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MGM tried it with the 1953 musical Kiss Me Kate. Warners added it to Alfred Hitchcock’s production of 1954’s Dial M for Murder. Last week in our discussion of 3D films we forgot to mention some BIG titles. That’s possibly because although several A films were shot in 3D, by the time of their release the […]
He is a classic movie icon. World famous. Legendary. He is the best and most important actor in the history of the cinema, writes British critic David Thomson. But how much do you really know about him? Well, let’s see if we can stump you. But let’s get one thing out of the way first. […]
Yes, it did. Some of the more durable specimens of Fifties 3D are in the sci-fi genre. Universal paired the format with science fiction into hits, 1953’s It Came From Outer Space and 1954’s Creature From the Black Lagoon. Both of these pictures starred Richard Carlson, a serious actor forever linked to these two titles. Here (above) […]
20th Century Fox delivered its only 3D movie with 1953’s Inferno. But don’t let that put you off. In any dimension, Inferno is surprisingly bracing for a big studio commercial release, rife with sex, intrigue and infidelity. It’s female star, Rhonda Fleming (seen above and below with lover played by William Lundigan), became something of […]
How much did you know about Fifties-era 3D? Did you recognize Vincent Price (above) administering to Phyllis Kirk in director Andre de Toth’s trend-setting, 1953 horror outing, House of Wax? The movie was notable because, among other things, it was the first 3D movie to feature stereophonic sound. It also featured Price as an over-the-top […]
Although 3D has been around since 1915, and although it has had a resurgence in the early part of this century, every film buff knows that the golden era of 3D was the early 1950s. For the rest of this week we’re going to highlight a some of the “classic” 3D films of those years. […]
Olivia DeHavilland died July 25 in Paris. She was 104. Last July 1 marked her last birthday. It’s fair to speculate that she passed that benchmark with her usual Parisian gusto. Described as the last surviving female superstar of Hollywood’s Golden Age, DeHavilland decamped to the French capitol in 1955, married and then divorced her second […]
One of the first films about drug addiction. At the time of its release, 1956’s The Man With The Golden Arm was considered truly controversial, dealing with a subject that was until then strictly verboten as big screen source material. Remember: those were the days when Joseph Breen’s Production Code, not to mention the Catholic […]
Editors Note: Before we answer the above question, a brief message noting the passing of Zizi Jeanmaire, the Paris-born chanteuse/dancer extraordinaire who logged a six-decade career entertaining audiences worldwide from the Paris Opera to Broadway to a smattering of Hollywood films in the Fifties (eg. she danced with Bing Crosby in 1956’s Anything Goes; her […]
One of our readers, Page, commented about Sal Mineo: Sal Mineo was a talented, rather understated actor. There’s a modern-day feel to him, and you can see the influence in today’s actors from the likes of this older generation, and he is no exception. Contrast was that Mineo was so young at that time (nominated for […]