By Lee Pfeiffer
In Cinema Retro's never-ending quest to analyze relatively inconsequential movies, the trail takes us to Dirty Dingus Magee, one of Frank Sinatra's last starring feature films. The movie shocked critics when it opened in 1970 due to the trivial of the production. Time has done nothing to enhance its reputation and one can only wonder what possessed Sinatra to star in this tepid Western comedy. In reality, Sinatra's passion for movie-making was also tepid. He always preferred to concentrate on his singing career and regarded acting as a time-consuming sideline. His penchant for rarely approving a second take became legendary. Nevertheless, he was undeniably one of the cinema's great icons. Prior to Dirty Dingus Magee, Sinatra had shown good judgment with the majority of the films he made during the mid-to-late Sixties. There were some misguided efforts but Von Ryan's Express, Tony Rome, Lady in Cement...
In Cinema Retro's never-ending quest to analyze relatively inconsequential movies, the trail takes us to Dirty Dingus Magee, one of Frank Sinatra's last starring feature films. The movie shocked critics when it opened in 1970 due to the trivial of the production. Time has done nothing to enhance its reputation and one can only wonder what possessed Sinatra to star in this tepid Western comedy. In reality, Sinatra's passion for movie-making was also tepid. He always preferred to concentrate on his singing career and regarded acting as a time-consuming sideline. His penchant for rarely approving a second take became legendary. Nevertheless, he was undeniably one of the cinema's great icons. Prior to Dirty Dingus Magee, Sinatra had shown good judgment with the majority of the films he made during the mid-to-late Sixties. There were some misguided efforts but Von Ryan's Express, Tony Rome, Lady in Cement...
- 11/25/2021
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Eddie Jones, the dependable stage veteran who portrayed the kindly Pa Kent on the ABC series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, has died. He was 84.
Jones died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his wife, Anita Khanzadian-Jones, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Jones also played the widowed father of Megan Cavanagh's second baseman Marla Hooch in A League of Their Own (1992) and was Samuel Riddle, the owner of War Admiral and Man o' War, in Seabiscuit (2003).
His solid big-screen résumé also included Bloodbrothers (1978), The First Deadly Sin (1980), Prince of the City (1981),...
Jones died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his wife, Anita Khanzadian-Jones, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Jones also played the widowed father of Megan Cavanagh's second baseman Marla Hooch in A League of Their Own (1992) and was Samuel Riddle, the owner of War Admiral and Man o' War, in Seabiscuit (2003).
His solid big-screen résumé also included Bloodbrothers (1978), The First Deadly Sin (1980), Prince of the City (1981),...
Eddie Jones, the dependable stage veteran who portrayed the kindly Pa Kent on the ABC series Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, has died. He was 84.
Jones died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his wife, Anita Khanzadian-Jones, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Jones also played the widowed father of Megan Cavanagh's second baseman Marla Hooch in A League of Their Own (1992) and was Samuel Riddle, the owner of War Admiral and Man o' War, in Seabiscuit (2003).
His solid big-screen résumé also included Bloodbrothers (1978), The First Deadly Sin (1980), Prince of the City (1981),...
Jones died Saturday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his wife, Anita Khanzadian-Jones, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Jones also played the widowed father of Megan Cavanagh's second baseman Marla Hooch in A League of Their Own (1992) and was Samuel Riddle, the owner of War Admiral and Man o' War, in Seabiscuit (2003).
His solid big-screen résumé also included Bloodbrothers (1978), The First Deadly Sin (1980), Prince of the City (1981),...
Richard Brooks' exciting Humphrey Bogart picture is one of the best newspaper sagas ever. An editor deals with a gangster threat and a domestic crisis even as greedy heirs are selling his paper out from under him. Commentator Eddie Muller drives home the film's essential civics lesson about what we've lost -- a functioning free press. Deadline - U.S.A. Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1952 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 87 min. / Street Date July 26, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95 Starring Humphrey Bogart, Ethel Barrymore, Kim Hunter, Ed Begley, Warren Stevens, Paul Stewart, Martin Gabel, Joe De Santis, Audrey Christie, Jim Backus, Willis Bouchey, Joseph Crehan, Lawrence Dobkin, John Doucette, Paul Dubov, William Forrest, Dabbs Greer, Thomas Browne Henry, Paul Maxey, Ann McCrea, Kasia Orzazewski, Tom Powers, Joe Sawyer, William Self, Phillip Terry, Carleton Young. Cinematography Milton Krasner Film Editor William B.Murphy Original Music Cyril J. Mockridge Produced by Sol C. Siegel...
- 9/2/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Above: Italian 4-foglio for The Joker is Wild (Charles Vidor, USA, 1957). Art by Enzo Nistri.Frank Sinatra, arguably the most important entertainer of the 20th century, was born 100 years ago today. I’ve become a little obsessed with him over the past week after watching Alex Gibney’s terrific 2-part, 4-hour HBO portrait Sinatra: All or Nothing at All. This of course got me thinking about Frank in movie posters, and I realized that I could barely come up with images of Sinatra posters in my head. While his best album covers are indelible and iconic, his movie posters tend to be less so. Scrolling through his filmography I realized that part of the problem is that his greatest films—On the Town, From Here to Eternity, Guys and Dolls, Some Came Running, Ocean’s 11—were almost always ensemble films in which Sinatra was never the standalone star, and so...
- 12/12/2015
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Above: Italian 4-foglio for The Joker is Wild (Charles Vidor, USA, 1957). Art by Enzo Nistri.Frank Sinatra, arguably the most important entertainer of the 20th century, was born 100 years ago today. I’ve become a little obsessed with him over the past week after watching Alex Gibney’s terrific 2-part, 4-hour HBO portrait Sinatra: All or Nothing at All. This of course got me thinking about Frank in movie posters, and I realized that I could barely come up with images of Sinatra posters in my head. While his best album covers are indelible and iconic, his movie posters tend to be less so. Scrolling through his filmography I realized that part of the problem is that his greatest films—On the Town, From Here to Eternity, Guys and Dolls, Some Came Running, Ocean’s 11—were almost always ensemble films in which Sinatra was never the standalone star, and so...
- 12/12/2015
- by Adrian Curry
- MUBI
Perhaps best remembered for the huge success of teen comedy Porky’s (1981) and perennial yuletide fave A Christmas Story (1983), Bob Clark will forever be known to horror fans as the director of Black Christmas (1974) , the taut, flat out scary as hell blueprint for John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) . However, the same year he made BC, came the potent anti Vietnam parable Deathdream, aka Dead of Night, a chilling indictment on the ravages of war mixed with a spooky EC Comics vibe. Rarely talked about, it still packs a wallop today.
Made right after Clark’s rather boring zombie debut Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972), but not released until August of ’74, Deathdream didn’t make much of a ripple at the box office but did see some solid notices. At the time, there weren’t a lot of films tackling the Vietnam War (most notable was 1968’s execrable John Wayne...
Made right after Clark’s rather boring zombie debut Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972), but not released until August of ’74, Deathdream didn’t make much of a ripple at the box office but did see some solid notices. At the time, there weren’t a lot of films tackling the Vietnam War (most notable was 1968’s execrable John Wayne...
- 9/12/2015
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
By Lee Pfeiffer
Well, it's that time of year again when pundits everywhere weigh in on the merits (or lack thereof) of the previous evening's Oscar telecast.
Here are my random observations:
Host Neil Patrick Harris was affable and likable and worked like hell to put on a good show. But there lies the rub. Traditionally, Oscar hosts never had to be chosen for their ability to carry Busby Berkeley-like song and dance extravaganzas. Dear old Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope and Johnny Carson were simply there to keep the traffic flowing to the podium in between rattling off some memorable one-liners. Billy Crystal quashed that tradition with his ever-outrageous opening production numbers that razzed the Academy and some of the nominees. The idea should have been retired with him when he announced he would no longer host the event. Last evening's opening act was certainly opulent and contained some...
Well, it's that time of year again when pundits everywhere weigh in on the merits (or lack thereof) of the previous evening's Oscar telecast.
Here are my random observations:
Host Neil Patrick Harris was affable and likable and worked like hell to put on a good show. But there lies the rub. Traditionally, Oscar hosts never had to be chosen for their ability to carry Busby Berkeley-like song and dance extravaganzas. Dear old Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope and Johnny Carson were simply there to keep the traffic flowing to the podium in between rattling off some memorable one-liners. Billy Crystal quashed that tradition with his ever-outrageous opening production numbers that razzed the Academy and some of the nominees. The idea should have been retired with him when he announced he would no longer host the event. Last evening's opening act was certainly opulent and contained some...
- 2/23/2015
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
"Brian G. Hutton, who directed Clint Eastwood in the World War II classics Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes as well as Frank Sinatra in the dark cop drama The First Deadly Sin, has died. He was believed to be 79." Mike Barnes for the Hollywood Reporter: "Hutton also called the shots on two films toplined by Elizabeth Taylor: the drama X, Y and Zee (1972), also starring Michael Caine and Susannah York, and Night Watch (1973), with Taylor, as a widow suffering from a nervous breakdown, playing opposite Laurence Harvey." We've also made note of remembrances from Variety and Cinema Retro. » - David Hudson...
- 8/21/2014
- Fandor: Keyframe
"Brian G. Hutton, who directed Clint Eastwood in the World War II classics Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes as well as Frank Sinatra in the dark cop drama The First Deadly Sin, has died. He was believed to be 79." Mike Barnes for the Hollywood Reporter: "Hutton also called the shots on two films toplined by Elizabeth Taylor: the drama X, Y and Zee (1972), also starring Michael Caine and Susannah York, and Night Watch (1973), with Taylor, as a widow suffering from a nervous breakdown, playing opposite Laurence Harvey." We've also made note of remembrances from Variety and Cinema Retro. » - David Hudson...
- 8/21/2014
- Keyframe
Brian G. Hutton, who directed Clint Eastwood in the World War II classics Where Eagles Dare and Kelly's Heroes as well as Frank Sinatra in the dark cop drama The First Deadly Sin, has died. He was believed to be 79. Hutton, who started his career as an actor, died Tuesday in Los Angeles after suffering a heart attack a week ago, his longtime friend, producer Al Ruddy, told The Hollywood Reporter. Hutton also called the shots on two films toplined by Elizabeth Taylor: the drama X, Y and Zee (1972), also starring Michael Caine and Susannah York, and Night Watch (1973),
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- 8/20/2014
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
It's been 25 years since we were first held hostage with an ass-kicking Bruce Willis on Christmas Eve in "Die Hard," a film that's as fresh and awesome as it was when it first hit theaters (in limited release on July 15, 1988, and nationwide on July 22). Five films and 71 kills later, John McClane is still one of our favorite cop heros.
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the action classic, we're letting you in on 25 trivia facts about the film. From the unexpected origin of "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf*cker!" to Reginald VelJohnson's Twinkie attacks, "Die Hard" is full of fun facts that you probably never knew, even after a hundred viewings (don't deny it).
1. "Die Hard" was Alan Rickman's feature film debut. That's right, Professor Snape, who's set to play Ronald Reagan in the upcoming film "The Butler," was first introduced to the big screen as the infamous Hans Gruber.
2. Rickman...
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the action classic, we're letting you in on 25 trivia facts about the film. From the unexpected origin of "Yippee-ki-yay, motherf*cker!" to Reginald VelJohnson's Twinkie attacks, "Die Hard" is full of fun facts that you probably never knew, even after a hundred viewings (don't deny it).
1. "Die Hard" was Alan Rickman's feature film debut. That's right, Professor Snape, who's set to play Ronald Reagan in the upcoming film "The Butler," was first introduced to the big screen as the infamous Hans Gruber.
2. Rickman...
- 7/15/2013
- by Erin Whitney
- Moviefone
This weekend, Sylvester Stallone and company return to action in the sequel to "The Expendables" -- conveniently titled "The Expendables 2." There's been a lot of talk this week about just which member of "The Expendables" is the most or least expendable. We thought it would be fun to take a look at a good portion of the team when they were all at their most expendable. You know, back when Stallone was doing soft-core pornography and Bruce Wills was singing the theme song to Seagram's Golden Wine Coolers.
Ahead, a look at the early careers of "The Expendables" cast.
Sylvester Stallone -- "Party at Kitty and Stud's"
Infamously, Sylvester Stallone's first movie role was in something called "Party at Kitty and Stud's," which, yes, is a soft-core porn film. After Stallone became Stallone, the film was renamed "The Italian Stallion" because of course it was going to be renamed...
Ahead, a look at the early careers of "The Expendables" cast.
Sylvester Stallone -- "Party at Kitty and Stud's"
Infamously, Sylvester Stallone's first movie role was in something called "Party at Kitty and Stud's," which, yes, is a soft-core porn film. After Stallone became Stallone, the film was renamed "The Italian Stallion" because of course it was going to be renamed...
- 8/14/2012
- by The Huffington Post
- Huffington Post
HollywoodNews.com: Hollywood Memorabilia Auction – June 23 & 24 – items from Elizabeth Taylor, Sammy Davis Jr., Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe and more!!
Premiere Props will be auctioning off over 1000 Hollywood costumes and props including several personal items from Hollywood icons Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Sammy Davis Jr., Liberace and Michael Jackson, plus hundreds of items from contemporary films including the “Harry Potter” and “Piranha” franchises, “What to Except When You are Expecting,” and “Seeking a Friend For the End of the World” during their Hollywood Extravaganza VI on Saturday, June 23 and Sunday, June 24, 2012. The auction will take place at Premiere Props’ headquarters in El Segundo, CA beginning at 11am Pt, with a preview from 9-11am Pt each day.
Items include:
· Elizabeth Taylor’s personal 36 foot dressing room/trailer from the set of “Cleopatra”
· Marilyn Monroe’s personally owned Pucci dress
· Rare negatives from Marilyn Monroe
· A collection of Sammy Davis Jr.’s...
Premiere Props will be auctioning off over 1000 Hollywood costumes and props including several personal items from Hollywood icons Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Sammy Davis Jr., Liberace and Michael Jackson, plus hundreds of items from contemporary films including the “Harry Potter” and “Piranha” franchises, “What to Except When You are Expecting,” and “Seeking a Friend For the End of the World” during their Hollywood Extravaganza VI on Saturday, June 23 and Sunday, June 24, 2012. The auction will take place at Premiere Props’ headquarters in El Segundo, CA beginning at 11am Pt, with a preview from 9-11am Pt each day.
Items include:
· Elizabeth Taylor’s personal 36 foot dressing room/trailer from the set of “Cleopatra”
· Marilyn Monroe’s personally owned Pucci dress
· Rare negatives from Marilyn Monroe
· A collection of Sammy Davis Jr.’s...
- 6/19/2012
- by Josh Abraham
- Hollywoodnews.com
James Whitmore, who played such American icons as Harry Truman, Will Rogers and Theodore Roosevelt, died Friday of lung cancer at his home in Malibu. He was 87.
Whitmore was twice nominated for Academy Awards -- as best actor in 1976 for "Give 'em Hell, Harry!," in which he played Truman, and as best supporting actor in 1950 for the war movie "Battleground."
He also won an Emmy Award in 2000 for a guest-starring role on "The Practice," as well as a Tony Award for "Command Decision."
Whitmore was diagnosed with cancer a week before Thanksgiving. "My father believed that family came before everything, that work was just a vehicle in which to provide for your family," his son Steve Whitmore, who works as spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, told the Associated Press. "At the end, and in the last two and a half months of his life, he was surrounded by his family.
Whitmore was twice nominated for Academy Awards -- as best actor in 1976 for "Give 'em Hell, Harry!," in which he played Truman, and as best supporting actor in 1950 for the war movie "Battleground."
He also won an Emmy Award in 2000 for a guest-starring role on "The Practice," as well as a Tony Award for "Command Decision."
Whitmore was diagnosed with cancer a week before Thanksgiving. "My father believed that family came before everything, that work was just a vehicle in which to provide for your family," his son Steve Whitmore, who works as spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, told the Associated Press. "At the end, and in the last two and a half months of his life, he was surrounded by his family.
- 2/6/2009
- by By Duane Byrge
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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