Elvis Presley starred in 31 movies in his acting career. Not every single one was a critical darling, but many did well at the box office, giving Presley the status of one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. His movies earned over $284 million worldwide, and a few earned Elvis a pretty payday.
Here are the top 5 highest-grossing Elvis Presley movies 5. ‘Jailhouse Rock’ – $4 million Elvis Presley | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images
Jailhouse Rock is the third movie starring Elvis Presley. Directed by Richard Thorpe, the film centers around Vince (Presley), a convict who discovers in jail that he has the potential to become a star. While the movie received mixed reviews from critics, it was a hit with audiences and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
The film is also fondly remembered for its soundtrack, which included the song “Jailhouse Rock.” The titular tune reached No.
Here are the top 5 highest-grossing Elvis Presley movies 5. ‘Jailhouse Rock’ – $4 million Elvis Presley | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images
Jailhouse Rock is the third movie starring Elvis Presley. Directed by Richard Thorpe, the film centers around Vince (Presley), a convict who discovers in jail that he has the potential to become a star. While the movie received mixed reviews from critics, it was a hit with audiences and was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
The film is also fondly remembered for its soundtrack, which included the song “Jailhouse Rock.” The titular tune reached No.
- 3/11/2023
- by Ross Tanenbaum
- Showbiz Cheat Sheet
The French Alps in VistaVision and Technicolor really sell this inspirational thriller. Spencer Tracy stars is the utterly ethical mountaineer, and young Robert Wagner his venal, verminous, just plain no damn good younger brother. Make that Much younger. Edward Dmytryk directs for big dimensions and strong emotions, and Paramount’s remaster makes the special effects of the mountain climb look good again. It’s a morality tale pitched at grade school level, and one of Tracy’s better late-career pictures. With Anna Kashfi as a plane crash victim deserving of rescue, and William Demarest as a French priest with a Preston Sturges accent.
The Mountain
Region Free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] #198
1956 / Color / 1:78 widescreen (VistaVision) / 105 min. / Street Date February 22, 2023 / Available from [Imprint] / Aud 34.98
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner, Claire Trevor, William Demarest, Barbara Darrow, Richard Arlen, E.G. Marshall, Anna Kashfi, Richard Garrick, Harry Townes.
Cinematography: Franz Planer
Costume Designer: Edith Head
Art Director: Hal Pereira,...
The Mountain
Region Free Blu-ray
Viavision [Imprint] #198
1956 / Color / 1:78 widescreen (VistaVision) / 105 min. / Street Date February 22, 2023 / Available from [Imprint] / Aud 34.98
Starring: Spencer Tracy, Robert Wagner, Claire Trevor, William Demarest, Barbara Darrow, Richard Arlen, E.G. Marshall, Anna Kashfi, Richard Garrick, Harry Townes.
Cinematography: Franz Planer
Costume Designer: Edith Head
Art Director: Hal Pereira,...
- 2/28/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Every once in a while a movie studio would ruin what might have been a masterpiece — and Preston Sturges’ last-released Paramount comedy suffered exactly that. “Triumph Over Pain” was supposed to be something new, a daring blend of comedy and tragedy. Studio politics intervened and tried to turn it into a straight comedy. Disc producer Constantine Nasr oversees two extras that explain what happened in full detail; it’s a fascinating story of a brillant and successful writer-director at odds with his studio bosses. Joel McCrea, Betty Field and William Demarest star — and the show is still entertaining despite its problems.
The Great Moment
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1944 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Great without Glory, Immortal Secret, Morton the Magnificent, Triumph over Pain / Street Date February 1, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Joel McCrea, Betty Field, Harry Carey, William Demarest, Louis Jean Heydt, Julius Tannen, Edwin Maxwell, Porter Hall, Franklin Pangborn,...
The Great Moment
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1944 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Great without Glory, Immortal Secret, Morton the Magnificent, Triumph over Pain / Street Date February 1, 2022 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Joel McCrea, Betty Field, Harry Carey, William Demarest, Louis Jean Heydt, Julius Tannen, Edwin Maxwell, Porter Hall, Franklin Pangborn,...
- 1/18/2022
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
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“A Mentalist Mystery”
By Raymond Benson
Anything that originated from the mind of celebrated mystery novelist, Cornell Woolrich, is worth one’s perusal, and the 1948 film adaptation of the author’s 1945 work, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, mostly measures up.
Directed with confidence and style by John Farrow, Night is a film noir that ticks a lot of boxes that define that Hollywood cinematic movement of the late 1940s and early 50s. There’s a cynical and disturbed protagonist who is haunted by the past, cinematography (by John F. Seitz) that highly contrasts light and shadows, voiceover narration, flashbacks, and, of course, crimes. It’s short (81 minutes) and it’s intriguing. The picture’s faults might be that it can be overly melodramatic at times, and there are a couple of weak casting choices that prevent Night from being a classic. It’s good enough,...
“A Mentalist Mystery”
By Raymond Benson
Anything that originated from the mind of celebrated mystery novelist, Cornell Woolrich, is worth one’s perusal, and the 1948 film adaptation of the author’s 1945 work, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, mostly measures up.
Directed with confidence and style by John Farrow, Night is a film noir that ticks a lot of boxes that define that Hollywood cinematic movement of the late 1940s and early 50s. There’s a cynical and disturbed protagonist who is haunted by the past, cinematography (by John F. Seitz) that highly contrasts light and shadows, voiceover narration, flashbacks, and, of course, crimes. It’s short (81 minutes) and it’s intriguing. The picture’s faults might be that it can be overly melodramatic at times, and there are a couple of weak casting choices that prevent Night from being a classic. It’s good enough,...
- 11/13/2021
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
John Sturges’ first color western is a tightly organized and unpretentious winner about a stern Union prison warden and a Confederate prisoner teaming up to fight an Apache enemy … wait, that sounds familiar. William Holden and Eleanor Parker strike sparks out on the ruddy mesas, while Sturges has a field day with the amazing Death Valley scenery and a highly original action scene. ‘Realistic escapism?’ It’s like a formula for future action cinema. And the ads didn’t let us forget: it all looks sensational in glowing Ansco Color.
Escape from Fort Bravo
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1953 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date May 18, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: William Holden, Eleanor Parker, John Forsyth, William Demarest, William Campbell, Polly Bergen, Richard Anderson, Carl Benton Reid, John Lupton, Howard McNear, Glenn Strange.
Cinematography: Robert Surtees
Film Editor: George Boemler
Original Music: Jeff Alexander
Written by Frank Fenton from the story Rope’s End...
Escape from Fort Bravo
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1953 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 98 min. / Street Date May 18, 2021 / 21.99
Starring: William Holden, Eleanor Parker, John Forsyth, William Demarest, William Campbell, Polly Bergen, Richard Anderson, Carl Benton Reid, John Lupton, Howard McNear, Glenn Strange.
Cinematography: Robert Surtees
Film Editor: George Boemler
Original Music: Jeff Alexander
Written by Frank Fenton from the story Rope’s End...
- 5/15/2021
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
The Lady Eve
Blu ray
Criterion
1941/ 94 min.
Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, William Demarest
Cinematography by Victor Milner
Directed by Preston Sturges
In The Lady Eve a wealthy ophiologist named Charlie Pike and a sexy card shark named Jean Harrington fall in love. It’s a rapid-fire romance fueled by equal portions of love and lust and when the affair crashes and burns, director Preston Sturges simply restarts the movie: Jean reintroduces herself to Charlie as a British socialite named Eve and la affaire d’amour begins anew. The brazenness of her charade is part and parcel of Sturges’s own impudent take on the Human Comedy – the result is a screwball work of art.
Henry Fonda is Charlie and Barbara Stanwyck plays Jean – they meet aboard a cruise ship where Jean’s father, an avuncular but remorseless con man played by Charles Coburn, has pigeonholed Charlie as a sucker par excellence.
Blu ray
Criterion
1941/ 94 min.
Starring Barbara Stanwyck, Henry Fonda, William Demarest
Cinematography by Victor Milner
Directed by Preston Sturges
In The Lady Eve a wealthy ophiologist named Charlie Pike and a sexy card shark named Jean Harrington fall in love. It’s a rapid-fire romance fueled by equal portions of love and lust and when the affair crashes and burns, director Preston Sturges simply restarts the movie: Jean reintroduces herself to Charlie as a British socialite named Eve and la affaire d’amour begins anew. The brazenness of her charade is part and parcel of Sturges’s own impudent take on the Human Comedy – the result is a screwball work of art.
Henry Fonda is Charlie and Barbara Stanwyck plays Jean – they meet aboard a cruise ship where Jean’s father, an avuncular but remorseless con man played by Charles Coburn, has pigeonholed Charlie as a sucker par excellence.
- 7/25/2020
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
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“Pratfalls And A Zoom Supplement”
By Raymond Benson
The brilliance of Preston Sturges’ brilliant screwball comedy aside, what is striking about the new Blu-ray edition of the filmmaker’s 1941 The Lady Eve from The Criterion Collection is the supplement that is a Zoom conversation between Tom Sturges (Preston’s son), filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich, James L. Brooks, and Ron Shelton, and critics Leonard Maltin, Kenneth Turan, and Susan King. While it’s unclear if this is the first acknowledgment of the Covid-19 pandemic in the production of home video supplementary features, this reviewer found the inclusion to be revelatory. How amazing it is to see these personages in the Brady Bunch-style squares all discussing Sturges and the film, and mirroring what many of us are doing while working at home. At one point, Brooks’ internet connection fails and his image freezes. All the others...
“Pratfalls And A Zoom Supplement”
By Raymond Benson
The brilliance of Preston Sturges’ brilliant screwball comedy aside, what is striking about the new Blu-ray edition of the filmmaker’s 1941 The Lady Eve from The Criterion Collection is the supplement that is a Zoom conversation between Tom Sturges (Preston’s son), filmmakers Peter Bogdanovich, James L. Brooks, and Ron Shelton, and critics Leonard Maltin, Kenneth Turan, and Susan King. While it’s unclear if this is the first acknowledgment of the Covid-19 pandemic in the production of home video supplementary features, this reviewer found the inclusion to be revelatory. How amazing it is to see these personages in the Brady Bunch-style squares all discussing Sturges and the film, and mirroring what many of us are doing while working at home. At one point, Brooks’ internet connection fails and his image freezes. All the others...
- 7/16/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
“It’S The Bunk!”
By Raymond Benson
In the year 1940, Hollywood screenwriter Preston Sturges elevated his career to become one of the first writer/director double threats since the silent days of Chaplin and Keaton. For a brief five years in the early 40s, his flame burned brightly as he churned out sophisticated screwball comedies that had great wit, intelligence, and a stock company of iconic supporting comic actors—the guys you always recognize but never know their names.
After winning an Oscar for writing The Great McGinty (1940), Sturges presented superb material through 1945. Short, smart, and hilarious, Christmas in July was his second directorial effort from a script based on his own unproduced stage play. Like most of Sturges’ works, the story concerns the Everyman who wants nothing more than to better himself—and if he must challenge authority and make some waves while he does it, then so be it.
By Raymond Benson
In the year 1940, Hollywood screenwriter Preston Sturges elevated his career to become one of the first writer/director double threats since the silent days of Chaplin and Keaton. For a brief five years in the early 40s, his flame burned brightly as he churned out sophisticated screwball comedies that had great wit, intelligence, and a stock company of iconic supporting comic actors—the guys you always recognize but never know their names.
After winning an Oscar for writing The Great McGinty (1940), Sturges presented superb material through 1945. Short, smart, and hilarious, Christmas in July was his second directorial effort from a script based on his own unproduced stage play. Like most of Sturges’ works, the story concerns the Everyman who wants nothing more than to better himself—and if he must challenge authority and make some waves while he does it, then so be it.
- 1/6/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
At least the title Sounds Christmas-themed! Preston Sturges’ sweet trifle is as simple as a sit-com mix-up, but the charm is in the lovable characters (the core of Sturges’ formidable stock company) and the sincerity of all concerned. Ellen Drew is the most deserving fiancé ever to pine for a wedding ring, and Dick Powell an oh-so-earnest Dagwood Bumstead type who banks his future on a goofball coffee slogan contest — just try and figure out the meaning of his winning slogan. In his second film Sturges confirmed himself as Hollywood’s newest comedy genius writer-director — although William Demarest’s perpetually flustered character is so well written and played, we’d think that the actor was simply living the part.
Christmas in July
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1940 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 67 min. / Street Date November 26, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Dick Powell, Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn, Alexander Carr, William Demarest,...
Christmas in July
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1940 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 67 min. / Street Date November 26, 2019 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring: Dick Powell, Ellen Drew, Raymond Walburn, Alexander Carr, William Demarest,...
- 12/10/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
” To set us free. Set us free. Set us free in the world. Free. Free. Free in the world. Set us free! “
The Terrifying 1973 TV Movie Don’T Be Afraid Of The Dark is now Available on Blu-ray from Warner Archives
An old house…a mysterious locked room…a terrifying secret. Elements that make a horror movie memorably chilling get a taut, spooky reworking in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Kim Darby (True Grit)and Jim Hutton (The Green Berets) star as Sally and Alex, young marrieds who inherit a crumbling mansion. Despite warnings to leave well enough alone in her new home, Sally unlocks the mysterious room, opens a bricked-up fireplace…and unleashes a horde of hideous whispering, murdering minidemons only she can see and hear. This is the original TV movie that inspired the 2010 theatrical movie starring Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce.
More than 40 years after it was first broadcast,...
The Terrifying 1973 TV Movie Don’T Be Afraid Of The Dark is now Available on Blu-ray from Warner Archives
An old house…a mysterious locked room…a terrifying secret. Elements that make a horror movie memorably chilling get a taut, spooky reworking in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Kim Darby (True Grit)and Jim Hutton (The Green Berets) star as Sally and Alex, young marrieds who inherit a crumbling mansion. Despite warnings to leave well enough alone in her new home, Sally unlocks the mysterious room, opens a bricked-up fireplace…and unleashes a horde of hideous whispering, murdering minidemons only she can see and hear. This is the original TV movie that inspired the 2010 theatrical movie starring Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce.
More than 40 years after it was first broadcast,...
- 10/29/2019
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Preston Sturges’ screwball masterpiece is typical for the director, mixing outlandish slapstick with colorful characters and outrageous plot twists worthy of Mark Twain and Voltaire. There’s a touch of melancholy about the duplicitous romance between Barbara Stanwyck’s luscious but two-faced card shark and Henry Fonda’s hopelessly naive beer magnate but it’s mitigated by another stellar Sturges supporting cast including the magnificent William Demarest who has the (literal) last word: “Positively the same dame!”
The post The Lady Eve appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post The Lady Eve appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 11/7/2018
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Blithely thumbing his nose at the Hays office, Preston Sturges’s wartime farce concerns a virginal young woman who goes a little too far in her support for the troops – the fact that her name, Trudy Kockenlocker, is not the movie’s most outrageous element should tell you all you need to know. Starring Eddie Bracken and Betty Hutton at the top of their games and the explosively funny William Demarest as Trudy’s pratfall-prone pop.
The post The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 11/5/2018
- by Charlie Largent
- Trailers from Hell
While police brutality as slapstick may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it certainly does get laughs in “The Outlaws.” This hectic action-comedy, based, however loosely, on gang warfare in Seoul over the past decade, stars the estimable Ma Dong-Seok aka Don Lee (“Train to Busan”) as a police investigator who simply bulldozes through all opposition, be it legal or lethal.
More dependent on general high energy and a farcical edge than it is on outstanding action set pieces — though there’s plenty of well-tuned violence — “The Outlaws” is a very entertaining if not quite first-rank genre exercise that reps an auspicious bow for first-time feature director Kang Yoon-Seong. It performed superbly at home last year, and has opened or sold to numerous offshore territories since.
The tangled plot, drawn from a 2004 “gang mop-up operation” by Seoul police, has our badge-wearing protagonists dealing with a tsunami of rivalrous criminal activities.
More dependent on general high energy and a farcical edge than it is on outstanding action set pieces — though there’s plenty of well-tuned violence — “The Outlaws” is a very entertaining if not quite first-rank genre exercise that reps an auspicious bow for first-time feature director Kang Yoon-Seong. It performed superbly at home last year, and has opened or sold to numerous offshore territories since.
The tangled plot, drawn from a 2004 “gang mop-up operation” by Seoul police, has our badge-wearing protagonists dealing with a tsunami of rivalrous criminal activities.
- 7/27/2018
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
Big star Gary Cooper kids his screen image as an infallible hero in a western that almost plays as a screwball comedy, complete with the ultimate grouchy sidekick, William Demarest. Loretta Young’s attraction to Coop’s goofy ‘bronc stomper’ seem glowingly authentic. The jokes are funny, and the sentiment feels real, right up to the unexpectedly violent ending. . . for 1945, that is.
Along Came Jones
Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1945 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 90 min. / Street Date January 16, 2018 / 39.99
Starring: Gary Cooper, Loretta Young, William Demarest, Dan Duryea, Frank Sully, Don Costello, Walter Sande, Russell Simpson, Arthur Loft, Willard Robertson, Ray Teal, Lance Fuller, Chris-Pin Martin.
Cinematography: Milton Krasner
Film Editor: Thomas Neff
Original Music: Arthur Lange
Written by Nunnally Johnson from the novel by Alan Le May
Produced by Gary Cooper
Directed by Stuart Heisler
At the end of WW2 came forth a burst of new independent film production companies headed by actors and directors.
Along Came Jones
Blu-ray
ClassicFlix
1945 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 90 min. / Street Date January 16, 2018 / 39.99
Starring: Gary Cooper, Loretta Young, William Demarest, Dan Duryea, Frank Sully, Don Costello, Walter Sande, Russell Simpson, Arthur Loft, Willard Robertson, Ray Teal, Lance Fuller, Chris-Pin Martin.
Cinematography: Milton Krasner
Film Editor: Thomas Neff
Original Music: Arthur Lange
Written by Nunnally Johnson from the novel by Alan Le May
Produced by Gary Cooper
Directed by Stuart Heisler
At the end of WW2 came forth a burst of new independent film production companies headed by actors and directors.
- 4/14/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
I tell you it’s rough out there on Frisco Bay, especially when you say the word ‘Frisco’ within earshot of a proud San Francisco native. This Alan Ladd racketeering tale could have been written twenty years earlier, but it has Warner Color and the early, extra-wide iteration of the new movie attraction CinemaScope.
Hell on Frisco Bay
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen Academy / 98 min. / Street Date , 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, Joanne Dru, William Demarest, Paul Stewart, Perry Lopez, Fay Wray, Nestor Paiva, Willis Bouchey, Anthony Caruso, Tina Carver, Rod(ney) Taylor, Jayne Mansfield, Mae Marsh, Tito Vuolo.
Cinematography: John F. Seitz
Film Editor: Folmar Blangsted
Stunts: Paul Baxley
Original Music: Max Steiner
Written by Martin Rackin, Sydney Boehm from a book by William P. McGivern
Produced by George C. Berttholon, Alan Ladd
Directed by Frank Tuttle
Alan Ladd had always been...
Hell on Frisco Bay
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen Academy / 98 min. / Street Date , 2017 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson, Joanne Dru, William Demarest, Paul Stewart, Perry Lopez, Fay Wray, Nestor Paiva, Willis Bouchey, Anthony Caruso, Tina Carver, Rod(ney) Taylor, Jayne Mansfield, Mae Marsh, Tito Vuolo.
Cinematography: John F. Seitz
Film Editor: Folmar Blangsted
Stunts: Paul Baxley
Original Music: Max Steiner
Written by Martin Rackin, Sydney Boehm from a book by William P. McGivern
Produced by George C. Berttholon, Alan Ladd
Directed by Frank Tuttle
Alan Ladd had always been...
- 10/21/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“I need him like the ax needs the turkey!”
The Lady Eve screens this Saturday morning, February 13th at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, Mo 63117) as part of their Classic Film Series.
Barbara Stanwyck should have been court-ordered to keep a safe distance from any future cast member of My Three Sons. In Double Indemnity she cons the future Pa Douglas (Fred McMurray) into a deadly scheme. In the 1941 Preston Sturges comedy The Lady Eve, she messes with William Demarest, Uncle Charley himself, by whisking gullible Henry Fonda from under his protective glare.
Fonda plays the young heir to the Pike’s Pale Ale brewery fortune, who prefers spending his time chasing snakes in South America while his guardian Muggsy (Demarest) looks on. On a boat for home, young Pike catches the eye of Jean Harrington (Stanwyck) who sets out to scam the boy but winds up falling in love with him instead.
The Lady Eve screens this Saturday morning, February 13th at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave., St. Louis, Mo 63117) as part of their Classic Film Series.
Barbara Stanwyck should have been court-ordered to keep a safe distance from any future cast member of My Three Sons. In Double Indemnity she cons the future Pa Douglas (Fred McMurray) into a deadly scheme. In the 1941 Preston Sturges comedy The Lady Eve, she messes with William Demarest, Uncle Charley himself, by whisking gullible Henry Fonda from under his protective glare.
Fonda plays the young heir to the Pike’s Pale Ale brewery fortune, who prefers spending his time chasing snakes in South America while his guardian Muggsy (Demarest) looks on. On a boat for home, young Pike catches the eye of Jean Harrington (Stanwyck) who sets out to scam the boy but winds up falling in love with him instead.
- 2/9/2016
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
It’s always fascinating to see Hollywood tippy-toeing around the subject of religion, particularly during the golden age, when the urge to avoid offense trumped any kind of dramatic sense. Alien beings—and Scotsmen such as I—would have to presume from the state of the nation’s movie product that the dominant religion in the country, and certainly among studio heads, was Catholicism, so celebrated is it in nearly every picture with a religious subject.Douglas Sirk’s The First Legion (1951), playing in the Film Society of Lincoln Center's retrospective on the director, chooses, via its title, a military metaphor for the Jesuits who are its main protagonists, anticipating the later Battle Hymn (1957) in its blend of the martial and the spiritual. A shame this promising idea wasn’t carried further, so that the various ranks of priest might have been presented in the manner of their equivalents in,...
- 12/17/2015
- by David Cairns
- MUBI
Virginia Bruce: MGM actress ca. 1935. Virginia Bruce movies on TCM: Actress was the cherry on 'The Great Ziegfeld' wedding cake Unfortunately, Turner Classic Movies has chosen not to feature any non-Hollywood stars – or any out-and-out silent film stars – in its 2015 “Summer Under the Stars” series.* On the other hand, TCM has come up with several unusual inclusions, e.g., Lee J. Cobb, Warren Oates, Mae Clarke, and today, Aug. 25, Virginia Bruce. A second-rank MGM leading lady in the 1930s, the Minneapolis-born Virginia Bruce is little remembered today despite her more than 70 feature films in a career that spanned two decades, from the dawn of the talkie era to the dawn of the TV era, in addition to a handful of comebacks going all the way to 1981 – the dawn of the personal computer era. Career highlights were few and not all that bright. Examples range from playing the...
- 8/26/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Cast
Captain T. G. Culpeper Spencer Tracy J. Russell Finch Milton Berle Melville Crump Sid Caesar Benjy Benjamin Buddy Hackett Mrs. Marcus Ethel Merman Ding Bell Mickey Rooney Sylvester Marcus Dick Shawn Otto Meyer Phil Silvers J. Algernon Hawthorne Terry-Thomas Lennie Pike Jonathan Winters Monica Crump Edie Adams Emeline Finch Dorothy Provine Cabdriver Eddie “Rochester” Anderson Tyler Fitzgerald Jim Backus Man driving in the desert Jack Benny Union official Joe E. Brown Biplane pilot Ben Blue Police sergeant Alan Carney Detective Chick Chandler Mrs. Halliburton Barrie Chase Mayor Lloyd Corrigan Police chief William Demarest Sheriff of Crocket County Andy Devine Ginger Culpeper (voice) Selma Diamond Cabdriver Peter Falk Detective Normal Fell Colonel Wilberforce Paul Ford Deputy sheriff Stan Freberg Billie Sue Culpeper (voice) Louise Glenn Cabdriver Leo Gorcey Fire chief Sterling Holloway Mr. Dinckler Edward Everett Horton Irwin Marvin Kaplan Jimmy the Cook Buster Keaton Nervous motorist Don Knotts Airport...
Captain T. G. Culpeper Spencer Tracy J. Russell Finch Milton Berle Melville Crump Sid Caesar Benjy Benjamin Buddy Hackett Mrs. Marcus Ethel Merman Ding Bell Mickey Rooney Sylvester Marcus Dick Shawn Otto Meyer Phil Silvers J. Algernon Hawthorne Terry-Thomas Lennie Pike Jonathan Winters Monica Crump Edie Adams Emeline Finch Dorothy Provine Cabdriver Eddie “Rochester” Anderson Tyler Fitzgerald Jim Backus Man driving in the desert Jack Benny Union official Joe E. Brown Biplane pilot Ben Blue Police sergeant Alan Carney Detective Chick Chandler Mrs. Halliburton Barrie Chase Mayor Lloyd Corrigan Police chief William Demarest Sheriff of Crocket County Andy Devine Ginger Culpeper (voice) Selma Diamond Cabdriver Peter Falk Detective Normal Fell Colonel Wilberforce Paul Ford Deputy sheriff Stan Freberg Billie Sue Culpeper (voice) Louise Glenn Cabdriver Leo Gorcey Fire chief Sterling Holloway Mr. Dinckler Edward Everett Horton Irwin Marvin Kaplan Jimmy the Cook Buster Keaton Nervous motorist Don Knotts Airport...
- 1/22/2015
- by Sam Moffitt
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
Jean Arthur films on TCM include three Frank Capra classics Five Jean Arthur films will be shown this evening, Monday, January 5, 2015, on Turner Classic Movies, including three directed by Frank Capra, the man who helped to turn Arthur into a major Hollywood star. They are the following: Capra's Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, You Can't Take It with You, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington; George Stevens' The More the Merrier; and Frank Borzage's History Is Made at Night. One the most effective performers of the studio era, Jean Arthur -- whose film career began inauspiciously in 1923 -- was Columbia Pictures' biggest female star from the mid-'30s to the mid-'40s, when Rita Hayworth came to prominence and, coincidentally, Arthur's Columbia contract expired. Today, she's best known for her trio of films directed by Frank Capra, Columbia's top director of the 1930s. Jean Arthur-Frank Capra...
- 1/6/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Article by Sam Moffitt
It’s tough to say goodbye to Sid Caesar. I’ve been pondering what I can possibly say about a comedy legend who has been around as long as I can remember and contributed so much to comedy, mostly on television but also many times in motion pictures.
Firstly Sid Caesar was in on the ground floor of television, his earliest programs done live in 1949 before the video switch board had even been invented. In those earliest shows the director was on the stage telling the floor managers which cameras and mikes to hook or unhook to the coax and audio cables! Consider that just for a moment!
Caesar’s wonderful book Caesar’s Hours: My Life in Comedy, with Love and Laughter, co written with Eddie Friedfeld tells all about Sid Caesar’s years in show business and the legendary live variety shows; Your Show of Shows...
It’s tough to say goodbye to Sid Caesar. I’ve been pondering what I can possibly say about a comedy legend who has been around as long as I can remember and contributed so much to comedy, mostly on television but also many times in motion pictures.
Firstly Sid Caesar was in on the ground floor of television, his earliest programs done live in 1949 before the video switch board had even been invented. In those earliest shows the director was on the stage telling the floor managers which cameras and mikes to hook or unhook to the coax and audio cables! Consider that just for a moment!
Caesar’s wonderful book Caesar’s Hours: My Life in Comedy, with Love and Laughter, co written with Eddie Friedfeld tells all about Sid Caesar’s years in show business and the legendary live variety shows; Your Show of Shows...
- 3/31/2014
- by Movie Geeks
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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Hollywood Goes "Mad"
By Raymond Benson
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the 1963 classic epic comedy directed by Stanley Kramer, is one of those Hollywood train wrecks that you can’t help but like. It’s a one-of-a-kind all-star extravaganza featuring some of the biggest names of mostly 1950s and early 1960s comedy (and a good number of them were known primarily as television actor/comics rather than big screen performers). The United Artists release was one of a current trend of movie star ensemble film in which the producers attempt to throw in as many big names as possible (e.g. Exodus, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Longest Day). As Kramer himself states in a reunion extra that appears on Criterion’s new Blu-ray/DVD combo set, “It would be impossible to make today,” due to the salaries stars demand now.
Hollywood Goes "Mad"
By Raymond Benson
It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, the 1963 classic epic comedy directed by Stanley Kramer, is one of those Hollywood train wrecks that you can’t help but like. It’s a one-of-a-kind all-star extravaganza featuring some of the biggest names of mostly 1950s and early 1960s comedy (and a good number of them were known primarily as television actor/comics rather than big screen performers). The United Artists release was one of a current trend of movie star ensemble film in which the producers attempt to throw in as many big names as possible (e.g. Exodus, Judgment at Nuremberg, The Longest Day). As Kramer himself states in a reunion extra that appears on Criterion’s new Blu-ray/DVD combo set, “It would be impossible to make today,” due to the salaries stars demand now.
- 1/18/2014
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Shirley Jones Movies: Innocent virgins and sex workers galore (photo: Shirley Jones and Burt Lancaster in ‘Elmer Gantry’) (See previous post: “Shirley Jones: From Book to Movies.”) I haven’t watched The Cheyenne Social Club (1970), a comedy Western directed by Gene Kelly, and starring 62-year-old James Stewart as a cowpoke who inherits an establishment that turns out to be a popular house of prostitution. Henry Fonda plays Stewart’s partner. And I’m sure Shirley Jones, as one of the sex workers, looks lovely in the film. Hopefully, director Kelly gave this likable, talented actress the chance to do more than just stand around looking pretty. But then again … For all purposes, The Cheyenne Social Club ended Shirley Jones’ film stardom; that same year she turned to TV and The Partridge Family. Jones would return to films only nine years later, as one of several stars (among them Michael Caine,...
- 8/28/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Mickey Rooney movie schedule (Pt): TCM on August 13 See previous post: “Mickey Rooney Movies: Music and Murder.” Photo: Mickey Rooney ca. 1940. 3:00 Am Death On The Diamond (1934). Director: Edward Sedgwick. Cast: Robert Young, Madge Evans, Nat Pendleton, Mickey Rooney. Bw-71 mins. 4:15 Am A Midsummer Night’S Dream (1935). Director: Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle. Cast: James Cagney, Dick Powell, Olivia de Havilland, Ross Alexander, Anita Louise, Mickey Rooney, Joe E. Brown, Victor Jory, Ian Hunter, Verree Teasdale, Jean Muir, Frank McHugh, Grant Mitchell, Hobart Cavanaugh, Dewey Robinson, Hugh Herbert, Arthur Treacher, Otis Harlan, Helen Westcott, Fred Sale, Billy Barty, Rags Ragland. Bw-143 mins. 6:45 Am A Family Affair (1936). Director: George B. Seitz. Cast: Mickey Rooney, Lionel Barrymore, Cecilia Parker, Eric Linden. Bw-69 mins. 8:00 Am Boys Town (1938). Director: Norman Taurog. Cast: Spencer Tracy, Mickey Rooney, Henry Hull, Leslie Fenton, Gene Reynolds, Edward Norris, Addison Richards, Minor Watson, Jonathan Hale,...
- 8/13/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
By Bill Duelly
The Warner Archive Collection has finally released the elusive Liberace feature ‘Sincerely Yours’. Originally released to theaters in 1955, this film is a curio of the times, the studio system and most importantly a snapshot, (in color no less; more on that later) of the early stages of the musician’s career.
To be fair to the movie, we need to turn our mental clocks back to the mid- 50s (so lines such as ‘They’ll love him in San Francisco’ wouldn’t bring immediate chuckles). That upstart- television- had been keeping audiences away from theaters in droves. Various new processes were employed to give audiences an experience they couldn’t get at home, such as Cinemascope and 3-D. So what was one of Warner Brother’s great ideas ? To make a movie with the TV’s first idol, the charming pianist from Wisconsin, Wladziu Valentino Liberace or as he was known professionally,...
The Warner Archive Collection has finally released the elusive Liberace feature ‘Sincerely Yours’. Originally released to theaters in 1955, this film is a curio of the times, the studio system and most importantly a snapshot, (in color no less; more on that later) of the early stages of the musician’s career.
To be fair to the movie, we need to turn our mental clocks back to the mid- 50s (so lines such as ‘They’ll love him in San Francisco’ wouldn’t bring immediate chuckles). That upstart- television- had been keeping audiences away from theaters in droves. Various new processes were employed to give audiences an experience they couldn’t get at home, such as Cinemascope and 3-D. So what was one of Warner Brother’s great ideas ? To make a movie with the TV’s first idol, the charming pianist from Wisconsin, Wladziu Valentino Liberace or as he was known professionally,...
- 8/11/2013
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Fred MacMurray movies: ‘Double Indemnity,’ ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’ Fred MacMurray is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" today, Thursday, August 7, 2013. Although perhaps best remembered as the insufferable All-American Dad on the long-running TV show My Three Sons and in several highly popular Disney movies from 1959 to 1967, e.g., The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, Boy Voyage!, MacMurray was immeasurably more interesting as the All-American Jerk. (Photo: Fred MacMurray ca. 1940.) Someone once wrote that Fred MacMurray would have been an ideal choice to star in a biopic of disgraced Republican president Richard Nixon. Who knows, the (coincidentally Republican) MacMurray might have given Anthony Hopkins a run for his Best Actor Academy Award nomination. After all, MacMurray’s most admired movie performances are those in which he plays a scheming, conniving asshole: Billy Wilder’s classic film noir Double Indemnity (1944), in which he’s seduced by Barbara Stanwyck, and Wilder...
- 8/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Eleanor Parker: Palm Springs resident turns 91 today Eleanor Parker turns 91 today. The three-time Oscar nominee (Caged, 1950; Detective Story, 1951; Interrupted Melody, 1955) and Palm Springs resident is Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month of June 2013. Earlier this month, TCM showed a few dozen Eleanor Parker movies, from her days at Warner Bros. in the ’40s to her later career as a top Hollywood supporting player. (Photo: Publicity shot of Eleanor Parker in An American Dream.) Missing from TCM’s movie series, however, was not only Eleanor Parker’s biggest box-office it — The Sound of Music, in which she steals the show from both Julie Andrews and the Alps — but also what according to several sources is her very first movie role: a bit part in Raoul Walsh’s They Died with Their Boots On, a 1941 Western starring Errol Flynn as a dashingly handsome and all-around-good-guy-ish General George Armstrong Custer. Olivia de Havilland...
- 6/26/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
The Warner Archive Collection is a manufacture-on-demand (Mod) DVD series that specializes in putting previously unreleased films on DVD for the first time. Recently they dug deep into their vast history of classic horror and selected some winners to resurrect.
The Warner Archive Collection can make a wide array of films available because they don't actually create the DVD until it is ordered by a customer. This way, they are not taking a chance of getting stuck with a large amount of inventory if a selected title doesn't sell. You'll certainly recognize some of the horror films the Warner Archive Collection has added to its library, but there are a couple of really obscure ones in there as well. Take a look at the list of what's been made available and plan your shopping list now.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)
Although the recent remake featuring the suddenly single...
The Warner Archive Collection can make a wide array of films available because they don't actually create the DVD until it is ordered by a customer. This way, they are not taking a chance of getting stuck with a large amount of inventory if a selected title doesn't sell. You'll certainly recognize some of the horror films the Warner Archive Collection has added to its library, but there are a couple of really obscure ones in there as well. Take a look at the list of what's been made available and plan your shopping list now.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)
Although the recent remake featuring the suddenly single...
- 7/11/2012
- by Doctor Gash
- DreadCentral.com
Don Grady, a Mouseketeer on The Mickey Mouse Club who played son Robbie Douglas on the ABC and CBS series My Three Sons, one of the longest-running family sitcoms in history, died Wednesday in Thousand Oaks, Calif., after a battle with cancer. He was 68. In 1960, three years after he was hired at age 13 as a Mouseketeer on the third season of ABC's Mickey Mouse Club, Grady began an 11-year run as Robbie on the sitcom My Three Sons, with Fred MacMurray starring as the widower dad, William Frawley (and then William Demarest) as the family housekeeper
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- 6/28/2012
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
I was recently alerted to the fact that Frank Borzage's 1937 masterpiece Big City is finally available on DVD in the Us, thanks to Warner Archive's Luis Rainer Collection. As such, I've pulled from Notebook's Archive of the Unpublished an unfinished piece I worked on some time ago on this terrific film, gleaned, as you will see from the images, from Turner Classic Movies in France (ignore the subtitles—the images were chosen for the images, not the words on them). It's not particularly finished or even unified and it's more description than anything else, but I hope it inspires you to see this film.
A fan of director Frank Borzage has to be a bit of a patient crate-digger, finding his films as they pop up in rare retrospectives (7th Heaven, not-so-rare on the Old Film Circuit, but the rest are sporadic) or unexpectedly on Turner Classic Movies, which...
A fan of director Frank Borzage has to be a bit of a patient crate-digger, finding his films as they pop up in rare retrospectives (7th Heaven, not-so-rare on the Old Film Circuit, but the rest are sporadic) or unexpectedly on Turner Classic Movies, which...
- 3/28/2012
- MUBI
Despite the title, Brad Pitt does not appear in this episode. Instead, "the box" refers to a TV that unexpectedly adds a new broadcast channel. The Twilight Zone, Episode #144: "What's in the Box" (original air date March 13, 1964) The Plot: Taxi driver Joe Britt (William Demarest) is a grouchy sort of man, barking at his long-suffering wife Phyllis (Joan Blondell) over dinner; she responds in kind. He retreats to the living room, where a repairman (Sterling Holloway) is laboring to fix the television, and proceeds to express his suspicions, in general, about repairmen. With a twinkle in his eye, the repairman declares that the set is fixed, and leaves, but not before twinkling his eye again. Rod Serling then provides his introduction,...
- 1/20/2012
- Screen Anarchy
In October of 2010, Sound on Sight asked me to do my first commemorative piece on the passing of filmmaker Arthur Penn. I suspect I was asked because I was the only one writing for the site old enough to have seen Penn’s films in theaters. Whatever the reason, it was an unexpectedly rewarding if expectedly bittersweet experience which led to a series of equally rewarding but bittersweet experiences writing on the passing of other filmdom notables.
I say rewarding because it gave me a nostalgic-flavored chance to revisit certain work and the people behind it; a revisiting which often brought back the nearly-forgotten youthful excitement that went with an eye-opening, a discovery, the thrill of the new. Writing them has also been bittersweet because each of these pieces is a formal acknowledgment that something precious is gone. A talent may be perhaps preserved forever on celluloid, but the filmography...
I say rewarding because it gave me a nostalgic-flavored chance to revisit certain work and the people behind it; a revisiting which often brought back the nearly-forgotten youthful excitement that went with an eye-opening, a discovery, the thrill of the new. Writing them has also been bittersweet because each of these pieces is a formal acknowledgment that something precious is gone. A talent may be perhaps preserved forever on celluloid, but the filmography...
- 12/24/2011
- by Bill Mesce
- SoundOnSight
It's back! The classic TV Mow that continues to cast a spell almost 40 years after it was first broadcast, in a new remastered and enhanced edition. Sally (Kim Darby) and Alex Farnhams (Jim Hutton) marriage has a sinister wedge driven through it, when her occult "imaginings" threaten to derail his career after they inherit Sally's grandmother's house. Also starring William Demarest. Enhanced Content: Superfan commentary track from horror fans a…...
- 8/28/2011
- Horrorbid
We have the remake from producer Guillermo del Toro to thank, but the Warner Archive Collection has redone the 1973 original to coincide with the release of the redo. In what I hope is a sign of things to come for the Archives collection, they even include some special features as well as a new transfer. Sally Farnham (Kim Darby) has inherited her grandmother.s old dark house. Her husband Alex (Jim Hutton) is an ambitious attorney. She sets about redecorating the mansion with an interior designer (Pedro Armendariz Jr.). Mr. Harris (William Demarest) is an older man who did renovations for Sally.s grandmother and the couple has hired him to do repairs as well. Sally and the...
- 8/23/2011
- by Jeff Swindoll
- Monsters and Critics
Rank the week of August 23rd’s Blu-ray and DVD new releases against the best films of all-time: New Releases Blitz
(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #9439
Win Percentage: 51%
Times Ranked: 215
Top-20 Rankings: 5
Directed By: Elliott Lester
Starring: Jason Statham • Paddy Considine • Aidan Gillen • Zawe Ashton • David Morrissey
Genres: Crime • Crime Thriller • Police Detective Film • Thriller
Rank This Movie
The Beaver
(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #5199
Win Percentage: 52%
Times Ranked: 858
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: Jodie Foster
Starring: Mel Gibson • Jodie Foster • Anton Yelchin • Jennifer Lawrence • Zachary Booth
Genres: Comedy Drama • Drama • Psychological Drama
Rank This Movie
Win Win
(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #2107
Win Percentage: 61%
Times Ranked: 2455
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: Thomas McCarthy
Starring: Paul Giamatti • Amy Ryan • Bobby Cannavale • Jeffrey Tambor • Burt Young
Genres: Comedy Drama • Drama • Sports Comedy • Sports Drama
Rank This Movie
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #5643
Win Percentage: 49%
Times Ranked: 725
Top-20 Rankings:...
(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #9439
Win Percentage: 51%
Times Ranked: 215
Top-20 Rankings: 5
Directed By: Elliott Lester
Starring: Jason Statham • Paddy Considine • Aidan Gillen • Zawe Ashton • David Morrissey
Genres: Crime • Crime Thriller • Police Detective Film • Thriller
Rank This Movie
The Beaver
(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #5199
Win Percentage: 52%
Times Ranked: 858
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: Jodie Foster
Starring: Mel Gibson • Jodie Foster • Anton Yelchin • Jennifer Lawrence • Zachary Booth
Genres: Comedy Drama • Drama • Psychological Drama
Rank This Movie
Win Win
(Blu-ray & DVD | Nr | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #2107
Win Percentage: 61%
Times Ranked: 2455
Top-20 Rankings: 6
Directed By: Thomas McCarthy
Starring: Paul Giamatti • Amy Ryan • Bobby Cannavale • Jeffrey Tambor • Burt Young
Genres: Comedy Drama • Drama • Sports Comedy • Sports Drama
Rank This Movie
The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
(Blu-ray & DVD | PG13 | 2011)
Flickchart Ranking: #5643
Win Percentage: 49%
Times Ranked: 725
Top-20 Rankings:...
- 8/23/2011
- by Jonathan Hardesty
- Flickchart
On August 23rd Warner Archive will be making the 1973 TV movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark available for the first time on DVD, completely remastered in a special edition, and we have an exclusive clip from it!
Synopsis: It's back! The classic TV Mow directed by John Newland that continues to cast a spell almost 40 years after it was first broadcast, in a new remastered and enhanced edition.
Sally (Kim Darby) and Alex Farnham’s (Jim Hutton) marriage has a sinister wedge driven through it when her occult "imaginings" threaten to derail his career after they inherit Sally's grandmother's house.
Also starring Barbara Anderson and William Demarest.
In addition to the film, the DVD contains a "superfan" commentary track by yours truly along with screenwriter Jeffrey Riddick (Final Destination) and Fangoria's Sean Ably.
Check out the exclusive clip below, and pre-order your copy today from Warner Archive.
Visit The Evilshop @ Amazon!
Synopsis: It's back! The classic TV Mow directed by John Newland that continues to cast a spell almost 40 years after it was first broadcast, in a new remastered and enhanced edition.
Sally (Kim Darby) and Alex Farnham’s (Jim Hutton) marriage has a sinister wedge driven through it when her occult "imaginings" threaten to derail his career after they inherit Sally's grandmother's house.
Also starring Barbara Anderson and William Demarest.
In addition to the film, the DVD contains a "superfan" commentary track by yours truly along with screenwriter Jeffrey Riddick (Final Destination) and Fangoria's Sean Ably.
Check out the exclusive clip below, and pre-order your copy today from Warner Archive.
Visit The Evilshop @ Amazon!
- 8/17/2011
- by Uncle Creepy
- DreadCentral.com
No monsters from Mick Garris. In their stead: comedy! Here’s The Palm Beach Story.
The original title of this influential screwball comedy was Is Marriage Necessary?, but even though writer-director Preston Sturges was on a roll, he couldn’t get that one past the Hays Office. This was Joel McCrea’s second Sturges lead after the fabulous Sullivan’s Travels and the seventh of ten Sturges-written movies in which William Demarest appeared. The Wienie King and The Ale and Quail Club have become iconic comic touchstones for fans the world over.
Click here to watch the trailer.
No time for love, today. But Mick’s right. This is a very funny movie. There are tons of clips up on YouTube, but if you have any interest in a classic comedy, track down the whole thing. It’s worth your time.
The original title of this influential screwball comedy was Is Marriage Necessary?, but even though writer-director Preston Sturges was on a roll, he couldn’t get that one past the Hays Office. This was Joel McCrea’s second Sturges lead after the fabulous Sullivan’s Travels and the seventh of ten Sturges-written movies in which William Demarest appeared. The Wienie King and The Ale and Quail Club have become iconic comic touchstones for fans the world over.
Click here to watch the trailer.
No time for love, today. But Mick’s right. This is a very funny movie. There are tons of clips up on YouTube, but if you have any interest in a classic comedy, track down the whole thing. It’s worth your time.
- 7/6/2011
- by Danny
- Trailers from Hell
A week of laughs and loves and more laughs. Keep reading for a preview.
On Monday, July 4, John Landis celebrates his independence by declaring that Heaven Can Wait.
No, it’s not the Warren Beatty remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, but the sublime Ernst Lubitsch comedy fantasy, his biggest commercial hit and generally considered the last of his films to exemplify the inimitable “Lubitsch touch”. Feckless womanizer Don Ameche recounts his love life to urbane devil Laird Cegar at the gates of Hell in a sparking rumination on life, death and the importance of the common man.
On Wednesday, July 6, Mick Garris tells us all The Palm Beach Story.
The original title of this influential screwball comedy was Is Marriage Necessary?, but even though writer-director Preston Sturges was on a roll, he couldn’t get that one past the Hays Office. This was Joel McCrea’s second Sturges lead...
On Monday, July 4, John Landis celebrates his independence by declaring that Heaven Can Wait.
No, it’s not the Warren Beatty remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, but the sublime Ernst Lubitsch comedy fantasy, his biggest commercial hit and generally considered the last of his films to exemplify the inimitable “Lubitsch touch”. Feckless womanizer Don Ameche recounts his love life to urbane devil Laird Cegar at the gates of Hell in a sparking rumination on life, death and the importance of the common man.
On Wednesday, July 6, Mick Garris tells us all The Palm Beach Story.
The original title of this influential screwball comedy was Is Marriage Necessary?, but even though writer-director Preston Sturges was on a roll, he couldn’t get that one past the Hays Office. This was Joel McCrea’s second Sturges lead...
- 7/3/2011
- by Danny
- Trailers from Hell
American actor known for his roles in horror films and Star Trek
The actor William Campbell, who has died aged 87, had a long and varied career in films and on television, finding recognition from his association with several low-budget horror pictures and with the TV sci-fi series Star Trek. However, although he had the hooded eyes and languid manner of Robert Mitchum and something of the laid-back anarchism of Jack Nicholson, entry into the major league of stardom eluded him.
Campbell was in the first series of Star Trek, in an episode entitled The Squire of Gothos (1967), in which he has a field day as General Trelane, a foppish, childish humanoid, swinging wildly from joviality to sulkiness to anger. In The Trouble With Tribbles (1967), in the second season, Campbell was equally impressive as Koloth, a bearded, bureaucratic Klingon, a character that he revived 27 years later, towards the end of his working life,...
The actor William Campbell, who has died aged 87, had a long and varied career in films and on television, finding recognition from his association with several low-budget horror pictures and with the TV sci-fi series Star Trek. However, although he had the hooded eyes and languid manner of Robert Mitchum and something of the laid-back anarchism of Jack Nicholson, entry into the major league of stardom eluded him.
Campbell was in the first series of Star Trek, in an episode entitled The Squire of Gothos (1967), in which he has a field day as General Trelane, a foppish, childish humanoid, swinging wildly from joviality to sulkiness to anger. In The Trouble With Tribbles (1967), in the second season, Campbell was equally impressive as Koloth, a bearded, bureaucratic Klingon, a character that he revived 27 years later, towards the end of his working life,...
- 6/20/2011
- by Ronald Bergan
- The Guardian - Film News
Above: Publicity still from John Parker's Dementia (1955).
Rep houses in San Francisco, like those in most American cities, are struggling to stay open. But for something like thirty nights a year, the clouds lift and big crowds materialize for films of the past: call it the noir exception. To be sure, one needn’t actually attend the Film Noir Foundation’s annual Noir City festival at the Castro or Elliot Lavine’s grittier programs at the Roxie to know that the generic fantasy of film noir (style, sex and violence washed together) still holds powerful allure. You could hardly miss the bus stop advert for Rockstar Games’ latest blockbuster, L.A. Noire, outside the Roxie during Lavine’s latest marathon, “I Wake Up Dreaming: The Legendary and the Lost”. For those of us still invested in the non-interactive cinema experience, however, the popularity of these series is a remarkable if curious thing.
Rep houses in San Francisco, like those in most American cities, are struggling to stay open. But for something like thirty nights a year, the clouds lift and big crowds materialize for films of the past: call it the noir exception. To be sure, one needn’t actually attend the Film Noir Foundation’s annual Noir City festival at the Castro or Elliot Lavine’s grittier programs at the Roxie to know that the generic fantasy of film noir (style, sex and violence washed together) still holds powerful allure. You could hardly miss the bus stop advert for Rockstar Games’ latest blockbuster, L.A. Noire, outside the Roxie during Lavine’s latest marathon, “I Wake Up Dreaming: The Legendary and the Lost”. For those of us still invested in the non-interactive cinema experience, however, the popularity of these series is a remarkable if curious thing.
- 6/13/2011
- MUBI
It's Election Day, and U.S. citizens are heading to the polls! In celebration of our blessed freedom, "Extra" has put together a list of some of the best political movie quotes. Check em' out! And get out there and vote!
Top 20 Political Movie Quotes'Man of the Year' (2004)
"Politicians are a lot like diapers. They should be changed frequently, and for the same reasons." —Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams)
'Swing Vote' (2008)
"All the world's...
Top 20 Political Movie Quotes'Man of the Year' (2004)
"Politicians are a lot like diapers. They should be changed frequently, and for the same reasons." —Tom Dobbs (Robin Williams)
'Swing Vote' (2008)
"All the world's...
- 11/2/2010
- Extra
I just caught Preston Sturges's 1941 film The Lady Eve last night and it got me to thinking about today's current state of romantic comedies and how truly awful the majority of them have gotten over the past few years. Already this year I've handed out two "F" reviews (Valentine's Day and Leap Year) as well as a "D" for When in Rome, and I wasn't alone in my opinion on these three films. The highest rating at RottenTomatoes among the three is for Leap Year with a 20%, a film so bad its co-star Matthew Goode referred to it as "turgid" and admitted it was a "bad job" but said he "had a nice time" and "got paid." Sounds like a winner to me.
So how does The Lady Eve become one of Yahoo's 100 Films to See Before You Die and make it onto Roger Ebert's list Great Movies...
So how does The Lady Eve become one of Yahoo's 100 Films to See Before You Die and make it onto Roger Ebert's list Great Movies...
- 4/5/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
While you’re already getting your big Academy Awards party ready in time for the telecast on March 7th, we’ve got something for even bigger movie fans to enjoy. Of course, we’re talking about a movie marathon!
All month long, Turner Classic Movies will be running over 360 Academy Award nominated and winning films, back to back, with an interesting twist. In the vain of the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” each film will have a common actor or actress from the previous film.
For example, tomorrow night’s schedule consists of The Graduate with Anne Bancroft and William Daniels, which goes into Reds which stars Daniels and Jack Nicholson, into Chinatown with Nicholson and John Huston. Though we’re already about two weeks into the marathon, there are still plenty of great films to look forward to, including some TCM firsts like Gladiator, Titanic, Alien, and Trading Places.
All month long, Turner Classic Movies will be running over 360 Academy Award nominated and winning films, back to back, with an interesting twist. In the vain of the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” each film will have a common actor or actress from the previous film.
For example, tomorrow night’s schedule consists of The Graduate with Anne Bancroft and William Daniels, which goes into Reds which stars Daniels and Jack Nicholson, into Chinatown with Nicholson and John Huston. Though we’re already about two weeks into the marathon, there are still plenty of great films to look forward to, including some TCM firsts like Gladiator, Titanic, Alien, and Trading Places.
- 2/11/2010
- by Matt Raub
- The Flickcast
If a title ever had the opposite effect on its intended audience it might be this 1973 television movie. Many a young-un cowered behind the sofa thinking that little devils would be coming for them when the lights went out. Sally Farnham (Kim Darby) has inherited her grandmother.s old dark house. Her husband Alex (Jim Hutton) is an ambitious attorney. She sets about redecorating the mansion with an interior designer (Pedro Armendariz Jr.). Mr. Harris (William Demarest) is an older man who did renovations for Sally.s grandmother and the couple has hired him to do repairs as well. Sally and the designer come across a locked room but Sally tracks down the key. When they open the...
- 9/2/2009
- by Jeff Swindoll
- Monsters and Critics
For fans of classic television, there's a unique opportunity for you to listen to, and perhaps even talk to, three members of the Douglas family from My Three Sons!
The beloved sitcom initially revolved around widower Steve Douglas (Fred MacMurray) and his three boys; Mike (Tim Considine), Robbie (Don Grady), and Chip (Stanley Livingston). They were all kept in line by grumpy Uncle Bub (William Frawley), the boy's maternal grandfather.
Bub eventually moves to Ireland because Frawley was supposedly too ill to be insured and had to be let go. Thankfully, Bub's brother Charley (William Demarest) steps in to take his place.
Around the same time, Mike gets married and moves away. Soonafter, Steve adopts Chip's young orphan friend, Ernie (Barry Livingston), and there were three sons in the house (and opening credits) once again.
My Three Sons ran for an amazing 380 episodes and 12 seasons. It's also one...
The beloved sitcom initially revolved around widower Steve Douglas (Fred MacMurray) and his three boys; Mike (Tim Considine), Robbie (Don Grady), and Chip (Stanley Livingston). They were all kept in line by grumpy Uncle Bub (William Frawley), the boy's maternal grandfather.
Bub eventually moves to Ireland because Frawley was supposedly too ill to be insured and had to be let go. Thankfully, Bub's brother Charley (William Demarest) steps in to take his place.
Around the same time, Mike gets married and moves away. Soonafter, Steve adopts Chip's young orphan friend, Ernie (Barry Livingston), and there were three sons in the house (and opening credits) once again.
My Three Sons ran for an amazing 380 episodes and 12 seasons. It's also one...
- 7/15/2009
- by TVSeriesFinale.com
- TVSeriesFinale.com
Darn disappointing, Disney's lackluster remake of 1965's "That Darn Cat!" features Christina Ricci ("Casper") in the Hayley Mills role, while venerable Dean Jones ("The Shaggy D.A".) appears as a supporting character. Some basic elements of the story line have remained, but the new film's family-oriented humor is even more stilted and tame than the original.
British TV director Bob Spiers' feature debut has a few rewarding moments, but its target audience of kids and cat lovers will not be generating strong word-of-mouth. "That Darn Cat" is based on the novel "Undercover Cat" by the Gordons and their screenplay of the first film, co-written by Bill Walsh.
Besides veterans Jones and Estelle Parsons, the movie's eclectic cast includes Peter Boyle, Bess Armstrong, Dyan Cannon and Michael McKean in a very silly tale of a feline informant and nutty New Englanders on both sides of the law.
Alas, 1997's "That Darn Cat" is light years away from the original's drive-ins, muscle cars and mainstream mid-'60s comedy, not to mention the cast that included William Demarest, Elsa Lanchester, Frank Gorshin and Neville Brand.
No one performer is at fault, certainly not Doug E. Doug, who tries hard as a twitchy, manic FBI agent to make this cinematic fleabag come to life. But Ricci has little to do with her underwritten character, and a subplot involving a lonely butcher (Megan Cavanaugh) and two gung-ho security guards (Tom Wilson, Brian Haley) is mildly amusing at best.
Darn Cat, or "D.C". as his mistress Patti (Ricci) calls the gray beast, pussyfoots around the neighborhood one night and finds the kidnapped maid of the Flints (Jones, Cannon), obnoxious millionaires reluctant to pay the hefty ransom. The ridiculous scenario has the FBI becoming involved in a nocturnal tracking of D.C. by several agents.
George Dzundza plays the cranky boss of Doug's character, who goes through many humiliating experiences before making the cat angle payoff. Boyle and Rebecca Schull are unimpressive as an aging couple who play a major role in the overblown climax.
Just as in Robert Stevenson's version, which featured a Siamese, the lead feline is never quite made as endearing as one expects, with the attention focused on the humans and their mundane conflicts.
THAT DARN CAT
Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Walt Disney Pictures
Director Bob Spiers
Producer Robert Simonds
Writers S.M. Alexander, L.A. Karaszewski
Executive producer Andrew Gottlieb
Director of photography Jerzy Zielinski
Production designer Jonathan Carlson
Editor Roger Barton
Costume designer Marie France
Music Richard Kendall Gibbs
Casting Gary Zuckerbrod
Color/stereo
Cast:
Patti Christina Ricci
Zeke Doug E. Doug
Mr. Flint Dean Jones
Boetticher George Dzundza
Pa Peter Boyle
Peter Michael McKean
Judy Bess Armstrong
Running time -- 89 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
British TV director Bob Spiers' feature debut has a few rewarding moments, but its target audience of kids and cat lovers will not be generating strong word-of-mouth. "That Darn Cat" is based on the novel "Undercover Cat" by the Gordons and their screenplay of the first film, co-written by Bill Walsh.
Besides veterans Jones and Estelle Parsons, the movie's eclectic cast includes Peter Boyle, Bess Armstrong, Dyan Cannon and Michael McKean in a very silly tale of a feline informant and nutty New Englanders on both sides of the law.
Alas, 1997's "That Darn Cat" is light years away from the original's drive-ins, muscle cars and mainstream mid-'60s comedy, not to mention the cast that included William Demarest, Elsa Lanchester, Frank Gorshin and Neville Brand.
No one performer is at fault, certainly not Doug E. Doug, who tries hard as a twitchy, manic FBI agent to make this cinematic fleabag come to life. But Ricci has little to do with her underwritten character, and a subplot involving a lonely butcher (Megan Cavanaugh) and two gung-ho security guards (Tom Wilson, Brian Haley) is mildly amusing at best.
Darn Cat, or "D.C". as his mistress Patti (Ricci) calls the gray beast, pussyfoots around the neighborhood one night and finds the kidnapped maid of the Flints (Jones, Cannon), obnoxious millionaires reluctant to pay the hefty ransom. The ridiculous scenario has the FBI becoming involved in a nocturnal tracking of D.C. by several agents.
George Dzundza plays the cranky boss of Doug's character, who goes through many humiliating experiences before making the cat angle payoff. Boyle and Rebecca Schull are unimpressive as an aging couple who play a major role in the overblown climax.
Just as in Robert Stevenson's version, which featured a Siamese, the lead feline is never quite made as endearing as one expects, with the attention focused on the humans and their mundane conflicts.
THAT DARN CAT
Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Walt Disney Pictures
Director Bob Spiers
Producer Robert Simonds
Writers S.M. Alexander, L.A. Karaszewski
Executive producer Andrew Gottlieb
Director of photography Jerzy Zielinski
Production designer Jonathan Carlson
Editor Roger Barton
Costume designer Marie France
Music Richard Kendall Gibbs
Casting Gary Zuckerbrod
Color/stereo
Cast:
Patti Christina Ricci
Zeke Doug E. Doug
Mr. Flint Dean Jones
Boetticher George Dzundza
Pa Peter Boyle
Peter Michael McKean
Judy Bess Armstrong
Running time -- 89 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 2/14/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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