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In honor of James Garner I was watching A Man Could Get Killed (1966), an easy-going spy caper which makes decent use of its star's easy-going charm, and noted that director Ronald Neame had swiped, from The 39 Steps, Hitchcock's transition from screaming woman to screaming train whistle, only it wasn't a train whistle in the Neame version (I forget what it was). Still, as Neame had actually worked for Hitchcock, I thought it was an Ok little homage.

I was surprised to find the same device reprised in the next film I watched, The Argyle Secrets (1948), and this time I was again forgiving because the moment was so amusingly over-the-top. The scream comes from a burly policeman who's just looked at the headline of his paper and realized that his house-guest of moments before is wanted for murder. The scream looks like this:

It's one of a number of odd moments that invigorate a twisty,...

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Oscar-nominated actor James Garner has passed away at the age of 86.

From AP:

Garner, whose whimsical style in the 1950s TV Western “Maverick” led to a stellar career in TV and films such as “The Rockford Files” and his Oscar-nominated “Murphy’s Romance,” was found dead of natural causes at his home in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles Saturday evening, Los Angeles police officer Alonzo Iniquez said early Sunday.

Police responded to a call around 8 p.m. Pdt and confirmed Garner’s identity from family members, Iniquez told The Associated Press.

There was no immediate word on a more specific cause of death. Garner had suffered a stroke in May 2008, just weeks after his 80th birthday.

Although he was adept at drama and action, Garner was best known for his low-key, wisecracking style, especially with his hit TV series, “Maverick” and “The Rockford Files.

Today’s question comes from Kirk, who wants to know: Do you have any favorite “memorable moments” from otherwise forgettable films? Kirk continues: I was reminded somehow of a moment from A Man Could Get Killed, one of James Garner's lesser successes. In it there's a scene where a cargo of rice has been placed on a pier because it's suspected of having something-i-forget hidden in it. Unfortunately, it then rains and the small pile of rice bags becomes a growing mountain of rice. Robert Coote then comments, "Eerie, isn't it," in that patented Brit deadpan. That's virtually all I remember from the movie, but the visual and Coote's delivery of the line is still burned into my memory. Another one is from Merry Andrew - a lesser Danny Kaye film, but there's a musical number near the beginning 'Everything is Tickety-Boo' (sic?) that I remember quite distinctly. Don't...

British filmmaker Ronald Neame, whose career dates back to serving as assistant cameraman on the first feature film made with sound in Great Britain, Alfred Hitchcock's "Blackmail," has died, according to reports. He was 99.

No details were available.

His directing credits ranged from "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972) to "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969), for which Maggie Smith won the Oscar for best actress.

As a producer, Neame was involved with three British classics: "Brief Encounter" (1945), "Great Expectations" (1946) and "Oliver Twist" (1948). "Brief Encounter" and "Great Expectations" were the fruition of a production partnership called Cineguild that Neame had formed with David Lean and Anthony Havelock-Allan.

As a screenwriter, Neame earned Oscar nominations for the screenplays of "Brief," adapted from a Noel Coward play, and "Expectations," from Charles Dickens' novel. He shared those distinctions with Lean and Havelock-Allan.

Cineguild broke up in 1947 with a fall-out between Neame and Lean when...