filmlover
-
Posts
8,732 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by filmlover
-
-
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
-
Mon. Sept. 25th, 1939
-
The Fifties - Part 1
The 1950s British movies started with a laugh but ended with an angry young man.
In the real world, British film attendance was down, and getting worse as the decade began. As in America, TV was keeping people home. A number of cinemas closed. But the film industry kept plugging away, and in the reel world one studio was turning a number of comedies that remain classics today.
*Ealing Studios*
Ealing Studios was the first film studio in England that still was running at the start of the Fifties, having opened in 1902. It still operates today and per the studio's official website, "Ealing Studios is the oldest continuously working film studio in the world." But in 1955, it was bought by the BBC for TV production work, so ath that time film work mostly vanished. But, oh, those films they did produce from 1951-1955!
Alec Guinness starred in a number of these comedy films, bringing his dexterity as an actor to great humorous parts. Think back to 1949's Kind Hearts and Coronets in which he played several parts:
*The Lavender Hill Mob*
As a "by the way", in the opening scene a young lady approached him in a cafe...
Yes, indeed, that is Audrey Hepburn at the start of a great career. Here are some behind-the photos...
*The Man In The White Suit*
More comedies from Ealing
*Ealing also had a serious side during the early 1950s...*
Not at Ealing, but over at Rank, a young physical comic graduated from TV to delight England's funnybone when he moved over to movies, Norman Wisdom. (And his work is still as funny when you see the films today. )
Other British comedies of the period
Edited by: filmlover on Sep 25, 2011 7:27 PM to fix a few things
-
Just a quick note to make sure everyone watches *Evergreen* tonight with the marvelous *Jessie Matthews*
Edited by: filmlover on Sep 24, 2011 10:32 PM to add a picture of a CD featuring a song, "Over the Shoulder", she has in this film.
*(Note: Before I forget, if anyone is interested in learning more of Jessie Matthews after seeing the film, I did a post on her in this thread earlier, and you can find it at the following link (look for the post dated Sept. 6th at 9:36 pm):* http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6174/6179433397_92f682567a_b.jpg
P.S. -- If you thought yesterday's post had a lot of posters in it, wait until you see the next two!! Here's a small sample to whet your appetite...
-
Sunday, Sept. 24th, 1939
-
> {quote:title=
>
> ugaarte wrote:}{quote}
>
> Whoa ... What Beautiful Posters you have here, Filmlover . . . and with such 'Luscious' Colors, too ... not to mention the Fabulous Artwork alone, such as in,
>
>
> The 39 Steps,
> The Woman Alone,
> Secret Agent (with my favorite Peter Lorre),
> Bland Balde Riddersman (great, great artwork), AKA When Knights Were Bold
> and the endearing 'Brief Encounter',
> and the stark reality of the Titanic in 'A Night to Remember'
>
>
> Thank you so much for all your hard work in posting and sharing these
> Awesome Pics and Posters.
>
>
> Much Regards,
> Ugaarte
>
Glad you liked it. Makes all the work worthwhile. : )
-
{font:Arial}{color:black}This is going to be a poster-heavy post (more than 30+ pictures!), so it may take a little extra to show. Be patient and enjoy.
It is now time to talk about J. Arthur Rank, the most powerful man in the history of the British film industry.
{font}
It is almost impossible to describe how huge and important J. Arthur Rank and the Rank Organization were. There are some who believe he was the British film industry.Joseph Arthur Rank was born in 1888, the son of a flour magnate, who told his son that he was a dunce and would never amount to anything. And a few businesses he attempted did fail, so he went back to working for his father. But becoming involved with a religious film group, he developed an interest in making pictures that could be shown at Sunday school and to Methodists (Rank was a Methodist.){color:black}His first film venture was making a 22-minute short. In the early Thirties, he worked out a deal with Gaumont British to make three spiritual-themed movies.His interest in movie-making increased enormously. In 1934, he formed British National Films. The first film to come out of the new company was an inexpensive film (£30,000), Turn of the Tide, which had Geraldine Fitzgerald in its supporting cast.{color:black}Though it was praised by the critics and won an award at the Venice Festival, it was still not marketed well by Gaumont British. When Rank tried to market it to the head of a cinema chain, the film was rejected by a partner of the chain who said he never heard of Rank and did not want to hear of him.{color:black}As Julia Roberts said in "Pretty Woman" to the Beverly Hills saleswoman who had refused to wait on her, “Big mistake. Huge."{font:Arial}{color:black}Charles Moss Woolf had been managing director of that particular cinema chain, and he was regarded as a great film salesman, but he quit over a disagreement. With the backing of Rank, he set up General Film Distributors. And a syndicate in the U.S. had been created about then to take over Universal Pictures, which was near bankruptcy. Woolf joined the syndicate, thereby arranging a distribution deal in England through GFD. {font}{font:Arial}{color:black}Rank had a new studio, Pinewood, and soon bought out Gaumont British (with a minority percentage still belonging to 20th Century Fox).{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}So now Rank had production abilities and a distribution company. In this game of Movie Monopoly, the next thing that was needed was a chain of theaters. Rank joined the board of the Odeon Theaters. When the head of Odeon died, his widow sold out to Rank.{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}By the mid-1940s, The Rank Organization owned five film studios, a distribution company, and over 650 movie theaters. Not even any of the U.S. studios could match that.{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}Rank attracted major filmmakers like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to his newly-formed Independent Producers company by allowing them complete creative control, with a guaranteed distribution of the final film.{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}He was making films like the studio system in America, and even had a Charm School, aka “Company of Youth,” where up-and-coming actors were given training. Students were paid a minimum of {font}{font:Verdana}£{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}20 per week, 52 weeks a year, whether they were working or not. Students included Joan Collins, Dirk Bogarde, Peter Finch, Christopher Lee, and Diana Dors.
{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}
(Speaking of youth, J. Arthur Rank once fired a young office worker for smoking in a Rank headquarters bathroom. The young man was Michael Caine.){font}{font:Arial}{color:black}And his Ealing studio was about to be the center of great British comedy in the 1950s.
However, in 1952, Rank’s older brother died and Rank went back to the flour business, though he retained chairmanship of The Rank Organization until 1962. The company's management was turned over to John Davis, a tough ex-accountant who was not loved by the artistic side, to say the least.{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}J. Arthur Rank died in 1972 (but the organization carried on), and one can look back on thousands of movies that the Rank Organization financed. Movies that run the gamut from Hitchcock to The Carry On Gang to Merchant Ivory.
{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}
Now the difficulty in picking posters to showcase the Rank Organization would be like trying to find just two dozen or so that covered the entire history of Warner Bros or MGM. As long as you know that, here is just a tiny selection of the films that Rank and the Rank Organization financed through the various studios and partnerships...
Sabotage
When Knights Were Bold
Major Barbara
In Which We Serve
The Red Shoes
Saraband for Dead Lovers
{font} -
Saturday, September 23rd, 1939
-
> {quote:title=VP19 wrote:}{quote}Ingrid Bergman, the future Ilsa, making a film for Goebbels (and weeks after the invasion of Poland)?
I didn't realize until I read this today that "Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS" must have been a sequel to "Casablanca."
-
It's a shocker, isn't it? I guess we will be seeing some tell-all book about how she was a German spy. That would be so ridiculous.
-
Fri., Sept. 22nd, 1939:
-
{font:Arial}{color:black}When last we were talking about the history of British cinema, it was 1950 and the film industry were on the verge of collapse. The UK's Entertainment Tax was crushing producers and theaters. Just to recap, in 1948, boxoffice net receipts were {font}{font:Arial}£{color:black}70 million, but after taxes the producers saw {font}{font:Times New Roman}£7.5 {font}{font:Arial}{color:black}million. The trouble was that production costs were {font}{font:Times New Roman}£{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}14 million, so that was leading to bankruptcy. Plus, as you will recall, attendance had been dropping at an alarming rate of about 200 million tickets a year since 1946.{font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}One reason put forward for this drop off was that after World War II came to an end, people picked the films they want to go see, as opposed to just going to see anything during the war. {font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}And television was starting to catch on.{font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}As a result of all this, studios were closing down. In 1949, where there had been 26 British studios, they were now only seven working. By 1950, the number of studio employees had decreased by almost half of what it was only a few years before. {font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}In June 1950, the Entertainment Tax was adjusted by the Eady Plan, whereby it was meant to reduce taxes and also make available a total {font}{font:Times New Roman}£{font}{font:Arial}{color:black}3 million in reserve for film producers. {font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}Movie theaters no longer had entertainment tax removed from tickets that cost up to sevenpence. And tiny cinemas were exempted if they made less than 125 pounds a week. {font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}I am not going to go any further about taxes, because there were a lot of myriad details, but it is much too boring to discuss. What can be said is the plan didn't stop the losses. Exhibitors finally ended up increasing ticket admission prices. And a small percent of that went into a British Film Production Fund, which producer could call upon for the making of movies.{font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}England{font}{font:Arial}{color:black} was still feeling the scars from the war. This had been a country that until recently had German bombs falling upon it on a regular basis. People needed a look at better times to come. Thus, the Festival of Britain was created, a World's Fair type of exhibition, for the summer of 1951 on the south bank of London.
{font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}
One of the buildings created for the Festival was the Telekinema, a theater to showcase stereoscopic films viewed through Polaroid glasses.
I mention the Festival and the Telekinema for only one reason: the British film industry joined together to make a special movie to play there.
{font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}
The movie was The Magic Box (1951) and it has been mentioned earlier in this history. It was a story of a British inventor named William Friese-Greene, a man that some believe invented the first movie camera. The film starred Robert Donat, in a very touching performance as Friese-Greene, and in supporting roles were Laurence Olivier, Richard Attenborough, Leo Genn, Marius Goring, Peter Ustinov, Bessie Love, Glynis Johns, Sidney James, Eric Portman, Margaret Rutherford, Sybil Thorndike, Michael Redgrave, Dennis Price, Stanley Holloway, and many more.{font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}
With Robert Donat, that's Laurence Olivier as the policeman he shows his invention to.
Closer on the pictures:
The movie did get distribution in regular movie theaters, but didn’t do very well. (I still find a very enjoyable film if only for the performance of Robert and the other great stars of British cinema.) {font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}The film was produced by Ronald Neame and distributed by J. Arthur Rank.{font}
{font:Arial}{color:black}Speaking of which, I can no longer hold off on the subject of J. Arthur Rank, a producer like none other in the British film industry. And with that subject tomorrow will come:
And many, many more glories of the British Cinema.{font}
Edited by: filmlover on Sep 21, 2011 11:45 PM to fix typos
-
A special note: blu-ray.com has just listed their review of the new Blu Ben-Hur and gives it their highest recommendation, including a 5 out of 5 for both video and audio.
http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Ben-Hur-Blu-ray/756/#Review
-
"See I don't count those others because to me they are insigtnificant."
LOL, it might help avoid raised inflamed cries of "What, are you kidding?!" if you added the words "to me" to statements like "Cagney's last great film", such as "To me, Cagney's last great film." That way makes it a personal view, and not so much "so let it be written, so let it be done" "those are the facts and anything else you all think is wrong" kind of feeling that came across originally. (LOL, remember, arrogance is only a gift of the young because they don't know better.)
-
Oops, you're right about that.
-
Yikes! Racing the clock again before today runs out.
Wed., Sept. 20th, 1939
-
Including when she was an extra in Quo Vadis.
Sighhhhh.
What can one say except, "Grazie mille, TCM!"
-
Just a note to those of us in the Los Angeles area. The Egyptian Theater in Hollywood is going to have a salute to the films of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger.
9/21 at 7:30 PM: A Canterbury Tale
9/25 at 7:30 PM: The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus
9/28 at 7:30 PM: Peeping Tom
9/29 at 7:30 PM: Gone to Earth and A Matter of Life and Death
[B]1939: HOLLYWOOD'S GREATEST YEAR - DAY BY DAY - as it happens!!![/B]
in Your Favorites
Posted
Thurs., Sept. 28th, 1939