Actor John Wayne starred in Western and war movies that filled his filmography. However, he didn’t initially get his start in front of the camera. First, Wayne worked at Fox in the props department on several films before getting his first leading role in Raoul Walsh’s 1930 Western adventure called The Big Trail. Here are the eight movies Wayne worked on in the props department before he was famous.
John Wayne | ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images ‘The Great K & A Train Robbery’ (1926) L-r: Dorothy Dwan as Madge Cullen and Tom Mix as Tom Gordon | Fox
A detective poses as a bandit in an undercover mission to stop a streak of train robberies from continuing. Meanwhile, he falls in love with the railroad president’s daughter.
The Great K & A Train Robbery is a silent film directed by Lewis Seiler and written by John Stone from Paul Leicester Ford’s novel.
John Wayne | ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images ‘The Great K & A Train Robbery’ (1926) L-r: Dorothy Dwan as Madge Cullen and Tom Mix as Tom Gordon | Fox
A detective poses as a bandit in an undercover mission to stop a streak of train robberies from continuing. Meanwhile, he falls in love with the railroad president’s daughter.
The Great K & A Train Robbery is a silent film directed by Lewis Seiler and written by John Stone from Paul Leicester Ford’s novel.
- 3/1/2023
- by Jeff Nelson
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
It is fair to assume Criterion could plunder the world of licensed film to build an ultimate noir playlist; credit, then, for focusing sharp and nabbing deep cuts. The Criterion Channel’s November / Noirvember program will be headlined by “Fox Noir,” an eight-title program with Otto Preminger deep cut Fallen Angel, three by Henry Hathaway, Siodmak, Dassin, Kazan, and Robert Wise, and while retrospectives of Veronica Lake and John Garfield will bring some canon into the fold, I’m mostly thinking about that potential for discovery.
Following “Free Jazz,” Bob Hoskins, and Joyce Chopra programs, the other big series is a 30-year survey of Sony Pictures Classics: Sally Potter, Satoshi Kon, Panahi, Errol Morris, Almodóvar, Haneke, Mike Leigh, just a murderer’s row. Streaming premieres include 499 and A Night of Knowing Nothing, two recent epitomes of I Wish I Had Seen That; Criterion Editions comprise Cure, Brazil, Sullivan’s Travels,...
Following “Free Jazz,” Bob Hoskins, and Joyce Chopra programs, the other big series is a 30-year survey of Sony Pictures Classics: Sally Potter, Satoshi Kon, Panahi, Errol Morris, Almodóvar, Haneke, Mike Leigh, just a murderer’s row. Streaming premieres include 499 and A Night of Knowing Nothing, two recent epitomes of I Wish I Had Seen That; Criterion Editions comprise Cure, Brazil, Sullivan’s Travels,...
- 10/26/2022
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Canadian-born actress Alexis Smith (born 1921) would have turned 96 years old today, June 8. Turner Classic Movies is celebrating her birthday by presenting nine of her movies, mostly during her time as a Warner Bros. contract player. In addition to Michael Curtiz's box office hit Night and Day, a highly fictionalized Cole Porter biopic starring Cary Grant as a heterosexual version of the famed gay composer. Night and Day is being shown as part of TCM's Gay Pride Month celebration. Alexis Smith died on June 9, 1993, the day after she turned 72. After her film career petered out in the 1950s, she went on to receive acclaim on the Broadway stage, making sporadic film appearances all the way to the year of her death. Smith's last film appearance was in a minor supporting role in Martin Scorsese's overly genteel period drama The Age of Innocence (1993), starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Winona Ryder.
- 6/8/2017
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Danièle Delorme and Jean Gabin in 'Deadlier Than the Male.' Danièle Delorme movies (See previous post: “Danièle Delorme: 'Gigi' 1949 Actress Became Rare Woman Director's Muse.”) “Every actor would like to make a movie with Charles Chaplin or René Clair,” Danièle Delorme explains in the filmed interview (ca. 1960) embedded further below, adding that oftentimes it wasn't up to them to decide with whom they would get to work. Yet, although frequently beyond her control, Delorme managed to collaborate with a number of major (mostly French) filmmakers throughout her six-decade movie career. Aside from her Jacqueline Audry films discussed in the previous Danièle Delorme article, below are a few of her most notable efforts – usually playing naive-looking young women of modest means and deceptively inconspicuous sexuality, whose inner character may or may not match their external appearance. Ouvert pour cause d'inventaire (“Open for Inventory Causes,” 1946), an unreleased, no-budget comedy notable...
- 12/18/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Virginia Bruce: MGM actress ca. 1935. Virginia Bruce movies on TCM: Actress was the cherry on 'The Great Ziegfeld' wedding cake Unfortunately, Turner Classic Movies has chosen not to feature any non-Hollywood stars – or any out-and-out silent film stars – in its 2015 “Summer Under the Stars” series.* On the other hand, TCM has come up with several unusual inclusions, e.g., Lee J. Cobb, Warren Oates, Mae Clarke, and today, Aug. 25, Virginia Bruce. A second-rank MGM leading lady in the 1930s, the Minneapolis-born Virginia Bruce is little remembered today despite her more than 70 feature films in a career that spanned two decades, from the dawn of the talkie era to the dawn of the TV era, in addition to a handful of comebacks going all the way to 1981 – the dawn of the personal computer era. Career highlights were few and not all that bright. Examples range from playing the...
- 8/26/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Marc Allégret: From André Gide lover to Simone Simon mentor (photo: Marc Allégret) (See previous post: "Simone Simon Remembered: Sex Kitten and Femme Fatale.") Simone Simon became a film star following the international critical and financial success of the 1934 romantic drama Lac aux Dames, directed by her self-appointed mentor – and alleged lover – Marc Allégret.[1] The son of an evangelical missionary, Marc Allégret (born on December 22, 1900, in Basel, Switzerland) was to have become a lawyer. At age 16, his life took a different path as a result of his romantic involvement – and elopement to London – with his mentor and later "adoptive uncle" André Gide (1947 Nobel Prize winner in Literature), more than 30 years his senior and married to Madeleine Rondeaux for more than two decades. In various forms – including a threesome with painter Théo Van Rysselberghe's daughter Elisabeth – the Allégret-Gide relationship remained steady until the late '20s and their trip to...
- 2/28/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Martha Stewart: Actress / Singer in Fox movies apparently not dead despite two-year-old reports to the contrary (Photo: Martha Stewart and Perry Como in 'Doll Face') According to various online reports, including Variety's, actress and singer Martha Stewart, a pretty blonde featured in supporting roles in a handful of 20th Century Fox movies of the '40s, died at age 89 of "natural causes" in Northeast Harbor, Maine, on February 25, 2012. Needless to say, that was not the same Martha Stewart hawking "delicious foods" and whatever else on American television. But quite possibly, the Martha Stewart who died in February 2012 -- if any -- was not the Martha Stewart of old Fox movies either. And that's why I'm republishing this (former) obit, originally posted more than two and a half years ago: March 11, 2012. Earlier today, a commenter wrote to Alt Film Guide, claiming that the Martha Stewart featured in Doll Face, I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now,...
- 11/11/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
‘Whiplash’: Sundance Film Festival Awards’ rare double winner (photo: Miles Teller in ‘Whiplash’) Directed by Damien Chazelle — and acquired for domestic distribution by Sony Pictures Classics — Whiplash won the 2014 Sundance Film Festival U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize and the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award. The story of a young, ambitious 19-year-old drummer (played by 26-year-old Miles Teller) under the tutelage of a ruthless teacher (J.K. Simmons), Whiplash also features Melissa Benoist, Paul Reiser, Austin Stowell, Nate Lang, Chris Mulkey, and Damon Gupton. Whiplash‘s double Sundance Film Festival win is quite rare. Previous such instances in Sundance’s three-decade history include Tony Bui’s Three Seasons in 1999, Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland’s Quinceañera in 2006, Lee Daniels’ Precious in 2009, and Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station last year. Of these, Precious is — somewhat surprisingly — the only Sundance double winner to have succeeded both at the domestic box office and during awards season,...
- 1/26/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Femme fatale Audrey Totter: Film noir actress and MGM leading lady dead at 95 (photo: Audrey Totter ca. 1947) Audrey Totter, film noir femme fatale and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player best remembered for the mystery crime drama Lady in the Lake and, at Rko, the hard-hitting boxing drama The Set-Up, died after suffering a stroke and congestive heart failure on Thursday, December 12, 2013, at West Hills Hospital in Los Angeles County. Reportedly a resident at the Motion Picture and Television Home in Woodland Hills, Audrey Totter would have turned 96 on Dec. 20. Born in Joliet, Illinois, Audrey Totter began her show business career on radio. She landed an MGM contract in the mid-’40s, playing bit roles in several of the studio’s productions, e.g., the Clark Gable-Greer Garson pairing Adventure (1945), the Hedy Lamarr-Robert Walker-June Allyson threesome Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945), and, as an adventurous hitchhiker riding with John Garfield,...
- 12/15/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Jennifer Jones, Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Beat the Devil Humphrey Bogart on TCM: The Caine Mutiny, The Maltese Falcon, Sahara Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Bogart: The Untold Story (1996) Stephen Bogart hosts this one-hour special on the life and career of his legendary father, Humphrey Bogart. Dir: Chris Hunt. Cast: Stephen Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Robert Sklar. C-46 mins. 7:00 Am Bullets Or Ballots (1936) A cop goes undercover to crack an influential crime ring. Dir: William Keighley. Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Barton MacLane. Bw-82 mins. 8:30 Am San Quentin (1937) A convict's sister falls for the captain of the prison guards. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. Cast: Pat O'Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan. Bw-70 mins. 9:45 Am King Of The Underworld (1939) A lady doctor gets mixed up with a criminal gang. Dir: Lewis Seiler. Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Kay Francis, James Stephenson. Bw-67 mins. 11:00 Am To Have And Have Not...
- 8/18/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ann Sheridan on TCM: Kings Row, The Man Who Came To Dinner Schedule (Pt) and synopses from the TCM website: 3:00 Am Naughty But Nice (1939) A college professor turns songwriter and falls for his lyricist. Cast: Ann Sheridan, Dick Powell, Gale Page. Dir: Ray Enright. Bw-89 mins. 4:30 Am Nora Prentiss (1947) An ambitious singer ruins a doctor’s life. Cast: Ann Sheridan, Kent Smith, Bruce Bennett. Dir: Vincent Sherman. Bw-112 mins. 6:30 Am It All Came True (1940) A gangster hides out in a boardinghouse full of eccentrics. Cast: Ann Sheridan, Humphrey Bogart, ZaSu Pitts. Dir: Lewis Seiler. Bw-97 mins. 8:30 Am Wings For The Eagle (1942) Dedicated aircraft workers compete for the same girl. Cast: Ann Sheridan, Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson. Dir: Lloyd Bacon. Bw-84 mins. 10:00 Am One More Tomorrow (1946) A playboy and a lady photographer allow social differences to come between them. Cast: Ann Sheridan, Dennis [...]...
- 8/18/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Global phenom though it's been, the Korean New Wave has been as badly hit by the 2008 economic crisis as any national industry, a situation that opened the door in the last two years for a variety of dirt-cheap indies, most notoriously Yang Ik-joon's "Breathless," which took South Korea by storm. The far less flamboyant example is Noh Young-Seok's "Daytime Drinking," a peripatetic generation-z comedy that's as eventless, but as seductive and wistful, as a real afternoon boozing spree.
In fact, it's a difficult movie to stay sober for. The cultural context, provided neatly on the Canadian DVD notes by Asian film obsessive Grady Hendrix, is simply that Koreans drink a lot, and they drink a lot of soju (a cheap, low-amp, sweetened vodka potion, consumed at the rate of almost seven gallons per adult per year), and so movies like Noh's (and Hong Sang-soo's, among others) express a reality...
In fact, it's a difficult movie to stay sober for. The cultural context, provided neatly on the Canadian DVD notes by Asian film obsessive Grady Hendrix, is simply that Koreans drink a lot, and they drink a lot of soju (a cheap, low-amp, sweetened vodka potion, consumed at the rate of almost seven gallons per adult per year), and so movies like Noh's (and Hong Sang-soo's, among others) express a reality...
- 2/9/2010
- by Michael Atkinson
- ifc.com
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