By Alan Hurst Released in late 1964 in time to qualify for Oscar consideration, Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte is many things: creepy, funny, campy, and probably the best example of Grand Dame Guignol there is with two older but still fabulous stars, an unbalanced central character, severed hands and heads popping up, stray meat…
By Alan Hurst It’s hard to overstate the impact of TV films of the 1970’s. All the major networks had multiple “Movie of the Week” nights and there were also special event movies that usually featured more prestigious casts and bigger budgets. It was also the decade that saw the birth of the “Miniseries” –…
By Alan Hurst One of the great pleasures of watching films from the thirties through the fifties was the abundance of recognizable female supporting players – the character actresses. These were people who you could expect to see in multiple films in any given year – often backing up less talented leading players. They were…
By Alan Hurst Tennessee Williams had a spectacular run on Broadway from the mid-forties to the late fifties and the inevitable film versions of his plays also enjoyed varying degrees of critical and box office success. Key film successes from Williams’ work included A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Cat on a…
By Alan Hurst For many around my age, Walt Disney’s production of Mary Poppins (1964) represented their first movie-going experience. It was magical in 1964, and again on future viewings during subsequent re-releases in 1973 and 1980. And with the advent of home video, it’s been a staple in many libraries as well (and for…
By Alan Hurst She was a major screen presence from the mid-forties with her breakthrough in National Velvet (1945) until her screen career wound down after The Mirror Crack’d (1980). She made a few successful forays into television in the seventies and eighties, always generating significant buzz. She was a tabloid sensation from the first…
By Alan Hurst A few weeks back I looked at some major actresses and stars who were overlooked for recognition by the Academy Awards. It was an extensive list, with a lot of head scratchers that really made you question some of the Academy’s choices over the years. Same is true on the male side…
By Alan Hurst Burt Reynolds, who passed away on September 6, 2018 at the age of 82, was the biggest male star of the seventies and early eighties. He enjoyed a box-office run few others have been able to achieve – #1 for five years running from 1978 to 1982. The films that got him…
By Alan Hurst The advance buzz for the Bradley Cooper helmed remake of A Star Is Born (2018) is positive to the point of hysteria. It did well at the Venice Film Festival and is one of the big-ticket attractions for TIFF. It stars Cooper and Lady Gaga and word is that both give superb…
By Alan Hurst Joan Crawford – arguably the supreme example of the ephemeral term “movie star” – never really got her due as one of the great icons of film from the thirties to the sixties. While not an actress capable of the same range as Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, or Barbara Stanwyck, Crawford was…