From Columbia Pictures by way of frugal producer Sam Katzman, who fans of Monogram cheapies with Bela and the Bowery Boys are sure to recognize, comes a pair of titles that feature the one time romantic leading man of Warner Brothers films like Casablanca and Now Voyager, Paul Henreid, opposite the lovely brunette, Patricia Medina, who easily found a home in costume adventures as the damsel in distress being saved by the likes of Henreid, Alan Ladd and Louis Hayward.
With his contract at Warner Brothers over and the romantic leading roles opposite the likes of Bette Davis relegated to the past, Paul Henreid, found himself emerging from the blacklist and slumming in a quartet of pirate adventures for Harry Cohn and Katzman aimed at the matinee crowds of youngsters looking for action and escapism.
Siren of Bagdad (1953)
Filmed in technicolor under the guidance of director Richard Quine and producer Katzman…
This 1947 British crime thriller (which was called I Became a Criminal in the US) was pretty brutal in its day. Trevor Howard plays Clem Morgan, a RAF officer tempted into the underground world of black-marketeering on demob and ultimately helped by Sally, the discarded mistress of his psychopathic gangland boss (Griffith Jones). She’s played by Sally Gray, just then returned to movie-making following a five-year rest after suffering a breakdown due to pressure of work. Most striking here, Gray would go on to make four more sterling melodramas before retiring in 1952 following her marriage to Dominick Browne, the 4th Baron Oranmore and Browne.
The film’s gritty, poetic urban realism is justly realised by Brazilian-born director Alberto Cavalcanti (credited as Cavalcanti here) who had spent seven years at the British GPO Unit working on documentary projects like 1937’s Night Mail, before joining Ealing Studios where he helmed the…
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The thing about Cats, the record-setting Broadway musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and based on a series of poems by T.S. Eliot, is that it exists as a piece of pure, unadulterated imagination. No matter how you may try to wrap your head around the spectacle of dancing, nude-appearing felines singing anthems to themselves, it is still, quite simply, a musical about cats being cats. You either accept it for what it is, in its brain-warping glorious incongruity, or you don’t. This remains true in the adaptation taken to even further extremes on the big screen by director Tom Hooper, assembling a cast of recognizable (if not all desirable) names enshrouded in digital insanity. Whether earnestly accepting its big budget spectacle or basking in schadenfreude or agog in horror, you mileage may indeed vary with what is in store.
Danny Aiello, a character actor best known for his work in such films as “Do the Right Thing” and “Moonstruck,” died on Thursday night in New Jersey. He was 86. Aiello’s literary agent Jennifer De Chiara confirmed his death to Variety. Aiello worked steadily in films starting in the mid-1970s, often playing cops, mobsters and…
Tribute to the great Barbara Rush — by Sara Henriksson I’ve loved Barbara Rush for as long as I can remember. In every role where she graced the screen she left a lasting impression on me. I’ve followed her career from major motion pictures to wonderful dramatic television programs. To me, she is one of […]
Fan of classic films and film stars, favorites include Joan Crawford, Conrad Veidt, Jean Harlow, Audie Murphy, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., George Raft, Joseph Cotten, Richard Conte, Dan Duryea, Aldo Ray, Lana Turner, Tom Drake, Ann-Margret, Ian Bannen, Curt Jurgens, John Garfield, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Audrey Hepburn, Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Alain Delon, Alan Arkin, John Phillip Law, Yul Brynner, Peter Finch, Richard Harris, Frank Finlay, Fredric March, Trevor Howard, Zachary Scott, Dirk Bogarde, Stephen Boyd, Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, Natalie Wood, Simon Ward, Anthony Valentine, Patrick Mower, Edward Woodward, the British TV show Callan, John Fraser, Ava Gardner, Sylvia Sidney, Jeanne Moreau, Catherine Deneuve, Teresa Wright, Carroll Baker, Oskar Werner, Helmut Griem, Helmut Berger, Peter Lorre, Paul Henreid and Romy Schneider and so many more.
"If you think it is so easy to be a critic, so difficult to be a poet or a painter or film experimenter, may I suggest you try both? You may discover why there are so few critics, so many poets." - Pauline Kael
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