MOVIE TRIVIA – PT 14.

May 24, 2018 Alan Royle 0

      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 […]

SIXTIES MOVIE TRIVIA – PT2.

April 14, 2018 Alan Royle 2

Prior to making The Hustler (1961), Paul Newman had a pool table installed in his home to practice upon because he had never played the game in his life until then. Jackie Gleason, on the other hand, was a very accomplished pool player and executed most of his own shots […]

SNAPSHOTS

August 21, 2017 Alan Royle 6

           PIPER LAURIE (1932 – )                with Ronald Reagan in Louisa (1950)   with Paul Newman in The Hustler My favourite Piper Laurie performance was in The Hustler (1961), where she played Paul Newman’s lame girlfriend Sarah Packard. In her highly readable […]

Past Oscars PT 5 – (1961-66)

November 16, 2016 Alan Royle 0

    1961               West Side Story – Best Picture                         Maximilian Schell – Best Actor for Judgment at Nuremberg                         George Chakiris – Best Supporting Actor for West Side Story                                                               Except for Fanny, I have seen each of the nominees – West Side Story, Judgment at Nuremberg, […]

No Image

TV – The old classics – The Honeymooners 1955-6.

May 12, 2016 admin 0

  Television first reared its ugly head in my hometown of Fremantle, Western Australia on 16 October 1959. By then the quite brilliant comedy series The Honeymooners had come and gone in the USA. TV viewers in WA were probably unaware of that, however, and the show was an immediate […]

Stolen Oscars? Pt 4.

September 26, 2015 admin 2

  Part 4 of ‘Stolen Oscars?’ focuses on 8 Supporting Actors and just 2 Supporting Actresses. 1944    Barry Fitzgerald in Going My Way Fitzgerald got his Oscar for virtually being himself. In fact, all his movie roles were very similar. In this picture he played an Irish priest, Father […]

‘Stolen Oscars?’ Pt. 1

September 20, 2015 admin 10

  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 […]