In 40 films, story of a screen great
Marlon Brando, Cecil B. DeMille, Patricia Neal, Preston Sturges, John Wayne, Billy Wilder. Such names that dreams are made on. Cinema dreams. Now you can dream deep. The Harvard Film Archive is celebrating a centennial moment in cinema history with a blockbuster film series July 13 through Sept. 3. One hundred years ago today (July 12) the Famous Players Film Company aired its first production — an imported four-reeler starring Paris-born Sarah Bernhardt as Elizabeth I. It was the beginning of one of the most important movie studios in American history: Paramount Pictures, as it was so named by 1914. "The Lost Weekend," a 1945 film directed by Billy Wilder, features Ray Milland as Don Birnem. Paramount was the brainchild of Adolph Zukor, a Hungarian immigrant who by age 21 was already a wealthy New York furrier. He was also an early investor in nickelodeons, the 5-cent theaters popular in the first decade of...