Cinema, TV, and Everything in Between
S6 Bonus Episode – Ben Answers Your Cleopatra Questions Ben Mankiewicz received hundreds of voicemails about Cleopatra, and now he’s answering them! Well, as many of them as he can. In this special bonus episode, Ben weighs in on the six-hour cut of Cleopatra, what Richard Burton thought of the...
Episode 6 – Wildly Successful and Much Maligned The fate of 20th Century Fox hangs in the balance as Cleopatra premieres. Critics and audiences weigh in, Elizabeth and Richard face momentous life decisions, and Joe sinks into a deep depression. For years to come, Joe and the Mankiewicz family reckon...
Episode 5 – Mankiewicz versus Zanuck Joe’s body reaches its breaking point, and he’s forced to film the last few scenes from a wheelchair. But when production wraps, Fox installs a new studio head, Darryl F. Zanuck, who undercuts Joe’s authority and takes over the edit of Cleopatra. Soon, Joe...
Episode 4 – La Scandale Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton’s love affair becomes a tabloid sensation. Richard drinks and Elizabeth cries, they fight and make up, all while trying to keep the affair from their spouses and the public. When the press infiltrates the set and reports on every ugly...
Episode 3 – The Girl is on Salary Joe Mankiewicz decides to recast two leading men and hires Richard Burton and Rex Harrison – major talents who turn out to be major headaches. He also moves filming to a new country, where the budget spirals out of control. Joe works...
Episode 2 – Joe While Elizabeth Taylor fights for her life in a London hospital, Joe Mankiewicz begins to grapple with the movie he’s inherited. The script is dreadful, the sets are grotesque, and none of the footage is usable. Joe decides to start over from scratch. A look at...
Episode 1 – London Slog 20th Century Fox pays Elizabeth Taylor a record-breaking salary to play Cleopatra, then tries to save money by filming the movie in England. That turns out to be a disastrous decision. The weather doesn’t agree with Liz, who suffers one health problem after another, delaying...
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Back in July, we brought you the news that filming had wrapped on Noah Hawley’s Alien prequel series Alien: Earth. Now, after select fans were lucky enough to catch a glimpse at what the Fargo creator’s been cooking up with his take on the legendary sci-fi franchise at Alien: Romulus screenings stateside, FX have dropped a sneak...
Episode 7 – The Legend After being removed from a film and ruining his friendship with Henry Fonda, John Ford begins to openly challenge his previous work. He deconstructs the Western and, for the first time, makes films specifically about Indians and women. But his power in Hollywood dwindles, and...
Episode 6 – The Mythmaker At the height of his powers, John Ford directs his masterpiece, an anti-racist Western called The Searchers. It’s a movie of contradictions: John Wayne plays the hero, but he’s driven by hate and revenge. He’s searching for his niece, with the intent to kill her....
Episode 5 – Monument Valley After D-Day, Ford goes on a historic bender then heads home… not to Hollywood but to Monument Valley, a secluded land with incredible scenery. There, he creates his own kingdom, a place he can work and create art without being under the thumb of studio...
Episode 4 – The Search This week, Ben traces the mystery of John Ford’s missing D-Day documentary. The one time Ford talked about it, he claimed it was buried in a government film vault, too disturbing for public view. This sends Ben on a globe-trotting journey, following clues in the...
Episode 3 – The Commander Ford is finally in the military and his first assignment is… to make a sex ed film for soldiers! Soon he sees real combat and is injured while filming The Battle of Midway. He’s nursed back to health with the help of John Wayne, while...
Episode 2 – The Araner Ford buys a yacht, named after the Aran Islands off Ireland, where he cavorts, drinks and vacations. But he also keeps an eye on the looming threat in Europe, and uses his new vessel to enlist in the Naval Reserve. He rises through Hollywood and...
Episode 1 – Go West, Young Man John Ford was born in Maine as Sean Aloysius O’Feeney… or so he says. His birth records say differently, and it would not be the last time he changes his name. As a child, he visits Ireland and falls in love with his...
The Plot Thickens: Lucy – Episode 2: New York City Lucy heads back to Broadway where she meets her first girlboss: fashion baroness Hattie Carnegie, who hires Lucy to model coats and dresses for New York high society. But a mysterious ailment sends Lucy home to Jamestown, followed by a...
The Plot Thickens: Lucy – Episode 6: I Love Lucy With a TV deal from CBS, Desi assembles a ragtag team of collaborators to make a new kind of program, one that would rewrite the rules of television. And they do it while hiding Lucy’s newest surprise: after ten years...
The Plot Thickens: Here Comes Pam – Episode 7: Ms. Jackie Brown After receiving a devastating diagnosis, Pam leaves Hollywood and heads home to Colorado. But she’s lured back into the spotlight when the hottest director in Hollywood gives her the role of a lifetime. Learn more about The Plot...
The Plot Thickens: Here Comes Pam – Episode 6: I’m Gonna Die for Paul Newman Pam finds love on a movie set when she’s cast opposite superstar comedian Richard Pryor. She sets out to change Richard’s self-destructive ways, and succeeds – for a little while. She then immerses herself in...
The Plot Thickens: Here Comes Pam – Episode 5: Looking Good Pam hobnobs with the biggest names in showbiz and meets the love of her life, a hot young comedian named Freddie Prinze. But Freddie’s demons get the best of him, leading to heartbreak and tragedy. As Pam becomes a...
The Plot Thickens: Here Comes Pam – Episode 4: The Queen of Blaxploitation Pam’s career hits new heights as Black-themed movies take the country by storm. She stars in four low-budget films in the span of one year, including two bonafide hits: Coffy and Foxy Brown. Yet her celebrity is...
The Plot Thickens: Here Comes Pam – Episode 3: An Actor Prepares Pam heads to the Philippines to star in a pair of “women in prison” movies, where she endures volatile weather, skimpy costumes, and cobra encounters. She studies acting and learns everything she can about filmmaking, and her raw...
The Plot Thickens: Here Comes Pam – Episode 2: I’m Not From Here Newly arrived in Los Angeles, Pam learns underground filmmaking at UCLA and sings backup for some of the biggest musical acts of the 60s. She also has her first serious romance, with a towering basketball phenom named...
The Plot Thickens: Here Comes Pam – Episode 1: The Black West Growing up in Colorado, young Pam Grier endures racism and trauma, but finds solace in horses and the beautiful countryside. As a teen, she visits Los Angeles for the first time, and gets caught in the middle of...
The Plot Thickens: Lucy – Episode 10: Twilight Lucy sinks into a depression after the failure of her newest show and becomes a reclusive yet fiercely competitive backgammon player. Yet she’s still revered, and following a memorable final appearance at the Academy Awards, her heart gives out. As the memorials...
The Plot Thickens: Lucy – Episode 9: Boss Lady Escaping Hollywood after her split, Lucy heads east for a chance to star on Broadway. There she meets a new man, a Borscht Belt comedian with a bad toupee and even worse business sense. The new couple returns to Hollywood when...
The Plot Thickens: Lucy – Episode 8: The End of Desilu Lucy and Desi’s production company expands as they buy the RKO lot and produce new shows under the Desilu banner. The strain of running an empire takes its toll, and Desi falls further into gambling, drinking and philandering as...
The Plot Thickens: Lucy – Episode 7: Red Scare At the height of Lucy’s popularity, the government kicks off a political investigation that threatens to ruin her career. Why had Lucy registered as a communist 20 years earlier? On the verge of her being blacklisted, Desi goes on the offensive...
The Plot Thickens: Lucy – Episode 5: Desilu From the start, Lucy and Desi fight as fiercely as they love. After a spur-of-the-moment elopement, the newlyweds buy a small ranch north of Hollywood and call it “Desilu.” They suffer miscarriages and career setbacks, which causes Desi to take his band...
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