Katharine Hepburn had a good start in Hollywood, moving from the stage to the big screen and getting rave reviews. However during the mid to late 1930s she had a series of flops which lost the studios a lot of money and led to her being dubbed as ‘box office poison’, which was effectively a(…)
Oh, I love a good comfy horror / sci-fi movie. Nothing gruesome or truly frightening, just something really enjoyable and this movie definitely fits that bill. It’s nothing like the 1982 Kurt Russell remake of The Thing, which was bleak and gruesome, it’s a delight from start to finish. From it’s swashbuckling army hero (Kenneth(…)
I’d forgotten just how delightful Fred and Ginger movies are. It’s been probably 15 years at least since I last watched one and they really are the best kind of movies. If you love a good rom-com, amazing dancing and show stopping glamour, then they really are for you. Swing Time has got to be(…)
I treated myself to a 1950s Hammer B-movie yesterday: X… the Unknown. It kills… but cannot be killed! It rises from 2000 miles beneath the earth to melt everything in its path.. machine gun bullets, flame throwers… nothing can stop it! Sounds fabulously terrifying eh? Happily I can report that it wasn’t very terrifying at(…)
Until recently ‘ghost singing’ in movies was the best kept secret in Hollywood. It might have been that the actor or actress simply couldn’t sing in tune, or that their voice just didn’t have the strength or range required, but one thing is for sure: dubbing was a widespread phenomenon. Actresses like Cyd Charisse, Joan(…)
A movie called The Gay Falcon today would be a very different movie from this! Far from being what you might expect, this is the first in a series of detective movies starring the debonair and rather rakish investigator Gay Lawrence “The Falcon” played by George Sanders*. *George Sanders voiced the deep enthralling tiger Shere Khan(…)
Swedish-born Greta was christened Greta Lovisa Gustafsson. Garbo’s first job was as a soap-lather girl in a barbershop. She also worked as an errand girl in a department store, in the millinery department selling hats and as a model before her acting career took off. After being spotted by MGM she moved to America where(…)
After last week’s disappointment watching Citizen Kane I was delighted to discover a real gem this week. Don’t be put off by the grim movie poster (right), this isn’t a harrowing war movie it’s a delightful James-Bond-style wartime spy thriller with the delectable Christopher Plummer as debonair British double agent Eddie Chapman. I knew nothing(…)
Am I the first person to ask what all the fuss is about Citizen Kane? It has been heralded as one of the greatest movies of the 1940s. I only watched it for the first time this week and I have to say I don’t really get it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly(…)
Brooklyn-born Tierney was a leading actress in 1940s Hollywood. She started out her adult life as a socialite, before becoming bored with the social scene and pursuing a career as a stage actress (her family thought being a ‘proper’ actress was more respectable than being in the movies). Her Broadway career started in a pretty(…)
Wow, talk about a movie Epic! You think Harry Potter’s Deathly Hallows was a long movie? Try this one, it’s a full 3 hours of sandals, sword-fighting and sex-appeal! Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren are the headliners and they have fabulous on-screen chemistry. Whether they love or hate each other (and there’s plenty of time(…)
Was Fred Astaire the greatest dancer on the silver screen? Personally I think he probably was, I grew up glued to Fred and Ginger movies and absolutely adored him! Born Frederick Austerlitz in 1899, Fred took to the stage at an early age singing and dancing with his sister Adele in a vaudeville act (see(…)
Who comes to mind when you hear the name Dracula? Gary Oldman? Christopher Lee? Or is it in my opinion the ultimate Dracula, Bela Lugosi? Lugosi was born in Hungary and was already a successful actor with the National Theatre of Hungary when he moved to America at the age of 42. He was forced(…)