Not a bad little film, but I was bit disappointed with the result given the status of the cast.
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Hobson's Choice, 1954. Directed by David Lean.
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In the middle of the movie, Henry Hobson (Charles Laughton) staggers drunk out of his favorite bar, "The Moonrakers", and pursues the full moon's reflection in a puddle. This is likely an allusion to the legend of the Wiltshire moonrakers. An exciseman caught smugglers using rakes to retrieve barrels of contraband brandy hidden in a pond, but they explained they were after a wheel of cheese, pointing to the reflected moon. So the exciseman laughed at them and left them in peace.
Sir John Mills often cited this as his favorite movie.
Murder on the Orient Express, 1974. directed by Sidney Lumet. Albert Finney takes the role of Belgian detective Poirot.
Top class cast and Finney was superb.
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The luxury food that is inspected and carried aboard the train early in the movie had been stolen from the set just before shooting. All of the food had to be bought again, in the middle of the night, on-location in Paris, France.
The final scene, in which Poirot relates his solution to the crime, had to be shot countless times, as it required more angles than could be captured in a single take, and more cameras than could fit on the confining dining car set. The multiple takes were especially challenging for Albert Finney, whose uninterrupted monologue was eight pages long, but many cast members later recalled the tedium of sitting motionless for so long, maintaining their physical posturing for continuity, bolstered only by their professional drive to provide support for Finney's tour de force.
Now a more modern version, also an all star cast...Murder on the Orient Express, 2017. directed by and starring as Poirot, ...Kenneth Branagh.
The Orient Express ran over a variety of routes. The "Classic" Orient Express ran between Paris and Istanbul via Strasbourg, Munich, Vienna, Budapest, and Bucharest. The train in this movie, as a station announcement makes clear, is the Simplon Orient Express, which ran via Milan, Venice, Belgrade, and Sofia.
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Johnny Depp asked director Branagh to apologize to Derek Jacobi on his behalf after filming their scene together, "because I had to shout at him, I don't want to shout at Derek Jacobi."
Veteran actress Jacqueline Bisset, who starred in Murder on the Orient Express (1974), told director Kenneth Branagh how excruciating it was to shoot the extended scene in which the murder was revealed. To avoid this feeling among the actors and actresses in his version, Branagh shot his side as Poirot first, cut wherever he could when shooting the actors and actresses up close, and did everything to make sure the whole cast spent as little time as possible on-set during the lengthy scene.
Both excellent in their own ways. Branagh was very good.
now, The Legend of Tarzan, 2016. directed by David Yates and stars Alexander Skarsgard, Samuel L. Jackson, Margot Robbie, Djimon Hounsou, Jim Broadbent, and Christoph Waltz.
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Alexander Skarsgard's first cheat meal occurred more than five months into his training. Skarsgard had been on a very strict diet for five straight months, avoiding any fat completely, as he was in the process of developing an eight-pack. He said, "It was a Sunday, and we were training hard in the gym, and my trainer saw that my will to live was fading. He told me to put down the weights and he took me to lunch. That day he let me order whatever I wanted. I got to eat pizza, pasta, tiramisu. I get emotional just talking about that day." On the last day of filming, the crew congratulated him on the end of his diet by gifting him with a huge Banoffee Pie, a British dessert. Skarsgard said that to celebrate, he ate the entire pie by himself in a single sitting.
Trainer Magnus Lygdback revealed that Alexander Skarsgård impressed the entire cast and crew with his physical transformation. He said, "On the first day of filming, when he took off his shirt for the first time, the first thing you noticed was his huge back. You could hear people whispering; that's when I knew we had done it." Margot Robbie added, "Words failed me. My jaw was on the floor. As was everyone else's in the crew. People stopped working and were staring. Even the men were like, 'Wow.' It was amazing. He worked so hard; I am so impressed."
All of Me, 1984. Steve Martin stars with Lily Tomlin in this fantasy comedy, with a touch of jazz flung in. Martin is a good banjo and guitar player ..
Lily Tomlin was born the day World War II started. Steve Martin was born the day World War II ended.
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In an interview, Steve Martin once said of this movie: "This man is not an idiot. He is a contemporary person with some brains . . . he's not naive or a victim of circumstances. He's an intelligent man who happens to get caught in a disaster. That's a big difference between this role and any other part I've played . . . For the first time I'm in a story with a beginning, middle, and end. It's old-fashioned and solid . . . This movie was like going to school. I learned a lot about structure and character".
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I need to look out for this film, looks like something I'd enjoy. Excellent cast - Christoph Waltz (who was great in "Inglourious Basterds"), and Margot Robbie, who in an ideal world would have a massive crush on me :) Though it looks like Skarsgard might give me some competition.
The Good die Young, 1954. Directed By Lewis Gilbert.
This is the BFI bluray.
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Several of the main cast lived up to the "dying young" part of the title. Laurence Harvey and Margaret Leighton were married in 1957 and divorced in 1961. She was made a CBE, won two Tony Awards, and died in 1976 at age 53. Harvey died in 1973 at age 45. Those of the remaining cast who also met a relatively early demise were Stanley Baker in 1976 at age 48, Susan Shaw in 1978 at age 49, Gloria Grahame in 1981 at 57, and James Kenney in 1987 at 56. As of late summer 2021, only Dame Joan Collins is still alive at age 88. Robert Morley was one cast member to buck the trend, passing in 1992 at age 84.