Howard Hawks

Even the most ardent traditionalists have to acknowledge that vast, sweeping changes are at work within the realm of film culture. The very practice of shooting on actual physical film, not to mention running that film through a projector for viewing, has become in a way a purposeful act of rebellion. And if motion pictures are no longer shot on film, do we still call them films? Is the very name, let alone nature, of the movies now in doubt? In his latest book, "The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 608 pp., $35)

Harry Carey Jr., a venerable character actor who was believed to be the last surviving member of director John Ford's legendary western stock company, died Thursday. He was 91. Carey, whose career spanned more than 50 years and included such Ford classics as "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" and "The Searchers," died of natural causes in Santa Barbara, said Melinda Carey, a daughter. "In recent years, he became kind of the living historian of the modern era," film critic Leonard Maltin told The Times on Friday.

The late Glenn Ford's 8,800-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion has a curious octagon shape that had just one official bedroom -- a huge master bedroom on the main floor. "There are very few right angles in this house," said his only child, 66-year-old Peter Ford, who has lived there with his wife, Lynda, for the last 17 years. They moved in 12 years before Ford's death in 2006 at age 90 to take care of the ailing actor. "The reason was, he didn't want to be fenced in. This house is kind of a metaphor for his life.

It captivated New York and then London as movies with an L.A. imprimatur rarely do, dazzling critics and inspiring dozens of newspaper and magazine stories. Now it's coming back to the town where it all began for an exclusive five-day run. Not bad for a film that's simultaneously more than 50 years old and brand-new.

The late, great director Howard Hawks was a girl's best friend. Or let's make that an actress' best friend. Though he made a lot of macho films such as "Red River" and the 1932 "Scarface," Hawks excelled in presenting a new type of woman on screen, a gal who could hold her own with any man and had as many dimensions and problems as the male of the species.

JOHN WAYNE would be turning 100 on Saturday, and to mark the occasion, studios with Wayne titles in their vaults are in the throes of reissue madness. Paramount is releasing a 14-film "centennial collection" and a deluxe edition of "True Grit" (1969), which won the Duke his only Oscar. Lionsgate digs into Wayne's 1940s and '50s work with genre house Republic Pictures and emerges with two themed box sets (war flicks and westerns) and six double-feature discs. Warner Bros.

Robert Cornthwaite, a character actor whose more than 50-year career in theater, films and television included roles in classic thrillers and thrilling classics, has died. He was 89. Cornthwaite died of natural causes Thursday at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, according to Jennifer Fagen, a spokeswoman for the home.

Be it Marwyck, the Irish farmhouse with stables and brood mares where she lived in the '40s, or the Broadway apartment she shared in the '20s with two other chorus girls, Barbara Stanwyck has always lived in a style that says actress . On the big front door of the Beverly Hills house where she now lives is a small mirror--for guests to check their faces: It's the perfect movie star front door. And Barbara Stanwyck answers it herself.

"Seventeen-eighteen years old, I was a fan of Lindbergh," says Cubby Broccoli, the producer of 16 James Bond pictures, the most popular film series of all time. The one-time teen-aged truck farmer sips the morning coffee his butler poured for him under blue skies in the interior courtyard of his townhouse just off Fifth Avenue. "I read Lindbergh's gonna try to fly the Atlantic--all alone. The Lone Eagle.

The gigantic Marilyn Monroe statue called "Forever Marilyn" left Chicago and arrived in mid-May at Palm Canyon Drive and Tahquitz Canyon Way in Palm Springs . So what better place to stage outdoor movies of the legendary blond bombshell than at the statue? Four classic films will run Friday nights in July and August -- and they're free. The deal: Films start around 8:30 p.m. Visitors should arrive early to get a good spot and bring blankets or lawn chairs; leave the alcohol home though.