WORLD WAR TWO – The stars & their stories – PT45.

WORLD WAR TWO – The stars & their stories – PT45.

April 11, 2021 Alan Royle 2

ROBERT PRESTON (1918-87)                  This charismatic Robert Preston was born in Newton Highlands, Massachusetts as Robert Preston Meservey towards the end of World War One. As Bob Mesevey he joined the US Army Air Corps, the predecessor of the US Army Air Force (USAAF) after Pearl Harbor and served for three […]

LET’S GO TO THE MOVIES – PT12.

LET’S GO TO THE MOVIES – PT12.

July 29, 2020 Alan Royle 0

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), […]

MOVIE TRIVIA – PT91.

December 20, 2018 Alan Royle 5

  L to R – James Darren, Greg Peck, David Niven & Anthony Quinn in The Guns of Navarone (1961) The problem with the WW2 action flick The Guns of Navarone (1961) should be immediately apparent to just about everyone. Of the six commandos sent to disable the mighty guns of the […]

SNIPPETS – PT2.

November 17, 2017 Alan Royle 0

Kate and Barrymore in A Bill of Divorcement (1932) Kate Hepburn made her movie debut in the 1932 drama A Bill of Divorcement, in which the aging John Barrymore played her mentally unbalanced father. Known as ‘The Great Profile’, he invited her to his dressing-room where he promptly stripped naked […]

Suzan Ball – A sad tale.

September 6, 2017 Alan Royle 2

  SUZAN BALL (1934 – 55)  There have been many sad stories come out of Hollywood and Suzan Ball’s is one of the saddest. She had only made eight movies (and in two of those she was ‘uncredited), when suddenly her career and her life were over. Fate chose to […]

The many loves of Rita Hayworth

August 7, 2017 Alan Royle 14

  RITA HAYWORTH (1918-87) As a teenager Margarita Cansino (Rita Hayworth) was sexually abused by her abominable father, a Latin dancer named Eduardo Cansino, who not only abused her himself, but rented her out to his cronies. When she confided this to her husband Orson Welles he was rightly appalled. […]

The many loves of Ingrid Bergman.

August 5, 2017 Alan Royle 31

  INGRID BERGMAN (1915 – 82)                   Most fans are genuinely surprised to find that many of the screen’s biggest movie stars are diminutive in stature. It probably has a lot to do with cinema-goers seeing their idols enlarged on theatre screens, […]

A couple of English roses – Simmons & Bloom.

July 30, 2017 Alan Royle 5

    JEAN SIMMONS (1929 – 2010) Jean Simmons was her real name and she hailed from Crouch Hill, London. She was barely sixteen when she landed a miniscule part in the British film Caesar and Cleopatra in 1945. The production proved to be an opportunity (however small) for several […]

When is an Indian not an Indian? (PT 1)

February 14, 2017 Alan Royle 4

  Until around about the eighties very few actual Native Americans were employed playing Indians in Hollywood movies. Thankfully, since then that has changed and there are numerous Native American actors making healthy livings in westerns and other genres. Over the next few days I shall examine some of those […]

‘They Died With Their Boots On’ (1941)

December 30, 2016 Alan Royle 0

  Any resemblance in this movie to actual fact is pretty much accidental. The storyline is complete Hollywood hokum, and it is a good thing that Libbie Custer, George Armstrong’s widow, did not live to see it. She died eight years earlier in 1933. Even she would have shaken her […]