Ben Fisz Former Polish World War Two fighter pilot Ben Fisz discovered a book called ‘Skis Against the Atom’ in a London public library and convinced himself it would make a terrific movie. He quietly purchased the film rights from the author, then hired a writer to work […]
The delightful Leslie Caron in Gigi (1958) The three leads in Gigi (1958), Leslie Caron, Louis Jourdan and Maurice Chevalier, were all born in France. Unfortunately, Leslie’s French accent had completely disappeared […]
Stunning Gladys circa WW1 with Wilfrid Hyde White in My Fair Lady (1964) The former World War One British pin-up girl Gladys Cooper was perfectly cast as Henry Higgins’ mother in the 1964 musical My Fair Lady. A class […]
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, […]
It is nearly 105 years since Edgar Rice Burroughs published his first Tarzan book – Tarzan the Ape-man (1912). Over that period of time there have been no fewer than 50 Tarzan movies pumped out – 45 live action and 5 animated features. Nineteen players have portrayed the ape-man, […]
Producer Robert Evans purchased the rights to F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby in 1971 with the intention of having his wife Ali MacGraw play Daisy in the 1974 production. However, while waiting for the script to be finalised, Ali went off and made The Getaway with Steve […]
Yesterday I stole 203 minutes out of the remainder of my life and watched the Liz Taylor, Rock Hudson and Jimmy Dean 1956 blockbuster Giant. I have certainly seen worse movies, but two hundred and three minutes! I found Rock and Liz to be far better than I expected, […]
Down the decades there have been a number of, shall we say, dubious Oscar-winners who have collected the statuette at the expense of more worthy contenders. Sometimes this is due to studio manipulation of nominations. A classic example of this happened in 1972 when Paramount chose to nominate only […]
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