Watched my DVD of Jules Dassin’s prison film Brute Force last week (and before you ask, I had no idea then that Madhur Bhandarkar’s latest exercise in social awareness, Jail , was about to be released). This is a very gripping movie, right up there with I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and Cool Hand Luke in its genre. It’s widely seen as a commentary on the brutality of prison life...
I've tried for nearly an hour to find an online PDF of Wendell Mayes' script for Go Tell The Spartans, or a transcript of the film's dialogue -- same difference. I'm in love with a soliloquy spoken by Burt Lancaster, playing Major Asa Barber, as he tells a young soldier (played, I think, by Craig Wasson) why he'd been demoted from the rank of Colonel a few years back. Lancaster/Barber was stationed...
Although Soupy Sales, who has died aged 83, will inevitably be remembered with a pie in his face, as befits a comedian who took an estimated 20,000 of them during his career, his slapstick brilliance should not overshadow his influence on a whole generation of Americans, including many notable comics who, as adolescents, teenagers, or even young adults in the late 1950s and early 1960s, were enthralled...
In the 1968 film “The Swimmer”, starring Burt Lancaster, the hero hits on the idea of getting home by swimming the length of various pools owned by his rich friends in a leafy north-eastern US state.
Soupy Sales, the comic whose 1950s-60s ostensible children's show developed a cult following among people of all ages, has died at age 83. As the star of "The Soupy Sales Show," he performed live on television for 13 years in Detroit, Los Angeles and New York before the program went into syndication in the United States and abroad. Ostensibly for children, the show had broad appeal among...
Legendary 60's comic and children's show host Soupy Sales has died at the age of 83. As the star of "The Soupy Sales Show," he performed live on television for 13 years in Detroit, Los Angeles and New York before the program went into syndication in the United States and abroad. Ostensibly for children, the show had broad appeal among adults who found Sales' puns, gags and pratfalls deliciously...
About a week ago, Cecil Adams The Straight Dope Chicago tackled why so few movies were filmed in Chicago during the reign of Richard J. Daley in the 60's and 70's. Adams cited the then Chicago mayor's antipathy to how productions such as the popular The Untouchables television series reinforced Al Capone gangster stereotypes. Still a few films slipped by, most prominently Haskell Wexler's extraordinary...
Joseph Wiseman, the Canadian-born actor best known for his deliciously evil portrayal of the James Bond villain, Dr. No, passed away yesterday at age 91. Wiseman appeared in a slew of Broadway productions, television shows, and movies such as Viva Zapata! with Marlon Brando and The Unforgiven with Burt Lancaster. But he will always be
Well, not exactly. But this study indicates that the suppression of ovulation might have a long-term effect on women’s taste in men. When ovulating, women prefer more virile, assertive men; the rest of the time, they incline toward the more boyish, gentle type. Hence, the argument runs, suppress ovulation for large numbers of women over [...]
VDH on the culture, and why he's involuntarily dropped out of it . Me too, except for Pixar and the odd novel. He says things here Mr. W. & I say to each other so often the post made me laugh out loud, even though it's kind of dreary in a yummy way. It's a rainy day here, enjoy a good grump. Re the dirth of Hollywood plots (everything is the evil, white, corporation --preferably the CIA-- carelessly...
I have various topics in mind to write about, including a too-long-delayed series on Dr. Benjamin Church, Jr. But I’m so busy with next weekend’s “Abolitionism in Black and White: The Anti-Slavery Community of Boston and Cambridge” symposium that I’m going to grab any material the web offers me for a while. Recently the novelist and social critic David Brin asked me if...
By Daryl Stevens We have reviews of some movies listed below. To find movie downloads do a search. A good starting point might be "Movie Download Services", after that try "Download films Online" or "Unlimited DVD Rentals". Borderline: Abnormal thriller comedy in which L.A. cop Trevor tries to assemble proof contrary to cunning drug smuggler Burr when mixing with hard...
Maybe it isn’t Hollywood’s fault.Or feminism. Or an increasingly politically-correct culture. A new study says the advent of the birth control pill and the resultant hormonal changes have left women with a taste for more “boyish men.” The reason we go from John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Sean Connery to Jake Gyllenhaal, Zac Efron, and Shia LaBeouf. According [...]
PATRIOTIC HOLLYWOOD: WORLD WAR II IN FILM SERIES: The Maryland Historical Society, 201 W. Monument St., starts this free film series with "From Here to Eternity," starring Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, Deborah Kerr and Ernest Borgnine. The screening and discussion, which takes place 2 p.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 10, is hosted by Mike Giuliano and includes a literal treat:...
A Fox 5 cameraman happened to be shooting footage near the Ed Sullivan Theater yesterday for a segment on taxi medallions when an angry brawl exploded between a pedicab driver and a cabbie. It starts when the pedicab driver, fed up with the hack honking his horn behind him, tosses a cup of coffee at the cab's passenger-side window. You gonna take that cabbie? Not in New York! Check it out: Fox 5 reporter...
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