Richard Widmark News

Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Debbie Reynolds and 'Baby Peggy' Diana Serra Cary, along with film noir leading ladies Peggy Cummins, Rhonda Fleming and Marsha Hunt are the latest stars scheduled to appear at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival.

Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, Debbie Reynolds and 'Baby Peggy' Diana Serra Cary, along with film noir leading ladies Peggy Cummins, Rhonda Fleming and Marsha Hunt are the latest stars scheduled to appear at the 2012 TCM Classic Film Festival.

Night Vision: Photography After Dark, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 26 through September 18, 2011, will feature photography of the 20th century inspired by the pleasure, danger, and allure of the night.

Long Wharf Theatre will present the improv and sketch comedy show The Best of Second City from June 15-19 on the Mainstage.

Long Wharf Theatre will present the improv and sketch comedy show The Best of Second City from June 15-19 on the Mainstage.

Night Vision: Photography After Dark, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 26 through September 18, 2011, will feature photography of the 20th century inspired by the pleasure, danger, and allure of the night.

Today we lost one of the greats: the gentle giant of directors, Sidney Lumet. What a resume! Just to pick seven of perhaps the best known of the bunch, the bunch in question being over 100 titles strong: 12 ANGRY MEN, LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, SERPICO, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, NETWORK and BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD - the films spanning fifty years from MEN in 1957 and DEVIL in 2007 - it is clear to see why Lumet was one of the most cherished and celebrated directors in Hollywood, especially known for his tough, gritty New York stories and his pristine stage-to-screen transfers. For an excellent example of the latter (in addition to LONG DAY'S JOURNEY and the others) check out DEATHTRAP - based on Ira Levin's play, the longest-running thriller in Broadway history - featuring Michael Caine in one of his best roles and Christopher Reeve and Dyan Cannon in their finest performances on film. For an example of the former genre, look no further than NETWORK, containing one of the strongest screenplays ever penned, from the fiery and ferocious pen of Paddy Cheyefsky, and Faye Dunaway in her Oscar-winning performance for all the ages. As far as theatrical screenplays on screen, Lumet would be hard-pressed to even come close to the power, prescience and transformative brilliance at the core of the conceit of that film - yet he did just that; with his final, 2007 film no less. I am speaking, of course, of the underrated and riveting BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, Marisa Tomei, with Albert Finney and Rosemary Harris. Taking an original screenplay that could just as well have been written for the stage - shades of 12 ANGRY MEN, DOG DAY AFTERNOON, NETWORK and SERPICO, certainly - Lumet made a bristling, biting brilliant work of staggering craft and ingenuity - all with verve, energy and drive of a man a quarter of his age at the time (80). His films were classics in his own time and, now, in his passing, they are just as timeless - if not more so. With each passing year, new layers of truth, beauty, sadness and soulfulness can be found in the countless frames in the innumerable unforgettable scenes in his many masterpieces.

'Kiss of Death' (1947), featuring Richard Widmark's memorable screen debut as Tommy Udo, one of the great villains of film noir, will be screened as the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' series 'Oscar Noir: 1940s Writing Nominees from Hollywood's Dark Side' on Monday, August 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

'Kiss of Death' (1947), featuring Richard Widmark's memorable screen debut as Tommy Udo, one of the great villains of film noir, will be screened as the next feature in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' series 'Oscar Noir: 1940s Writing Nominees from Hollywood's Dark Side' on Monday, August 23, at 7:30 p.m. at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

Shirley Jones, star of theatre and film, will make here UK premiere when she brings her one woman show, 'Shirley Jones in Concert,' to the West End's Arts Theatre, www.whatsonstage.com is reporting. The concert will run February 22nd through April 3rd.

Shirley Jones, star of theatre and film, will make here UK premiere when she brings her one woman show, 'Shirley Jones in Concert,' to the West End's Arts Theatre, www.whatsonstage.com is reporting. The concert will run February 22nd through April 3rd.

HERE'S A STORY ... Shirley Jones and Florence Henderson have cornered the market as AMERICAN FAMILY ICONS. Arriving on Broadway back in the 50's, they were both discovered in the hit works of Rodgers & Hammerstein as well as a host of other musical vehicles that were to carve out two industry perennials.

The Carlyle Hotel (James McBride, Managing Director) opens the Café Carlyle 2007 Winter/Spring season with RITA MORENO 'LITTLE TRIBUTES.'