Farran Smith Nehme 🇱🇧

@selfstyledsiren.bsky.social

19554 Followers 1889 Following

Film critic; NSFC, NYFCC. Bylines at Criterion, Sight & Sound, Noir City, my own Substack, and wherever fine film geeks are found. https://selfstyledsiren.substack.com/

Powell is wearing a perfect light-colored suit and a panama hat; Kay is in her organdy dress from the movie. They are standing up in front of a car and posing as they prepare to bite into nice-looking hamburgers.
Columbo in foreground with his back to the camera; grinning, self-satisfied Nimoy (as a murderous surgeon) seated at his desk.
Bennett, still blonde, has on a ballgown with spaghetti straps and a very full skirt. She is resting her arms on a wooden rail of some sort and she sports a pout that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen could only envy.
Photo of the attractive Ms. Chang, with text as follows: "At a work conference in Albuquerque, N.M., in May, Chang wore a small pin with a red light indicating it was recording. Someone who worked at the conference eventually approached Chang and told her the device was making people uncomfortable. She found the request to stop recording triggering. “It’s my thing,” she says. “I’m not attributing who said what. It’s for my general knowledge.” "Chang has also taken to recording most of her first dates, usually with Granola. She puts her phone out on the table or her chair and then once the date is through, she has the feed automatically sent to Anthropic’s Claude to report back on how she did."
Young blonde Ida Lupino in a smashing at-home ensemble of embroidered jacket and satin palazzo pants (plus mules) (plus cigarette)
Albee, seated, has short hair and is wearing a button-up shirt over a t-shirt. His left arm is curled around a big-eyed tabby. They are both looking deep into the camera lens.
A little girl, with a wool hat, a dress, galoshes and an unbuttoned coat, walks on a very wet sidewalk. In the background is a very 1948 automobile and a rain-slicked street.
One of a handful of Lizzie Borden photographs that circulate endlessly, with Lizzie in a high-lace collar and showing off her major case of crazy eyes.
Tod Browning, in an intriguingly loud houndstooth (? check, anyway) suit, consults with Lon Chaney (in costume as Alonso) on the set of their greatest movie collaboration, THE UNKNOWN.
3/4 profile shot of Joanna Pettet, late 1960s.
Hudson is on his print-patterned couch in a bathrobe and slippers, arms splayed out crucifixion-style and feet propped on what is probably a dresser.
Lana Turner, in turban and silver fur, is comforted by lover Anthony Quinn (deeply tanned and wearing a white shirt under a mint-green cardigan, which looks better than it sounds)
The underwater "shark POV" shot of Chrissie in JAWS, just before she meets her doom.
Eva Marie Saint is in bed giving pets to a contented tabby.
Vincent Gardenia as master plumber Cosmo Castorini in MOONSTRUCK, explaining types of pipe to a young Brooklyn couple.
Gary Cooper, in cow-wrangling gear, is depicted seated and in profile. An old man, who looks like Barry Fitzgerald but almost certainly isn't, applies lip color to Cooper with a brush.
Breathtaking publicity portrait of Fay Wray for THE TEXAN, in the same costume she wore to pose for Rockwell.
Fay Wray, in costume, is seated in front of a soundstage door while Rockwell stands and does his thing on a small sketch pad. The sign on the door says "NO SMOKING inside sound stages nor within ten feet of door exteriors."
The cat is perched on Maggie Smith's shoulders. Smith wears a paisley velvet robe and a darker paisley velvet scarf, and she is looking up towards the cat with a very happy and affectionate expression.
Claude Chabrol, holding a cigarette and making a pop-eyed face, 1968; photo by Nancy R. Schiff
Left to right: Richard Burton, Audrey Wilder, Charles Vidor, Billy Wilder, at a party for Cole Porter in the early 1950s. Photo from Jean Howard's Hollywood.
David Farrar is holding Barbara in his arms (she's about 6) and they're both beaming. They have on hats and wool coats like the sensible British people they are.
Tuesday Weld, in black capri pants and a cute orange-y floral-print blouse, dangles her bare feet off the side of some steps while she holds up a cream-colored floof cat that is dang near as big as her head. The cat's expression is hard to determine — resigned? mildly annoyed? — but at the moment Tuesday's life does not appear to be in danger.
Beautiful Jeanne Crain in a silly eyelet blouse with puffed sleeves.
Julie was blonde at the time; she has her arms thrown wide and the skyline is behind her.
Lana's hair was short in the early 1950s; she is wearing a polka-dot dress with a full skirt and a double-strand pearl choker. Her chin rests on her hand and she looks pensive.
Myrna Loy and Clark Gable in MANHATTAN MELODRAMA
Jean Simmons telling some gendarmes "I saw what I saw" in SO LONG AT THE FAIR (which you really must see if you haven't)
The cat does not look thrilled.
Ryan O'Neal as Prof. Howard Bannister ("as in sliding down the...") in WHAT'S UP, DOC?
Stella is stretched out on a blue patio sofa with pillows behind her. She's wearing a peach straw hat and a yellow bikini, with her hands showing a great frosty-gold nail polish. Her expression says, "I look great."
Stefania Sandrelli stands on some beachside rocks, wearing a striped caftan, arms out to catch the Adriatic breeze.
Audrey Hepburn saying "Thank you" to Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday
Publicity still of Paulette Goddard in her memorable one-should Adrian gown from the climax of THE WOMEN (1939).
Claudette Colbert wearing men's pajamas in the train sequence of Preston Sturges's THE PALM BEACH STORY
Elaine Stewart poses at the top of a gilded staircase, highball glass in hand, wearing the living daylights out of a velvet strapless Helen Rose gown in The Bad and the Beautiful.
An extremely sweaty and soiled Paul Newman reading THE GARRICK YEAR during downtime on the set of Cool Hand Luke.
Dark-haired Carol Dempster, seated, is all dressed up in a satin gown with a tiered necklace; she has a matching satin hat with some kind of trim. In her arms is a long-haired kitty with tabby markings and a bright, inquisitive expression.
Aileen Pringle in Tod Browning's THE MYSTIC
Humphrey Bogart's Philip Marlowe knocks back a drink while Martha Vickers as Carmen (in a great sort-of cheongsam) stares into the middle distance in Howard Hawks's noir masterpiece THE BIG SLEEP.
Publicity photo of Norma Talmadge around the peak of her career in the early 1920s, probably by Lucas Kanarian for United Artists.
Kay Kendall in a satin gown holding up a seal point Siamese cat.