mortiz002

Hell's Horizon (1955) Takes To Low Columbia Ceiling Slow build to a Korean air mission where bomber crew will sustain or crack-up according to character they've revealed in Acts One-Two. John Ireland is chief pilot, tip-off to modest cast otherwise aboard: Bill Williams, Hugh Beaumont, Jerry Paris, Bill Schallert. Love Is Splendor-ish girl interest is Marla English, borrowed from Paramount, striking Eurasian pose a la Jennifer Jones in the 20th Fox hit. Marla would be a cult chiller throb as The She-Creature , which she probably didn't find half so rewarding as this part, a better calling card for elevation out of B's (ME would instead quit biz altogether). Horizon saves its fuel for determining mission, which came excitingly at point where I'd almost lost hope for this Columbia release of a "Gravis Production," the independent set-up by producer Wray Davis and writer-director Tom Gries. Money man for Gravis was actually Jack Broder of Realart fame, who

Wilmington, Delaware's V.F.W. Supplies Uniform and Drum Corps For Downtown Bally Parade The Big Drive (1932) Is Precode's Censor-Proof Bloodbath Hell broke loose in December 1932 when indie shockumentary The Big Drive went Over The Top to show a public what ferocity we and allies dealt during the Great War over a decade past. If this wasn't precode in a rawest way, I don't know what was, but like Bring 'Em Back Alive and others of jung le derivation, little is mentioned of these buried offshoots. Compiler of The Big Drive was A.L. Rule, a WWI vet who was said to have scoured worldwide vaults to gather "withheld till now" proof of man's inhumanity to man. The menu was blissfully simple to sell: Glory and Hell ... Blood and Mud ... Clubbing ... Stabbing . Who wouldn't want bountiful meal of that? In fact, enough did to immediately call forth imitators. Within weeks of The Big Drive came Forgotten Men , while ahead of it was Four Aces , which di

Two Girls On Broadway (1940) Sets Star-Making To Music The two girls on Broadway are Lana Turner and Joan Blondell. Turner was nineteen, Blondell thirty-three. Metro was developing LT as a sex symbol minus pre-code claws of a departed Jean Harlow, Turner's allure kept within Code fences (some of press compared her with Clara Bow). Turner was of a generation that need not be rehabilitated for past onscreen sin, which put her at interesting contrast with Blondell, the big sister and unmolested fiancée of George Murphy, him as sexless as Metro wanted Blondell to now be. Murphy affection will transfer to Turner before half of reels play out, Blondell's part less reprise of work done at Warner than losing at love which was bane of Bessie Love in previous MGM musicals, a sacrifice for good-of-all to pave way for a younger ingénue to have the leading man. Here was formula chiseled onto rock that was every sister act back to The   Broadway Melody , a model in repeated use for by-then

Villainy Prevails in I Was An Adventuress (1940) Erich von Stroheim and Peter Lorre grazing on pre-war Euro playgrounds, thief assist supplied by Vera Zorina, that o dd footnote who sniffed stardom and later did weeks on For Whom The Bell Tolls location before being snatched back and replaced by Ingrid Bergman. Zorina, she went mostly by surname alone, had ballet for a specialty. Critics felt she did that better than acting, less of them noting Zorina as voluptuous beyond norm of toe dancers. From Swan Lake in I Was An Adventuress to That Old Black Magic for Star-Spangled Rhythm was proof of Zorina range, latter a hotsy highlight of which servicemen got an unexpurgated version that lit camp and frontline shows. 16mm prints survive and it's a wow, making me wonder what else studios heated up for exclusive military play. I Was An Adventuress has Zorina and Richard Greene top-billed, a laugh on reality of Stroheim and Lorre being who we're there to see, but 1940 didn't