It’s a nearly perfect tale of identity swaps and royal intrigues: Ronald Colman’s voice is velvet smooth as the poet-rogue François Villon, who uses his wits when dealing with Basil Rathbone’s (very strangely played) Louis XI. The real charm comes with lady-in-waiting Frances Dee (swoon) and the peasant firebrand Ellen Drew (double swoon). And don’t forget the sophisticated, semi-satirical screenplay by Preston Sturges. The refreshing Blu-ray discovery comes with a commentary by Julie Kirgo.
If I Were King
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1938 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 101 min. / Street Date February 7, 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone, Frances Dee, Ellen Drew, C.V. France, Henry Wilcoxon, Heather Thatcher, Stanley Ridges, Alma Lloyd, Sidney Toler, John Miljan, Montagu Love, May Beatty, Henry Brandon, Darryl Hickman.
Cinematography: Theodore Sparkuhl
Costumer: Edith Head
Art Directors: Hans Drier, John Goodman
Film Editor: Hugh Bennett
Visual Effects: Gordon Jennings
Original Music:...
If I Were King
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1938 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 101 min. / Street Date February 7, 2023 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Ronald Colman, Basil Rathbone, Frances Dee, Ellen Drew, C.V. France, Henry Wilcoxon, Heather Thatcher, Stanley Ridges, Alma Lloyd, Sidney Toler, John Miljan, Montagu Love, May Beatty, Henry Brandon, Darryl Hickman.
Cinematography: Theodore Sparkuhl
Costumer: Edith Head
Art Directors: Hans Drier, John Goodman
Film Editor: Hugh Bennett
Visual Effects: Gordon Jennings
Original Music:...
- 2/18/2023
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
“A Gallant Gesture”
By Raymond Benson
The novel Beau Geste by Percival Christopher Wren was published in 1924 and has been adapted to film no less than four times and parodied a few instances as well. It’s a classic story of the French Foreign Legionnaires set in the years between the turn of the 20th Century and the First World War, and for nearly a hundred years it has been deemed one of the great adventure tales.
The 1939 adaptation, directed by William A. Wellman, was the second filmed version and is generally considered the best and certainly most well-known variation (the first was a silent picture made in 1926 and starring Ronald Colman). With an outstanding cast that includes Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, J. Carrol Naish, Broderick Crawford, Albert Dekker, and even a young Donald O’Connor, Beau Geste is indeed a rousing “Arabian” action flick,...
By Raymond Benson
The novel Beau Geste by Percival Christopher Wren was published in 1924 and has been adapted to film no less than four times and parodied a few instances as well. It’s a classic story of the French Foreign Legionnaires set in the years between the turn of the 20th Century and the First World War, and for nearly a hundred years it has been deemed one of the great adventure tales.
The 1939 adaptation, directed by William A. Wellman, was the second filmed version and is generally considered the best and certainly most well-known variation (the first was a silent picture made in 1926 and starring Ronald Colman). With an outstanding cast that includes Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, J. Carrol Naish, Broderick Crawford, Albert Dekker, and even a young Donald O’Connor, Beau Geste is indeed a rousing “Arabian” action flick,...
- 3/25/2020
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
It’s a classic from the Golden Year of 1939, directed in fine style by Wild Bill Wellman and well cast with Paramount stars Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, and Robert Preston, and with Brian Donlevy as one of the movies’ most hissable villains. The popular story has been remade and spoofed innumerable times, yet this remains the indelible best version. A commentary with William Wellman Jr. and Frank Thompson points out many things we didn’t notice before, including where some excised scenes belong, and what originally happened in them.
Beau Geste
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 112 min. / Street Date April 7, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, J. Carrol Naish, Albert Dekker, Broderick Crawford, Charles Barton, James Stephenson, Heather Thatcher, George P. Huntley, Donald O’Connor, Billy Cook, Martin Spellman, Ann Gillis, David Holt, Henry Brandon, Nestor Paiva, Francis McDonald.
Beau Geste
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1939 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 112 min. / Street Date April 7, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring: Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, Susan Hayward, J. Carrol Naish, Albert Dekker, Broderick Crawford, Charles Barton, James Stephenson, Heather Thatcher, George P. Huntley, Donald O’Connor, Billy Cook, Martin Spellman, Ann Gillis, David Holt, Henry Brandon, Nestor Paiva, Francis McDonald.
- 3/24/2020
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Fox’s first official monster movie is a terrific-looking but mostly flat mystery that tries its utmost not to be a horror film at all. It’s a head scratcher that will interest fans of the expressive John Brahm, and help completists scratch another werewolf film off their gotta-see lists.
The Undying Monster
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1942 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 62 min. / Street Date December 13, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher, Heather Thatcher, Aubrey Mather, Halliwell Hobbes, Alec Craig, Holmes Herbert, Eily Malyon, Charles McGraw.
Cinematography Lucien Ballard
<Film Editor Harry Reynolds
Original Music Emil Newman, David Raksin
Written byLillie Hayward, Michel Jacoby from a novel by Jessie Douglas Kerrruish
Produced by Bryan Foy
Directed by John Brahm
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
After the heyday of Universal horror in the first half of the 1930s, horror pictures went on the decline for over twenty years.
The Undying Monster
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1942 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 62 min. / Street Date December 13, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring James Ellison, Heather Angel, John Howard, Bramwell Fletcher, Heather Thatcher, Aubrey Mather, Halliwell Hobbes, Alec Craig, Holmes Herbert, Eily Malyon, Charles McGraw.
Cinematography Lucien Ballard
<Film Editor Harry Reynolds
Original Music Emil Newman, David Raksin
Written byLillie Hayward, Michel Jacoby from a novel by Jessie Douglas Kerrruish
Produced by Bryan Foy
Directed by John Brahm
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
After the heyday of Universal horror in the first half of the 1930s, horror pictures went on the decline for over twenty years.
- 11/29/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Susan Hayward. Susan Hayward movies: TCM Star of the Month Fiery redhead Susan Hayward it Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in Sept. 2015. The five-time Best Actress Oscar nominee – like Ida Lupino, a would-be Bette Davis that only sporadically landed roles to match the verve of her thespian prowess – was initially a minor Warner Bros. contract player who went on to become a Paramount second lead in the early '40s, a Universal leading lady in the late '40s, and a 20th Century Fox star in the early '50s. TCM will be presenting only three Susan Hayward premieres, all from her Fox era. Unfortunately, her Paramount and Universal work – e.g., Among the Living, Sis Hopkins, And Now Tomorrow, The Saxon Charm – which remains mostly unavailable (in quality prints), will remain unavailable this month. Highlights of the evening include: Adam Had Four Sons (1941), a sentimental but surprisingly...
- 9/4/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Ingrid Bergman ca. early 1940s. Ingrid Bergman movies on TCM: From the artificial 'Gaslight' to the magisterial 'Autumn Sonata' Two days ago, Turner Classic Movies' “Summer Under the Stars” series highlighted the film career of Greta Garbo. Today, Aug. 28, '15, TCM is focusing on another Swedish actress, three-time Academy Award winner Ingrid Bergman, who would have turned 100 years old tomorrow. TCM has likely aired most of Bergman's Hollywood films, and at least some of her early Swedish work. As a result, today's only premiere is Fielder Cook's little-seen and little-remembered From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1973), about two bored kids (Sally Prager, Johnny Doran) who run away from home and end up at New York City's Metropolitan Museum. Obviously, this is no A Night at the Museum – and that's a major plus. Bergman plays an elderly art lover who takes an interest in them; her...
- 8/28/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...
- 8/19/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
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
Joan Fontaine movies: ‘This Above All,’ ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’ (photo: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine in ‘Suspicion’ publicity image) (See previous post: “Joan Fontaine Today.”) Also tonight on Turner Classic Movies, Joan Fontaine can be seen in today’s lone TCM premiere, the flag-waving 20th Century Fox release The Above All (1942), with Fontaine as an aristocratic (but socially conscious) English Rose named Prudence Cathaway (Fontaine was born to British parents in Japan) and Fox’s top male star, Tyrone Power, as her Awol romantic interest. This Above All was directed by Anatole Litvak, who would guide Olivia de Havilland in the major box-office hit The Snake Pit (1948), which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nod. In Max Ophüls’ darkly romantic Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Fontaine delivers not only what is probably the greatest performance of her career, but also one of the greatest movie performances ever. Letter from an Unknown Woman...
- 8/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
A classic film in all regards is a vehicle for Gary Cooper, but it.s Brian Donlevy.s sadistic sergeant who stands out. The film had only been available as part of a Cooper box set but is given solo treatment for Universal.s Backlot Collection. Unfortunately that doesn.t mean that there are special features included. The Geste brothers, .Beau. (Gary Cooper), John (Ray Milland), and Digby (Robert Preston), have lived with Lady Brandon (Heather Thatcher) and her ward Isobel (Susan Hayward) since their childhood. The Brandon family has possession of the gem called the blue water, but the irresponsible head-of-family Sir Hector Brandon has been spending money like it was water. Word comes that Sir Hector is returning home...
- 7/7/2009
- by Jeff Swindoll
- Monsters and Critics
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