Karina Longworth is a film historian, writer and podcaster in LA. Her podcast on Old Hollywood, "You Must Remember This", just finished a season about blonde actresses, from Thelma Todd to Marilyn Monroe to Dorothy Stratten, who came to tragic and/or untimely ends. She's also working on a book about the Hollywood women in Howard Hughes’ life.
Ok let's start with our most pressing question: what old movies should we stream on Netflix this month?
"An Unmarried Woman" - possibly the most realistic, “woke” movie of the 70s about how the sexual revolution really impacted adult women.
"The Panic in Needle Park" - the namesake of that "Girls" episode in which Marnie slums it with her ex-boyfriend Charlie stars a very young Al Pacino as a junkie in love.
"Sunset Boulevard" - my second favorite Hollywood movie about Hollywood (after the Judy Garland version of "A Star is Born"), Billy Wilder’s masterpiece is utterly timeless in its depiction of the inevitable swapping out of one generation for younger, fresher models.
What are the best sites for Classic Hollywood buffs?
FilmStruck, the new streaming service from TCM and Criterion, is awesome. I use canistream.it a lot to figure out where I can stream things. Usually for the stuff I’m looking for, often obscure older films, the answer is unfortunately “nowhere”, but Archive.org has a lot of films that are in the public domain or otherwise in murky rights territory.
What Hollywood star would have a lifestyle blog if they lived today?
Gloria Swanson would definitely have a Goop. She was preaching about the evils of sugar back in the silent era.