When is an Indian not an Indian? (PT 1)

February 14, 2017 Alan Royle 4

  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 […]

‘They Died With Their Boots On’ (1941)

December 30, 2016 Alan Royle 0

  Any resemblance in this movie to actual fact is pretty much accidental. The storyline is complete Hollywood hokum, and it is a good thing that Libbie Custer, George Armstrong’s widow, did not live to see it. She died eight years earlier in 1933. Even she would have shaken her […]

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On-set fatalities in Hollywood movies.

November 22, 2016 Alan Royle 5

Movie-making has cost the lives of quite a few of those involved in the process. Stuntmen, cameramen, assistants, extras, plus the occasional director and actor have lost their lives down the decades. This is not a definitive list, not by a long shot, but it does demonstrate the perils that […]

The best pictures – year by year – PT 1 (1939-44).

October 23, 2016 Alan Royle 0

  I have often been flabbergasted or just plain disbelieving as the Academy ran out each year’s list of Oscar nominees, especially the Best Picture nominees, and time after time exceptional pictures simply did not make the list. Consequently, I thought I might (starting with 1939, the year movies came […]