Tag Archives: Tired Old Queen At The Movies

Our pal Steve Hayes is back with a Thanksgiving review: Ethel Merman has a field day transferring her Tony Award winning Broadway role to the screen in Irving Berlin’s movie musical CALL ME MADAM. With Donald O’Connor, Vera Ellen, George Sanders, Billy DeWolfe and Walter Slezak giving delightful support, it’s the perfect Thanksgiving treat! Happy Holidays from all of us …

From movie reviewer Steve Hayes: Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen have a musical filled day singing and dancing to the tunes of the legendary Irving Berlin in Michael Curtiz’s WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954). Along for the festivities are Oscar winner Dean Jagger and the irascible and hysterical Mary Wickes. It’s a Technicolor, musical extravaganza that will have …

Clip description: In Norman Jewison’s Oscar wining Best Picture of 1967, IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, racial tensions come to a head when a Northern detective, played by Sidney Poitier, becomes stranded in a small southern town following a murder. This particular town is run by a bigoted sheriff, Rod Steiger in an Oscar winning performance, who may or …

A special Pride edition of the series. Clip description: Mart Crowley’s iconic play about the lives of several gay men in the 1970’s comes alive in William Friedkin’s THE BOYS IN THE BAND (’70). Featuring the brilliant original Broadway cast, its alternately hysterical, funny, sensitive, touching, at times lacerating and ultimately unforgettable.

Clip description: Journey To The Center Of The Earth: James Mason, Pat Boone, Arlene Dahl and Peter Ronson take a trip to the middle world in Jules Verne’s “Journey To The Center Of The Earth,” 1959. Shot on location in Cinemascope and Technicolor as only Fox could and with a sumptuous score by Bernard Herrmann, it’s the perfect adventure for …

Clip description: Otto Preminger brings an all-star cast to Washington to shoot Alan Drury’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel ADVISE AND CONSENT (’62). Set against the political atmosphere of the Kennedy Years, the cast includes Henry Fonda, Walter Pidgeon, Don Murray, George Grizzard, Paul Ford, Gene Tierney in her first role after a five-year bout with mental illness and Charles Laughton …

Clip recap: Tyrone Power, Alice Faye and Don Ameche light up the sky along with the great Chicago fire in Darryl F. Zanuck’s spectacular “In Old Chicago” (1937). Directed by Zanuck’s favorite in house director; Henry King, this was 20th Century Fox’s disaster film entry following the huge success of MGM’s “San Francisco” . The all star cast features includes …

Clip recap: Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy team up for an Oscar nominated entry in the screwball comedy genre in Jack Conway’s “Libeled Lady” (’36). Also starring adorable Walter Connelly as Loy’s millionaire father, the plot revolves around a newspaper that prints a story about a rich heiress ( Loy) who is supposedly a home wrecker. …

Clip recap: Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh and Angela Lansbury in an Oscar nominated role, bring one of the greatest political thrillers to the screen in John Frankenheimer’s legendary “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962). The suspense builds to a chilling climax as a group of soldiers, rescued from the Communists, gradually realize that something has been done to their brains …

Clip recap: Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins have a field day as two friends who support, love and battle each other over work, men, marriage and through World War II in Vincent Sherman’s “Old Acquaintance” (1943). Taken from the Broadway hit, the film was hampered by the continual in-fighting between its two stars who couldn’t stand one another. This antagonism …

Happy Halloween! Clip recap: Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor enter the world of Alfred Hitchcock with terrifying results in THE BIRDS (1963), taken from a short story by Daphne DuMaurier. With able support from Susanne Pleshette, Jessica Tandy and young Veronica Cartwright, it is Hitchcock at his best. The perfect Halloween classic that will leave you riveted and terrified.

Clip recap: Robert Stack, Dorothy Malone and a ship load of passengers battle the odds on a luxury liner going down in Andrew L. Stone’s spine tingling disaster film THE LAST VOYAGE (1960). Filmed on an actual liner that was sunk for the filming, the cast includes Oscar winners George Sanders as a distressed captain, Edmund O’Brien as a panicked …

Clip recap: Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford and Roz Russell lead a bevy of MGM beauties in George Cukor’s comedy classic “The Women”. Based on a play by Claire Booth Luce, with a screenplay by Anita Loos, it also stars Paulette Goddard, Joan Fontaine, Marjorie Main, the delightful Mary Boland and an all female cast who deliver some of the wittiest …

Clip recap: Ralph Richardson, Michele Morgan and the amazing child actor Bobby Henrey star in Carol Reed’s version of Graham Greene’s suspense classic “The Fallen Idol” (1948). Also starring Sonia Dresdel as the terrifying housekeeper Mrs. Baines, this story deals with the love between a butler and a little boy in an embassy in London and the complications that arise …

Clip recap: Claudette Colbert and Joel McCrea have a field day in the zany Preston Sturges comedy PALM BEACH STORY (1942). With able support from such Sturges comic regulars as William Demarest, Jimmy Conlin, Roscoe Ates and with a brilliant comedic turns by Rudee Vallee and Mary Astor, it’s a happy, slapstick, free for all, loaded with sophisticated dialogue, unexpected …

“Barbara Stanwyck and George Brent make holiday sparks fly when they begin a controversial romance in Curtis Bernhardt’s MY REPUTATION (1946). Stanwyck plays a newly widowed woman with two teenage boys, who meets a handsome Major on a skiing trip and much to the dismay of her friends and family, falls in love and must choose between her happiness and …

“William Powell and Myrna Loy create marital bliss and movie history in their first two teamings as Nick and Nora Charles in W.S. Van Dyke’s ‘The Thin Man’ (1934) and ‘After The Thin Man’ (1936). Taken from a novel by Dashiell Hammett and based on his relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman, this off beat husband and wife detective team round …

Clip recap: Halloween brings thrills and suspense as debonair Michael Rennie arrives from another planet to warn the Earth of impending doom in Robert Wise’s Sci-Fi classic; “The Day The Earth Stood Still” (1951). With a brilliant supporting cast including Patricia Neal, Billy Grey and Hugh Beaumont and a spine tingling score by legendary composer Bernard Herrmann. It’s just the …

Clip recap: Robert Mitchum plays Wade Hunnicutt, a small town southern patriarch in Vincente Minnelli’s splashy, trashy and wonderful “Home From The Hill” (1960). Along with Mitchum, who won his only acting awards for this film, are Eleanor Parker as his frigid wife who holds back her favors to punish him for his philandering, George Hamilton as his naive son …

Clip recap: In glorious Technicolor, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic SOUTH PACIFIC comes to vivid life under the direction of Joshua Logan. Shot on location with a cast headed by Mitzi Gaynor, Rosanno Brazzi, John Kerr, Ray Walston and Juanita Hall re-creating her legendary Broadway role as Bloody Mary, it is as romantic, erotic and sumptuous a musical as Hollywood ever …