The comic science fiction feature Mars Attacks! (1996), was based on the cult trading card series of the same name. Initially budgeted at $60 million, the film eventually cost $80 million to make once Warner Bros. added another $20 million for marketing. It returned $101 million, a disappointing return affected […]
Tommy Dorsey & Frank Sinatra There is a story that has found its way into entertainment legend, of how a mobster pal of Frank Sinatra’s got Tommy Dorsey to let Frank out of his long-term contract by simply putting a gun to the band-leader’s head and issuing the following threat: […]
Victor McLaglen Victor McLaglen always claimed he was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England in 1886, but birth records indicate he was really born in Stepney. And he was not Irish at all, despite being cast mostly as Irishmen, particularly by director John Ford. Prior […]
Over the years I have been on the receiving end of a considerable amount of criticism (not to mention downright abuse) from fans of director Elia Kazan, especially from those self-appointed aficionados of movie-making who seem to delight in informing me that he was (and still is, in their eyes), […]
British actor Charles Laughton only directed one movie in his life, and that was the quite brilliant The Night of the Hunter (1955), although he did direct several plays. The star of his one movie, Robert Mitchum, had no hesitation in stating that he felt Laughton was the best director […]
Director Douglas Sirk saw something in Rock Hudson and cast him as the lead opposite Piper Laurie in his 1952 feature Has Anybody Seen My Gal? The director was impressed enough to offer Rock the title role two years later in Taza, Son of Cochise […]
TRUE LIES (1994) True Lies is a fun movie from beginning to end, one of those tongue-in-cheek, action-packed, secret agent romps that appeal to audiences around the world. Made on a budget of $115 million, it grossed almost $380 million throughout the globe and even picked up an Oscar […]
One of my pet hates is watching a biopic about a great sportsperson’s life in which the actor chosen to represent him or her hasn’t the faintest idea how to play the sport in question! Admittedly, this is often the fault of casting, but that does not excuse the actor […]
Dudley Moore Dudley & wife Tuesday Weld British comedian/musician Dudley Moore was only 5’2” tall (1.57m) and a most unlikely movie heartthrob when some wag nicknamed him ‘The Sex Thimble’. And for quite some time that description seemed apt. Women adored him. He married (and divorced) four of them in […]
It could be argued with confidence that there was more going on off-screen than there was on it, with regard to the 1944 feature film Since You Went Away. This superb example of what this writer considers to be ideal cinema entertainment, focused on the trials and tribulations of an […]
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