Once Upon A Time - American Cinema - Notorious / Some Like It Hot DVD

THE MAKING OF TWO CLASSIC, GENRE-DEFINING HOLLYWOOD FILMS

Once Upon a Time - Notorious In 1946, film director Alfred Hitchcock cast Ingrid Bergmand and Cary Grant for a spy and love story set amongst Nazi survivors in South America, loosely based on the story of French spy/prostitute Marthe Richard. This documentary goes over shooting of the film, its storyline and themes, as well as the social and cultural context in which the film was made (Nazism and the second world war). Excerpts from the film alternate with interviews with film directors Stephen Frears and Claude Chabrol, film historians Bill Krohn and Sidney Gottlieb, Hitchcock's granddaughter, Ingrid Bergman's daughter, actress Isabella Rosselini and Hitchcock's biographer, as well as footage of Franois Truffaut's interviews with Alfred Hitchcock in 1962. Once Upon a Time - Some Like it Hot It is fifty years since Billy Wilder, a refugee from Nazi Germany who went to work in Hollywood with Ernst Lubitsch, made Some Like it Hot. The film broke new ground at the time for being simultaneously a parody, a thriller and a musical comedy. Initially a flop, it went on to become one of the most popular films of all time. In this documentary, Tony Curtis, the sole surviving star, talks about how much the film means to him and relates anecdotes from the making of the film. There are also contributions from other cast members and interviews with Audrey Wilder (Billy Wilder's widow) and German filmmaker, Volker Schlondorff. The interviewees provide some interesting gossip, particularly about Marilyn Monroe, as well as shedding light on America in general and Hollywood in particular in the late 50s.