With Superman about to be revived (again) for the big screen, the Geeks of Doom site looks back at the entry that put an end to the Christopher Reeve Supey franchise. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was to be the most ambitious entry in the series. However, despite the presence of Reeve and Gene Hackman (reviving Lex Luthor), the 1987 film was a disaster on all levels. The article includes extensive comments from actor Jon Cryer, who was initially thrilled to be in the film but later learned from Reeve that the final cut would be a major disappointment, thanks to penny-pinching producers who reduced the budget by about 2/3. Click here to relive the unhappy memories.
Brian Hannan, author of the new book The Making of Lawrence of Arabia, has unveiled a startling fact: an early production of David Lean's masterpiece was announced in January 1953- a decade before Lean's version was released. It was to be filmed in Cinerama and star John Wayne! Now, there are no bigger fans of the Duke than us, but what were they thinking? Fortunately, plans fell apart for this particular film. Hannan relates how Marlon Brando was Lean's first choice for the role, so even in saner hands the emphasis was in casting an American actor as the iconic Brit. By the way, Duke Wayne may have dodged a bullet with Lawrence, but a few years later he went one worse by playing Genghis Khan in The Conqueror! For more click here
The Beatles with Brian Epstein at the 1964 London premiere of A Hard Day's Night.
The next time you hear American politicians debating the "onerous" tax burden on the wealthiest citizens, consider England in the 1960s when the tax rate on their highest earners skyrocketed to 98%. This forced many of the UK's most creative artists into tax exile. By the time sanity had returned to the British tax code, some of these people had left their native country permanently. The Beatles were among the most notable victims of the tax system but they also suffered from an abundance of bad business deals. Their hip, young manager Brian Epstein is fondly recalled for shepherding the Fab Four throughout their early career but Epstein (who died in 1967) was not the best business manager they could have had. An article in Bloomberg News features an interview with Peter Brown, the 74 year old man who took over managing the Beatles after Epstein's death. Brown reflects on Epstein's shortcomings and the turmoil that followed his death. Turns out Epstein had negotiated ludicrously low royalty deals for the lads from Liverpool that literally saw them making a fraction of a penny on every record sold. It was only due to the sheer number of records sold during the Beatlemania era that they ended up being wealthy in spite of these bad deals. Epstein also foolishly negotiated away the rights to Beatles merchandising for peanuts. Although the Beatles became fabulous wealthy, they always remained haunted by the fact they were cheated out of proper royalties and never even controlled the rights to the records they made. For more click here
If not for a last minute change, legendary opera star Maria Callas would have been the female lead in The Guns of Navarone.
Opera superstar Maria
Callas was set to make her movie debut in Carl Foreman’s iconic war film The
Guns Of Navarone, according to a new book, The Making Of The Guns
Of Navarone launched this weekend at the Bradford Widescreen Film
Festival (April 26-29) by Scottish film historian Brian Hannan.
The singer had scandalised
the world by her affair with Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, who
would later marry Jackie Kennedy, widow of assassinated president John F
Kennedy. Callas was first choice for the role of the older female Greek
partisan. Producer Carl Foreman promised ‘mucho love scenes’ with star Gregory
Peck.
Commented Hannan, ‘At the
time, Maria Callas was the most famous woman in the world, a fiery mixture of
Princess Diana and Madonna, the role model for every diva to come. This was an
astonishing publicity coup. Names did not come any bigger. Although few opera
stars can act, she was considered more than capable. Smouldering European
actresses like Sophia Loren were much in demand in Hollywood at the time and
she fitted the bill.’
Born in America in 1923 to
Greek parents, she mad her singing debut in 1941 but her early career was
tumultuous and it was not until she married wealthy industrialist Giovanni
Meneghini that she achieved major success. Even so she battled with employers
and was known as much for her tantrums, walkouts and love life as her singing. Her
presence was a considerable departure from the best-selling book by Scottish
writer Alistair Maclean for in the original there were no female characters.
The news received worldwide
coverage – Callas was that big a star. Hollywood was agog. Offers of movie
roles had been made to Callas before and she had turned them down. There was a
history of opera stars making the jump to Hollywood. Popular 1930s due Nelson
Eddy and Jeanette Macdonald had both been opera stars. More recently Mario
Lanza had been a box office sensation - his film The Great Caruso had ranked
third in the US box office charts in 1951 ahead of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar
Named Desire and Elizabeth Taylor in A Place In The Sun. There had also been a
trend for operas to be filmed and show in cinemas.
But Callas’s career had
been riddled with bust-ups and insiders predicted the relationship with Foreman
would not last. Callas abruptly quit the production before shooting began and
was replaced by classical actress Irene Papas.
Nor was she the only
casualty of the filming. Producer Foreman lost first choice
actors Cary Grant and William Holden, director Alexander Mackendrick
(The Ladykillers), scriptwriter Eric Ambler (Mask Of Dimitrios),
and a second female star Annette Stroyberg, wife of director Roger Vadim who
had turned Brigitte Bardot into a star. British actor David Niven nearly died
during filming. The set, the biggest ever built in Britain, for the
titular guns collapsed and had to be rebuilt and the budget soared by
25%.
Despite these setbacks, the
film burned up the box office and was the number one film of the year and
nominated for seven Oscars.
Hannan has also published
two books on Hitchcock – Darkness Visible:Hitchcock’s Greatest Film and Hitchcock’s
Hollywood Hell.
The author will introduce a
new restored 4K version of The Guns Of Navarone film on Sunday
April 28 preceded by a book signing of his book and its companion The
Making Of Lawrence Of Arabia.
The Making Of The Guns Of
Navarone by Brian Hannan is published by Baroliant Press, priced £8.99 and
is available on Kindle and in bookshops.
(U.S. readers can click here to order the Amazon Kindle edition)
Contact Brian Hannan by
email on bhkhannan@aol.com or
mobile 07946 278403
Here for your online viewing pleasure we have included the following nifty recreations of those great one-reel Super 8 sound horror and sci-fi digests of the past in a special salute to Castle Films and Ken Films! All but "Bride of Frankenstein" and "Return of Frankenstein" were edited by one Henry Senerchia, who may be contacted at creature8859@aol.com to direct your comments. Each film isguaranteed to produce 9 minutes of "warm fuzzies" for any "monster kid" who was lucky enough to grow up in the heyday of those great boxed film digests that winked seductively from spinning racks and shelves in elite camera departments of the finest department stores of the 1960's and 70's!
If you're a Cinema Retro reader, chances are you've probably seen director Don Siegel's 1971 crime classic Dirty Harry more times than you can count. However, what you may not know is that the film was not originally developed for Clint Eastwood. Other actors from John Wayne to Burt Lancaster turned it down first and Frank Sinatra had actually been signed for the role before an injury to his hand made him drop out. The web site www.todayifoundout.com provides some fun facts about the making of the movie. Click here to read
There's a wonderful Facebook web page called The Old Movie Guy's Page that presents all sorts of great photos and comments pertaining to vintage cinema. In one recent posting, they unearthed some rare comments made by Nigel Bruce regarding the series of Sherlock Holmes films he did with Basil Rathbone. Bruce said, “The stories we did were modernised but the characters of the famous detective and his biographer were kept more or less as originally written by Conan Doyle. Watson, however, in the films was made much more of a 'comic' character than he ever was in the books. This was with the object of introducing a little light relief. The doctor, as I played him, was a complete stooge for his brilliant friend and one whose intelligence was almost negligible. Many of the lovers of Conan Doyle must have been shocked, not by this caricature of the famous doctor but by seeing the great detective alighting from an aeroplane and the good doctor listening to his radio. To begin with, Basil and I were much opposed to the modernising of these stories but the producer, Howard Benedict, pointed out to us that the majority of youngsters who would see our pictures were accustomed to the fast-moving action of gangster pictures, and that expecting machine guns, police sirens, cars travelling at 80 miles an hour and dialogue such as 'Put em up bud', they would be bored with the magnifying glass, the hansom cabs, the cobblestones and the slow tempo of an era they never knew and a way of life with which they were completely unfamiliar.”
On TCM's Movie Morlocks web site, writer Susan Doll celebrates the movie poster art of Joseph A. Maturo. Never heard of him? Neither had we, but his work on Fox movie posters from the 1930s and 1940s is remarkable. The Italian immigrant, who once designed dresses for flappers in the 1920s, created memorable posters for Shirley Temple's Heidi, The Prisoner of Shark Island, Charlie Chan's Secret and many other golden oldies. Click here to read.
Here's a plethora of great movies showing during the same week in February 1965, as illustrated in this page from the Winnipeg Free Press: Mary Poppins, Goldfinger, Sex and the Single Girl, Jungle Fighters (aka The Long and the Short and the Tall), My Fair Lady and A Shot in the Dark. Wish we had a time machine....
We love the vintage Batman comic books from D.C. Comics. They're provided us with immortal villains like The Joker, Catwoman, The Riddler and The Penguin. However, over the decades, there have been a few lame guys who were probably created during severe cases of writer's block. They include The King of Cats, The Calculator (he has a calculator attached to his head!) and the Penny-Pincher. The Cracked web site has some insightful looks into the creation of these villains whose flirtations with fame came and went faster than the Bay City Rollers. Click here to read
The Mail On Line provides a fascinating sociological glimpse into American pop culture in the 1960s by unveiling vintage solicitations for young women to join Playboy as Bunnies in the newly-launched Playboy clubs. For anyone who thinks that we haven't come a long way in terms of equality of the sexes, just consider that women were so pigeon-holed into a small number of careers that the application actually lists these specific professions (along with measurement statistics!) For some, this will be a sentimental journey back to a time when belonging to the Playboy Club made men the envy of their peers. For others, it's a reflection of just why the Women's Lib movement felt it had to become so radical in order to combat long-standing sexism. In either case, you'll find this glimpse into a bygone era fascinating. Click here to read.
From The Godfather to Jaws to Raiders of the Lost Ark, some of the most memorable scenes in classic movies were ad-libbed to some degree. The web site ScreenRant provides a slide show of these great, impromptu moments in cinema history. Click here to view
The Vincent Price Exhibit is an informative and very entertaining web site dedicated to the legendary actor. Run by long-time fan and admirer Richard Squires, the site features interesting memorabilia from all aspects of Price's career, including personal correspondence to Squires. Those of us who are long-time admirers of Price always get a bit ruffled when someone refers to him as a "horror film actor". While it is undeniable that the horror genre certainly boosted Price to name-above-the-title stardom, his accomplishments extend to many other areas. He appeared in countless non-horror films, was a master chef and was a major force in bringing an appreciation of fine art to the general public. He was also said to be a complete gentleman at all times as well as the definitive Renaissance Man. Click here to visit the site.
Joe Dante's Trailers From Hell site presents the original theatrical trailer for the criminally underrated Hammer Films version of The Phantom of the Opera featuring a remarkable performance by Herbert Lom. Click here to watch trailer in original version or with commentary from director Brian Trenchard-Smith.
Artist Lutz Becker was born in Berlin in 1941, the height of Adolf Hitler's military triumphs. He is still haunted by early memories of four years later, trying to survive in the midst of the carnage that was once the fabled city of Berllin. He never forgave Hitler and the Nazis for the destruction they brought to Germany. After seeing a photograph of Hitler's mistress Eva Braun holding a 16mm film camera, Lutz became obsessed with finding out what happened to her home movies. The public had seen only the side of Hitler that had been presented in carefully orchestrated propaganda films, designed to make him look like a god. But what if there were images that showed him as a real man in his private life? Becker's quest took many years and extensive travels, but his persistence paid off: he located the now famed home movies of Eva Braun that present Hitler and the Nazi brass in more relaxed and natural state. Braun's home movies came to an end in 1941 when Hitler's fortunes changed following his ill-fated invasion of the Soviet Union and the entry into the war of the United States. For his troubles, Becker was reviled by many for presenting this "humanized" version of the men he so hated. However, since then, these films have become essential to the historical record of the doomed Third Reich. Click here to read the remarkable story.
In his column on the Sound on Sight web site, writer Bill Mesce makes the case for "Seven Anti-007 Movies You Haven't Seen", which is a bit misleading considering several of his choice are not obscure oddities but major studio releases. At least two- The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and The Ipcress File- are considered classics. Nevertheless, Mesce makes a good case for catching up with these thrillers, if you haven't seen them before. Click here to view his list of worthy "anti-Bond" (i.e gritty, realistic) spy flicks.
Cinema Retro contributor and copy editor Sheldon Hall contributed this impressive advert showing the wealth of great movies showing in the same week during 1962 in London's West End. Those were the days! Keep 'em coming, Sheldon!
American football great Jim Brown graced the cover of Cinema Retro issue #4, which covered the film 100 Rifles in which he co-starred with Raquel Welch.
The Hollywood Reporter has assembled a photo slide show of 26 great American athletes who went on to successful careers as actors. Click here to view
A recently released (but heavily redacted) FBI file shows that the agency began investigating the personal life of sex siren Marilyn Monroe in 1955. The Bureau was then under the command of J. Edgar Hoover, who was a rabid anti-Red. Hoover also ensured his longevity at the Bureau -despite being despised by a succession of Presidents- because he deftly used FBI resources to gather potentially scandalous information, often of a political or sexual nature, that could be brandished as "incentives" to keep him on the job. During the anti-Communist paranoia of the 1950s, Hoover had Monroe investigated because of her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller, who was deemed a communist sympathizer. The FBI feared that the popular Monroe could be enlisted as a propaganda tool for the Reds. For more click here
Click here for a photo slide show bringing fans of the 1967 film classic The Graduate up to date on the key cast members. Some are sadly no longer with us while others are very active making movies.
In John Frankenheimer's superb 1965 film The Train, one of the last major studio movies shot in black and white, Burt Lancaster plays a railroad worker coerced into joining the French Resistance to stop a train that contains the nation's great art treasures. A German general (Paul Scofield) is attempting to loot these masterpieces and bring them to Berlin in the closing days of WWII. Watch the original trailer here.
Okay, the following clip from The Jingle Bells Affair, which aired in December 1966, had plenty of cringe-inducing moments since it aired during The Man From U.N.C.L.E's notoriously campy third season. (The series would regain its mojo the next year, but by then it was too late: the show was cancelled in mid-season). Still, this episode has a goofy, charming quality about it. Akim Tamiroff plays the Communist party chairman who visits New York on a contentious diplomatic mission. Thanks to the intrusion of THRUSH, he ends up relying on Solo and Illya to protect him. Throw in a virginal Salvation Army girl, a cornball sub-plot about a sick kid, a naked commercial pitch for Macy's and the least believable final sequence in the show's history (with the Chairman expressing a wish to be the store's new Santa Claus!) and you have all the elements that outraged the show's fans at the time. Yet, in the spirit of Christmas, it's hard to be a Scrooge after so many years have passed...and there is something reassuring about having Robert Vaughn and David McCallum wishing us all a Merry Christmas.
Regular readers know that every Christmas, Cinema Retro pays homage to Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, the Citizen Kane of all movies relating to Santa Claus battling creatures from other planets. The 1964 $20,000 wonder has been a cinematic legend among bad movie lovers. We're happy to present the entire film for your (guilty) viewing pleasure.
At the risk of being drawn and quartered, I have to say that, with all due respect to the magnificent Alastair Sim, my favorite version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol is the wonderful 1984 TV production starring George C. Scott in a magnificent, Emmy-nominated performance as Scrooge. The film features many other excellent actors and performances including Frank Finlay, Edward Woodward, Susannah York, David Warner, Angela Pleasence, Nigel Davenport and Michael Gough- all under the inspired direction of Clive Donner. Scott's performance is every bit as impressive as that of Sim, who has basically owned the role since appearing in the 1951 big screen version, which is alternately titled Scrooge. For a great double feature, watch these two films back-to-back. In the meantime, however, sit back and enjoy this full length presentation of George C. Scott in A Christmas Carol.
The following news items were found in The Hollywood Reporter on January 24, 1968:
Director Peter Yates, assistant director Tim Zinneman, cameraman Bill Fraker and several key crew operators to San Francisco for final pre-production on Warner-Seven Arts' Bullitt
Lee Marvin will star in Monte Walsh, based on the Jack Schafer novel. Marvin will reportedly receive $1 million against 10% of the gross.
Sammy Davis Jr. set to portray a key figure in the Rhythm of Life musical number in Universal's roadshow production of Sweet Charity. Assignment marks the first screen song and dance role Davis has played since he appeared in Porgy and Bess. (Note: this was not true. Davis performed song and dance numbers in the Rat Pack films Oceans Eleven and Robin and the Seven Hoods-Ed.)
David Karp yesterday turned in the first draft screenplay of Viva Che!, 20th -Fox's forthcoming drama based on the life of revolutionist Ernesto (Che) Guevara. (The film was released under the title Che!- Ed.)
MGM has set an April starting date for the King Brothers production of Heaven With a Gun, a big scale western starring Glenn Ford to be shot at the Culver City studio and on location.
MGM's The Dirty Dozen rolls into its seventh consecutive month of performances in Los Angeles this week when it moves to the Tiffany Theatre on Sunset Boulevard.
Director James Goldstone has set May 1 for start of filming on his next Universal feature, Winning starrig Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. Picture was originally slated to begin production in March, but start date has been pushed back to accomodate Newman, currently editing A Jest of God which he directed for Warner Seven-Arts. (A Jest of God was released under the title Rachel, Rachel- Ed.)
James Caan getting his choice of roles after appearing in Games
John Wayne used to smoke five packs of cigarettes a day before his operation; now he chews tobacco.
Richard Burton and Audrey Hepburn rumored to appear in Song of Norway in 1969. (They didn't- Ed.)
Click here to watch the action-packed original trailer for the John Wayne cop film Brannigan from 1975. We still prefer the more serious McQ, but this one has some delightful moments and great chemistry between the Duke and Richard Attenborough. We also love the poster art...check out the artist's inside joke of including James Coburn in an Our Man Flint pose among the pub brawlers!
If one of the great trivia questions among retro movie lover is to name the cast members of The Magnificent Seven, the outcome is generally predictable. Six of the cast either were either established stars (Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen) while the others would go on to stardom in large part because of film's success (Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, Horst Bucholz). There's generally that one guy no one can name: the actor who played Harry, the genial, but opportunistic fortune hunter. He was played by Brad Dexter, who went on to become a successful film producer. Click here to read an interesting account of his life and career.
Joe Dante's addictive Trailers from Hell site presents the original trailer for John Huston's kinky Southern Gothic sex drama Reflections in a Golden Eye with Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Brian Keith, Robert Forster and Julie Harris. Director Dan Ireland provides insightful commentary on the trailer and points out that the haunting film was far ahead of its time. In fact, it's shocking even by today's standards. Click here to view
Believe it or not, Casablanca is 70 years-old. No matter what age you are, chances are the film has a special place in your life. Time magazine writer Ben Cosgrove pays tribute to what many believe is the most perfect screen romance in history. Click here to read
Joe Dante's Trailers From Hell site presents the original theatrical trailer for A Hard Day's Night with commentary by Allan Arkush. You can also view the trailer without commentary track. Click here to view
Jessica Beal plays Vera Miles in the new film Hitchcock.
Many retro movie fans think that Vera Miles has never received the praise she deserved for so many remarkable performances. Perhaps Miles plays some part in this because she refuses to give interviews regarding the high profile movies she has appeared in. On the movie blog Hill Place, Shaun Chang has a fitting tribute to Ms. Miles and postures that her career never fully recovered from having been replaced by Kim Novak in Hitchcock's Vertigo. Nevertheless, she is back on theater screens today (sort of), being portrayed in the new film about the legendary director and the making of Psycho. Click here to read
Here we go again with a look at some of the most bizarre movie descriptions, provided by Cablevision, one of the largest American cable TV companies.
Reflections in a Golden Eye: "An army major with a lusty wife feels homosexual in the 1940s South."
Well, that pretty much sums it all up...can't imagine how much more you would want to say about this complex John Huston film that starred Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando, Brian Keith and Julie Harris. The description doesn't include instructions as to how one can feel homosexual but it apparently is much the same as feeling a cold or a headache coming on. Based on the synopsis, feeling homosexual must also have something to do with residing in the South in the 1940s. Thus, if you resided in Fargo, North Dakota during that time period, you apparently had to "feel" straight, whether you liked it or not.
Woody Allen had befriended his idol Groucho Marx in 1961. However, word reached Groucho years later that the Woodman was carrying a grudge because Groucho had not answered his letter. Groucho finally responded in a rambling and witty 1967 letter that sought to patch things up. The plan worked and the two comedy geniuses resumed their friendship. Click here to read the letter.
Click here to visit Joe Dante's presentation of the original trailer for Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy. You can watch it with or without the commentary track by Josh Olsen. For an in-depth report on the making of the film, see Gary Giblin's extensive article (complete with deleted scene photos) in Cinema Retro issue #24.
We've been sent a wealth of amusing and politically incorrect advertisements from previous decades that are sure to be offensive to some segment of today's (thankfully) more enlightened society. Yes, retro lovers, these ads were not only taken seriously at the time, but never generated any significant complaints! More to come...
One of the great films of the 60s spawned one of the great scores of all time by Elmer Bernstein. Click here to revel in a United Artists theatrical trailer created in the late 1960s for reissues of the film.
Click here to order special 2 DVD collector's edition from Amazon
Thirty years after its initial blockbuster release, Steven Spielberg's E.T. The Extraterrestrial remains one of the most beloved films of all time. Spielberg and cast members look back on the making of the movie and the Oscar-winning director recalls the delightful effect the film had on President Ronald Reagan. To read click here
Joe Dante's Trailers From Hell presents the original theatrical trailer for Clint Eastwood's moody and ominous 1973 Western High Plains Drifter. You can watch the trailer in its original format or watch it with an audio commentary from writer/director Edgar Wright, who gives his opinion of the Eastwood-directed flick. Click here to view
Joe Dante's Trailers From Hell site presents director Philip Kaufman's 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers with commentary by writer Josh Olson. The film rivals the 1956 original and in some ways surpasses it. Click here to view.
Click here for Cinema Retro's review of the DVD release
Click here for Cinema Retro's exclusive interview with co-star Veronica Cartwright.
60 Minutes has been on the American airwaves since 1968 and our favorite segment has nothing to do with political scandals, interviews with legends or exposing con-men. It is the 1974 report titled Last Train to Istanbul in which correspondent Morley Safer traveled on the last ride of the fabled Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul. By this point, the train had been in terrible disrepair and had degenerated from a symbol of class and status to that of a cargo train carrying migrant workers. The Cold War enters prominently when they cross the Iron Curtain and all papers must be in order. There are no services on the train that once boasted all night champagne and gourmet dining and it's depressing to see how the Express had been allowed to deteriorate. However, the happy ending, as we all know, is that years later it re-emerged under new owners and today has been restored to its original glory. The segment, broadcast in 1974 and re-aired in 1977, is brilliantly edited and incorporates plenty of coverage of how the Express figured into spy movies. There are clips with Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, the (then) newly-released Murder on the Orient Express and the classic train fight between Sean Connery and Robert Shaw in the James Bond film From Russia With Love. (By sheer coincidence, one of the steam engines is coded with the number "007"!) Most amazing if the fact that Morley Safer is still a top correspondent for 60 Minutes. We once vied for a taxi cab during a rainstorm in London...I beat him out and told him that, while I admired his work, I was taking the cab. After viewing his fine work in this segment, I feel kinda guilty. Morley, if you're reading this, next time you'll get the cab- I promise. - Lee Pfeiffer
Here's a real gem from 1966: the dancers from the teenybopper TV show Hullabaloo performing to an extended original soundtrack version of Neal Hefti's theme from the Batman TV series. Holy hole in the donut!
Click here for amusing video clips of Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson, Jerry Seinfeld, Marlo Thomas, Henry Winkler, Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Diane Keaton, Betty Whitevand Whoopi Goldberg before they had gained fame and fortune in the acting field.
The following news items were reported in Film Daily during the week of October 21, 1963
Stephen Boyd in "The Fall of the Roman Empire"
Paul Lazarus Jr., executive vice president of Samuel Bronston Productions, is lining up tours to the Bronston Studio in Spain for exhibitors who have expressed interest in (and booking) Fall of the Roman Empire. The trips, on which theater men will be on their own, especially for transportation, are expected to start shortly after mid-November.
Steve McQueen in "the Great Escape" (Like we really had to tell you!)
United Artists' The Great Escape rolled up $205,915 in the second week of its Golden Showcase run at 21 theaters in the greater New York area.
Arthur Kennedy, Victory Jory, Sal Mineo, George O'Brien, and Dolores Del Rio have been signed for key roles in Cheyenne Autumn Warner Bros. film which John Ford is directing.
Britain's Shirley Eaton will fill the sole femme part in MGM's Rhino in production in South Africa.
Executive Council of British Film Producers Association will support the move by the Association of Independent Cinemas to reduce the admittance of teenagers to "A" pictures from 16 to 14. Films classified as "A" by the censor are forbidden to children under 16 unless accompanied by an adult. Films tagged "X" are forbidden to those 16 and under while "U" films are for the entire family.
How the West Was Won has passed the 500,000 admission mark at the Warner Hollywood Cinerama Theatre, where the MGM production has grossed more than $1,000,000 since its opening October 21...Ticket orders are being taken into December and the engagement will continue indefinitely.
Swedish poster for "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"
Stanley Kramer and many of the stars of his It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World will appear on The Jerry Lewis Show, ABC-TV
November 2, the night before the UA Cinerama comedy has its
international press preview at The New Cinerama Theatre in Hollywood.
The year was 1963 and Paul Newman gave what would arguably be the greatest performance of his career in director Martin Ritt's Hud. Co-stars Melvyn Douglas and Patricia Neal both won well-deserved Oscars but the honor would escape Newman time and time again until he finally won for the 1986 film The Color of Money. As Hud, he is the ultimate heel: charismatic and dripping with sexual tension, yet self-centered, arrogant and happily unreformed at the movie's climax. Click here to watch the trailer.
Joe Dante's Trailers From Hell web site presents the original theatrical trailer for MGM's bizarre sex comedy/murder mystery Pretty Maids All in Row. The 1971 film remains one of the most sexist and politically incorrect movies ever released by a major studio. Rock Hudson stars as a horny high school coach who has the pick of the litter in terms of gorgeous and willing schoolgirls. His amorous activities are compromised when someone starts killing off his bed mates. The film, directed by Roger Vadim, features a stellar cast including Angie Dickinson, Roddy McDowall, Telly Savalas and Keenan Wynn. On the Trailers From Hell site, director John Landis provides some amusing insights about the movie. Click here to view
Here is rare color footage of The Three Stooges in 1938, shot in Atlantic City New Jersey's famed Steel Pier. Moe, Larry and Curly vie for the affections of model Barbara Bradford, who was married to song and dance man George Mann, who shot the film and makes an appearance.
