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 [...]

Lee Madden

Lee Madden, best known for directing Hell’s Angels ‘69, died of complications from pneumonia on April 9 in Camarillo, a town north of Los Angeles. He was 82.
The American International Pictures release Hell’s Angels ‘69, the tale of two brothers who plan on robbing Las Vegas’ Caesar’s Palace, was the Brooklyn-born Madden’s first feature. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it is the only fiction film in which the Oakland Hell’s Angels, including leader Sonny Barger, appeared.
Madden’s other features were the bikers vs. rednecks adaptation of The Magnificent Seven, Angel Unchained (1970), starring Tyne Daly and Don Stroud, and which Madden also wrote and produced; The Night God Screamed (1971), starring 1940s Fox star Jeanne [...]