Morituri

With other matters keeping me away from blogging much lately, it’s a perfect time to welcome a guest, Craig of VIKING SAMURAI (who also guest-posted here writing on BODY SNATCHER during the Val Lewton event). This time Craig looks at the 1965 war movie Morituri…

the Four Feathers 1939 – a ripping good yarn!

The Four Feathers is one of the most enduring and entertaining tales of war and empire, as well as one of the greatest cinematic studies on the nature and value of heroism and duty. This is the 1939 version, which was the best of seven film adaptations of the 1902 novel. If you’ve seen the watered down, politically corrected and disappointing Heath Ledger 2002 remake, you’re familiar with the story but not with its full potential.

Quo Vadis?

my latest Classic is 5 things that make QUO VADIS? interesting and important in movie-dom, including but not limited to: the acting, the sheer sprawling spectacular spectacle of it, a primer on the plot and meaning, how it got to be made and the effect it had on careers and on the movie industry on both sides of the Atlantic. Please mind the lions, grab your weeping vial, and proceed to read…

5 things about Quo Vadis? the giant and campy but highly entertaining spectacle that was On TCM Tuesday and is available on a special 2-disc DVD or Blu-ray

The Killing and Lincoln

This time you get a bonus 5 within a 5, because besides the new Criterion release of The Killing, TCM’s Summer Under the Stars lineup for this week, and a couple of classic comedy dvd collections, I also mark the DVD/Blu release of The Conspirator by offering up 5 classics “about” or featuring Abraham Lincoln.  this article originally appeared at Landmark Report  

The must-buy classic release this week, hands down, is The Killing on Criterion Blu-ray

5 Graves to Cairo

my latest KD Classic is up, this week it’s literally FIVE, as in FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO, the great WW2 film directed by Billy Wilder, starring Franchot Tone, Anne Baxter and Erich von Stroheim.

Five Graves To Cairo, 8 PM Tuesday July 26 on TCM   

captured – 1933

Captured is the story of a German prisoner of war camp/ air force base housing all manner of allied fighters, including Leslie Howard (Gone With the Wind), who’s been there 2 years and has become the figure most trusted and respected by the other POWs. After an attempted escape, the POWs are banished for weeks to the most inhuman conditions,

until Howard goes to the camp colonel Paul Lukas, who is sympathetic to Howard’s appeals, based on their both being Oxford alumni, and a recognition of each other’s bearing as gentlemen, despite the circumstances of war. Lukas allows the POWs to build and live in personalized little cabins, and have freedom to exercise and move around, on the condition that any further escape attempt will doom all the others to losing all privileges, and Howard will be held personally responsible.

The Lady Vanishes

  

my latest KD Classic is up, this week it’s 5 fun summer themes, with the main focus being on Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes, as well as a roundup of nice MOD DVDs you can get from Warner Archive.  

This week, we’ve got a grab bag of thrillers, comedies, and dramas for some fun summer viewing….

The Man Who would be King & more

 

one of my (many) favorite movies; a fun epic adventure set in colonial India and based on Rudyard Kipling’s writing.

The Great Dictator

  this week’s Classic 5 looks at the new DVD/Bluray Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator, and how ideology didn’t stop stars from pushing the right message in ye olden days.
this article originally appeared at LandmarkReport — LINK

In his first talkie, Charlie Chaplin built on an oft- and widely-noted resemblance to socialist dictator Adolf Hitler, and through searing satire he lowered Der Fuhrer to the level of Chaplin’s little tramp, or in the plot’s case, equated him to a Jewish Barber, which, to Hitler, was the far greater insult.

5 Classic Pirates

 

Raise the Jolly Roger! The pirate genre, rich with romantic imagery, costumes and grand action, features a gallant leading man, jaunty and possessed of hoop earring and shoulder parrot, who handily crosses swords with colorful and well-cast enemies, often to win the hand of a beautiful lady.