Elia Kazan

The AFI-Silver's simultaneous tributes to Orson Welles and Elia Kazan celebrate the sizzling theatrical instincts of two creative marvels of the stage who transformed the face — let's make that faces — of American films. Kazan and Marlon Brando forged one of the most influential director-actor partnerships in American movies, but James Dean, too, made his name with Kazan, in the 1955 film version of John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" (Saturday at 4:30 p.m and Sunday at 7:20 p.m.)

Sandy Dennis, 54, the veteran character actress who won an Academy Award for her performance as the whimpering young faculty wife in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," has died. A longtime friend said she learned of Ms. Dennis' death from her agent but didn't know when she died. The actress, who lived in Westport, Conn., with her mother, had been suffering from ovarian cancer. She made her debut in movies in 1961, playing a supporting role in Elia Kazan's "Splendor in the Grass." But she emerged as a star on Broadway, winning two Tony awards in succession for "A Thousand Clowns" and "Any Wednesday."

When the American Film Institute announced its list of the "greatest 100 American films of all time" last month, a collective cry went up: Great, but where can we see them on screen rather than video?Luckily, Baltimore has one of the country's few remaining revival houses dedicated to preserving our cinematic heritage by showing vintage films in an intimate theatrical setting. The Orpheum is running two of AFI's greatest films starting Monday: "On the Waterfront" (No. 8), Elia Kazan's brilliant 1954 drama starring Marlon Brando as a boxer battling union corruption; and Billy Wilder's incomparable "Sunset Boulevard" (No. 12)

IN HIS 1976 memoir of the Holocaust, "The Sunflower," Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal recalls how as a young concentration camp inmate he was called to the deathbed of a grotesquely wounded SS officer. The SS man begged Wiesenthal, as a Jew, to forgive his role in a wartime atrocity. Wiesenthal refused, saying he had no right to forgive on behalf of the victims.The legendary film director Elia Kazan was honored the other night with an Oscar for his lifetime achievements. Outside, pickets protested.

Fifty years ago today, Tennessee Williams' landmark drama, "A Streetcar Named Desire," opened on Broadway. The account of the conflict between Blanche DuBois, a faded Southern belle, and her abusive brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski, won every major award, including the Pulitzer Prize.Elia Kazan directed a cast headed by Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter and Jessica Tandy, whose performance as Blanche made her a star. In his memoirs, Williams wrote: "It was instantly apparent to me that Jessica was Blanche."

FRIDAY "ON THE WATERFRONT": Marlon Brando's longshoreman battles the unions in Elia Kazan's 1954 film, screening at this week's Little Italy Open Air Film Festival, High and Stiles streets. The film starts at 9 p.m., but come earlier for gelato and people-watching. The event is free. Go to littleitalymd.com. BBQ ACROSS AMERICA: Ace Enders and his band, A Million Different People, host a straight-up barbecue for pre-sale ticket-holders before the show. Bring your meat and veggies and plop them down on the provided grill space.

Hollywood -- The actors and actresses we watch on screens large and small are sometimes love objects, occasionally role models, but perhaps most often simply figures of fascination who lead us to wonder what they are really like in their private lives (when we haven't been told by the checkout stand tabloids, or even more so when we have).Lee Remick, who died from cancer yesterday, became a role model of a special and remarkable kind in her real life, offering us a profile in courage as she both accepted and, as long as she could, defied the terrible medical news.

The 2007 Oscar ballot has been rightly hailed for its diversity. So it might seem like a paradox that the closest thing to a sure shot is about as white Anglo-Saxon Protestant as you can get: Dame Helen Mirren, the prohibitive favorite to win best actress for playing Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen. Even the other dame in the running, Judi Dench for Notes of a Scandal, has conceded the position. This year's entries generally remind us that the Academy Awards, at their best, have saluted an aristocracy of merit.

Once again this year, cable's Turner Classic Movies is devoting its March schedule to Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated films. Sometimes, that's not a good thing -- for God's sake, how many more times can you watch "Ben-Hur?" But examine the schedule closely, and there are some unexpected gems to be found. This year, TCM's added a twist: each film is somehow related to the next, sharing a common actor, director or writer. Trying to figure out how the films are connected can become something of a parlor game, so give it a try. Here are a few of this week's more noteworthy offerings: * Judy Garland stars in director George Cukor's 1950 remake of "A Star Is Born" (7:30 a.m. Monday)

Medicine for Melancholy begins with the morning after a one-night stand. It turns into a day freighted with political significance as well as sexual chemistry for Micah (Wyatt Cenac) and Joanne (Tracey Heggins). These two San Franciscans come from opposite poles of the African-American social spectrum. Supported by her white art-curator lover, who is in London, Joanne lives what Micah calls an "indie" life, which he considers anti-black. Micah is an African-American Firster, determined to promote what he considers to be authentic black experiences.