Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[walpurgis]

I'm All Right Jack, 1959

Good fun movie.

Quite a few of the cast were also in 'Private's Progress'.

[Barry]

i was reading that the woke brigade are attacking the film as racist and sexist sad times we live in.

one of the great films made over 70 yrs ago and of an even older period in time when such things didnt really exist for the population.

Sexist yes, but in what way is it racist?

[struth]

Sexist yes, but in what way is it racist?

the 'Eeny, meeny, miny, moe' rhyme near end

[walpurgis]

the 'Eeny, meeny, miny, moe' rhyme near end

Don't remember that. Thought it might have been the stereotyping of his Italian father.

[struth]

Three Days of the Condor, 1975. Another classic...





Former CIA director Richard Helms acted as a personal consultant to Robert Redford for his role as The Condor.

Higgins' office is based at the World Trade Center. Cliff Robertson, who played Higgins, is a keen aviator, and was flying a private Beechcraft Baron over New York City on the morning of September 11, 2001. He was directly above the World Trade Center, climbing through 7,500 feet when the first Boeing 767 struck. Air traffic control instructed him to land immediately at the nearest airport, after a nationwide order to ground all civilian and commercial aircraft following the attacks.

When they are reminiscing, Higgins asks Wabash whether he served with "Col. Donovan" during World War II - a reference to William J. Donovan, founder of the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Wabash replies, "I sailed the Adriatic with a movie star at the helm" - referring to actor Sterling Hayden, who served with the OSS, running the German blockade of the Adriatic during WWII to get supplies to Yugoslav partisans.

[Macca]

'A Hill In Korea' (1956)

A patrol that is mostly composed of national servicemen gets into problems when they are cut off from their lines by Chinese troops.

Stanley Baker, Harry Andrews, Robert Shaw, Michael Caine - it's not a bad cast, and not a bad film either. Shaw and Caine were unknowns at the time, but Caine had a dual role as military adviser since he had seen active service in Korea with the Royal Fusiliers.

Caine said of the film '"My function as a technical adviser was completely ignored during the making of the film. For example, I advised the crew to spread the troops wide as the latter advanced, which was militarily correct, but they replied that they didn't have a lens of sufficient width to take it all in!''

This is a common criticism of war films right up to the present day, and the reason that everyone bunches together is still the same, they wouldn't all fit on the screen if they were properly dispersed.

Caine added, "The most glaring mistake that I never brought to their notice was that Portugal did not in the least resemble Korea. If anything, Wales was more similar. I did not say anything because I wanted to stay in Portugal - I could go to Wales at any old time."

[struth]

'A Hill In Korea' (1956)

A patrol that is mostly composed of national servicemen gets into problems when they are cut off from their lines by Chinese troops.

Stanley Baker, Harry Andrews, Robert Shaw, Michael Caine - it's not a bad cast, and not a bad film either. Shaw and Caine were unknowns at the time, but Caine had a dual role as military adviser since he had seen active service in Korea with the Royal Fusiliers.

Caine said of the film '"My function as a technical adviser was completely ignored during the making of the film. For example, I advised the crew to spread the troops wide as the latter advanced, which was militarily correct, but they replied that they didn't have a lens of sufficient width to take it all in!''

This is a common criticism of war films right up to the present day, and the reason that everyone bunches together is still the same, they wouldn't all fit on the screen if they were properly dispersed.

Caine added, "The most glaring mistake that I never brought to their notice was that Portugal did not in the least resemble Korea. If anything, Wales was more similar. I did not say anything because I wanted to stay in Portugal - I could go to Wales at any old time."

don't recall ever seeing it.

[Macca]

I'd never seen it before or even heard of it, but it was on 'Talking Pictures' channel on Saturday afternoon.

[struth]

Dark Passage, 1947..





The actual Art Deco apartment building used in the film (located at 1360 Montgomery St in San Francisco) is still standing as of January, 2019. The apartment is marked by a cardboard cut-out of Humphrey Bogart, which can be seen from the street. The site is visited frequently by fans of vintage film noir.

Warner Brothers studio head Jack L. Warner was not pleased to discover that the face of one of his biggest stars, Humphrey Bogart, is not seen for the first half of the movie. By the time Warner knew this, the film was too far along to be changed.

Between the film's unorthodox first person perspective and Humphrey Bogart's negative press from his support of the Committee for the First Amendment established in the face of the hearings being done by the House Un-American Activities Committee, led to the film having a poor performance at the box office.

[struth]

The Devil and Miss Jones, 1941. One of my favs this... nicely made, with a tight script and good acting





Frank Ross and Norman Krasna decided to produce a movie together starring Jean Arthur (Ross' wife) based on a story by Krasna. The three formed a partnership and borrowed $600,000 from a bank to finance the film.

The script was written in ten weeks and then Sam Wood came on board as director. Krasna described the experience of making the film as one of the best in his career.

RKO agreed to distribute the film. It was Arthur's first film at RKO since The Ex-Mrs. Bradford. The film made a profit of $117,000