 years, until her death in 1985.

18. Producer Mankiewicz, who introduced Tracy and Hepburn, became an acclaimed writer/director of such films as "A Letter to Three Wives" and "All About Eve." Two decades after serving as the catalyst for the long-running Tracy-Hepburn affair, he was responsible for pairing an even more notorious, adulterous Hollywood couple when he cast Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in his epic "Cleopatra."

19. Stevens remained one of Hollywood's A-list directors, peaking in the 1950s with such landmarks as "A Place in the Sun," "Shane," and "Giant." Curiously, despite their more than pleasant experience working with him on "Woman of the Year," neither Tracy nor Hepburn ever made another film with Stevens.

20. Lardner's career was derailed in the late 1940s by the Hollywood blacklist. He was one of the Hollywood 10, the best-known group of blacklistees; like the others in the group, he served a year in prison for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation of erstwhile Communists working in Hollywood. After his release, Lardner continued to write without credit, mostly for television. His name didn't appear in a movie's credits for 16 years, until 1965's Steve McQueen drama "The Cincinnati Kid." In 1970, he wrote the screenplay for Robert Altman's groundbreaking film version of "M*A*S*H." His work adapting Richard Hooker's novel earned him his second Oscar, 28 years after his first.

21. In the 1970s, McCall's magazine created a Woman of the Year award. Hepburn was its first winner.

22. A 1976 TV movie version of "Woman of the Year" starred real-life couple Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna

23. "Woman of the Year" was adapted into a 1981 Broadway musical, with songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb (of "Chicago" and "Cabaret" fame) and a book by Peter Stone ("1776," "Titanic"). It starred Harry Guardino and Lauren Bacall, who won a Best Actress Tony for her performance. The showran for two years, with Raquel Welch, then Debbie Reynolds taking over the lead.

24. The musical was filmed for TV in 1984, starring Barbara Eden and Don Chastain.

25. The first meeting of Tracy and Hepburn, as they began work on "Woman of the Year," was dramatized in Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator" in 2004. Kevin O'Rourke played Tracy, alongside Cate Blanchett's Oscar-winning turn as Hepburn.

SOURCE

PHOTOS OF THE DAY: THE CLASSIC STARS READ

Sometimes it is hard to believe that movie stars do anything more than looking in the mirror and admiring themselves. However, most of the classic Hollywood stars were much deeper than the public ever knew. Here are some great pictures of classic Hollywood stars reading, whether it be a script or a good book, it is still interesting...


DEAN MARTIN

LILLIAN GISH

MARILYN MONROE

PETER LORRE

DAVID NIVEN

MARLON BRANDO

RIP: ETTA JAMES

Etta James, whose assertive, earthy voice lit up such hits as "The Wallflower," "Something's Got a Hold on Me" and the wedding favorite "At Last," has died, according to her longtime friend and manager, Lupe De Leon. She was 73.

She died from complications from leukemia with her husband, Artis Mills, and her sons by her side, De Leon said. She was diagnosed with leukemia in 2010, and also suffered from dementia and hepatitis C. James died at a hospital in Riverside, California. She would have turned 74 Wednesday. " This is a tremendous loss for the family, her friends and fans around the world," De Leon said. "She was a true original who could sing it all -- her music defied category.

"I worked with Etta for over 30 years. She was my friend and I will miss her always."

The powerhouse singer, known as "Miss Peaches," lived an eventful life. She first hit the charts as a teenager, taking "The Wallflower (Roll With Me, Henry)" -- an "answer record" to Hank Ballard's "Work With Me, Annie" -- to No. 1 on the R&B charts in 1955. She joined Chess Records in 1960 and had a string of R&B and pop hits, many with lush string arrangements. After a mid-decade fade, she re-emerged in 1967 with a more hard-edged, soulful sound.

Throughout her career, James overcame a heroin addiction, opened for the Rolling Stones, won six Grammys and was voted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Despite her ups and downs -- including a number of health problems -- she maintained an optimistic attitude.

"Most of the songs I sing, they have that blue feeling to it. They have that sorry feeling. And I don't know what I'm sorry about," she told CNN's Denise Quan in 2002. "I don't!"

Through it all, she was a spitfire beloved by contemporaries and young up-and-comers.

"Etta James is unmanageable, and I'm the closest thing she's ever had to a manager," Lupe DeLeon, her manager of 30-plus years, told CNN in admiration.

Etta James was born Jamesetta Hawkins in Los Angeles to a teen mother and unknown father. (She suspected her father was the pool player Minnesota Fats.)Her birth mother initially took little responsibility and James was raised by a series of people, notably a pair of boardinghouse owners. But she was recognized from a young age for her booming voice, showcased in a South Central Los Angeles church.

In 1950, her mother took her to San Francisco, where James formed a group called the Peaches. Singer Johnny Otis, best known for "Willie and the Hand Jive," discovered her and had her sing a song he wrote using Ballard's tune as a model. "The Wallflower," with responses from "Louie Louie" songwriter Richard Berry, made James an R&B star.

Her signing to Chess introduced her to a broader audience, as the record label's co-owner, Leonard Chess, believed she should do pop hits. Among her recordings were "Stormy Weather," the Lena Horne classic originally from 1933; "A Sunday Kind of Love," which dates from 1946; and most notably, "At Last," a 1941 number that was originally a hit for Glenn Miller.

James' version of "At Last" starts out with swooning strings and the singer enters with confident gusto, dazzlingly maintaining a mood of joy and romance. Though the song failed to make the Top 40 upon its 1961 release -- though it did hit the R&B Top 10 -- its emotional punch has long made it a favorite at weddings.

James' career suffered in the mid-'60s when the British Invasion took over the pop charts and as she fought some personal demons. But she got a boost when she started recording at Rick Hall's FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Her hits included the brassy "Tell Mama" and the raw "I'd Rather Go Blind," the latter later notably covered by Rod Stewart.

She entered rehab in the 1970s for her drug problem but re-established herself with live performances and an album produced by noted R&B mastermind Jerry Wexler. After another stint in rehab -- this time at the Betty Ford Clinic -- she made a comeback album, "Seven Year Itch," in 1988.

James mastered a range of styles -- from R&B and soul to jazz and blues -- but she was always one step behind the popular genre of the day, said Michael Coyle, a Colgate University professor who has written about jazz and R&B and reviews records for Cadence Magazine.

"She never really got her moment in the sun," Coyle said.

But James soldiered on, and by the end of her life she had made so much meaningful music that she was considered a living legend. "By the mid-'90s, she's survived so long that people start to look up to her," Coyle said.

James was portrayed by pop star Beyonce in the 2008 film "Cadillac Records," about Chess. After Beyonce sang "At Last" at one of President Barack Obama's 2009 inaugural balls, James lashed out: "I can't stand Beyonce. She had no business up there singing my song that I've been singing forever." She later told the New York Daily News she was joking.

Earlier this year, news reports revealed that the singer's estate was being contested in a legal struggle between her husband, Artis Mills, and son Donto James. (Donto and her other son, Sametto, both played in her band.)

Over the years, James had her share of health problems. In the late 1990s she reportedly weighed more than 400 pounds and required a scooter to get around. In 2003 she had gastric bypass surgery and dropped more than half the weight, according to People magazine.

However, until her latest issues, James maintained a steady touring schedule and appeared full of energy even when sitting down -- as she sometimes did on stage, due to bad knees and her weight battles.

Even while sitting down, James gave it her all on stage, singing as though possessed, caressing every note like a long-lost love. If that seemed a little much to critics, well, the legendary singer had a show to put on, she told Quan.

"They said that Etta James is still vulgar," she said in the 2002 interview. "I said, 'Oh, how dare 'em say I'm still real vulgar! I'm vulgar because I dance in the chair?' What would they want me to do? Want me to just be still or something like that?

"I gotta do something."

SOURCE

WINGS AND ITS RESTORATION

Silent Classic 'Wings' lands a restoration celebration
By Susan King

One of the favorites for a best picture Oscar nomination this year is the black-and-white silent French film "The Artist." And if the story about the infancy of talkies in Hollywood does earn the top Academy Award, "The Artist" will be the first silent to win the honor since the very first best picture winner, 1927's World War I epic "Wings," directed by William Wellman. In honor of the 85th anniversary of "Wings" and the centennial of Paramount Pictures, the studio that produced the classic, the film starring Buddy Rogers, Richard Arlen, Clara Bow and a young Gary Cooper has been digitally restored. It is making its long-awaited debut on DVD and Blu-ray on Jan. 24.

On Wednesday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will be unveiling this new restoration, which includes the original color tints as well as sequences that used an early color process called Handschliegl. The process had been used in the black-and-white film to highlight gunfire and flames from the planes. Clark Wilson will provide live organ accompaniment.

Produced for what was then a staggering $2 million, "Wings" changed the landscape of filmmaking with its masterful aerial and battle sequences that featured thousands of real soldiers as extras. Rogers and Arlen play small town rivals who become fighter aces and friends during the Great War; Bow is the girl who loves Rogers. Though Cooper has a tiny part as a doomed pilot, he was so impressive that his appearance made him a star.

Academy programmer Randy Haberkamp said, " 'Wings' is a reminder of not only where we came from, but how visual storytelling is still the essence of great movies. 'Wings' was a blockbuster in the same sense of 'Avatar' and 'Star Wars.' It was screened with live sound effects and full orchestra in Magnascope, a precursor to Imax, and all of these amazingly photographed live stunts, pre-CGI, that had everybody in the seat of the cockpit."

"Wings" had been photochemically restored by preservationist/historian Kevin Brownlow, as well as by the Academy Film Archive. Andrea Kalas, vice president of archives at Paramount, worked closely with the academy and Brownlow on the restorations.

The original nitrate negative and early material had long disappeared, so Paramount searched the world for the best remaining elements, finally finding the most comprehensive print — a duplicate negative made from a nitrate print in the late 1950s — in its own vaults.

"Working with Technicolor, I think we brought the picture back to something that really honors the film," Kalas said.

The DVD will have sound effects created by Oscar-winning sound designer Ben Burtt and his team at Skywalker Sound, as well as the original orchestral score.

The director's actor/writer son William Wellman Jr. was very involved in the restoration and was a participant in the bonus features for the DVD. When he first saw the new restoration, "I could hardly speak when I came out of the theater," he said, adding that the color sequences "had a whole new look to the picture."

Paramount heads Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky had been in preproduction on the film for four months before Wellman was hired to direct. It was B.P. Schulberg, head of production, who recommended the 30-year-old Wellman because he was the only Paramount director under contract who had battle experience. Wellman had been a decorated fighter pilot during World War I.

"He had seen all the action that was going to be shown in 'Wings,'" his son said. "There had been plenty of films about World War I, but no one had ever made a movie about the Great War in the air."

After two months on location in San Antonio, William Wellman, whose feisty personality earned him the nickname "Wild Bill," rankled the Paramount brass when he threw out two months of flying sequences he had shot. "It looked terrible," his son said. So his father and the crew "had to invent and create the technology for the aerial effects in the movie. He wanted it to be so real, especially since he had lived it."

SOURCE