To the looking-glass world it was Alice that said:
I’ve a sceptre in hand, I’ve a crown on my head.
Let the looking-glass creatures, whatever they be
Come dine with the Red Queen, the White Queen, and me.
Gay Purr-ee is often remembered as the animated cartoon with the voice of Judy Garland …. But it’s quite frankly a lot more than that. It takes a simple story: The farm girl who runs away to the big city in search of happiness, only to find that she was truly happy back home after all. And tells it in the setting of a musical, with the main characters all being cats.
In Five Weeks in a Balloon, Professor Ferguson plans to demonstrate the practicality of his new hot air balloon design by charting the unknown areas of Africa – but the government wants him to claim the area to prevent slave trading from being established there. His crew consists of his friend Jacques, a retired general, and a journalist — and along the way they pick up two escaped slaves and a slave trader as well.
This monumental account of the allied invasion of Normandy on D-Day (June 6, 1944) is a classic among WWII films. Spectacular battle scenes; intense acting by John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Sean Connery and Sir Richard Burton, among others; and gut-wrenching pathos capture the horrors and heroics of a defining historical event. 1962; black and white, 3 hours.
While flipping through channels, I saw The Big Circus on Turner Classic Movies as part of a marathon of circus movies. Despite my love of the circus, I almost went past until I saw Vincent Price as the ringmaster. I’m a long-time fan of Vincent Price. He’s one of the small fraternity of actors who never turn in a poor performance. Another member of that fraternity is Peter Lorre, who also co-stars here as one of the circus clowns. I’m glad that I stayed to watch — The Big Circus is an entertaining, although not dreadfully original, movie.
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