To mark the release of Studiocanal’s Vintage Classics’ 4k restorations of three comedies directed by Muriel Box available in the UK from 14 August, we have Blu-Ray box sets to give away to 2 lucky winners.
Studiocanal are pleased to announce their Vintage Classics release of brand new 4k restorations of three comedies directed by Muriel Box, one of Britain’s earliest trailblazing female directors who remains to date the most prolific UK female director in history. Muriel Box’s The Passionate Stranger, The Truth About Women and Rattle Of A Simple Man will be available in the UK on DVD and, for the first time in the UK, on Blu-ray and Digital from 14 August.
The Passionate Stranger (1957) centres around happily married house-wife Judith Wynter (Margaret Leighton) who keeps the fact she is a best-selling author of steamy romance novels, a closely guarded secret. As her husband Roger (Ralph Richardson), recovers from a serious illness,...
Studiocanal are pleased to announce their Vintage Classics release of brand new 4k restorations of three comedies directed by Muriel Box, one of Britain’s earliest trailblazing female directors who remains to date the most prolific UK female director in history. Muriel Box’s The Passionate Stranger, The Truth About Women and Rattle Of A Simple Man will be available in the UK on DVD and, for the first time in the UK, on Blu-ray and Digital from 14 August.
The Passionate Stranger (1957) centres around happily married house-wife Judith Wynter (Margaret Leighton) who keeps the fact she is a best-selling author of steamy romance novels, a closely guarded secret. As her husband Roger (Ralph Richardson), recovers from a serious illness,...
- 8/13/2023
- by Competitions
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
She was also the first woman to win an Oscar for best original screenplay. Now a new radio documentary aims to give her pioneering work a fresh appraisal
In 1991, as a film student, I was offered £50 by a German women’s collective to shoot Muriel Box. But when the documentary director and I arrived at her home we were told that she was too ill to see us. She died a few months later aged 85. While I regret never meeting her, I’m also relieved. How terrible to have shown even a glimpse of my full ignorance of her achievements, a pioneering film-maker who had fought her way through an industry hostile to women to make a major contribution to cinema.
Box directed 13 feature films in the 1950s and early 60s and remains Britain’s most prolific female director. Her titles, made for a mainstream audience, include The Passionate Stranger,...
In 1991, as a film student, I was offered £50 by a German women’s collective to shoot Muriel Box. But when the documentary director and I arrived at her home we were told that she was too ill to see us. She died a few months later aged 85. While I regret never meeting her, I’m also relieved. How terrible to have shown even a glimpse of my full ignorance of her achievements, a pioneering film-maker who had fought her way through an industry hostile to women to make a major contribution to cinema.
Box directed 13 feature films in the 1950s and early 60s and remains Britain’s most prolific female director. Her titles, made for a mainstream audience, include The Passionate Stranger,...
- 2/19/2023
- by Carol Morley
- The Guardian - Film News
Get in touch to send in cinephile news and discoveries. For daily updates follow us @NotebookMUBI, and sign up for our weekly email newsletter by clicking here.NEWSHayao Miyazaki’s new film for Studio Ghibli has finally been officially announced. Miyazaki had originally retired after completing The Wind Rises (2013), but returned to work in 2016 to make a film inspired by a 1937 children’s novel by Yoshino Genzaburo that he is particularly fond of. The film, tentatively titled How Do You Live, will open in theaters in Japan on July 14, 2023 and has been unveiled with enigmatic artwork (above) showing some kind of bird-like figure. Among the films chosen for this year’s induction into the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry are Frederick Wiseman’s Titicut Follies (1967), Marlon Riggs’s Tongues Untied (1989), and Jon Favreau’s Iron Man (2008). Good luck trying to draw a connecting line between the 25 films that made the selection.
- 12/21/2022
- MUBI
Her 13 features from the 50s and 60s explored new ways of representing women on screen. Now, two new major retrospectives aim to introduce her work to modern audiences
‘It’s so odd,” said the 86-year-old Muriel Box in 1991, the year she died, “why they can’t have the grace to say: ‘We know we have all the good opportunities as men to direct and do everything.’” In women, she said, the film industry “hasn’t any confidence at all … They never say to women: Let us try and see what she’s done.”
Box knew of what she spoke. Fifty-four years since her final film, she remains Britain’s most prolific female director. In the 1950s, she strived and scrimped, surmounted institutional prejudice and ill-health to make her 13 features. Now, they are being seriously re-examined, with major retrospectives at this year’s San Sebastián and Lumière festivals. Audiences are finding...
‘It’s so odd,” said the 86-year-old Muriel Box in 1991, the year she died, “why they can’t have the grace to say: ‘We know we have all the good opportunities as men to direct and do everything.’” In women, she said, the film industry “hasn’t any confidence at all … They never say to women: Let us try and see what she’s done.”
Box knew of what she spoke. Fifty-four years since her final film, she remains Britain’s most prolific female director. In the 1950s, she strived and scrimped, surmounted institutional prejudice and ill-health to make her 13 features. Now, they are being seriously re-examined, with major retrospectives at this year’s San Sebastián and Lumière festivals. Audiences are finding...
- 10/26/2018
- by Phil Hoad
- The Guardian - Film News
Mercedes Morán and Ricardo Darín in An Unexpected Love, which will open San Sebastian Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival
Argentinian film An Unexpected Love (El Amor Menos Pensado) has been announced as the opening film for this year's San Sebastian Film Festival. The film, which will vie for the Golden Shell in competition at the 66th edition of the festival, marks the directorial debut of Juan Vera, who has previously co-produced films including Zama and Carancho.
The film stars Mercedes Morán and Ricardo Darín as a couple who are facing a relationship crisis after 25 years of marriage.
Darín is a long-time attender of the festival and was awarded the Donostia for lifetime achievement last year. Morán also appears in The Angel, which screens in the festival's Pearls section.
The festival has also announced the full slate of the Muriel Box retrospective. It will feature all 28 films written and directed by the Surrey-born filmmaker,...
Argentinian film An Unexpected Love (El Amor Menos Pensado) has been announced as the opening film for this year's San Sebastian Film Festival. The film, which will vie for the Golden Shell in competition at the 66th edition of the festival, marks the directorial debut of Juan Vera, who has previously co-produced films including Zama and Carancho.
The film stars Mercedes Morán and Ricardo Darín as a couple who are facing a relationship crisis after 25 years of marriage.
Darín is a long-time attender of the festival and was awarded the Donostia for lifetime achievement last year. Morán also appears in The Angel, which screens in the festival's Pearls section.
The festival has also announced the full slate of the Muriel Box retrospective. It will feature all 28 films written and directed by the Surrey-born filmmaker,...
- 8/2/2018
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Institut Lumière will also fete late UK filmmaker Muriel Box at 10th edition of festival.
France’s Institut Lumière will honour Us actress Jane Fonda with its Lumière Award at the 10th edition of its annual cinema heritage festival, taking place October 13-21 this year.
She will be the second woman to receive the honorary award after French actress Catherine Deneuve. Other recipients include Clint Eastwood, Milos Forman, Gérard Depardieu and Ken Loach.
As well as showcasing a selection of key films from Fonda’s career, the festival will also screen Susan Lacy’s bio-documentary Jane Fonda In Five Acts,...
France’s Institut Lumière will honour Us actress Jane Fonda with its Lumière Award at the 10th edition of its annual cinema heritage festival, taking place October 13-21 this year.
She will be the second woman to receive the honorary award after French actress Catherine Deneuve. Other recipients include Clint Eastwood, Milos Forman, Gérard Depardieu and Ken Loach.
As well as showcasing a selection of key films from Fonda’s career, the festival will also screen Susan Lacy’s bio-documentary Jane Fonda In Five Acts,...
- 6/11/2018
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Jane Fonda will receive this year’s Lumière Award at the 10th Lumière Festival in Lyon, France.
Describing the Oscar-winning actress, festival director Thierry Fremaux said Fonda is “a feminist, activist, and she remains a star.”
The festival said it was honoring Fonda for an “acting career that has led her from Sidney Pollack to Arthur Penn, from René Clément to Roger Vadim; for her willingness to embody fierce independence from a young age …” It also stressed the actress’ work as “a committed, life-long activist, ahead of her time as a vanguard of ideals,” calling her a “symbol of struggles for freedom, anti-racism and peace” as well as “an international star, an icon spanning several decades of audiences.”
“I am honored to be invited to the Lumière Festival in Lyon,” Fonda said, adding that she was “over the moon” upon hearing the news that she would receive the award.
As part of its tribute,...
Describing the Oscar-winning actress, festival director Thierry Fremaux said Fonda is “a feminist, activist, and she remains a star.”
The festival said it was honoring Fonda for an “acting career that has led her from Sidney Pollack to Arthur Penn, from René Clément to Roger Vadim; for her willingness to embody fierce independence from a young age …” It also stressed the actress’ work as “a committed, life-long activist, ahead of her time as a vanguard of ideals,” calling her a “symbol of struggles for freedom, anti-racism and peace” as well as “an international star, an icon spanning several decades of audiences.”
“I am honored to be invited to the Lumière Festival in Lyon,” Fonda said, adding that she was “over the moon” upon hearing the news that she would receive the award.
As part of its tribute,...
- 6/11/2018
- by Ed Meza and John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Muriel Box will have a retrospective dedicated to her in San Sebastian Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival The San Sebastian Film Festival has announced it is dedicating one of its retrospectives this year to British writer and director Muriel Box.
Outlining the programme strand, the festival said of the filmmaker, who died in 1991 "As was the case of North America’s Dorothy Arzner – to whom the San Sebastian Festival dedicated a retrospective in 2014 – and Ida Lupino, reviewing her filmography today seems essential in establishing a feminist discourse and vindicating the important role played by women filmmakers in different contexts and cinematographies. Despite enjoying a certain prestige among cinephiles, there are very few studies of her works and barely any mention is made of her in general film histories."
Born on 22 September 1905 in New Malden, Surrey, as Violette Muriel Baker, she started her film career in continuity. In 1935 she married the writer Sydney Box,...
Outlining the programme strand, the festival said of the filmmaker, who died in 1991 "As was the case of North America’s Dorothy Arzner – to whom the San Sebastian Festival dedicated a retrospective in 2014 – and Ida Lupino, reviewing her filmography today seems essential in establishing a feminist discourse and vindicating the important role played by women filmmakers in different contexts and cinematographies. Despite enjoying a certain prestige among cinephiles, there are very few studies of her works and barely any mention is made of her in general film histories."
Born on 22 September 1905 in New Malden, Surrey, as Violette Muriel Baker, she started her film career in continuity. In 1935 she married the writer Sydney Box,...
- 2/9/2018
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Muriel Box will have a retrospective dedicated to her in San Sebastian Photo: Courtesy of San Sebastian Film Festival The San Sebastian Film Festival has announced it is dedicating one of its retrospectives this year to British writer and director Muriel Box.
Outlining the programme strand, the festival said of the filmmaker, who died in 1991 "As was the case of North America’s Dorothy Arzner – to whom the San Sebastian Festival dedicated a retrospective in 2014 – and Ida Lupino, reviewing her filmography today seems essential in establishing a feminist discourse and vindicating the important role played by women filmmakers in different contexts and cinematographies. Despite enjoying a certain prestige among cinephiles, there are very few studies of her works and barely any mention is made of her in general film histories."
Born on 22 September 1905 in New Malden, Surrey, as Violette Muriel Baker, she started her film career in continuity. In 1935 she married the writer Sydney Box,...
Outlining the programme strand, the festival said of the filmmaker, who died in 1991 "As was the case of North America’s Dorothy Arzner – to whom the San Sebastian Festival dedicated a retrospective in 2014 – and Ida Lupino, reviewing her filmography today seems essential in establishing a feminist discourse and vindicating the important role played by women filmmakers in different contexts and cinematographies. Despite enjoying a certain prestige among cinephiles, there are very few studies of her works and barely any mention is made of her in general film histories."
Born on 22 September 1905 in New Malden, Surrey, as Violette Muriel Baker, she started her film career in continuity. In 1935 she married the writer Sydney Box,...
- 2/9/2018
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The Academy Awards have every reason to boast about their diversity and inclusion of women this year. Greta Gerwig (“Lady Bird”), Emily V. Gordon (“The Big Sick”) and Vanessa Taylor (“The Shape of Water”) are among the nominees for Best Original Screenplay. However, women have been drastically underrepresented among winners, and no woman has won either writing category in 10 years.
To date only 16 women have ever won an Oscar for writing, starting with Frances Marion, who won Best Original Story for “The Big House” (1930) and “The Champ” (1931). Then Muriel Box became the first woman to win Best Original Screenplay when she prevailed with her co-writer and husband Sydney Box for “The Seventh Veil” (1945).
But you have to fast-forward another 46 years before any woman won this category solo: Callie Khouri for her classic screenplay for “Thelma & Louise” (1991). Two years later, Jane Campion would also take home Original Screenplay for “The Piano...
To date only 16 women have ever won an Oscar for writing, starting with Frances Marion, who won Best Original Story for “The Big House” (1930) and “The Champ” (1931). Then Muriel Box became the first woman to win Best Original Screenplay when she prevailed with her co-writer and husband Sydney Box for “The Seventh Veil” (1945).
But you have to fast-forward another 46 years before any woman won this category solo: Callie Khouri for her classic screenplay for “Thelma & Louise” (1991). Two years later, Jane Campion would also take home Original Screenplay for “The Piano...
- 1/31/2018
- by Amanda Spears
- Gold Derby
Kumail Nanjiani was best known as a stand-up comedian and one of the stars of HBO’s “Silicon Valley.” But he took that classic advice to “write what you know” literally and penned “The Big Sick” with his wife Emily V. Gordon about how they met and fell in love, and how in the midst of that she fell gravely ill. Now the couple is nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and if “The Big Sick” wins not only would it be a fairy-tale ending for the pair, but Nanjiani would make history as the first person of Asian descent to win for writing.
Hanif Kureishi, who like Nanjiani is of Pakistani descent, made history as the first Asian writer nominated for Best Original Screenplay for “My Beautiful Laundrette” (1986). Then Indian-born M. Night Shyamalan revolutionized storytelling with his original screenplay for “The Sixth Sense” (1999) and reaped a nomination 13 years later.
Hanif Kureishi, who like Nanjiani is of Pakistani descent, made history as the first Asian writer nominated for Best Original Screenplay for “My Beautiful Laundrette” (1986). Then Indian-born M. Night Shyamalan revolutionized storytelling with his original screenplay for “The Sixth Sense” (1999) and reaped a nomination 13 years later.
- 1/30/2018
- by Amanda Spears
- Gold Derby
Actor who played many major Shakespearean roles on the stage
Few actors played as many major Shakespearean roles as did Paul Rogers, a largely forgotten and seriously underrated performer, who has died aged 96. It was as though he was barnacled in those parts, undertaken at the Old Vic in the 1950s, by the time he played his most famous role, the vicious paterfamilias Max in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the Aldwych theatre in 1965 (and filmed in 1973).
Staunch, stolid and thuggish, with eyes that drilled through any opposition, Rogers's Max was a grumpy old block of granite, hewn on an epic scale, despite the flat cap and plimsolls – horribly real. Peter Hall's production for the Royal Shakespeare Company was monumental; everything was grey, chill and cheerless in John Bury's design, set off firstly by a piquant bowl of green apples and then by the savage acting.
The Homecoming...
Few actors played as many major Shakespearean roles as did Paul Rogers, a largely forgotten and seriously underrated performer, who has died aged 96. It was as though he was barnacled in those parts, undertaken at the Old Vic in the 1950s, by the time he played his most famous role, the vicious paterfamilias Max in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming at the Aldwych theatre in 1965 (and filmed in 1973).
Staunch, stolid and thuggish, with eyes that drilled through any opposition, Rogers's Max was a grumpy old block of granite, hewn on an epic scale, despite the flat cap and plimsolls – horribly real. Peter Hall's production for the Royal Shakespeare Company was monumental; everything was grey, chill and cheerless in John Bury's design, set off firstly by a piquant bowl of green apples and then by the savage acting.
The Homecoming...
- 10/15/2013
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
In her new book Rachel Cooke re-examines the 1950s through 10 women who pioneered in their careers. In this extract she tells the stories of sisters-in-law Muriel and Betty Box, two prominent women in the British film industry
Until recently, anyone who wanted to see the film To Dorothy a Son had to lock themselves deep in the bowels of the British Film Institute off Tottenham Court Road, London, and watch it on an old Steenbeck editing machine. A little-known comedy from 1954, To Dorothy is no one's idea of a classic. It has an infuriating star in Shelley Winters, a creaky screenplay by Peter Rogers (later the producer of the Carry On series) and a set that looks as if it is on loan from a local amateur dramatics society.
We are in the home of Tony (John Gregson) and his baby-faced wife, Dorothy (Peggy Cummins). Dorothy is heavily pregnant, and confined to bed.
Until recently, anyone who wanted to see the film To Dorothy a Son had to lock themselves deep in the bowels of the British Film Institute off Tottenham Court Road, London, and watch it on an old Steenbeck editing machine. A little-known comedy from 1954, To Dorothy is no one's idea of a classic. It has an infuriating star in Shelley Winters, a creaky screenplay by Peter Rogers (later the producer of the Carry On series) and a set that looks as if it is on loan from a local amateur dramatics society.
We are in the home of Tony (John Gregson) and his baby-faced wife, Dorothy (Peggy Cummins). Dorothy is heavily pregnant, and confined to bed.
- 10/5/2013
- by Rachel Cooke
- The Guardian - Film News
Dancer who became a choreographer, actor and director for stage and screen
As a dancer, Wendy Toye, who has died aged 92, was a child prodigy. Born in Hackney, east London, the daughter of a bristle merchant, she had made her first public appearance at the Royal Albert Hall by the age of four. Aged nine, she choreographed a ballet at the London Palladium and also won the women's prize, dancing the Charleston, at a ball organised by the theatrical manager Cb Cochran and judged by Fred Astaire and Florenz Ziegfeld among others. The men's prize was won by Lew Grade.
She was always grateful for the advice she received from her tutors, including Ruby Ginner, Ninette de Valois and Anton Dolin, and regretted that when she reached the next stage of her career – choreography and direction – there were no teachers. She had to learn as she went along.
During the 1930s,...
As a dancer, Wendy Toye, who has died aged 92, was a child prodigy. Born in Hackney, east London, the daughter of a bristle merchant, she had made her first public appearance at the Royal Albert Hall by the age of four. Aged nine, she choreographed a ballet at the London Palladium and also won the women's prize, dancing the Charleston, at a ball organised by the theatrical manager Cb Cochran and judged by Fred Astaire and Florenz Ziegfeld among others. The men's prize was won by Lew Grade.
She was always grateful for the advice she received from her tutors, including Ruby Ginner, Ninette de Valois and Anton Dolin, and regretted that when she reached the next stage of her career – choreography and direction – there were no teachers. She had to learn as she went along.
During the 1930s,...
- 2/28/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
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