Now Screening - What Are You Watching Right Now?

[Barry]

Dark Passage, 1947

I haven't seen that - any good?

[struth]

I haven't seen that - any good?

its different to the usual but i like it. dont see bogarts face until he has had the plastic surgery...

[struth]

another bogey i play a lot in all its bluray finery... To Have and Have Not, 1944..




his first film with his to be wife, lauren bacall.. in fact it was their first meeting and her first film too

[struth]

The Ballad of Cable Hogue, 1970..

[struth]

The Apartment, 1960.. bluray





The film was lauded by Soviet-bloc critics as an indictment of the American system and a story that could only have happened in a capitalistic city like New York. At a dinner honoring him in East Berlin, Billy Wilder said the movie "could happen anywhere, in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Rome, Paris, London." When Wilder said the one place it could not have happened was Moscow, the East Germans broke into thunderous applause and cheers. When the ovation died down, Wilder continued: "The reason this picture could not have taken place in Moscow is that in Moscow nobody has his own apartment." The remark was met with grim silence.

Billy Wilder gave Jack Lemmon free rein to fill in the character of C.C. "Bud" Baxter in performance. He compared the actor favorably to Charles Chaplin and thought he could do no wrong.

In the scene where Karl punches Baxter, Jack Lemmon was supposed to mime being punched. He failed to move correctly and was accidentally knocked down. Billy Wilder chose to use the shot of the genuine punch in the film.

Jack Lemmon related later in life how Billy Wilder kept his film editor, Doane Harrison, on the set with him at all times as associate producer and never made a shot until they both discussed it. As a result, he was able to shoot sparingly, cutting the film in the camera and eliminating costly set-ups that might never be used.

[struth]

The Cat and the Canary, the 1939 remake made as a comedy/horror and starring bob hope and the lovely paulette goddard.

[struth]

High Plains Drifter, 1973.

[struth]

Ice Cold in Alex, 1958...

[Barry]

Another good film. Despite very little action, the film is quite gripping.

All very British, and doing 'the right thing' - they all deserved their ice cold beer when they reached Alexandria.

[struth]

Avanti!, 1972.. bluray..




Juliet Mills gained 25 pounds within six weeks to take on the role of Pamela Piggott.

Billy Wilder cast several non-professionals in supporting roles. Guidarino Guidi was a Rome actor's agent who called Wilder about getting jobs on the film for various clients and was instead cast as the maitre d' of the Excelsior Hotel; Raffaele Mottola was hired as the film's dialogue coach and then persuaded to play the passport official at the start of the film; and the elderly Armando Giovagnoli, playing the nonagenarian Baron, was Wilder's chauffeur on the film. The famous make-up man Harry Ray, who worked on a number of Wilder films (and was, for a time, Jack Lemmon's personal make-up man), was cast as Dr. Fleischman, the dentist on Wendell's plane - perhaps because of his close resemblance to Billy Wilder.

After Marcello Mastroianni had turned down the role of Carlucci, Billy Wilder tested both Nino Manfredi and Romolo Valli for the part. However, he worried that their accents would be too strong for American audiences and cast the New Zealand-born Clive Revill after the actor (whom he had recently directed in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)) happened to call him on the telephone. Revill had played a Russian in his earlier Wilder film and had also played an Italian quite recently in The Assassination Bureau (1969); Wilder recalled his facility for languages and his skill at accents (he had also played both an Arab and a Scot in Modesty Blaise (1966), an American in A Fine Madness (1966) and another Russian in both Fathom (1967) and The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) in the recent past) and hired him at once.