filmlover

This is a great Republic serial, one of the best they ever made. And this wa the best of the Zorrio serials, as it features tghe real Zorro, not a son of grandson of. I hope everyone catches chapter one on right now and not come in next Saturday with chapter two showing and wondering, "Hey's where's Chapter One?" This serial has some terrific stuntwork. Yak Canutt and other Republic stuntmen.

Saturday, Sept. 30th, 1939

Did you try calling them? I ended up calling DISH at one point because I didn't have it on my schedule, just the SD, and they said something like, "Oh, here it is, we forgot to add it into your schedule."

I can't let the day go by without having two of Deborah Kerr's UK releases that are part of TCM's tribute today on what would have been her 90th birthday. Kathleen Byron: "Oh, yes, mister, tell me again about your pile driving equipment and how it pounds and pounds and never stops!" Spooky moment from The Innocents.

The Taylor-Burton Cleopatra is heading to Blu on Jan. 30th in the UK with a release to the US also likely. Extras: Cleopatra Through The Ages: A Cultural History Cleopatra's Missing Footage Fox Movie Channel presents Fox Legacy with Tom Rothman Commentary with Chris Mankiewicz, Tom Mankiewicz, Martin Landau and Jack Brodsky The Cleopatra Papers: A Private Correspondence Cleopatra: The Film That Changed Hollywood The Fourth Star of Cleopatra Archival Footage of the New York Premiere Archival Footage of the Hollywood Premiere Theatrical Trailers

To those who have been wondering about the *Ben-Hur Blu-ray Ultimate Collector's Edition* (it also came out on DVD) that came out on Tuesday, I got my set yesterday and I have started to watch the first half of the film and it looks magnificent. I have a home projector and on a large screen it holds together and is stunning. I haven't gotten to the second and third discs (the third has the extras, including the silent version of Ben-Hur in standard definition), but it will be a treat, I am sure of that. The photo book that comes with this is a treat and Charlton Heston's diary on the set looks like fascinating read.

Fri., Sept. 29th, 1939

"So for the first challenge, we want you to schedule at least THREE films in a row that tell us more about you." "...your dream job, your religion, what your home life is like, or anything else." Gee, if only I had been born in a manger, this would be so easy. But since I wasn't, this will be tough for me. But I will try.

Well, what I hate is when I am out when TCM staffers come to my door to personally update my copy of Now Playing.

"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here. This is the War Room."

I am splitting yesterday's post into two sections because it looks like the loading of the 51 posters is taking time for some and may dissuade them from waiting to see what comes up. Biggest post yet (51 posters pictured)!!! The 1960s - The British Invasion As mentioned, in the last installment, some angry young men would continue disliking their lot in life into the 1960s. So let's shove them out of the way, so we can move on to the fun of enjoying London in the Swinging Sixties! Okay, done. Now, let's get happening... "England swings like a pendulum do Bobbies on bicycles, two by two Westminster Abbey, the tower of Big Ben The rosy red cheeks of the little children" (Hey, did you know that was written and sung by Roger Miller, an American country singer?) Of all the times I have seen London in movies, I've always felt like the 1960s were the first time I really saw the city. That might very well have been because there was a lot more on-location street filming. Oddly enough, though, I never had a sense that we got that many glimpses into real people's lives. I think that during WWII, the films that came out of Great Britain showed us more of the humanity that existed in their people. That might very well have been because in a war, people are people everywhere. We felt the same loves and the same losses. Perhaps symbolic of the Sixties, one of the first people we encountered was a charming but reserved spy. Did the Bond saga come just at a time when England's film products truly went international, much more so than at any other time prior, or was it the cause? Probably a little bit of both. The marketability of Bond was helped enormously by President Kennedy saying he enjoyed the Fleming novels. As each new Bond film came out, it did seemed each got a bit more silly because of the gadgets. Even the figure of Connery as Bond in the You Only Live Twice poster with the famous crossed-arms Bond stance seems to be saying to us, "This is bloody ridiculous. I don't even have to be here; just have your special effects." (Of course, who am I to talk? My favorite Bond is Thunderball in which he was more hampered down by gimmicks than ever.) Spy films began flooding the film market, many as spoofs because they realized as a serious adventure they could never out-Bond Bond. But out of the spy flicks, a few do stand out for story and performances. The early Sixties also had its share of lusty young men and lecherous old ones. As a matter of fact, James Mason, once a star that all women wanted, was now making a specialty of playing dirty old men in films like Lolita and Georgy Girl . (A turn a decade later in The Last of Sheila would have him playing someone even lower). In Georgy Girl, he kept making advances to a much-younger and much-repulsed woman played wonderfully by Lynn Redgrave. Georgy Girl was one of those smaller films that succeeded very well on both continents, and a great part of that success came from the film's theme song. LOL, as a matter of fact, a film wasn't anything in the Swinging Sixties unless the main character had a hit tune written for them. Witness: Okay, sure, each was a great film unto itself without the song, but how many of those films can you think of without the song tied therein? Speaking of songs working with a film's popularity, take a look at another British-made film: It?s nearly impossible to think of it without having the song pop into your head (though, heaven knows, you may wish to forget it altogether, LOL). Of course, there were a few pictures you went to because of the music... CONTINUES RIGHT BELOW

Part 2 of the 1960s The trend of Epics continued on from the 1950s. However, the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton version of Cleopatra was the epic that almost brought down Twentieth Century-Fox. A satire of it, made on the same sets and using the same costumes, was much more entertaining and cost a LOT less. (Note the similarity in posters. This was deliberate, but the production company fearing some confusion might take place with the customers in what they were going in to see, and had the Carry On poster pulled.) The public even seemed to like more of the mini-"epics" than the full-blown ones. And if you could throw in some humor to go with it, so much the better: War movies, a staple of every decade, got a good workout in the 1960s. The sounds of bombs bursting in the sky or in the fields or on the seas of England must have startled many a peaceful Britisher in the 1960s. While men were busy raising flags, women were having their day in UK films. Already mentioned were Lynn Redgrave in Georgy Girl, and Maggie Smith gave a performance for the ages in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, but other actresses' performances must be remembered and treasured. Hayley Mills at the start of the decade in Whistle Down the Wind... ...and at the end of the decade in The Family Way. Rita Tushingham Julie Christie Vanessa Redgrave Vivien Leigh and Margaret Rutherford One of the most unusual, and thought-provoking, films to come out of the London scene of the Sixties was Blow-Up. It may not have answered the question of whether a man was murdered in the park, but it was fascinating to see how the story played out. Three costume films produced in England in the Sixties are among the best films ever made anywhere: Each had performances among the best ever seen on screen. Oh, that reminds me... The following has Laurence Olivier and Maggie Smith in a Shakespearean movie that will leave you gasping for air during the "Put out the light" scene. The 1960s were an amazing ten years for UK films. Four times out of those ten years, Best Picture Oscars were handed to UK productions: Lawrence of Arabia, Tom Jones, A Man for All Seasons, and... Speaking of Oscars, while Stanley Kubrick had an excellent decade in England making Lolita, Dr. Strangelove... ...and 2001: A Space Odyssey... ...he never took home an Oscar for Best Director for any of them. Maybe that is what drove his future star Malcolm McDowell a little violent in "If..." Oh, sigh, I just realized we began AND ended the Sixties with angry young men. Will there be anything ahead in the 1970s to appease them? (Don't count on it...A Clockwork Orange is coming).

While I am working on the installment for 1970s to present day, I thought you might enjoy seeing a 1936 campaign book I recently got of a British film caalled Moscow Nights, one of Laurence Olivier's very first movies. This is the U.S. re-title, I Stand Condemned. (A note: I was scanning on an 11x17 scanner, but even that wasn't large enough to completely capture the page size. They sometimes made these things very big.)

Camelot was from the U.S. Funny, isn't it?

No, I haven't but it is supposed to be excellent.

Split post and placed it in two parts today due to number of posters. Edited by: filmlover on Sep 29, 2011 3:15 PM

Or just priced a heck of a lot less for the combo.

Thurs., Sept. 28th, 1939

kingrat, I don't know if you have seen "I Was Monty's Double" but it is based on a true story about how a man who impersonated Field Marshall Montgomery on stage for laughs was recruited by the British military into actually being Monty's double and showing up in areas to mislead the Germans. And the producers got the impersonator, M.E. Clifton James, to play himself in the movie. They did take a number of liberties with the facts but it is enjoyable. (It is said in real life the person who recruited him was David Niven, then working for the War Office.)

Wednesday, Sept. 27th, 1939

> {quote:title=ValentineXavier wrote:}{quote}Geeze, would I like to see *Hell Drivers*. What a cast! Achilles, #6, Dr. Who, 007, Illya Kuryakin, Chief Inspector Dreyfus, and Annie from *Gun Crazy*. YOW! VX, it looks like you can see the entire thing on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P1Ax7zXFmE&feature=related And in the cast, you forgot Sidney James (Carry On), Gordon Jackson from Upstairs, Downstairs, and Jill Ireland, ex of David McCallum and one day to be Mrs. CB.

I've tried to avoid showing the posters we have all seen so much. Some foreign posters are incredibly beautiful.

The Fifties - Part 2 To me, one of the things that the British did better than us was in making movies about World War II. We here in America were good at John Wayne gung-ho heroics, but when it came to showing everyday ordinary people and telling a story in a simple step-by-step manner, none could beat the English. During the war itself, England turned out wonderful films such as In Which We Serve, Went the Day Well? and other fine feautures. In the 1950s, stories that couldn't be told during the war were made. Two of my favorite little films were I was Monty's Double and The Man Who Never Was. And, of course, the one that changed everything for director David Lean... And one subject that I think the British did better than anyone else was the Titanic. And, of course, Shakespeare. American studios had bases in the United Kingdom long before the 1950s, but it was during the Fifties that films that we today think of as American-made films, primarily because of the U.S. talent attached, were actually British productions (a few were combined US/UK productions). Here's a sampling: *Beat the Devil* It was common practice for films to be retitled from its original UK release when it played American shores, sometimes for legal reasons, but most times to make it sound more exciting. The actual title of the following is "No Highway" but for American release "in the Sky" was added on. Two films of Errol Flynn (musicals!) that many have never heard of were made with England's famous star Anna Neagle. And the actors would be billed above the other based on who was more popular in the country the poster was done in, Neagle got top billing in the UK and Flynn in Amerca. The UK title for the following was Lilacs in the Spring Chaplin was in disfavor with America and so the film below was made in the UK: And, again on the subject of America, a small UK company that had been around since 1934, started releasing remakes of famous American monster movies in 1957, and it succeeded so well that when one hears the name Hammer Films, one automatically thinks of its horror films of the Fifties. The first was The Curse of Frankenstein, then Dracula (Horror of Dracula in the U.S.)(1958), and The Mummy (1959), all three starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Hammer would follow these up in the 1960s with several Dracula sequels (by far the most popular character), a Frankenstein sequel, and and The Curse of the Werewolf. By the way, the "X" you see on the poster were related to the "X" certificate handed out by the British Board of Film Censors. They used to have an "H" (for "Horror). The "X" meant that "children should be excluded." "X" also came into play in films that were particularly adult themed. Christopher Lee was one of the UK's new stars of the 1950s. Others were Audrey Hepburn, Patrick McGoohan, Joan Collins, Peter Finch, Stanley Baker, Richard Burton, Hayley Mills, Dirk Bogarde, and Diana Dors, whom you could find playing Nancy in David Lean's 1948 Oliver Twist, but it was in the Fifties she made her name. Patrick McGoohan and Stanley Baker (Sean Connery also had a small bit this movie) I mentioned at the beginning of part 1 of the Fifties that the decade started with a laugh but ended with an angry young man. Actually there were two angry young men. And young men would go on being angry into the 1960s, as you will soon see.

> {quote:title=doctorxx wrote:}{quote} Which is your favorite Hamlet? Jack Benny in "To Be Or Not To Be".

Mon., Sept. 26th, 1939