Vintage Photos of Jean Seberg on the set of Bonjour Tristesse (1958)

Bonjour Tristesse (“Hello, Sadness”) is a 1958 British-American Technicolor film in CinemaScope, directed and produced by Otto Preminger from a screenplay by Arthur Laurents based on the novel of the same title by Françoise Sagan.

A Guardian piece in 2012 described it as:

“an example of Hollywood’s golden age, and both its star and its famously tyrannical director are ripe for rediscovery.”

The film stars Jean Seberg as Cécile, a decadent young girl who lives with her rich playboy father, Raymond (David Niven). Anne (Deborah Kerr), a mature and cultured friend of Raymond’s late wife, arrives at Raymond’s villa for a visit.

Cécile is afraid that Anne will disrupt the undisciplined way of life that she has shared with her father, so she does her best to break up the relationship with Anne.

 

 

Jean Seberg on the set of Bonjour Tristesse directed by Otto Preminger, 1958 via

Jean Seberg on the set of Bonjour Tristesse directed by Otto Preminger, 1958 via

Jean Seberg on the set of Bonjour Tristesse directed by Otto Preminger, 1958 via

Jean Seberg on the set of Bonjour Tristesse directed by Otto Preminger, 1958 via

Jean Seberg on the set of Bonjour Tristesse directed by Otto Preminger, 1958 via

 

Two Portraits of Romy Schneider on the Set of Sissi (1957)

Portrait of Romy Schneider on the set of Sissi – Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin/ Face à son destin, directed by Ernest Marischka, 1957. Photo by F.C. Gundlach via

Portrait of Romy Schneider on the set of Sissi – Schicksalsjahre einer Kaiserin/ Face à son destin, directed by Ernest Marischka, 1957. Photo by F.C. Gundlach via

Tippi Hedren and Alfred Hitchcock on the set of The Birds (1963)

1963 horror thriller “The Birds” features the screen debut of Tippi Hedren. Hitchcock told a reporter, after a few weeks of filming, that she was remarkable, and said:

“She’s already reaching the lows and highs of terror”.

The film is loosely based on the 1952 story by Daphne du Maurier. It is set primarily in Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few days.

The film was written by author and screenwriter Evan Hunter. Hitchcock told him to develop new characters and a more elaborate plot, keeping du Maurier’s title and concept of unexplained bird attacks.

Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren filming The Birds. Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive.

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Tippi Hedren with Hitchcock filming The Birds.

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Tippi Hedren talks to director Alfred Hitchcock while sitting on his chair on the set of The Birds.

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Audrey Hepburn & Dove St. Tropez 1967

Audrey on the set of ‘Two for the Road‘ St. Tropez 1967 by © Terry O’Neill

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Audrey on the set of ‘Two for the Road‘ St. Tropez 1967 by © Terry O’Neill

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Audrey while making The Unforgiven. Photos by Inge Morath (1959)

The Unforgiven is a 1960 American western film filmed in Durango, Mexico. It was directed by John Huston and has the unusual casting of Audrey Hepburn.

Magnum Photos Agency photographer Inge Morath had met director John Huston while she was living in London, Morath worked on several of his films.

The Unforgiven, uncommonly for its time, spotlights the issue of racism against Native Americans and people believed to have Native American blood in the Old West.

Aside from this the film is most notable for its behind-the-scenes problems. Production was suspended for several months in 1959 after Hepburn broke her back when she fell off a horse while rehearsing a scene. Although she eventually recovered, the accident was blamed for a subsequent miscarriage Hepburn suffered.

While photographing the making of The Unforgiven, Inge Morath accompanied Huston and his friends duck hunting on a mountain lake outside Durango. Photographing the excursion, Morath saw through her telephoto lens that actor Audie Murphy and his companion had capsized their boat 350 feet from shore. She could see that Murphy, stunned, was nearly drowning. A skilled swimmer, Morath stripped to her underwear and hauled the two men ashore by her bra strap while the hunt continued uninterrupted

Audrey Hepburn during the production of The Unforgiven, Durango, Mexico, 1959. Photograph by Inge Morath.

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Audrey Hepburn during the production of The Unforgiven, Durango, Mexico, 1959. Photograph by Inge Morath.

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Audrey Hepburn during the production of The Unforgiven, Durango, Mexico, 1959. Photograph by Inge Morath.

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Audrey Hepburn during the production of The Unforgiven, Durango, Mexico, 1959. Photograph by Inge Morath.

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Theda Bara as Cleopatra (1917) – Lavish Lost Hollywood Silent Picture

Cleopatra was a 1917 American silent historical drama film which is considered lost, as no known complete negatives or prints of it survive. It starred Theda Bara, the screen’s first sex symbol, as Cleopatra. Only Brief fragments of footage from the film are known to exist today. After the Hays Code was implemented in Hollywood, Cleopatra was judged too obscene to be shown. The last two prints known to exist were destroyed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and unfortunately in the fires at the Fox studios in 1937 along with the majority of Theda Bara’s other films for Fox (Bara made over 40 films, sadly only 2 complete features are known to exist).

Cleopatra was one of the most elaborate Hollywood films ever produced up to that time, with particularly lavish sets and costumes. According to the studio, the film cost $500,000 (approximately $8.3 million in 2009) to make and employed 2,000 people behind the scenes. The film was based on H. Rider Haggard’s 1889 novel Cleopatra and the plays Cleopatre by Émile Moreau and Victorien Sardou and William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. The story told was about the epic romances between Cleopatra and the greatest men of Rome, Julius Caesar and Antony.

 Theda Bara

Between 1915 and 1919, Bara was Fox studio’s biggest star and Cleopatra became one of Bara’s biggest hits. In promoting the film Fox Studio publicists noted that the name Theda Bara was an anagram of Arab death, and her press agents claimed inaccurately that she was “the daughter of an Arab sheik and a French woman, born in the Sahara. It was popular at that time to promote an actress as mysterious, with an exotic background. The studio even called her the Serpent of the Nile and encouraged Bara to discuss mysticism and the occult in interviews. This is perhaps why Bara claimed to have the same astrological sign as the real Cleopatra as a marketing ploy for the film. In reality Cleopatra was a Capricorn and Bara was a Leo. Even though no known prints of Cleopatra exist today, numerous photographs of Bara in costume have survived.

Theda bara (1917)

Theda Bara (1917)

Theda Bara (1917)

Theda Bara (1917)

Theda Bara (1917)

Theda Bara (1917)

Surviving Fragments of Cleopatra