Category: Film History
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Ambition, Lust & Murder: A Place in the Sun & The Big Moose Lake Murder
On July 11th 1906, two lovers went out in a row boat on Big Moose Lake, Herkimer County, upstate New York. Only one of them got safely to the shore. And the legacy of this crime still echoes through to today, through one of the most memorable movies of the 1950s. Chester Gillette, an educated,…
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The Omen’s darkest story
There is something profoundly unsettling about Gregory Peck’s performance in The Omen (1976) when you know what had happened in his real life just months before filming began. In June 1975, Peck’s eldest son, Jonathan, died by suicide. Peck was devastated by the loss and later spoke of the profound grief and guilt that followed…
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Charles R Jackson and His Lost Weekends
While the movie version of The Lost Weekend reaped in the plaudits amongst the critics, viewers, and even the Academy – with Ray Milland being the first Welshman to win an Oscar for his role as the alcoholic writer Don Birnam – the author of the source novel could be considered, undeservedly, forgotten. Charles R Jackson had…
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Why I Write About the Golden Age of Hollywood
Celluloid and the City is an independent film blog dedicated to classic cinema, overlooked Hollywood lives, and the emotional undercurrents that run beneath the golden age of film. Rather than traditional reviews or star ratings, this site focuses on how films feel — their atmosphere, their silences, and the moments that linger long after the…