Archive 553

September 2024

Fast review: The Scavengers - 1959: Stuart Allison (Vince Edwards) is weary of his life as a smuggler and in a hopeless search for his missing wife Marion (Carol Ohmart), but suddenly he spots her boarding a ferry from Hong Kong to Macao. More about The Scavengers - 1959

Kris Kristofferson (1936–2024) has died

Singer-Songwriter turned Hollywood leading man – USA Today

He originally thought he'd be "dead by thirty" – People Magazine

Barbra Streisand praises A Star is Born co-star – USA Today

Martin Scorsese talks about Kris Kristofferson from his film ‘Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore' – Indie Wire

Maggie Smith (1934–2024) has died

The brilliant Maggie Smith – New Yorker

Stars, royalty react to death of Maggie Smith – Rolling Stone

Fans reaction to death of Harry Potter star – Newsweek

Fast review: Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation - 1962: Jimmy Stewart (as Mr. Hobbs) drags his family from St. Louis to a rented beach house in California for a vacation centered on family and relaxation.

More about An older review of Mr. Hobbs Takes A Vacation

Fast review: Jackpot - 2024: Awkwafina is pursued by greed-mad Los Angelenos playing a lethal game called "Jackpot."

More about Jackpot - 2024

The British "Carry On" women are aging

Article at UK Guardian on the actresses that were cast in the long-running "Carry On" films of the late 1950s into the 1970s.

I interviewed five women who were in Carry On films. Not for any particular reason, but simply because we realized they would now be in their 70s, 80s, 90s … "Or dead. Or dead, darling, or still dead," says Amanda Barrie, who was in Carry on Cabby and Carry on Cleo (as Cleopatra herself). She’s 88 and still very much alive. But she’s right. Hattie Jacques, Joan Sims, Barbara Windsor? All gone. I saw Leon at home in Chiswick and Jacki Piper at her home a few miles up the Thames in Teddington, with a plate of chocolate-covered ginger biscuits. Barrie, Patricia Franklin and Sheila Hancock I spoke to on the phone..."

The "Carry On" series numbers 31 films in total, the first film, Carry On Sergeant, was released in 1958, and the final film, Carry On Columbus, came out in 1992. The series frequently used parody of various film genres for their farcical stories, from historical epics to spy thrillers.

Not everyone was a fan, though. Barrie was offered further Carry Ons after Cleo. "But my agent said: ‘You’re not doing that – you’re going to Bristol Old Vic.’" Franklin agrees there was a snobbery towards them and that they were looked down on. "At a family thing, someone might say: ‘Patricia is in a Carry On,’ and a lot of people would say: ‘Oh, I’m not interested in Carry Ons.’ But then others were absolutely mad about it. I was in a play at the National with Anthony Hopkins and he said he loved the Carry Ons and had always wanted to be in one."

Fast Review: Surf Party - 1964

The need to learn to surf brings three young women from Phoenix, Arizona to California. More about Surf Party 1964

Germany honours Marlene Dietrich and other women who resisted Nazi tyranny – UK The Times

The exhibition also features Marlene Dietrich, the film star who emigrated to the US in 1930 and became involved in helping German Jews and politically persecuted people who had fled in 1933. In 1937 she rejected Hitler’s offer to return to Germany and applied for US citizenship, which she was granted in 1939. After the US joined the war in 1941 she performed for US soldiers and German prisoners of war in North Africa, Italy, France, Belgium and Germany. After 1945 she was defamed in Germany as a "traitor".

Fast Reviews: Good Neighbor Sam (1964): Secret identities and mistaken identities were part and parcel of many a classic era screwball film, and the 1964 Good Neighbor Sam featuring Jack Lemmon is a revival of the concept but with some aspects that could never have survived the Breen era of censorship.

More about Good Neighbor Sam, 1964

Fast review: Bad Boys Ride or Die 2024 – Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are a comedy team in a battle against a conspiracy of lies in Florida involving a dead friend.

Shelley Duvall 1949–2024

Fast Reviews: Central Intelligence 2016: Dwayne Johnson Kevin Hart commit comedic espionage together.

More about Central Intelligence

Literally the worst take on classic film, EVER. They were real people who created magic and we were lucky to have them.
It was finite.
And true.
And real.
And therefore, perfect.
And it’s over. https://t.co/wvoItdR7uz pic.twitter.com/4cinTgFelk

— 𝔻𝕖𝕓𝕠𝕣𝕒𝕙 🥃🖊️ (@DADiClementi) June 30, 2024

Fast Review: Eyes in the Night - 1942. Edward Arnold is one of the great "shouters" in classic Hollywood, able to wield belligerent but sharp dialogue at a high decibel, often accompanied by arm and face gesticulations that makes everyone else in the cast look like they're not moving (or small, Arnold himself was 5'10").

More about Eyes in the Night, 1942

Fast Review The Beekeeper – 2024: Depicting bad governments doing bad things has been a genre of cinema since the 1970's when real gov't scandals overwhelmed the news and made the topic not as controversial as it had been (when Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington premiered in 1939 it was pooh-poohed by a number of Senators and Congressmen for its depiction of high-level corruption as being too fantastic, a notion that's no longer current, as they say. More about The Beekeeper, 2024

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