Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

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Ice Cold in Alex, 1958.... John Mills again.



The love scene between Anson and Diana had to be re-shot after the British censor decided that Sylvia Syms had too many buttons undone on her blouse, revealing too much cleavage. Censor John Nicholls had already requested over eighty alterations to the script before shooting and, following protests by Director J. Lee Thompson, he was eventually replaced as BBFC Chief by John Trevelyan in May 1958. Other additional dialogue cuts included the removal of the phrase "made a balls of it" and the overdubbing of "bloody good old bitch".

In the bar scene in Alexandria, Sir John Mills was drinking real beer because ginger ale and other substitutes didn't look real enough on film. In the final cut (the fourteenth take) he actually was quite drunk.

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John Mills again in Hobson's Choice, 1954...




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.

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Once Upon a Time in the West, 1968..




possibly the best film leone did and one of the great westerns

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Kelly's Heroes, 1970... pure class...





Big Joe: [shouting to the captured German Colonel] Look! We're not worried about the German army, we've got enough troubles of our own. To the right General Patton, to the left the British Army, to the rear our own goddamn artillery, and besides all that it's raining. And the only good thing to say about the weather: it keeps our air corps from blowing us all to Hell because its too lousy to fly, versteh?

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The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1967... leone again with his civil war classic spaghetti western..



According to Eli Wallach, when it came time to blow up the bridge, Sergio Leone asked the Spanish Army Captain in charge to trigger the fuse, as a sign of gratitude for the Army's collaboration. They agreed to blow up the bridge when Leone gave the signal "Vai!" (Go!) over the walkie-talkie. Unfortunately, another crew member spoke on the same channel, saying the words "vai, vai!", meaning "it's okay, proceed" to a second crew member. The Captain heard this signal, thought it was for him, and blew up the bridge. Unfortunately, no cameras were running at the time. Leone was so upset that he fired the crewman, who promptly fled from the set in his car. The Captain was so sorry for what happened that he proposed to Leone that the Army would rebuild the bridge to blow it up again, with one condition: that the fired crewman be re-hired. Leone agreed, the crewman was forgiven, the bridge was rebuilt, and the scene was successfully shot.

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WarGames, 1983...

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Duck, You Sucker!, 1971.. AKA. A Fistful Of Dynamite.





When James Coburn (who had been offered roles in Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)) was offered the role of John Mallory by Leone, he was initially reluctant. He had dinner with Henry Fonda (star of Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)) and asked him what he thought of Leone. Fonda told him that he considered Leone the greatest director he ever worked with. Coburn then took the part (similarly, Fonda himself had been reluctant to take the part Leone offered him, but was persuaded by his friend, Eli Wallach).

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Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991..

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Murder on the Orient Express, 2017..

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Murder on the Orient Express, 1974...





The great Albert Finney at work... a tour de force