Universal Noir #2 : Limited Edition book and blu-ray set.

October 23rd sees the release of Powerhouse’s Universal Noir #2 box set, a set of six film noirs, all released on blu-ray in the UK for the first time, and, featuring my essay on the glorious Deanna Durbin and the noir detective musical Lady on a Train which I discussed previously below, now promoted from DVD booklet essay, to being featured alongside other essays in an accompanying a 120 page book.  Limited to 6,000 individually numbered copies, it’s available to pre-order now.

The set covers six Hollywood films from Universal Studios Lady on a Train (1945, starring Deanna Durbin, written by Leslie Chateris), Time Out of Mind (1947, dir.Robert Siodmak, starring Phyllis Calvert), A Woman’s Vengeance (1948, Korda, Ann Blyth, written by Aldous Huxley), An Act of Murder (1948, starring Fredric March), Singapore (1947, John Brahm, Ava Gardner, Fred McMurray) and The Lady Gambles (1949, Barbra Stanwyk). Other special features include new

New book: Movie Star Fan Clubs and Desire by Design

I have a chapter in a new book Stars Fan Magazines and Audiences: Desire by Design, to be released June 16th by Edinburgh University Press – I’ve just received my advance copy and very chic it is too – lots of inline colour photographs and reproductions of the film fan magazines the essay discusses. Plus it was great to be able to work alongside the editors Tamar, Lies and Sarah. My chapter is on 1940s British Film Star Fan Club Magazines, and is written with Phyll Smith.

Thirteen original chapters on movie magazines analysing their visual aspects

• Contents include sections on individual issues, regular features, and adjunct publications
• As well as visuals, topics covered include stardom, gender, censorship, nationality, performance, language
• Includes detailed studies of magazines from the US, UK, France, Chile, and Poland

Stars, Fan Magazines and Audiences focuses on movie magazines, publications first produced in 1911 for movie fans in the United States, but soon reaching movie fans on a global scale. Bringing together scholars from different disciplinary and international contexts, this collection considers fan magazines as objects of material and visual history.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: a trip to the New Beverly

I finally got to realise a long standing dream – to go to one of THE ultimate repertory cinemas  – The New Beverly!

What is this place I hear you cry? It’s a Los Angeles and cinema institution and a Mecca for serious film lovers. Since 2007, it has been owned by director and cinephile Quentin Tarantino and you can tell. Its a one screen space with such a small but well-stocked lobby you have to join the snaking queue on the street outside, under the retro marquee, before a show starts. The film programmes are carefully curated, and they produce extremely desirable/collectable monthly fliers advertising their months screenings and there’s a strict audience code (more on this later). Going to ‘The Beverly’ isn’t just watching a film, its an experience. Check out the website here

I was thrilled that two of my students also chose to come and experience a late night horror double bill with me, not just because I’m a massive wimp, but because I wanted them to encounter repertory cinema at its best.

We got in, stocked up on pop corn, soda and vegan hot dogs (hell yeah!) and grabbed a seat. The buzz in the modest auditorium was great. Lots of folks were clearly regulars and knew the staff and each other.  every single seat was taken.  It was glorious.

Shortly before the lights dimmed and we were treated to a Tom and Jerry cartoon, retro adverts that made the audience sigh with nostalgia and two horror classics, a gentleman took to the front of the auditorium and instructed us that all phones were not only to be silences but switched OFF. If they flashed and disrupted others screening experience you would be asked to leave. I panicked and removed my smart watch, just in case!

When the show finished, I emerged onto the muggy LA streets in the early hours, dazed, shattered and very happy. I loved it.

I’m ready for my close up….

I was really please to see that a documentary I was involved in during the lockdown has been released and is available to watch on the Paramount+ channel.

Made by an excellent team at Zinc Media, the documentary, 1939: Secrets of Hollywood’s Golden Year is a two part documentary series that discusses why 1939 was so important a year for the American film industry.

I had the opportunity to talk, on-camera, about classic 1939 films such as Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind, celebrated directors such as John Ford and legendary screen performers such as Bette Davis and Cary Grant. I was in my element!

Marilyn Monroe™

I’m very pleased to be giving a paper on anniversary invocations of Marylin Monroe at the BAFTSS 2023 Conference in Lincoln this month as part of a panel on Stars, costume and Make-up, chaired by Llewella Chapman.

Abstract:

Ellen Wright – Marilyn Monroe™:  The problematic promotional politics of sex aids, biopics and borrowed dresses.  

This paper will examine the complex ethical politics of utilising a deceased star’s ‘brand’, considering the specific example of the product marketing for the Womanizer Marilyn Monroe™ clitoral stimulator.   

Monroe’s persona, with its explicit focus on feminine performativity, is a multifaceted one. Whilst frequently discussed as a figure of female empowerment, her acute vulnerability is also a key element within this star’s public persona, with recent reappraisals centring upon Monroe as a victim of sexual and symbolic violence, labouring within a harmful patriarchal industry and larger cultural context.   

Furthermore, this year Monroe’s image has twice re-entered the public sphere, firstly, with the loaning of her nude illusion gown, famously worn to sing happy birthday to John F Kennedy, to the celebrity socialite Kim Kardashian and secondly, due to release of the speculative and deeply controversial Netflix quasi-biopic Blonde (2022). These instances have prompted vociferous debate around what constitutes appropriate and/or respectful use of her image.   

This paper will examine the rhetorical means through which Monroe has been strategically deployed in the marketing of this unique product. Whilst her famously unabashed embrace of her natural sexuality and sex appeal (“What do I wear in bed? Chanel No.5.”) is clearly being co-opted into contemporary, popular and extremely profitable understandings of body and sex positivity, her star image has been appropriated by and attached to a vast array of products and services over the years, so just how problematic, if at all, is this product and its marketing?  

The panel will be no. 2.3 on the afternoon of day one of the conference (Monday the 3rd of April) from 2.30 to 4pm in room ATB0107.  The full panel line up consists of:

2.3 Stars, costume, make-up

CHAIR: Llewella Chapman

Abigail Whittall  ‘Examining Guillermo Del Toro’s Monsters: Labour, Visibility and the Practical Effects Makeup Actor’;

Ellen Wright ‘Marilyn Monroe™:  The problematic promotional politics of sex aids, biopics and borrowed dresses’;

Richard Farmer ‘‘Bridal outfits from the heart of filmland’: Clothes rationing, wartime film production and Gainsborough Pictures’ Studio Hire Service’

The Singing Detective: My essay for Powerhouse Films on Lady on a Train

Early in 2023 I was approached to write the accompanying booklet essay for a new DVD/Blu-ray box set of Film Noirs produced by Universal studios for the Powerhouse Films Indicator series ( https://www.powerhousefilms.co.uk/ )

The series consists of a number of classics and more overlooked films curated into collections and available in beautifully presented box sets with excellent additional materials, such as relevant imagery, reproductions of promotional materials and essays by film experts, such as myself

I love Durbin’s earlier noir offering Christmas Holiday (1944, starring Gene Kelly as villain!) Lady on a Train (1945) was a film I had only seen once, so I enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with it before constructing my essay.

I’ve previously published work on Durbin’s fan club and its club magazine and on the marketing of female investigator narratives as a sub cycle within Film Noir, so really enjoyed producing this piece of work.  Even better, the tone needed to be a little more informal than a standard piece of academic writing,  much more akin to writing a blog, so it was really good fun!

I’m now very much looking forward to the release of the box set and seeing my essay in situ and alongside the other films and essays in the box set.

I have my first book contract!

I’m very excited to say that I have signed the contract for my first academic monograph!

The book considers text & context, exploring how audiences’ understanding of Hollywood (as both a site & an idea) is, & always has been, mediated through photography. Called Shooting Stars: Intimacy, identity & ideology in Hollywood photography, it explores the interaction of gender, race, sexuality, place & space in photographs of the US film industry & its stars. It is due for submission to Routledge as part of their ‘Advances in Film Studies’ series in January 2025.

A Room of One’s Own

I’m pleased to say that my chapter on teaching Tommy Wisseau’s The Room, ‘I Just Like to Watch You Guys: How screenings of The Room give people permission to perform’ has just been included in a new book You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!: The Year’s Work on The Room, the Worst Movie Ever Made published by University of Indiana Press, edited by Adam M. Rosen

“When released in 2003, The Room, an obscure, self-financed relationship drama by an eccentric self-taught filmmaker named Tommy Wiseau, should have been completely forgotten. Yet nearly two decades later, “the worst movie ever made”—as many a critic would have it—has become the most popular cult film since The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

“In You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa!, contributors explore this priceless cultural artifact, offering fans and film buffs critical insight into the movie’s various meanings, historical context, and place in the cult canon. Even if by complete accident, The Room touches on many issues of modern concern, including sincerity, authenticity, badness, artistic value, gender relations, Americanness, Hollywood conventions, masculinity, and even the meaning of life.

“Revealing the timeless, infamous power of Wiseau’s The Room, You Are Tearing Me Apart, Lisa! is a deeply entertaining deconstruction of an original work of all-American failure.”

Marilyn: A sombre anniversary of an enduring icon

The 4th of August marked the 60th anniversary of the death of blonde bombshell, Marilyn Monroe, at just 36 years old – and this morning I was asked by BBC Radio Scotland to give a brief resume of the stars’ career and continuing appeal and relevance, on Good Morning Scotland with Gillian Sharpe.  Just ten minutes to talk about the acting range and business acumen of Marilyn, alongside Michelle Morgan, former president of the Marilyn Monroe fan club and author of Marilyn: Private and Undisclosed and Before Marilyn – a tall order! Enjoy!

The interview is available on BBC sounds (above) and comes in at the 1 hour 50 min point, the final segment of the of the show – click on the image above for a link.

The Misfit: Monroe’s dress, and the ethics of exhibiting Hollywood ephemera

 

Tracked by a blinding spotlight, Marilyn Monroe trotted across the otherwise dark, cavernous stage to wolf whistles and cheers; a huge bubble of white-blonde hair and wrapped in a white ermine stole, she wiggled her way to the podium to reveal a glittering, full length, Jean Louis nude illusion gown that hugged her famous curves so tightly, she apparently had to be sewn into it.

It was 1962 and Monroe’s sensational appearance was part of President John F Kennedy’s star-studded 45^th birthday celebrations at Madison Square Gardens. In true Monroe style, she

My response to Angela Rayner / Basic Instinct slurs on BBC’s ‘Lunchtime Live’ …

I was asked this morning to appear on BBC Radio Scotland’s Lunchtime Live show to respond to yesterday’s Mail on Sunday article while cited anonymous Conservative MP’s alleging that Angela Rayner MP deliberately attempts to distract Boris Johnson in the House of Commons through exposing and crossing her legs in an article headlined ‘Stone the Crows! Tories accuse Rayner of Basic Instinct ploy to distract Boris’ .

The article is a confection designed to discredit Rayner – who the author and the paper clearly see as a rival not just to Johnson, who they figure as up for replacement as Tory leader, but also his apparent imminent successor as PM; and the body of the article is much more about Rayner’s potential succession of Keir Starmer, and so as successor to Johnson, and a broader attempt to neutralise her as a credible rival.  Political editor of the Mail Glen Owen does this through a comparison to the disarming tactics of Sharron Stone in the 1992 film in which she exposes herself by crossing her legs conspicuously to derail an interrogation; the analogy is a typical and familiar piece of rhetoric to discredit women through inferences of sexual deviousness, but fits tropes of dismissing working class women in particular by insinuating they have unruly bodies and are aberrantly sexual in their behaviour.