My 30 Favorite Movie Villains: PT1

April 8, 2018 Alan Royle 6

  Here is part one of my list of the 30 performances by movie villains I have enjoyed the most down the decades. That does not mean I have chosen the scariest or even the best-acted roles; just the ones I have enjoyed watching the most. I have seen every […]

SIXTIES MOVIE TRIVIA – PT1

April 4, 2018 Alan Royle 7

The American backers for the projected James Bond film Dr No (1962) were unimpressed with Sean Connery’s test footage. Co-producer Cubby Broccoli sent a memo to his partner Harry Saltzman: ‘Feel we can do better.’ In fact, they could not do better at all. Cary Grant, James Mason, Michael Redgrave, […]

FIFTIES MOVIE TRIVIA – PT7.

April 2, 2018 Alan Royle 7

        Martin Milner The brilliant film noir Sweet Smell of Success (1957) was to have starred Robert Vaughn in his breakout role, but the draft intervened and he was sent off to do national service. Martin Milner inherited the role of Steve Dallas in this superb classic and […]

FIFTIES MOVIE TRIVIA – PT6.

March 31, 2018 Alan Royle 1

The two leads in Carnival Story (1954), Steve Cochran and Anne Baxter, did not enjoy each other’s company during the shoot. ‘One minute I was Mother Cabrini, helping him with his complicated love life’, Anne said later, ‘the next kicking him out of my tiny penthouse for attempted rape. He […]

FOUR BRITISH WARTIME CLASSICS

March 29, 2018 Alan Royle 0

  The British have always been exceptionally good at making movies about World War Two. They seem to possess a knack for underplaying heroism which, unfortunately, tends to make warfare even more heroic than any amount of gaudy flag-waving might otherwise imply. Americans would probably be the first to admit […]

What Happened to the ‘Wagon Train’ (1957-65) Stars?

March 25, 2018 Alan Royle 67

From 1957 until 1965 the prairie schooners of TV’s Wagon Train series rolled over 284 episodes. Throughout those eight seasons only eight actors (no actresses) appeared in fifty or more episodes. A minor actress named Kay Stewart popped up in eleven episodes from 1958 to 1964, playing eleven different women. […]

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THE 10 WORST ‘BEST PICTURE’ OSCAR-WINNERS.

March 23, 2018 Alan Royle 0

Selecting the ten worst winners of the ‘Best Picture’ Oscar is a whole lot tougher than choosing the ten best. Why? Because I have not always bothered to see a lot of the rubbishy ones. Only recently I sat through several of those I had avoided like the plague for […]

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BEST PICTURE OSCAR WINNERS – THE BEST AND THE WORST.

March 21, 2018 Alan Royle 7

There have been some quite wonderful ‘Best Picture’ Oscar winners since 1927/8 and there have been some shockers, too. Just for the heck of it, I went through the list and jotted down my top ten and my bottom ten. If anyone agrees with either list I shall be flabbergasted, […]

FIFTIES MOVIE TRIVIA – PT4.

March 19, 2018 Alan Royle 8

Director Charles Laughton thought Robert Mitchum was one of the finest actors in the world and he also respected him as a person. He wrote in Esquire about the American who starred in his masterpiece The Night of the Hunter in 1955: ‘All this tough talk is a blind, you […]