One of the most unassuming filmmakers of Britain’s early period, Michael Powell entered the golden age of his career with The Edge of the World. Though he had already made over 20 films by 1937, it represented one of his first successfully realized and self-actualized stabs at what would become one of his chief directorial strengths: the ability to film a very specific and localized environment in a manner that emphasizes its otherworldly fantasias and, paradoxically, remains faithful to the area’s ethnographical features.
To watch the film is to bear witness to Powell’s unique alchemy. Throughout, he infuses a weather-battered island community off the coast of Scotland on the verge of abandonment with off-kilter camera angles, dreamily gauzy cinematography, and a becalmed detachment that lets the characters and scenario do the work for him.
Which isn’t to say that Powell occasionally indulges in a few melodramatic flourishes that...
To watch the film is to bear witness to Powell’s unique alchemy. Throughout, he infuses a weather-battered island community off the coast of Scotland on the verge of abandonment with off-kilter camera angles, dreamily gauzy cinematography, and a becalmed detachment that lets the characters and scenario do the work for him.
Which isn’t to say that Powell occasionally indulges in a few melodramatic flourishes that...
- 10/20/2023
- by Eric Henderson
- Slant Magazine
Chivalry! Vows of loyalty and honor! Combat action that will impress today’s Marvel fans! The violet eyes and super-damsel figure of Elizabeth Taylor! MGM’s made-in-Merrie Olde England tale of Knights and knaves and forbidden love is yet another suits-of-armor sword-basher about ransoming King Richard from those European Union swine across the channel. Everything clicks, from Miklos Rozsa’s most stirring anthem to the righteous justice of the finale. And it’s restored from 3-strip Technicolor. Robert Taylor is terrific as the stalwart Ivanhoe, the kind of no-funny-business hero they ain’t makin’ anymore.
Ivanhoe
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1952 /Color / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date December 14, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Emlyn Williams, Robert Douglas, Finlay Currie, Felix Aylmer, Guy Rolfe.
Cinematography: Freddie Young
Art Director: Alfred Junge
Film Editor: Frank Clarke
Original Music: Miklos Rozsa
Written by Aeneas MacKenzie, Marguerite Roberts,...
Ivanhoe
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1952 /Color / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date December 14, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Emlyn Williams, Robert Douglas, Finlay Currie, Felix Aylmer, Guy Rolfe.
Cinematography: Freddie Young
Art Director: Alfred Junge
Film Editor: Frank Clarke
Original Music: Miklos Rozsa
Written by Aeneas MacKenzie, Marguerite Roberts,...
- 12/7/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Powerhouse Indicator moves forward to their fourth fancy box of noirs from the studio of Harry Cohn, six pictures stretching from the postwar boom to the end of the original classic noir era. This time around we have some notable directors, and a nice selection of stars — Dennis O’Keefe, George Murphy, Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak, Jean Simmons, Rory Calhoun and Richard Conte. Kim Novak makes her starring debut as a femme fatale; noir icon Richard Conte shines in a movie that marks a turn into a new kind of existential, paranoid thriller. And speaking of paranoid, we again get to lighten up with another selection of theme-appropriate Three Stooges shorts.
Columbia Noir #4
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1948-1957 / B&w + Color / 1:85 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / Street Date September 27, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / 49.99
Starring: Louis Hayward, Dennis O’Keefe; George Murphy; Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak; Jean Simmons, Rory Calhoun; Dennis O’Keefe,...
Columbia Noir #4
Region B Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1948-1957 / B&w + Color / 1:85 widescreen, 1:37 Academy / Street Date September 27, 2021 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / 49.99
Starring: Louis Hayward, Dennis O’Keefe; George Murphy; Fred MacMurray, Kim Novak; Jean Simmons, Rory Calhoun; Dennis O’Keefe,...
- 9/14/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Last year, the BBC and FX gave us a macabre three-part retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol from the imagination of one of the UK’s leading screenwriters, Steven Knight. That was just the beginning. A second Dickens adaptation is now on its way from Knight, and judging from the comments of one BBC boss, there’ll be more where that came from.
Dickens’ Great Expectations is next up from the Peaky Blinders creator. Knight is writing and executive-producing a six-episode adaptation of the classic novel for BBC One and FX, to be made by the same UK-us collaboration involving Ridley Scott and Tom Hardy’s production companies.
Published in weekly instalments from December 1860, Great Expectations is famously the story of orphan Pip, who as a child has a pivotal encounter with an escaped prisoner before rising up through society’s ranks. It’s a coming-of-age tale about class and youthful pride,...
Dickens’ Great Expectations is next up from the Peaky Blinders creator. Knight is writing and executive-producing a six-episode adaptation of the classic novel for BBC One and FX, to be made by the same UK-us collaboration involving Ridley Scott and Tom Hardy’s production companies.
Published in weekly instalments from December 1860, Great Expectations is famously the story of orphan Pip, who as a child has a pivotal encounter with an escaped prisoner before rising up through society’s ranks. It’s a coming-of-age tale about class and youthful pride,...
- 5/13/2020
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Do you ever lapse into daydream fantasies to escape from everyday life? Tom Courtenay and John Schlesinger changed their destinies and that of Julie Christie with this brilliant (black?) comedy about what ought to be a tragic situation. The frustrated Billy rebels against his dull routine with outrageous lies and chicanery, but hasn’t the courage to strike forth on his own — even when invited to do so by the girl of his dreams. Schlesinger’s delightful directorial style applies brash New Wave editing to Billy’s grandiose ‘Walter Mitty’ fantasies.
Billy Liar
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1963 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date April 28, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, Wilfred Pickles, Mona Washbourne, Ethel Griffies, Finlay Currie.
Cinematography: Denys N. Coop
Film Editor: Roger Cherrill
Original Music: Richard Rodney Bennett
Written by Keith Waterhouse, Willis Hall from their play
Produced by Joseph Janni
Directed by...
Billy Liar
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1963 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date April 28, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Tom Courtenay, Julie Christie, Wilfred Pickles, Mona Washbourne, Ethel Griffies, Finlay Currie.
Cinematography: Denys N. Coop
Film Editor: Roger Cherrill
Original Music: Richard Rodney Bennett
Written by Keith Waterhouse, Willis Hall from their play
Produced by Joseph Janni
Directed by...
- 4/21/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
This remake of Warners’ 1924 John Barrymore feature gives us Elizabeth Taylor in the Mary Astor role, Stewart Granger as the fashion dandy of the Restoration Period, and a scene-stealing Peter Ustinov as a lonely, needy Prince of Wales. The history is still weak, but it at least doesn’t turn Brummell into a typical swashbuckler. Compensating are English actors that can get any script up on its feet, and Liz Taylor’s blue-violet eyes. And the Oswald Morris cinematography improves greatly on the MGM house style.
Beau Brummell
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1954 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date March 10, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Stewart Granger, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov, Robert Morley, James Donald, James Hayter, Rosemary Harris, Paul Rogers, Noel Willman, Peter Dyneley, Peter Bull, Finlay Currie, David Peel.
Cinematography: Oswald Morris
Film Editor: Frank Clarke
Art Direction: Alfred Junge
Original Music: Richard Addinsell
Written by Karl Tunberg from...
Beau Brummell
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1954 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date March 10, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Stewart Granger, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov, Robert Morley, James Donald, James Hayter, Rosemary Harris, Paul Rogers, Noel Willman, Peter Dyneley, Peter Bull, Finlay Currie, David Peel.
Cinematography: Oswald Morris
Film Editor: Frank Clarke
Art Direction: Alfred Junge
Original Music: Richard Addinsell
Written by Karl Tunberg from...
- 3/7/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
This remake of Warners’ 1924 John Barrymore feature gives us Elizabeth Taylor in the Mary Astor role, Stewart Granger as the fashion dandy of the Restoration Period, and a scene-stealing Peter Ustinov as a lonely, needy Prince of Wales. The history is still weak, but it at least doesn’t turn Brummell into a typical swashbuckler. Compensating are English actors that can get any script up on its feet, and Liz Taylor’s blue-violet eyes. And the Oswald Morris cinematography improves greatly on the MGM house style.
Beau Brummell
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1954 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date March 10, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Stewart Granger, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov, Robert Morley, James Donald, James Hayter, Rosemary Harris, Paul Rogers, Noel Willman, Peter Dyneley, Peter Bull, Finlay Currie, David Peel.
Cinematography: Oswald Morris
Film Editor: Frank Clarke
Art Direction: Alfred Junge
Original Music: Richard Addinsell
Written by Karl Tunberg from...
Beau Brummell
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1954 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date March 10, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Stewart Granger, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Ustinov, Robert Morley, James Donald, James Hayter, Rosemary Harris, Paul Rogers, Noel Willman, Peter Dyneley, Peter Bull, Finlay Currie, David Peel.
Cinematography: Oswald Morris
Film Editor: Frank Clarke
Art Direction: Alfred Junge
Original Music: Richard Addinsell
Written by Karl Tunberg from...
- 3/7/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Though long embraced by parents as family-friendly safe zones, Disney’s live action films were just as often called out for their squeaky clean posturing and regressive world views.
Fair enough – but as Noah Cross growled, “Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough” – and a good number of those mild-mannered entertainments, while not exactly ready for the arthouse, are at least worthy of a second look.
Disney Movie Club has released some of those Baby Boomer perennials in sterling Blu ray transfers – unfortunately available to club members only. Here’s part one in a rundown of the more tantalizing items.
Treasure Island, Davy Crockett,
Old Yeller, Pollyanna
Blu ray
Disney Movie Club
1950, ‘55, ‘56, ‘57, ‘60 / 1. 33:1, 1.85:1 / 96, 93, 81, 83, 134 Min.
Starring Robert Newton, Dorothy McGuire, Hayley Mills, Fess Parker
Cinematography by Freddie Young, Charles P. Boyle, Russell Harlan
Directed by Byron Haskin, Robert Stevenson, David Swift
Treasure Island – 1950
Thanks...
Fair enough – but as Noah Cross growled, “Politicians, ugly buildings and whores all get respectable if they last long enough” – and a good number of those mild-mannered entertainments, while not exactly ready for the arthouse, are at least worthy of a second look.
Disney Movie Club has released some of those Baby Boomer perennials in sterling Blu ray transfers – unfortunately available to club members only. Here’s part one in a rundown of the more tantalizing items.
Treasure Island, Davy Crockett,
Old Yeller, Pollyanna
Blu ray
Disney Movie Club
1950, ‘55, ‘56, ‘57, ‘60 / 1. 33:1, 1.85:1 / 96, 93, 81, 83, 134 Min.
Starring Robert Newton, Dorothy McGuire, Hayley Mills, Fess Parker
Cinematography by Freddie Young, Charles P. Boyle, Russell Harlan
Directed by Byron Haskin, Robert Stevenson, David Swift
Treasure Island – 1950
Thanks...
- 12/25/2018
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
Could this be retitled “Dial ‘F’ for Fog?” Jean Simmon’s greedy maid blackmails her employer Stewart Granger with proof that he murdered his wife, kicking off a criminal ‘deadlock’ in a London household. The cold-fish schemer Granger ponders his next murderous move while Simmons enjoys playing the lady of the house — having dared to leapfrog two social classes, she hopes that her victim will respond with kindness, not homicide. This gothic domestic murder tale should be required reading for marriage counselors.
Footsteps in the Fog
Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1955 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 90 min. / Street Date July 30, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £14.99
Starring: Stewart Granger, Jean Simmons, Bill Travers, Belinda Lee, Ronald Squire, Finlay Currie, William Hartnell, Percy Marmont, Margery Rhodes, Barry Keegan, Victor Maddern, Erik Chitty.
Cinematography: Christopher Challis
Film Editor: Alan Osbiston
Original Music: Benjamin Frankel
Written by Dorothy Reid, Lenore Coffee, adapted by Arthur Pierson from a short...
Footsteps in the Fog
Blu-ray
Powerhouse Indicator
1955 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 90 min. / Street Date July 30, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £14.99
Starring: Stewart Granger, Jean Simmons, Bill Travers, Belinda Lee, Ronald Squire, Finlay Currie, William Hartnell, Percy Marmont, Margery Rhodes, Barry Keegan, Victor Maddern, Erik Chitty.
Cinematography: Christopher Challis
Film Editor: Alan Osbiston
Original Music: Benjamin Frankel
Written by Dorothy Reid, Lenore Coffee, adapted by Arthur Pierson from a short...
- 7/31/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Every week, IndieWire asks a select handful of film and TV critics two questions and publishes the results on Monday. (The answer to the second, “What is the best film in theaters right now?”, can be found at the end of this post.)
This week’s question: In honor of David Lowery’s “A Ghost Story,” what is the best movie about the afterlife?
Kate Erbland (@katerbland), IndieWire
It will come as no surprise to anyone that, as a child, I watched a lot of television. A lot. I was mostly obsessed with HBO — our single movie channel, number 2 on the dial; yes, my childhood TV had a dial, don’t ask — with intermittent deviations into mostly inappropriate mini-series (thus explaining my rarely disclosed expertise on “The Thornbirds”), and was pretty much given free range to watch whatever the hell I wanted, whenever I wanted. This is why my favorite...
This week’s question: In honor of David Lowery’s “A Ghost Story,” what is the best movie about the afterlife?
Kate Erbland (@katerbland), IndieWire
It will come as no surprise to anyone that, as a child, I watched a lot of television. A lot. I was mostly obsessed with HBO — our single movie channel, number 2 on the dial; yes, my childhood TV had a dial, don’t ask — with intermittent deviations into mostly inappropriate mini-series (thus explaining my rarely disclosed expertise on “The Thornbirds”), and was pretty much given free range to watch whatever the hell I wanted, whenever I wanted. This is why my favorite...
- 7/10/2017
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
'Ben-Hur' 2016 with Jack Huston: Chariot race to the death. 'Ben-Hur' 2016 trailer: 'Gladiator' meets 'Fast Seven' meets 'Star Wars' meets… Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer have released the trailer for their 2016 Ben-Hur remake (or reboot or readaptation) – a.k.a. Fast and Furious A.D., as one wag called it in an online comment. Instead of grandiose spectacle featuring at its core a “human” story with Christian overtones, this chariot-and-sandals epic is being sold as Gladiator meets Fast Seven meets Spartacus: Blood and Sand meets Star Wars – with Morgan Freeman's Sheik Ilderim as the Roman Empire's dreadlocked version of Alec Guinness' Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi. Say what you will, the trailer-makers sure know their target audience. And that's not the same crowd that would go check out what's usually referred to in the U.S. media as “faith” (i.e., Christian) movies. One assumes that particular audience segment will be getting...
- 3/18/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Ben-Hur' 1959 with Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston: TCM's '31 Days of Oscar.' '31 Days of Oscar': 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Ben-Hur' are in, Paramount stars are out Today, Feb. 1, '16, Turner Classic Movies is kicking off the 21st edition of its “31 Days of Oscar.” While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is being vociferously reviled for its “lack of diversity” – more on that appallingly myopic, self-serving, and double-standard-embracing furore in an upcoming post – TCM is celebrating nearly nine decades of the Academy Awards. That's the good news. The disappointing news is that if you're expecting to find rare Paramount, Universal, or Fox/20th Century Fox entries in the mix, you're out of luck. So, missing from the TCM schedule are, among others: Best Actress nominees Ruth Chatterton in Sarah and Son, Nancy Carroll in The Devil's Holiday, Claudette Colbert in Private Worlds. Unofficial Best Actor...
- 2/2/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
William Cameron Menzies. William Cameron Menzies movies on TCM: Murderous Joan Fontaine, deadly Nazi Communists Best known as an art director/production designer, William Cameron Menzies was a jack-of-all-trades. It seems like the only things Menzies didn't do was act and tap dance in front of the camera. He designed and/or wrote, directed, produced, etc., dozens of films – titles ranged from The Thief of Bagdad to Invaders from Mars – from the late 1910s all the way to the mid-1950s. Among Menzies' most notable efforts as an art director/production designer are: Ernst Lubitsch's first Hollywood movie, the Mary Pickford star vehicle Rosita (1923). Herbert Brenon's British-set father-son drama Sorrell and Son (1927). David O. Selznick's mammoth production of Gone with the Wind, which earned Menzies an Honorary Oscar. The Sam Wood movies Our Town (1940), Kings Row (1942), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). H.C. Potter's Mr. Lucky...
- 1/28/2016
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl': Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack Sparrow. 'Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl' review: Mostly an enjoyable romp (Oscar Movie Series) Pirate movies were a Hollywood staple for about three decades, from the mid-'20s (The Sea Hawk, The Black Pirate) to the mid-to-late '50s (Moonfleet, The Buccaneer), when the genre, by then mostly relegated to B films, began to die down. Sporadic resurrections in the '80s and '90s turned out to be critical and commercial bombs (Pirates, Cutthroat Island), something that didn't bode well for the Walt Disney Company's $140 million-budgeted film "adaptation" of one of their theme-park rides. But Neptune's mood has apparently improved with the arrival of the new century. He smiled – grinned would be a more appropriate word – on the Gore Verbinski-directed Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,...
- 6/29/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
As with the major releases, the specialty film box office this Labor Day holiday weekend is comparatively more tepid than last year’s. In 2013, Pantelion began a record-breaking run with Instructions Not Included, the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever in the U.S. This year, it hopes to replicate that success with a similar release blueprint for biopic Cantinflas, which opened in 382 theaters Friday, grossing $2.625 million and averaging $6,827 per screen. The estimated 4-day weekend cume is $3.275 million.
The results so far give Cantinflas the edge when compared to other newcomers this weekend, but it’s well behind last year’s Instructions debut. That film opened the holiday weekend in 347 theaters, grossing $10 million for a very robust $28,818 PTA. It went on to cume $44 million. Cantinflas has a lot of work to do if it hopes to follow suit. Still, Cantinflas has the second-highest PTA of any film currently in release and certainly...
The results so far give Cantinflas the edge when compared to other newcomers this weekend, but it’s well behind last year’s Instructions debut. That film opened the holiday weekend in 347 theaters, grossing $10 million for a very robust $28,818 PTA. It went on to cume $44 million. Cantinflas has a lot of work to do if it hopes to follow suit. Still, Cantinflas has the second-highest PTA of any film currently in release and certainly...
- 8/31/2014
- by Brian Brooks
- Deadline
Joan Fontaine movies: ‘This Above All,’ ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’ (photo: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine in ‘Suspicion’ publicity image) (See previous post: “Joan Fontaine Today.”) Also tonight on Turner Classic Movies, Joan Fontaine can be seen in today’s lone TCM premiere, the flag-waving 20th Century Fox release The Above All (1942), with Fontaine as an aristocratic (but socially conscious) English Rose named Prudence Cathaway (Fontaine was born to British parents in Japan) and Fox’s top male star, Tyrone Power, as her Awol romantic interest. This Above All was directed by Anatole Litvak, who would guide Olivia de Havilland in the major box-office hit The Snake Pit (1948), which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nod. In Max Ophüls’ darkly romantic Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Fontaine delivers not only what is probably the greatest performance of her career, but also one of the greatest movie performances ever. Letter from an Unknown Woman...
- 8/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Charlton Heston movies: ‘A Man for All Seasons’ remake, ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ (photo: Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur) (See previous post: “Charlton Heston: Moses Minus Staff Plus Chariot Equals Ben-Hur.”) I’ve yet to watch Irving Rapper’s melo Bad for Each Other (1954), co-starring the sultry Lizabeth Scott — always a good enough reason to check out any movie, regardless of plot or leading man. A major curiosity is the 1988 made-for-tv version of A Man for All Seasons, with Charlton Heston in the Oscar-winning Paul Scofield role (Sir Thomas More) and on Fred Zinnemann’s director’s chair. Vanessa Redgrave, who plays Thomas More’s wife in the TV movie (Wendy Hiller in the original) had a cameo as Anne Boleyn in the 1966 film. According to the IMDb, Robert Bolt, who wrote the Oscar-winning 1966 movie (and the original play), is credited for the 1988 version’s screenplay as well. Also of note,...
- 8/5/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Alec Guinness: Before Obi-Wan Kenobi, there were the eight D’Ascoyne family members (photo: Alec Guiness, Dennis Price in ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets’) (See previous post: “Alec Guinness Movies: Pre-Star Wars Career.”) TCM won’t be showing The Bridge on the River Kwai on Alec Guinness day, though obviously not because the cable network programmers believe that one four-hour David Lean epic per day should be enough. After all, prior to Lawrence of Arabia TCM will be presenting the three-and-a-half-hour-long Doctor Zhivago (1965), a great-looking but never-ending romantic drama in which Guinness — quite poorly — plays a Kgb official. He’s slightly less miscast as a mere Englishman — one much too young for the then 32-year-old actor — in Lean’s Great Expectations (1946), a movie that fully belongs to boy-loving (in a chaste, fatherly manner) fugitive Finlay Currie. And finally, make sure to watch Robert Hamer’s dark comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets...
- 8/3/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Pope Movies (photo: Anthony Quinn in ‘The Shoes of the Fisherman’) [See previous post: "Pope Francis Movie in the Works?"] Now, do we need another Pope Movie? Well, actually there haven’t been that many. Most notable among the Pope Movies of decades past are Michael Anderson’s widely lambasted The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), with Anthony Quinn as what one pundit called "Zorba the Pope," and Nanni Moretti’s widely acclaimed comedy-drama We Have a Pope, with Michel Piccoli as a cardinal who reluctantly is elected chief of the Catholic Church. Here are a few more: Rex Harrison hammed it up as Pope Julius II to Charlton Heston’s equally risible Michelangelo in Carol Reed’s The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965); Liv Ullmann played the title role in Michael Anderson’s critically massacred Pope Joan (1972), about the alleged medieval female pope; and Finlay Currie reverentially incarnated the official first pope, St. Peter, in Mervyn LeRoy’s dreary (and...
- 4/29/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
To mark the release of Go to Blazes on DVD this Monday, 6th February, Studio Canal have given us three copies of the class movie to give away. The movie was originally released in 1962, is directed by Michael Truman and stars Maggie Smith, Dave King, Robert Morley and Daniel Massey.
For anyone who loves British comedy, Go To Blazes features an all-star cast that includes Robert Morley (The African Queen, Topkapi), Daniel Massey (In Which We Serve, The Entertainer), Dennis Price (Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Rebel) and Coral Browne (Auntie Mame, Theatre of Blood). Go To Blazes also features classic British character actors Norman Rossington (The Wrong Box, The Charge of the Light Brigade), Finlay Currie (Around The World in Eighty Days, Ben Hur) and Miles Malleson (The Importance of Being Earnest, The Man In The White Suit). And last but not least, Go To Blazes stars Dame Maggie Smith...
For anyone who loves British comedy, Go To Blazes features an all-star cast that includes Robert Morley (The African Queen, Topkapi), Daniel Massey (In Which We Serve, The Entertainer), Dennis Price (Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Rebel) and Coral Browne (Auntie Mame, Theatre of Blood). Go To Blazes also features classic British character actors Norman Rossington (The Wrong Box, The Charge of the Light Brigade), Finlay Currie (Around The World in Eighty Days, Ben Hur) and Miles Malleson (The Importance of Being Earnest, The Man In The White Suit). And last but not least, Go To Blazes stars Dame Maggie Smith...
- 2/3/2012
- by Competitons
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Joan Fontaine in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion Joan Fontaine, who turned 94 last October 22, shines on Turner Classic Movies' tonight. TCM will be showing five Fontaine movies: Jane Eyre (1944), The Constant Nymph (1943), Born to Be Bad (1950), Suspicion (1941), and Ivanhoe (1952). I've yet to check out The Constant Nymph, which had been unavailable for decades until TCM presented it a few months ago. In the film, 26-year-old Fontaine plays a 14-year-old infatuated with a composer (Charles Boyer) married to her older cousin (Alexis Smith). Edmund Goulding directed. Enough members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences must have found Fontaine quite believable as a lovestruck teen, for The Constant Nymph earned her her third (and final) Best Actress nomination. Jane Eyre has been made and remade about a zillion times in the last century or so. Fontaine's version, directed by Robert Stevenson (later of Mary Poppins fame) and co-starring Orson Welles as Rochester,...
- 1/31/2012
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
“If I could do it all over again…”
How many times have you thought that, or dreamt it, or talked about it? I think everybody does. It’s in our natures, y’know?
“If I knew then what I know now…”
What would you do?
I wouldn’t be a nurse.
I’d go to film school. UCLA or Nyu. I’d aim to be a film editor.
I love movies. So, in keeping with Mike Gold and John Ostrander’s columns about the movies, I thought I would list some of my favorite movies and why I love them. In no particular order. Because every time I pick one as my “all-time fave,” I remember another and hastily move that one to the top spot.
Casablanca: Two men. The woman they both love. And Nazis. Who doesn’t love this move? Humphrey Bogart. Ingrid Bergman. Claude Raines. Sydney Greenstreet.
How many times have you thought that, or dreamt it, or talked about it? I think everybody does. It’s in our natures, y’know?
“If I knew then what I know now…”
What would you do?
I wouldn’t be a nurse.
I’d go to film school. UCLA or Nyu. I’d aim to be a film editor.
I love movies. So, in keeping with Mike Gold and John Ostrander’s columns about the movies, I thought I would list some of my favorite movies and why I love them. In no particular order. Because every time I pick one as my “all-time fave,” I remember another and hastily move that one to the top spot.
Casablanca: Two men. The woman they both love. And Nazis. Who doesn’t love this move? Humphrey Bogart. Ingrid Bergman. Claude Raines. Sydney Greenstreet.
- 1/23/2012
- by Mindy Newell
- Comicmix.com
Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine in Billy Wilder's The Apartment Shirley MacLaine on TCM: Ocean's Eleven, The Yellow Rolls Royce Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Two Loves (1961) A conservative teacher struggles with her values while teaching natives in New Zealand. Dir: Charles Walters. Cast: Shirley MacLaine, Laurence Harvey, Jack Hawkins. C-97 mins, Letterbox Format. 8:00 Am The Sheepman (1958) A tough sheep farmer battles the local cattle baron for land and a beautiful woman. Dir: George Marshall. Cast: Glenn Ford, Shirley MacLaine, Leslie Nielsen. C-86 mins, Letterbox Format. 9:45 Am Two For The Seesaw (1962) A conservative attorney considering a divorce gets involved with an emotionally fragile dancer in New York. Dir: Robert Wise. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Shirley MacLaine, Edmon Ryan. Bw-119 mins, Letterbox Format. 12:00 Pm The Children's Hour (1961) A malicious student tries to destroy the teachers at a girls' school. Dir: William Wyler. Cast: Audrey Hepburn,...
- 8/11/2011
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
For anyone who missed it, here’s the skinny. Basically, what I’m presenting here is my attempt to chart a whole year’s worth of film-watching – something I have wanted to do for some time now. The aim is to post frequently, chronicling every film I watch this year – both offering reviews and setting myself the ultimate goal of watching (and writing about) as many films as humanly possible.
Two more additions to the diary, sticking with TV listings today, given that I’m currently looking after two ailing members of my family, and in serious danger of catching cooties myself. Surely two family films will sort me out- starting with:
Film #3 Around the World In Eighty Days (1956)
Director: Michael Anderson
Starring: David Niven, Cantinflas & Finlay Currie
No, thankfully not the 2004 remake with Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan. Instead, today’s film is the 1956, David Niven lead globe-trotter with a sprawling cast of cameo-appearances,...
Two more additions to the diary, sticking with TV listings today, given that I’m currently looking after two ailing members of my family, and in serious danger of catching cooties myself. Surely two family films will sort me out- starting with:
Film #3 Around the World In Eighty Days (1956)
Director: Michael Anderson
Starring: David Niven, Cantinflas & Finlay Currie
No, thankfully not the 2004 remake with Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan. Instead, today’s film is the 1956, David Niven lead globe-trotter with a sprawling cast of cameo-appearances,...
- 1/3/2011
- by Simon Gallagher
- Obsessed with Film
Martita Hunt, Jean Simmons in Great Expectations (Universal) Jean Simmons, who died on Jan. 22 at age 80, will have next Friday evening dedicated to her on Turner Classic Movies. Beginning at 5pm Pt, TCM will show three Jean Simmons movies: David Lean’s Great Expectations (1946), and Richard Brooks‘ Elmer Gantry (1960) and The Happy Ending (1969). Many consider the Academy Award-nominated Great Expectations the greatest film adaptation of a Charles Dickens‘ novel. Needless to say, I disagree. (I much prefer the mostly forgotten and generally dismissed Nicholas Nickleby, directed by Alberto Cavalcanti in 1947.) Yet, even this naysayer must agree that Lean’s Great Expectations has much to offer, including Guy Green’s superb black-and-white cinematography and Finlay Currie’s flawless portrayal of [...]...
- 1/28/2010
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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