Lee Marvin (L), John Wayne (C) & James Stewart When we watch the John Ford 1962 western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, there is a certain irony in the casting. Jimmy Stewart was a genuine World War Two USAAF hero, yet he plays a bookish weakling opposed to […]
10 ROBERT RYAN as Master of Arms John Claggart in BILLY BUDD (1962) Billy Budd (1962) is a fine drama […]
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, […]
Joan Collins in The Opposite Sex (1956) The Opposite Sex (1956) was a musical re-make of the 1939 film The Women. It was also one of the early vehicles for the new British bombshell Joan Collins. New to the movies and to MGM, she recalled walking past the studio […]
SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS (1957) After deliberately punishing myself by recently sitting through the lamentable 1956 soap opera Written on the Wind, I felt I owed myself a treat, […]
I have written nine books on Hollywood, mostly on the stars of the so-called ‘Golden Era’, and have reached the slightly disillusioning understanding that most of my readers, (not all I hasten to add), are far more interested in the scandal and gossip than about any of the genuinely […]
It did not take Hollywood long to start altering World War Two history. Shooting began on Wake Island (1942) even before the battle for the island had ended. In all there were 449 military personnel on this tiny speck in the Pacific (plus 1221 civilian workers). By […]
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 […]
When the United Artists cast and crew arrived in Prague, Czechoslovakia in June 1968 to shoot this picture, Alexander Dubcek had only recently become the Communist Party Secretary in Czechoslovakia. Unlike his predecessors, he was a man bent on improving the lot of his countrymen by softening the hard-line […]
David Niven’s first wife, Primula Rollo, (known as Primmie) died in a tragic household accident several months before he made The Bishop’s Wife in 1947. The couple had been married since 1940 and were visiting Tyrone Power’s home when a game of ‘hide and seek’ was suggested by someone. […]
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