Tag Archives: Tony Curtis

Defying Gravity

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The days when famous large scale traveling circuses like the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey toured the country are long past but they live on in the movies. Among the many films in that specific genre are Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Polly of the Circus (1932), Carnival Story (1954), The Big Circus (1959), The Flying Fontaines (1959), Circus World (1964) and the Canfinflas comedy El Circo (1943) from Mexico. One of my favorites though is Trapeze (1956), which came from an unlikely director, Carol Reed, who had previously directed such acclaimed features as Odd Man Out (1947) and The Third Man (1949).

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The Lure of the Big Apple

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New York City has served as the background and, in some cases, the main star in dozens of films from King Kong (1933) to The Naked City (1948) to Manhattan (1979), and usually it is depicted as a vibrant melting pot of humanity where opportunity and chance encounters can change the course of one’s life. It can also be a place of desperation, danger and soul-crushing despair and The Rat Race (1960), based on Garson Kanin’s play and adapted by him for the screen, falls into this category. Along with such films as Midnight Cowboy (1969), Death Wish (1974) and Taxi Driver (1976), this tale of two innocents being beaten down by the realities of big city life comes across like a hate letter to the Big Apple, whether that was Kanin’s intentions or not.

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In Their Own Words: Actors on Film Flops and Disappointments

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Nobody sets out to make a bad movie. Why would they? Not only is it a colossal waste of money but it will remain on the permanent record of everyone associated with it. Still, there are factors that no one can control and sometimes an actor makes a movie with the best intentions that the critics hate, audiences avoid like the plague or conflicts during production doom it to failure.  Here are 15 well documented examples including Marlon Brando (A Countess from Hong Kong), Shelley Winters (Knickerbocker Holiday), Richard Widmark (Slattery’s Hurricane), Beverly Garland (Swamp Women and Stark Fear), Bruce Dern (The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant), Ava Gardner (The Bible…In the Beginning), Christopher Plummer (The Royal Hunt of the Sun), Ida Lupino (The Hard Way), Tony Curtis (Son of Ali Baba), Sally Kellerman (Reform School Girl), Ernest Borgnine (The Devil’s Rain), Raquel Welch (Myra Breckinridge), Warren Oates (Chandler), Joan Shawlee (Prehistoric Women) and Vincent Price (Green Hell).

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