Andre Soares

Howard Keel musicals: Box office roller coaster ride. Described by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper as a “big hunk of masculinity with a voice to match,” Howard Keel, brought to Hollywood to star in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s then popular musicals, seemed destined to…

Howard Keel. A prominent name in Hollywood musicals of the early 1950s, Howard Keel was seen – and heard – as larger-than-life, baritone-voiced characters in a quintet of the best-liked entries in the genre: Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat,…

Machiko Kyo. Japanese star Machiko Kyo was seen in several of the most widely admired cinema classics of the 1950s, including Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu, and Teinosuke Kinugasa’s Gate of Hell. In addition to Daniel Mann’s international blockbuster…

John Boles. Actor & singer John Boles remembered On March 4, Turner Classic Movies is remembering actor-singer John Boles, a name that even the majority of film historians and connoisseurs will likely have trouble recognizing. Yet John Boles – who…

Magnificent Obsession book by Anthony Slide. Whereas Lloyd C. Douglas’ 1929 Magnificent Obsession book dealt with a playboy’s urge to restore the eyesight of the woman he had accidentally blinded, Anthony Slide’s latest explores the lives and times of movie…

Valentino with Rudolf Nureyev and Michelle Phillips. Ken Russell’s 1977 Rudolph Valentino biopic Valentino is based on the dubious 1966 bio (“Was he a great lover – or a sham?”) penned by Chaw Mank and Brad Steiger. A coal miner’s…

Jimmy Edwards. Best known for his radio and television work – Take It from Here in the former medium; Whack-O! in the latter – British comedian Jimmy Edwards was seen, mostly in small parts, in about a dozen features from…

Updated: Following a couple of Julie London Westerns*, Turner Classic Movies will return to its July 2017 Star of the Month presentations. This evening, July 27, Ronald Colman can be seen in five titles from his later years: A Double…

‘Under the Volcano’ screening: John Huston’s ‘quality’ comeback starring daring Albert Finney As part of its John Huston film series, the UCLA Film & Television Archive will be presenting the 1984 drama Under the Volcano, starring Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset,…

Ronald Colman: Turner Classic Movies’ Star of the Month in two major 1930s classics Updated: Turner Classic Movies’ July 2017 Star of the Month is Ronald Colman, one of the finest performers of the studio era. On Thursday night, TCM…

Antihero Ricardo Cortez in Symphony of Six Million, with Irene Dunne. Directed by Gregory La Cava, this 1932 family/romantic melodrama may have been one of Cortez’s favorite among his own movies (see further below). Based on a morality tale by…

How to be a Latin Lover: Ricardo Cortez, formerly known as Jacob Krantz from a working-class family of Austrian/Hungarian immigrants that had settled in New York City, succeeded in restyling himself as the next – even if, according to some,…