The Big Sleep
Editorial review of The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers directed by Howard Hawks courtesy of Amazon.com Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall… Read More »The Big Sleep
Editorial review of The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Martha Vickers directed by Howard Hawks courtesy of Amazon.com Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall… Read More »The Big Sleep
Help the Free French? Not world-weary gunrunner Harry Morgan (Humphrey Bogart). But he changes his mind when a sultry siren-in-distress named Marie asks, “Anybody got a match?” That red-hot match is Bogart and 19-year-old first-time film actress Lauren Bacall. Full of intrigue and racy banter (including Bacall’s legendary whistling instructions), this thriller excites further interest for what it has and has not.
Cannily directed by Howard Hawks and smartly written by William Faulkner and Jules Furthman, it doesn’t have much similarity to the Ernest Hemingway novel that inspired it. And it strongly resembles Casablanca: French resistance fighters, a piano-playing bluesman (Hoagy Carmichael) and a Martinique bar much like Rick’s Cafe Americaine. But first and foremost, it showcases Bogart and Bacall, carrying on with a passion that smolders from the tips of their cigarettes clear through to their souls.
At the start of World War 1, German imperial troops burn down Reverend Samuel Sayer’s mission in Africa. He is overtaken with disappointment and passes away. Shortly after his well-educated, snooty sister Rose Sayer (Hepburn) buries her brother, she must leave on the only available transport, a tired river steamboat The African Queen manned by the ill-mannered bachelor, Charlie Allnut (Bogart). Together they embark on a long difficult journey, without any comfort. Rose grows determined to assist in the British war effort and presses Charlie until he finally agrees and together they steam up the Ulana encountering an enemy fort, raging rapids, bloodthirsty parasites and endlessly branching stream which always seem to lead them to what appear to be impenetrable swamps. Despite opposing personalities, the two grow closer to each other and ultimately carry out their plan to take out a German warship.
Read More »The African QueenTom and Ellen Bowen (Fred Astaire and Jane Powell) are a brother and sister dance duo invited to perform in London during the same time that Princess Elizabeth and Prince Phillip are to be betrothed — only to find their own romances that threaten to break up the act!
Read More »Royal WeddingThe movie begins on a full moon in a graveyard, with two grave robbers robbing Larry Talbot’s tomb. Too bad werewolves don’t die. Larry wakes up in a hospital 40 miles away, with a severe head injury. He later escapes the hospital to find the infamous Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein, only to find out that the doctor had died, but his monster hasn’t.
Read More »Frankenstein Meets the Wolf ManNext Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow is set in a possible dystopian future of the Marvel Comics universe, where the Avengers arch foe, the robotic Ultron, has succeeded in finally defeating the Avengers, killing most of them, and taking control of half of the planet. Iron Man (Tony Stark), however, survived the initial attack. He manages to rescue the children of the Avengers and hide them away. He then raises them together as a family, training them as he thinks their parents would have. Preparing them for the day that Ultron finally tracks them down.
Read More »Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow Steve Raleigh (Robert Taylor) wants to produce a show on Broadway. He finds a financial backer, Herman Whipple as well as a dancing leading lady, Sally Lee (Eleanor Powell). But Whipple’s scheming wife, Caroline, wants to force Steve to use a known star, not a newcomer. In a subplot, Sally (a former farm girl, who used to train horses on her parents’ farm before they lost everything in the Depression) purchases a horse and with two ex-vaudevillians, Sonny Ledford and Peter Trott (Buddy Ebsen), she trains it to win a race, providing the money Steve needs for his show.
Young American master director John Ford crafts a fictionalized account of ten years in the life of Abraham Lincoln (magnificently portrayed by Henry Fonda), before he became known to the world