GENE TIERNEY (1920-91) One of the saddest wartime Hollywood tales involved actress Gene Tierney. She actually attended the Hollywood Canteen just once and, a few days after that solitary stint there, developed Rubella (German measles). She was pregnant to her […]
June Allyson MGM’s profits in 1952 were its lowest in twenty years, so costs were cut by dropping the contracts of many of the studio’s highest-paid stars. Clark Gable, Greer Garson, June Allyson, Esther Williams, Van Johnson, Deborah Kerr, Kathryn Grayson, George Murphy and Lionel Barrymore were all unceremoniously […]
THE RAZOR’S EDGE (1946) It’s a pity that Bill Shakespeare had already used the title ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ a few centuries earlier, otherwise W. Somerset Maugham might have used it for this much-overrated melodrama. The Razor’s Edge takes 148 minutes focusing on Larry Darrell (Tyrone Power) and his […]
LEE MARVIN (1924-87) Like Audie Murphy, Lee Marvin was not an actor when war broke out, but became one after hostilities ended. He was still a teenager when he enlisted in the US Marine Corps Reserve on August 12, 1942. As a member of the 4th Marine Division, he took […]
Franciska Gaal The name Franciska Gaal is long lost to modern movie-goers. Her Hollywood screen career was very short indeed, only three pictures released just prior to the outbreak of World War Two. Born in Budapest, Hungary, the Jewish Franciska had enjoyed success in German cinema until Hitler came […]
Leo McKern as Rumpole of the Bailey The Australian actor Leo McKern, best known for his portrayal of the title character in the TV series Rumpole of the Bailey, once unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of ‘Pockets’ in Hatari (1962), the part eventually going to American actor Red Buttons. McKern always […]
John Wayne accepts Gary Cooper’s Oscar for High Noon John Wayne and Ward Bond, two staunch supporters of the Senator McCarthy witch-hunts of the late forties and early fifties, were incensed over Carl Foreman’s screenplay for High Noon (1952), which they knew […]
Al Mulock […]
The history of movies is literally riddled with iconic male villains, but not so many women have been fortunate enough to sink their teeth into a genuinely meaty, nasty role. One of the first (and best) appeared in Hitchcock’s 1940 classic Rebecca. Dame Judith Anderson positively oozed malevolence as […]
This was a typical Danny Kaye offering, one that show-cased the considerable comic talents he was blessed with. Sadly, his over the top style dated quite quickly (much like that of Jim Carrey later). Watching most of Danny’s films today is hard work, the probable exception being the […]
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