Ever think of FBI Director, John Edgar Hoover as the UNCREDITED and INVISIBLE Co-Screenplay Writer for 7-motion picture’s, or as a CREDITED Actor in 2-motion pictures, and one by stock footage. I start with a look at a popular 1950’s, nonfiction book, about the “Federal Bureau of Investigation”, and a motion picture made from it.…
“I was reaching for a gutter Macbeth—a composite figure that would indicate how men could rise to prominence or money under the most hazardous conditions, but not much more hazardous than the men of the Renaissance… if you have this type of society, it will produce such men. That’s what I was looking for, a…
“When I was 5 years old. I wanted to be a Cowboy like those on the television screen, and so did other little boys of the 1950’s. In 1949, the first weekly television Western show appeared, and by the late 1950’s, as many as 46 Western programs were on the airways every week. No other genre would…
Most people remember the scene where Ingrid Bergman walks over to Dooley Wilson, and asks the piano player to: “PLAY IT AGAIN SAM”. EXCEPT, that scene never happened. However, it was a fact, that “EVERYBODY COMES TO RICK’S”. This is a look at the making of a 1942, Classic Second World War Love Story, that…
Think GEORGE RAFT, and it’s for certain, that his ground breaking role as “Guino “Little Boy” Rinaldo”, in co-director, Howard Hawks’s, 1932, “Scarface”, would, almost immediately, come to mind. A role, Raft had fun parodying, 35-years later, as a cameo guest star in, the “James Bond” spoof, 1967’s, “Casino Royale”. Then there’s the,1939, pairing of…
In the 1960’s, VINCENT LEONARD PRICE, JR. became the uncrowned “KING OF HORROR”. This is a look at those feature films that made “Dear Vincent” such a star. For those of my readers interested in his earlier works of Horror, my article is “Vincent Price: The 1950’s Horror of It All”, at: https://motion-picture-history.com/2026/06/25/vincent-price-the-1950s-horror-of-it-all/ The 1950’s…
His name was VINCENT LEONARD PRICE, JR, and he frightened other’s and myself during the 1950’s. This is a look at an an actor, who could raise an eyebrow, and send shivers to a whole movie theater audience. Before there was Horror, there was the “Mayflower”, “Cream of Tartar”, and some candy. Vincent, was a…
“Olsen and Johnson” became a vaudeville team, the year before, “The Five Marx Brother’s, Chico, Harpo, Groucho, Gummo, and Zeppo, had their only professional performance together, in 1915. Both groups would be followed by “The Three Stooges”, originally, Moe and Shemp Howard, and Larry Fine in 1925. Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy in 1927, Bud…
Don’t recognize his name? Should my reader be a fan of “Universal Horror”, George Pal Science Fiction, even a little Cecil B. DeMile, or John Ford? You have either seen, or heard IRVING PICHEL. So, lets go into his story – – – – His father, Julius Pichel, worked, 47-years, for the “Pittsburgh Gazette-Times”, his…
He was born Napoleone di Buonaparte on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica, France. He would become “Emperor of the French” on May 18, 1804, his first reign was for ten-years until April 6, 1814. His second reign was a bit shorter, March 20, 1815 to June 22, 1815. The first motion picture about “Napoleon”,…
Before the Second World War, J. Edgar Hoover, and the “Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)”, kept track of all Communist activities within the United States. However, when the Soviet Union became an “ALLY”, during that war, of both the United States and the United Kingdom. For appearance, a leash was supposedly placed on the bureau’s…
He was 45, she was 20, and as “Hollywood Legends” go, they fell in love and were married. Think of Humphrey DeForest Bogart and films such as director Raul Walsh’s, 1940, “They Drive by Night”, director John Huston’s, 1941, “The Maltese Falcon”, and director Michael Curtiz’s, 1942, “Casablanca”, come to mind. All have that Bogart…
He was born Charles Lutwidge Dodson, but if my reader ever went down the rabbit hole with Alice. Then, they may know him better, by his pen name, of LEWIS CARROLL. Above, the almost asleep Dodgson, had his higher education at Christ Church College, within Oxford, seen below. This was a requirement of his family,…
It has been said, that she had: “THE FACE THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND SHIPS”. The Greek poet HOMER (Ὅμηρος [hómɛːros] ), wrote his classic mythology, the “ILIAD (Ἰλιάς)”, about the war she started. Scholars believe the poem that was written sometime in the hundred-year period between 750 B. C. and 650 B. C. American Director Robert…
Once Upon a Time in a Television Galaxy Far-Far Away from today. There was live television, and the 30th Century was on my 17th inch television screen, in glorious black and white. Edward “Ed” William Kemmer was born on October 29, 1920, possibly 1921, in Reading, Pennsylvania. His father was Aaron F. Kemmer, his mother…
Forget Edward Gibbon’s 1776-1788 “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”. Forget Will and Ariel Durant’s, 1944, “Caesar and Christ”, Volume Three, of their, Eleven Volume, “The Story pf Civilization” series. They never got it right. This is “THE REAL (?) HISTORY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE” brought to the movie goer…
Errol Leslie Thompson Flynn was born on June 20, 1909 in Battery Point, Tasmania, Australia Above Flynn as “Captain Blood” Errol’s father was Theodore Thomson Flynn, a British-Australian Zoologist and Marine biologist. His mother was born Lily Mary Young, but immediately after marrying Theodore, she changed her first name to Marelle. Erroll would always claim…
THE FILM MADNESS OF FRADKIN-STEIN 