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When John Wayne broke through to bona-fide movie stardom in John Ford's 1939 classic "Stagecoach," he quickly established himself as the most bankable actor in the film industry. Not every Wayne picture was a smash hit, but they almost always turned a tidy profit. Given that he was remarkably prolific throughout the prime of his career, making multiple movies per year, this meant his fans came to expect a certain level of quality from the star — otherwise, they would've stopped showing up at a certain point.

If you're new to the movies of John Wayne, and you're looking for a good place to start, you can do no better than the aforementioned Western, which established his swaggeringly laconic persona. But once you get that one out of the way, there are many different paths you can take. You could try one of his war films or watch The Duke get...

The Holdovers director Alexander Payne (in Nirvana T-shirt) with Anne-Katrin Titze on Westward The Women: “It’s as though Jean Renoir and Akira Kurosawa got together to make a Western.”

In the first instalment with Alexander Payne on his intricately layered Golden Globe-nominated The Holdovers (screenplay by David Hemingson with an Oscar-shortlisted score by Mark Orton) we started out discussing a film he recommended, William A Wellman’s Westward The Women (screenplay by Frank Capra and Charles Schnee), starring Robert Taylor and Denise Darcel with a formidable supporting cast of women, led by Hope Emerson.

Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) with Mary Lamb (Da'Vine Joy Randolph)

From there we touched upon his longtime collaborators, Wendy Chuck and Nathan Carlson, production designer Ryan Warren Smith, a scene between (Golden Globe-nominated) Paul Giamatti and Carrie Preston leading to Slavoj Žižek’s comment in Sophie Fiennes’s The Pervert’s Guide To Ideology...

By 1948, Howard Hawks had made just about every type of film over his then 22-year career when he decided to take on the most American of movie genres: the Western. Though he'd made plenty of films about rough and/or ruthless men, the closest he'd come to making a true oater was with 1934's "Barbary Coast," which plays like more of a period crime film set in mid-1850s San Francisco. "Red River," written by Borden Chase and Charles Schnee (based on Chase's serialized novel "The Chisholm Trail"), would be the real deal.

And it almost fell apart before Hawks shot a frame of film.

While the story about Tom Dunson, a determined rancher who turns into a horse-riding Captain Ahab during a harrowing cattle drive from Texas to Missouri, was crammed with action and intrigue, it proved tonally problematic for Hawks' star. Gary Cooper had made several films with...

When not making tons of money collaborating with James Stewart, Anthony Mann directed some really grim westerns. This mini-epic spells out the ugly real-life Code of The West: seizing land and establishing private empires. Walter Huston’s T.C. Jeffords maintains his sprawling fiefdom through economic tyranny (he prints his own money and expects banks to accept it) — and by simple violence, murdering the people that have lived on ‘his’ land for generations. Barbara Stanwyck is the feisty heir who wages generational war on her piratical father. It’s the darkest and most subversive of Huac-era ‘noir’ westerns.

The Furies

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 435

1950 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 109 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date April 20, 2021 / 39.95

Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Wendell Corey, Walter Huston, Judith Anderson, Gilbert Roland, Thomas Gomez, Beulah Bondi, Albert Dekker, John Bromfield, Wallace Ford, Blanche Yurka.

Cinematography: Victor Milner

Film Editor: Archie Marshek

Original Music:...

Paul Greengrass’ western drama “New of the World” starring Tom Hanks and Helena Zengel is gaining traction during this pandemic awards season despite the fact that sagebrush sagas often get short shrift at the Oscars. Only three traditional Westerns — 1931’s “Cimarron,” 1990’s “Dances with Wolves” and 1992’s “Unforgiven” — and one contemporary Western (2007’s “No Country for Old Men”) have won the Best Picture Oscar.

Among the oaters to be nominated for the top prize at the Academy Awards: John Ford’s 1939 “Stagecoach,” William A. Wellman’s 1943 “The Ox-Bow Incident,” Fred Zinnemann’s 1952’s “High Noon” (Gary Cooper won the Oscar for Best Actor), George Stevens’ 1953 “Shane”; 1960’s “The Alamo;” 1962’s “How the West Was Won”; and George Roy Hill’s 1969’s “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

But some of the most acclaimed, treasure and influential Westerns have been all but ignored. Here’s a look at some of the...

“Don’t worry. Some of the best movies are made by people working together who hate each other’s guts.”

Lana Turner and Kirk Douglas in The Bad And The Beautiful (1952) is available on Blu-ray from Warner Archives. It can be ordered Here

Appearances are everything in Hollywood. So when conniving moviemaker Jonathan Shields realizes few mourners will show up for the funeral of his equally conniving father, he knows what to do: hire extras. Kirk Douglas gives a magnetic, Oscar®-nominated performance as Shields, who turns talent, charisma and ruthlessness into film success, stomping on careers and creating enemies along the way. Vincente Minnelli directs this winner of five Academy Awards® that’s more than a compelling insider’s look at Tinseltown: It’s an opportunity for buffs to guess which real-life stars and moguls inspired the roles played by Douglas, Lana Turner, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Best Supporting Actress Gloria Grahame and more.

One of Vincente Minnelli’s best is this glamorous ‘Hollywood Looks At Hollywood’ exposé of sin and conniving among the actors, directors and producers that make Quality Entertainment for us unglamorous nobodies. It’s overstated and often grossly overacted but still carries a grandiose charm. Lana Turner gets to play an idealized version of herself. Gloria Grahame generates additional heat, and for her trouble walked away with an Oscar. And composer David Raksin contributes one of his most melodic music scores — the main theme is a winner, right up there with his Laura. CineSavant runs amuck critiquing the way MGM’s movie slams Hollywood creatives, while pretending that the studio bigwigs are infallible Gods.

The Bad and the Beautiful

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1952 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 118 min. / Street Date November 19, 2019 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame, Gilbert Roland,...

One of a number of Paramount noirs seemingly forever Mia on disc, Hal Wallis’ show reunites Burt Lancaster and Lizabeth Scott with promising newcomers Kirk Douglas and Wendell Corey. It’s light on action but strong on character — and it contains a key scene in the development of both the noir style and the gangster genre.

I Walk Alone

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1947 / B&W / flat Academy / 97 min. / Street Date July 24, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Burt Lancaster, Lizabeth Scott, Kirk Douglas, Wendell Corey, Kristine Miller, George Rigaud, Marc Lawrence, Mike Mazurki, Mickey Knox, Gino Corrado.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Film Editor: Arthur Schmidt

Original Music: Victor Young

Written by Charles Schnee, Robert Smith, John Bright from a play by Theodore Reeves

Produced by Hal B. Wallis

Directed by Byron Haskin

One reason we keep going to theatrical Noir festivals is that a substantial number of interesting classic-era features still haven’t surfaced on disc.

A quick Jet-set ride takes us to Rome of 1962, which for a couple of years was the movie capital of the world. Washed-up actor Kirk Douglas reinvents himself amid the vipers of his past — an abusive director (Edward G. Robinson), a medusa-like ex-wife (Cyd Charisse) and a parade of show-biz creeps that want him to fail and grovel. But wait — redemption springs eternal through the love of a simple innocent unspoiled Italiana with no agenda of her own (Daliah Lavi). Will Douglas be reborn? Director Vincente Minnelli tries his hardest to get MGM in on the Italian art-movie gold rush.

2 Weeks in Another Town

Blu-ray

The Warner Archive Collection

1962 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 107 min. / Street Date June 19, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Edward G. Robinson, Cyd Charisse, George Hamilton, Daliah Lavi, Claire Trevor, Rosanna Schiaffino, James Gregory, Joanna Roos, George Macready, Mino Doro, Stefan Schnabel, Vito Scotti, Leslie Uggams.

Don’t look to this noir for hardboiled cynicism – for his first feature Nicholas Ray instead gives us a dose of fatalist romance. Transposed from the previous decade, a pair of fugitives takes what happiness they can find, always aware that a grim fate waits ahead. The show is a career-making triumph and a real classic from Rko — which shelved it for more than a year.

They Live by Night

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 880

1948 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 95 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date June 13, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Cathy O’Donnell, Farley Granger, Howard Da Silva, Jay C. Flippen, Helen Craig, Will Wright, William Phipps, Ian Wolfe, Harry Harvey, Marie Bryant, Byron Foulger, Erskine Sanford .

Cinematography: George E. Diskant

Film Editor: Sherman Todd

Original Music: Leigh Harline

Written by Charles Schnee, Nicholas Ray from the novel Thieves Like Us by Edward Anderson

Produced by John Houseman

Directed by Nicholas Ray...

"Funny how different you feel," cattleman Nadine Groot (Walter Brennan) relates near the end of "Red River," "when you know you're going somewheres." He's right, but his is a sojourner's satisfaction, marking the conclusion of a long expedition. For viewers of Howard Hawks' mythic 1948 Western, the foremost pleasure is in the odyssey itself.  Adapted by Borden Chase and Charles Schnee from Chase's novel "Blazing Guns on the Chisholm Trail," first serialized in The Saturday Evening Post and included in The Criterion Collection's new dual-format boxed set, the film opens on a westbound wagon train passing through North Texas in August, 1851. Ambitious, stubborn rancher Tom Dunson (John Wayne) -- "a mighty set man," Groot explains -- possesses an unshakeable conviction that land further south is the keystone of his imagined empire, and even the love of a good woman (Coleen Gray) cannot slow his pursuit. He leaves her with his mother's bracelet,...

Red River

Written by Borden Chase and Charles Schnee

Directed by Howard Hawks

USA, 1948

Howard Hawks’ Red River is supposedly the film that convinced John Ford of John Wayne’s talent (apparently opposed to his abilities to simply perform or suggest a powerful screen presence). Ford had, of course, worked with Wayne previously, and Wayne had appeared in dozens of other films prior to this point, but when Ford saw what Wayne did in the role of the aged, bitter, driven, and obsessive Thomas Dunson, it led him to comment to his friend Hawks, “I didn’t know the big son of a bitch could act.” If it were only for Wayne’s performance, which is excellent, Red River would be a vital entry into the Western genre. But there is more, much more to this extraordinary picture. That’s why it’s not only one of the greatest Westerns ever made,...

I can't remember the first time I saw Howard Hawks' Red River, but I feel like it was on Turner Classic Movies about five years ago or more. What I do remember, however, was it didn't exactly look very good, it was murky, muddy and just overall and unimpressive visual representation of this film classic. The narrative, obviously, wasn't affected. Now, Criterion has given it an HD upgrade, cleaned it up and delivered not just one version, but a pre-release version for the curious. As you'll learn in the wealth of bonus features, there was a pre-release version of the film and a theatrical version. The theatrical version of Red River runs shorter than the pre-release version, which was only intended for testing purposes. Hawks preferred the theatrical cut, though Peter Bogdanovich tells us in a new interview Hawks actually preferred the ending on the pre-release version, which was...

(Howard Hawks, 1948; Eureka!, U)

The first of Howard Hawks's five westerns, Red River is the epic story of a post-civil war cattle drive up the Chisholm trail. It's alandmark filmthat brought a new psychological complexity to the genre and gave John Wayne the first truly challenging role of his career. Anticipating his unsympathetic Ethan Edwards in The Searchers, Wayne plays Tom Dunson, a middle-aged Texas land baron acting with equal ruthlessness whether dealing with his Mexican neighbours in Texas or the hired hands he employs on the hazardous journey to a railhead up north.

The film introduced to the screen Montgomery Clift, one of the greatest American actors of his time, as Matt Garth, Dunson's quiet, gentlemanly adopted son. He revolts against his increasingly brutal father halfway through the journey and takes the herd on a different, less dangerous route. The film is a transposition to the American west of Mutiny on the Bounty,...

ABC Family's The Fosters has cast the biological son of the lesbian couple with David Lambert, and the troubled teen they take in will be played by Maia Mitchell.

It looks like Bryan Fuller's Mockingbird Lane will not be going forward as a series. It evidently came off as too "high concept."

The reddit effort to have Taylor Swift play a concert at the Horace Mann School for the Deaf has a happy ending, with the school being disqualified, but Swift is donating $10,000 to the school, and her sponsors are chipping in another $40,000 in donations.

The Supreme Court declined to take up the National Organization for Marriage's appeal in the case of Maine's financial disclosure laws, meaning they'll have to reveal their donors per state law.

Teen Wolf has just announced an open call for two hot male actors to play twin werewolves on the show next season,...

In the early 1950s, as the big studio system breathed its last, Hollywood produced a succession of classic Tinseltown fables: Sunset Boulevard, In a Lonely Place, Singin' in the Rain, The Barefoot Contessa, A Star Is Born and, right in the middle, The Bad and the Beautiful, made in 1952 and back in the cinemas to accompany a Minnelli retrospective at the Nft. Though directed with Minnelli's characteristic delicacy, this is essentially a producer's film, made by John Houseman, one of the great figures of 20th-century American theatre and cinema. Houseman's first Hollywood job was supervising the script of Citizen Kane, his second was working for David O Selznick. In The Bad and the Beautiful, Houseman applies a similar structure, intelligence and suavity to a ruthless Hollywood genius much like Selznick as he brought to Charles Foster Kane.

An old-style Hollywood studio boss (Walter Pidgeon) brings together a movie star (Lana Turner...

A Vincente Minnelli season opens at BFI Southbank in London today and it is no small thing. When The Complete Vincente Minnelli ran at the BAMcinématek in New York last September, I opened a roundup and spent a month updating it (and followed up in December with another roundup on 1944's Meet Me in St Louis). With the BFI's season on through May 31, this one may be another marathon runner.

For now, the spotlight's on The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), which, as Michael Wood notes in his piece for the London Review of Books, will soon be playing in theaters throughout the UK:

The plot itself is too nifty by half, a sort of lesson in how to overdo the flashback. We see and hear three phone calls in the narrative present. A man called Jonathan Shields [Kirk Douglas] is trying to reach three Hollywood figures, a director (Barry Sullivan), an actress...

Side Street

Directed by Anthony Mann

Screenplay by Charles Schnee

U.S.A., 1950

There is a favourite saying used among film reviewers when espousing the virtues of a film that uses the story’s locale to the full extent: location ‘x’ is a character in of itself. While an admittedly clever term, it has been slightly overused in recent years to the point where it seems that just about any film’s geographical setting can be deemed a figurative character. Rare are the movies for which a director will take that saying to heart to the extent that the location actually feel like its own character, perfectly complementing the overall picture. Anthony Mann is one such director, whose stunningly brings Manhattan, the city that never sleeps, to life in Side Street.

Struggling through life as a part-time mail carrier, Joe Norson (Farley Granger) is not the most accomplished fellow in the world.

They Live by Night

Directed by Nicholas Ray

Screenplay by Charles Schnee

U.S.A., 1949

Young love is a powerful thing, even dangerously so when it blinds people from reality. When the hearts of two youths are intertwined as they are between the protagonists in They Live by Night, a sense of invincibility can slowly and surely take over all the senses. Just as the emotions blindly dictate the lovers’ conduct, the stark realities of their real world circumstances inexorably drag them closer to impending doom. What better material for a brilliant young director to explore for in a debut. If at the time the name Nicholas Ray did not stir the passions of movie connoisseurs, They Live by Night and its tragic love story certainly planted the seeds of many great things that would follow.

Somewhere in the state of Mississippi, a trio of dangerous criminals have escaped the penitentiary.

Supermodel Gisele Bundchen surprised a group of young cancer patients at the Jimmy Fund Clinic at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston during the weekend by giving them a special modeling class.

Gisele gave the 29 young girls lessons in catwalk etiquette, and they were also treated to manicures, pedicures, make-up and hair styling as part of their special day out, organized by local sports broadcaster John Dennis. The local sports host approached the supermodel through her husband, New England Patriots star Tom Brady.

“It was the most amazing, wonderful, wonderful thing I’ve ever seen,” Dennis told the Boston Herald. “It was unbelievable. She made every one of those girls feel beautiful, loved and important. It was very, very special.”

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Gisele Bundchen helped give a group of young female cancer patients a supermodel-style makeover at the weekend (05-06Nov11) as part of a charity initiative.

The Brazilian beauty was on hand to give the girls lessons in catwalk moves at a beauty salon in Boston, Massachusetts as the group was treated to hair cuts, manicures and make-up applications.

The event was organised by workers at the Jimmy Fund Clinic at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute as part of a weekend of fun for patients, which also included a shopping spree, a night in a hotel and dinner at a restaurant.

Local sports reporter John Dennis helped organise Bundchen's appearance and he reveals the emotional day left the supermodel in floods of tears.

He tells the Boston Herald, "It was the most amazing, wonderful, wonderful thing I've ever seen. It was unbelievable. She made every one of those girls feel beautiful, loved and important. It was very, very special."...

Team 17 has said that it will "never say never" on reviving old franchises. The Worms developer, who rebooted Alien Breed for consoles and PC last year, said that it is always difficult to develop new titles when Worms is so successful. "Potentially, never say never," head of design John Dennis told Digital Spy. "I think one of the problems, if it can be a problem of having a massively successful IP, is that you're rather a hostage to that IP, and you think what should we do, make a game in that massively successful IP or shall we do something else? "You know, business kind of dictates. We could be more successful with this thing other than that. That's not to say we're not currently working (more)...

Worms Crazy Golf has been announced for the PS3, PC and iOS. The Worms spinoff is described as a "brazenly bonkers mixture of classic 2D Worms and hilarious 18-hole high-jinks". The game is set across three 18-hole golf courses and features a range of skill-based challenge modes. Power-ups and obstacles include castles that teleport your ball, cannons that shoot it across the landscape and obstructive comedy bats. Speaking about the game's multiplayer, Team 17 designer John Dennis said: "We've (more)...

The folks behind 1962’s 2 Weeks In Another Town could have been accused of flagrantly ripping off the seminal 1952 show-business melodrama The Bad And The Beautiful if Town’s central creative team—director Vincente Minnelli, star Kirk Douglas, producer John Houseman, and screenwriter Charles Schnee—hadn’t made Beautiful themselves a decade earlier. So while 2 Weeks In Another Town feels like plagiarism and parody, it’s at least self-plagiarism and self-parody from a group intent on pushing the fevered show-business melodrama and elegiac sadness of their earlier masterpiece into delirious new realms of excess. 2 Weeks is ...

Perhaps the most important part of the following campaign ad is not the hackneyed portrayal of Wizard of Oz characters, its depiction of Nancy Pelosi as a witch or that the candidate it is promoting appears to be a friend of Dorothy, dousing the Wicked Witch with water. No, the most important part of this ad comes at the very end, when candidate John Dennis is heard to say "I approve this ad."...

Alien Breed Evolution will be released across three episodes. Each episode will feature a prologue, five single-player stages, two boss battles and three multiplayer maps. Team 17's John Dennis teased that each episode will be "much larger than they should have been", with set pieces such as an asteroid field that creates debris throughout the ship, he told Eurogamer. (more)...