This section of Reel Classics is an effort to share information about classic movie-related items in the news these days. THIS IS NOT A PAGE FOR GOSSIP. Any story posted here will be confirmed by at least one reliable news source. Furthermore, if you have any relevant news events to share, please feel free to let me know, and if possible, tell me your source.  (Note that the News Briefs are listed with the most recent items first -- that is to say, in reverse chronological order.)

March 2007:

• 13- Daily Variety reports that Britain's Ealing Studios is making plans to revive the classic St. Trinian's comedy franchise about a zany group of English schoolgirls first filmed in 1954 as THE BELLS OF ST. TRINIAN starring Alistair Sim, Joyce Grenfell and Hermione Baddeley.
• 12- Betty Hutton, vivacious blonde big-band singer and comedienne whose most famous film appearances include THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK (1944), ANNIE GET YOUR GUN (1950) and THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952), dies at age 86.

February 2007:

• 27- Elizabeth Taylor, two-time Oscar-winning star of such films as NATIONAL VELVET (1944), CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF (1958) and WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966), celebrates her 75th birthday in Las Vegas with family and friends, including her four grown children and fellow MGM veteran Debbie Reynolds.
• 24- Herman Brix, the 1928 Olympic silver medalist shot putter who played Tarzan in the THE NEW ADVENTURES OF TARZAN (1935) as well as bit parts in more than 100 other films of the 1930s and '40s, often under the name Bruce Bennett, dies at age 100 of complications from a broken hip.

January 2007:

• 12- Producer Ed Bass and Karen Sharpe Kramer, widow of director-producer Stanley Kramer, announce plans to make a sequel to Kramer's 1963 chase comedy classic IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD, hoping to include return appearances by surviving members of the original cast, including Jonathan Winters, Mickey Rooney, Sid Caesar, Edie Adams, Carl Reiner, Peter Falk and Jerry Lewis.
• 9- Carlo Ponti, Oscar-nominated Italian producer and husband of actress Sophia Loren who produced more than 100 films, including LA STRADA (1956), TWO WOMEN (1962) and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965) dies in Geneva at age 94.
• 8- Yvonne De Carlo, large and small screen beauty who played Moses' wife Sephora in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956) and a Viennese dancer in SALOME WHERE SHE DANCED (1945), but achieved her greatest popularity on TV's "The Munsters" in the mid-1960s, dies at 84.
• 1- A.I. Bezzerides, Turkish-born novelist-turned-Hollywood screenwriter best known for penning such post-World War II film noir classics as THIEVES' HIGHWAY (1949), ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1952) and KISS ME DEADLY (1955), dies at 98.

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