*contains spoilers The British playwright Joe Orton (1933-1967 murdered) had the shortest of careers in the mid-1960s before his long-time lover Kenneth Halliwell (1926-67 sleeping pill overdose) hit him nine times on the forehead with a hammer in their London bedsit and then committed suicide. It is a part of the legend of Orton that…
Read more The Cult of Playwright Joe Orton’s Entertaining Mr. Sloane
*contains spoilers British-born actress and director Ida Lupino (1918-95 stroke and colon cancer) lived her the life the hard way which ended in alcoholic oblivion… Yet she was the first woman in Hollywood to direct herself in a movie and the first to direct a film noir. Many of the movies she directed had a…
Read more The Cult of Director Ida Lupino’s The Filmakers Movies (Part One)
Dean Bennett (1963-) is a bit of a legend in South Australia as he was a young film-maker who inspired many other young film-makers through his impressive award-winning Super 8 short films which played local festivals in the late 1970s. His ingenuity in creating exciting stunts and fiery special effects on the pocket money he…
Read more Teen Movie Prodigy and Stunt Man Dean Bennett on his Cult Film Career and Carrie Fisher…
*contains spoilers The best Charlie Chan movie of all has a creepy association with the “unsolved” murders of The Zodiac Killer which began in San Francisco back in the late 1960s and would baffle police well into the 1970s and onwards. As they say: Everyone loves a mystery – and the Chan movies offered that…
Read more The Cult of The Zodiac Killer and Charlie Chan at Treasure Island
*contains spoilers There is a tale behind the making of the Australian science fiction movie The Time Guardian (1987) and it is not a pretty one. I credit the film to director Brian Hannant (1940-) but he more or less disowns the final product… his only venture into fully-fledged feature directing. In fact, Hannant wouldn’t…
Read more The Cult of Director Brian Hannant’s The Time Guardian (1987)
*contains spoilers Director Robert Altman’s Images (1925-2006 leukemia) is an, at times, puzzling movie about the creation of writing and the madness that lies in between. It is also one woman’s journey through insanity brought to life by a great performance by Susannah York (1939-2011 multiple myeloma) in the lead. Or is the act of…
Read more Actress Susannah York goes insane in Images (1972)
Italian director Ivan Zuccon (1972-) is an experienced filmmaker who started his career with the short film Berenice (1997). He made several other short films before his interest in the American horror writer H.P. Lovecraft turned his mind to create horror movies related to that writer’s stories. His early features which were shot on video…
Read more Director Ivan Zuccon on H.P. Lovecraft and his Cult Film Career…
*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 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…
