Earlier this year, saw the release on Blu Ray of the excellent ‘Bullfighter and the Lady’ Directed by Budd Boetticher and starring Robert Stack

Starring Robert Stack, Joy Page, Gilbert Roland, Virginia Grey, John Hubbard, Katy Jurado, Paul Fix

This BluRay – a special edition of Budd Boetticher’s wonderful Bullfighter And The Lady (1951) – includes the complete 124-minute cut and the 87-minute version released by Republic.

John Wayne produced the picture, for which Boetticher (and Ray Navarro) an Oscar nomination for Best Original Story.

This is a good film showing the horrors of bullfighting with excellent photography and directed by a former bullfighter himself, Budd Boetticher.

John Wayne produced this picture but did not appear in this film and presented a film that was originally cut into pieces but has been restored to its original print, which is seen today.

Robert Stack, (Johnny Regan) plays the role as a U.S. Citizen who has connections with Hollywood and has become interested in becoming a bullfighter – he travels to Mexico to meet a real famous matador.

Johnny meets up with Manolo Estgrada, (Gilbert Roland) and he soon makes an arrangement with Manolo to teach him how to shoot birds in exchange for Matador lessons.

This film goes into great detail about how to fight a bull and the dangers of the sport. Johnny falls in love at first sight with Anita De La Vega, (Joy Page) who initially doesn’t show much interest in him but slowly thing develop

Bullfighter and the Lady was Boetticher’s first film as an A-list Hollywood director. It was a personal and, in many ways, an autobiographical project. The young Budd Boetticher had spent some years in Mexico as a gringo obsessed with bullfighting. He had trained as a bullfighter and achieved some degree of success – just as Johnny Regan (Robert Stack) does in this film. Returning to the United States, he broke into movies as a technical consultant on the bullfight scenes in Blood and Sand (Rouben Mamoulian, 1941).

JOY PAGE

Joy Page, who died aged 83 in 2008 had previously had a strong supporting role in ‘Casablanca’ – playing the part of Annina, a young newlywed Bulgarian girl who, with her husband, wishes to escape to America, but has no money for an exit visa. For this, she is willing to sleep with Captain Renault (Claude Rains).

“Monsieur Rick, what kind of a man is Captain Renault?” she asks Humphrey Bogart, owner of Rick’s Café Américain. “Oh, he’s just like any other man, only more so,” he says wryly. She then has a speech that crystallises the central love story between Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, though Annina is referring to her own dilemma. “Oh, monsieur, you are a man. If someone loved you very much, so that your happiness was the only thing that she wanted in the whole world, but she did a bad thing to make certain of it, would you forgive her? … And he never knew and the girl kept this bad thing locked in her heart? That would be all right, wouldn’t it?“

Because, as the song goes, “the world will always welcome lovers”, Bogart saves her from selling herself, by letting her husband win at the roulette table.

Merely the fact that she was part of the cast of Casablanca is enough to gain Joy Page enduring fame. Nevertheless, her performance in her first screen role was so refreshing and touching that it is surprising that her career never took off. She seemed to have had all the advantages. Born in Los Angeles as Joy Paige, she was the daughter of silent-screen Latin lover Don Alvarado (real name José Paige) and Ann Boyar, the daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants. The latter married Jack Warner, head of Warner Bros studios, after she and Alvarado divorced. Joy was 12 years old when Warner became her stepfather.

She was a 17-year-old senior at Beverly Hills high, when she was prompted to read for the part of Annina in Casablanca by Sophie Rosenstein, her acting coach at Warner Bros. Though Warner was pleased with her performance, he did nothing to encourage her acting subsequently, and she never made another film for her stepfather’s studio.

Exploiting her dusky looks, inherited from her Mexican-American father (who died in 1967), and despite her name, Joy Page played a number of señoritas in both films and television until she retired in 1959.

However, her first two post-Casablanca film roles were as an Arab girl, daughter of beggar Ronald Colman, who schemes for her to marry the caliph of Baghdad in Kismet (1944) and an Indian girl (married to Sabu), mauled by the tiger in Man-Eater of Kumaon (1948).

She then did this one – The Bullfighter and the Lady (1951) as Anita de la Vega, with whom an American (Robert Stack) on holiday in Mexico becomes fascinated, almost as much as he is by bulls. She co-starred with Stack again in Conquest of Cochise (1953), in which she suffered beautifully as Mexican aristocrat Consuelo de Cordova, held hostage by John Hodiak as the Apache leader.

Joy Page was then an Italian partisan helping American pilot Sterling Hayden in Fighter Attack (1953), and played “the other woman” in The Shrike (1955), notable for allowing June Allyson to play against type as a shrewish wife. Subsequently, Page appeared mainly in episodes of television series produced by her husband William Orr, whom she had married in 1945. Minor film actor Orr was swiftly made a producer by Warner, who later put him in charge of Warner Bros Television, thus engendering such comments as “the son-in-law also rises”.

As an aside to the ABOVE – ‘Casablanca’ was released 80 years ago this month

Well I have to admit hat Joan Rice is my own very favourite Maid Marian from the 1952 Walt Disney film ‘The Story of Robin Hood and His Merrie Men’

Only a few years later though we have the Television series The Adventure of Robin Hood with Richard Greene and first Bernadette O’Farrell as Maid Marion and then a very surprised Patricia Driscoll was offered and accepted the role as Maid Marian

She had been doing the Children’s TV programme ‘Picture Book’ when she received the call to go for a test. She was surprised but went along – not really expecting anything to come of it – and lo and behold, she got the part.

Duncan Lamont was Patricia’s husband and also an actor – very busy on Television and in films – in fact he played Victor Caroon in ‘The Quatermass Experiment’ which scared me and my brother so much so that Dad would not let us see the last episode.

His character, on his sick, bed reached out for a ‘cactus-like’plant which gradually grew on him and eventually took him over to become the monster. Memorable Television of that early era.

At that time, he was working a lot, but Patricia on Picture Book had a good but more relaxed life style – that changed with ‘Robin Hood’ when she had to be up at 5-30 am to travel to the Studios, often not getting back home until 7 pm. which left Duncan for much of the time as head cook and bottle washer. Mind you as she admitted her pay rose to three times what it had been.

As we all know this series was a monster hit Worldwide – particularly in America – and Patricia Driscoll received very many fan letters from there.

She had starred before this with Max Bygraves in a really pleasant Colour Film ‘Charlie Moon’ and she was also in an episode of ‘Scotland Yard’ and ‘Fabian of the Yard’ – an episode called ‘The Poison Machine’ one of the only episodes that I have much of a memory of – it was to me at the time quite disturbing.

Patricia Driscoll died in 2020 at the age of 92 but her husband Duncan Lamont had passed away in 1978.

I had always thought that they didn’t have children but in fact they did have two – one was a daughter not sure of the other

From Republic Pictures and in Truclor. Well – What more could you want – and with an exciting title

Flame of the Islands (1956)

Republic Pictures. With Yvonne DeCarlo in the leading role.

She’s a tough, sensual and glamorous presence as our heroine Rosalind Dee. Yvonne DeCarlo even gets to sing in the film

French language poster for Flame of the Islands (1956)

ABOVE: Zachary Scott and Yvonne DeCarlo in Flame of the Islands (1956).
Republic Studio’s ‘Trucolour’ process was used here , the poor man’s Technicolour. . The better-than-life colours (like the blue of a swimming pool, Yvonne DeCarlo’s ice-pink dress) really stand out on the screen

In fact, for a relatively low-budget film,  ‘Flame of the Islands’is a great viewing experience – the action is set in the Bahamas.

It was definitely filmed on location in the Bahamas and that somehow gives the film an exotic ‘ holiday type’ look

Rosalind upset some of the snobby locals as she belts out’ a raunchy musical performance at the Christmas cocktail party!  

Above: Yvonne DeCarlo and Howard Duff in Flame of the Islands /
Howard Duff comes over as weak a character Doug Duryea, the rich boy who broke DeCarlo’s heart years before – and who she longs to reunite with.

The reliably intense character actress Barbara O’Neil wrings maximum drama from every second she is onscreen as Duff’s neurotic socialite mother Charmaine.

Of course, Charmaine is mortified that her son is entangled with a disreputable nightclub singer with a scandalous past.

Barbara O’Neil ABOVE whose supporting roles in films include ‘ All This and Heaven Too‘ (1940) and ‘Angel Face‘ (1952) / 
James Arness is cast as Reverend Kelly Rand.

The scene where Kelly takes DeCarlo marlin fishing on his boat is one of Flame’s highlights.

Then we come to Zachary Scott who plays Wade Evans, DeCarlo’s best friend who tags along for the adventure.

ABOVE: Zachary Scott in Flame of the Islands (1956)

This must have been a glossy advertisement maybe in a Trade Paper or it could have been a normal Newspaper promotion.

At first glance I wrongly assumed that these were all pictures from Universal Studios but on checking that is certainly not the case

‘Many Rivers to Cross’ 1955 from MGM – the Trailer BELOW makes it look a quite expensive film, as maybe a film starring Robert Taylor, at that time, should have made me realise.

It came just a year or two after he had had a very successful run – in ‘Quo Vadis’ then ‘Ivanhoe’, ‘Knights of the Round Table’ and ‘Quentin Durward’ the last three made in England.

Another Trailer BELOW – and another major film star Glenn Ford in ‘Jubal’

Not just Glenn Ford the film also had Ernest Borgnine, Rod Steiger and Charles Bronson with the lovely Felicia Farr ( I remember her well from ‘The Last Wagon’ ) and English Actress Valerie French who I recall from another of my favourites – with a much lower budget – ‘The Secret of Treasure Mountain’ 1956 released a month earlier than ‘Jubal’

Valerie French had a fling with Rod Steiger during the making of the film and maybe afterwards. They were seen dining out together and there was talk of marriage but that didn’t happen.

She was a British Film Actress who travelled to Hollywood and seemed to have a career there around this time but although she appeared in quite a lot of things – and was active on stage – she never really made the big time

Valerie French was born in London and spent her early childhood in Spain, returning to England to attend Malvern Girls’ College in Worcestershire and then join the BBC drama department.

After several years in television production, she joined the Theatre Royal Repertory Company in Windsor, where she played small parts.

After a screen test and a role in the film “The Constant Husband” in 1955, she went to Hollywood and became a contract actress with Columbia Pictures. She starred opposite Glenn Ford and Rod Steiger in “Jubal” (1956) and with Lee J. Cobb in “The Garment Jungle” (1957).

On Broadway she acted in “Inadmissible Evidence” (1965) and “Help Stamp Out Marriage!” (1966). In “The Mother Lover,” at the Booth Theatre in 1969, she caused something of a sensation by appearing onstage nude with her back to the audience.

Miss French starred on Broadway in Harold Pinter’s “Tea Party” and “The Basement” in 1968, in a 1980 revival of Noel Coward’s “Fallen Angels,” and as the mother, Helen, in a production of “A Taste of Honey” in 1981.

Her television credits include roles in “Have Gun, Will Travel,” “The Prisoner,” “The Nurses,” “Edge of Night” and “Brighter Day.”

She was twice married and twice divorced. In a 1981 interview she said that she and her second husband, the actor Thayer David, had been planning to remarry when he died in 1978.

She died of leukemia in 1990

ABOVE – a favourite of mine – a film that up until relatively recently was impossible to find. I did acquire a 16 mm feature film version a few years ago and had some DVDs made from it – then a DVD was issued in the USA and recently it was shown on Talking Pictures in England. I really enjoyed it. Valerie French was the female lead and was very good in her role.

ABOVE – Valerie French was in this one which I definitely saw at the Cinema – ‘The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake’

It is a film that disturbed me at the time – and in a way still does. I do remember being in a low mood all those years ago when I first saw it, because of a girl I am pretty sure – but even so this film made me – still makes me – uncomfortable.

Interesting to see some of the scenes being filmed – first BELOW with the enormous VistaVision Camera. These scenes would have been done at Paramount Studios in Hollywood where much of the film was made

Grace Kelly looking beautiful as always

Cary Grant would go on to work again for Hitchcock in ‘North By North West’ a few years later but Grace Kelly finished her film career with this one.

Hitchcock however looked around for a ‘replacement’ and Tippi Hedren was spotted – someone with no acting or film experience.

Nevertheless she was coached and trained in acting in preparation for her starring role in ‘The Birds’ a few years later. Hitchcock invested heavily in his new protege and signed her to a 5 year contract which should have been good news for this young actress, but after he made ‘full on’ unwanted advances to her – which were quickly and firmly re-buffed – he barely ever spoke to her again. She did star in ‘Marnie’ for him but after that – nothing. Hitchcock was approached by other companies with a view to casting her but he refused all such requests. By the time her contract was over and she was free, she was no longer in demand – so he had effectively made her career and then destroyed it

ABOVE = Alfred Hitchcock’s name above the title

I have included the above because I find it fascinating to look back on the newspaper advertisements of the day to see what was on, and with which film and where

I have not seen this film in 3D but have just sent for the 3D Blu Ray so, all being well, I might shortly be able to report on it. Like most of us, I know the film well.

Apparently initially when the film was released the 3D craze was on it’s way out – very surprising to me as I loved it – and soon after it reverted to a normal ‘flat’ style. Hitchcock is reported as saying that he always though that 3D would be a nine day wonder – and added that the trouble was that this film came out on the 9th day !!

Well, there was really no alternative viewing in those days – but I have to say that the programme content was generally very good. Typical of the plays we used to get are the ones below :-

ABOVE – ”The River Line’ which was broadcast in May of 1955 with Charles Norgan, Rosalie Crutchley, James Donald and John Charlesworth (Seated)

I well remember John Charlesworth from Billy Bunter and the wonderful film ‘The Blue Peter’ which he must have filmed straight after this play. Very sadly he took his own life about a decade later

‘The Blue Peter’ was a Widescreen Colour film that I saw at the Cinema years ago. The outdoor scenes in Wales – in and around Aberdovey were quite breathtaking on the big screen – particularly the climax on the cliff- I thought that was brilliantly done. sadly it does not have the same impact on the Television screen

ABOVE – ‘Candida’ with Michael Hordern, Irene Worth and Tom Criddle

ABOVE ‘ For Dear Life’ with Malcolm Keen, Patricia Burke, Anthony Oliver (seated) and Hamilton Dyce

ABOVE ‘ For Dear Life’ Patricia Burke and Anthony Oliver

The above are good quality Television plays from 1955 with top actors

This is a Cinema that I went to quite often when on holiday in the City – usually in summertime. I am drawn to this story mainly because of the films mentioned – ones that I know well.

The Cinema opened on Saturday 20th January 1912.

The entrance was between two shops and there was Tudor-style decoration above. With possible theatre use in mind, space was left for a stage and dressing rooms. The seating capacity was 799.

In January 1927 the Cinema was acquired by Captain Frederick A. Webb and renamed the Chequers Cinema.

Early in 1933 the auditorium was extended at the screen end into the space left vacant for possible theatre use. This increased the seating to 1,000.

In the 1950’s the Chequers Cinema was adapted for CinemaScope releases. However, in 1962 the cinema was purchased by a property company for conversion into a supermarket. The Chequers Cinema closed on Saturday 30th June 1962 after a week’s run of two re-issues, “Young at Heart” starring Frank Sinatra and Doris Day, and Guy Madison and Vera Miles in “The Charge at Feather River”.

However, permission for change of use was turned down, on the grounds that a redevelopment of the area was pending. So the owners granted a year’s lease (with an option to renew) to Panton Film Distributors, who, after redecoration and reseating, re-opened the Chequers Cinema on Saturday 1st December 1962 with “The 300 Spartans”, starring Richard Egan and Ralph Richardson.

Unfortunately, the cinema became starved of good, current product and had to rely on revivals and lesser releases. Finally, after the double bill of “Portrait of a Mobster” starring Vic Morrow, and “His Majesty O’Keefe” with Burt Lancaster, on Sunday 18th July 1965, the Chequers Cinema closed for good.

‘His Majesty O Keefe is one of my favourite films and one I saw at the Odeon in St Albans in the summer of 1954 – and to think that around eight years later it would be the very last film ever shown at The Chequers Cinema in the City – What a good film to go out on though !

In 1974 the building was compulsorily purchased by the council. The proposed demolition was delayed, and bingo returned for a while, but the building was adapted to form part of The Maltings development in 1983. The canopy and mock Tudor frontage were removed and three shops created. At the rear, two storeys of shops and business premises have been created.

Princess Diana officially opened The Maltings on14 April 1988

I did feature ‘Tanganyika’ quite recently but have just come up with this advertisement from that time

This was the Double Bill my brother and I saw when we were on holiday in St Albans in 1955

I don’t think that this does either of the films justice – they were both in Colour and looked good on the screen.

The film programme BELOW is much more colourful and appealing – however my own view would be that I would far prefer ‘Tanganyika’ and ‘Johnny Dark’

If you are into car racing films, then ‘Johnny Dark’ gives you plenty of high speed action of two racers flying throughout the open roads of 1950s America.

I am not at all into car racing but the scenery is worth watching and the actors are good with plenty of action

I saw this Western for the first time yesterday and was really impressed by it – the Technicolor print that I saw was first rate with a crystal clear picture. This is the best Western that I have seen for quite a while and is not one I knew but once I started watching I couldn’t leave it until the final frames.

We kick off the action and get into the plot very quickly in the film

Silver Lode is directed by Allan Dwan and written by Karen DeWolf. It stars John Payne, Lizabeth Scott, Dan Duryea, Dolores Moran and Emile Meyer. Music is by Louis Forbes and cinematography by John Alton.

Dan Ballard ( John Payne) is a respected resident of the town Silver Lode, but on his wedding day so-called ‘Marshal’ Fred McCarty ( Dan Duryea) rolls into town looking to arrest him, accusing him of having murdered the Marshal’s brother. The townsfolk refuse to accept the charge and stand up for Dan. Dan loudly protests his innocence, but once suspicious mud is thrown it begins to stick and soon Dan finds some of the townsfolk are turning against him forcing him to take whatever action is necessary to prove his innocence.

John Payne and Lizabeth Scott starred ABOVE – this was very early in the film and they were about to be married when things began to change dramatically

ABOVE – the excellent Dan Duryea – as usual the ‘baddie’ and what a ‘baddie’ he is in this film

ABOVE – Dolore Moran

ABOVE – this time a wounded Dan Duryea.

Dan did come to England on at least two occasions – first in 1953 to film ’36 hours’ and a decade later in 1964 for two films – ‘Walk a Tightrope’ and ‘Do You Know this Voice’

ABOVE – the very attractive Dolores Moran who, I thought was excellent in the film and had one of the best roles – she was well up to it. I am staggered to see that this was her last film = she just packed it in. She was certainly a very capable actress

John Payne on the run towards the final confrontation

John Payne on the run towards the final confrontation passing the church

John Payne and Lizabeth Scott – she did not have that big a part

ABOVE and BEOW – John Payne is wounded but has to go on as he is hunted by the townsfolk

ABOVE and BELOW – the final confrontation

I just thought that after the turmoil we have just had in England politically it would be interesting to go back almost 70 years to 1955 and look at the comparison. At that time Prime Ministers and Cabinet Ministers did not appear on Television but on this occasion in May of that year they did

Anthony Eden took to the airwaves The Prime Minister, hosted a ground-breaking half-hour television election programme for the Conservative Party, pitting government ministers against newspaper editors in the first broadcast of its kind.

The style chosen by Sir Anthony evoked the first televised press conference, staged in the United States earlier the same year by the American president, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

ABOVE – Sir Anthony was flanked by four ministers: the Chancellor, Rab Butler, the Foreign Secretary, Harold Macmillan, the Health Minister, Iain Macleod, and the Minister of Labour, Sir Walter Monckton.

Looking at the above politicians one thing strikes me – they all served their country in Wartime – Harold McMillan and Anthony Eden were both wounded in the First War and Ian MacLoed wounded in France in the Second World War. The other two served in the Wartime Government. Added to this Anthony Eden lost a son in the Second World War.

They had all seen their fair share of conflict and didn’t want to see it again.

ABOVE – Sir Anthony Eden

ABOVE – Sir Anthony Eden in this long shot of the Studio is watched by his wife

BELOW – same era and same year – we turn to more light hearted matters – Billy Bunter with a dis-approving Headmaster Quelch

Gerald Campion played Billy Bunter and Kynaston Reeves was Quelch who I also remember being in one of my favourite horror films ‘Fiend Without a Face’.