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Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies' Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies' July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM presented five Colman star vehicles that should be popping up again in the not-too-distant future: A Tale of Two Cities, The Prisoner of Zenda, Kismet, Lucky Partners, and My Life with Caroline. The first two movies are among not only Colman's best, but also among Hollywood's best during its so-called Golden Age. Based on Charles Dickens' classic novel, Jack Conway's Academy Award-nominated A Tale of Two Cities (1936) is a rare Hollywood production indeed: it manages to effectively condense its sprawling source, it boasts first-rate production values, and it features a phenomenal central performance. Ah, it also shows its star without his trademark mustache – about as famous at the time as Clark Gable's. Perhaps...

By Hank Reineke

The Vampire Bat (1933) was a staple of TV late-night movie programming well into the 1980s. Too often the running time of this maltreated film was irreverently trimmed or stretched to accommodate commercial breaks or better fit into a predetermined time slot. With black-and-white films almost completely banished from the schedules of local television affiliates by 1987, TV Guide disrespectfully dismissed The Vampire Bat as a “Dated, slow-motion chiller.” That’s an unfair appraisal. But with the MTV generation in the ascendant and Fangoria gleefully splashing the lurid and blood-red exploits of such slice-and-dice horror icons as Michael Meyers, Jason Voorhees, and Freddy Krueger on its covers, it’s somewhat understandable why the other-worldly atmospherics of The Vampire Bat were perceived as little more than a celluloid curio – an antiquated footnote in the annals of classic horror.

The Vampire Bat is hardly original. The film was, no doubt, conceived...

'Ben-Hur' 1959 with Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston: TCM's '31 Days of Oscar.' '31 Days of Oscar': 'Lawrence of Arabia' and 'Ben-Hur' are in, Paramount stars are out Today, Feb. 1, '16, Turner Classic Movies is kicking off the 21st edition of its “31 Days of Oscar.” While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is being vociferously reviled for its “lack of diversity” – more on that appallingly myopic, self-serving, and double-standard-embracing furore in an upcoming post – TCM is celebrating nearly nine decades of the Academy Awards. That's the good news. The disappointing news is that if you're expecting to find rare Paramount, Universal, or Fox/20th Century Fox entries in the mix, you're out of luck. So, missing from the TCM schedule are, among others: Best Actress nominees Ruth Chatterton in Sarah and Son, Nancy Carroll in The Devil's Holiday, Claudette Colbert in Private Worlds. Unofficial Best Actor...

William Cameron Menzies. William Cameron Menzies movies on TCM: Murderous Joan Fontaine, deadly Nazi Communists Best known as an art director/production designer, William Cameron Menzies was a jack-of-all-trades. It seems like the only things Menzies didn't do was act and tap dance in front of the camera. He designed and/or wrote, directed, produced, etc., dozens of films – titles ranged from The Thief of Bagdad to Invaders from Mars – from the late 1910s all the way to the mid-1950s. Among Menzies' most notable efforts as an art director/production designer are: Ernst Lubitsch's first Hollywood movie, the Mary Pickford star vehicle Rosita (1923). Herbert Brenon's British-set father-son drama Sorrell and Son (1927). David O. Selznick's mammoth production of Gone with the Wind, which earned Menzies an Honorary Oscar. The Sam Wood movies Our Town (1940), Kings Row (1942), and For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943). H.C. Potter's Mr. Lucky...

Richard Johnson (far right) in the 1963 supernatural masterpiece "The Haunting" with Claire Bloom, Russ Tamblyn and Julie Harris.

 

By Lee Pfeiffer

Cinema Retro mourns the loss of our friend, actor Richard Johnson, who has passed away at age 87. Johnson was a classically trained actor, having attended Rada and was also one of the founding members of the Royal Shakespeare Company. His acting career was interrupted by service in the Royal Navy during WWII but Johnson resumed his profession at the end of the war. He alternated between playing small parts in feature films and leading roles in stage productions. In 1959, he got his first significant screen role starring with Frank Sinatra and young Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson in the WWII film "Never So Few".  He was initially offered the role of James Bond but turned down the opportunity. He later told Cinema Retro that he had no regrets because...

R.I.P Dr. Markway. I recently watched British actor Richard Johnson as Bulldog Drummond in Deadlier Than The Male, a tough and stylish Bond pastiche from 1967 with an odd Avengers twist. His Drummond was suave and sophisticated and I wasn’t surprised to read that Johnson was (one of many to be) considered for 007. And I was thinking just last night when I was watching Insidious 3 that I wished I was instead watching a better-crafted, genuinely creepy horror story like The Haunting (1963), which starred also Johnson. The actor had a varied career, starring in diverse roles ranging from Caius Cassius opposite Charlton Heston in Julius Caesar (1970) to Dr. Menard in Lucio Fulci’s unforgettable Zombie in 1979. Richard Johnson died in London yesterday at age 87.

From The BBC News:

British actor Richard Johnson, whose career spanned film, theatre and TV, has died aged 87, his family has said. Johnson made...

Unrepped writer Richard Galazka’s romantic comedy Matinee Idol and Malachi Smyth’s Gateway 6 topped the annual Brit List of best unproduced screenplays. Both projects received nine votes. The list is compiled by UK producers, agents, distributors and sales companies, who aren’t allowed to vote for their own projects. Other qualifying criteria include receiving a minimum of three votes and not having featured on previous Brit Lists.

Previous films to appear on the Brit List include The King’s Speech, Welcome To The Punch, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and most recently The Riot Club.

Matinee Idol is being produced by Rooks Nest Entertainment. Sentinel Entertainment is behind Gateway 6, a futuristic sci-fi project. 42, one of the UK’s most dynamic production and management companies, had two projects on the shortlist: Jay Basu’s The Pier and Outside The Wire, from screenwriting duo Rowan Athale and Rob Yescombe

There were 140 entries,...

Rom-com and sci-fi top industry selection of hot unproduced screenplays.Scroll down for full list

Romantic comedy Matinee Idol by writer Richard Galazka and sci-fi Gateway 6 by Malachi Smyth lead this year’s Brit List, the industry selection of hot unproduced screenplays.

Both scripts recorded nine industry votes to top the list.

Rooks Nest Entertainment are producing Matinee Idol, about a cinephile who tries to win a girl’s heart by pretending to be someone he’s not, only to learn that it takes more than grand gestures to turn fantasy into reality.

Sentinel Entertainment are behind futuristic sci-fi Gateway 6, in which on a war-ravaged Earth, four soldiers man the last bastion – an outpost in a sea-covered continent.

Jay Basu’s The Pier, produced by 42, and Krysty Wilson-Cairns’ Aether, from FilmNation, followed with eight votes.

The list is compiled by a combination of UK producers, agents, distributors and sales companies.

There were 140 entries...

Feature Andrew Blair 19 Nov 2013 - 06:39

In this week of Doctor Who celebration, Andrew salutes just a few of the individuals whose talent and hard work made the show what it is...

In the history of Doctor Who there are many names in the end credits that always seem to stand out. For some reason, I always look out for Alec Wheal in Eighties Who credits or, since 2005, the Script Editor. Over the years there have been hundreds of unsung contributors behind the scenes, and this article seeks to celebrate a handful of those who put in one helluva slog for our benefit.

Oh, and in researching this article I discovered that Dorka Nieradzik – who worked on Logopolis, Revelation of the Daleks and Silver Nemesis to name but a few – now appears to be Clive Owen's personal Hair and Make Up Artist.

It's not really relevant or anything, but...

Swashbuckling actor who starred in Adventures of Don Juan and Robin Hood dies following heart attack

Vancouver, October 15

Errol Flynn, the film actor, whose favourite saying was "the way of a transgressor is not as hard as they claim," died in Vancouver last night in the apartment of a doctor friend. He had dropped in for a drink, but suddenly complained of a pain in his back and died of a heart attack - his fourth. He was 50.

Obituary

Errol Flynn was born on June 20, 1909, in Hobart, Tasmania, where his father and mother were cruising on a marine biological study. His father, Professor Theodore Thompson Flynn, of Queen's College, Belfast, is an authority on ocean life and is at present engaged on research work at London University. In Beam Ends, the first of three books he wrote, Errol Flynn recounted that in his early days, before he started acting, he was a policeman,...

Genuinely fascist films made in democratic countries are agreeably scarce, although Gregory La Cava's Gabriel Over the White House (1933)—or President Jesus Hitler as a friend dubbed it—could certainly qualify, even if it does veer around a lot, almost as if a Hollywood film were trying to avoid committing itself politically. Nominations for other fascist films will be gratefully considered.

Bulldog Drummond was featured in ten novels by a pseudonymous character called "Sapper," (to sap: to slug over the head, British slang). Drummond, an ex-soldier bored by civilian life, advertises for adventure and finds it, as detailed in 1929 Bulldog Drummond with Ronald Colman. This movie largely avoids the racism and jingoistic fervor of the source novels, and seems to play the more brutal moments for laughs, as when Colman exchanges sweet nothings with Joan Bennett while cheerfully throttling Lionel Atwill.

The books' biggest influence in an indirect one:...

It's Ho Ho Holmes as a blizzard of festive season franchises takes over our cinemas. But why are they all so retro?

The Christmas Franchise Frenzy gets under way this week, a steady, unceasing carpet-bombardment of the world's multiplexes starting with an epic face-off – at the box-office, at least – between the oddly archaic figure of Sherlock Holmes, and Mission: Impossible's Ethan Hunt, now only slightly less retro, give or take eight decades, than Holmes himself. One retooled franchise from yesteryear versus another, with the similarly aged Alvin And The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked nibbling up the crumbs, perhaps hoping in vain to avenge the box-office spanking that Alvin And The Chipmunks: The Squeakwel suffered at the hands of the first Sherlock Holmes movie over Christmas 2009.

Funny to notice it's all non-superhero action movies for Christmas this year; I guess superheroes, given all their testosterone, are a spring and summer phenomenon,...

With the next Sherlock Holmes movie on the horizon, David looks at a few other literary heroes that deserve a fresh chance on the big screen…

Classic suspense heroes are getting a lot of Hollywood attention at the moment. Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows will be released in December, and Robert Downey Jr wants to similarly reinvent Perry Mason, while Miss Marple will apparently turn into Jennifer Garner.

Meanwhile, The Saint, as played by James Purefoy, will return to the small-screen in a TV movie called The Saint In New Orleans. With this in mind, here are a few other classic characters that could be similarly adapted.

Sexton Blake

Originally a Holmes pretender, this character evolved into a hybrid of Holmes, James Bond and Indiana Jones, going on to become the most documented fictional character in the history of the English language, with over two thousand stories and novels published.

The unstoppable philistine known as Death claims another Trailers From Hell patron saint.

Horror legend Jimmy Sangster has died, which should — in your exploration of genre classics (or just watching through the numerous trailers for films that feature his name) — mean something to you. If it doesn’t, Tim Lucas has an all-encompassing reminder of why it should:

After his first screenwriting credit (Joseph Losey’s A Man On The Beach, 1955), Sangster’s list of screenplay credentials form an impressive overview of Britain’s contribution to fantastic cinema over four decades:

X – The Unknown (1956), Blood Of The Vampire (1958), The Mummy (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Hellfire Club (1959), Jack The Ripper (1960), The Terror Of The Tongs (1960), Taste Of Fear (aka Scream Of Fear, 1961), The Pirates Of Blood River (1961), Maniac (1963), Paranoiac (1963), Hysteria (1964), The Devil-ship Pirates (1964), The Nanny (1965, his personal favorite), the Bulldog Drummond adventure Deadlier Than The Male (1967), The Anniversary...

There are Tons of new releases this past week, and as my co-host and friend Travis George said, it was going to be a hell of a time to write these up for all of you people out there who want to know about Criterion’s blossoming Hulu Plus page. And as usual, I’m elated to tell you all about these films, especially if you want to join up to the service, which helps us keep this weekly article series going. I mean, come on, there’s an Ingmar Bergman film that’s not in the collection yet! More on that at the end of the article. So let’s get right to it then.

The epic film The Human Condition (1959) has been put up, separated into three videos. Parts 1 & 2, Parts 3 & 4 and Parts 5 & 6 are there for your ease of watching, so if you have 574 minutes to kill watching the...

The first entry in the greatest tentpole series of all time, seven of which starred Sean Connery in the role that made him an international star. Amazingly, author Ian Fleming wanted composer-actor Hoagy Carmichael to play his licensed-to-kill Agent 007. The then-groundbreaking amorality of the concept led Patrick McGoohan to turn down the role, as did Richard Johnson (who later played in two Bond-like Bulldog Drummond films) and Roger Moore, who later replaced Connery as Bond.

With a new year dawning, you may be asking yourself, "How can I succeed? What can a company do to innovate?" Here are 10 ways to find yourself reimagining your work and changing your business for the better.

1. Do Something New For The First Time Original thinking, disruptive concepts, and new-to-world products demand both inventive and pragmatic thinking. Constantly in search of what next, we often forget what new really feels like. So this coming year, plan to remind yourself what it feels like to experience something new for the very first time. Plan opportunities to do the sublime and the ridiculous for the very first time, and plan these events throughout the year. Challenge yourselves to sky-diving, improv class, growing your own vegetables, and cooking a 5 course meal for 20 of your colleagues. Or brew your own beer, plan an InnovationFest, take a car engine apart and put it back together,...

"Harry Potter" Producer David Barron ("Harry Potter" series of films) and his Runaway Fridge Films have joined forces with Pria Viswalingam's Fork Films to develop as well as co-produce "Bulldog Drummond." The big-budget film will be based on the British action hero created by Sapper, a.k.a. Herman Cyril McNeile back in 1920. The pic will be based on the story by Dennis Kleinman and John Collee and Phil Rymer, of Rymer Media Law will serve as an executive producer. The character of "Bulldog Drummond" was a World War II veteran who was bored with his life as a civilian and was one of the most popular literary characters of the 1920s. Character even influenced the creation of James Bond due to his British gentleman demeanor...

Before Ian Fleming created England's superspy James Bond, there was Bulldog Drummond. Popular in the 1920s, the character of Bulldog Drummond was a British veteran of World War I who is bored with civilian life so he becomes a private investigator. His "Brit gent" demeanor is said to have influenced the creation of 007. Harry Potter producer David Barron and his Runaway Fridge Films will make the movie with Australia's Fork Films.

Source: Variety...

Himan Brown worked the radio industry from the late 1920s, and went on to produce such radio and television series as Inner Sanctum, Lights Out, and CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

Brown was born on July 21, 1910, the son of Russian immigrants from the Ukraine. He began working in radio in the late 1920s, reading newspapers for a New York station. He continued to work as a radio actor while beginning to produce programs. Brown oversaw over 30,000 radio programs during his eight-decade career, including The Adventures of the Thin Man, Inner Sanctum, The Affairs of Peter Salem, Bulldog Drummond, Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon, The Private Files of Rex Saunders, Terry and the Pirates, and Barrie Craig, Confidential Investigator. He also directed episodes of many of the shows he produced. He moved into television in the late 1940s, producing the syndicated series Lights Out, Inner Sanctum, and The Chevy Mystery Show.

Brown died...

'What really buys you freedom is being successful. So long as you deliver, they leave you alone'

For someone best known for Shooting the Past, a television drama apparently so slow and un-televisual that BBC executives begged him to speed it up, Stephen Poliakoff is a very fast talker. Sentences tumble into one another, thoughts jerkily digress, regroup and change their angle of attack. Ideas flit in and out of focus as all the while a plastic drinking straw is furiously twiddled between his fingers. Outlining details of his latest venture, Glorious 39, his first feature film for 12 years, Poliakoff makes glancing references to George W Bush, Bulldog Drummond, the history of the wire tap and Norfolk's evergreen oaks in expressing his fascination and horror at the aristocratic and establishment appeasers who, in the run-up to the second world war, mounted a desperate last effort to do a deal with...