It’s going to be a blogathon bonanza!

This summer is shaping up to be a great time for classic film bloggers to participate in some really interesting events. Over the next three months, a number of blogathons are scheduled on some wide-ranging topics, and we here at True Classics could not be any more excited to throw our collective hat into the ring!

First up is the annual For the Love of Film blogathon, hosted by film blogging rock stars Marilyn Ferdinand, Roderick Heath, and Farran Smith Nehme. In years past, the focus has been on film restoration; this year, the event will raise money to pay for temporary streaming of the 1924 Graham Cutts/Alfred Hitchcock collaboration The White Shadow on the National Film Preservation Foundation website as well as the costs of recording a new film score by Michael Mortilla. The topic is pretty wide open, as defined by the event’s Facebook page:

“Anything to do with Hitchcock, British silent films, silent film scores, film preservation and the people who do it (but please, as much as we love and revere him, no tributes to Martin Scorsese), the suspense genre, the stars of The White Shadow (to be found on IMDb), Graham Cutts, and other related esoterica.”

The For the Love of Film blogathon will accept posts throughout the week of May 13th through the 18th. The donation button is posted in the sidebar if you would like to give a little dough for this great cause!

The end of the month will bring all the pretty horses out to play, as My Love of Old Hollywood’s Page hosts her Horseathon. Running from May 25th through the 27th, bloggers will post about their favorite equine-related films of yesteryear. Carrie will be writing a post about The Last Unicorn (1982) for our Saturday Morning Cartoons series, and I will contribute a post on Cat Ballou (1965) and Lee Marvin’s infamous drunken horse.

Bringing up the rear as the Horseathon concludes (see what I did there? Hey, it IS Kentucky Derby day), fellow CMBA-er Monty of All Good Things is hosting a Cinematic World Tour. This will a summer-long event, kicking off May 28th and going on through September. For this blogathon, Monty invites you to create a fantasy summer tour of classic movie locales. You can post as many times as you like before Labor Day, so check out the details and climb aboard!

Kicking off the month of June, KC of Classic Movies will host a Mary Pickford Blogathon. The groundbreaking actress and film studio owner has been in the news quite a bit recently, so this is the perfect time for an event celebrating her life. The topic is open to anything in the realm of Pickford’s life and career and will run from the 1st through the 3rd.

Next up, starting on June 18th, is the second edition of what will hopefully become an annual event from here on out. Hold onto your hats, guys and gals, ’cause Garbo Laughs is bringing you the Queer Film Blogathon Part Deux: The Queerening (as Caroline so hilariously put it when announcing the return in April)! As with last year, the event is open to any and all film bloggers, classic or non, and the topic is wide-open, so long as your post “celebrat[es] lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or otherwise non-heterosexual, non-gender-binary depictions or personages in film!” Last year I had so much fun contributing a post on the question of my beloved Cary Grant’s purported gayness and depictions of such in several of his classic comedic roles. I don’t know if I can top that this year, but I’m damn well going to try!

The following week, R.D. Finch is throwing a William Wyler blogathon over at The Movie Projector. Quite a few of our favorite classic film bloggers are participating in this one, so it is sure to produce some truly excellent reads. Yours truly will be contributing a piece on the 1941 Bette Davis vehicle The Little Foxes (1941)–it’s based on one of my favorite plays of all time, by Lillian Hellman, so this will definitely be an interesting one to tackle. Make sure to check out all of the great Wyler tributes from June 24th through the 29th.

Two great blogging friends, Dorian of Tales of the Easily Distracted and Becky of ClassicBecky’s Brain Food fame, had a spectacular idea for a blogathon focusing on the best Hitchcock films that Hitchcock never made: those movies that bear all of the hallmarks of the erstwhile Master of Suspense, but did not result from his delicious and sometimes diabolical direction. I’ll be writing about a great Barbara Stanwyck thriller, 1948’s Sorry, Wrong Number. It’s going to be a marvelous celebration, so make sure to sign up and join in the fun from July 7th through the 12th!

Last but certainly not least, the CMBA is hosting its second blogathon this year (after the immense success of January’s Comedy Classics event). This time around, we’re celebrating the centennial of the amazing Gene Kelly’s birth. We are contributing two posts for this one: Carrie is finally going to tackle the third of Gene’s musical collaborations with Frank Sinatra (after our brief mentions of 1945’s Anchors Aweigh and 1949’s On the Town), Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949), while I will be writing a piece on the 1950 Kelly-Judy Garland musical Summer Stock. (Note: this blogathon is limited to CMBA members only.)

EIGHT upcoming blogathons to participate in–to quote Katharine Hepburn as Jo March: “What richness!” Each and every one has its own special appeal. Are you signed up to contribute to any of these? If not, there’s still time to sign up, so check out the details and get to writin’! And if there are any others that we’ve neglected to list, let us know in the comments!

Addendum: Journeys in Classic Film is hosting a “Leading Man” tournament beginning on May 20th! Details will be coming soon, but in the meantime, you can find banners featuring a variety of classic leading men at the Journey blog.