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Actor John Rhys-Davies is known for his role as Gimli, the dwarf warrior in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. The loud-mouthed elf hater is played to perfection by the Welsh actor in the fantasy-adventure films. Rhys-Davies was nominated along with the rest of the cast for the Screen Actors Guild Award and won for The Return of the King.

While the actor has played other roles in his career, he is also most well-known for playing Sallah, the Egyptian friend of Indiana Jones in Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones films. Rhys-Davies was reportedly not the first choice for the role and the description reportedly needed a much shorter person. However, Rhys-Davies’ remark reportedly led Spielberg to change the character to suit the actor.

John Rhys-Davies Was Not The First Choice To Play Sallah In Indiana Jones A still from Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones: Raiders of the...

There are many films that have quotable last lines such as “After all, tomorrow is another day” from “Gone with the Wind.” And who can forget Humphrey Bogart telling Claude Rains: “Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship” But the beloved 1953 George Stevens’ Western “Shane” perhaps has one of the most endearing and emotional final lines. Young Joey (Brandon De Wilde) wants his idol, the former gunslinger Shane (Alan Ladd), to stay with his family. But the wounded hero continues to ride off.

“Shane………come back,” Joey cries out.

Be prepared to bring you handkerchiefs to the Academy Museum’s 70th anniversary screening Dec 10 at the David Geffen Theatre. Ladd, in his strongest performance, plays a world-weary gunslinger who wants to hang up his six-shooter. He ends up working for an honest, struggling rancher Joe, (Van Heflin), his wife Marian (Jean Arthur) and young son...

The key to the success of Rod Serling's original run of "The Twilight Zone" (and its enduring popularity) was ingenuity in all aspects of production. Obviously, the writing was almost always top-notch, with episodes boasting wildly clever premises from genre masters like Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, and George Clayton Johnson. Though the budgets were modest, directors employed all manner of trickery and inventive makeup effects to dazzle and/or terrify viewers. Meanwhile, the strange tales conjured by Serling's stable of scribes required fully committed performances from actors both established and new to the scene. They had to roll with the weirdness.

On certain occasions, however, Serling and his collaborators couldn't resort to special effects to transport their audience. Sometimes, they had to shell out some dough and wow 'em with the real thing. And sometimes this forced the director to scramble a good deal more than usual. Such was...

George Stevens is considered one of the greatest directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, directing classics in various genres and receiving multiple Oscar nominations and wins. Some of Stevens's best movies, like Vivacious Lady, don't even make the list of his top 10 due to their slightly lower critical acclaim and lasting impact. Movies like Woman of the Year, The Talk of the Town, Gunga Din, The Diary of Anne Frank, I Remember Mama, Swing Time, The More the Merrier, A Place in the Sun, Shane, and Giant are among Stevens's best and are highly regarded for their performances, themes, and enduring legacy.

Given that George Stevens was one of the greatest directors of Hollywood's Golden Age, selecting his best movies and ranking them is a difficult task. Stevens came up in the 1930s working on slapstick comedy films for Hal Roach, but he's known for directing classics in a number of genres,...

Plot: A deep dive into all the great movies that came out in 1982.

Review: Everyone has their own take on the greatest year ever for cinema. Scholars tend to cite 1939, as that’s the year Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Gunga Din, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and several other seminal classics came out. Modern film fans tend to cite 1999, thanks to The Matrix, Fight Club, Being John Malkovich, Magnolia and many more. I’d make a strong case for 2007 myself, with Into the Wild, The Assassination of Jesse James, Gone Baby Gone, Zodiac, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, and others. But, if you’re a movie geek, one year stands above them all, and it’s 1982.

Think about it. E.T., The Thing, Star Trek II, Rocky III, Poltergeist, Blade Runner, the list goes on and on. And now, 1982 is getting a...

On April 21, “‘Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” was released by MGM, with Guy Ritchie at the helm as director, writer and producer. The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as US Army Sergeant John Kinley, who is saved by an Afghan interpreter named Ahmed (Dar Salim). When Ahmed’s life is later threatened for doing so, Kinley returns to Afghanistan to rescue him from the Taliban.

The movie opened to predominantly positive reviews, holding fresh at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics’ consensus reading, “A satisfying, well-acted war thriller with surprising dramatic depths, Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant tells a solid story with impressive restraint.” The ensemble cast includes Jonny Lee Miller, Antony Starr, Alexander Ludwig, Fahim Fazli, Jason Wong and Emily Beecham. Read our full review round-up below.

See 24 most anticipated movies for April include ‘Air,’ ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie,’ ‘Evil Dead Rise’ … [Photos]

Roger Moore of Movie Nation writes, “Ritchie’s...

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom still divides fans. Some love it; others think it’s too dark and mean-spirited. Director Steven Spielberg himself has always said that the film was a product of an unhappy time in his life, but even still, the movie paved the way for his successful, long-lasting second marriage to the film’s co-star Kate Capshaw. With Ke Huy Quan, who memorably played Indiana Jones’ kid sidekick Short Round, back in the limelight for Everything Everywhere All At Once, we thought now would be a great time to look back at this divisive entry in the series.

Indeed, the filmmakers were under a lot of pressure to top Raiders of the Lost Ark. George Lucas opted for the then-novel approach to make the film a prequel, showing how Indy’s archeologist was once more interested in money than heroics, only to change his tune...

Nicholas Meyer’s ‘other’ fantastic film project was ignored for all the wrong reasons; Pierce Brosnan fills a heroic leading role in a revisit of The Stranglers of Bombay, but filmed on location with great attention to authentic details. An officer of the East India Company detects an incredibly murderous cult of Kali-worshipping Thugs, a criminal underclass of thieves that practice ritual mass murder. The story has roots in history, snarled in colonial injustice and xenophobia. It’s a period picture unafraid to be controversial. Also starring Saeed Jaffrey and Helena Mitchell.

The Deceivers

Blu-ray

The Cohen Film Collection / Kino

1988 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date November 16, 2021 / Available from Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Saeed Jaffrey, Shashi Kapoor, Helena Michell, Keith Michell, David Robb.

Cinematography: Walter Lassally

Art Directors: Gianfranco Fumagalli, Ram Yedekar

Film Editor: Richard Trevor

Original Music: John Scott

Written by Michael Hirst from the novel by John Masters

Produced by Ismail Merchant,...

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The glamour of Old Hollywood is timeless, but the holiday season is a great time to purchase one of these classic film-themed gifts. In addition to curating broadcast lineups of the greatest films of all time (from one of the largest film libraries in the world), Turner Classic Movies has also curated a wide variety of gifts for the classic film fan in your life — or yourself, if that’s you. And if you subscribe to Hulu Live or Sling TV, you can stream all the TCM movies your heart desires. If you’re not subscribed, Hulu Live costs just $64.99 a month after a free seven-day trial. That means you can officially cut...

In the midst of "cancel culture," TCM will shine a spotlight on several "problematic" movies from the past for the new limited series Reframed Classics. The series will present wide-ranging discussions about 18 culturally significant movies from the 1920s through the 1950s. Debuting on Thursday at 8 p.m. Et, the show launches with a look at the controversial romance drama Gone with the Wind. You can watch a trailer for the series below.

"We know millions of people love these films," said TCM host Jacqueline Stewart, clarifying that the goal is not to take these movies away. "We're not saying 'This is how you should feel about "Psycho"' or 'This is how you should feel about Gone with the Wind. We're just trying to model ways of having longer and deeper conversations and not just cutting it off to 'I love this movie.' 'I hate this movie.' There's so much space in between.

Most of the classic films that run on TCM are introduced by a single host. In March, some will require a whole team.

The WarnerMedia outlet on Thursdays this month will seek to put some popular but troublesome films in better context, part of an effort it calls “Reframed.” A team of the network’s on-air personnel will introduce viewers to some of Hollywood’s most seminal pictures, which remain popular but are increasingly being scrutinized under a different lens as the nation ponders more deeply how people of different races, backgrounds and creeds treat one another.

Teams will ponder cultural issues posed by films such as “Gone With The Wind,” “Psycho,” “The Searchers,” “My Fair Lady” and “Gunga Din,” among others. Some of the hosts hope the initiative will continue beyond the next four weeks.

“We are hearing more and more from audiences about moments they are really puzzling over,...

To celebrate Variety’s 115th anniversary, we went to the archives to see how some of Hollywood’s biggest stars first landed in the pages of our magazine. Read more from the archives here.

In 1929, Variety hated the musical comedy “A Wonderful Night” at Broadway’s Majestic Theater (“remarkably dull … the outlook for this one is dreary”). However, there was praise for one of the stars, Archie Leach — who in a few years would change his name to Cary Grant and conquer Hollywood and the world. “Archie Leach makes a handsome leading man, but some of the lines of fearsome insipidity that he has to utter discounted most of his natural grace.”

Handsome, natural grace: Those words offer a hint of Leach/Grant’s appeal. Three years later, in 1932, Variety ran a two-sentence item: “Cary Grant, new leading man on the Paramount contract list, hails from vaudeville where his monicker was Archie Leach.

The Notebook Primer introduces readers to some of the most important figures, films, genres, and movements in film history.It was often said that women wanted to be with Cary Grant and men wanted to be Cary Grant, but perhaps no one was more consumed by the perception of Cary Grant—the handsome, unremittingly suave and stylish movie star—than Grant himself. “Even I want to be Cary Grant,” the actor once mused. Indeed, Grant’s public and on-screen persona was a carefully crafted, meticulously honed, and ultimately triumphant development, as much to suit the needs of his ascending celebrity as it was to shroud an unhappy childhood, a series of romantic passions and disappointments, and a latent dark side fostered by uncertainty and doubt. It was, however, and in any and all cases, resoundingly successful. Grant was the epitome of the movie star, a Hollywood icon and one of its most entertaining,...

After hosting a successful inaugural presentation of its popular classic film festival, Turner Classic Movies is gearing up for a new season of the network’s longest-running feature, “The Essentials.”

The network has announced that director Brad Bird will join TCM host Ben Mankiewicz starting May 2 with 20 new features to give fans a classic film education. Bird, the director of beloved animated features like “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille,” and “The Iron Giant,” will discuss a bevy of films from 1952’s musical classic “Singin’ in the Rain” to Cary Grant’s 1939 film “Gunga Din.”

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“I love jabbering about movies almost as much as I enjoy watching them,” said Bird in a statement. “Getting the opportunity to talk with him [Ben Mankiewicz] about indelible...

It’s Hollywood history time at the movies this weekend, though there’s more than a bit of Bollywood in this new release. Yes, history is explored in this week’s big studio crowd-pleasing Ford V Ferrari, set in the 20th century. This other film goes back to the previous century, at just past its midpoint. While in the states the stage was being set for the Civil War, an even bigger conflict was ‘boiling over” into violence on the other side of the globe. The British were fighting the rebellious forces of the locals in India. And one of the most revered leaders of the “mutiny” was a woman, royalty actually. With her courageous spirit, hunger for freedom, and fierce fighting skills she fits right in at the multiplex alongside any of our female superheroes. But she was a real person, celebrated as The Warrior Queen Of Jhansi.

After...

Hammer’s key Satanic Mass epic comes to Blu-ray in a terrific improved transfer. Christopher Lee’s pitched battle with Charles Gray’s necromancer Mocata has long been a favorite of fans of symbolist rituals with candles, magic circles, Christian icons, etc. We’re happy to report that after all the monstrous demons and human sacrifices, good prevails through the agency of an ordinary housewife, who can sling a Latin incantation faster than you can say ‘The Goat of Mendes.’ This is yet another big-deal Hammer disc for 2019 — we also get a look at the earlier Blu-ray with its revised special effects.

The Devil Rides Out

Blu-ray

Scream Factory

1968 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 95 min. / The Devil’s Bride / Street Date October 29, 2019 / Available from Scream Factory / 27.99

Starring: Christopher Lee, Charles Gray, Nike Arrighi, Leon Greene, Patrick Mower, Gwen Ffrangcon Davies, Sarah Lawson, Paul Eddington, Rosalyn Landor.

Cinematography: Arthur Grant

Film Editors: James Needs,...

Haters gonna hate, and yeah, some folks will take, and have taken, their devotion to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to ridiculous lengths, in the same way that just about every pop culture phenomenon since Beatlemania has inspired people to do. But the likelihood is, if you’ve ever felt any kind of investment, however intermittent or intense, in the movies that comprise the Marvel movie franchise since the release of Iron Man in 2008, you’ll probably find Avengers: Endgame at the very least satisfying, and at the very most just about everything you could hope for from a grand, emotional summing-up such as this. It’s a movie that, for all of its bowing to spectacle and the interactivity of its universe, puts the characters that have come to populate that universe first and foremost, and it takes its sweet time honoring each and every one of them in a dramatically complete way.

Academy Award nominated screenwriter Gloria Katz has passed away. She was 76-years old. The screenwriter had been battling ovarian cancer and died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Katz is best-known for her work on George Lucas' American Graffiti, but she and her husband also worked on Star Wars as uncredited script doctors, helping Lucas to give the dialogue some extra humor, while also shaping the Princess Leia character into the beloved character that she is today.

Gloria Katz originally attended Uc Berkeley as an English major and later transferred to UCLA to get her graduate degree in history. However, she later changed her mind and received her master's degree in film during the late 1960s. She was one of four women in the program along with fifty men, noting that she and the other women were looked down upon by professors at the time. However, she...

Dench is as dependable as ever as an aging Queen Victoria besotted with her young Indian servant in creaky, old-fashioned drama from Stephen Frears

God save Judi Dench, protector of tat, defender of bad films and the imperious queen of Stephen Frears’ suspect British costume drama, which screens out of competition at the Venice film festival. Frears’ latest is a cloth-eared Gunga Din tale, painted up as a chaste romance and charting the true (but never convincing) friendship between Queen Victoria and a young Indian Muslim. It’s only Dench’s shrewd, affecting performance that keeps this sorry affair on its feet.

Our nominal hero is Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), plucked out of Agra to present Hrh with a commemorative coin at a golden jubilee banquet. Victoria, poor soul, is deep in decrepitude, a shrunken white toadstool at the head of the table, but she perks up like a teenager...

They don’t make ’em like this any more, and the original TV spots for James Gray’s accurate retelling of history almost didn’t know how to sell it. Charlie Hunnam spends his life trying to solve a riddle of the Peruvian rainforest, in between fighting in WW1 and dealing with class prejudice. Yup, one could say the picture was filmed in a ‘classic’ style . . . can a show like that find an audience these days?

The Lost City of Z

Blu-ray

Broadgreen / Amazon Studios

2016 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 141 min. / Street Date July 11, 2017 / 34.99

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller, Tom Holland, Edward Ashley, Angus Macfadyen, Ian McDiarmid, Clive Francis, Murray Melvin.

Cinematography: Darious Khondji

Film Editor:John Axelrad, Lee Haugen

Original Music: Christopher Spelman

From the book by David Grann

Produced by Dede Gardner, James Gray, Anthony Katagas, Jeremy Kleiner

Written for the Screen and Directed by James Gray

More...

Samuel Fuller sure knows how to turn up the geopolitical tension, especially in a rip-roaring provocative atom threat adventure, that might have caused problems if anybody cared what movies said back when the Cold War was hot. Richard Widmark skippers a leaky sub to the arctic and discovers that the Chinese communists are going to start WW3 — and blame it on Uncle Sam. It’s an insane comic-book adventure about very serious issues — and we love it.

Hell and High Water

Blu-ray

Twilight Time

1954 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 103 min. / Street Date June 13, 2017 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store 29.95

Starring: Richard Widmark, Bella Darvi, Victor Francen, Richard Loo, Cameron Mitchell, Gene Evans, David Wayne.

Cinematography: Joseph MacDonald

Art Direction: Leland Fuller, Lyle R. Wheeler

Film Editor: James B. Clark

Original Music: Alfred Newman

Written by Samuel Fuller, Jesse L. Lasky Jr. story by David Hempstead

Produced by Raymond A. Klune

Directed...

For some, Rian Johnson is the director of the acclaimed hit Looper, which proved he was ready for the big league budget of Star Wars directing. But for others, Rian Johnson is one of the keepers of classic cinema, both in taste and style. Like Lucas before him, Johnson is an old school filmmaker working in a contemporary blockbuster setting. Rian Johnson is a perfect fit for Star Wars, and I’ll detail why in great, painful lengths. Rian Johnson is exactly what Star Wars needs right now.

On October 30th, 2012 Disney announced they were acquiring Lucasfilm for $4.05 billion and that there would be new Star Wars films every two to three years (that’s since changed). Just barely a month before, Rian Johnson’s film Looper was released wide in September to wide critical acclaim and instantly embraced by fans as a modern sci-fi classic. The first question in...

This 1940 Australian war film about the Light Horse Cavalry was directed by Charles Chauvel, the nephew of much-decorated Sir Harry Chauvel and the commander of that particular cavalry. In a nod to Gunga Din, the film features a trio of rowdy soldiers played by Grant Taylor, Joe Valli and Chips Rafferty. Of the three, only Rafferty broke through in the American market, with roles in Mutiny on the Bounty, The Sundowners and even TV’s The Monkees.

As giant apes and mutant loners battle it out at the box office, the multiplex can still spare a screen or two for a love story. Okay, albeit a love story set during a time of violent conflict. Yes, it’s a romance in the trenches, a war-time story of love. But which war (unfortunately we’ve got too many to choose from). World War II was the backdrop for two big flicks last year, Allied and Hacksaw Ridge (mainly in the first half before the near constant carnage). No, this new film goes back a tad further, to that “war to end all wars” World War I. We’ve got to go back a couple of years for that, with 2014’s Testament Of Youth and 2015’s Sunset Song. And while they focused on the great battles on European soil, this new film explores a much warmer climate, in the arid desert lands of Turkey.

Man is a dangerous beast. Long ago, before the time of cinema, before the time of television, and certainly before the time of the Internet, the Indian subcontinent was a land mostly known as a fruitful place for the nightmares of western man to bloom. Tales about darkest India and its immense jungles filled with man-eating beasts spread around the world thanks to authors like Rudyard Kipling whose The Jungle Book and Gunga Din served as many people's only introduction to this mysterious land for many decades. These books painted a picture of India as a land of noble savages, often serving as slaves for white masters, or in the case of Gunga Din, murderous Kali worshipers. In the '80s, long after India had been...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

The film industry goes back to the beginning of the 20th century, and most experts still maintain that 1939 is the greatest single year in movie history. At no other point in the long chronicle of the film industry has Hollywood had such an ability to draw in and hold and audiences. Cinelinx looks at 1939.

In 1939, Americans bought an incrediblel 80 million movie tickets per week. There were 365 films released by the major studios in the United States during 1939. That’s an average of one film each a day. If you went to the theater every day, you’d never have to see the same movie twice. And the best part is that most of them were good.

The American Film Institute, along with such critics as Pauline Kael, Siskle & Ebert, Leonard Maltin and others have dubbed 1939 as the cinema's best single year ever. Looking back, its hard to argue with that opinion.

Ten years ago I attended the Lone Pine Film Festival for the first time. It was the 17th annual celebration in 2006 of a festival dedicated to the heritage of movies (mostly westerns, but plenty of other genres as well) shot in or near the town of Lone Pine, California, located on the outer edges of the Mojave Desert and nestled up against the Eastern Sierra Mountains in the shadow of the magnificent Mt. Whitney. The multitude of films that could and have been celebrated there were most often shot at least partially in the Alabama Hills just outside of town, a spectacular array of geological beauty that springs out of the landscape like some sort of extra-planetary exhibit, a visitation of natural and very unusual formations that have lent themselves to the imaginations of filmmakers here ever since near the dawn of the Hollywood filmmaking industry.

In writing about the...

While the film that had the most direct influence on the forthcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII is certainly J.J. Abrams‘ The Force Awakens, director Rian Johnson has shared some key inspiration when it comes to the tone and themes of his upcoming sci-fi sequel. While he previously stated two inspirations for the Star Wars saga’s next installment, that list has expanded, thanks his talk at Star Wars Celebration Europe.

The list includes six titles that Johnson encouraged the story group of Lucasfilm to watch before filming began, a thematic lookbook that features a mixture of beloved classics such as The Bridge on the River Kwai and lesser-known gems such as 1943’s Sahara. However, Twelve O’Clock High still stands as Johnson’s top pick for most influential. The most recent film on this list is from 1960, suggesting Johnson’s cinematic influences are less peer-based than deeply embedded in a more classical style.

Star Wars Celebration 2016: What we learnedStar Wars Celebration 2016: What we learnedJason Gorber7/18/2016 10:45:00 Am

Back when George Lucas announced that he was selling his company to Disney and entrusting his vision to a new generation of filmmakers, the director who I initially championed to have a crack at a Star Wars film was Rian Johnson. His film Looper proves to be a wonderful example of how to balance sophisticated narrative, swashbuckling adventure and wry, sardonic humour all in one gloriously visual package.

Johnson’s previous films like Brick gained him a cult following among enthusiasts, but perhaps his most watched work are the several "Breaking Bad" episodes he directed to great acclaim, including “Fly”, a memorable, Hitchcockian episode where an errant pest disrupts the protagonists as they cook up their illicit goods. John Boyega described the shoot as “Rian doing an indie movie within a franchise”, and...

Star Wars Celebration Europe is now officially over and everyone can start counting down the time until Star Wars Celebration Orlando begins. Before we get to next year hear are the top 5 most important things to come out of Swce.

1. Star Wars Rogue One is not a traditional Star Wars movie

It is safe to say with the trailer, sizzle reel, and an interview from the cast is that this movie does not have a happy ending to it. Expect a lot of casualties in this movie. A lot more speculation has come about since the panel for Rogue One finished. The biggest buzz came from Mads Mikkelson who confirmed that he is playing Galen who is Jyn Erso’s father. He also revealed that his character is a scientist who has created something that was initially to be beautiful and amazing. So now it starting to make sense that...

Director Rian Johnson recently wrapped production on Star Wars: Episode VIII and this weekend he showed up at Star Wars Celebration to talk a little bit about the movie and he revealed a few new details.

We really don’t know much about what is going to happen in Episode VIII aside from some rumors that have hit the internet, and we all know how rumors can go. They could turn out to be legit they could turn out to be false, we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, Johnson offered some solid intel on the film revealing that the story will pick up right where Star Wars: The Force Awakens left off. He says:

“This is going to start right where the last one left off. It was a break from tradition.”

We’ve never seen a Star Wars pick up right where they previous film left off before,...

Earlier this week, I published my rave review of HBO's new miniseries The Night Of, and I'm going to put it into the weekly review rotation for its run, starting with thoughts on the first episode, coming up just as soon as I can name two Yankees headed for the Hall of Fame... "Am I really here?" -Naz Because "The Beach" has been available for a few weeks through HBO's On Demand and streaming services, I've gotten to see the early reactions to it, which tend to break down along three paths: 1)That was unbearable to watch because I felt so bad for Naz as his night out went so horribly awry; 2)That was unbearable to watch because Naz acted like such a complete idiot at every turn; 3)Even though I felt bad for Naz, and/or couldn't believe how stupid he kept being, I was riveted by the whole thing.

John Ford puts a Technicolor sheen on Monument Valley in this second cavalry picture with John Wayne, who does some of his most professional acting work. Joanne Dru plays coy, while the real star is rodeo wizard Ben Johnson and the dazzling cinematography of Winton C. Hoch. She Wore a Yellow Ribbon Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1949 / Color / 1:37 flat Academy / 103 min. / Street Date June 7, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring John Wayne, Joanne Dru, John Agar, Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr., Victor McLaglen, Mildred Natwick, George O'Brien, Chief John Big Tree. Cinematography Winton Hoch Art Direction James Basevi Film Editor Jack Murray Original Music Richard Hageman Written by Frank Nugent, Laurence Stallings from the stories War Party and The Big Hunt by James Warner Bellah Produced by Merian C. Cooper, John Ford Directed by John Ford

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Have you never seen real 3-Strip Technicolor used for terrific outdoor photography?...

A bit character in Matt Brown‘s affecting biographical drama The Man Who Knew Infinity chants “Din, Din, Din, Gunga Din” a couple times in friendly jest as a response to his employer G.H. Hardy’s (Jeremy Irons) decision to send for an uneducated South Indian man on the merits of a letter presenting the potential for mathematical genius named Srinivasa Ramanujan (Dev Patel). We laugh at the line’s delivery as well as Hardy’s humored look of contempt because we embrace levity. What’s ironic, though, is just how close to Rudyard Kipling’s tragic poem this story of a true intellectual legend proves. The “abuse” isn’t physical and Hardy almost instantly acknowledges Ramanujan to be the better mind, but similarities including its depiction of race relations between Britain and India remain.

This is why I found myself enjoying the film as much as I did.

It's the classic paranoid conspiracy that won't go away... and that seems less impossible with every passing year. Laurence Harvey is a remote-controlled assassin, and Frank Sinatra seems to be under a little hypnotic influence himself... or are we just imagining it? John Frankenheimer and George Axelrod concoct a masterpiece from the novel by Richard Condon, a movie about conspiracies, that may be hiding more secrets in plain sight. The Manchurian Candidate Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 803 1962 / B&W / 1:75 widescreen / 126 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date March 15, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, Angela Lansbury, Henry Silva, James Gregory, Leslie Parrish, John McGiver, Khigh Dhiegh Cinematography Lionel Lindon Production Designer Richard Sylbert Film Editor Ferris Webster Original Music David Amram Written by George Axelrod from the novel by Richard Condon Produced by George Axelrod, John Frankenheimer, Howard W. Koch Directed by John Frankenheimer

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

'A Beautiful Mind' with Russell Crowe. '31 Days of Oscar' on TCM: 'The Wind and the Lion,' 'The Man Who Would Be King' Turner Classic Movies' “31 Days of Oscar” continues on Saturday, Feb. 6, '16, with more recent fare – as in, several films released in the last four decades. Among these are The Wind and the Lion, The Man Who Would Be King, A Beautiful Mind, Swing Shift, and Broadcast News. John Milius' The Wind and the Lion and John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King are both 1975 releases featuring “Westerners” (i.e., white people) stranded in “exotic” and potentially dangerous locales (i.e., places inhabited by dark-skinned non-Christians) in the distant past: the former in early 20th century Morocco; the latter in a remote region in colonial India in the late 19th century. (That particular area, Kafiristan, is located in today's Afghanistan.) The thematic similarities between the two films end there,...

Well, we’ve finally reached the summit: the 10 most definitive romantic comedies of all time. Unlike the other sections of this list, there is not a movie here that approaches “bad.” As always, some are better than others, despite the order. But one thing is for sure: if you plan to have a rom-com binge-a-thon soon, this is where you start, no questions asked. In fact, after reading this, you should go do that and report back.

courtesy of reverseshot.com 10. Some Like It Hot (1959)

What’s funnier than men dressing in drag? Depends on who you ask. It’s Billy Wilder again with a fictional story of two musicians – Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) – who witness the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago and leave town. But, since the mob has ties everywhere, they need to disguise themselves as best they can: as women in an...

It's the John Ford film you never heard of, not because it's bad, but because it's a little confused. Richard Greene, David Niven and an emotional George Sanders (!) dedicate their lives to clearing their father's name of a smear by international arms smugglers! Their spirited companion Loretta Young behaves almost as if this were a screwball comedy. So does the director! Ford aficionados will be fascinated. Four Men and a Prayer 20th Century Fox Cinema Archives 1938 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 85 min. / Street Date December 15, 2015 / 19.98 Starring Loretta Young, Richard Greene, George Sanders, David Niven, C. Aubrey Smith. J. Edward Bromberg, William Henry, John Carradine, Alan Hale, Reginald Denny, Berton Churchill, Barry Fitzgerald, Chris-Pin Martin. Cinematography Franz Planer Film Editor Louis R. Loeffler Written by Richard Sherman, Sonya Levien, Walter Ferris from a novel by David Garth Produced by Kenneth Macgowan Directed by John Ford

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

We all...

The lads' highly anticipated third album, Anthem for Doomed Youth, will be released in September. Until then, you have this infectious indie headbanger (those opening guitar riffs! Lots of "oh la la la"s!) and "Gunga Din" to get your Pete Doherty and Carl Barât fix. We have a feeling Alex Turner is sitting in a lightless room somewhere, slowly calculating his next move.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. ca. 1935. Douglas Fairbanks Jr. was never as popular as his father, silent film superstar Douglas Fairbanks, who starred in one action-adventure blockbuster after another in the 1920s (The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood, The Thief of Bagdad) and whose stardom dates back to the mid-1910s, when Fairbanks toplined a series of light, modern-day comedies in which he was cast as the embodiment of the enterprising, 20th century “all-American.” What this particular go-getter got was screen queen Mary Pickford as his wife and United Artists as his studio, which he co-founded with Pickford, D.W. Griffith, and Charles Chaplin. Now, although Jr. never had the following of Sr., he did enjoy a solid two-decade-plus movie career. In fact, he was one of the few children of major film stars – e.g., Jane Fonda, Liza Minnelli, Angelina Jolie, Michael Douglas, Jamie Lee Curtis – who had successful film careers of their own.

Welcome to the sixth installment of our summer trip through "The Sopranos" season 1. When I revisited early seasons of "The Wire," as well as the whole run of "Deadwood," I did separate versions of each review for newcomers and veterans, but over time realized that the newcomers weren't commenting much, if at all, and that it therefore made sense to simply do one review. Any significant spoilers for episodes beyond the one being reviewed will be contained in a separate section at the end of the review; so long as you avoid that, and the comments, you should be fine. Thoughts on the sixth episode, “Pax Soprana," coming up just as soon as I’m living next door to Gunga Din… “I love you. I’m in love with you. I’m sorry. It’s just the way it is.” -Tony One of the things I've most loved about covering...

Cary Grant films on TCM: Gender-bending 'I Was a Male War Bride' (photo: Cary Grant not gay at all in 'I Was a Male War Bride') More Cary Grant films will be shown tonight, as Turner Classic Movies continues with its Star of the Month presentations. On TCM right now is the World War II action-drama Destination Tokyo (1943), in which Grant finds himself aboard a U.S. submarine, alongside John Garfield, Dane Clark, Robert Hutton, and Tom Tully, among others. The directorial debut of screenwriter Delmer Daves (The Petrified Forest, Love Affair) -- who, in the following decade, would direct a series of classy Westerns, e.g., 3:10 to Yuma, The Hanging Tree -- Destination Tokyo is pure flag-waving propaganda, plodding its way through the dangerous waters of Hollywood war-movie stereotypes and speechifying banalities. The film's key point of interest, in fact, is Grant himself -- not because he's any good,...

While director Blake Edwards and star Peter Sellers are best known for their several Pink Panther efforts, they also collaborated on one additional wholly unrelated title, The Party (1968). It was their third time working together, with only two of the Panther films preceding it, and arriving the same year that Bud Yorkin attempted an unsuccessful Us version of the Clouseau character starring Alan Arkin with Inspector Clouseau. For the most part, this is a film that allows Sellers free reign with his fake persona, though by today’s standards this might play something like an SNL extended skit feature. Though Sellers was a top tier performer, many may likely find his appearance here in ‘brown face’ as a bumbling Indian actor to be off-putting, even if it isn’t pointedly demeaning.

The story is about as simple as the unassuming title. Hrundi V. Bakshi (Sellers) is an Indian actor in Hollywood,...

The short answer: because Hollywood declared it so. Of course, that was before 1939 came along and actually became the unofficial greatest year of movies of all time, including the releases of Gone With the Wind, Stagecoach, The Wizard of Oz, Dark Victory, Wuthering Heights, Of Mice and Men, Ninotchka, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Love Affair and Goodbye, Mr. Chips. And those were just the Best Picture nominees, excluding The Rules of the Game, The Women and Gunga Din and many more. Well, 1938 did have Bringing Up Baby, Holiday, Jezebel and Best Picture winner You Can’t Take It With You, which I honestly adore. Yeah, there’s something of an imbalance there. The claim that 1938 was the greatest came before the year was through as part of a marketing campaign to get Americans back to the movies. It was still the Great Depression, and by some theories that should’ve meant people sought out more escapist...

Well, we’ve finally reached the summit: the 10 most definitive romantic comedies of all time. Unlike the other sections of this list, there is not a movie here that approaches “bad.” As always, some are better than others, despite the order. But one thing is for sure: if you plan to have a rom-com binge-a-thon soon, this is where you start, no questions asked. In fact, after reading this, you should go do that and report back.

courtesy of reverseshot.com

10. Some Like It Hot (1959)

What’s funnier than men dressing in drag? Depends on who you ask. It’s Billy Wilder again with a fictional story of two musicians – Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) – who witness the St. Valentine’s Day massacre in Chicago and leave town. But, since the mob has ties everywhere, they need to disguise themselves as best they can: as women in an...

Yesterday’s announcement by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that the The Wizard of Oz will be celebrated at this year’s Oscars was met with widespread enthusiasm. After all, it’s one of Hollywood’s most beloved films, multiple generations have grown up singing its tunes, and it’s celebrating its 75th anniversary.

But The Wizard of Oz wasn’t the only classic movie to come out in 1939. That prolific Hollywood year also boasted Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, John Ford’s Stagecoach, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Ninotchka (“Garbo laughs!”), Gunga Din, William Wyler...

Oscar-winning actor who played threatened heroines for Alfred Hitchcock in Rebecca and Suspicion

It was hard to cast the lead in Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1939. The female fans of the bestseller were very protective of the naive woman whom the widower Max de Winter marries and transports to his ancestral home of Manderley. None of the contenders – including Vivien Leigh, Anne Baxter and Loretta Young – felt right for the second Mrs de Winter, who was every lending-library reader's dream self.

To play opposite Laurence Olivier in the film, the producer David O Selznick suggested instead a 21-year-old actor with whom he was smitten: Joan Fontaine. The prolonged casting process made Fontaine anxious. Vulnerability was central to the part, and you can see that vulnerability, that inability to trust her own judgment, in every frame of the film. The performance brought Fontaine, who has died...

Joan Fontaine, who won the Best Actress Oscar for Alfred Hitchcock's 1941 classic Suspicion, has died in her California home at age 96. Fontaine began her film career playing attractive but nondescript characters until Hitchcock cast her as the female lead in his 1940 film version of the bestseller Rebecca opposite Laurence Olivier. The film earned her an Oscar nomination and elevated her to one of Hollywood's most in-demand actresses. In 1943 she received a third and final Oscar nomination for The Constant Nymph. Fontaine also won rave notices in the film version of the Gothic novel Jane Eyre, starring opposite Orson Welles. In both films she played an innocent woman whose husband is harboring a shocking secret that is unveiled within the walls of a stately but foreboding country manor. Fontaine's other major films include Ivanhoe, The Emperor Waltz, Kiss the Blood Off My Hands, This Above All, The Women, Gunga Din,...

Joan Fontaine

The iconic actress Joan Fontaine has died at the age of 95. Star of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, she went on to win an Oscar for her work in Suspicion, setting the standard for the director's many cool blondes. She also gave the screen a memorable Jane Eyre and appeared in the likes of Gunga Din and Letter From An Unknown Woman.

The sister of Olivia de Havilland, Fontaine began her career on the stage but was quickly signed by Rko and groomed for stardom, starring alongside Katharine Hepburn in Quality Street. Alongside her film career, she worked in television and became a successful radio star. She retired in 1994 to spend more time with the dogs she adored.

Fontaine died peacefully at her home in Carmel-by-the-sea, California. She is survived by a daughter from her second marriage, Deborah, and by an adopted daughter, Martita, from whom she had become estranged.

Academy Award-winning actress Joan Fontaine, the leading lady known for her string of roles as demure, well-mannered and often well-bred heroines in the 1940s, and the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland, died today at her home in Carmel, California; she was 96.

Known best for her back-to-back roles in two Alfred Hitchcock thrillers -- the 1940 Best Picture winner Rebecca and the 1941 film Suspicion, for which she won a Best Actress Oscar, making her the ony actor in a Hitchcock film to receive an Academy Award -- she and her sister were enshrined in Hollywood lore as intense rivals, and their rivalry reached a peak of sorts when Fontaine beat de Havilland for the 1941 Best Actress Oscar.

Born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in 1917 in Tokyo, Japan, Fontaine suffered from recurring ailments throughout her childhood, resulting in her mother moving both her and Olivia to California. While her mother, stage actress Lillian Fontaine, desired for both her daughters to be actresses, it was only Olivia who initially pursued an acting career, as Fontaine returned to Japan for two years when she was 15 years old to live with her father, who divorced Lillian in 1919. Upon returning to the states, Fontaine found that Olivia was already becoming an established actress, and began to embark on her own career. Starting out in theater, Joan initially changed her name to Joan Burfield, then Joan Fontaine (so as to avoid confusion with her sister), and soon found herself in moderately noteworthy parts in such films as You Can't Beat Love (1937), A Damsel in Distress (1937, opposite Fred Astaire) and Gunga Din (1939, alongside Cary Grant, her future leading man in Suspicion). Though she garnered more notice in 1939 in the supporting part of naive newlywed Peggy Day in the classic comedy The Women, she was far eclipsed in fame and reputation by her sister, who had already starred along Errol Flynn in a number of romance adventures, and who received her first Oscar nomination for the blockbuster Gone With the Wind.

It was the same man who cast de Havilland in Gone With the Wind who would make Fontaine into a major star. Looking to follow up the monstrous success of Gone With the Wind with another noteworthy literary adapation, producer David O. Selnick snapped up the rights to the Daphne du Maurier bestseller Rebecca, in which an unnamed, demure heroine -- known only as "the second Mrs. de Winter" -- is taunted by the memory of her husband's first wife, the beautiful and seductive title character. Selznick brought director Alfred Hitchcock over for his first American production, cast matinee idol and rising star Laurence Olivier as moody, mysterious husband Maxim de Winter, and embarked on a Scarlett O'Hara-style talent search for his leading lady. Rejecting Loretta Young, Margaret Sullavan, Vivian Leigh (then Olivier's wife), and a then-unknown Anne Baxter along with hundreds of other actresses, Selznick decided on Fontaine, who though not an established star projected the right mix of beauty, insecurity, and tenacity needed for the part. Fontaine's insecurity, however, was heightened by Olivier's sometimes cruel treatment of her on set, as he had lobbied aggressively for Leigh to get the role, and Hitchcock capitalized on her inferiority complex to shape her performance. The resulting film, released in 1940, was an unqualified critical and financial success, catapulting Fontaine into the tier of top Hollywood leading ladies, establishing Hitchcock firmly in the United States, and nabbing the film 11 Academy Award nominations, includine ones for both Fontaine and Olivier; it would go on to win Best Picture.

Selznick, pleased with the combination of Hitchcock and Fontaine, signed the two on for a follow-up about a demure heiress who begins to suspect that her playboy husband is out to murder her for her money. Initially titled Before the Fact, it would later be retitled Suspicion, and Cary Grant was cast as the charming but caddish husband. Though the final ending of the film was tinkered with -- studio heads thought making Grant guilty would be bad for box office, and insisted on a twist to make him actually heroic -- it was another success, earning three Oscar nominations, including Fontaine's second Best Actress nod. It was at the 1941 Academy Awards that Fontaine, once considered the also-ran to her movie star sister, beat Olivia de Havilland for the Best Actress Oscar (de Havilland had been nominated for Hold Back the Dawn). In what became part of Hollywood and Academy Award legend, Fontaine coolly rejected her sister's efforts at congratulations, and What had always been a fractious relationship since childhood became officially estranged. Hollywood wags often reported that because de Havilland lost to her sister, she would retaliate by winning two Oscars -- in 1946 for To Each His Own and 1949 for The Heiress -- in order to top Fontaine. The two would officially stop speaking to one another in 1975.

Fontaine received a third Oscar nomination in 1943, for the music melodrama The Constant Nymph, and that same year essayed the title role in the commercially successful if moderately well-regarded version of Jane Eyre opposite Orson Welles. She remained a star throughout the 1940s, appearing in the comedy The Affairs of Susan (1945), the thriller Ivy (1947), and opposite Bing Crosby in The Emperor Waltz (1948). Fontaine also gave what many consider to be her best performance in 1948's Letters from an Unknown Woman, Max Ophuls' romantic drama opposite Louis Jourdan. In 1945 she divorced her first husband, actor Brian Aherne, and in 1946 married producer William Dozier, whom she would divorce in 1951. Two years later, she was embroiled in a bitter custody battle with him over their daughter, Debbie, and the ongoing lawsuit would prevent Fontaine from accepting the role of frustrated military wife Karen Holmes in the Oscar-winning drama From Here to Eternity -- Deborah Kerr was instead cast, and received an Oscar nomination for the part.

Though she continued to work throughout the 1950s, most notably in the lavish Technicolor adaptation of Ivanhoe (1952), Ida Lupino's film noir The Bigamist (1953), and in the pioneering if often campy racial drama Island in the Sun (1957), her work in both film and television lessened, and her last film appearance was in Hammer Films horror movie The Devil's Own (1966). Television work followed in the 1970s and 1980s, and Fontaine received a Daytime Emmy nomination for the soap opera Ryan's Hope. She published an autobiography, No Bed of Roses, in 1978, and after the television film Good King Wenceslas (1994), retired officially to her home in Carmel, California.

Fontaine is survived by her daughter, Debbie Dozier.