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At the 27th Academy Awards, Oscar helped Edmond O’Brien win an Oscar.

O’Brien played sleazy show biz publicist Oscar Muldoon in 1954’s “The Barefoot Contessa,” which starred Humphrey Bogart and Ava Gardner. Bogart had been crowned Best Actor of 1951 for “The African Queen,” and had also contended for the same award for 1943’s Best Picture, “Casablanca.” Gardner was coming off of her first and only nomination, for Best Actress in 1953’s “Mogambo.” “The Barefoot Contessa” was written and directed by Academy favorite Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who had won back-to-back Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars for 1949’s “A Letter to Three Wives” and 1950’s Best Picture, “All About Eve.”

”The Barefoot Contessa” didn’t fare quite as well at the Oscars as “Letter” or “Eve.” Neither Bogart or Gardner received nominations, though Bogart was cited for his role in that same year’s Best Picture entry “The Caine Mutiny.

Apple TV+’s hit limited series “Hijack” starring Idris Elba is a nail-biting thrill ride set in real-time. Over the years, there have been many types of hijack films. Besides planes, there have been suspenseful takeovers of ships, trains, subways and even trucks.

“The Taking of the Pelham One Two Three,” from 1974 — avoid the two remakes — is a superb thriller about four men who take over a New York subway car and hold the passengers, conductor and an undercover policeman hostage unless they get $1 million (remember that was a lot of money 49 years ago). If their demands aren’t met, they will start killing hostages. Directed by Joseph Sargent and adapted by Peter Stone from the best-selling novel by John Godey, “Taking” boasts a stellar cast at the top of their game including Walter Matthau, Robert Shaw, Hector Elizondo and Martin Balsam. David Shire penned the influential score.

A year...

Exclusive: Emmy nominee Jake Lacy (The White Lotus) is set to star opposite Kiefer Sutherland in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, Deadline has learned. He is set to portray Stephen Maryk, Queeg’s (Sutherland) executive officer aboard Caine, and the officer who relieved Queeg of duty.

The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial is an update on the 1953 play by Herman Wouk, itself an adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Caine Mutiny. It hails from Paramount Global Content Distribution for Showtime.

The original story follows a naval officer who stands trial for mutiny after taking command from a ship captain he feels is acting in unstable fashion, endangering both the ship and its crew. While the original is set during World War II, the new project is being updated by director William Friedkin.

“The original piece was written for WWII, and Wouk included all the pent-up anger in this country over Pearl Harbor,...

Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist party?

In October 1947, 10 Hollywood screenwriters, directors and producers refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (Huac), at the highly publicized, three-ring circus hearings in Washington, D.C. They wouldn’t acknowledge if they were Communists, nor would they name names of people whom they knew or thought were Commies citing their first amendment rights.

The group, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, were voted in contempt of Congress in November and sentenced to prison for six months to a year. They were blacklisted by the Hollywood studios. Some wrote under pseudonyms or used fronts (check out the 1976 film “The Front”) while others never worked again in Hollywood even after the blacklist ended in 1960.

On the 75th anniversary of those infamous Huac hearings, let’s take a look back at the Hollywood Ten and what...

It’s lurid, it’s soapy, it’s forbidden: where does the line form? Joseph E. Levine made hay from Harold Robbins’ best seller, with prose that The New York Times said belonged more properly “on the walls of a public lavatory.” So why is the picture so much fun? When the performances are good they’re very good, and when they’re bad they’re almost better. Plus there’s a who’s who game to be played: If George Peppard is Howard Hughes and Carroll Baker is Jean Harlow, who exactly is Robert Cummings? I think this is the first time on Blu for this title, and playback-wise it’s A-ok for Region A.

The Carpetbaggers

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 9 (Australia)

1964 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 150 min. / Street Date August 26, 2020 / Available at [Imprint] 34.95

Starring: George Peppard, Alan Ladd, Robert Cummings, Martha Hyer, Elizabeth Ashley, Martin Balsam, Lew Ayres, Carroll Baker, Ralph Taeger, Archie Moore,...

Robert Mitchum intercedes in a range war in this ‘A’ western, and he’s got the pro team of director Robert Wise and cameraman Nicholas Musuraca on his side. All but one action scene plays out at night, which is why this is sometimes called a Noir Western. The dark visuals fit that mold but the story values are strictly traditional, starting with the hero’s laconic do-it-don’t-say-it sense of personal honor. Partly filmed in Arizona, the fine production further advanced the laid-back Mitchum persona, this time as an honest cowpoke, not a cool-dude hipster.

Blood on the Moon

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1948 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 88 min. / Street Date April 28, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Robert Mitchum, Barbara Bel Geddes, Robert Preston, Walter Brennan, Phyllis Thaxter, Frank Faylen, Tom Tully, Charles McGraw, Clifton Young, Tom Tyler, George Cooper, Harry Carey Jr., Iron Eyes Cody, Chris-Pin Martin.

Cinematography: Nicholas...

Robert Mitchum in Blood On The Moon is available on Blu-ray From Warner Archive. Ordering info can be found Here

Robert Mitchum and Barbara Bel Geddes star in this taut Western thriller about a gunslinging drifter who realizes he’s been hired to be a villain. Out on the Texas frontier, Jim Garry (Mitchum) rides into town, quickly getting caught in a simmering confrontation between homesteaders and cattle ranchers. After accepting employment from an old mercenary friend, Tate Riling (Robert Preston), Garry comes to realize that Riling has been manipulating the tensions between rancher John Lufton (Tom Tully) and the local settlers in a bid to swindle the Luftons out of their livestock. Garry becomes torn between his conscience and his greed until he finds himself falling for John Lufton’s daughter, the formidable Amy (Bel Geddes). Soon, the two old friends will face off in a bloody showdown from...

Here’s a pleasant surprise: one of Rko’s most popular releases of 1948 has suddenly emerged in an uncut version that’s a full twelve minutes longer than anything most of us have seen. The gentle, family-oriented frontier tale has an attractive trio of star performers, excellent location work and a thoughtful, teasing script. I must have seen the truncated version five times, and yes, it did seem a tad abbreviated here and there. Loretta Young is the bondservant/un-kissed bride with a roving eye. William Holden is the initially unimaginative husband, while good old, Robert Mitchum is perfectly cast as a potential sexual fox-in-the-henhouse.

Rachel and the Stranger

Blu-ray

The Warner Archive Collection

1948 / B&w / 1:37 flat Academy / 92 80 min. / Street Date April 21, 2020 / available through The WBShop / 21.99

Starring: Loretta Young, William Holden, Robert Mitchum, Gary Gray, Tom Tully, Sara Haden, Frank Ferguson, Walter Baldwin, Regina Wallace.

Cinematography: Maury Gertsman

Original...

Two-fisted Hong Kong racketeer Clark Gable goes out on a limb to recover Susan Hayward’s husband, held prisoner in Red China. In a literal pirate vessel armed with a stolen cannon, Gable literally goes to war, risking his smuggling empire by half-kidnapping Michael Rennie’s Hong Kong cop. This lush CinemaScope action-travelogue-romance now comes off as comfort food movie viewing: familiar stars doing what they do best. It’s a German import from a Hollywood Studio whose library titles may no longer be licensed to hard media home video.

Soldier of Fortune

Region-Free Blu-ray

Explosive Media GmbH

1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 96 min. / Street Date September 26, 2019 / Treffpunkt Hongkong / Available at Amazon.de

15.99 Euros Starring: Clark Gable, Susan Hayward, Michael Rennie, Gene Barry, Alexander D’Arcy, Tom Tully, Anna Sten, Russell Collins, Richard Loo, Frank Tang, Jack Kruschen, Leo Gordon, Mel Welles, Robert Quarry.

Cinematography: Leo Tover

Film Editor: Dorothy Spencer

Original Music:...

Prepare to let your jaw drop: Jennifer Jones and Charlton Heston’s sleazy bucolic ‘romance’ comes off as two-way sex harassment, with suggestive one-liners that make us cringe. Are there other pictures like this? Is this where dolts came to believe that women wanted to be treated like stupid squeeze toys? The great King Vidor directed, with no sign of intentional satire — the bizarre, eventually violent Southern-set melodrama is a one-of-a-kind grotesque spectacle.

Ruby Gentry

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1952 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 82 min. / Street Date April 24, 2018 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.96

Starring: Jennifer Jones, Charlton Heston, Karl Malden, Tom Tully, James Anderson, Josephine Hutchinson, Phyllis Avery, Barney Phillips.

Cinematography: Russell Harlan

Film Editor: Terry Morse

Original Music: Heinz Roemheld

Written by Silvia Richards from a story by Arthur Fitz-Richard

Produced by Joseph Bernhard, King Vidor

Directed by King Vidor

I have two basic thoughts on 1952’s Ruby Gentry. First,...

It’s the loose-censored early 1970s, and screen bandits shootin’ up the American movie landscape are no longer suffering the once-mandated automatic moral retribution. Walter Matthau launched himself into the genre with this excellent Don Siegel on-the-run epic, about an old-fashioned independent bandit who accidentally rips off the mob for a million. It’s great, wicked fun.

Charley Varrick

Region B Blu-ray

Indicator

1973 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 111 min. / Charley Varrick the Last of the Independents; Kill Charley Varrick / Street Date January 22, 2018 / available from Powerhouse Films UK / £14.99

Starring: Walter Matthau, Joe Don Baker, Andrew Robinson, John Vernon, Felicia Farr, Sheree North, Jacqueline Scott, William Schallert, Norman Fell, Benson Fong, Woodrow Parfrey, Rudy Diaz, Charles Matthau, Tom Tully, Albert Popwell

Cinematography: Michael Butler

Film Editor: Frank Morriss

Original Music: Lalo Schifrin

Written by Dean Riesner, Howard Rodman from the novel The Looters by John Reese

Produced by Jennings Lang, Don Siegel

Directed by...

This unusually sensitive, overlooked WW2 romance skips the morale-boosting baloney of the day. Two people meet on a train, each with a personal shame they dare not speak of. Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotten are excellent under William Dieterle’s direction, and Shirley Temple doesn’t do half the damage you’d think she might.

I’ll Be Seeing You

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1944 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 85 min. / Street Date November 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Spring Byington, John Derek, Tom Tully, Chill Wills, Kenny Bowers.

Cinematography: Tony Gaudio

Film Editor: William H. Zeigler

Special Effects: Jack Cosgrove

Original Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof

Stunt Double: Cliff Lyons

Written by Marion Parsonette from a play by Charles Martin

Produced by Dore Schary

Directed by William Dieterle

Aha! A little research explains why several late-’40s melodramas from David O. Selznick come off as smart productions,...

Submarine movie evening: Underwater war waged in TCM's Memorial Day films In the U.S., Turner Classic Movies has gone all red, white, and blue this 2017 Memorial Day weekend, presenting a few dozen Hollywood movies set during some of the numerous wars in which the U.S. has been involved around the globe during the last century or so. On Memorial Day proper, TCM is offering a submarine movie evening. More on that further below. But first it's good to remember that although war has, to put it mildly, serious consequences for all involved, it can be particularly brutal on civilians – whether male or female; young or old; saintly or devilish; no matter the nationality, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any other label used in order to, figuratively or literally, split apart human beings. Just this past Sunday, the Pentagon chief announced that civilian deaths should be anticipated as “a...

MGM's show is a surprising powerhouse musical bio about the personality clash between an ambitious singer and the powerful enabler who wants her in his bed. Doris Day and James Cagney are at their best in an only slightly compromised telling of the real-life showbiz relationship of 'twenties star Ruth Etting and the domineering mobster Martin Snyder. Love Me or Leave Me Blu-ray Warner Archive Collection 1955 / Color / 2:55 widescreen / 122 min. / Street Date September 13, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Doris Day, James Cagney, Cameron Mitchell, Robert Keith, Tom Tully, Harry Bellaver, Richard Gaines, Peter Leeds, Claude Stroud, Audrey Wilder, John Harding. Cinematography Arthur E. Arling Art Direction Urie McCleary, Cedric Gibbons Film Editor Ralph Winters Original Music Nicholas Brodszky, Percy Faith, George E. Stoll Written by Daniel Fuchs and Isobel Lennart Produced by Joe Pasternak Directed by Charles Vidor

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

MGM's early CinemaScope musical bio holds up extremely well,...

Otto Preminger looks at police corruption and comes up with a classy noir starring Dana Andrews as a rogue cop and Gene Tierney as the woman whose father he accidentally frames for murder. With Karl Malden, Gary Merrill and velvety-slick B&W cinematography by Joseph Lashelle. Where the Sidewalk Ends Blu-ray Twilight Time Limited Edition 1950 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 95 min. / Ship Date February 9, 2016 / available through Twilight Time Movies / 29.95 Starring Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill, Bert Freed, Tom Tully, Karl Malden, Ruth Donnelly, Craig Stevens. Cinematography Joseph Lashelle Art Direction J. Russell Spencer, Lyle Wheeler Film Editor Louis R. Loeffler Original Music Cyril J. Mockridge Written by Ben Hecht, Robert E. Kent, Frank P. Rosenberg, Victor Trivas from the novel Night Cry by William L. Stuart Produced and Directed by Otto Preminger

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Want to see an example of a gloriously polished studio production, a film noir...

Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...

Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt': Alfred Hitchcock heroine (image: Joseph Cotten about to strangle Teresa Wright in 'Shadow of a Doubt') (See preceding article: "Teresa Wright Movies: Actress Made Oscar History.") After scoring with The Little Foxes, Mrs. Miniver, and The Pride of the Yankees, Teresa Wright was loaned to Universal – once initial choices Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland became unavailable – to play the small-town heroine in Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt. (Check out video below: Teresa Wright reminiscing about the making of Shadow of a Doubt.) Co-written by Thornton Wilder, whose Our Town had provided Wright with her first chance on Broadway and who had suggested her to Hitchcock; Meet Me in St. Louis and Junior Miss author Sally Benson; and Hitchcock's wife, Alma Reville, Shadow of a Doubt was based on "Uncle Charlie," a story outline by Gordon McDonell – itself based on actual events.

Cary Grant films on TCM: Gender-bending 'I Was a Male War Bride' (photo: Cary Grant not gay at all in 'I Was a Male War Bride') More Cary Grant films will be shown tonight, as Turner Classic Movies continues with its Star of the Month presentations. On TCM right now is the World War II action-drama Destination Tokyo (1943), in which Grant finds himself aboard a U.S. submarine, alongside John Garfield, Dane Clark, Robert Hutton, and Tom Tully, among others. The directorial debut of screenwriter Delmer Daves (The Petrified Forest, Love Affair) -- who, in the following decade, would direct a series of classy Westerns, e.g., 3:10 to Yuma, The Hanging Tree -- Destination Tokyo is pure flag-waving propaganda, plodding its way through the dangerous waters of Hollywood war-movie stereotypes and speechifying banalities. The film's key point of interest, in fact, is Grant himself -- not because he's any good,...

The Turning Point

Written by Warren Duff and Horace McCoy (story)

Directed by William Dieterle

U.S.A., 1952

It is with much hoopla and media coverage that district attorney John Conroy (Edmond O’Brien) is tasked with bringing a decisive end to the alarming crime wave and corruption that has swept Los Angeles in recent years. One crime syndicate has been singled out, an organization so foul that a palpable fear has stricken law enforcement and the public, a fear for their very lives as well as a fear towards knowing the truth as to how its nefarious influence has seeped into the city’s fine institutions. Old friend and current hard-nosed newspaper reporter Jerry McKibbon (William Holden) has a knack for sniffing out trouble and good news stories, the two of which often go hand in hand. His presence irks John’s assistant and current main squeeze Amanda Waycross...

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Written by Ben Hecht

Directed by Otto Preminger

USA, 1950

To those paying attention, film history teaches that groups of like-minded artists enjoy working together. The better the result of their initial project, the higher the likelihood the same team shall reconvene to produce one, two, or more films, hopefully of equal or superior quality. Some time ago in this column, Otto Preminger’s 1944 Laura was reviewed, a brilliant picture about a detective falling in love with a believed-to-be-deceased woman based on her stunning portrait, starring Dana Andrews and Gene Tierney as the lovers in question. Six years following said sumptuous collaboration, the same director-actors partnership brought audiences Where the Sidewalk Ends, an equally bittersweet tale of misguided love.

The set-up to Preminger’s 1950 film makes it come across as something of a spiritual precursor to Nicholas Ray’s On Dangerous Ground, which would come out two years later.

Charlton Heston movies: ‘A Man for All Seasons’ remake, ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ (photo: Charlton Heston as Ben-Hur) (See previous post: “Charlton Heston: Moses Minus Staff Plus Chariot Equals Ben-Hur.”) I’ve yet to watch Irving Rapper’s melo Bad for Each Other (1954), co-starring the sultry Lizabeth Scott — always a good enough reason to check out any movie, regardless of plot or leading man. A major curiosity is the 1988 made-for-tv version of A Man for All Seasons, with Charlton Heston in the Oscar-winning Paul Scofield role (Sir Thomas More) and on Fred Zinnemann’s director’s chair. Vanessa Redgrave, who plays Thomas More’s wife in the TV movie (Wendy Hiller in the original) had a cameo as Anne Boleyn in the 1966 film. According to the IMDb, Robert Bolt, who wrote the Oscar-winning 1966 movie (and the original play), is credited for the 1988 version’s screenplay as well. Also of note,...

Humphrey Bogart movies: ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ ‘High Sierra’ (Image: Most famous Humphrey Bogart quote: ‘The stuff that dreams are made of’ from ‘The Maltese Falcon’) (See previous post: “Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall Movies.”) Besides 1948, 1941 was another great year for Humphrey Bogart — one also featuring a movie with the word “Sierra” in the title. Indeed, that was when Bogart became a major star thanks to Raoul Walsh’s High Sierra and John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon. In the former, Bogart plays an ex-con who falls in love with top-billed Ida Lupino — though both are outacted by ingénue-with-a-heart-of-tin Joan Leslie. In the latter, Bogart plays Dashiel Hammett’s private detective Sam Spade, trying to discover the fate of the titular object; along the way, he is outacted by just about every other cast member, from Mary Astor’s is-she-for-real dame-in-distress to Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nominee Sydney Greenstreet. John Huston...

Howard Keel on TCM Pt.2: Rose Marie, Pagan Love Song, Callaway Went Thataway Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am Desperate Search (1953) A man fights to find his children after their plane crashes in the Canadian wilderness. Dir: Joseph Lewis. Cast: Howard Keel, Jane Greer, Patricia Medina. Bw-71 mins. 7:15 Am Fast Company (1953) The heiress to a racing stable uncovers underhanded dealings. Dir: John Sturges. Cast: Howard Keel, Polly Bergen, Marjorie Main. Bw-68 mins. 8:30 Am Kismet (1955) In this Arabian Nights musical "king of the beggars" infiltrates high society when his daughter is wooed by a handsome prince. Dir: Vincente Minnelli. Cast: Howard Keel, Ann Blyth, Dolores Gray. C-113 mins, Letterbox Format. 10:30 Am Rose Marie (1954) A trapper's daughter is torn between the Mountie who wants to civilize her and a dashing prospector. Dir: Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas, Bert Lahr, Marjorie Main.