*contains spoilers If I have a favourite movie from Alfred Hitchcock’s early English period – it is definitely The Lady Vanishes (1938). It is funny, it is mysterious and there’s a bit of action. It also has a great cast of English actors who, together with the director, keep the film moving along the tracks…
Read more Director Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938)
*contains spoilers Actor Miles Buchanan (1966-) was an Australian star of movies, television and the stage. He shone for a time and then burnt out due to a case of alcohol and drug abuse and mental illness. And whereas there were a few who could carry on some sort of career under such a heavy…
Read more The Cult of Actor Miles Buchanan and Dangerous Game (1988)
*contains spoilers Jack Palance (1919-2006 natural causes) would star as Jack the Ripper in Fregonese’s first black and white movie since My Six Convicts entitled Man in the Attic (1953). Easily accessible because it is in the public domain, it’s a remake of the well-worn tale of The Lodger which had been filmed by Alfred…
Read more Director Hugo Fregonese and Savage Pampas (Part Two)
*contains spoilers Director Hugo Fregonese (1908-87 heart attack) had a short career in Hollywood in the 1950s and ended up making international productions before his retirement in the 1970s. His brief Hollywood career working on cheap westerns and crime melodramas, with some epic elements, was bookended by his life in Argentina where he was born…
Read more Director Hugo Fregonese and Savage Pampas (Part One)
*contains spoilers Director Paul Campion (1967-) is originally from England. He has directed award winning short films such as Night of the Hell Hamsters (2006) and Eel Girl (2008). He worked on visual effects for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001,2002, 2003) as a digital texture painter of characters such as Balrog, Shelob and…
Read more Director Paul Campion on the Making of Cult Movie The Devil’s Rock
One title among the first wave of Cinemascope films from the studio which initiated the process, 20th Century Fox, was Garden of Evil (1954). This western, which is set south of the border, stars Gary Cooper (1901-61 prostate cancer), Susan Hayward (1917-75 lung and brain cancer), Richard Widmark (1914-2008 long illness), and Cameron Mitchell (1918-94…
*contains spoilers Melbourne-based director/editor/producer/writer Brian Kavanagh (1935-) is one of the key filmmakers in the resurgence of the Australian film industry in the 1970s. His movie A City’s Child (1971) helped kick start the industry and he produced and edited that film along with supplying the storyline. But it is his work as a film…
Read more Director Brian Kavanagh on his Cult Movies A City’s Child and Double Deal…
*contains spoilers Director/Editor/Producer Brian Kavanagh (1935-) is one of the key filmmakers in the resurgence of the Australian film industry in the 1970s after a couple of decades where the industry more of less lay fallow. He directed only three feature films but he left his mark as a film editor on some bona fide…
*contains spoilers Prolific British author and screenwriter Paul Finch (1964-) comes from a family where writing was the norm as his father was television scriptwriter Brian Finch (1936-2007) who for many years wrote for the British soap opera Coronation Street among others. Paul has reportedly written over 300 short stories which have appeared in countless…
*contains spoilers There is a recent documentary entitled Fantastic Fungi (2019) which is narrated by Brie Larson (1989-) and while it’s probably a fantastic adventure through the world of different fungi on the planet – there are a few narrative feature films that fascinate me possibly more since I have first seen them. Surprisingly, there…
