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John Wayne was quite public about his feelings towards his 1965 Western with Dean Martin titled The Sons Of Katie Elder. While not often considered among John Wayne's best movies, The Sons of Katie Elder earned a critic score of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Wayne stars as John Elder, one of four brothers who reunite in their hometown of Texas for their mother's funeral. The film was shot entirely in Mexico but takes place in northeast Texas, east of Dallas.

Directed by Henry Hathaway, The Sons of Katie Elder was released in theaters in Panavision on June 24, 1965, and was distributed by Paramount Pictures. Wayne had just come off starring in Otto Preminger's In Harm's Way and George Stevens' The Greatest Storey Ever Told, which were both released in early 1965. Dean Martin, who was also a successful singer and comedian, was just coming off 1964's Kiss Me, Stupid and Robin and the 7 Hoods.

Four Brothers is a Western-inspired thriller that closely echoes a John Wayne classic in its sibling dynamics and revenge plot. The Wahlberg film adds complexity and darkness to the traditional Western tale, making the characters more relatable and the story more gripping. By paying homage to The Sons of Katie Elder, Four Brothers joins a long tradition of movies quietly remaking John Wayne classics with updated twists.

A Mark Wahlberg thriller from the early 2000s is a thinly veiled remake of a classic John Wayne Western from the 1960s. John Wayne starred in 80 Westerns throughout his career, which itself spanned half a century. Of course, he fronted plenty of other kinds of movies from dramas (The Quiet Man) to war epics (Sands of Iwo Jima), but Westerns are where he left an indelible impression. Wayne fronted some of the genre's most influential films, from Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo to The Searchers,...

Bert I. Gordon, the sci-fi director who aimed to terrify drive-in denizens of the 1950s and ’60s with low-budget films featuring colossal creatures, shrinking humans and radioactive monsters, has died. He was 100.

Gordon died Wednesday in Los Angeles of complications from a fall in his Beverly Hills home, his daughter Patricia Gordon told The Hollywood Reporter.

Highlights (lowlights?) on his B-movie résumé include The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Beginning of the End (1957), Earth vs. the Spider (1958), Attack of the Puppet People (1958), Tormented (1960), The Boy and the Pirates (1960) and Picture Mommy Dead (1966).

In the ’70s, Gordon directed Vince Edwards and Chuck Connors in The Police Connection (1973) and wrote and directed How to Succeed With Sex (1970), Necromancy (1972), The Food of the Gods (1976) and, starring Joan Collins in the muck, Empire of the Ants (1977).

Perhaps as a way to keep costs down, Gordon’s films often were family affairs: His late wife,...

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“Small Town, Big Drama”

By Raymond Benson

James Jones is mostly known for his debut novel, From Here to Eternity. His second novel, published in 1958, was Some Came Running, a 1,200-page potboiler that blows the lid off small town America. It was a more adult Peyton Place, if that was possible for the time. Colorful, sometimes sordid, characters populate the book, and it didn’t do as well as that classic first publication. Nevertheless, MGM immediately scooped it up and managed to turn it into a motion picture by the end of the same year.

Frank Sinatra found the material appealing, and he saw himself as the story’s lead, Dave Hirsh, a prodigal son of sorts from fictional Parkman, Indiana. Discharged from the army, Hirsh arrives in town with a hangover and a party girl he picked up in Chicago, Ginny Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine). His brother,...

Vincente Minnelli’s best non-musical drama hits on a magic combination — a tough tale of small-town malaise, his patented hyper-expressive sense of visual design, and a triple-win in casting, including Frank Sinatra in his most committed performance this side of The Manchurian Candidate. Frankie may even have said Yes to a Take 2 now and then. The fireworks begin when ex-soldier, lapsed intellectual writer and self-styled gambling bum Dave Hirsh inadvertently returns to his hometown. This is also Dean Martin’s best picture, with a breakout role for Shirley MacLaine as the pathetic woman with the purse made from a stuffed toy. With Martha Hyer, Arthur Kennedy and the great Nancy Gates.

Some Came Running

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1958 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 137 min. / Available at Amazon.com / Street Date November 16, 2021 / 21.99

Starring: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer, Arthur Kennedy, Nancy Gates, Leora Dana, Betty Lou Keim, Larry Gates.

Cinematography: William H. Daniels...

This dubious mix of war combat and faith-based inspiration is as well directed as any of Douglas Sirk’s films, even if literally every scene seems to be saying the wrong thing. Combat pilot Col. Dean Hess helped found and publicize a major orphanage in South Korea, but as personified by a pious Rock Hudson his story comes off as a public relations gambit. A fine cast empowers the grandstanding bid for sainthood, where ‘Killer Hess’ channels his guilt into good works. The aerial footage is outstanding — Sirk really loved his airplanes.

Battle Hymn

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1957 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 108 min. / Street Date April 27, 2021 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: Rock Hudson, Dan Duryea, Anna Kashfi, James Edwards, Martha Hyer, Philip Ahn, James Hong, Don DeFore, Jock Mahoney, Carl Benton Reid, Alan Hale Jr., Bartlett Robinson, Carleton Young, William Hudson.

Cinematography: Russell Metty

Film Editor: Russel F. Schoengarth

Art Directors: Alexander Golitzen,...

It’s lurid, it’s soapy, it’s forbidden: where does the line form? Joseph E. Levine made hay from Harold Robbins’ best seller, with prose that The New York Times said belonged more properly “on the walls of a public lavatory.” So why is the picture so much fun? When the performances are good they’re very good, and when they’re bad they’re almost better. Plus there’s a who’s who game to be played: If George Peppard is Howard Hughes and Carroll Baker is Jean Harlow, who exactly is Robert Cummings? I think this is the first time on Blu for this title, and playback-wise it’s A-ok for Region A.

The Carpetbaggers

Blu-ray

Viavision [Imprint] 9 (Australia)

1964 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 150 min. / Street Date August 26, 2020 / Available at [Imprint] 34.95

Starring: George Peppard, Alan Ladd, Robert Cummings, Martha Hyer, Elizabeth Ashley, Martin Balsam, Lew Ayres, Carroll Baker, Ralph Taeger, Archie Moore,...

Picture Zsa Zsa Gabor lying dead on the floor of a room as it goes up in flames. Picture her daughter singing a creepy nursery rhyme as she watches. Picture that girl being sent away to a mental facility due to a breakdown, and her subsequent return home to her father and her new stepmom. Picture the teenage girl hearing voices and seeing her dead mother appear throughout the manor. Now I need you to Picture Mommy Dead (1966), Bert I. Gordon (that’s Mr. B.I.G. to you)’s high strung, gothic chiller with a surprising amount to say about family dynamics, psychotic lineage, and their fragile nature.

Released by Embassy Pictures in early November, Picture Mommy Dead (aka Color Mommy Dead) cost a million to make and cruised through the theatres and drive-ins second billed as befitting a B.I.G. release. This just seemed another potboiler designed...

“It’s under the Big ‘W’!” A smart cop show goes all ‘Dragnet’ on a trio of criminal cases in the good old City of the Angels. To figure out who gunned down a top detective, rough tough FBI agent Broderick Crawford must get to the bottom of three separate dramas, each involving a beautiful woman. The producers know how to get attention for their show — the climactic shootout takes place under the Hollywood Sign.

Down 3 Dark Streets

Blu-ray

ClassicFlix

1954 / B&W / 1:75 widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date April 24, 2018 / 29.99

Starring: Broderick Crawford, Ruth Roman, Martha Hyer, Marisa Pavan, Max Showalter, Kenneth Tobey, Gene Reynolds, William Johnstone, Harlan Warde, Jay Adler, Claude Akins, Suzanne Alexander, Joe Bassett, Michael Fox, John Indrisano, Milton Parsons, Stafford Repp, William Schallert, Charles Tannen.

Cinematography: Joseph Biroc

Film Editor: Grant Whytock

Production Design: Edward (Ted) Haworth

Original Music: Paul Sawtell

Written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld, ‘The Gordons...

A big welcome to UK disc purveyors Indicator, or Powerhouse, or how does Powerhouse Indicator sound? Savant’s first review from the new label is a favorite from the Columbia library. The extras are the lure: they company has snagged long-form, in-depth interviews with James Fox and director Arthur Penn. Everybody’s written about The Chase but here Penn tells his side of the story.

The Chase (1966)

Blu-ray + DVD

Powerhouse: Indicator

1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date September 25, 2017 / Available from Amazon UK / £14.99

Starring: Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, E.G. Marshall,

Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins, Martha Hyer, Richard Bradford,

Robert Duvall, James Fox, Diana Hyland, Henry Hull, Jocelyn Brando, Clifton James, Steve Ihnat

Cinematography: Joseph Lashelle

Production Designer: Richard Day

Art Direction: Robert Luthardt

Film Editor: Gene Milford

Original Music: John Barry

Written by Lillian Hellman from the novel by Horton Foote

Produced by Sam Spiegel

Directed by Arthur Penn

Yes,...

'The Pink Panther' with Peter Sellers: Blake Edwards' 1963 comedy hit and its many sequels revolve around one of the most iconic film characters of the 20th century: clueless, thick-accented Inspector Clouseau – in some quarters surely deemed politically incorrect, or 'insensitive,' despite the lack of brown face make-up à la Sellers' clueless Indian guest in Edwards' 'The Party.' 'The Pink Panther' movies [1] There were a total of eight big-screen Pink Panther movies co-written and directed by Blake Edwards, most of them starring Peter Sellers – even after his death in 1980. Edwards was also one of the producers of every (direct) Pink Panther sequel, from A Shot in the Dark to Curse of the Pink Panther. Despite its iconic lead character, the last three movies in the Pink Panther franchise were box office bombs. Two of these, The Trail of the Pink Panther and Curse of the Pink Panther, were co-written by Edwards' son,...

Horton Foote, Lillian Hellman and Arthur Penn's All-Star vision of an Ugly America found few friends in 1965; now its overstated scenes of social injustice and violence are daily events. Marlon Brando leads a terrific cast -- Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Angie Dickinson, Robert Duvall! -- to endure the worst Saturday ever to hit one cursed Texas township. The Chase (1966) Blu-ray Twilight Time 1966 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 134 min. / Street Date October 11, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95 Starring Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, Robert Redford, E.G. Marshall, Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins, Martha Hyer, Richard Bradford, Robert Duvall, James Fox, Diana Hyland, Henry Hull, Jocelyn Brando, Clifton James, Steve Ihnat Cinematography Joseph Lashelle Production Designer Richard Day Art Direction Robert Luthardt Film Editor Gene Milford Original Music John Barry Written by Lillian Hellman from the novel by Horton Foote Produced by Sam Spiegel Directed by Arthur Penn

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson...

This year's Tribeca Film Festival is paying a special tribute to Frank Sinatra, with Sinatra at 100: Film & Music, a centennial celebration honoring his film career. As part of the event, there will be an April 21 screening of On The Town (1949) with High Society (1956) and Some Came Running (1958) being shown April 24. Among the three films, the 1958 feature, one of the greatest of all American movies, is of particular interest, especially when it comes to the dual nature of Sinatra the man, the actor, the screen persona, and the very films that frequently drew his talent. As a remake of The Philadelphia Story (1940), High Society depicts the humorous romantic frivolity of upper crust socialites. Some Came Running is something entirely different. This is “low society.” In Some Came Running, those on the margins, those who make up society's lower rungs, those are the more earnest, the more recognizable, and the more interesting.

All the winners from Sunday’s 87th Academy Awards.

Show host Harris signs off with a chirpy, “Buenos noches!”

Sean Penn walks on. It’s time for the big one. Best film. Will it be Birdman or Boyhood? It’s Birdman! The movie ends the night tied with The Grand Budapest Hotel on four Oscars. Inarritu, referring to his pal Alfonso Cuaron who enjoyed success with Gravity at last year’s show, says, “Two Mexicans in a row. That’s suspicious, I guess.” Slightly more seriously, Agi also calls on his fellow Mexicans to help build a strong future for his beloved country. Wow, a good night for Birdman and a surprisingly barren one for Boyhood. Pirates indeed, Ethan Hawke, but glorious pirates.

And now Matthew McConaughey saunters on stage to announce best actress. Julianne Moore, five times a nominee at the Oscars is the favourite. Will she get it this time for Still Alice? Yes she’s got...

Episode 42 of 52: In which Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne star in The African Queen 2: This Time it's a Western!

Growing old in Hollywood sucks. To borrow a line from Goldie Hawn, “There are only three ages for women in Hollywood: babe, district attorney, and Driving Miss Daisy.” And while Hollywood’s ageism is well-documented and well-criticized, for some aging actors, an equally tricky problem can arise: the trouble with becoming a Legend in your own time. What happens when the legend eclipses the actor?

In 1975, Hepburn was arguably more popular than she’d ever been. This was due in no small part to her friend Garson Kanin’s unauthorized, best-selling 1972 “tell all” entitled Tracy And Hepburn: An Intimate Memoir. Though shocked by the invasion of her privacy, Kate used the public interest that the book generated to fuel her career, appearing on talk shows and even the 1974 Academy Awards (in pants,...

‘Dracula’ 1931 actress Carla Laemmle dead at 104 (photo: Carla Laemmle ca. 1930) Carla Laemmle, a bit player in a handful of silent movies and at the dawn of the sound era — e.g., the horror classics The Phantom of the Opera (1925) and Dracula (1931) — and a niece of Universal Studios co-founder Carl Laemmle, died on June 12, 2014, at her Los Angeles home. Laemmle, who had reportedly been in good health, was 104 years old. Born Rebekah Isabelle Laemmle on October 20, 1909, in Chicago, Carla Laemmle was less known for her movie work than for having survived most of her contemporaries and for her family connection to the Universal mogul — her father, Joseph Laemmle, was Carl’s brother. ‘Dracula’ actress was a member of Carl Laemmle’s ‘very large faemmle’ "Uncle Carl Laemmle, Has a very large faemmle," once half-joked poet Ogden Nash, in reference to Laemmle’s penchant for hiring family members. As Laemmle’s niece,...

Vulture dreams up sequels for The Fault In Our Stars. We'll obviously take the Laura Dern one

The Awl "The Tortured History of Entertainment Weekly" - god I was so in love with that magazine when it debuted in the 1990s. The first issue I remember buying was #5 with Jamie Lee Curtis on the cover for Kathryn Bigelow's Blue Steel

Pixar Times Pixar teases the first five minutes of Inside Out their June 2015 release

Theater Mania Laura Benanti auditions for Peter Pan Live!

Boy Culture Rip supporting actress Martha Hyer, Oscar-nominated for Some Came Running (1958)

Kenneth in the (212) teases a new stage production with the music of the The Go-Gos?

Comics Alliance a giant statue of Spider-Man in Korea is causing a stir thanks to its Spider-Manhood

Empire there's a new trailer for The Boxtrolls

Variety expects crazy ladies to dominate the Guest Actress race at the Emmys

THR...

Martha Hyer, best known for her Oscar-nominated turn as Frank Sinatra’s love interest in 1958′s Some Came Running, died May 31 in her Santa Fe home. The actress was 89.

Born in Fort Worth, Texas in 1924, Hyer studied theater at Northwestern University before joining the Pasadena Playhouse in California. There, she was spotted by a Hollywood talent agent and later signed a three-year contract with Rko Pictures.

Hyer married the director C. Ray Stahl in 1951. Stahl went on to direct his wife in the African safari film The Scarlet Spear in 1954, the same year the couple divorced. But 1954 wasn’t a...

Martha Hyer, who received an Oscar nomination for playing a prim small-town schoolteacher opposite Frank Sinatra and Shirley MacLaine in the 1958 drama Some Came Running, has died. She was 89. The striking blonde, who also was memorable as William Holden’s society fiancee in Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart’s Sabrina (1954), died May 31 in her home in Santa Fe, N.M., The Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper reported. Hyer was married to producer Hal B. Wallis (Casablanca, The Maltese Falcon, True Grit) from December 1966 until his death in October 1986. The glamour girl also starred in Battle Hymn

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Hollywood glamour girl Martha Hyer, an Oscar nominee when she played opposite Frank Sinatra in 1958's Some Came Running and memorable as William Holden's stunning society fiancée in the 1954 Audrey Hepburn romance Sabrina, died in her Santa Fe home on May 31, it was reported Monday by the New Mexican newspaper, which said she had lived in the town since the mid-'80s. She was 89. Besides the roles she did play, several of them in Westerns, Hyer was also known for a role that got away: victim Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic, Psycho. Instead, that went to Janet Leigh.

Hollywood glamour girl Martha Hyer, an Oscar nominee when she played opposite Frank Sinatra in 1958's Some Came Running and memorable as William Holden's stunning society fiancée in the 1954 Audrey Hepburn romance Sabrina, died in her Santa Fe home on May 31, it was reported Monday by the New Mexican newspaper, which said she had lived in the town since the mid-'80s. She was 89. Besides the roles she did play, several of them in Westerns, Hyer was also known for a role that got away: victim Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1960 Psycho. Instead, that went to Janet Leigh.

Joan Lorring, 1945 Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee, dead at 88: One of the earliest surviving Academy Award nominees in the acting categories, Lorring was best known for holding her own against Bette Davis in ‘The Corn Is Green’ (photo: Joan Lorring in ‘Three Strangers’) Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nominee Joan Lorring, who stole the 1945 film version of The Corn Is Green from none other than Warner Bros. reigning queen Bette Davis, died Friday, May 30, 2014, in the New York City suburb of Sleepy Hollow. So far, online obits haven’t mentioned the cause of death. Lorring, one of the earliest surviving Oscar nominees in the acting categories, was 88. Directed by Irving Rapper, who had also handled one of Bette Davis’ biggest hits, the 1942 sudsy soap opera Now, Voyager, Warners’ The Corn Is Green was a decent if uninspired film version of Emlyn Williams’ semi-autobiographical 1938 hit play about an English schoolteacher,...

Cinelinx rides high with the Wild Stallion DVD from Warner Archive!

The Set-up

A horse tracker (Ben Johnson) searches for a white stallion that he once owned as a child and now roams the hills on the western frontier. Also stars Edgar Buchanan, Martha Hyer, Hayden Rorke, and Hugh Beaumont.

Directed by Lewis D. Collins

A manufacture-on-demand DVD.

The Delivery

Modern film fans often downplay the value of most pre-1960 westerns, dismissing them as all the same. Of course, this is not the case; westerns were usually built around a charismatic actor or scenic locale, and their penchant for strong moral lessons gives each a distinctive personality.

Wild Stallion, a 1952 Monogram western, plays more like one of the live-action Disney dramas of the era than a standard western, which is actually part of the charm. There's a strong story here, even if there's a bit of wooden acting from some involved.

House Of A Thousand Dolls

Stars: Vincent Price, Sancho Gracia, Herbert Fux, George Nader, Martha Hyer | Written by María del Carmen Martínez Román, Harry Alan Towers | Directed by Jeremy Summers

With a title like House of a Thousand Dolls, Vincent Price starring and an opening scene featuring a horse drawn hearse you would be forgiven for thinking that the film is horror based. You soon find out that this is not the case but it may at least be paying a cheeky homage to its iconic star. The fact is though that House of a Thousand Dolls is a very different beast.

While vacationing in the Tangiers a couple meet an old friend searching for his missing girlfriend who is believed to have been kidnapped by a group of slave traders. When the friend is killed the couple are dragged into investigating both the death and kidnapping which appears to...

We’re going old school cult classic for a Monday, so prepare for a new years encounter with murderous witch finders, vampires, lusty warrior women and murderous magicians because Medium rare Entertainment are releasing four icons of cult/classic/horror, from the like of Jess Franco, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. All are being released in January 2013 in the UK on DVD for the very first time. Here’s the low down on each.... The Bloody Judge (1970/ 18/ 89mins) Directed by Jess Franco, with Christopher Lee, Maria Rohn, Leon Gunn. Christopher Lee swops his cape for a wig and gown to play the notorious Judge Jeffreys, a real-life 17th century witchfinder who showed a ruthless, sadistic justice. His growing obsession with a local wench (Maria Rohm) fuels a jaw-dropping spree of torture, brutality and flesh-ripping perversion. Franco, Lee, Maria Rohm are reunited after The Vengeance of Fu Manchuin this lavishly murderous...

We’re going old school cult classic for a Monday, so prepare for a new years encounter with murderous witch finders, vampires, lusty warrior women and murderous magicians because Medium rare Entertainment are releasing four icons of cult/classic/horror, from the like of Jess Franco, Vincent Price and Christopher Lee. All are being released in January 2013 in the UK on DVD for the very first time. Here’s the low down on each.... The Bloody Judge (1970/ 18/ 89mins) Directed by Jess Franco, with Christopher Lee, Maria Rohn, Leon Gunn. Christopher Lee swops his cape for a wig and gown to play the notorious Judge Jeffreys, a real-life 17th century witchfinder who showed a ruthless, sadistic justice. His growing obsession with a local wench (Maria Rohm) fuels a jaw-dropping spree of torture, brutality and flesh-ripping perversion. Franco, Lee, Maria Rohm are reunited after The Vengeance of Fu Manchuin this lavishly murderous...

What's the greatest Alfred Hitchcock film? Every film fan will have a different answer, with "The 39 Steps," "Rebecca," "Spellbound," "Notorious," "Rear Window," "Vertigo" and "North By Northwest" all making compelling cases for being the very best. But few of his films had such an impact on cinema as "Psycho," the 1960s thriller that saw him go into darker, more shocking territory than ever before, with some of the most famous sequences in the history of the medium.

Following secretary Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) as she embezzles money from an employer and hides out at a deserted motel owned by the mysterious Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), a man with serious mother issues, only to stunningly and unforgettably kill off its lead halfway through the film, the picture turned out to be the biggest hit of Hitchcock's career, and was arguably his last truly great movie. It was released fifty-two years ago tomorrow,...

The double Oscar winner (The Great Ziegfeld and The Good Earth) turns 102 today! She's the oldest living Oscar nominee or winner! Her most recent appearance was just four short months ago when she showed up for her star ceremony in Berlin. They now have a "Boulevard des Stars" much like Hollywood's walk of fame and as the only German Best Actress winner (Hollywood and the media who nicknamed her "The Viennese Teardrop" promoted her as Austrian for obvious reasons in the 1930s), she was a natural for inclusion.

happy birthday to you

happy birthday dear Luise,

happy birthday to you

.......and many more ♫

Odets and Rainer in Hollywood. Odets also romanced actress Frances Farmer (as seen in the Jessica Lange picture "Frances")Luise is on record as saying that she doesn't believe in the Oscar curse and her short-lived Hollywood career was her own doing.

"The Oscar jinx! There is no Oscar jinx.

Hal Kanter (see photo), creator of the groundbreaking television series Julia, starring Diahann Carroll (photo) as a nurse, died Sunday, Nov. 6, of complications from pneumonia at Encino Hospital in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino. Kanter was 92. Julia (1968-71) marked the first time a black actress had an important role in an American television series playing something other than a maid (e.g., Ethel Waters and Louise Beavers in the 1950s series Beulah). As quoted in the Los Angeles Times obit, Kanter said he didn't want to make profound political statements with each Julia episode. But political statements were made all the same, as Kanter explained: There is a fallout of social comment. Every week we see a black child playing with a white child with complete acceptance and without incident. One of the recurring themes in the thousands of letters we get is from people who thank us for...

Margaret Field, best remembered for the 1951 sci-fier The Man From Planet X, died at her Malibu home on Sunday, Nov. 6, the day her daughter Sally Field turned 65. Margaret Field, who had been diagnosed with cancer six years ago, was 89. Directed by cult B-movie director Edgar G. Ulmer, The Man From Planet X turned out to be the highlight of Field's film career. The story revolves around a mysterious journalist (Robert Clarke) who may or may not be an alien with ties to a spaceship that has landed near an observatory on a remote Scottish island. Most of Field's previous movie appearances had been uncredited bit parts, chiefly in Paramount productions such as The Perils of Pauline, Night Has a Thousand Eyes, and Samson and Delilah. Her parts got bigger following The Man from Planet X, but they remained subpar roles in mostly B movies. Among those were Philip Ford's...

Ben Johnson on TCM: War Drums, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon Schedule (Et) and synopses from the TCM website: 6:00 Am 3 Godfathers (1948) Three outlaws on the run risk their freedom and their lives to return a newborn to civilization. Dir: John Ford. Cast: John Wayne, Pedro Armendáriz, Harry Carey Jr. C-106 mins. 8:00 Am Fort Defiance (1951) A Civil War veteran returns to his hometown to avenge his brother's death. Dir: John Rawlins. Cast: Dane Clark, Ben Johnson, Peter Graves. C-82 mins. 9:30 Am Wild Stallion (1952) A horse hunter pursues a white colt that ran off when his parents were killed. Dir: Lewis D. Collins. Cast: Ben Johnson, Edgar Buchanan, Martha Hyer. C-70 mins. 11:00 Am War Drums (1957) A white trader and an Apache chief fall for the same woman. Dir: Reginald LeBorg. Cast: Lex Barker, Joan Taylor, Ben Johnson. C-75 mins. 12:30 Pm Cheyenne Autumn (1964) A reluctant calvary Captain must...

Shirley MacLaine, Irma la Douce on TCM Shirley MacLaine is Turner Classic Movies' "Summer Under the Stars" star of the day today, August 10. This evening, TCM is presenting its last four Shirley MacLaine movies: Billy Wilder's Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), which is on right now; Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running (1958), which earned MacLaine her first Best Actress Academy Award nomination; Lewis Milestone's Ocean's Eleven (1960), in which MacLaine has a mere cameo; and Anthony Asquith's omnibus feature The Yellow Rolls Royce (1964), in which MacLaine is one of about a dozen stars in several individual stories. [Shirley MacLaine Movie Schedule.] It's too late for me to recommend The Apartment, though recommendable it is. For one thing, this collaboration between Billy Wilder and screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond features what is, in my view, Fred MacMurray's best performance by far. Usually an intolerable leading man — macho, reactionary, humorless, unsexy, dull — MacMurray could be a fascinating slimeball,...

Dean Martin would have turned 94 on Tuesday, June 7. Generally a somnolent presence in low-brow comedies co-starring either Jerry Lewis or Frank Sinatra, Martin was at his most interesting in dramas, e.g., Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running, Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo. Both the somnolent Dean Martin and the interesting Dean Martin can be seen Tuesday morning and afternoon on Turner Classic Movies. In addition to Some Came Running, co-starring Sinatra, and the Oscar-nominated trio of Shirley MacLaine, Arthur Kennedy, and Martha Hyer, TCM will be showing Marriage on the Rocks, Bells Are Ringing, Ocean's Eleven, 4 for Texas, and Robin and the Seven [...]...

Your weekly fix of great movies made before you were born that you should check out before you die. Last month we celebrated Bette Davis, and this week, it’s time to celebrate the anniversary of another star’s birthday. Audrey Hepburn needs no introduction, but Sabrina gave her a second one. After Roman Holiday, she became a bona fide star, and her follow-up saw her playing romantically confused with William Holden and Humphrey Bogart. It’s an example of all the wrong pieces coming together to make a sweet, romantic, funny film. Hepburn wasn’t nearly as prolific as other actors, but she managed to find projects that either worked perfectly or were made perfect by her huge brown eyes and powerful innocence. This movie is no different, and it carries all the romanticism of Roman Holiday without ever having to leave the country. Sabrina (1954) Directed By: Billy Wilder Written By: Billy Wilder, Samuel Taylor...

Richard Linklater is one of our favorite filmmakers, and a true marvel in Austin history. Aside from founding the Austin Film Society, he’s made Austin legendary in films like Dazed And Confused, Slacker, And Waking Life. When Linklater came to us about doing a stint hosting the Cinema Club, he suggested Some Came Running and said it was his favorite movie. ‘Nuff said.

Some Came Running stars Frank Sinatra in a type-defying performance as a sensitive author and war veteran who returns to his hometown in Indiana and shakes things up. Sinatra here is on the peak of his rise as a legitimate actor; he won an Academy Award for From Here To Eternity in ’53, and had just shocked the country as a heroin addict in Otto Preminger’s controversial 1955 film The Man With The Golden Arm. Here he embodies the pathos of a tortured writer torn between clean-living serenity and hard-drinking,...

Happy birthday to Best Actress winner Joan Fontaine (Suspicion, 1941), also known as the second Mrs. DeWinter. She turns 93 years young today. What on earth was she thinking about when she won the Oscar. This photo to your left fascinates me on account of "who knows?" It seems so much more candid than many Oscar night photos.

I keep the following "still with us!" list, not from any morbid curiousity but from a genuine happiness that some legendary screen stars are still walking the earth even though most of them aren't walking the screens these days. This year has been rough with the losses so maybe I'm going to stop keep this list. My heart was in the right place! We want the following to know that their past accomplishments are acknowledged by new generations.

The Oldest Living Oscar Nominees

All of them were born before the movies even had sound!

Original Belgian release poster One of our favorite westerns of the 1960s is Henry Hathaway's The Sons of Katie Elder starring John Wayne, Dean Martin, Michael Anderson Jr and Earl Holliman as four estranged brothers reunited for their beloved mother's funeral. They soon learn that there was a scandal attached to her death and their efforts to uncover the mystery puts their lives in danger. A great supporting cast includes Dennis Hopper, George Kennedy, Paul Fix, Martha Hyer, Jeremy Slate and James Gregory. The film is so entertaining that you forget the absurdity of Wayne (who was in his fifties at the time) being cast as Michael Anderson Jr.'s brother! (Anderson was 22 when he shot the film). In addition to Hathaway's expert direction, the movie is enhanced tremendously by Elmer Bernstein's rousing score. Click here to view the trailer.  Click here to order The Sons of Katie Elder...