One of the very first movies I recall seeing was the 1955 World War Two ‘epic’ Battle Cry. I suppose the word ‘epic’ is a bit of an exaggeration, but it was based on Leon Uris’s novel of the same name, and at 704 pages it was certainly long […]
Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise landed in England in the fall of 1996 to make Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut. They expected to be stuck in the UK for several months, fully aware that Kubrick notoriously took forever to shoot his films. Instead, they stayed on through the […]
The 1986 film Heartbreak Ridge is a pretty lame war picture that culminates in the real-life USMC invasion of the Caribbean island nation of Grenada in October 1983. The assault was successful inside four days but was not the ‘walk in the park’ depicted in this picture, although the outcome […]
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) I was enjoying my one and only trip to the UK in 1981, when I met my sister and we went together to see a recent release that looked promising – Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. Like most of the audience, […]
The 1970 abomination titled Ned Kelly was initially intended as a vehicle for Albert Finney in the title role back in 1964 but it never happened. Instead, someone with a warped sense of humour reached the ludicrous conclusion that Rolling Stones front-man Mick Jagger could portray the iconic Aussie […]
Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote If you ever wondered why most actors and actresses jump at the chance to star in their own television series, it is worth comparing payments in the case of English-born actress Angela Lansbury. For her first movie role in Gaslight (1944), for which […]
The Great Escape (1963) is often talked about as Steve McQueen’s movie but there are a number of fine performances in this fine film, particularly those of James Garner, James Donald, Hannes Messemer and Donald Pleasence. Of course, McQueen was given the showiest part and he squeezed every drop out […]
JONATHAN HARRIS: [On starting his stage career in ‘The Heart of a City’ at Henry Miller’s Theatre, New York City in 1942] ‘I got thrown out of that office every day. Finally, the secretary took pity on me and I got to meet Mr. Miller. He cast me as […]
DIE HARD (1988) For sheer non-stop action it is hard to go past the Bruce Willis 1988 film Die Hard. Few expected the wise-cracking star of the hit TV […]
Robert Shaw It is sad when we consider just how many wonderful performances we were deprived of with Robert Shaw’s untimely death in 1978. The man was only 51 when a massive heart attack killed him on a country road in County Mayo, Ireland. His career consisted of only […]
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