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Jan 8, 2025 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Self-Styled Siren
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Dec 30, 2024 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Self-Styled Siren
You can, if you are inclined to hopeless honesty, also think of what follows as “Ten Things to Tell Your Ghostwriter.” Most stars have them, of course, whether credited or un–. Sandford Dody, whose delightful Giving Up the Ghost was a source when the Siren was writing about Elaine Barrie nearly ten years ago, remarked that “the most sensible way to view the stars is from a long way off.” If that’s true, the Siren has been recklessly un-sensible. She cannot resist a good Hollywood as-told-to.
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Nov 3, 2024 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Self-Styled Siren
The Siren saw Hard Truths and I’m Still Here at the New York Film Festival. The last one, The Substance, is playing now and still filling theaters. Hard Truths opens Dec. 6 for a one-week qualifying release when it will play in New York Film at Lincoln Center. It will open in theaters nationwide Jan. 10. I’m Still Here will have a one-week awards-qualifying run in November; it releases in New York and Los Angeles on Jan.
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Oct 12, 2024 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Self-Styled Siren
No one ever puts a nice big hardcover in the middle of a movie poster anymore, and I believe we are the poorer for it. What follows are the scripts of two introductions I recently did at Film Forum for their George Stevens retrospective. Since I had the intros written out more or less in complete form, I thought some of you might like to read what I sai…
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Sep 19, 2024 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Self-Styled Siren
This past week marked the 100th birthday of the legendary Lauren Bacall, a big deal and cause for celebration in these parts. But the Siren has also been researching another Classic Hollywood veteran who had a September centenary. Because as you may have noticed, the Siren is slightly obsessed with movie careers that promised great things, but didn’t work out that way. Let us then take up the case of smoking-hot Hazel Brooks.
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Aug 27, 2024 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Self-Styled Siren
The Siren is taking the unusual step of publishing another author, or should we say another Siren—the marvelous film historian Angela Aleiss—in order to let her West Coast readers know about a rare opportunity to see some of the work of Myrtle Gonzalez, a pioneering Latina actress in early Hollywood. What follows is from Angela, and this looks like a must for anyone who is swinging by Cinecon in Los Angeles.
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Aug 6, 2024 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Self-Styled Siren
The Siren doesn’t want anyone to take this as an attempt at weighty Sarris-esque categorization, but she’s always casually thought of the Thirties as a Blonde Decade (Lombard, Harlow, Constance Bennett, Dietrich, Blondell). Then, blonde Joan Bennett’s brunette dye job for 1938’s Trade Winds signals a shift to the Forties as a Brunette Decade (Gardner, Lamarr, Leigh, Tierney, Darnell, Lamour), with a big side of Auburn (Sheridan, Hayworth, Hayward).
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Jul 15, 2024 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Colleen Mondor |Tricia Romano |Self-Styled Siren |June Havoc
A roundup of books that the Siren has read recently, and recommends. There’s also one book in which the Siren makes an appearance; and one book that she has on her bedside table and plans to read soon. Recently Read and Loved:The Map of My Dead Pilots: The Dangerous Game of Flying In Alaskaby Colleen Mondor I love this book, first published in 2013. I discovered it this year because I follow Colleen Mondor on Twitter and she’s delightful.
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Jun 12, 2024 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Self-Styled Siren
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Jun 10, 2024 | 
selfstyledsiren.substack.com | Self-Styled Siren
Hello, and happy summer! The Siren is here to tell you about a few things that are happening over the warm-weather months. This is Part One — there is more coming!Are you in the Washington D.C. area? Then please consider coming to the AFI Silver Classic Film Weekend, running June 13 to 16 at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Springs, Maryland. The theme is “Pre-Code: Sex and Censorship,” co-curated by author, archivist, and film historian David Pierce.
