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![]() John Wayne starring in an Old West fairytale based on a Louis L’Amour story endows Hondo with loads of old fashioned panache, yet saddles it with too many cliches for enduring greatness. That’s in 2D however. Having seen it years ago in 3D, I recall it as being better but still not great. It…
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The trailer hypes Hondo a bit too much.
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![]() “Shane, come back!” could have been a Simon & Garfunkel lyric. Instead, the troubadours chose Joe DiMaggio, another icon of mid-Century American manhood. Yet, Shane endures as a cultural touchstone. Thousands of baby boomers were christened with his clarion clear name…
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Jack Palance: a badass star is born
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![]() “Introducing Audrey Hepburn” reads an opening credit. Yes, the elfin Screen Queen made her debut as a fairytale Princess in Roman Holiday, for which she won the Best Actress Oscar — a splash for the ages! One of the best RomComs ever, Roman Holiday enchants to this day, utterly charming begi…
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Moviestar Princess wearing Edith Head
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![]() There’s No Business Like Show Business and there was no show business phonier than vaudeville, till movies. So an overtly phony movie about vaudeville makes for a phony convergence. It was perhaps the last of the musical extravaganzas, a calorically rich compendium of Irving Berlin’s showstoppi…
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Marilyn Monroe & Donald O'Connor: Sta...
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![]() A lavish Hitchcock treat, full of glamour, suspense and wit. The establishing scene is a virtuoso display of filmmaking all by itself, while Grace Kelly graces – there is no other word for it – the silver screen like a goddess amongst mortals.
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![]() Ava Gardner plays a moviestar inspired by Rita Hayworth and Humphrey Bogart a writer-director inspired by Joseph L. Mankiewicz in The Barefoot Contessa, Mankiewicz’s takedown of movie business amorality. A glamorous movie about showbiz mendacity, it is both brilliantly self-aware and gorgeous t…
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Classic Golden Age Scene
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![]() Dial M for Murder is lesser Hitchcock, yet worth watching for its classic tropes, timeless title and for Grace Kelly. But, the convoluted and constrained plot is insufficiently removed from its stage play roots.
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Hitch loved blond: Grace Kelly's Gold...
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![]() Marilyn Monroe didn’t want to appear in River of No Return, nor did Otto Preminger want to direct it, especially if Marilyn was to star. Studio contracts forced them into it and we’re all the better for it today. River of No Return is a fine mid-Fifties Western, with surprising Italian root…
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Marilyn sings: Let it wash over you.
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![]() Great American Movies based on Great American Novels reveal new insights at increasingly greater remove. Dating from 1955 and set in 1917, East of Eden is greatly insightful about the changes in America in the near half century between when it was set and made, and the half century plus between…
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James Dean, James Dean, James Dean!
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