Among movie actresses of her generation, when melodrama was an accepted currency and bigger often meant better, Barbara Stanwyck was somehow earthier, less glamorous, far more real than most.

There was – and still is – such a thing as a “Stanwyck performance,” where beneath the artifice of the acting is a sly, driven and knowing presence that somehow connects to real life in ways the Hollywood dream factory could never dream up.

That quality made Stanwyck a unique actress in her time and contributes to her steadily growing status since her death in 1990, and it’s largely the focus of Dan Callahan’s sharp, new, career-oriented biography, “Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman” (University Press of Mississippi, $35).

With so many details of Stanwyck’s childhood and early career lost to time – the actress was loathe to talk about her upbringing – Callahan’s book looks most acutely at her movies, her career choices and what they might reveal about the woman herself. A certain amount of speculation and biographical license might enter the equation, but largely Callahan’s insights and instincts about his subject ring out as sympathetic, reasonable and well founded.

He neatly lays out the biographical facts we know: Stanwyck was born Ruby Stevens in 1907 in Brooklyn. Her father disappeared early on and her mother was run over by a streetcar when Ruby was 3. Afterward, she was cared for by her older sister and later lived in a series of foster homes.

There’s some evidence that she suffered from abuse, even after she was grown and married to vaudevillian Frank Fay, an alcoholic and anti-Semitic perhaps best known as the original Elwood P. Dowd of Broadway’s “Harvey.” She also apparently had unhappy dalliances with certain gangsters during her days as a chorus girl and later with star Al Jolson, whom she referred to as “a real son of a bitch.”

After a rocky start in early films like “Ten Cents a Dance,” Stanwyck found her acting muse in director Frank Capra, who seemed to get her raw, earthy appeal and cast her in a series of strong films from 1930-32 (including “The Miracle Woman,” “Forbidden” and “The Bitter Tea of General Yen”).

Callahan duly notes Stanwyck’s sharp instincts and tough-mindedness in going forward, choosing roles, scripts and directors that perfectly fit her personality, skills and ambitions. In rich succession she teamed with King Vidor on “Stella Dallas” (1937), Cecil B. DeMille on “Union Pacific” (1939), Preston Sturges on “The Lady Eve” (1941), Howard Hawks on “Ball of Fire” (1941), again with Capra on “Meet John Doe” (1941) and Billy Wilder on “Double Indemnity” (1944).

While Callahan covers Stanwyck’s second marriage to Robert Taylor, which failed after his infidelity, and her romance with the much younger Robert Wagner, he mostly measures her life through her work. While many of her contemporaries saw their stars fade with age, Stanwyck always retained her passion for work, even in lesser roles such as the Elvis starrer “Roustabout” (1964) and the TV western “The Big Valley” (1965-69).

Late in her life, she accepted roles that were clearly beneath her abilities (on the Aaron Spelling spinoff of “Dynasty,” which she quickly left). But, Callahan points out, she never gave a performance less than her best. She was, he notes, one of the first movie stars of her time to employ observed behavior rather than conventional acting techniques, and it’s one of the things that make her acting seem modern and timeless.

Of her finest roles, Callahan writes: “Stanwyck loved the movies, even at their most extreme and artificial, yet she was the actress who most often reminded the movies of reality.”

- Dennis King

NEW YORK – The opening of “Elling” on Broadway marks the latest in a long line of movie-based stories making their way to the stages of the Great White Way.

Some other movie-to-play translations that are currently on New York stages include:

“The 39 Steps” – This witty spoof on Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 espionage thriller essentially follows the film story verbatim, except the thrills are played for laughs and all roles were frantically preformed by a cast of four actors.

“Brief Encounter” – This stage version of the sentimental 1945 British film from David Lean and Noel Coward is also a larky combination of affectionate spoof, nostalgic set piece and brilliant theater craft – at once a thing of the stage and a savvy homage to cinema melodrama.

“Elf” – For a limited holiday run, the towering elf, Buddy (with Sebastian Arcelus standing in for Will Ferrell), visits New York in a faithful stage adaptation of the Warner Bros. film. Tony Award nominees Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin provide music and lyrics.

“The Lion King” – The 1994 Disney animated feature film made a seamless safari from screen to stage and became a Broadway mainstay (as well as a worldwide touring money machine). It boasts innovative staging by director Julie Taymor, with music by Elton John and lyrics by Tim Rice, along with a musical score created by Hans Zimmer and choral arrangements by African composer Lebo M.

“Mary Poppins” – Another Disney film (from 1964) traipsed onto the Broadway stage and staked a claim to long-running status. This one features the wizardry of producer Cameron Mackintosh (“Les Miserables,” “Cats,” “The Phantom of the Opera”) and familiar songs from the Julie Andrews’ film.

“Billy Elliot” – The blue-collar tale of an British lad who escapes his hardscrabble life in a depressed Northern England mining community by becoming a world-class ballet dancer tripped the light onto the Broadway stage as a musical, with tunes by Elton John and lyrics by Lee Hal, who also wrote the film’s screenplay.

“Women on the Verges of a Nervous Breakdown” – In a most unlikely marriage of Spanish postmodernism and Broadway razzmatazz, Pedro Almodovar’s sassy 1988 comedy-drama gets the musical theater treatment in this new New York production, featuring music and lyrics by David Yazbek and a cast lead by the larger-than-life diva Patti LuPone.

“Promises, Promises” – Actually, the current production of this musical – with songs and lyrics by Burt Bacharach and Hal David and book by Neil Simon – is in its the second time around. Based on Billy Wilder’s classic 1960 film, “The Apartment,” it first came to Broadway in 1968 and ran for nearly 1,300 performances. The current show features Oklahoma native Kristen Chenoweth as the waitress who falls for a two-timing businessman who borrows an underling’s apartment for extra-marital trysts.

The Addams Family – Technically, this musical (featuring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth) is drawn from the macabre cartoon works of New Yorker magazine artist Charles Addams, but the tale of one ghoulish family of spirited misfits sprang to three-dimensional life in a popular ’60s TV show and in three big-screen adaptations (the last going straight to video). And currently there is talk of a stop-motion animated film involving that most Addams-esque filmmaker Tim Burton.

Far afield from the Broadway boards, two fairly obscure film works have recently received stage treatments. A special, campy Halloween season production of “Plan 9 From Outer Space” was offered by the Brick Theater in Brooklyn, and “Throne of Blood,” an Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of Akira Kurasawa’s 1957 film version of “Macbeth,” just finished a short run on stage at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

- Dennis King

Billy Wilder, along with Preston Sturges, was among Hollywood’s first “hyphenates,” a screenwriter who in the highly stratified studio system of the 1930s managed to cut deals that allowed him to direct his own screenplays. Hence, a writer-director.

That’s just one of numerous groundbreaking accomplishments this German-born film pioneer chalked up in an amazing career that ranged from 1929’s “Hell of a Reporter” (as writer) to 1981’s “Buddy Buddy” (as writer-director). These and other highlights are detailed in the definitive biography “Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder” (The University Press of Kentucky, $39.95), by Gene D. Phillips.

The 464-page book interweaves facts of Wilder’s life – he fled Berlin because of his Jewish heritage and sought refuge in America when Germany came under Nazi control – with details of his quick ascendancy in Hollywood from the ranks of staff screenwriter to the coveted position of writer-director.

Drawn from archival records, voluminous correspondence between Wilder and his antagonists and collaborators, a lengthy interview with Wilder himself, and interviews with many of his colleagues, Phillips’ book weaves together various elements into a story that feels both scholarly and highly entertaining.

Along with biographical background, the book includes plot synopses, quotes, anecdotes and trivia from some of Wilder’s most challenging films. Wilder (1906-2002) directed some of the most acclaimed movies in Hollywood history, including 1950’s “Sunset Boulevard,” 1954’s “Sabrina,” 1955’s “The Seven Year Itch,” 1957’s “Witness for the Prosecution” and 1959’s “Some Like It Hot.”

His earlier films, 1943’s “Five Graves to Cairo” and 1945’s “Double Indemnity” earned several Academy Award nominations, and 1945’s “The Lost Weekend” took home Oscars for best picture, director, and screenplay. During the 1960s, Wilder continued to direct and produce controversial comedies, including 1964’s “Kiss Me, Stupid” and 1960’s “The Apartment,” which won Oscars for best picture and director.

Wilder often clashed with the studio powers over strict production codes and conservative ideologies, and Phillips duly notes the filmmaker’s lifelong maverick tendencies.

“Although Wilder made comedies as well as dramas, his satirical purpose was the same in film after film: to expose the foibles of human nature to the public eye,” the author writes. “To stimulate audiences to serious reflections about the human condition. It has been said that if a satirist like Jonathan Swift had lived in the twentieth century, he would have written screenplays for Billy Wilder.”

Phillips is author of other film-related books, including “Beyond the Epic: The Life & Films of David Lean” and “Godfather: The Intimate Francis Ford Coppola.”

Several other fine biographies of Wilder have preceded Phillips’ book and it appears the author brought no major new revelations to light with this sprawling tome. But for students and fans of this witty, urbane and slyly subversive moviemaker, without a doubt one of the most influential directors in Hollywood history, “Some Like It Wilder” is a well-informed and well-told addition to any library of movie greats.

- Dennis King

For movie lovers who in this online, digital age are still enamored of old-fashioned, ink-and-paper journalism, there’s a rich repository of classic Hollywood movies that chronicle the dicey doings of the trade’s dogged newshounds, gossip columnists, sensation-seeking editors and sappy sob-sisters.

Newspaper yarns of all stripes have been a movie staple throughout film history – dating back to the wild-and-raucous days of “The Front Page” to the grand megalomania of “Citizen Kane,” and on through the buttoned-down investigative procedures of “All the President’s Men.”

Beginning April 9, New York’s Film Forum will host a four-week festival called “The Newspaper Picture,” celebrating the good, the bad and the ugly of daily journalism. In a 43-film extravaganza highlighting some of the best films ever made about newspapering, the fest will present daily screenings along with panel discussions with several notables of the profession.

High on the roster of scheduled movies – all in 35mm prints – is: Billy Wilder’s “Ace in the Hole” with Kirk Douglas; Mervyn LeRoy’s “Five Star Final,” with Edward G. Robinson; Michael Curtiz’s “Front Page Woman,” with Bette Davis; “Deadline U.S.A.,” with Humphrey Bogart; Sam Fuller’s “Shock Corridor”; Alexander Mackendrick’s “Sweet Smell of Success,” with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis; Frank Capra’s “Meet John Doe,” with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck; Howard Hawks’ “His Girl Friday,” with Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, based on Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s “The Front Page,” and Lewis Milestone’s rare, original 1931 version starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O’Brien.

Special guests for panel discussions will include Brooke Gladstone, co-host of NPR’s “On the Media,” Randy Cohen, “The Ethicist” of The New York Times, V.A. Musetto of the New York Post and writer James Lardner, son of screenwriter Ring Lardner Jr. and grandson of humorist and old newspaperman Ring Lardner.

For Oklahoma fans who can’t quite manage a trip to New York for the festival, all featured films are available on DVD or video. Log on to www.filmforum.com for a complete list of festival offerings and organize your own at-home festival.

And in case you’re too quick to write off newspapers as cultural dinosaurs and newspaper movies as Hollywood relics, check out a couple of recent additions to newsprint-on-celluloid genre – “State of Play,” with Russell Crowe as an old-school print reporter investigating the murder of a Congressman’s mistress, and “The Soloist,” with Robert Downey, Jr. as a Los Angeles newspaper columnist who champions Jamie Foxx’s homeless violin virtuoso.

Who says newspapers are dead?

– Dennis King