In a picture filled with so many spectacular outdoor shots — in VistaVision and Technicolor — this segment on a studio set from The Searchers seems rather out of place. However with its layers of trees and snow it is one of the most striking scenes in the film – and what a film it was !!
Archive for July, 2014
Wonderful scene – from The Searchers of course !!
Marilyn Monroe – New Colour photographs
These are recently released photographs of Marilyn Monroe during the filming of River of No Return 1954.
The cast and crew on this film had left Hollywood for Calgary in late June 1953. From there they travelled by special train to the Banff Springs Hotel, which would serve as their base during the Canadian filming. The 1954 film features the landscape of Jasper National Park and Banff National Park with quite a bit of location and studio filming.
Colorado Territory – Showing again !!
Colorado Territory 1949 – Showing in San Francisco soon
The Hound of the Baskervilles 1959 – revisited
Andre Morell
I remember Andre Morell for THREE film roles mainly – in His Majesty O’Keefe, and before that Trio and a while after both as Doctor Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Looking at his filmography I am reminded that he was also so in So Long At The Fair and with Alan Ladd in The Black Knight- Below
These also get onto my favourite films list.
Andre Morell was a very good character actor who was able to gain acting work regularly both on Television and in Films – of which there were a great many – and most of them memorable.
Looking at all three performances above the thing that impresses me is how he cleverly underplays his role and in a funny sort of way that almost boosts his importance in all of these parts. Particularly I would say Trio, although in His Majesty O’Keefe he comes over much better than Burt Lancaster who seems just a bit ‘over the top’. With Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes was a different matter – two top actors together
Andre Morell first appeared on screen on TV in the late 1938s, playing Mr Wickham in a version of Pride and Prejudice of all things. He worked nearly exclusively for TV in those early years, an indication of where Morell would create some of but some of the greatest performances seen on the small screen.
On film for David Lean, he played the Colonel in The Bridge on the River Kwai. Back to the small screen he then impressed as Dr Sloper in a sadly lost TV version of The Heiress before becoming the best of three original Professor Quatermasses in the TV original of Quatermass and the Pitd turned it down for the first two series and would again turn down a chance to reprise the role in the 1967 film)
As Professor Quatermass – left
before reuniting with his 1984 co-star Peter Cushing in Hammer’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. Not only is he a wonderfully discrete Watson – one of the best to play this role – and he brings the best out of Peter Cushing. They brought out the best in each other. Around the same time he had time to play the outgoing Tribune Sextus in Ben Hur, and not only gave the best performance in the entire film, he suggested a more intelligent look at the politics of Ancient Rome than Hollywood was then willing to consider.
Despite this, he remained stuck in minor parts. After Cone of Silence and The Shadow of the Cat, he was again paired with Peter Cushing in Cash on Demand, cast as a Sheik in She and then there was another memorable part for Hammer, in The Plague of the Zombies. There was also a guest appearance in Doctor Who opposite the outgoing William Hartnell sandwiched between The Mummy’s Shroud and The Vengeance of She, before one final glorious small screen part as Tiberius in The Caesars. While Freddie Jones’ memorable Claudius and Ralph Bates’ Caligula drew most of the acclaim, it was Morell’s Tiberius who was the backbone of the series, at once stoic, pragmatic and cruel and absolutely imperiously Roman.
There would be a few other parts, as Cicero in the 1970 Julius Caesar, in 10 Rillington Place and snubbing Kubrick’s upstart Barry Lyndon. Then another role to treasure, Lord Palmerston in Edward the Seventh. Illness was taking hold and his performances were becoming even more fleeting than his glorious wife Joan Greenwood. He died of a heart attack in 1978 at the age of 69.
Dick Jones has died – from the television show The Range Rider
Any young kid growing up in England in the Fifties will remember The Range Rider – with Jack Mahoney as The Range Rider
and Dick Jones as Dick West – his sidekick in about 76 half hour episodes.
Sad to report that Dick Jones has recently died.
Lobethal Cinema South Australia
I know this cinema well as my daughter and family used to live in Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills area of South Australia and we have seen films there quite a number of times. This has been featured before on this Blog – it is a lovely place – a throw back to cinemas of the fifties and yet showing modern up to date films on a large screen. In the programme they include advertisements from local companies quite slickly done as well.
I am sad to have to print this notice below which appears on the Lobethal web site. It seems to old style projectors may not now be of use for the newer films that are now released in a digital format.
01 Mar 2014 – 31 Dec 2014
Unfortunately there will be no movies shown at the Lobethal Cinema until further notice. Movies are now only being released in digital format and the cinema does not currently have the equipment needed to be able to show them.
Good News … a ‘Save the Cinema’ group has formed and will be going public with their plans very soon. We will provide more information as it becomes available. Yeah!!!
Lex Barker – Jurgen Klinsmann – How alike they are !!!
Don’t these TWO look so alike !!!
Above: Jurgen Klinsmann – Footballer and USA World Cup Manager. Jürgen Klinsmann was born 30 July 1964 in Goppingen, Stuttgart, Germany. How strikingly alike these TWO look – I have noticed this for a number of years – every time I saw Klinsmann I was always aware of how much he looked like Lex Barker who played Tarzan in five films of the early fifties.
Interestingly Lex Barker, later in his career, found that he was unable to get the parts he wanted in Hollywood and so moved to Germany in 1957 where he stayed until late in the sixties – and this turned out to be his most successful time film-wise.
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