Yul Brynner on TCM
Yul Brynner’s "Summer Under the Stars" day is Wednesday, Aug. 26.
Inevitably, The King and I (1956), the movie that earned Brynner an Academy Award and turned him into a major international star, is included in Turner Classic Movies‘ Yul Brynner Day line-up. Brynner is great in it and so is Deborah Kerr as the Englishwoman who teaches the King of Siam how to dance, but the movie itself, directed by Fox stalwart Walter Lang, takes quite a bit to get going. In fact, I prefer the more modest 1946 non-musical, Anna and the King of Siam, with Irene Dunne and Rex Harrison — even though Brynner is much more believable (and funnier) than Harrison.
The other Yul Brynner-Deborah Kerr pairing, The [...]
by Andre Soares | August 20, 2009
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Tags: Classic Movies, Deborah Kerr, Summer Under the Stars, The Journey, The Magnificent Seven, Turner Classic Movies, Westworld, Yul Brynner
Deborah Kerr on TCM
Deborah Kerr’s day in the Turner Classic Movies"Summer Under the Stars" series will feature two TCM premieres: The Day Will Dawn / The Avengers, a British-made 1942 spy drama, and Leo McCarey’s An Affair to Remember (1957), one of Kerr’s best-known films.
I haven’t seen The Day Will Dawn, but An Affair to Remember is an effective romantic comedy-drama, with both Kerr and Cary Grant in top form as the couple who fail to meet as near to heaven as possible, but who go on loving one another, anyways.
As I’ve said before in this blog, Deborah Kerr is one of my favorite dozen or so actors. Her performances, however cool and composed on the surface, always carry within them [...]
by Andre Soares | August 12, 2009
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Tags: An Affair to Remember, Classic Movies, Deborah Kerr, Edward My Son, From Here to Eternity, Summer Under the Stars, TCM, Tea and Sympathy, Turner Classic Movies
Robert Mitchum Interviewed by Roger Ebert
Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton’s The Night of the Hunter
Via Rogerebert.com:
"He [Robert Mitchum] was my favorite movie star, and my favorite interview. He would tell you anything. He fearlessly maligned his directors, co-stars, even actors he had never worked with. ([Steve] McQueen? ‘He doesn’t bring much to the party.’) He was once called ‘the embodiment of film noir,’ and that was about right.
"In ‘From the Archives’ this week, I’m reprinting four of the seven or eight interviews I did with Mitch. The first three take place between 1969 and 1971, during and after he made Ryan’s Daughter. The fourth is at a tribute some 20 years later. You get a sense of his irreverence, his refusal to take himself seriously, [...]
by Andre Soares | December 6, 2007
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Tags: Charles Laughton, Classic Movies, Deborah Kerr, Out of the Past, Robert Mitchum, Robert Wise, Roger Ebert, Shirley MacLaine, The Night of the Hunter, The Sundowners
Deborah Kerr: What Lies Beneath
With Deborah Kerr, it’s not the bare shoulders that matter. It’s the eyes.
Deborah Kerr, who died at the age of 86 on Oct. 16, has usually been labeled the cinematic embodiment of the English Rose: ladylike from coiffure to pedicure, perfectly enunciated English, a distinctive coolness, poise and class. I won’t argue with that description (except to point out that this English Rose was born in Scotland), but all the same I wonder if any of those labelers have ever watched Deborah Kerr on screen other than the "Shall We Dance?" sequence in The King and I.
Then there are those who have seen two Deborah Kerr scenes: "Shall We Dance?" and the kissing-on-the-beach bit in From Here to Eternity.
Shocking! [...]
by Andre Soares | October 25, 2007
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Tags: Classic Movies, Deborah Kerr, Sex
Fred Zinnemann: Top Oscar Directors for Actors
Fred Zinnemann began his career during the studio era, but kept on going, however sporadically, long after most of his contemporaries had retired. Even so, today his name means little for most audiences and critics alike. Why?
Quite possibly because, like William Wyler’s, Zinnemann’s relatively small oeuvre (21 narrative feature films) covers just about every film genre there is: Western (High Noon), romance (From Here to Eternity), socially conscious drama (The Search), historical drama (A Man for All Seasons), adventure (Five Days One Summer), thriller (The Day of the Jackal), crime (Act of Violence), comedy (My Brother Talks to Horses), and musical (Oklahoma).
Most film critics and historians are no different than most simpletons. They tend to value work that can be [...]
by Andre Soares | January 28, 2007
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Tags: Academy Awards, Burt Lancaster, Classic Movies, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Film Awards, Fred Zinnemann, From Here to Eternity, Gary Cooper, High Noon
Best Films – 1947
Deborah Kerr, Kathleen Byron, David Farrar in Black Narcissus
FILM
Black Narcissus
d, scr: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Cheyenne
d: Raoul Walsh; scr: Alan Le May, Thames Williamson
Crossfire
d: Edward Dmytryk; scr: John Paxton
Down to Earth
d: Alexander Hall; scr: Edwin Blum, Don Hartman
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
d: Joseph L. Mankiewicz; scr: Philip Dunne
Life with Father
d: Michael Curtiz; scr: Donald Ogden Stewart
Miracle on 34th Street
d, scr: George Seaton
Monsieur Vincent
d: Maurice Cloche; scr: Jean Bernard Luc, Jean Anouilh
Mourning Becomes Electra
d, scr: Dudley Nichols
Nicholas Nickleby
d: Alberto Cavalcanti; scr: John Dighton
The Perils of Pauline
d: George Marshall; scr: P. J. Wolfson, Frank Butler
CHECK THESE OUT
Body and Soul
d: Robert Rossen; scr: Abraham Polonsky
A Double Life
d: George Cukor; [...]
by Andre Soares | August 31, 2004
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Tags: A Double Life, Abraham Polonsky, Alan Le May, Alberto Cavalcanti, Alexander Hall, Allen Rivkin, Anne Revere, Aubrey Woods, Audrey Totter, Bernard Herrmann, Betty Hutton, Black Narcissus, Body and Soul, Brian Easdale, Carol Reed, Cedric Hardwicke, Charles B. Lang, Charles Bickford, Charles Chaplin, Cheyenne, Claudette Colbert, Crossfire, Curtis Bernhardt, David Farrar, Deborah Kerr, Dolores del Rio, Don Hartman, Donald Ogden Stewart, Down to Earth, Dudley Nichols, Edmund Gwenn, Edward Dmytryk, Edwin Blum, Elwood Bredell, Emeric Pressburger, Ethel Barrymore, F. L. Green, Frank Butler, Frank Davis, Gabriel Figueroa, Garson Kanin, Gene Tierney, Geoffrey Homes, George Barnes, George Cukor, George Marshall, George Seaton, Ginger Rogers, H. C. Potter, Harry Stradling, Heinz Roemheld, Henry Fonda, Irene Dunne, It Had to Be You, Jack Cardiff, Jacques Tourneur, James Mason, James Wong Howe, Jean Anouilh, Jean Bernard Luc, Jean Renoir, Joan Crawford, John Dighton, John Ford, John Paxton, Joseph A. Valentine, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Lady in the Lake, Laura Kerr, Life with Father, Lilli Palmer, Lloyd Gough, Lord Berners, Loretta Young, Marjorie Main, Martha Raye, Mary Merrall, Maureen O'Hara, Maurice Cloche, Max Steiner, May Hallatt, Michael Curtiz, Michael Hogan, Michael Powell, Miracle on 34th Street, Monsieur Vincent, Mourning Becomes Electra, Nicholas Nickleby, Odd Man Out, Out of the Past, P. J. Wolfson, Peverell Marley, Philip Dunne, Pierre Fresnay, Possessed, Pursued, R. C. Sheriff, Ranald MacDougall, Raoul Walsh, Rex Harrison, Richard Hageman, Ride the Pink Horse, Rita Hayworth, Robert Krasker, Robert Montgomery, Robert Rossen, Robert Ryan, Roland Culver, Ronald Colman, Ruth Gordon, Signe Hasso, Silvia Richards, Thames Williamson, The Egg and I, The Farmer's Daughter, The Fugitive, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Perils of Pauline, The Sea of Grass, The Unsuspected, The Woman on the Beach, Van Heflin, Vida Hope, William Alwyn, William Conrad, William Powell, William V. Skall
