Magic Town (1947) is a slightly forgotten James Stewart film that really should be better known, and is well worth seeing for any fan of It’s a Wonderful Life. Like IaWL, Magic Town did badly at the box office, but for some reason despite it’s charm, it never really got picked up later. A shame, because it is really a terrific little flick.
Flash Gordon (1980) has got everything you could ever want from a B-grade sci-fi movie. Vast, deco-inspired sets that appear to be made of cardboard. A super villain costume so heavy with bling that Max von Sydow could barely stand in it. Harems, jungles, mindless minions, oppressed planets, mad professors, evil overlords, bore worms, a cheesy script coupled with hammy delivery (making the most delicious sandwich of dialogue ever), and gloriously camp costumes. I love it.
Screen kisses often get talked about. The most passionate, the most romantic, the sexiest, the best, the worst, the longest. But film hugs are rarely mentioned. Which is a shame, because they have the ability to encompass a wider range of human emotion than a kiss.
I saw Snow White and the Seven Dwarves for the first time when I was 33 years old. It is one of those films that is so famous you feel you must have seen it, but actually, unless I have some kind of repressed memory involving short men and scary trees, I had never actually watched it in full.
Adriana Caselotti is not a name many are familiar with, but she was the woman behind the iconic voice of Disney’s Snow White.
I really wanted to find a 1950s movie Cleopatra to look at – well we’ve had 20s, 30s and 40s, so I didn’t want to break the pattern and leave out the 50s. On checking IMDB, I found out that Sophia Loren played both Cleopatra and a lookalike slave girl in the 1954 (some sources say 1953) movie “Due notti con Cleopatra” (Two Nights with Cleopatra).
The third post in my ‘Egypt in Vintage Film’ series is the 1945 version of Cleopatra, starring Vivien Leigh (last week was Claudette Colbert in Cleopatra of 1934).
The 1934 version of Cleopatra stars Claudette Colbert (last week we looked at Theda Bara in Cleopatra of 1917). Claudette was one of the major stars of the 30s, and is perhaps known best for the sparkling comedy she did with Clark Gable ‘It Happened One Night’ (well worth watching if you haven’t seen it).