Stella Adler Movies
Stella Adler was one of the premiere acting coaches in the United States. Among her students were some of this country's most popular stars, including Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Warren Beatty, and Harvey Keitel. Adler was born into a prominent Yiddish family of actors headed by her famous father, the actor Jacob Adler. Her brothers Jay and Luther Adler were also prominent actors. She began her own career working in the theater of her father. This led to appearances on Broadway; in 1931 she joined the newly created Group Theater where she became renowned for her work in Odet's Awake and Sing. Adler was one of the original method actors and studied with the technique's famous creator Stanislavsky. For a while she and Lee Strasberg, also a noted method actor and teacher, worked together, but then split up in the mid-1940s when they began arguing over his way of interpreting Stanislavsky. This led Adler to become a teacher of acting at the Dramatic Workshop of the New School for Social Research in New York. In 1949, she founded her own school of drama. During her long career, Adler only appeared in three films during the '30s and '40s. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi- 1992
Narrated by actor Frank Langella, this documentary pays tribute to renowned acting guru Stella Adler (1901-1992), whose dissemination of "method" techniques developed by Konstantin Stanislavsky (1868-1938) helped transform acting in the United States. Directed by Merrill Brockway and produced by Catherine Tatge, this program features footage of Adler coaching her students, including superstars Warren Beatty, Marlon Brando, and Robert DeNiro. Other highlights include interviews with students, colleagues, and friends of Adler. ~ Steve Blackburn, Rovi
- 1988
Harold Clurman: A Life of Theatre profiles the career of celebrated director/producer Harold Clurman. A man known for his passionate commitment to working with actors, Clurman devoted his life to the theatrical arts, serving not only as a director and producer, but as a respected critic as well. The program features footage of Clurman on the job delivering thought-provoking lectures and helping actors construct roles. Meryl Streep narrates. Stella Adler, Karl Malden, and Julie Harris are interviewed. ~ Betsy Boyd, Rovi
- 1948
Adapted by Allen Boretz from Lucille S. Plumbs and Sara B. Smith's stage play Ever the Beginning, My Girl Tisa is set in New York at the turn of the century. Tisa Kepes (Lilli Palmer) is a newly arrived immigrant girl who hopes to bring her father to America. She is fleeced by travel-agent Hugo Haas, browbeaten by sweatshop-owner Akim Tamiroff, and offered sagacious but ineffectual legal advice by Sam Wanamaker. It takes a "deus ex machina" appearance by Theodore Roosevelt (Sidney Blackmer) to solve Tisa's dilemma. When asked about My Girl Tisa, director Elliot Nugent was proudest of his ability to cut down on the budget by filming several of his street scenes from an overhead vantage point, thereby economizing on sets and extras. The film was produced independently by Milton Sperling's United States Pictures, and released by Warner Bros. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- Lilli Palmer, Sam Wanamaker, (more)
- 1941
This fourth entry in MGM's Thin Man series could just as well have been titled "Nick and Nora Charles Go to the Races". Officially retired from sleuthing, Nick Charles (William Powell) does his best to be a dutiful husband to his lovely wife Nora (Myrna Loy) and a good father to his young son Nick Jr. (Dickie Hall). But when murder rears its ugly head at the local race track, Nick is called in by Major Jason I. Sculley (Henry O'Neill), head of the New York athletic commission, to help solve the case. As usual, there is no shortage of suspects: This time the "rogue's gallery" includes high-rolling gamblers Link Stevens (Loring Smith) and Fred Macy (Joseph Anthony); Link's hoity-toity girlfriend Claire Porter (played by legendary acting teacher Stella Adler); two-bit tout "Rainbow" Benny Loomis (Lou Lubin); reporters Whitey Barrow (Paul Kelly) and Paul Clarke (Barry Nelson); and Clarke's sweetheart Molly Ford (Donna Reed). Highlights include a zany episode on a department-store merry-go-round, an outsized brawl at a fancy sea-food restaurant, and the inevitable gathering together of suspects in the offices of police lieutenant Abrams (Sam Levene). The flippant nature of Shadow of the Thin Man can be attributed to screenwriters Irving Brecher and Harry Kurnitz, both longtime friends and associates of comedian Groucho Marx. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- William Powell, Myrna Loy, (more)
- 1937
Love on Toast was one of several mid-1930s Hollywood films helmed by E. A. DuPont, a once-celebrated German filmmaker then on the skids. The plot concerns a female press agent who must select a "Mr. Manhattan" and "Miss Brooklyn" for an ad campaign mounted by a soup company. The Mr. Manhattan chosen is a singing soda jerk, who doesn't want to play along until he is given the honor of choosing his own Miss Brooklyn. He picks a brash radio songstress, who ends up causing all sorts of trouble at a banquet thrown in her honor -- but who cares now that Mr. Manhattan has fallen in love with the pretty press agent. John Payne, who'd emerged as a singing star the year before, is the hero; radio soubrette "Sugar" Kane (that was her billing!) is the troublesome gal from Brooklyn; and the press agent who sets the plot in motion is a movie newcomer named Stella Ardler, who under her given name of Stella Adler later established herself as one of America's foremost acting coaches. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Starring:
- John Payne
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