Thanks Bruce. Looking forward to watching one of your movie idols in Blade Runner 2049 next week, it’s had some great reviews. But I doubt it will be better than the 1982 classic. 35 years old! Hard to believe.
GOOD EVENING MR LENSMAN 1 I’m afraid you’re on your own there as far as I personally am concerned. I know it will not please a lot of regulars of this site for me to say that I think that Mr Harrison Ford, who I thought looked dreadful in Star Wars the Force Awakens is well past his sell-by date in the new Blade Runner like those other muscle-bound ancient action heroes Messers Stallone and Schwarzenegger . Mr Ford in particular seems to have lost his timing as an actor just as sadly the also once-magnificent Mr Redford now has in my opinion.
2 It’s a great pity because Mr Ford was wonderful in his heyday and I thoroughly enjoyed him in the original Blade Runner. The producers of the new much-hyped one clearly do not have too much confidence in him and are hedging their bets because I see that whilst he was the star of the original they have now billed him second to George Clooney’s protégé the young, fresh, vibrant and marvellous Ryan Gosling.
3 I have long held the view that whilst Mr Ford would still be a star of the first magnitude even without the massive franchises that he seems intent upon flogging to death, they nevertheless do artificially inflate his box office status to some degree and in my opinion he is not in the commercial league of for example Mr Wayne or Mr Gable. Like Miss Myrna Loy whom I have always found delightful Harrison’s vertiginous position in my pupil Bruce Cogerson’s otherwise excellent charts is I feel somewhat of a misnomer.
4 However Mr Ford will hardly heed my opinion as he seems intent upon throwing himself into every and any sequel and/or franchise on the go so that, apart from like some ghost haunting the Force Awakens and the new Blade Runner, he appeared -16th billed – in Expendables 3 along with a whole clique of decaying Ben Gunns lookalikes from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island including sadly Mel Gibson. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be sufficient “treasure” to satisfy our over-the hill dinosaurs – even too much money it seems is not enough for them
5 It is a pity that Mr Ford never took a leaf out of Mr.Brando’s book who it is said in turning down Godfather 2 made it clear he was “a man for originals only.” Anyway I feel it’s about time that the whole tribe of Yesterday’s Men gave it and us a rest and bowed out albeit ungracefully to allow the new young guys who CAN cut it their days in the sun. Alas however Mr Ford is reportedly scheduled to drag his tired old bones into another outing of the now-boring Indiana Jones saga in 1920. Still it’s nice to have something positive to say for once about the dreadful Mr Brando another pathetic figure who overstayed his welcome. Anyway I am enjoying your video presentations which I feel complement well my own Apprentice’s statistical and verbal facts pages.
Well Mr. Hirschhorn, can I call you Hirsch? Hershey? No? Okay. Harrison Ford is still sprightly for his age and from what I’ve heard beats the crap out of Ryan Gosling in the new movie. Spielberg is planning a new Indiana Jones movie, Ford will be approaching 80 by the time it’s released. Like Clint, some movie people want to work until they drop.
If it wasn’t for these franchises and sequels Ford would be playing grandfathers in comedies and dramas and maybe he still fancies himself as the dashing adventure hero. 🙂
MR LENSMAN 1 Good afternoon Mr POSTERS as I think you’re called by some on this site. You may call ME Joel, Hirsch or Master as my Idolater who owns this site clearly thinks of me. I appreciate your comments about Mr Ford and am sure that they will chime with the views of that Pupil of mine.
2 However as my Apprentice he has become more perceptive about film matters and I’m sure it is just a matter of time before he realises that the relics whom we are discussing are turning the action hero genre into a kind of Zombieland and geriatric thespians such as Messers Ford, Stallone, and Schwarzenegger and now the unfortunate Mr Gibson have become the Undead of the genre.
3 When you speak of Mr Ford “beating the c***” out of Mr Gosling I wonder that you take so seriously what you are being conned about up there on the screen. I remember watching a scene from The Carpetbaggers in which a visibly washed up and badly ageing Mr Ladd is told by Mr Peppard “I know your reputation Nevada and your capacity for satisfying a town full of women.” Others in the audience joined me in spontaneous laughter of the absurdity of what Mr Peppard was saying. Poor Mr Ladd looked as if a wet paper bag would have got the better of him. Miss Baker in the same movie got it right when she observed “Nevada’s like his guns – full of blanks!”
4 I wish to congratulate my Disciple and his marvellous wife on the fabulous update of this site but ironically the site has become so gloriously DYNAMIC now that it seems incongruous to be discussing over-the-hills like the Methuselah Ford at all. Though I suppose that if he acted his age and started to play sensible parts such as for example a remake of The Old Man and the Sea he would again deserve our serious attention. To think that Mr Tracy was 57 when he originally played that part – a true realist Mr T and oh for the days when ACTORS ran the show and the likes of Trazan, Superman et al were duly young men.
5 Anyway it is equally ironic that you mention Mr Eastwood because a close study of his recent acting roles – the last credite one of which was in 2012- will illustrate that he now emphasises the time imposed frailties of the his own screen characters. “Give me 3 cows and I’ll make it look on screen like a herd of stampeding cattle” observed the great William Wyler. Certainly in the badly-ageing on screen presence of the sad Mr Ford what we are getting is not cows but, to use a cliche normally quoted in relation to the fair sex “mutton dressed up as lamb.” Ah well “better a fool’s paradise than no paradise at all.”
Hello Hirsch, I’m surprised your disciple ‘el commandante’ hasn’t chimed in, he’s a huge fan of Mr. Ford and has been petitioning for years for the aging action hero to be presented with an honorary Oscar and who can say he doesn’t deserve it? But the chief has been busy of late. The only way we can get his attention if we jump up and down and wave our arms about… oh there he goes, missed him again.
Hey Steve, Joel and Bob.
1. I know I am late to the party….but here are my two cents.
2. For a septuagenarian who just survived a serious plane crash (are there any plane crashes that aren’t serious?)…Harrison Indy Han Jack Deckard Ford is looking pretty good.
3. Yes I have thought giving Mr. Ford a Honorary Oscar was well deserving….maybe in a month when they announce this year’s recipient he will be amongst the names…since I got on this soapbox….here are some of the ones that have gotten that honor…James Earl Jones, Spike Lee, Gena Rowlands, Steve Martin and Jackie Chan….all have brought great stuff to movies….but pale in comparison to Ford’s career.
4. The reviews for BladeRunner 2049 have been stellar…..and Ford’s performance has been singled out…maybe he will earn his Oscar….like Sean Connery did for The Untouchables….granted a Best Supporting Acting Oscar would be viewed as a career win…but I will take it.
5. BladeRunner 2049….did not open as strong as they wanted….but I think it still has a chance to be a financial success…..the better it does the better the chance for a Ford Oscar win.
6. I have not seen the movie…..but I imagine his Deckard is not going to be surviving the sequel….which would mean Ford has successfully killed off two of his most famous characters….should Indy be nervous if the ever make Indy 5? How about Jack Ryan….can Ford get that character killed off too?
Fun comments….and once again….sorry I was so late to the party.
Hello Steve,
just watched your beautiful Julie Christie vid. I have always been a sort of “fan” of this beautiful woman. I really love The Go Between, Far from the Madding Crowd and some of her more recent films. Don’t Look Now is also a fav, although it is such a dark and sort of strange movie…reminds me more of italian “Giallos” than your usual Daphne du Maurier movie. Good addition to your already impressive list of videos 😉
Thanks Lupino, glad you liked the video. Don’t Look Now is a highly rated movie but it’s not one I watch often. I did enjoy Demon Seed which also had a twist in the tale. The late Robert Vaughn was effective as the voice of the mad computer Proteus.
1 HI STEVE: At last another Brit! I grew up in the 1950s/1960s watching as many talented British movie performers as I did American ones but many of the Brits like Sylvia Syms, Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson and Donald Sinden, the superb Denholm Elliot, Kenneth More and John Gregson among the men although successful and highly respected professionally never achieved the mega-stardom of their US contemporaries. Nice to see you therefore now profiling another British Great.
2 Julie of course had a good run at the US box office for a while in the likes of Dr. Zivago and the Warren Beatty films. My own two favorite Christie films are (1) the 1965 Darling as it co-starred my own top Brit idol [apart from Sir Maurice] Dirk Bogarde and (2) the 1967 Far from the Madding Crowd in which Julie played my favourite heroine from Literature, the Scarlet O’Hara-like Bathsheba Everdene in the screen adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic novel which pre-dated Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and Scarlet by 62 years.
3. Lots of good posters in your video and my personal pick of the very best were Red Riding hood, The Fast Lady [a typical vintage British comedy in its day] Shampoo, Heat and Dust, Young Cassidy, Fahrenheit 451, Demon Seed, the 1st [very naughty!] one in the Petulia set, Far from the Madding Crowd***, and the provocative Darling ones showing my Dirk top-billed. ***John admired my quote which opened L P Hartley’s book and I think the film “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”
4 Fine stills were (1) opening BW solo of the young Julie (2) her with Beatty (3) with the excellent Tom Courtney (4) with Donald Sutherland (5) the closing coloured solo of Julie from Dr. Zivago.
5 I thoroughly enjoyed your video profile of a highly talented female actress who was very sexy in her heyday but whose screen persona nevertheless in my view relied on class rather than t*** and a** as Piper Laurie described the flavor of some of her colourful Arabian venture yarns at Universal in the early 1950s. I rated the pictorials in your video97%. Smashing stuff – and it would be good to some more Brits soon!
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating and comment, much appreciated!
Glad you liked the pictorial presentation.
I thought it was time to turn the spotlight on some British actresses and Julie Christie was a pop icon of the swinging 60s. Beautiful, sexy and a good actress too.
Far from the Madding Crowd was recently filmed again (2015) but I don’t think it was successful.
And will they remake Darling? With… who? Keira Knightley? Emma Watson? After the likes of Bridget Jones’s Diary and it’s sequels, not sure anyone will bother. Shirley Maclaine was the original choice for Darling but luckily for Christie she dropped out. Julie won an Oscar for Best Actress for that film. Director John Schlesinger went on to direct Midnight Cowboy and won himself an Oscar too.
Four of Julie Christie’s films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Petulia, Billy Liar, Don’t Look Now and Doctor Zhivago. Seven scored 9 including Darling, The Go-Between and Far from the Madding Crowd.
The top rated Christie film at IMDB is Doctor Zhivago with Branagh’s Hamlet at no.2
Another British actress up next – according to one news site – the reigning matriarch of Britain’s most famous acting dynasty – ooh who could it be? 🙂
Good Julie Christie movie talk from Bob and Steve….sorry my comments have been so sparse lately. As I wrote in my comment on Steve’s video channel…..I have never been a fan of Petulia….seen it twice…but it was disappointing both times.
THIS POST ORIGINALLY SENT TO WRONG PAGE – APOLOGIES
1 STEVE You have now given us excellent profiles of 5 of the great so-called “sex kittens” of our ages. It seems to me that one thing that the five had in common was that, at least compared with the likes of Crawford, Liz Taylor and Day, none of those 5 sex kittens earned vertiginous overall grosses at the US box office.
2 However to be wholly sure of the magnitude of their various contributions to cinema one might need a better overview of their European work than I personally possess though my own snapshot of Claudia Cardinale’s achievements suggest that she put some of her best acting into her European films.
3 Ursula too started out in the European cinema but her greatest claim to fame worldwide is most likely as the 1st Bond Girl Honey Ryder in the 1962 Dr No. She was of course a great pin-up fave and when she posed naked for Playboy magazine in 1965 the pun-loving British movie columnists couldn’t resist dubbing her “Ursula Undress”. 3 decades later Empire magazine voted her one of the “100 sexiest stars in film history.” James Dean would not have quarrelled that opinion because before his death he dated the young Ursula.
4 What an eye-popping run of pictorials your video provides! with random fine POSTER examples being Mountain of the Cannibal God, Africa Express, Anyone Can Play and What’s New Pussycat?. Other posters warranting special mention are I feel 4 for Texas, Double Murder, Up to His Ears, Red Sun and Clash of the Titans. Classy stills were the opening and closing solos of Ursula, her with Elvis, as H Rider Haggard’s She, and with Bronson and Delon in Red Sun. All of the pictorials for the 10th Victim and Dr No also deserve highlighting. Anyway keep up the good work as this one earned a high 96.5 in my book. It occurs to me that those of us who love browsing through posters and stills from movies now have our very own “Little Stevie Wonder”! Hope U enjoy rest of weekend.
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing and rating my Undressed Ursula video, comment and info also appreciated. Glad you liked the posters and stills.
Looking at my video views they do seem popular these ‘girly vids’. Seems that staring at pictures of scantily clad young women never goes out of fashion. Always been a big seller. 😉
I’d never even heard of some of these films, Safari Express? Nightmare in the Sun? Up to his Ears? And I can’t even tease Bruce for making these titles up. [snort]
Urs has just one film scoring 10 out of 10 from my sources – Dr. No, and that’s the only film scoring 9 out of 10 too. One film scored 8 and that was The Blue Max.
My next video ‘hottie’ is English – a swinging 60s babe. #26 on Empire’s 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History. But I don’t see her name on Bruce’s index page.
HI STEVE
1 Enjoyed the usually interesting back chat.
2 I think that possibly the publicity generated by those great pin-up sex kittens like the ones you profiled meant that in the end among the wider public they simply became “famous for being famous” rather than for their movies.
3 The Gabors were seen in that light though the 5 ladies you have just profiled had more to offer that the Gabor family or the “GaBORES” as some cynics labelled them. Poor George Sanders married two of the 3 sisters some 16 years apart [Magda and Zsa Zsa] and there were rumours that at one stage he even chased after their mother. Ole George must have been a bit of a masochist – but then his parents were English so maybe that explains matters!
4 The Gabor mother Jolie was 10 years older that George but lived to 100 surviving Sanders by almost 25 years. The 3 sisters all made movies, Eva being in things like the 1954 Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl and Zsa appearing in George 1956 Death of A Scoundrel however Wikipedia lists their occupation as primarily “socialite” Certainly a Crawford or even a Loy none of the sisters was! Anyway ta-ta for now.
1 Good supplementary stuff from you about Claudia, Bardot, Rita etc – much appreciated by me.. Your Hayworth/Claudia still that was one of the ones that most impressed me bears out how well Rita and Claudia got on well together and it’s nice to see such friendliness instead of the usual back-biting that we often hear about.
2 However we should always take the latter with a pinch of salt where it can’t be confirmed. For example I’ve just watched an early 1960s interview with Monty Clift in which he said that the gossip columnists invented a bad blood between Mr Mumbles and him whereas he was personally fond of Mr M and all of their meetings were courteous and friendly.
1 HI STEVE The young Claudia was called “The most beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia” [rather ironic given the opening quote in your video] and although perhaps not as well-known worldwide as La Lollo and Loren she had great artistic success in the European cinema in the 1960s and 1970s and appeared in some of its highly proclaimed movies the most familiar of which to British and American audiences would perhaps be The 1963 Leopard with Burt Lancaster and the 1968 Once Upon a Time in the West with Fonda/Bronson [a joint US/Italian venture].
2 After her success in the US Pink panther in 1963 she had a run of Hollywood productions such as Blindfold (1965) with Rock Hudson and The Professionals (1966) with, again, Lancaster. However she became jaded with Hollywood and returned to her first love the European Cinema where she renewed her previous great success by for example winning two best actress awards for the 1968 IL Girno Della Civetta [ie The Day of the Owl] and the 1971 A Girl in Australia in which she played a prostitute.
3 Again I offer you my admiration for well-covering both the Hollywood and “foreign” careers of your subject but certainly in this case it has been a quid-pro-quo for Claudia’ s European movies have yielded you some of the most impressive posters that I personally have ever seen. They perhaps provide a snapshot of what those of us unfamiliar with the European cinema could be missing. Overall my favourite posters were both of the ones for Legend of Frenchie King, Queens, Les Centurions,the Duke’s Circus World, Sandra, The Red Tent, Fitzcarraldo, Swords of Blood, Facts of Murder, The Professionals and simply breathtaking those for The Leopard and BOTH pictorials for Once Upon a Time in the West,
4 I regarded as the most appealing stills the “friendly” one of Claudia with Rita, solo from Girl with a Suitcase, with Niven in Pink Panther, the raunchy solo of Claudia in The Professionals and her in The Leopard with the young dashing (I think!) Alain Delon. A simply breathtaking collection of pictorials warranting a 98% rating in my opinion. To quote a well-known regular on this site “Vote up!”
Hi Bob, thanks for the very generous rating, review, comment, info and trivia, always appreciated. Happy you enjoyed the visual presentation.
Claudia was The Italian Beauty, in my opinion prettier than Gina and Sophia. What I didn’t know was that she was born in Tunisia and didn’t speak a word of Italian until she was 18!
Appreciate the 98% rating, that’s a higher rating than any of the films in my video charts have managed, oh the irony! 😉
Will start work soon on my magnum opus – John Wayne’s Top 100 highest rated movies – and I’m tempted to revise and expand other videos I’ve done in the past on the great Hollywood actors, a Top 30 did not do them justice, quite a few popular movies did not make an appearance. We’ll see how it goes.
Looking at my files Claudia has four films scoring 10 out of 10 – Fitzacarraldo, 8½, The Leopard and Once Upon a Time in the West. Four scored 9 including The Pink Panther.
Her highest rated film at IMDB is OUATITW, which scored 8.6, and that btw was the lowest score for that film from my sources.
Bob, yes that was Alain Delon in the photo from The Leopard, and he also appears in the still from Lost Command aka Les Centurions.
Found an interview with Cardinale on the net, here’s an excerpt –
cafébabel: Which actors and films have left the strongest impression on you?
Claudia Cardinale: The marvellous Rita Hayworth! She was magnificent! She had this nostalgic side to her that made her all the more charming. Hathaway’s film also allowed me to cross paths with the legendary John Wayne.
cafébabel: You like cowboys?
Claudia Cardinale: There is a special place in my heart for Burt Lancaster and Henry Fonda. The former played this incredible Sicilian prince of the 19th century – a fabulous cheetah.
As for the latter, I exposed myself, in every sense! For Once Upon a Time in the West, I shot one of the steamiest scenes of my whole life with him.
cafébabel: With which French movie stars did you have the closest bond?
Claudia Cardinale: My favourite actress was Brigitte Bardot because she danced, sang… she knew how to do everything! I don’t need to tell you the honour I felt shooting alongside her in Les Pétroleuses (1971). The paparazzi never left the set because they were waiting for all hell to break loose between BB the French blonde and CC the Italian brunette. On the contrary, we became great friends and filming that movie was pure craziness.
2 Whilst some Hollywood stars like Hackman and De Niro appear to have churned out “everything and anything” most modern great stars like Cruise and Hanks seem to be more selective so that you might have more difficulty in providing worthwhile expansions of the videos you’ve done on the modern stars. For example Bruce currently lists 92 flicks for De Niro and 76 for Hackman but only 46 for Hanks and 40 for Cruise.
3 Anyway I believe in you and if anyone has the artistic skills to make a “silk purse out of a sow’s ear” it’s you! so I’ll be keeping a watch with interest. I have often thought that old stars like the Duke and Jimmy Stewart must have almost lived on the set so prolific was their output and perhaps De Niro’s movies turnover is even more staggering as it probably often takes much longer to produce films under modern modern movie production conditions.
Hi Bob, if I were to revise and expand my videos it would be for the golden age greats like James Stewart, Cary Grant, Fonda, Peck, Heston, Cooper etc etc scanning Bruce’s pages they’ve all made more than 60 movies, so a Top 50 for them might be a good idea. But the thing is should I delete my old videos? If I do I lose the views they’ve accumulated.
What got me thinking about revising some of these videos is a comment from a lady fan of Burt Lancaster who noticed that Trapeze was missing from his video top 30. It wasn’t a high scoring movie but I shouldn’t have left it out, big mistake. It’s down at no.40 on Bruce’s Burt Lancaster chart with a score of 6.3. It scored 7 on my files. I should have included it in the 30.
Do not Delete the videos, Steve. You can always make new ones, but it would be a shame to lose views and comments.
Hi Flora, yeah I don’t want to lose the views or the comments. I think both videos can co-exist. I’ll just add the words revised and expanded on the new ones. But it won’t happen for a while I still have a lot of movie people listed in my files to go thru. I might do a John Wayne top 100 purely for fun, just to see if I can get away with it. 🙂
Just added Steve’s latest videos to this page.
Thanks Bruce. Looking forward to watching one of your movie idols in Blade Runner 2049 next week, it’s had some great reviews. But I doubt it will be better than the 1982 classic. 35 years old! Hard to believe.
GOOD EVENING MR LENSMAN 1 I’m afraid you’re on your own there as far as I personally am concerned. I know it will not please a lot of regulars of this site for me to say that I think that Mr Harrison Ford, who I thought looked dreadful in Star Wars the Force Awakens is well past his sell-by date in the new Blade Runner like those other muscle-bound ancient action heroes Messers Stallone and Schwarzenegger . Mr Ford in particular seems to have lost his timing as an actor just as sadly the also once-magnificent Mr Redford now has in my opinion.
2 It’s a great pity because Mr Ford was wonderful in his heyday and I thoroughly enjoyed him in the original Blade Runner. The producers of the new much-hyped one clearly do not have too much confidence in him and are hedging their bets because I see that whilst he was the star of the original they have now billed him second to George Clooney’s protégé the young, fresh, vibrant and marvellous Ryan Gosling.
3 I have long held the view that whilst Mr Ford would still be a star of the first magnitude even without the massive franchises that he seems intent upon flogging to death, they nevertheless do artificially inflate his box office status to some degree and in my opinion he is not in the commercial league of for example Mr Wayne or Mr Gable. Like Miss Myrna Loy whom I have always found delightful Harrison’s vertiginous position in my pupil Bruce Cogerson’s otherwise excellent charts is I feel somewhat of a misnomer.
4 However Mr Ford will hardly heed my opinion as he seems intent upon throwing himself into every and any sequel and/or franchise on the go so that, apart from like some ghost haunting the Force Awakens and the new Blade Runner, he appeared -16th billed – in Expendables 3 along with a whole clique of decaying Ben Gunns lookalikes from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island including sadly Mel Gibson. Unfortunately there doesn’t appear to be sufficient “treasure” to satisfy our over-the hill dinosaurs – even too much money it seems is not enough for them
5 It is a pity that Mr Ford never took a leaf out of Mr.Brando’s book who it is said in turning down Godfather 2 made it clear he was “a man for originals only.” Anyway I feel it’s about time that the whole tribe of Yesterday’s Men gave it and us a rest and bowed out albeit ungracefully to allow the new young guys who CAN cut it their days in the sun. Alas however Mr Ford is reportedly scheduled to drag his tired old bones into another outing of the now-boring Indiana Jones saga in 1920. Still it’s nice to have something positive to say for once about the dreadful Mr Brando another pathetic figure who overstayed his welcome. Anyway I am enjoying your video presentations which I feel complement well my own Apprentice’s statistical and verbal facts pages.
Well Mr. Hirschhorn, can I call you Hirsch? Hershey? No? Okay. Harrison Ford is still sprightly for his age and from what I’ve heard beats the crap out of Ryan Gosling in the new movie. Spielberg is planning a new Indiana Jones movie, Ford will be approaching 80 by the time it’s released. Like Clint, some movie people want to work until they drop.
If it wasn’t for these franchises and sequels Ford would be playing grandfathers in comedies and dramas and maybe he still fancies himself as the dashing adventure hero. 🙂
MR LENSMAN 1 Good afternoon Mr POSTERS as I think you’re called by some on this site. You may call ME Joel, Hirsch or Master as my Idolater who owns this site clearly thinks of me. I appreciate your comments about Mr Ford and am sure that they will chime with the views of that Pupil of mine.
2 However as my Apprentice he has become more perceptive about film matters and I’m sure it is just a matter of time before he realises that the relics whom we are discussing are turning the action hero genre into a kind of Zombieland and geriatric thespians such as Messers Ford, Stallone, and Schwarzenegger and now the unfortunate Mr Gibson have become the Undead of the genre.
3 When you speak of Mr Ford “beating the c***” out of Mr Gosling I wonder that you take so seriously what you are being conned about up there on the screen. I remember watching a scene from The Carpetbaggers in which a visibly washed up and badly ageing Mr Ladd is told by Mr Peppard “I know your reputation Nevada and your capacity for satisfying a town full of women.” Others in the audience joined me in spontaneous laughter of the absurdity of what Mr Peppard was saying. Poor Mr Ladd looked as if a wet paper bag would have got the better of him. Miss Baker in the same movie got it right when she observed “Nevada’s like his guns – full of blanks!”
4 I wish to congratulate my Disciple and his marvellous wife on the fabulous update of this site but ironically the site has become so gloriously DYNAMIC now that it seems incongruous to be discussing over-the-hills like the Methuselah Ford at all. Though I suppose that if he acted his age and started to play sensible parts such as for example a remake of The Old Man and the Sea he would again deserve our serious attention. To think that Mr Tracy was 57 when he originally played that part – a true realist Mr T and oh for the days when ACTORS ran the show and the likes of Trazan, Superman et al were duly young men.
5 Anyway it is equally ironic that you mention Mr Eastwood because a close study of his recent acting roles – the last credite one of which was in 2012- will illustrate that he now emphasises the time imposed frailties of the his own screen characters. “Give me 3 cows and I’ll make it look on screen like a herd of stampeding cattle” observed the great William Wyler. Certainly in the badly-ageing on screen presence of the sad Mr Ford what we are getting is not cows but, to use a cliche normally quoted in relation to the fair sex “mutton dressed up as lamb.” Ah well “better a fool’s paradise than no paradise at all.”
Hello Hirsch, I’m surprised your disciple ‘el commandante’ hasn’t chimed in, he’s a huge fan of Mr. Ford and has been petitioning for years for the aging action hero to be presented with an honorary Oscar and who can say he doesn’t deserve it? But the chief has been busy of late. The only way we can get his attention if we jump up and down and wave our arms about… oh there he goes, missed him again.
Hey Steve, Joel and Bob.
1. I know I am late to the party….but here are my two cents.
2. For a septuagenarian who just survived a serious plane crash (are there any plane crashes that aren’t serious?)…Harrison Indy Han Jack Deckard Ford is looking pretty good.
3. Yes I have thought giving Mr. Ford a Honorary Oscar was well deserving….maybe in a month when they announce this year’s recipient he will be amongst the names…since I got on this soapbox….here are some of the ones that have gotten that honor…James Earl Jones, Spike Lee, Gena Rowlands, Steve Martin and Jackie Chan….all have brought great stuff to movies….but pale in comparison to Ford’s career.
4. The reviews for BladeRunner 2049 have been stellar…..and Ford’s performance has been singled out…maybe he will earn his Oscar….like Sean Connery did for The Untouchables….granted a Best Supporting Acting Oscar would be viewed as a career win…but I will take it.
5. BladeRunner 2049….did not open as strong as they wanted….but I think it still has a chance to be a financial success…..the better it does the better the chance for a Ford Oscar win.
6. I have not seen the movie…..but I imagine his Deckard is not going to be surviving the sequel….which would mean Ford has successfully killed off two of his most famous characters….should Indy be nervous if the ever make Indy 5? How about Jack Ryan….can Ford get that character killed off too?
Fun comments….and once again….sorry I was so late to the party.
Hello Steve,
just watched your beautiful Julie Christie vid. I have always been a sort of “fan” of this beautiful woman. I really love The Go Between, Far from the Madding Crowd and some of her more recent films. Don’t Look Now is also a fav, although it is such a dark and sort of strange movie…reminds me more of italian “Giallos” than your usual Daphne du Maurier movie. Good addition to your already impressive list of videos 😉
Thanks Lupino, glad you liked the video. Don’t Look Now is a highly rated movie but it’s not one I watch often. I did enjoy Demon Seed which also had a twist in the tale. The late Robert Vaughn was effective as the voice of the mad computer Proteus.
1 HI STEVE: At last another Brit! I grew up in the 1950s/1960s watching as many talented British movie performers as I did American ones but many of the Brits like Sylvia Syms, Vanessa Redgrave and Glenda Jackson and Donald Sinden, the superb Denholm Elliot, Kenneth More and John Gregson among the men although successful and highly respected professionally never achieved the mega-stardom of their US contemporaries. Nice to see you therefore now profiling another British Great.
2 Julie of course had a good run at the US box office for a while in the likes of Dr. Zivago and the Warren Beatty films. My own two favorite Christie films are (1) the 1965 Darling as it co-starred my own top Brit idol [apart from Sir Maurice] Dirk Bogarde and (2) the 1967 Far from the Madding Crowd in which Julie played my favourite heroine from Literature, the Scarlet O’Hara-like Bathsheba Everdene in the screen adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic novel which pre-dated Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and Scarlet by 62 years.
3. Lots of good posters in your video and my personal pick of the very best were Red Riding hood, The Fast Lady [a typical vintage British comedy in its day] Shampoo, Heat and Dust, Young Cassidy, Fahrenheit 451, Demon Seed, the 1st [very naughty!] one in the Petulia set, Far from the Madding Crowd***, and the provocative Darling ones showing my Dirk top-billed. ***John admired my quote which opened L P Hartley’s book and I think the film “The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”
4 Fine stills were (1) opening BW solo of the young Julie (2) her with Beatty (3) with the excellent Tom Courtney (4) with Donald Sutherland (5) the closing coloured solo of Julie from Dr. Zivago.
5 I thoroughly enjoyed your video profile of a highly talented female actress who was very sexy in her heyday but whose screen persona nevertheless in my view relied on class rather than t*** and a** as Piper Laurie described the flavor of some of her colourful Arabian venture yarns at Universal in the early 1950s. I rated the pictorials in your video97%. Smashing stuff – and it would be good to some more Brits soon!
Hi Bob, thanks for the review, rating and comment, much appreciated!
Glad you liked the pictorial presentation.
I thought it was time to turn the spotlight on some British actresses and Julie Christie was a pop icon of the swinging 60s. Beautiful, sexy and a good actress too.
Far from the Madding Crowd was recently filmed again (2015) but I don’t think it was successful.
And will they remake Darling? With… who? Keira Knightley? Emma Watson? After the likes of Bridget Jones’s Diary and it’s sequels, not sure anyone will bother. Shirley Maclaine was the original choice for Darling but luckily for Christie she dropped out. Julie won an Oscar for Best Actress for that film. Director John Schlesinger went on to direct Midnight Cowboy and won himself an Oscar too.
Four of Julie Christie’s films scored 10 out of 10 from my sources – Petulia, Billy Liar, Don’t Look Now and Doctor Zhivago. Seven scored 9 including Darling, The Go-Between and Far from the Madding Crowd.
The top rated Christie film at IMDB is Doctor Zhivago with Branagh’s Hamlet at no.2
Another British actress up next – according to one news site – the reigning matriarch of Britain’s most famous acting dynasty – ooh who could it be? 🙂
Good Julie Christie movie talk from Bob and Steve….sorry my comments have been so sparse lately. As I wrote in my comment on Steve’s video channel…..I have never been a fan of Petulia….seen it twice…but it was disappointing both times.
THIS POST ORIGINALLY SENT TO WRONG PAGE – APOLOGIES
1 STEVE You have now given us excellent profiles of 5 of the great so-called “sex kittens” of our ages. It seems to me that one thing that the five had in common was that, at least compared with the likes of Crawford, Liz Taylor and Day, none of those 5 sex kittens earned vertiginous overall grosses at the US box office.
2 However to be wholly sure of the magnitude of their various contributions to cinema one might need a better overview of their European work than I personally possess though my own snapshot of Claudia Cardinale’s achievements suggest that she put some of her best acting into her European films.
3 Ursula too started out in the European cinema but her greatest claim to fame worldwide is most likely as the 1st Bond Girl Honey Ryder in the 1962 Dr No. She was of course a great pin-up fave and when she posed naked for Playboy magazine in 1965 the pun-loving British movie columnists couldn’t resist dubbing her “Ursula Undress”. 3 decades later Empire magazine voted her one of the “100 sexiest stars in film history.” James Dean would not have quarrelled that opinion because before his death he dated the young Ursula.
4 What an eye-popping run of pictorials your video provides! with random fine POSTER examples being Mountain of the Cannibal God, Africa Express, Anyone Can Play and What’s New Pussycat?. Other posters warranting special mention are I feel 4 for Texas, Double Murder, Up to His Ears, Red Sun and Clash of the Titans. Classy stills were the opening and closing solos of Ursula, her with Elvis, as H Rider Haggard’s She, and with Bronson and Delon in Red Sun. All of the pictorials for the 10th Victim and Dr No also deserve highlighting. Anyway keep up the good work as this one earned a high 96.5 in my book. It occurs to me that those of us who love browsing through posters and stills from movies now have our very own “Little Stevie Wonder”! Hope U enjoy rest of weekend.
Hi Bob, thanks for reviewing and rating my Undressed Ursula video, comment and info also appreciated. Glad you liked the posters and stills.
Looking at my video views they do seem popular these ‘girly vids’. Seems that staring at pictures of scantily clad young women never goes out of fashion. Always been a big seller. 😉
I’d never even heard of some of these films, Safari Express? Nightmare in the Sun? Up to his Ears? And I can’t even tease Bruce for making these titles up. [snort]
Urs has just one film scoring 10 out of 10 from my sources – Dr. No, and that’s the only film scoring 9 out of 10 too. One film scored 8 and that was The Blue Max.
My next video ‘hottie’ is English – a swinging 60s babe. #26 on Empire’s 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History. But I don’t see her name on Bruce’s index page.
Enjoy your weekend Bob.
HI STEVE
1 Enjoyed the usually interesting back chat.
2 I think that possibly the publicity generated by those great pin-up sex kittens like the ones you profiled meant that in the end among the wider public they simply became “famous for being famous” rather than for their movies.
3 The Gabors were seen in that light though the 5 ladies you have just profiled had more to offer that the Gabor family or the “GaBORES” as some cynics labelled them. Poor George Sanders married two of the 3 sisters some 16 years apart [Magda and Zsa Zsa] and there were rumours that at one stage he even chased after their mother. Ole George must have been a bit of a masochist – but then his parents were English so maybe that explains matters!
4 The Gabor mother Jolie was 10 years older that George but lived to 100 surviving Sanders by almost 25 years. The 3 sisters all made movies, Eva being in things like the 1954 Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl and Zsa appearing in George 1956 Death of A Scoundrel however Wikipedia lists their occupation as primarily “socialite” Certainly a Crawford or even a Loy none of the sisters was! Anyway ta-ta for now.
STEVE
POSTSCRIPT
1 Good supplementary stuff from you about Claudia, Bardot, Rita etc – much appreciated by me.. Your Hayworth/Claudia still that was one of the ones that most impressed me bears out how well Rita and Claudia got on well together and it’s nice to see such friendliness instead of the usual back-biting that we often hear about.
2 However we should always take the latter with a pinch of salt where it can’t be confirmed. For example I’ve just watched an early 1960s interview with Monty Clift in which he said that the gossip columnists invented a bad blood between Mr Mumbles and him whereas he was personally fond of Mr M and all of their meetings were courteous and friendly.
1 HI STEVE The young Claudia was called “The most beautiful Italian Girl in Tunisia” [rather ironic given the opening quote in your video] and although perhaps not as well-known worldwide as La Lollo and Loren she had great artistic success in the European cinema in the 1960s and 1970s and appeared in some of its highly proclaimed movies the most familiar of which to British and American audiences would perhaps be The 1963 Leopard with Burt Lancaster and the 1968 Once Upon a Time in the West with Fonda/Bronson [a joint US/Italian venture].
2 After her success in the US Pink panther in 1963 she had a run of Hollywood productions such as Blindfold (1965) with Rock Hudson and The Professionals (1966) with, again, Lancaster. However she became jaded with Hollywood and returned to her first love the European Cinema where she renewed her previous great success by for example winning two best actress awards for the 1968 IL Girno Della Civetta [ie The Day of the Owl] and the 1971 A Girl in Australia in which she played a prostitute.
3 Again I offer you my admiration for well-covering both the Hollywood and “foreign” careers of your subject but certainly in this case it has been a quid-pro-quo for Claudia’ s European movies have yielded you some of the most impressive posters that I personally have ever seen. They perhaps provide a snapshot of what those of us unfamiliar with the European cinema could be missing. Overall my favourite posters were both of the ones for Legend of Frenchie King, Queens, Les Centurions,the Duke’s Circus World, Sandra, The Red Tent, Fitzcarraldo, Swords of Blood, Facts of Murder, The Professionals and simply breathtaking those for The Leopard and BOTH pictorials for Once Upon a Time in the West,
4 I regarded as the most appealing stills the “friendly” one of Claudia with Rita, solo from Girl with a Suitcase, with Niven in Pink Panther, the raunchy solo of Claudia in The Professionals and her in The Leopard with the young dashing (I think!) Alain Delon. A simply breathtaking collection of pictorials warranting a 98% rating in my opinion. To quote a well-known regular on this site “Vote up!”
Hi Bob, thanks for the very generous rating, review, comment, info and trivia, always appreciated. Happy you enjoyed the visual presentation.
Claudia was The Italian Beauty, in my opinion prettier than Gina and Sophia. What I didn’t know was that she was born in Tunisia and didn’t speak a word of Italian until she was 18!
Appreciate the 98% rating, that’s a higher rating than any of the films in my video charts have managed, oh the irony! 😉
Will start work soon on my magnum opus – John Wayne’s Top 100 highest rated movies – and I’m tempted to revise and expand other videos I’ve done in the past on the great Hollywood actors, a Top 30 did not do them justice, quite a few popular movies did not make an appearance. We’ll see how it goes.
Looking at my files Claudia has four films scoring 10 out of 10 – Fitzacarraldo, 8½, The Leopard and Once Upon a Time in the West. Four scored 9 including The Pink Panther.
Her highest rated film at IMDB is OUATITW, which scored 8.6, and that btw was the lowest score for that film from my sources.
Bob, yes that was Alain Delon in the photo from The Leopard, and he also appears in the still from Lost Command aka Les Centurions.
Found an interview with Cardinale on the net, here’s an excerpt –
cafébabel: Which actors and films have left the strongest impression on you?
Claudia Cardinale: The marvellous Rita Hayworth! She was magnificent! She had this nostalgic side to her that made her all the more charming. Hathaway’s film also allowed me to cross paths with the legendary John Wayne.
cafébabel: You like cowboys?
Claudia Cardinale: There is a special place in my heart for Burt Lancaster and Henry Fonda. The former played this incredible Sicilian prince of the 19th century – a fabulous cheetah.
As for the latter, I exposed myself, in every sense! For Once Upon a Time in the West, I shot one of the steamiest scenes of my whole life with him.
cafébabel: With which French movie stars did you have the closest bond?
Claudia Cardinale: My favourite actress was Brigitte Bardot because she danced, sang… she knew how to do everything! I don’t need to tell you the honour I felt shooting alongside her in Les Pétroleuses (1971). The paparazzi never left the set because they were waiting for all hell to break loose between BB the French blonde and CC the Italian brunette. On the contrary, we became great friends and filming that movie was pure craziness.
HI STEVE
1 Thanks for the usual informative backchat.
2 Whilst some Hollywood stars like Hackman and De Niro appear to have churned out “everything and anything” most modern great stars like Cruise and Hanks seem to be more selective so that you might have more difficulty in providing worthwhile expansions of the videos you’ve done on the modern stars. For example Bruce currently lists 92 flicks for De Niro and 76 for Hackman but only 46 for Hanks and 40 for Cruise.
3 Anyway I believe in you and if anyone has the artistic skills to make a “silk purse out of a sow’s ear” it’s you! so I’ll be keeping a watch with interest. I have often thought that old stars like the Duke and Jimmy Stewart must have almost lived on the set so prolific was their output and perhaps De Niro’s movies turnover is even more staggering as it probably often takes much longer to produce films under modern modern movie production conditions.
Hi Bob, if I were to revise and expand my videos it would be for the golden age greats like James Stewart, Cary Grant, Fonda, Peck, Heston, Cooper etc etc scanning Bruce’s pages they’ve all made more than 60 movies, so a Top 50 for them might be a good idea. But the thing is should I delete my old videos? If I do I lose the views they’ve accumulated.
What got me thinking about revising some of these videos is a comment from a lady fan of Burt Lancaster who noticed that Trapeze was missing from his video top 30. It wasn’t a high scoring movie but I shouldn’t have left it out, big mistake. It’s down at no.40 on Bruce’s Burt Lancaster chart with a score of 6.3. It scored 7 on my files. I should have included it in the 30.
Do not Delete the videos, Steve. You can always make new ones, but it would be a shame to lose views and comments.
Hi Flora, yeah I don’t want to lose the views or the comments. I think both videos can co-exist. I’ll just add the words revised and expanded on the new ones. But it won’t happen for a while I still have a lot of movie people listed in my files to go thru. I might do a John Wayne top 100 purely for fun, just to see if I can get away with it. 🙂