Rambling Reporter II

I haven't done one of these postings in nine months so I thought we should do another one.  Here are some things that have been running through my head:

Good 60s Films: The Manchurian Candidate

1962 Political Thriller
From United Artists
Directed by John Frankenheimer

Starring
Frank Sinatra
Laurence Harvey
Janet Leigh
Angela Lansbury
James Gregory
Henry Silva
Leslie Parrish
John McGiver
Khigh Dhiegh

Virginia McKenna & Bill Travers

I have wondered now and then over the last half century how many people were as taken in by Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna as I was when we saw them in 1966 in Born Free.  She was very pretty, controlled, strong, soft-spoken and every inch a lady.  He was handsome and professorial, slow to burn, with a stiff upper lip, let's-just-carry-on sort of demeanor.  Did I mention they were British?

The Directors: Jack Cardiff

For my last posting on a director associated mostly with the 1960s, I give you Jack Cardiff.  Who, you say?  This probably will be one of my least-read articles and that's fine.  I want to honor him because, although he was a director of some note in the 60s, he was considered to be one of the greatest cinematographers in movie history.  What, you say?  I don't write long pieces on cinematographers!  Well, no I don't.  But although I will spend more time on his directing career, it would be impossible, if not plain wrong, to ignore his exquisite camerawork.  Shall we focus?

Brian Keith

He played around with romantic, leading man roles but I recall him more as a second lead in scores of movies.  Regardless, whether playing bad guys in westerns and crime movies or characters with warmth and humor, when all the pistons were firing and the gears clicked, Brian Keith was a good, reliable, utterly watchable actor who could hold his own with the best of them.

Quotes from MM

Enjoy some nice photographs while reading some things Marilyn Monroe had to say:

Good 60s Films: The Great Escape

1963 War Drama
From United Artists and
The Mirisch Company
Directed by John Sturges

Starring
Steve McQueen
James Garner
Richard Attenborough
James Donald
Donald Pleasence
James Coburn
Charles Bronson
Hannes Messemer
David McCallum
Gordon Jackson
John Leyton
Jud Taylor
Angus Lennie

A Brief Stay as the New James Dean

If you know who Christopher Jones is, you must really know your movie stuff.  He only made seven movies.  He was going to shuck it all after every one of them but didn't until he made the sixth and best of them all.  Then he said goodbye and most of the public heard nothing of him for 26 years when he came back for one more film.  Again he vanished and we heard nothing more until his death last year.  Who was this enigmatic creature?  Let's see what we can get into.

Anthony Franciosa

I admit that writing about Richard Harris made me think about Anthony Franciosa because both were royal pains on movie sets.  I thought each was a good actor and utterly watchable.  In Tony's case, he fired up my imagination as I watched that combustible magnetism explode on the screen.  Unfortunately he tore into directors, actors, cameramen and whoever else was handy and ultimately Hollywood stopped thinking of him for important films.