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The Naked and the Dead is a film about leadership in war. It asks the question, should leaders do anything for victory, or consider their men? The movie is based on the Norman Mailer novel, and adapted to the screen by the brothers Denis  and Terry Sanders. Mailer, didn’t like the movie version of his […]

The war film wasn’t a staple of Hollywood until the Second World War. Its beginnings are rooted in The Big Parade. This movie takes place in World War One. The Great War wasn’t far from memory at the time of its release. It shows the excitement of soldiers to be going to war, and the

There are some movies that should not be remade. King Kong falls into this category. The original is a combination of horror and a tragic love story. It is well made, with extraordinary special effects for its time. This one features  two future academy award winners in Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange. They would have

You can expect many things from Lon Chaney. The one thing is a masterful performance. His characters almost always have pathos. This is a characteristic, attributed to Charlie Chaplin. Lon Chaney was a master of it. He also knew how to use makeup. He did his own for his characters. It was before makeup was

Teen comedies are to the eighties, what screwball comedies were to the thirties. There was an abundance of them. They created overnight stars with Molly Ringwald and Andrew McCarthy. Pretty in Pink is one those films. It stars Ringwald and McCarthy. They play Andie and Blane. They are the center of a modern Cinderella story.

Film noir has many things that define it. Shady characters, anti-heroes, and femme fatales. There aren’t any real good guys, but certainly a fair amount of bad guys. There is one character, who isn’t good, but is sympathetic. That is Doc Erwin Reidenschneider. He is played very well by Sam  Jaffe. He is the only

Sequels often don’t live up to the original. Dracula: Prince of Darkness does to a point. It manages to have beautiful women in distress, Barbara Shelley, (Helen) and Suzan Farmer, (Diana). It even has an overused but effective element. That is people warned not to go somewhere, but ignore the warning. They were warned by

The Black Cat is the first teaming of Karloff and Lugosi. It was the first of their ten movies together. They were at the time of this movie, big stars for the studio. Lugosi plays Dr. Vitus Werdegast. He is a man with an obsession. He desires nothing more than vengeance against Hjalmar Poelzig, (Karloff).

Howard Hawks is known for his male themed movies. Not everyone knows about how he transformed women into formidable actresses. This was the case with Carol Lombard. She was working with Hawks, and acting alongside John Barrymore. Lombard was struggling with a scene, frustrating both Hawks and Barrymore. The instruction from the director, was to

Kirk Douglas doesn’t act in The Vikings. He entertains. It the type of entertainment that would have been common when Shakespeare wrote his plays. The audience isn’t focused on the main story. It’s weak. Douglas and his antics in the film, as Einar, are somewhat amusing.He performs a stunt jumping off the oars of the