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Steve McQueen had an incredible run of hits in the 1960s, which put him in position to start his own production company. Solar Production’s original six film deal with Warner Brothers eventually fell apart and only resulted in one film, but *what* a film: Bullitt. The first time through, what stays with most people about [...]
Archive for the ‘Film’ Category
September 24th, 2011
Category: Film
Actors are called upon to do a wide range of accents, which is more challenging than many people appreciate. Even a highly skilled actor such as Tom Hanks can drop an adopted accent amidst the demands of playing a complex scene (see, e.g., his intermittent Bostonian voicing in Catch Me if You Can). Other actors [...]
September 16th, 2011
Category: Film
Robert Montgomery (father of Elizabeth of Bewitched fame) earned his place in film noir heaven with “Ride the Pink Horse”. The “disillusioned, rootless ex-GI” is the ultimate film noir protagonist (though the cynical, hard drinking private eye vies for the distinction) and Lucky Gagin is the apotheosis of the type. I wish I knew more [...]
September 14th, 2011
Category: Film
My preferred airline now has a channel of “classic films”, which included the Bond outing “
September 2nd, 2011
Anne Helen Petersen has written an intriguing, sad article about Rock Hudson and the gay agent who packaged him and other gay men as movie stars. She argues that Hudson’s sexuality actually made him more attractive to a certain segment of heterosexual women in the 1950s and 1960s precisely because he was handsome, charming, kind [...]
August 20th, 2011
Category: Film
Over the past year I have been working as the executive producer of an independent art film, and in that capacity was looking yesterday at some of the great raw footage the director had shot. The boom microphone was visible at the top of many of the shots, which reminded me of an unpleasant college [...]
August 13th, 2011
Category: Film
The Jimmy Stewart-loving faction of RBC had a lively discussion of The Naked Spur on an earlier post, so I am passing along Calling All Toasters’ great tip that you can watch it commercial free tonight on TCM.
August 10th, 2011
Category: Film
NY Times profiles the career of the talented actor Robert Ryan. The profile is headlined by a photo of an under-appreciated gem of a Western called “The Naked Spur”, directed by the under-appreciated Anthony Mann. Mann cut his teeth on film noir and carried that sensibility over to the Western genre. He found the perfect [...]
