News

Kim Kahana, the stunt performer, teacher, coordinator and war hero who played Chongo on the kids show Danger Island and doubled for Charles Bronson in several action films, has died. He was 94.

Kahana died Monday of natural causes at his home in Groveland, Florida, his wife, Sandy Kahana, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Kahana, 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds, taught stunts to many thousands of students since the mid-1970s in six-week courses that took place in Chatsworth, California, and Central Florida. Many went on to have thriving careers in show business.

He also had six different black belt degrees — he taught martial arts, too — and worked as a professional bodyguard protecting Hollywood types.

A native of Hawaii, Kahana appeared in his first film as a biker in the Marlon Brando-starring The Wild One (1953) and was an extra in other movies before he realized that stunt performers got paid more than he did.

Having established herself at the BBC with the police procedural “Happy Valley” and the crossdressing costume drama “Gentleman Jack,” screenwriter-turned-showrunner Sally Wainwright has followed countless creatives and taken the Disney shilling to initiate her latest project. You can hardly blame her, given the reduced offer the cash-strapped British broadcaster is now extending even to its more illustrious dramaturges: rarely more than three episodes per series and four characters per scene. Imposed by post-Brexit belt-tightening, this sorry set of limitations has exasperated those obliged to work within them while dispiriting viewers, left watching the life — and the talent — drain from primetime broadcasts.

Mashing up historical and fantastical elements, the pricey-looking, eight-part “Renegade Nell” rides into a surprisingly crowded field for light period entertainments straddling the Stuart and Georgian eras, emerging after the sadly short-lived BBC comedy “The Witchfinder” and Apple TV+’s recent “The Completely Made-Up Adventures of Dick Turpin.” While...

Actor John Wayne was an expert when it came to understanding the hard work that went into movies. He starred in everything from leading roles in major studio feature films to non-speaking parts in B-movies that he despised making. However, some of the most physically demanding parts turned out to be the most rewarding when the pictures fluttered on the silver screen. Here are five of the most physically demanding movies that Wayne starred in.

‘Stagecoach’ (1939) L-r: Claire Trevor as Dallas and John Wayne as Ringo Kid | Getty Images

Stagecoach boosted Wayne to stardom overnight in 1939, creating a whole new world for the actor. He played Ringo Kid in a story that follows a group of unlikely stagecoach passengers whose journey becomes increasingly difficult with the threat of a dangerous man named Geronimo on the loose.

Wayne came from the world of the props department and had a great appreciation for the world of stunts.

It's rare to see John Wayne back down in a standoff, but that's exactly what happened when shooting one of his most revered films. By 1939, Wayne was no stranger to Westerns, though he wasn't yet a household name. Wayne had already appeared in a string of uncredited roles in films by the legendary director John Ford in the late '20s. So, when Ford made his triumphant return to the Western genre with "Stagecoach" he tapped Wayne for the lead character, Ringo Kid.

Casting Wayne was the first of a lengthy series of battles with United Artists. The studio wanted a big name for the film, but Ford had a feeling about the charismatic 32 year old and insisted on him for the role. Ford introduces viewers to Wayne in dramatic fashion, with a zoom-in on a rifle-wielding Ringo Kid in front of a gorgeous landscape of Monument Valley plateaus (where...

Before John Wayne began making low-budget Westerns in the 1930s, stunt performers were rarely, if ever, acknowledged or given credit for their work. Studios didn't want to break the illusion to reveal that it wasn't the main star on-screen performing their own stunts, so the practice became one of Hollywood's biggest secrets. Looking back on the history of stunts from the era, the British Action Academy noted that, during that time, studios and directors began demanding more dangerous stunts that resulted in a large increase in on-set fatalities.

The marquee star wasn't in mortal jeopardy and some actors like Harold Lloyd had it written into their contracts that it could never be revealed when a stuntman was utilized. Tom Mix, the first bonafide movie star, always claimed that he was the one who made the famous horse jump across the Beale's Cut ravine in John Ford's 1923 short film, "3 Jumps Ahead.

Where the industry now embraces the trend of "too big to fail" superhero blockbusters, there was a point in Hollywood history where sprawling religious epics were the big ticket item, with "Ben-Hur" enduring as one of the most successful of its kind. It would be over 38 years until "Titanic," followed by "The Return of the King," would break the unprecedented Oscar streak set by William Wyler's 1959 epic, which took home 11 Academy Awards in one night.

Based on General Lew Wallace's 1880 novel of the same name, "Ben-Hur" stars former Hollywood megastar Charlton Heston as the affluent Jewish prince who is thrust on an epic journey of faith, friendship, and betrayal after his best friend Messala (Stephen Boyd) imprisons him for speaking ill against the Roman Empire.

Clocking in at over three and a half hours, "Ben-Hur" is as much an acting showcase as it is a spectacular display of scope.

Chivalry! Vows of loyalty and honor! Combat action that will impress today’s Marvel fans! The violet eyes and super-damsel figure of Elizabeth Taylor! MGM’s made-in-Merrie Olde England tale of Knights and knaves and forbidden love is yet another suits-of-armor sword-basher about ransoming King Richard from those European Union swine across the channel. Everything clicks, from Miklos Rozsa’s most stirring anthem to the righteous justice of the finale. And it’s restored from 3-strip Technicolor. Robert Taylor is terrific as the stalwart Ivanhoe, the kind of no-funny-business hero they ain’t makin’ anymore.

Ivanhoe

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1952 /Color / 1:37 Academy / 106 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date December 14, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Robert Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders, Emlyn Williams, Robert Douglas, Finlay Currie, Felix Aylmer, Guy Rolfe.

Cinematography: Freddie Young

Art Director: Alfred Junge

Film Editor: Frank Clarke

Original Music: Miklos Rozsa

Written by Aeneas MacKenzie, Marguerite Roberts,...

Legendary stuntman Buddy Joe Hooker joins Josh and Joe to discuss the movies that made him.

Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode

Harold And Maude (1971)

White Lightning (1974)

Blazing Saddles (1974)

White Line Fever (1975)

Bound For Glory (1976)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

The Outsider (1980)

Freebie And The Bean (1978)

Sharky’s Machine (1981)

First Blood (1982)

Night Shift (1982)

Rumble Fish (1983)

Against All Odds (1984)

To Live And Die In L.A. (1985)

F/X (1986)

Tucker The Man And His Dream (1988)

Sea of Love (1989)

Miami Blues (1990)

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Demolition Man (1993)

The Crow (1994)

Waterworld (1995)

From Dusk Till Dawn(1996)

Grosse Point Blank (1997)

Django Unchained (2012)

Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park (1978)

Once Upon A Time In Hollywood (2019)

Seven Samurai (1954)

Kagemusha (1980)

Ran (1985)

The Fugitive (1993)

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

The Bourne Identity (2002)

Casino Royale (2006)

Quantum of Solace (2008)

The Fast And The Furious (2001)

The Strongest Man In The World (1975)

The War of the Worlds (1953)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Bullitt (1968)

Robbery (1967)

S.O.B. (1981)

Vanishing Point...

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By John M. Whalen

There’s an old axiom often quoted by writers that once you find a winning formula for putting stories together, stick with it. That certainly must have been the case back in the 1940s when the films collected together by Kino Lorber for its “Western Classics I” three disc box set were made. “When the Daltons Rode” (1940), “The Virginian” (1946), and “Whispering Smith” (1948) are all different movies, made by different writers and directors, with different settings, characters and plots, but when all is said and done they all basically tell the same story. Two guys who are pals have their friendship strained when they both fall in love with the same woman. It’s obviously a formula that worked.

In “When the Dalton’s Rode,” Tod Jackson (Randolph Scott) is a lawyer who comes west to set up his practice in Oklahoma,...

I’ve always imagined John Wayne as the epitome of gun-toting American racism. And I didn’t expect this white-supremacy parable to change my mind …

See the other classic missed films in this seriesThe best arts and entertainment during self-isolation

When people ask me what kind of films I like, I never know what to say. I like everything! Total trash, high art, comedy, horror, British realism, Czech surrealism, Hong Kong action, Hungarian inaction, you name it. But if there’s one kind of film I’ve never really loved, it’s westerns. Sure, I’ve seen some great ones, but as a genre it has never really appealed. I’m not American. I’m not into guns. And the demonisation and slaughter of indigenous peoples doesn’t really grab me.

Most of all, I’ve never really liked John Wayne. I think of him as the personification of humourless,...

I was recently challenged to list my top 10 favorite movies of all time, which proved an impossible task; however, I can easily name my favorite Decade for filmmaking: the 1930s. Movies truly evolved during this decade, with the final one of 1939 becoming the greatest year ever for films: “Gone with the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “Stagecoach,” “Ninotchka,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “Wuthering Heights” and so many more! Since that special year is celebrating its 80th anniversary, let’s take a look back.

SEEOscar Best Picture Gallery: History of Every Academy Award-Winning Movie

The film industry was still in its youth as the decade rolled in with “talking pictures” becoming the new standard. Besides mastering the technical aspects of that, they were still learning how to develop a story, how to act for the camera as opposed to stage acting, and how to engineer special effects. At the same time,...

Mission: Impossible – Fallout is garnering surprisingly glowing reviews. Don’t get us wrong, the creative team on both sides of the camera is solid and the franchise has never been less than interesting, but when five stars becomes the order of the day, something needs to be said.

What is being said, primarily, is that the story is compelling and the action set-pieces are thrilling. Which sounds an awful lot like praise for old-fashioned film-making mainstays. CGI has given us so much in the past 3 decades, but what it has clearly never been able to replace is the excitement of knowing that what you are watching *really happened*, that even though wires might have been removed and a stunt performer’s face might have been cleverly concealed, someone actually crawled under that moving jeep, someone crashed that car, someone delivered that jumping spin-kick.

The Mission: Impossible franchise has given us...

Leapin’ Lizards! The original cavemen vs. dinosaurs saga is a winner — if viewer involvement trumps visual effects, it’s got a narrow lead over the Hammer/Harryhausen remake. Victor Mature, Carole Landis and Lon Chaney Jr. all made career hay out of their weeks spent running in loincloths, out in the desert. And Vci’s new disc is a terrific UCLA Archive restoration.

One Million B.C.

Blu-ray

Vci

1940 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 80 min. / Street Date September 12, 2017 /

Starring: Victor Mature, Carole Landis, Lon Chaney Jr., Conrad Nagel, John Hubbard, Nigel De Brulier, Mamo Clark, Jean Porter, Inez Palange, Edgar Edwards, Jacqueline Dalya, Mary Gale Fisher.

Cinematography: Norbert Brodine

Film Editor: Ray Snyder

Original Music: Werner R. Heymann

Visual Effects: Roy Seawright, Jack Shaw, Frank Young

Written by Mickell Novack, George Baker, Joseph Frickert

Produced and Directed by Hal Roach

In the late 1930s fantasy and science fiction movies were few and far between,...

Author: Rob Keeling

With Fast and the Furious 8 due out in cinemas this week, it seems only right that we look back at some of the landmark moments in the proud history of ridiculous stunts. The Fast and the Furious movie franchise is one which has firmly embraced the “more is more” approach to set pieces and stunts and while in its infancy it made do with garish cars racing quickly, it now parachutes them out of planes and drives them from building to building.

Since the early days of cinema though, filmmakers have been going to great lengths to make their action sequences really impress:

Safety Last! (1923) – The clock face

In this aptly titled silent comedy, star Harold Lloyd was playing an employee climbing the outside of his work’s building as part of a publicity stunt. How did they make this feat look so realistic with 1920s technology?...

Vividly re-imagined, the new Ben-Hur is a lot of fun to watch, in part because it follows the outline of William Wyler's famed film while injecting fresh new elements. It's not a classic, by any means, but it certainly exceeds expectations. Some things can't be improved upon, such as the legendary chariot race. To be fair, that epic sequence from 1959, directed by Yakima Canutt and Andrew Marton and influenced heavily by the 1925 silent version, is burned into my brain from more than two dozen viewings and still sends chills down my spine, so I can't imagine any restaging would ever come close. Taken as a whole, however, this is a more than respectable staging of the material. It all started with Lew Wallace's...

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

This early John Wayne oater displays the natural star quality and winning personality that sustained him through the 1930s -- it's a naïve, charming western that features some of The Duke's closest early associates. 'Neath Arizona Skies Blu-ray Olive Films 1934 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 52 min. / Street Date July 19, 2016 / available through the Olive Films website / 24.95 Starring John Wayne, Sheila Terry, Shirley Jane Rickert, Jack Rockwell, Yakima Canutt, Weston Edwards, Jay Wilsey, Earl Dwire, George 'Gabby' Hayes. Cinematography Archie Stout Film Editor Charles Hunt Original Music Billly Barber Written by Burl R. Tuttle from his story. Produced by Paul Malvern Directed by Harry L. Fraser

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Want to see where our western film heritage really came from? Big studios made giant wagon train movies, epics about the railroad and star-driven biographies of Billy the Kid, but the genre was sustained by a steady diet of six reel 'oaters,...

Photo credit: Philippe Antonello

© 2016 Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Paramount Pictures has released a brand new featurette for director Timur Bekmambetov’s upcoming film Ben-hur – in theaters August 19, 2016.

Ben-hur is the epic story of Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston), a prince falsely accused of treason by his adopted brother Messala (Toby Kebbell), an officer in the Roman army. Stripped of his title, separated from his family and the woman he loves (Nazanin Boniadi), Judah is forced into slavery. After years at sea, Judah returns to his homeland to seek revenge, but finds redemption. Based on Lew Wallace’s timeless novel, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. Also starring Morgan Freeman and Rodrigo Santoro. (Trailer)

See how the team brought the chariot race to life in this new featurette.

One of the highlights of the 1959 film, which ran 212 minutes, is its now-legendary chariot race, staged largely by stunt expert Yakima Canutt. Ben-hur’s Oscar haul included Best Picture, Best Director for the legendary William Wyler, Best Actor for Heston, and Best Supporting Actor for Welsh actor Hugh Griffith as an Arab sheik.

Visit the official site: www.benhurmovie.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BenHurFilm/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/benhurmovie

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/benhurmovie/

The post Watch The New Chariot Race Featurette For Ben-hur appeared first on We Are Movie Geeks.

Ramon Novarro: 'Ben-Hur' 1925 star. 'Ben-Hur' on TCM: Ramon Novarro in most satisfying version of the semi-biblical epic Christmas 2015 is just around the corner. That's surely the reason Turner Classic Movies presented Fred Niblo's Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ last night, Dec. 20, '15, featuring Carl Davis' magnificent score. Starring Ramon Novarro, the 1925 version of Ben-Hur became not only the most expensive movie production,[1] but also the biggest worldwide box office hit up to that time.[2] Equally important, that was probably the first instance when the international market came to the rescue of a Hollywood mega-production,[3] saving not only Ben-Hur from a fate worse than getting trampled by a runaway chariot, but also the newly formed Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which could have been financially strangled at birth had the epic based on Gen. Lew Wallace's bestseller been a commercial bomb. The convoluted making of 'Ben-Hur,' as described...

Vivien Leigh ca. late 1940s. Vivien Leigh movies: now controversial 'Gone with the Wind,' little-seen '21 Days Together' on TCM Vivien Leigh is Turner Classic Movies' star today, Aug. 18, '15, as TCM's “Summer Under the Stars” series continues. Mostly a stage actress, Leigh was seen in only 19 films – in about 15 of which as a leading lady or star – in a movie career spanning three decades. Good for the relatively few who saw her on stage; bad for all those who have access to only a few performances of one of the most remarkable acting talents of the 20th century. This evening, TCM is showing three Vivien Leigh movies: Gone with the Wind (1939), 21 Days Together (1940), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). Leigh won Best Actress Academy Awards for the first and the third title. The little-remembered film in-between is a TCM premiere. 'Gone with the Wind' Seemingly all...

It's fitting that Clint Eastwood and John Wayne both have the same birthday week. (Wayne, who died in 1979, was born May 26, 1907, while Eastwood turns 85 on May 31). After all, these two all-American actors' careers span the history of that most American of movie genres, the western.

Both iconic actors were top box office draws for decades, both seldom stretched from their familiar personas, and both played macho, conservative cowboy heroes who let their firearms do most of the talking. Each represented one of two very different strains of western, the traditional and the revisionist.

As a birthday present to Hollywood's biggest heroes of the Wild West, here are the top 57 westerns you need to see.

57. 'Meek's Cutoff' (2010)

Indie filmmaker Kelly Reichardt and her frequent leading lady, Michelle Williams, are the talents behind this sparse, docudrama about an 1845 wagon train whose Oregon Trail journey goes horribly awry. It's an intense...

For the sixth consecutive year, thousands of movie lovers from around the globe descended upon Hollywood for the TCM Classic Film Festival. The 2015 festival took take place Thursday, March 26 – Sunday, March 29, 2015 and no matter your favorite genre, attendees were treated to an extensive lineup of great movies, appearances by legendary stars and filmmakers, fascinating presentations and panel discussions, special events and more.

Friday night’s screening of Apollo 13 was definitely one of the most exciting events of the festival. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, Ron Howard’s impressive telling of the nearly doomed mission of the 3 astronauts aboard Apollo 13 looked as spectacular as the first time audiences saw it 20 years ago.

Host and long-time Nasa enthusiast Alex Trebek was on hand to introduce the film, as well as introduce fans in attendance to the real Captain Jim Lovell (played in the film by Tom Hanks). Also joining them on...

Honorary Award: Gloria Swanson, Rita Hayworth among dozens of women bypassed by the Academy (photo: Honorary Award non-winner Gloria Swanson in 'Sunset Blvd.') (See previous post: "Honorary Oscars: Doris Day, Danielle Darrieux Snubbed.") Part three of this four-part article about the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Honorary Award bypassing women basically consists of a long, long — and for the most part quite prestigious — list of deceased women who, some way or other, left their mark on the film world. Some of the names found below are still well known; others were huge in their day, but are now all but forgotten. Yet, just because most people (and the media) suffer from long-term — and even medium-term — memory loss, that doesn't mean these women were any less deserving of an Honorary Oscar. So, among the distinguished female film professionals in Hollywood and elsewhere who have passed away without...

Stuntman and Burt Reynolds director Hal Needham dead at 82: Received Honorary Oscar in November 2012 Veteran stuntman and stunt coordinator Hal Needham, whose stunt-work movie credits ranged from John Ford Westerns to Roman Polanski’s Chinatown, and who directed a handful of popular action comedies starring Burt Reynolds, died today, October 25, 2013, in Los Angeles. Needham, who had been suffering from cancer, was 82. (See also: "Stunt Worker Hal Needham: Honorary Oscar 2012".) Born in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 6, 1931, Hal Needham began his long Hollywood stuntman career in the mid-’50s. A former tree trimmer and paratrooper, and a motorcycle and car racer, Needham performed stunts in both big-screen and small-screen Westerns, such as John Ford’s 1962 classic The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, starring John Wayne and James Stewart; the all-star 1963 Best Picture Academy Award nominee How the West Was Won; and the television series Have Gun - Will Travel, doubling for star Richard Boone.

Winning an honorary Oscar last year was legendary stuntman Hal Needham, the son of Arkansas sharecroppers with eight years of education, a paratrooper who tested parachutes by making over 400 jumps out of airplanes. Needham has died at age 82 from complications from cancer. He cried at all the warm tributes he received at the at the Governors Awards.  Only one stuntman ever got the Oscar: Yakima Canutt, said presenter Quentin Tarantino: "Needham pushed boundaries in 60s action with better fights." He made good in Hollywood as a stuntman innovator, founder of Stunts Unlimited and director ("Smokey and the Bandit," "Cannonball Run"). And in so doing he suffered many cracked ribs, a punctured lung, and a broken back. Producer Al Ruddy told an hilarious story about Needham shooting off a test missile on the Goldwyn lot that tore through soundstage ten-- and set it on fire. "He's someone you could depend on,...

Hattie McDaniel as Mammy in ‘Gone with the Wind’: TCM schedule on August 20, 2013 (photo: Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in ‘Gone with the Wind’) See previous post: “Hattie McDaniel: Oscar Winner Makes History.” 3:00 Am Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943). Director: David Butler. Cast: Joan Leslie, Dennis Morgan, Eddie Cantor, Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, John Garfield, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, Dinah Shore, Alexis Smith, Jack Carson, Alan Hale, George Tobias, Edward Everett Horton, S.Z. Sakall, Hattie McDaniel, Ruth Donnelly, Don Wilson, Spike Jones, Henry Armetta, Leah Baird, Willie Best, Monte Blue, James Burke, David Butler, Stanley Clements, William Desmond, Ralph Dunn, Frank Faylen, James Flavin, Creighton Hale, Sam Harris, Paul Harvey, Mark Hellinger, Brandon Hurst, Charles Irwin, Noble Johnson, Mike Mazurki, Fred Kelsey, Frank Mayo, Joyce Reynolds, Mary Treen, Doodles Weaver. Bw-127 mins. 5:15 Am Janie (1944). Director: Michael Curtiz. Cast: Joyce Reynolds, Robert Hutton,...

Resurrecting the Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp must’ve sounded like one of the all-time Hollywood no-brainers when it was pitched to Disney in 2011. After all, the mysterious masked man used to be the all-American icon with the greatest chase-music (“The William Tell Overture”), the greatest sidekick (Tonto), and the greatest catchphrase (“Hi-yo, Silver, away!”). Plus, though Depp is playing a boldly reimagined Tonto opposite Armie Hammer’s Ranger, he was reuniting with producer Jerry Bruckheimer and director Gore Verbinski, the creative triumvirate that made Disney billions with the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. But getting The Lone Ranger into...

The New Normal wraps its first season tonight.

News

As The Esquire Network continues filling out its schedule, The Hollywood Reporter reports that the channel has picked up Burn Notice and Psych along with a travel series following photjournalist Matt Hranek.

The Carrie Diaries producer Amy B. Harris teases the finale to The Hollywood Reporter and says that a Sex and the City character will be introduced — but not seen — in next week's finale... and it's not the SatC character who appears in the book.

This week CNN will be airing less repeats of Anderson Cooper 360 to make room for a panel show called The Point. The panel will include Donny Deutsch, Margaret Hoover and... I lost interest before I could finish checking if I was recording anything else at the time.

Buzzfeed has estimated how many waffles Leslie Knope eats if she spends over a thousand dollars a year on waffles.

Stuntman turned director Hal Needham, documentarian D.A. Pennebaker and director/producer George Stevens, Jr. will be feted with honorary Oscars at the Governors Awards on Dec. 1. And studio exec Jeffrey Katzenberg will receive the Hersholt humanitarian award then as well. This is the first time in the four-year history of these kudos that the academy's Board of Governors failed to fete any onscreen talent.  Needham, who worked as a stunt man and then coordinator on hundreds of films before turning to directing a string of Burt Reynolds action comedies like "Smokey and the Bandit," was honored in 1986 with a Scientific and Engineering Award for the design and development of the Shotmaker Elite camera car and crane. Now retired at 81, he never contended for an Oscar. He follows in the footsteps of his mentor Yakima Cannutt, who was honored in 1966.  Despite crafting such classic documentaries as "Primary," &q...

Gone With The Wind Actress Ann Rutherford Dies. [Photo: Ann Rutherford as Carreen O'Hara, Evelyn Keyes as Suellen O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.]

Ann Rutherford‘s most notable screen roles were in films made away from both MGM and Wallace Beery. She was a young woman who falls for trumpeter George Montgomery in Archie Mayo’s 20th Century Fox musical Orchestra Wives (1942), and became enmeshed with (possibly) amnesiac Tom Conway in Anthony Mann’s Rko thriller Two O’Clock Courage (1945).

Following a couple of minor supporting roles — in the Danny Kaye comedy The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) at Goldwyn and the Errol Flynn costumer The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) at Warner Bros. — and the female lead in the independently made cattle drama Operation Haylift (1950), opposite Bill Williams, Ann Rutherford retired from the screen. (Rutherford would later say that her Operation Haylift experience was anything but pleasant.)

She then turned to television, making regular television appearances in the ’50s (The Donna Reed Show, Playhouse 90,...

The face that launched all those ships is played by the comparatively unknown Rosanna Podesta, surrounded by a distinguished cast and thousands of real extras, not pixels. This Hollywood epic shot at Cinecitta is not the movie to use for an easy book report on The Iliad, as Homer’s version of events differs from the events as depicted here. The versatile Robert Wise fills the Scope screen with intelligent spectacle, aided by memorable second unit work by Yakima Canutt and an uncredited Sergio Leone.

In our inaugural weekly edition of Scenes We Love, I wanted to find a perfectly topical scene, seeing as it is Easter Sunday. But as it turns out, there aren’t too many great scenes worth revisiting from “Easter movies.” Unless, of course, you’d like to re-watch Jim Caviezel being whipped to shit as Jesus in Mel Gibson’s 2004 The Passion of the Christ. It’s a well constructed scene that delivers the maximum possible emotional impact, especially for those who really love their Jesus, but it’s not exactly a scene we love. We appreciate it, but we don’t love it. So instead of making you watch Jesus get brutalized, lets watch one of the all-time great race scenes, the Chariot Race from the 1959 William Wyler epic Ben-Hur, starring Charlton Heston. The story of Judah Ben-Hur is intercut with that of Jesus of Nazareth, so it’s more than topical on Easter. Also...

The Legend of the Lone Ranger (Original Release Date: 22 May 1981)

The Legend of the Lone Ranger is one of my favorite movies, and much of this review will be a love letter to it. I re-watched it for the review, but I didn't need to. If I were stranded on an island and had to reconstruct movie narratives to keep my sanity, I'd manage with The Legend of the Lone Ranger as well as I'd manage with The Empire Strikes Back or E.T.

People generally like The Empire Strikes Back and E.T. The same can't be said for The Legend of the Lone Ranger. The only group that wound up hating it more than the critics was the viewing public. I had no sense of this as a very young kid, though I would grow to suspect it when I moved back to America in the late eighties.

Blank stares...

As one YouTube user so eloquently puts it: “Ingrid Pitt, you can bite my neck with pleasure.” The Polish actress and star of films like The Vampire Lovers and Countess Dracula, died on 23 November, just two days after celebrating her 73rd birthday. Sadly, it turns out that all the fake blood she imbibed over the years didn’t make her immortal. Fortunately, her screen image was so indelible that she’ll live on in the hearts and minds of horror fans.

Fittingly, Pitt who was born Ingoushka Petrov, made her screen debut in the obscure 1964 Spanish film El sonido de la muerte, which was known in the Us as Sound of Horror. From the brief clip I’ve seen, it would appear that the budget only stretched as far as providing some very unconvincing dinosaur sound effects. Still, even horror queens have to start somewhere.

After uncredited appearances in Doctor Zhivago...

Hollywood stuntmen don’t get a lot of respect these days. Most of their work is now done by nerdy guys drinking Mountain Dew in front of a computer screen at f/x houses. But there was a time when daredevils routinely put their lives on the line just so we might feel a few goosebumps. Legends like Yakima Canutt, Dar Robinson, and Terry Leonard. But before any of those guys fell from a 4o-story building or lit themselves on fire, there was one man who pushed the envelope on risking his neck on celluloid: silent-movie star Buster Keaton.

Keaton...

Stagecoach Directed by: John Ford Written by: Dudley Nichols Starring: John Wayne, Claire Trevor, John Carradine, Andy Devine With comic book movies and fantasy films ruling the box office, it's safe to say that the 'B movie' is now 'the A movie'. While the idea of the blockbuster is nothing new, there seems to have been a shift in the quality of talent that have attached themselves to films that years ago might have been considered substandard (actually, most of it still is substandard). Similarly, the western was once considered pure pulp filmmaking until John Ford's Stagecoach set a standard that legitimized the American western and turned a B movie actor (John Wayne) into a legend. While the plot of Stagecoach is pretty straightforward, the characterizations are fairly subversive considering this was Ford's first 'talkie' western. The first act of the film takes its time setting up the multitude...

"Broadsword Calling Danny Boy..."

The eagerly-awaited Cinema Retro Movie Classics Where Eagles Dare special edition issue is right on schedule. The magazine is now shipping worldwide. This first issue in the Cinema Retro Movie Classics series is not part of our subscription plan. It must be purchased individually. If you have pre-paid for your issue, you don't need to do a thing. It will be sent to you this week. If you have contacted us to reserve an issue, now is the time to remit your payment.

If you are a customer in the UK or Europe, the fee (which includes postage costs) is as follows: UK: £15. Europe: £17.00. Payment by cheque (to Cinema Retro) to -

Cinema Retro Po Box 1570 Christchurch Dorset BH23 4XSEngland or by Pay Pal (our UK/European recipient address is: solopublishing@firenet.uk.com) Note To Non-european/UK Customers:

The price is $30 for America and Canada...

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This Issue Is Now Permanently Sold Out!

Welcome to an exciting new concept for Cinema Retro: the introduction of special magazines that celebrate specific classic and cult films. We routinely get bombarded with letters and E mails from readers around the world who suggest extensive coverage of their favorite films. The problem is, of course, is that even our Film in Focus sections runs only 8 pages – which is certainly enough to do justice to the average movie, but is woefully inadequate to cover all aspects of those films that deserve even more extensive analysis. Thus, we’ll be periodically introducing special stand-alone tribute issues that will be limited edition collector’s items. These editions are titled Cinema Retro Movie Classics. As with the regular issues of Cinema Retro, we anticipate these will increase in value significantly. We’ve decided to market these...