Hi, everyone! It's me, D.J. from Matte Havoc. Welcome to the first day of the third installment of The LAMBs in the Director’s Chair event! This month we are focusing upon the career of Billy Wilder. His first film credit ever was writing the screenplay in 1929 for the German film Der Teufelsreporter. His skills as a writer did not stop there for he continued to write screenplays all the way through to the late 1970s. However, it was not until the early 1940s when he made an impression in Hollywood as a contract director. His first American film was in 1942 with the film The Major and the Minor. Over the course of the years Billy Wilder had contributed so much to the art of the cinema with numerous films that spans multiple genres including the screwball comedy and the film noir. Over the course of the next three days there will be several articles posted here that have been written by contributing members of the Large Association of Movie Blogs. Each one of them has written about a film, or a number of films, in which Billy Wilder has directed during his career. Now, without further delay, I would like to jump right into the list of contributions that I have received for the first day of the event.Review of Some Like It Hot (1959)
Published on Twenty Four Frames, written by John Greco.
Quite a few people may easily associate the comedy film Some Like It Hot with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. It may also be one of the first films that anyone may think of when they hear the name of Billy Wilder. Here is a review for the 1959 film that was written by John Greco.Tony Curtis revisits Some Like It Hot
Published on Matte Havoc, written by D.J. Heinlein.
Speaking of the classic screwball comedy Some Like It Hot, the film recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. To mark the occasion the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego had invited actor Tony Curtis to revisit the landmark location in September of 2009 to enjoy a walk down memory lane.Review of Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Published on Out Of The Past, written by Jonas.
Within the review of the classic film noir story Sunset Boulevard the author considers an interesting approach on how we could view the movie as a semi-autobiographical film. Jonas was invited as a guest writer for Raquelle's site "Out of the Past" and he did not let anyone down with an intriguing perspective of the film.Review of Double Indemnity (1944)
Published on Foolish Blatherings, written by Branden.
Who knew that Fred MacMurray could perform extremely well in a serious role? It sure surprised me when I first watched the film noir classic Double Indemnity. There is one thing that I know for sure and that would be the performance that Billy Wilder was able to pull out of Mr. MacMurray for the role as the hard nose detective who is determined to tell his story with his last breath.Review of Ball of Fire (1942)
Published on Out Of The Past, written by Raquelle M.
One of the most unique ways to review a film is to break the entire story down into a simplistic cooking recipe. Raquelle was able to do just that by offering a list of ingredients that comprise the brunt of the story for Ball of Fire. I like this idea, and from what I have been told it is not the first time she has ever incorporated the idea of cooking recipes into her reviews.Lucky for us there were a couple of participating LAMB members who have sent me a couple of published articles about Billy Wilder's films that they have posted on their blogs. To keep thing going for the entire three days of the event I am planning on spreading out the links to these articles over the course of the entire event's run.
However, there is no need to worry if you have not yet sent in a link to your Billy Wilder themed articles! It is not too late for LAMB members to participate in this event. I still have a bit of room available for everyone, so please do not hesitate to send it to me by e-mail to mattehavoc (at) gmail (dot) com as soon as possible. Do not forget to visit the original post for the third installment so that you may grab the HTML code for the promotional banners for the event if you have not placed one of them on your blog yet. Make sure to tune into the LAMB site tomorrow morning for the second day of The LAMBs in the Director's Chair event!
