Sophia D’Aurelio

The singular Anita Page was born 115 years ago today. Love this photoset of Page and Clarence Sinclair Bull walking us through the entire photographic process, circa 1932: from posing, processing, printing, to posing again. Rinse and repeat!

Purple film still from Genuine (1920) with a woman on a bed and a man standing with his right hand over his face

Genuine (Robert Wienne, 1920) #SilentFlickerSunday

Grace Jones, by Ron Galella, 1979.

It’s a national holiday (Myrna Loy’s birthday)! Here she is with Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, and director Clarence Brown in a Clarence Sinclair Bull publicity photo for Wife vs. Secretary, taken December 1935:

Posting snoods.

I really like Bad Girl. I just wish it had a bad girl in it.

Lupino stands next to a swimming pool in soaked clothes. A muscular man in swim trunks leans in to her with a towel.

Russ Saunders, assistant director on “High Sierra” (1941), attempts to dry Ida Lupino off after tossing her into the pool at Arrowhead Springs resort, where they were on location for the film.

Cinelandia in December 1940 provided a brief photo essay on this stunt … (thread)

Haunted House Blues I had a dream last night I’ve had shades of for years, that I walked up between the gaps in the white pickets that fenced in the yard in front of my childhood home, having appeared there an apparition...

I initially got on Substack to provide shelter for some of the homeless vignettes I write on nostalgia and other poisonous substances, but that’s fallen to the wayside with film stuff. Can't hurt to have both: open.substack.com/pub/vitaphon...

Adolphe is there too I guess. Happy William Wellman Wednesday

I'm always thinking about this picture of Janet Gaynor and William A. Wellman during A Star Is Born (1937).

Excited to dive into Scott Eyman’s latest! He’s pretty much the last one still getting classic Hollywood biographies published in the trades.

Haunted House Blues I had a dream last night I’ve had shades of for years, that I walked up between the gaps in the white pickets that fenced in the yard in front of my childhood home, having appeared there an apparition...

I initially got on Substack to provide shelter for some of the homeless vignettes I write on nostalgia and other poisonous substances, but that’s fallen to the wayside with film stuff. Can't hurt to have both: open.substack.com/pub/vitaphon...

Jean Harlow kept an autographed copy of this photo on the wall at home. Third from left at the bottom, next to Gable, Lewis Stone, and Stanwyck:

Is Lilian Harvey a flop???

Seeing this in a 1934 fan magazine is like when I found a headline called “Fandom Notes” from 1922, culture is circular, etc.

I will probably reshare this every Clara Bow day for the rest of my life: my favorite Bow photo in the Bell family albums at UNLV, aptly titled “Clara Bow in the Mojave desert with a cigarette and a gun”. Mother.

I read this entire letter in her voice.

It’s Rudy Vallée’s birthday and I’m thinking about this letter to him from Jean Harlow (written by her mother, of course) during her personal appearance tour in 1931-2, which always makes me laugh out loud

Maria Felix wears a broad-brimmed black hat cocked over one eye; it has jewelry around the crown. Her hair is down and she wears a red top and a beautiful red paisley shawl. She has a half-smoked cigarillo in a holder clutched in her teeth.

There is no end to the coolness of María Félix. Over the years she accumulated a jewelry collection that made Wallis Windsor look like an amateur. Here she wears her legendary Cartier crocodile necklace and a stack of bracelets (don't miss the opal ring). 📷 Lord Snowdon, 1975

Oh you and me both I totally get it. If only this wasn’t taking place during one of the busiest months of my life lol

Ann Sheridan signs an illustration of a famous 1939 Hurrell shot of herself to a fan during her 1944 USO trip (photo by Bert A. Krawczyk). Snood power!!

Damn dude you could’ve been our boots on the ground!!

Merrily We Go to Hell’s Dorothy Arzner, the Only Female Director in 1930s Hollywood – Perisphere |Ed Dykhuizen| Female directors were commonplace, even at times dominant, in early film history. Alice Guy-Blaché directed more than 450 short films starting in 1896. Many scholars credit her with the...

www.perisphere.org/2025/07/18/m...

August through October and they’re showing ALL of my favorite Wellmans including Heroes for Sale and Stingaree (!)… I feel… how you say… Le Fomo…

If you’re in Paris or within train distance of Paris, you should head over to the upcoming William A. Wellman retrospective for us landlocked, passportless Americans, worth it to see the Nothing Sacred (1937) restoration alone! www.cinematheque.fr/cycle/willia...

Amazing use of light and shadow in Night Flight (1933), based the novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Cinematography by Oliver Marsh.

Sure did, thank you!!!

Lupino sitting on an upholstered chair wearing slacks with both legs folded beneath her. She is making dramatic gestures with both arms, held out from her body either fingers spread. She appears to be in the midst of talking emphatically to someone to the right of the camera. Shelves with books and other knick-knacks are visible in the background.

Ida Lupino at home in 1941, caught by a press photographer apparently in the midst of a dramatic story.

Went to @nilesessanay.bsky.social to see Lady of Burlesque (1943) on 16mm the other night for my tandem birthday with Barbara Stanwyck, I didn’t have time to change my casual Friday fit after work so I wore a Hawaiian shirt, which I think is beautiful