This  Post is hopefully to underline just how much interest there was in films during the 50s – as I am sure we all know anyway. This was reflected in the number and type of magazines around at the time.

For instance The Cinem Studio was a weekly publication although To-Days Cinema – Can you believe it – was published DAILY !!!

Picturegoer and Picture Show were  popular aimed very much at the general public, whetting their appetites for the New Releases.

I do like The Cinema Studio magazine and below is an extract from the page that deals with the films being made at our very own British Film Studios.

At Denham we had Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo filming Captain Horation Hornblower – not one of my favourites by any means – but colourful and action packed.   Don’t think I was a Gregory Peck fan really and I didn’t think he was well cast at all in a later British made film ‘Moby Dick’ made I think at Elstree.   In an article in the same publication we learn that  the Hornblower film now at Denham was being transferred to Elstree.   That seems very odd.

Also there is a film being made called ‘Tony Buys a Horse’ – a typical British comedy. I am trying to buy a DVD of the film at the moment and I am pretty sure that the name of the film on release was changed to ‘Tony Draws a Horse’.   It was a comedy starring Cecil Parker and Anne Crawford.  

Just up the road from Denham ‘Waterfront’ was in production at Pinewood with Robert Newton and directed by Michael Anderson who went on the better things with such films as The Dam Busters.  Don’t know anything much about this one though.

Picturegoer Magazine in the late fifties

Picture Show Magazine – Looks like a Royal Premier issue.

Dont know why I picked these two items but I have.

The Kodak advertisment comes from a publication called The Studio Review of 1950 and obviously seeks to capitalise on the release of Walt Disney’s Treasure Island – as a child one of my first memories of the cinema.

Walt Disney was a proclaimed master at promoting a film in the lead up to its release and afterwards too – as  anyone who was around at the time of Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier will know.   I bet most could still sing  the song from the film although they would by now have discarded the Davy Crockett hats which we all wore at the time.

The first post I did in July of this year featured Treasure Island – well I had to start off somewhere and in terms of 50s films it wasn’t a bad place to start. The boy in the picture does look a bit like Bobby Driscoll, who played  Jim Hawkins but Jim Hawkins but its not him.

We then jump a few years to May 10th 1956 by which time TV was in full swing and one of the most memorable series EVER made was The Adventures of Robin Hood with Richard Greene.

Made by Sapphire Films it became a great success in the USA.

Who could forget that thrilling opening sequence as the arrow thuds into an oak tree with rousing music accompanying it, so  setting the scene for the excitement of the next half hour. It’s funny how little things lodge in the memory because I do remember one of the episodes called  ‘The Goldmaker’ which had Alfie Bass playing that  part,  an actor we all think of as Bootsie from The Army Game and later ‘Bootsie and Snudge’.  He also had a small part in a film from the fifties that fascinates me called ‘ ‘The Night My Number Came Up’ about a dream of impending doom that becomes a self fulfiiling prophecy on a military transport plane in the far east. I will save that one for another day though.

I do recall the slogan ‘Ilford Films for Faces and Places’ at the time and I have to say that based on the above it would seem that Ilford came out on top here although it’s fair to say it was published some 5  years after the Kodak one.

In a way it just shows how the world moves on even in a few short years.

 Victor Mature was my dad s favourite actor – dont know why but he liked him particularly in The Robe I remember.

He was terrific as Samson in Samson and Delilah and this seemed to set him off into Biblical epics that became popular in the early to mid fifties.

The Robe was followed by Demetrius and the Gladiators and The Egyptian – all of them pretty good.

Mature was famously self-deprecatory about his acting skills. Once, after being rejected for membership in a country club because he was an actor, he joked, “I’m not an actor — and I’ve got sixty-four films to prove it!”  

 As regards The Sharkfighters it is not a film I have ever seen to be honest but I did always remember it and it seemed to me to underline the importance of timing as in almost any walk of life because this was a kind of ‘Jaws’ film although I wouldnt think anywhere near as good BUT the concept and fear in the film did not at that time gel with the public as it was to do 20 years later. The film was not successful – although I reckon it would have had a meagre budget compared to the Spielberg Blockbuster.

Victor Mature had also impressed as Doc Holliday in My Darling Clementine in 1946 for John Ford and then on to The Las Vegas Story with Jane Russell – a film I remember from TV,  years after it was made.

He also came to England – as many of stars of the day did – and made so-called epics such as Zarak and The Bandit of Zhobe but also a more limited budget type fim called The Long Haul about lorry drivers. 

I have a friend in the haulage business who, whilst not a film fan at all, often talks of The Long Haul because of the trucks on view ( of their time) and it is something of a curio to him.  It also featured Diana Dors who was always good. She was an underrated actress really .

His career was very varied.     In 1952 he starred opposite Esther Williams in ‘Million Dollar Mermaid’ and she has something to say about him in her colourful autobiography ( which to me seems to stretch believability to the extreme )  and then on to ‘Androcles and the Lion’ opposite Jean Simmons and Robert Newton. This was from the George Bernard Shaw play.

Back to The Sharkfighters – I chuckled at one comment on the Movie Data Base forum which went as follows:-

Victor Mature spends more time drinking beer than fighting sharks in this shamefully bad film about a U.S. military shark-fighting operation in Cuba. It looks like it was shot with only camera (which has a hard time staying in focus). The film was probably just an excuse to take a vacation in Cuba.

Mind you another of the comments gave it quite a good review – but this one made me laugh !!

He did return to the screen after five years of of retirement  and was lured back  by the prospect of parodying himself in the Peter Sellers film ‘After The Fox’ .   He gave a brilliant performance in this. 

Mature was always a self-effacing star and  had no delusions about his own work.

He was married five times so not very successful in that area of life but overall he was very likeable and very good at his job.

 I have to say,  generally speaking, I like to watch a   VICTOR MATURE FILM.

He fitted the role perfectly as A FILM STAR  !!!

I have always been fascinated by film studio sets and would love to have walked around one but never have.     This one below I came across quite by chance from a film I didn’t know at all – but I am now trying to buy the DVD – it sounds good.     This is a subject we will come back to time and again on this site as I find more pictures like this – Really good set I am sure you will agree.

From a very low key little known CHF film to a big budget Hollywood Western

RIO BRAVO

With John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson.

When we first saw this as young lads what an impression it made on us.   All action adventure in colour. What more could we have wanted- John Wayne and Dean Martin – and just for good measure the girl was Angie Dickinson looking  really lovely. Also cast was pop singer Ricky Nelson who even had time to sing – as did Dean of course.

The scene in the saloon when Dean Martin is ridiculed when he comes in chasing a gunman was memorable.  When he shoots the killer down from the attic  he is exonerated and so turns the tables on the taunting mob. Big John has by then arrived and helps him put the crowd in their place. Thrilling stuff.

Also we were able to see the old west as we thought it would have been – albeit a romanticised Hollywood version but to me that was all the better.

John Wayne excelled in this sort of role and he was great although he didn’t come anywhere near to the towering performance he gave as Ethan Edwards driven on for years in the hunt for his niece who had  been  kidnapped  by  Indians  in  that  fabulous  film ‘The Searchers’ which must come in to my own ‘top ten of all time’ films. Who could ever forget that final scene when he finds the girl (Natalie Wood).   A very moving and memorable scene indeed.

Dean Martin in the early fifties broke up from the successful film partnership with Jerry Lewis. At the time it was thought that Dean would be no good on his own. How wrong we all were !

Here he is with Walter Brennan in another scene.

Ricky Nelson in contrast was not a film actor of any note. He was a recording singing star with Hits like Its Late and Never Be Anyone Else But You under his belt and it was maybe thought that he would help appeal to a younger set of fans. Maybe that was the case.

Angie Dickinson went on  TV fame with Police Woman in the 70s although even by this time she had already been in westerns such as ‘Run of the Arrow’ and   ‘Colt 45’ and in her long career she was seldom out of work and in both films and TV over decades.

Rio Bravo was a good film and a good western – not a great one – but as young lads viewing  this film in 1959 – who cares !!!

This must be  one of Elvis Presley’s best films – although that might not say much.   Colonel Tom Parker his manager had cleverly moved to get Elvis into films because this was the only way at the time to capitalise on his worldwide  potential.  In those days there was no satellite TV or video tape – not even a colour TV – so this was the only route forward and it proved a very successful one. The early films such as Love Me Tender, Loving You and this one  gave Elvis good roles but it was King Creole  that to me gave him the best storyline and certainly ths strongest cast of co players.

The  Colonel in a master stroke got him Michael Curtiz as  director and a top flight supporting cast consisting of Oscar winners like Dean Jagger as his father and Walter Matthau as the villain of the piece.  The other top rate players were  Carolyn Jones, Vic Morrow, Paul Stewart, and Dolores Hart.

Elvis plays Danny Fisher a troubled youth searching for himself a role that  James Dean excelled with in East of Eden. To spport his family, Elvis has to go to work because his father has been unable to hold down a job ever since the death of his wife.  He gets a break in Walter Matthau’s club with an impromptu audition, but it is rival owner Paul Stewart who hires Elvis. That sets the stage for a lot of the action to come.

Walter Matthau plays  an exceptionally nasty bad guy in King Creole.

Dolores Hart was here in her second film with Elvis having starred with him in Loving You in 1957 . She has been the subject of much speculation over the years about her relationship with Elvis. In one interview during her movie career she was often asked, “What is it like kissing Elvis?” She chuckled a bit at the memory, “I think the limit for a screen kiss back then was something like 15 seconds. That one has lasted 40 years.”

Her last film role was in 1963  and for whatever reason at that time she made up her mind to leave the film industry, and after breaking off her engagement to Don Robinson, the 24-year-old actress became a Roman Catholic nun in Bethlehem Connecticut.

So ended the film career of this very attractive young girl who left the world of glamour and has since led a very different life although probably much more fulfilling.

  She has recently been interviewed about those now far off days.

The title song became one of Elvis’s early best sellers and it is also the name of the club Matthau owns in the New Orleans French Quarter. Presley has some other good numbers in this film as well.

King Creole also was one of the first of Harold Robbins’s novels to be made into a film.

In order to make this film Elvis had to defer  beginning his military service from January to March 1958. 

Crowds wait for a glimpse of Elvis during filming

Filming waswas delayed several times on location by crowds of fans attracted by the apperarance of Elvis on to the location set. The film was released by Paramount Pictures on July 2, 1958, to both critical and commercial success. The critics were unanimous in their praise of Presley’s performance.

I remember seeing this film in St.Albans either at the Odeon or the Gaumont whilst on our annual holiday there probably in 1959.   The scenes of the banshee and the death coach were really scary and so impressive that I have carried the memory to this day. When I saw the video on its release many years later, I was astonished to find that the scenes were still impressive even after all those years.    In fact my daughters who were very young at that time of the video release just could not watch the Banshee and the Death Coach when it arrived.  Walt Disney always maintained that children don’t mind being scared if they are with their parents and I have a feeling this is quite true.

 This is a Disney masterpiece in its own way but I don’t remember it being accompanied by the same publicity machine that was used for previous films like Treasure Island and Robin Hood for instance.

Considering how sophisticated special effects have become since ‘Darby O’Gill’ was made in 1959, this film still  looks good and the special effects appear astonishing and  that’s quite a tribute to the moviemaking skills of the day.

Just take a look at the above picture to see the sheer genius of matte painting. The whole top half of this picture including the church spire and the roof of the house on the right as well as the far off hills and sky, have all been painted onto a sheet of glass in front of the camera and then matched to the moving action below so well in fact that it is impossible to see the ‘join’

This was the work of Peter Ellenshaw who was the Matte Painting genius of the world who had worked exclusively for Walt Disney from 1950.

The duals between Darby and  King Brian, are wonderfully funny, as each tries to outsmart the other. The village characters are all well-drawn and very likeable.

The scenery is lovely aided again by some stunning matte paintings by Peter Ellenshaw.  The actors are well up to the job and seem to fit the roles well. The music is catchy  and really there’s nothing not to like in this movie. 

 Favourite scenes would have to include the banshee and death coach at the end, as mentioned, and all the leprechauns dancing under the fairy mountain then riding their little white horses out into the night as Darby plays them a wild tune on his fiddle.

 These stills from the film are really good ones and at the time gave us a flavour of what we were to see once inside the cinema.

I do recall every film seemed to be accompanied by these Front of House Stills which were displayed outside the cinema  to lure us in and quite often in those days we did go in.

We have not yet mentioned the actors in any detail. Albert Sharpe played Darby brilliantly and King Brian was played by Jimmy O Dea.

Sean Connery had a singing part in this and his girl friend was Janet Munro who became a Disney regular  in Third Man on the Mountain, Swiss Family Robinson and this one.  In 1972 Janet died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Reports circulated that she choked to death at a London hotel while drinking tea. The immediate cause of her death was acute myocarditis; the underlying cause was chronic ischemic heart disease. The sun set all too soon on this lovely actress at the age of 38.  She was survived by her two daughters, Sally and Connie her children from her marriage to actor Ian Hendry.

I seem to remember that they lived on an island in the Thames up towards Maidenhead.

Keiron Moore played the baddie in this.

This is one of Disney’s very best films.

Cliff’s career had only just got under way when he appeared in this film – released in 1959 it was SERIOUS CHARGE

The story really centred around Anthony Quayle as a vicar trying to help young people with a youth club and being wrongly accused of bad things.

It was a strong storyline and Cliff had a minor role but still managed to sing three songs.  The film is remembered and billed as being a Cliff Richard movie but he was little involved.

Anthony Quayle was a very good actor and appeared in a lot of films. He was married in real life to Dorothy Hysen who had appeared some years earlier with George Formby in Spare a Copper.

Quayle always had a very serious appearance – in fact he was said by Sir John Geilgud as having a face like ‘two tins of condemned veal’ – a little harsh maybe.

In the same year as this Anthony Quayle appeared as the leading baddie in Tarzans Greatest Adventure with Gordon Scott in the title role. Sean Connery was also in the movie and came to a sticky end with an arrow through his chest.

Cliff on the other hand was just getting into gear and he would have already released Move It and his  first Number One ‘Living Doll’ was actually featured in this film – something I had forgotten until seeing the above poster.

He was at this time with The Drifters who shortly after this became The Shadows to avoid confusion with the American ‘ Drifters’.

I remember Cliff coming to appear in our local town and after the concert he was introduced to selected local girls – one of which I knew at the time – and following a hand shake he said to the girl ‘I bet you won’t wash your hands for a week now’.  This did not impress her and she promptly went off and had a wash. It was probably just one of those type of things we all say and then regret. Funny how such silly little stories stick with us.  I am pretty sure he appeared on the same bill as Wee Willie Harris and The Bachelors – not the Irish Group though.

He stayed  in our town at the Devon Hotel which is no longer there now.

The The

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