Private Lives – Pt 1

February 27, 2018 Alan Royle 4

  I shall soon be publishing the first of two books titled ‘The Many Loves Of…’ They will be collections of the private lives of all the female stars of movies since the beginning of silent movies until the seventies. Each entry will consist of a chronological run-down of the […]

Forties Movie Trivia – PT5.

February 25, 2018 Alan Royle 4

Richard Jaeckel was a terrific character actor who racked up a total of 190 screen credits in his 51-year career. In 1943 he was a 17 year-old messenger boy at 20th Century Fox when he was cast as a US Marine private in his first picture Guadalcanal Diary. If you […]

Forties Movie Trivia – PT3

February 21, 2018 Alan Royle 0

To the surprise of absolutely nobody, Adolf Hitler banned Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) in Germany and in every country occupied by the Nazis, although he did smuggle in a copy through Portugal for himself. Hitler, incidentally, thought Chaplin was a Jew. It is said that he watched the […]

Forties Movie Trivia – PT2

February 19, 2018 Alan Royle 4

If you have ever watched the Spencer Tracy/Robert Young film Northwest Passage (1940), you have more than likely wondered why the picture was given that title when at no time in the entire movie do they get anywhere even remotely near a ‘northwest passage’. In fact, it is never even […]

Forties Movie Trivia – PT1

February 17, 2018 Alan Royle 2

It is generally conceded that Orson Welles’ 1941 classic Citizen Kane is loosely based on the career of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. What is not so generally known is that a sub-plot in which Susan Kane has an extra-marital affair was deleted late in the day by Welles himself. […]

‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ (1963)

February 15, 2018 Alan Royle 16

Any pro golf enthusiast would more than likely assume that the 1963 comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World was (at least partially) shot in Hawaii, in particular at the Waialae Country Club, yet that is not the case. The famous golf club sports a feature near the 7th […]

More Thirties Movie Trivia – PT6

February 13, 2018 Alan Royle 6

Jon Hall in The Hurricane (1937) Director John Ford was convinced that no actor could effectively fake the pain experienced in a flogging, so the star of The Hurricane (1937), Jon Hall, volunteered to be whipped for real and was horse-whipped until his back bled! The censors, however, took one look at […]

More Thirties Movies Trivia – PT5.

February 11, 2018 Alan Royle 4

               Flynn in The Charge of the Light Brigade                  Michael Curtiz                                          Lili Damita Errol Flynn and Hungarian-born director Michael […]

More Thirties Movie Trivia – PT4

February 9, 2018 Alan Royle 0

        Wendy Hiller and Leslie Howard in Pygmalion (1938) The scene in both Pygmalion (1938) and My Fair Lady (1964) where Eliza accidentally swallows a marble during her elocution lessons was never part of George Bernard Shaw’s original story. In the 1938 film Wendy Hiller suddenly exhibited a pained […]